Stephani Maari Booker's Blog

Lego set review “Jazz Quartet”

In 2023, I wrote and turned in to Tom Alphin, the Brick Architect website publisher, a review of the Lego Jazz Quartet, a set created by a Lego fan and chosen by the toy building block company to be manufactured and sold after garnering at least 10,000 votes on the Lego Ideas website. This was my first time building a large-sized Lego model, and I was happy to do this with a set that centered jazz music and had a diversity of human figures as part of the build.

Due to Alphin’s very busy life as a husband, father, author and in-demand presenter at Lego conventions, he needed to lessen his workload on the Brick Architect. Therefore, my article publication was delayed until August 31, 2025. Now I’m happy to see my review of the Jazz Quartet set online at the Brick Architect site.

Thank you, Tom Alphin, for making space for my article, especially since the Jazz Quartet set is now retired (don’t even get me started on how wrong I think that is!). The set is unique in so many ways, and I wish and hope Lego would make more that highlight diversity, music history and culture.

My MN Fringe Festival debut!

For the first time, thanks to my McKnight Foundation Fellowship funds I paid to enter the lottery to perform at the 2025 Minnesota Fringe Festival. I first threw my hat in the ring months ago. Today, I was picked to fill a cancellation, so I will be doing five performances at Open Eye Theater on July 31 and August 2, 6, 9 and 10! My tech rehearsal is tomorrow night!

Thankfully, my performance is doing two monologues, “An Abbreviated History of My Hair in Prose and with Rhyme and Music,” a revised version of my humorous essay in which samples of the actual music mentioned in the work will be played; and my sci-fi story “Adjudicated,” which is extracted from my novel-in-progress Strange Inequalities. That isn’t going to take a lot of preparation or technical assistance, so that’ll make it easier.

More information about my performances can be found on my MN Fringe Festival performer page.

Strange Inequalities: BIPOC & Working Classes vs. Near-Future Automated Oppression

Presented by Stephani Maari Booker, with talent provided by RARE Productions

Saturday, Aug. 10, 7-9 pm, Minneapolis Urban League, 2100 Plymouth Ave. N., Minneapolis

and Saturday, Aug. 24, 7-9 pm, Capri Theater, 2027 W. Broadway Ave., Minneapolis

Artificial intelligence. Digital surveillance. Robot killer cops! The future is here, and it’s so bright it burns. Modern technological advances are being used to automate and perpetuate systemic biases such as racism, sexism and classism. Now is the time to recognize this threat to Black, Indigenous and People of Color, the working classes and other marginalized groups. Now is the time to resist the near-future of automated oppression.

2024 McKnight Foundation Fellow Stephani Maari Booker is presenting an artist and writers’ response and resistance to automated oppression. She will read from her near-future science fiction collection Strange Inequalities and will host three other artists who will offer their own work in response to and resistance of automated oppression. The artists will be provided courtesy of RARE Productions, a Minneapolis-based arts organization for queer and trans artists of color.

This event is free and open to the public. The event will be video recorded and posted on the Athena Persephoni YouTube channel. Light refreshments will be provided. American Sign Language interpretation will be offered. For more information, call 612-287-0940 or go to www.athenapersephoni.com.

Stephani Maari Booker is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Making money moves!

I mentioned in my last blog that I’ve been making some major moves with my creative career. Now I have a moment to breathe and write about the biggest of these moves.

First, in February I was awarded a state arts board grant. Here’s all the official language that I have to include with anything I do pertaining the grant:

Stephani Maari Booker is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The grant was awarded for my project “Strange Inequalities: BIPOC & Working Classes vs. Near-Future Automated Oppression.” Along with writing three more stories in my series of near-future invasive technological oppression (see “Adjudicated” and “Judie Junkie Blues”), I will be holding two readings at two North Minneapolis venues with six other creative people who will also present their own work based on this theme. Because I didn’t pay myself when I wrote the budget for the grant (I don’t have children who need care or a full-time job to quit or reduce hours for, so I couldn’t justify it), I have to spend all the funds I was awarded on this project.

However, this past week, I was chosen to receive another award: a 2024 McKnight Fellowship for Writers Administered by the Loft Literary Center! The fellowship was awarded based on a sample of poetry I submitted, and I am one of four fellows chosen by judge Mahogany L. Browne to receive an unrestricted cash award. This is the biggest award—the biggest WIN—of my career and my life!

I have to admit, when I would see local creative peers of mine—friends and acquaintances who I’ve known for years—getting grants, awards and fellowships and announcing them on social media, yeah, I’d be hatin’! I’d been busting my butt for as long as they have, we’re all about the same age group (Gen X’ers), and they’re getting all these awards and accolades, and I ain’t been gettin’ nothin’!

Now, I have two of the biggest monetary awards for individual creative people in Minnesota under my belt, all of the sudden, in one year!

On one hand, yes I did the work that prepared me to receive these awards: I wrote my butt off, made dozens of submissions to journals and anthologies until I acquired a long publication record (required to qualify for a lot of grants and awards), plus participated in some continuing education on writing (specifically in poetry) that took my work to the next level creatively.

On the other hand, I’ll never forget a tweet by N. K. Jemisin in which she described scoring the six-figure book deal that got her out of student-loan debt as “the equivalent of winning the lottery.” I’ve submitted applications to the McKnight Fellowship, the state arts board and many other grant and fellowship programs many times. Like Jemisin, I may have worked hard, learned a lot and submitted worthy work. In the end, though, getting the awards, getting the money, getting attention involves a heck of a lot of LUCK. For those of you who are still trying to score that publication deal, that grant, that award, that whatever, just keep creating, keep submitting, keep learning, and keep your fingers crossed.

My spoken-word audio track for sale on Bandcamp

Painting by Sharina McCants

It’s been since literally last year since I’ve posted a blog. That’s because I’ve been crazy busy making serious moves with my writing, editing, publishing and especially consulting business. Some of those moves have been major, and others have been more experimental. One experiment has been to take an old recording I made of reading my spoken-word work “A woman of wealth” at a local art gallery and put it up for sale on Bandcamp.

I’ve been a Bandcamp fan for a few years now as a music lover, but earlier this year I started poking around the parts of the site where artists can upload and sell their work. I’ve had this recording I made of myself reading “A woman of wealth” in my computer for a while now, so I figured why not give creating a Bandcamp artist’s page a try and use that recording as my first product for sale. I created my artist’s account, linked it to my buyer’s account and then did what I needed to do to create my page, upload my audio file and put it up for sale. I used a photo of a painting my sister did at a sip-and-paint party as the track art because it looked like it fit the title and theme of the monologue.

I’m only now publicizing the sale of the audio track, as I’ve just finished some final touches on my Bandcamp page information and layout. I do plan on creating and uploading more audio files and selling them in the future now that I’ve set myself up for it.

Performing for Power to the People

For most of its over-two-decade existence, I’ve performed at the Power to the People (P2P) stage at the Twin Cities Pride Festival. P2P is produced by RARE Productions, an arts organization by and for BIPOC LGBTQIA+ people. On the P2P stage June 24, 2023, I read two poems, "After Langston Hughes" and "Whole Numbers," plus I spat a revision of my rap "Steph's Cypher" that I wrote in the Cave Canem’s Minneapolis Regional Workshop on “Laboratory Poetics”.

The video was shot by my wife using an old camcorder I bought from Free Geek electronics thrift store, so that's why the image quality is bad. Also, it took so long for me to get this video ready to publish because I needed to close caption it correctly with two poems, one rap and other speech. Captioning note: Poet Danez Smith uses gender-neutral pronouns for themself, so I corrected my misgendering Smith in the subtitles.

This year’s Lego Advent Calendar reviews

I know it’s a day late and a dollar short, but this year’s Lego Advent Calendar reviews on The Brick Architect are online and include my third review of a City Advent Calendar. The photo above is my picks for favorite minifigures and builds from the set.

One of the things occupying my time and making me late for posting this publication news is that I’ve been working on building my first full-sized Lego set for a future review article in The Brick Architect. This set is over 1,000 pieces and it took me months to shoehorn into my life the long work of documenting my process while building it. The set is wonderful, but it definitely confirms my love of building mini- and micro-sized Lego models over large sets. When the article gets published, I’ll announce it here on my blog.

Sphinx Virtuosi: Black and Latinx chamber orchestra

Sphinx Virtuosi performing at the New World Center in Miami Beach, FL. Photo by Scott Jackson

The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder has published my article about the Detroit-based Sphinx Virtuosi, a classical stringed instrument ensemble composed of Black and Latinx musicians. I attended a concert by Sphinx Virtuosi where they performed symphonic works all created by Black and Latinx composers.

The MSR did a very good job of editing my article. I thought they might cut out all of my personal history I put in it, but instead they rearranged it with headers to improve the context and article flow.

Sphinx Virtuosi</a#x3E;: Black and Latinx chamber orchestra

Sphinx Virtuosi performing at the New World Center in Miami Beach, FL. Photo by Scott Jackson

The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder has published my article about the Detroit-based Sphinx Virtuosi, a classical stringed instrument ensemble composed of Black and Latinx musicians. I attended a concert by Sphinx Virtuosi where they performed symphonic works all created by Black and Latinx composers.

The MSR did a very good job of editing my article. I thought they might cut out all of my personal history I put in it, but instead they rearranged it with headers to improve the context and article flow.

“Black comic book company makes money moves in the Midwest,” part two

Sensi'il Studios founder Basi Affia (left) and the cover of the comic book "Aaru En Duat: Ascension Part One"

The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder has published my profile of African American comic publisher Basi Affia and his company Sensi’il Studios. Because I had to take a 3,000-word interview transcript and chop it down to an 800-word article, I’m going to publish a part two of my interview with the Iowan entrepreneur here on my blog.

Basi Affia sought me out to interview him after finding this MSR article I wrote years ago about the Black presence at MSP ComicCon. I am honored and flattered by his choosing me to profile him.