Stephani Maari Booker's Blog, page 11

My first guest blog ever, with an ebook giveaway!

Veteran erotica writer Lisabet Sarai has graciously invited me to be a guest on her blog "Beyond Romance." In the blog, I write about "Repin' the Realness of Race, Class and Wellness in Erotic Lit," explaining about how in most of my erotic stories I deal with the everyday realities of race and class in sexual/romantic relationships. Additionally, in my story "The Best Medicine," I also add the reality of minor health issues and how they impact sex and wellness.

"The Best Medicine" is one of the stories in Owning It, the new empowering erotica collection edited by Sienna Saint-Cyr, Rhiannon Rhys-Jones and S.B. Roark. If you leave a comment on my guest blog at "Beyond Romance," you'll be entered into a drawing to win an ebook copy of Owning It:

https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/201...

Empowering erotica anthology publishes my story

"The Best Medicine," one of two completed erotic stories I've written that were unpublished, will make its debut in Owning It published by SinCyr Publishing. This press, whose mission is "shifting rape culture one sexy story at a time," is headed by Sienna Saint-Cyr.

This is only my third erotic story to be published ever, and the first since 2013 when Coming Together: Girl on Girl included my story "The Trade-In."

I now have one unpublished complete erotic story and one new 12,000-word erotic fantasy romance draft that I started last November as part of Fiyah!'s (publisher of FIYAH Literary Magazine, Issue One: Rebirth) Voices on Fiyah writing pledge project. Hopefully, I can find homes for these two stories in the near future.

The publisher of "Owning It" just sent out the notices for online pre-sales and publicity, so I can tell the world about it now. The book will be officially released next month. Meanwhile, here's a link to pre-order the ebook: http://amzn.to/2CB9t87

Video clip from my reading of a new sci-fi story

As one of six performers at "Revolutionary Jetpacks: Reclaiming the Future(s)," I did a monologue based on a new science fiction story I've written, "Adjudicated," at Strike Theater in Minneapolis. The monologue is told from the point of view of Zora, implanted with nanobots to record her every move in a future where mass incarceration has been replaced by mass surveillance.

The show, which featured sci-fi/fantasy-oriented work by indigenous/people of color, was presented by Patrick's Cabaret and curated by Gabriela Santiago, a contributor to Lightspeed Magazine, June 2016: People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction! Special Issue.

I've posted a video clip of the performance on my YouTube channel. The camera used to film the monologue ran out of battery power before the 15-minute performance was done, but the video ends at a good stopping point four minutes into it: https://t.co/SajHtkPA9c

MSR article on social justice activist/chef

Segueing from the previous Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder article I wrote about a co-op grocery store that opened in my neighborhood, my latest MSR article is about a speech given by Chef Tunde Wey at the annual owner meeting for Seward Community Co-op, another store in Minneapolis.

The Nigerian-born chef made great statements about linking social justice activism and thinking to food and consumerism that go beyond making the "right" choices in shopping and eating:

http://spokesman-recorder.com/2017/11...

New poem published in a journal for people of color

When I first heard that there's an online literary journal for writings by people of color called "Rigorous," I immediately understood what the name was about before I even read the journal's explanation:

"We take our name from an accusation commonly leveled at authors of color—that our works are not as rigorous as works created by white authors. We add our voices; we continue to prove otherwise."

I am proud to announce that a new poem of mine, "The infinite mass," has been published by this audacious—and academically rigorous—journal:

http://www.rigorous-mag.com/v1i4/step...

MSR article about new co-op in my Minneapolis neighborhood

The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder published my profile of a new co-op grocery store that opened in North Minneapolis, an area known for its high percentage of people-of-color residents as well as for its lack of businesses that serve the needs of the local populace.

This is also the neighborhood that I call home, and it's nice to see a community-owned business like this where I live:

http://spokesman-recorder.com/2017/09...

MSR Online article about my encounter with bigotry against local mosque

Shocked by the sight of an anti-Islam protester at a 20-something-year-old mosque in my North Minneapolis home area, I wrote about it and interviewed the mosque imam. MSR Online, the website for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, published my story:

http://spokesman-recorder.com/2017/09...

Longtime SFF magazine publishes my sci-fi long story

"The Way of Knowing," an 11,000-word novelette, has been published in the July 2017 edition of Aphelion Webzine, a 20-year-old online speculative fiction journal.

Aphelion Webzine bills itself as a place for "the best amateur science fiction, fantasy, poetry and flash fiction" in this YouTube advert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23qfz...

I am not an amateur writer by a long shot, though I'm a newbie when it comes to writing novels and a relative newbie to writing sci-fi. Still, I'm grateful to finally have a publication for this story, which I worked on in a spec-fic class taught by Barth Anderson some years ago. It's hard to find publishers for novelettes/novellas/long fiction.

Here's the link to the story: http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/seria...

Black lesbian lit journal publishes two of my poems

Two poems of mine, "Someplace beautiful" and an untitled poem, are now in the first issue of Serendipity, an online journal published by the Black Lesbian Literary Collective and edited by S. (Stephanie) Andrea Allen and Lauren Cherelle.

I am so proud and happy to be published by my peoples--lesbians of African descent. Long live the BLLC!

Here's the link to Serendipity Issue 1:
http://serendipitylitmag.org/currenti...

First publication of 2017

Lavender Review, billed as "an international, biannual e-zine dedicated to poetry and art by, about, and for lesbians," has published my poem "Nowhere home," written about one of the last times I visited the Michigan town where I grew up.

According to the editor, Mary Meriam, even though the page has been live for less than one day, a reader already emailed saying my poem was one of their favorites!

Here's the link to the poem:
http://www.lavrev.net/2017/06/stephan...