Stephani Maari Booker's Blog, page 8

You’ve got three days to get a free book

The Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale will be over on August 1, so that gives you three days to get a free ebook copy of Secret Insurrection: Stories from a Novel of a Future Time.

Another year, another Smashwords ebook sale

Smashwords is holding its annual Summer/Winter Sale July 1-31. Cultural Etiquette: a Guide for the Well-Intentioned by the late Amoja Three Rivers will be 50 percent off, and my sci-fi booklet Secret Insurrection: Stories from a Novel of a Future Time will be free:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

Black artist creates Afrofuturistic city in black Lego bricks

Just in time for Juneteenth, The Brick Architect website has a interview with Lego artist Ekow Nimako, who makes afrofuturist landscapes in all-black bricks.

I have the byline, but the article really is a collaboration between me, the artist and The Lego Architect author Tom Alphin, who runs The Brick Architect site.

Please check out this article because you will be amazed by the beauty and power of Ekow Nimako's work, of which there are plenty of great photographs:

https://brickarchitect.com/2021/inter...

Live mass surveillance: a tool of oppression, not crime prevention

My latest article for the Minnesota Women's Press is about how 24/7 live-streamed video mass surveillance, augmented with facial recognition software and biased algorithms, is being advocated as a crime prevention/reduction tool when it's really a tool of oppression, privacy violation and surveillance capitalism.

Two of the mayoral candidates for Brooklyn Park, MN mayor have called for video mass surveillance, which has been used to identify and target protesters against police violence in other cities. With the latest police violence, protests, and civil unrest spreading to that suburb from nearby Brooklyn Center, watch out for more calls to turn the suburbs and cities into #surveillance territories in the name of safety.

https://www.womenspress.com/why-video...

First poetry publication since 2019

A poem of mine, "Descent," is the Featured Work in the Spring 2021 issue of an online journal of speculative fiction and poetry called Red Planet Magazine. It could qualify as my first published work of speculative poetry.

This is my first poem published in almost two years, since I got two poems published in Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose, and Pride, an anthology of writings by LGBTQIA+ Minnesotans.

I've been submitting to journals that pay their contributors, so I've been having a hard time getting any poetry in print because they probably get more submissions and they're highly selective. Happily, as the writer of the Featured Work in Red Planet Magazine, I got paid a cash prize!

https://www.redplanetmagazine.com/cur...

Smashwords Read an Ebook Week Sale

The 12th annual Smashwords Read an Ebook Week sale is happening Sunday, March 7 through Saturday, March 13. During this sale, Cultural Etiquette: a Guide for the Well-Intentioned by Amoja Three Rivers will be 50 percent off its regular price and my own Secret Insurrection: Stories from a Novel of a Future Time will be free.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

"Judie Junkie Blues": The Final Episode

The third and final part of my serialized science fiction story "Judie Junkie Blues" is now online at the Minnesota Women's Press website.

I want to thank MWP for this opportunity to share my sci-fi work with a new audience. This publication showcases a diverse spectrum of women's writings and stories, and I encourage my followers and friends to financially support them so they can continue to publish -- and pay -- writers like me.

https://www.womenspress.com/judie-jun...

"Judie Junkie Blues" part 2 and "Coded Bias" article

Part two of my Minnesota Women's Press science fiction story, "Judie Junkie Blues," is online now:
https://www.womenspress.com/judie-jun...

In addition, the MWP has published an article of mine about a panel discussion of the documentary "Coded Bias," which depicts racism, sexism and other systemic biases in facial recognition software and algorithms used by tech giants such as Google and Amazon:
https://www.womenspress.com/coded-bias/

It's back! Smashwords' End of Year Sale starts Dec. 18

For the third year, my Athena Persephoni Publications books, Cultural Etiquette: a Guide for the Well-Intentioned by Amoja Three Rivers and my own Secret Insurrection: Stories from a Novel of a Future Time, will be part of Smashwords' End of Year Sale.

This year, however, it'll be a little different: Instead of running strictly from Christmas through the end of Kwanzaa (Dec. 25 -- Jan. 1), the sale will be starting earlier, on December 18, to take advantage of pre-holiday gift giving. As with the previous sales, the ebook version of the late Three Rivers' anti-oppression booklet will be 50 percent off its regular price and my sci-fi ebook will be free:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

Serialized sci-fi in the Minnesota Women's Press magazine

I am delighted and honored that the Minnesota Women's Press has chosen me to write their first serialized work of fiction. Beginning with the current issue, "Judie Junkie Blues" will be split into parts that will appear in each monthly online issue. The first part will also be in the print version of the Minnesota Women's Press magazine.

"Judie Junkie Blues" is set in the same near-future society as "Adjudicated," a story that was published this year in Astral Waters Review. (See my May 1 blog entry.) In these stories, mass incarceration has been replaced by invasive forms of surveillance. "Judie Junkie Blues" illustrates the current criminalization of addiction with mass incarceration of addicts and takes it to an eventual high-tech extreme.

The Minnesota Women's Press included an introductory essay about my work and linking it to "Coded Bias," a documentary about racial and gender bias in facial recognition software and algorithms:
https://www.womenspress.com/the-priso...

Here's the link to the story itself:
https://www.womenspress.com/judie-jun...