Scott Nicolay

Ana Kai Tangata

Tag: Vermillion

Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward: Midwifing the Other: Nurturing Diversity in Weird and Speculative Lit | The Outer Dark: Episode 31 — FEBRUARY 17, 2016

writingtheotherAuthors/editors Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward join Scott for a very special show focusing on diversity in Weird and speculative fiction. They start by recounting the story behind the origins of their Writing the Other workshop/book, its connections to Clarion West, the next set of upcoming online classes (March 13), its impact on spec-lit writers over its 25-year history, and their hopes for an updated book to reflect new language and examples. The conversation proceeds to positive directions with diverse characters, how writers need not to be afraid to write what they don’t know but they do need to research, the concept of “parallax” and W.E.B. DuBois, writing the other as a collaborative process, why treating equally or fairly doesn’t mean not seeing color, gender or other differences, rewarding examples of people who learned and gained courage from the Writing the Other program to increase Lost Trails Forgotten Tales of the Weird West Final Cover 6-26-2015their own representation of people of color as characters, teaching the “reptile brain,” the good example of Joe R Lansdale, and midwifing works by Sarah Smith and South African writer Nick Wood (Azanian Bridges. NewCon Press, Nov 2016). Cynthia and Nisi also talk about some of their own written and edited works. Cynthia discusses her edited anthology Lost Trails: Forgotten Tales of the Weird West, which features stories about non-white characters on the frontier, in the context of growing interest in the Weird Western in books, film and graphic novels, a second volume on the way, and several novels in progress, including Night Rising, the first in The Return of the Dark trilogy, an apocalyptic magic story set in Tucson which she calls a “cozy catastrophe.” Nisi reveals some of the back story about Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delaney, which she co-edited with Bill Campbell (Rosarium Publishing), which has received everfairconsiderable praise, as well as contemplating her interaction with horror and exploring a different relation to death and the status quo in the African diaspora in her 2008 James Tiptree Jr.  Award-winning collection Filter House, confronting steampunk’s embedded imperialism in her upcoming Belgian Congo set novel Everfair (Tor, Sept. 2016), encountering ghosts in her middle grade novel Speculation, and much more. The conversation concludes with their recommended writers including Bill Campbell, J. Comer (Planetary Stories), Ayize Jama-Everett ( whose works include The Liminal War and The Entropy of Bones), Australian feminist writer Sylvia Kelso (The Blackston Gold and The Amberlight series), Aqueduct Press’s L. Timmel Duchamp (The Red Rose Rages Bleeding, The Marq’ssan Cycle, and more), Nigerian writer Tade Thompson (Making Wolf and Rosewater, Sept. 2016), Matt Ruff (Lovecraft Country) and Amy Wolf (The Misses Bronte’s Establishment).

gamutNews From the Weird: Special Guest Richard Thomas gives The Outer Dark listeners an exclusive sneak peek at the exciting plans for his highly anticipated new neo-noir spec-lit fiction magazine Gamut, featuring a who’s who of writers, artists and staff, and its Kickstarter campaign.

This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes  or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

Next week’s guest: Will Ludwigsen, author of In Search Of and Others (Lethe Press).

Please vote for The Outer Dark in the People’s Choice Project iRadio Podcast Awards. https://www.projectiradio.com/podcast-awards/

storiesforchipOrder The Outer Dark T-shirts at SkurvyInk: https://skurvyink.com/products/outerdark-shirt

More Links:

Bert and I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPGf77t9hRA

Stagecoach Mary: https://www.blackcowboys.com/maryfields.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold%27s_Ghost

Review of Lovecraft Country by Nisi Shawl: https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/matt-ruffs-lovecraft-country-horrors-in-1950s-america/

https://www.thedarkhousepress.com/

lovecraftctryShow credits:

Host/Executive Producer: Scott Nicolay

Co-Host, News From the Weird/Producer: Justin Steele

Associate Producer/Show Notes/Publicist: Anya Martin

Logo Design: Nick “The Hat” Gucker

Music: Michael Griffin

Small Press Publishing in the Weird Panel at HP Lovecraft Film Festival 2015 | The Outer Dark: Special Presentation — DECEMBER 1, 2015

TOD-SmallPressPanel-HPLFFDate: October 4, 2015, HP Lovecraft Film Festival, Portland, OR

Moderator: Andrew Fuller (Three-Lobed Burning Eye Magazine). Panelists: Ross Lockhart (Word Horde), Richard Lupoff (Ramble House, Surinam Turtle Press), Scott Nicolay (The Outer Dark), Rose O’Keefe (Eraserhead Press, Deadite Press, Fungasm Press), Kelly Young (Strange Aeons magazine)

Description: Panelists discuss everything that publishers face in this genre, including topics like “Where does the money come from?” “Building a table of contents” and “Print vs E-publication.”

Note: There are some sound issues at the very start due to people talking near the camcorder, with Rose and Ross particularly hard to hear, but this clears up after the first couple minutes, so please hang in.

An overarching Small Press Renaissance has been pivotal to the current Weird Fiction Renaissance. In this panel from the 20th annual HP Lovecraft Festival, editors and writers discuss trends in spec-lit small press publishing from the 1950s when Richard Lupoff started publishing fanzines to the present including technology advances in print-on-demand and ePublishing that have sped up and made production more affordable, how these changes have fueled the creative side to go “bonkers,” the collaborative process and freedom of small press publishing among editors, authors and artists, Scott Nicolay’s poetry small press roots, the Heavy Metal-inspired origins of Strange Aeons, Ross Lockhart’s road from reader to publisher, how Eraserhead Press started as a collective of authors and the birth of Bizarro as a publishing category, what’s changed in the kinds of stories editors are looking for, the market for publishing out-of-print spec-lit classics, the thrill of supporting a great author to get into print, demographic changes and connecting through social media with writers and readers, the small press boom creating a fertile ground across all literary categories, the driving force of a more diverse readership, the creation of opportunity due to current risk avoidance attitude of the big five houses, how technology is continuing to change at a fast pace, a DIY punk ethos, ongoing challenges and strategies for marketing and distribution, and what’s next!

Once I also bought it at https://tramadolhealth.com and tried to take Ultram, when I had terrible stomachache.

This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

More Links:

https://christopherconlon.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Eklund

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Jameson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Belknap_Long

https://lazyfascistpress.com/

Next guest on Dec. 3: Robert Levy, author of The Glittering World.

© 2024 Scott Nicolay

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑