Books, Booze & Barbara

I haven’t attended a lot of readings since the pandemic, but one of the few I have attended — although, admittedly, not often enough — is Randee Dawn’s Brooklyn Books & Booze @ Barrow’s Intense. It takes place once a month, every third Tuesday at an interesting bar in Brooklyn’s Industry City that specializes in ginger liqueurs (although it offers other drinks as well). Randee was nice enough to invite me to read, and I’ll be there on Tuesday, February 20th, along with a bunch of talented writers. It’s a good crowd, and it would be nice to see you there:

Barrow’s Intense Tasting Room
86 34th Street, Brooklyn, NY
Subway: D / R / N train to 36th Avenue, then about a 4 minute walk.

It’s free, but you can reserve a ticket if you want at this link.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in a little chat about the Jewish Futures anthology, I participated in a roundtable discussion at Con-Tinual, an online con run out of Facebook. Several of the writers who are in the anthology talked about their stories and their favorite authors, among other things; if you’d like to, I invite you to watch.

Jewish Futures, Hour of the Wolf, and new eyeglasses

So I’m on my way to the optometrist to pick up my new eyeglasses — two pair, one for reading and one for movies / tv / driving — and I glance at Facebook and realize that today is the day when the Jewish Futures anthology is officially published — and that this evening, Jim is broadcasting my recent NYRSF conversation with Sheree Renee Thomas on Hour of the Wolf at 9 a.m. on WBAI 99.5.

Jewish Futures is an anthology edited by Michael Burstein and published by Ian Randall Strock, with an introduction by Jack Dann, the editor of the groundbreaking anthology of Jewish fiction, Wandering Stars, which came out in 1974. (Michael talks a bit about the genesis — excuse the expression — of the project in a recent column he wrote for John Scalzi’s blog.)

I am very pleased to be included. To be honest, when I found out that the anthology was opening to submissions, I decided I needed to at least send in something, so I started writing in a frenzy of sarcasm and anger (there was stuff happening out in the world that I didn’t much like). The result is “Baby Golem,” a science fictional short story about a scientist stuck on a colony ship with an evangelical group determined to treat her as their pet Jew, and what happens when they ask her to make them a golem.

And of course, I’m thrilled to be included with a group of authors who I really respect and like.

The book is available here:  Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s|Brookline Booksmith. And if you want to listen to me chat with Sheree, who is an amazingly wise and talented person, you can hear it tonight (or whenever you want to) either on the radio or via the WBAI website.

Upcoming NYRSF conversation with Sheree Renée Thomas

I’m really excited to announce that I’ll be chatting with Sheree Renée Thomas on the online NYRSF Readings this coming Tuesday, August 1st, at 7 pm. We’ll both be reading short selections: I’ll read the story that was published in the May/June issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Sheree will present a sample of her writing as well. Since she’s both an extraordinary writer and the editor of F&SF, I hope to talk to her about her processes as an editor and a writer, along with any other topics that pop up (and there will be a Q&A). Jim Freund will act as host.

This will be a strictly online reading; you can find it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@JimFreund/streams or at Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/NYRSF.Readings. Hope to see you there!

WBAI and NYRSF

I’ve been trying to be better about writing — I’ve been getting up about an hour earlier every morning to try to get something done — and in the meantime, I’m going to be doing two readings this week; one from a couple of years ago, and one brand new one.

First, if you haven’t heard me read the short story “Stoop Ladies” from my book The History of Soul 2065, you can hear it on Jim Freund’s Hour of the Wolf radio show tonight at 9 pm ET on WBAI 99.5 FM (or pick it up later from their web site).

And then, on Wednesday, July 5th at 7 pm ET on the NYRSF Reading series, I’ll be chatting with Sheree Renee Thomas, the distinguished multi-award winning author and the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and the anthology Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction (among others). I’ll read the short story “Time and Art” that was published in a recent issue of F&SF and I’ll talk with Sheree about the magazine, her anthology, her writing, and all sorts of neat stuff. If you’d like to watch, you can do so on Jim’s YouTube channel.

Stop by if you can!

Flights of Foundry is this weekend, and I’ll be there

Flights of Foundry, a completely online convention for (as they put it) speculative creators, is happening this weekend, and I’ll be taking part, moderating a panel and doing a reading.

The convention is free of charge (although they do ask that you contribute if you can), and offers panels, workshops, readings, and conversation (the panels are via Webex; the conversations are via Discord). Because it’s completely online, they try to have activities for most time zones, not just the U.S. So join if you’d like!

Here’s what I’ll be doing:

Friday, April 14th, at 10 pm Eastern Time

This is when I’ll be reading something I’ve written — I haven’t quite decided what yet. Things have been a little confused in my life recently, so I may shrug and go with “Sabbath Wine” or another of the stories from The History of Soul 2065. Or not.

Sunday, April 16th, at 10 am Eastern Time

I’ll be moderating a panel called Almost Too Convenient: Avoiding Inorganic Plotting, with Jaye Viner, Ann LeBlanc, and Phoebe Low. It’s an interesting topic, especially if you’ve tried to write a story and have hit problems getting from point A to point B. The official description is as follows:

Setting, character, background, and narrative all combine to give opportunities to the writer to craft a natural, believable series of events. The panelists explore how to make the events of your story feel organically grown, rather than forced for the sake of plot. They also discuss how to incorporate escalation, shifts in tone, and various other reversals into this approach.

Sound interesting? Here’s where you can register, and here’s where you can find the rest of the program. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Interview on Kaleidocast tomorrow, Aug 17th

I’ll be interviewed tomorrow by Randee Dawn (a talented writer in her own right) tomorrow, Wednesday, August 17th, at 7 pm, to help encourage subscriptions for Kaleidocast, a podcast series that features short stories by a wide variety of science fiction & fantasy writers. Back in season 2, my story “Sabbath Wine” was read for Kaleidocast by Kim Rogers; but there are a whole lot of great stories featured on the site.

Come by if you’d like and listen! It’s at patreon.com/kaleidocastnyc. And if you become a patron, you can ask questions and give opinions (favorable ones, I hope!).

Strong Women – Strange Worlds

Greetings! Tomorrow (Thursday, May 21st at 7pm) I’m going to be part of a fascinating project called Strong Women Strange Worlds, twice monthly (first Friday, third Thursday) science fiction readings by a group of creative women writers. The organizers are extremely well-organized (which isn’t always the case with a reading, online or otherwise) and very nice, and I’m really looking forward to it.

If you’d like to attend, please do! We each will have eight minutes to read, chat, or whatever; I’m going to read “Rosemary, That’s For Remembrance” from The History of Soul 2065, which I timed out at exactly 7 1/2 minutes — so I’m going to dive right into it and hope I can finish it in time. (If you’re interested in the background of that story, you can find it here.)

The online event is free, but you do have to pre-register — which you can do at the SWSW website. Hope to see you there!

Barbara works as a narrator under unexpected circumstances

First admission: I’ve got a Brooklyn accent. At least, I have an accent that I acquired by growing up in the Canarsie and East New York sections of Brooklyn; there may be as many different accents in Brooklyn — depending on your background, your neighborhood, and your generation — as there are in entire U.S. states. My own voice has the kind of inflections that probably reflect the accents of my city and my Eastern European Jewish grandparents, perhaps with a little flavoring from the many different ethnicities of my friends.

Second admission: I’m not an actor. Oh, I wanted to be one when I was growing up — what kid doesn’t have at least a moment when they want to be an actor? — to the point that I joined the drama club in junior high school. But while I enjoy reading my own stories to an audience, and try to flavor them with a bit of drama, I can’t come even close to the talents of a real actor.

But because I enjoy breaking out of my comfort zone occasionally, I was delighted when Podcastle recently asked me to do the narration for Rebecca Fraimow’s delightful story “Shaina Rubin Keeps Her Head Under Circumstances Nobody Could Have Expected.” It’s the third in Fraimow’s series of humorous fantasy stories told by her protagonist, Shaina Rubin, and it’s the kind of story where those Eastern European Jewish intonations that creep into my voice come in handy.

So, what could you lose? Give it a listen….

Upcoming appearances

Aware that I haven’t been very active in my blog lately, I thought I’d start by just bringing anyone who was interested up on my latest activities. Namely, I’ve got three upcoming appearances if anyone would like to join me there:

On Tuesday, February 11th, I’m going to be part of an evening of horror readings by female writers from Horror Writers Association-NY Chapter, emceed by Carol Gyzander and James Chambers, in celebration of Women in Horror Month. The line-up of readers includes Randee Dawn, Amy Grech, Carol Gyzander, N.R. Lambert, K.E. Scheiner — and me! It’s happening at the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th St., NYC from 7-9 pm.

On Sunday, March 8th, from 2-3 pm, I will be leading a discussion of my book THE HISTORY OF SOUL 2065 with the Eastern Connecticut Hadassah Book Club. It will be happening at the East Lyme Public Library,  39 Society Road, Niantic, Conn. If you’d like to attend, you can register for the event here.

On Tuesday, June 16th, I’ll be reading at the Galactic Philadelphia reading series along with one other writer (I think I know who it is, but it hasn’t been announced yet, so I’m holding off until I know for sure). That will be happening at the Free Library of Philadelphia at 7 p.m.

Other news:

I’ve finished my website dedicated to the backstories of the tales in THE HISTORY OF SOUL 2065. It basically talks about what inspired each of the stories, who the characters are based on, and what historical events are depicted (and how true they are to the actual events). I’d welcome any feedback / questions / etc.

Right now, it looks as if I’ll be going to Capclave and Readercon. We don’t have any other cons on the agenda for now, but we’ll see if that changes over time.

That’s it for now!

 

 

Short musings on community

Left to write (uh, right): Liz Gorinsky, Nicholas Kaufmann, Ilana C. Myer.

Last night, I attended a literary salon sponsored by Erewhon Books, a new independent specfic publishing house headed by Liz Gorinsky. The salon took place in their Manhattan offices, a nice open space that seems to be a combination office and living room. It featured writers Ilana C. Myer and Nicholas Kaufmann (both of whom turned in great readings, by the way; as a result, I have just started reading Last Song Before Night, the first book in Ilana’s trilogy).

About halfway through the reading, while I was listening, I let my eyes wander around the room. There were about 30 or 40 people present, sitting on chairs, couches, and the rug; listening, occasionally nodding, and sometimes laughing at inside jokes that we all got. Everyone seemed comfortable, easy, and happy to listen to some excellent prose by people whom they knew and liked.

And I realized that I was also enjoying the evening, relaxing despite all the various stresses that I (like so many of today’s adults) deal with. That even though I didn’t talk to many of the attendees on a day-to-day basis, this was my community, the people with whom I felt the most comfortable. And that it was nice to know they were around.

We all need communities, and most of us are lucky to have one — and often, several. It could be a community made up of our families, of neighbors, of college friends, of people at work, of people who share our interests, of the people who we meet every day walking their dogs in the park. These days, very often, these communities can be made up of people whom we never meet in person, but who we know from the back-and-forth of online social groups.

But whether online or in person, communities are important. And I am very grateful for mine.