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Eightsquaredcon Schedule

/ RCRuiz

Next weekend, I will be at Eightsquaredcon in Bradford. It’s going to be an exciting trip for me as this will be the first time I travel by train in the UK. I’ve given myself enough wiggle room so I’ll be certain to catch the train going to and from Bradford. 

Here’s what my schedule looks like.

Saturday     12 noon     Non-Western SF and Fantasy in the Main room. I will be moderating this panel. 

Saturday       5 pm        Motherhood in SF and Fantasy

Saturday       7 pm        Genre Get-Together: Science Fiction

Sunday        10 am       Maiden, Mother, Who? Older Women in Genre Fiction 

Sunday          7 pm       BSFA Awards

Sunday          8 pm      Sex in YA Lit. 

It looks pretty busy, I know. To make it simpler: I’m on four panels, one of which I’ll be moderating and since I don’t have books to sign, I’ll basically just be hanging out and handing out fliers for the Bloodchildren anthology. 

I would love to chat and catch up with people who are going. Hope to see you there. 

(also posted to http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com)

Honoring Chinua Achebe

/ RCRuiz

It’s been a pretty emotional day. A great man has passed from our midst and spending time to think and to remember and to listen in on others remembering and honoring him is part of the ritual of grief. I am one of those who has been touched and inspired by the work of Chinua Achebe. He is one of my writing heroes.

I remember reading Chinua Achebe for the first time when I was in college. The local national bookstore had had a fresh delivery of books and they had four of his books on stock. I remember reading the opening chapter of Things Fall Apart and being unable to put the book back on the shelf. I had to take it with me. It took quite a while to save enough pocket money so I could buy the rest of his books. Amazingly, no one else seemed interested in those four books except me.

Small as this offering is, I wished to honor a great man. Your works were instrumental in helping me on the road towards decolonization. Thank you, Chinua Achebe.

Rest in peace. You live on in our hearts.

 

publications and updates

/ RCRuiz

It’s been a pretty busy and exciting two weeks with lots of things going on. On Saturday, I celebrated International Women’s Day together with the Filipina women of Stichting Bayanihan. It was a good day focussing on gender consciousness. Not too high threshold but with enough material to provide good food for thought. 

This week, I received news that the ISF 2012 Annual Anthology with my story, 59 Beads, is now free to download from the ISF site. I’d like to acknowledge Roberto Mendes and Ricardo Loureiro for putting this anthology together. 

I also received word that Decolonizing as an SF Writer, which first appeared simultaneously on The Future Fire Blog and Kate Elliot‘s blog, has been selected for inclusion in Speculative Fiction 2012:The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary. The list of contributors has been released and is viewable here. I look forward to reading all the pieces selected. 

I’ve also received the contract for Dagiti Timayap Garda, a short weird/horror story that I wrote which was inspired by the shapeshifting Tikbalang and monster stories from my childhood. I’m quite excited about this sale and look forward to when I can announce everything about it here. 

And I am completing work on a short story and am also completing work on the final draft of my novella. I’m really excited about both of these stories as they are both rooted in indigenous culture and in the case of the novella–very much inspired by Filipino history. 

I have an unexpected free day tomorrow and I hope to finish one of these two things by weekend. I think the short story first and hopefully the novella before Eastercon.

(crossposted to http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com)

The work-in-progress, Eightsquaredcon and blogs I read

/ RCRuiz

It’s been ten days since I last updated here. I’ve been engrossed in the work-in-progress which is coming along quite well. When I wrote the first draft of this novella, I was very concerned about the war and how it would go and how it would end.  As I was working on the rewrite, I realized that revolutions aren’t just about the war and the road to freedom is more complex than winning a battle. Extensive rewrites are taking place and I’ve added another dimension to the WIP that wasn’t there in the first draft. I’m really hoping I finish this soon. But as with most of what I do, it’s going to be a lot more than just getting from point A to point B.

I’ve been catching up quite a bit online and I thought I’d share some blogs that I visit from time to time:

Decolonization:Indigeneity, Education & Society has lots of thoughtful and thought-provoking stuff. Go read.

For critical Dutch readers, I can’t stop recommending Roet in Het Eten.

And Tiger Beatdown always has thought-provoking stuff.

I’m also trying to catch up on my TBR as part of my preparation for Eightsquaredcon. I’ve offered to moderate a panel on non-western SFF and will be participating in several other panels.

There are regular updates at the Eightsquaredcon blog.

Movements

/ RCRuiz

My dear friends have alerted me to the fact that the new Movements column is live. Woman’s Work and the Woman of Color at Work grew from the interview I had with Jocelyn Paige Kelly. This doesn’t appear in the interview I had with Jocelyn, but Jocelyn asked me the question that became the catalyst for this column as I reflected on the question of support for Women’s work and how the answer to this is not really as simple as saying: yes, I support the work of women. 

Hodan Warsame of Roet in Het Eten has put up a synopsis (in Dutch) of Radio Redmond’s Broadcast from the 26th of February. The excerpt I read on Radio Redmond is also posted on the Roet in Het Eten website and you can read it here. The excerpt is from my Bloodchildren story, Dancing in the Shadow of the Once and you can find the anthology here. 

In the after-the-show conversation, Hodan mentioned Intersectionality. I don’t think we can ignore this when we talk about supporting women’s work because the way we approach woman’s work is influenced by more factors than identifying as woman. There’s more to it than that and I know we would like to simply say–women’s work is women’s work and be done with it. But the truth is, it’s more complicated than that and also the way we look at support and perceive support, the way we experience it, the way we give it is complicated by this strange notion people call “the culture of nice” wherein support has come to mean being positive and uncritical. It’s still something I’m reflecting and thinking on and I suppose it’s inevitable that I’ll write about that in the future. 

(also posted on http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com)

 

Reading and Interview on Radio Redmond

/ RCRuiz

It was wonderful to meet the brilliant and talented crew of Radio Redmond and Roet in Het Eten. I read from Dancing in the Shadow of the Once from the Bloodchildren Anthology. Here’s a link to the reading and the interview. The reading starts a little bit after 18 minutes. The rest of the broadcast is in Dutch. In short, we talk about the Octavia Butler Scholarship Fund, the need for diversity in the field of SFF and the themes that appear not only in Dancing in the Shadow of the Once but also in my other work.

After that first hour, another guest came on the show. Coring de Los Reyes. We discussed the state of undocumented migrant workers in the Netherlands and why it’s important for the Dutch government to ratify ILO Convention-189. Ratifying the convention will grant protection to the undocumented migrant workers and ensure protection for them.

Considering how progressive Dutch government and society claim to be, it will be interesting to see whether they live up to their reputation of being forward-thinking and humanitarian. I say, the Dutch government should recognize the contribution of these migrant workers and offer them the protection and the recognition they deserve.

Image

(From L-R: Hodan Warsame, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and Coring de Los Reyes. Photo via @roetinheteten )

(Also posted on http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com)

Roet in Het Eten and Radio Redmond

/ RCRuiz

Hodan Warsame sent me an invitation to read and take part in Radio Redmond’s broadcast on Tuesday, the 26th of February. I will be reading and doing an interview and hanging out with some amazing people. 

Roet in Het Eten’s website is here. 

Roet in Het Eten is a collective that offers a unique and critical look at politics, popular culture, media, art and music through radio programs, online opinion pieces and analyses. 

From Hodan’s Email:

Redmond is the new biweekly women’s show that discusses pop culture, politics, media, art and music from the perspectives of women. The programme brings you interviews, stories and music that centralises the experiences of (trans)women. Redmond focuses on gender issues.

The program takes place on Tuesdays from 17.00-19.00. The programs can be listened to live on 107.9 and 105.5. 

The broadcast is also available via http://www.radiomart.nl and via this link. Fill in the date and times you are looking for. Broadcasts are in Dutch but are conducted in English and Spanish when needed. 

In which I have been interviewed

/ RCRuiz / 3 Comments

Creativity Coach, Jocelyn Paige Kelly, has posted an interview with me over at Realizing You. Jocelyn is a Clarion West graduate and her questions were stimulating and thought-provoking.

Among other things, I talk about three of my most recent stories. One of which is in the Bloodchildren Anthology and the other which is coming out in the We See A Different Frontier Anthology.

The Bloodchildren Anthology is a limited edition e-book which will be available only until the 22nd of June when we celebrate Octavia Butler’s sixty-sixth birthday. 

We See a Different Frontier is slotted to be released around June this year. 

My White Friend by Leny M. Strobel

/ RCRuiz

My White Friend
(excerpt from A Book of Her Own, Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan by Leny M. Strobel)

He is often concerned that my work is too racialized; that it can’t help but dissolve into dualistic antagonisms — the very antagonisms I seek to transform. But why, I ask him, is it so difficult for him to listen to my story? What does it ask of him that he refuses to hear it? At some level we already agree on our vision of justice and peace, vision of spiritual awakening, vision of ecological justice. We already agree that there is racism still. Or that it is only now that white folks are beginning to acknowledge white privilege. . .  so why does he always resist this? 

(also posted at http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com)

Paul Harland Day, quick report

/ RCRuiz / 3 Comments

I was at the Paul Harland Day yesterday and it was good to finally meet people whom I’d only talked to and met online. I was very happy to meet Martijn Lindeboom who has been organizing this competition and the Paul Harland Day for a couple of years now. I know what a lot of work goes into putting together affairs like these, and that he managed to get a team of first readers as well as an end jury is a huge accomplishment in itself.

On the Paul Harland Site, there is a listing of winners (in Dutch).

Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s Vis in de Fles won first place

Linda Mulders took second with a time travel story Een Seconde Wijzer

Jurgen Snoeren’s Zoek Mij Tussen de Sterren took third place

Jurgen’s story also took the prize for best Science Fiction story.

A special prize called the W.J. Maryson award was given to Sander de Leuuw for his story, Corvus Ultimus

And another special prize called the Fenexprijs was given to a writer named Jen Minkman.

The W.J. Maryson award is given to authors younger than 30 years old and the Fenexprijs is given to authors who have pressed on and improved in comparison to the previous year.

All in all an interesting event that provides some insight into how people get published in the Netherlands and what the Dutch SFF scene looks like.

I believe it has to be said that it takes a lot of courage to send in your work and to open yourself up for judging. The ability to take criticism, to accept your imperfections and the drive to improve are part of what makes a writer grow from being just any writer to becoming The Writer. Write on.