Philly Cop Is Monster. News 'n Notes.

Review: Sabrina Vourvoulias, "Skin In The Game," Tor.com

Michael Sedano

The first video of a black devil fish showed the creature flexing its huge jaws, the mouth gaping with needle-like teeth that cage-in a creature attracted by the phosphorescent lure dangling in the deep sea darkness from the black devil fish’s head.

In an idle flash, I thought the fish could be the model for some outer space monster only a science fiction writer could think up. Sure enough, someone has.

I don’t know if Sabrina Vourvoulias saw that marine footage, but the critter she has roaming the zombie ghetto of Philadelphia could be the devil fish’s terrestrial prima:

The taste of her fear-driven flop sweat, her death, washes over my tongue, takes the edge off the hunger that’s always nested inside me. Taste prompts image. I see the girl, face upturned as she waits for her fix, then something striking fast at her chest. Not a knife, but a mouth with scimitar teeth that pop out like double switchblades.

Monsters like that go around emptying out innards and leaving human carcasses in their wake. Blanca is a cop and her job is to identify and cleanse. Of course, things grow complicated and dangerous.

Vourvoulias’ story, “Skin In The Game” will hit the streets in the December 2 issue of Tor.com. It’s not to be missed. “Skin In the Game” holds the reader’s interest with a fast-moving first-person story and a collective of interesting personages. The author’s use of short thematic paragraphs sets the pace. Cultural materials inform the story's logic with linguistic, orthographic, nicknaming, and food datos that add richness but without complexity that could confuse exogenous readers.

The story’s notable for its raza characters and setting. Boricuas, Dominicans for instance. The central character is a Mexicana cop-of-sorts from South Philly. The City of Brotherly Love suffers a terminal case of advanced irony. Social services have all gone to hell. Cop uniforms include heavy-soled boots to guard against discarded hypodermic needles that pave the sidewalks of this barrio.

Vourvoulias writes an arresting story with an eye-opening surprise that adds dimensions to the character’s personality while confirming suspicions the author cleverly plants like a sneeze in a greek tragedy. The author passes along matter-of-fact information about cultura. Tamaleras use platano and maíz hojas. Mejor, the Tamágicos have herbal concoctions that help people make good decisions and love one another. That's soul food of the first order.

Without making a big deal of her characters' latinidad, Sabrina Vourvoulias shows how diversity in SpecFic should work. “Skin In the Game” is one of those subversive stories science-fiction is noted for, helping people see with new eyes, to notice diversity but not make a big deal of the natural order of things, even if things are all dystopic.


Mark Vallen Eulogy for Richard Duardo

QEPD Richard Duardo. Artist and serigraphy master, Duardo played a key role in the technology of art.

Mark Vallen's recent eulogy for his contemporary offers a critical appreciation for Duardo and his influence in United States arte. Click here for Vallen's essay.  Don't miss Vallen's essay on the 43 missing from Ayotzinapa.

Mail Bag
Before it Goes to Video
No one who's seen Water & Power has walked away from the motion picture disappointed. Disappointment comes from the paucity of gente who bought tickets during its premiere theatrical run.

In the best of all possible cinema worlds, word of mouth would have ignited a frenzy of ticket-buying that snowballed enthusiasm to a point a major exhibition chain would pick up the title and just like that, chicano film would earn a place as a filmic investment vehicle.

Instead, like the Cesar Chávez biopic earlier in the year, the film faded after a short burst of enthusiasm.

The producers are showcasing the film at select theaters, using an internet-based ticketing service, tugg. It's a method of assuring a seat for the audience while reassuring theater owners of a likelihood of selling tickets, popcorn, and candy. But there's much more.

Producer Richard Montoya reminds, via email that this Los Angeles-area showing "will be one of the final opportunities to see W&P the way it was meant to be seen and heard - big screen and projected from the DCP drives - not high-def or blue ray but deeply saturated picture ingested into the projection system - the purest form and great sound."

Montoya invites you to share news of this special program. Find the details and link to the tugg event in Monterey Park at this link.


Gifting Season: Books Always Reliably Welcome

Arte Publico Press makes buying holiday presents thirty-five percent easier with an offer every book-lover may want to consider, especially with Christmas a month away. Visit Arte Publico's website for their catalog. The offer via telephone ordering expires on the 19th.

Kathleen Alcalá on latinos/SciFi. 2 opps for novels and writing samples

Three chingón lit pieces today, including opportunities for submitting your novel manuscript or writing. First, Kathleen Alcalá provides her sober and challenging views about latinos entering the world of American spec lit. Do leave her comments about your own views. Kathleen's credentials for this include her attendance at the prestigious Clarion West Science Fiction Workshop as a student and an instructor.

Science Fiction and You

by Kathleen Alcalá

Is there a place on science fiction for Latino/as? No. Anywhere in the publishing universe? No. You have to make a place. Want a checklist?

You get 1 point if you are White, East Coast, Old money, a straight male or have a famous last name.

You lose a point if you are: Brown, West Coast, Female, A gay male or have a name that is hard to spell or pronounce for non-Latin@ English speakers.

Are you still at zero or below? So what? Why are you writing?

The advantage of writing science fiction, mysteries, or romances is that genre writing pays. It has an established system of conventions where readers meet writers and buy books. There are fan clubs, and plenty of media cross-over. The only category of fiction that lacks this is literary fiction. If this is your passion, you must write for love. Editors are subservient to the marketing department, and marketing continues to stay well behind the curve on demographics.

More to the point, if you have read this far, why should you care about science fiction? Because science fiction offers both the grandest and most nuanced metaphors for the human condition. Where do the templates for the civilizations of the future originate? In the past, including yours. Countless writers have mined your history for their work. This is the same history that certain school boards don’t want you to know. It speaks of science, of religions, of land dearly won or lost. My ancestors looked at the stars and saw the campfires of their beloved departed. They used the plants around them for medicine, grew and wove cotton for their clothing. All of these details are gold for people who have lost or tired of their own mythologies.

Latin@s can step into this field and bring an authentic voice to it. Will people accept you? Who cares? You create your own gravity in any field, and people come to you. Will you get published? Yes. There are thousands of places to publish, and one of them will take your work. Can you succeed through self-publishing? If your work is good and you persist. Can Latin@s help each other? Sure. Publishing is a new frontier. You can form publishing co-ops, review each other’s work (as Rigoberto Gonzalez did without pay for ten years), read drafts, share opinions, go to Cons and form your own caucuses. You can start a Con.

Will you be disrespected? Yes. Will you be adored? Yes. Science fiction readers are early adopters, so many jumped to e-readers and intermedia presentations early. They are also collectors, so if you have published one or more books, you might be approached by someone with a bagful to get your autograph.

Science fiction people are very sweet, very bright, and have their own subculture. If you’ve got a good story, it will be picked up, and you will have the opportunity to promote it in a very supportive environment. Your first publisher might not be Tor, but there is a publisher for you. Science fiction readers have always valued small presses as much as large, and pride themselves on discovering new writers. Rudy Ch. Garcia met some amazing writers and editors at his first WorldCon. Would that have happened if he had gone to New York and tried to meet the top writers and editors in mainstream publishing? Not a chance, unless he had already written a bestseller, or received a major prize.

Common advice is to “write what you know,” but Ursula K. LeGuin advised us to “write what you care about.” The greed of a few corporations has brought us to the place where we are destroying the world around ourselves. Is that important to you? Human rights? Censorship? All topics of science fiction. All aching to be written about.

Ursula LeGuin said of her first collection, “This is a book of wonders. Each story unfolds with humor and simplicity and perfect naturalness into something original and totally unpredictable. The kingdom of Borges and García Marquez lie just over the horizon, but this landscape of desert towns and dreaming hearts … is Alcalá-land. It lies just across the border between Mexico and California, across the border between the living and the dead, across all the borders – a true new world.

Kathleen Alcalá is the author of a short story collection, three novels set in 19th Century Mexico and the Southwest, and a collection of essays based on family history. Her work has received the Western States Book Award, the Governor’s Writers Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award. She received her second Artist Trust Fellowship in 2008. Kathleen has a B.A. in Linguistics from Stanford University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. She completed a Master of Fine Arts at the University of New Orleans. Her work is often referred to as magic realism, but Kathleen considers most of it historical fiction. She has been both a student and instructor in the Clarion West Science Fiction Workshop. A permanent faculty member at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts.

Untold Press Open for Submissions

[from their website]

We are currently open to Novel Submissions for a limited time.

We accept stories from Middle Grade to Adult.

Novels must be a minimum of 50k words (40K min for middle grade).

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, SciFi, Steampunk, Horror, Romance (except Erotica)

We also accept previously published novels as long as you have the rights back. Author will need to provide proof of release of rights.

To submit, please E-mail submissions@untoldpress.com the following:

Query letter (be sure to include word count and genre), Synopsis, and First Chapter.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact us at the same E-mail address. We will get back to you as soon as possible, normally in 2 weeks or less.

About Untold Press: There are an infinite number of stories, most of them remain unheard. No tale should ever remain untold. We are a small group of authors dedicated to sharing these tales. Thus began Untold Press LLC. A US company (based out of Florida) with Canadian parts. Untold Press is not a vanity publisher. An author will not be asked to pay for publication, editing, cover art or other services. We pride ourselves on publishing works that are exceptionally edited, formatted and have gorgeous covers!

Submit your writing samples

[from the National Hispanic Cultural Center]

11th Annual National Latino Writer's Conference

May 22-25, 2014, 10 am - 5 pm

NHCC History and Literary Arts Bldg., Albuquerque

Mark your calendars to attend this unique conference emphasizing the work of Latino writers and poets; all are welcome. Genres include: novel, poetry, memoir, play/screen writing, young adult, children, creative non-fiction and news writing.

Internationally recognized authors from Mexico and Spain and nationally known authors, publishers, editors and agents will conduct workshops, panels and individual consultations. There will be opportunities to read from your work and to interact in an intimate and beautiful setting. Faculty will read writing samples submitted by the deadline of April 1, 2014.

Price for the 4-day conference ($400) includes several meals and a formal awards banquet. Register early and get an early bird discount. For more info contact Greta Pullen at greta.pullen@state.nm.us 505/724-4752.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG

1st Novel - http://www.discarded-dreams.com/

Author FB - rudy.ch.garcia

Twitter - DiscardedDreams

Chicanada @ LoneStarCon. Melinda Palacio @ NHCC. Café Fresco @ Gallista Gallery

World SciFi Convention wants Chicano/mexicano programming

This past summer I ran a four-part series entitled Spic vs Spec, in which I spoke to latino participation in the U.S. spec fiction world. That world is a changin'.

Next year, one of the largest fantasy / sci-fi gatherings will be held in San Antonio, Texas. What will make it stand out is that organizers want to diversify their programming into the Spanish-speaking and mexicano world. Qué bueno!

La Bloga was recently contacted by Lone Star Con3 program organizers with the following request:

"We want to develop a Spanish Language Track to the World Science Fiction Convention. Panels might not be bilingual, but should include Spanish-speaking fans, TV shows, and unique Spanish language contributions to Science Fiction & Fantasy. We are looking for local authors from the San Antonio area to help us put together programming that would promote SF&F from Spanish language sources, who are interested in helping us develop that track along with local clubs and media."

This effort is in the beginning stages, but offers an opportunity for Chicano and mexicano spec authors and readers to enter an arena of U.S. literature that is just beginning to learn about us. It also provides us a new mechanism to take our literature to mainstream readers.

Other gente outside the San Anto area can possibly also get involved in some way. I believe there will be many opportunities and ample reason not only to attend, but to participate in enrichening this convention.

Please contact us for further info if you are interested. Note this, too: whatever is accomplished in San Anto can possibly be taken to similar conventions in the U.S. in the future. I among others are definitely interested in that. And spread the word.

LoneStarCon3, Aug. 29 - Sept. 2 2013, San Antonio, Texas, Aztlán

Melinda Palacio to read at National Hispanic Cultural Center

Award winning novelist and poet Melinda Palacio will read from and sign her new collection of poetry How Fire is a Story, Waiting at the National Hispanic Cultural Center on Saturday November 17th at 2 PM in the Salón Ortega. The event is free to the public.

According to Northwestern University Press, “Melinda Palacio’s newest poetry collection creates images that are at once heartbreaking and humorous. She tackles elemental subjects of family and childhood with the same depth and grace as that of myth making and death. As the only child of a mother who died too young, she infuses her words with longing and life, and celebrates the women who came before her. Each poem offers up the truth in a fearless and unsentimental voice.”

Melinda Palacio lives in Santa Barbara and New Orleans. Her novel Ocotillo Dreams (ASU Bilingual Press) received the Mariposa Award for Best First Book from the International Latino Book Awards. She also received the 2012 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. She was also a finalist for the Premio Aztlán for 2011. Her poetry chap book Folsom Lockdown was the winner of Kulupi Press’ 2009 Sense of Place award. She is a contributing columnist to the Latino literature blog, La Bloga.

No doubt, her new collection of poetry explores similarly complex territory. Contact Greta Pullen at (505) 724-4752 or e-mail greta.pullen@state.nm.us.

Joe Lopez invites you to Café Fresco

Café Fresco is now open at Gallista Gallery, San Anto. We are excited about the cafe/sandwich bar re-opening at Gallista, under new management. If you're in the area, stop by and help us welcome our new cafe manager Yolanda Aravelo.
Cafe Fresco will be open Tuesday - Saturday from 7 am - 2 pm.
The Menu includes breakfast and light lunch items, such as English Muffins filled with ham, egg, and/or sausage, Buttermilk Biscuits by the dozen and half-dozen, and Hoagie sandwiches.

Enjoy local art with your coffee! - Free Wifi
Gallista Gallery, 1913 S. Flores St., San Antonio, Texas, Aztlán


Es todo, hoy,
RudyG, aka Rudy Ch. Garcia, author of The Closet of Discarded Dreams, the Chicano fantasy with a Chicano hero

Mexican stories of the fantastic, a review

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

In our July series, Spic vs spec – Chicanos/latinos & sci-fi lit, discussion centered on the U.S. latino participation in speculative literature. Del otro lado de la frontera, our Mexican-national compatriots have been creating this literature as if nothing needed discussion. Thirty-three stories and a poem have been collected and translated into English as Three Messages and A Warning – Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic. Edited by Eduardo Jiménez & Chris N. Brown, published 1/2012 by Small Beer Press, $16, 238 pp.

From the introduction by Bruce Sterling: “When one talks to Mexican science fiction writers, the subject of ‘Mexican national content’ commonly comes up. Mexican science fiction writers all know what that is, or they claim to know, anyway. They commonly proclaim that their work needs more national flavor.
.. This book has got that. Plenty. The interesting part is that this ‘Mexican national content’ bears so little resemblance to content that most Americans would consider ‘Mexican.’ ”

From the back cover: "This huge anthology of more than thirty all-original Mexican science fiction and fantasy features ghost stories, supernatural folktales, alien incursions, and apocalyptic narratives, as well as science-based chronicles of highly unusual mental states in which the borders of fantasy and reality reach unprecedented levels of ambiguity. Stereotypes of Mexican identity are explored and transcended by the thoroughly cosmopolitan consciousnesses underlying these works. It is a landmark of contemporary North American fiction that deserves a wide readership."

From this reviewer: If you don't like U.S. sci-fi, you could love this collection. If you've tired of Chicano repetitive la Llorana tales, this one's for you. If you're a monlingual tired of sterotyped takes, pick this one up.

The most significant sensation--I have to call it--I got from this collection was its universality. In reading specific stories--and at the end, my overall impression--was the lack of obvious mexicanidad of the tales. Whereas in U.S. latino literature I would be constantly put into contexts of U.S. oppression of its Spanish-speaking minorities, these stories embedded their latino qualities in the characters' psyches, circumstances and the storytelling of the authors. It was refreshing, something that will appeal to monolinguals, a literature that provides a redefinition of how a gente can write their tales, seemingly at one with their Otherness. Not surprising, since, despite their politically and socially repressive society, these Mexicans are indeed at home in their Mexico and with their mexicandidad, or "mexicanness."

As the introduction explains: "Mexican SF is intensely fantastic, but it's not very sci-fi. It's a New World science fiction without the stabilizing presence of American engineers and American gadget magazines. The structure of publishing in Mexico has always been Mexican; it lacks any middle-class. So there's a popular street level of wild-eyed fanzines, tabloids, and comic books, and an empyrean of Mexican fantastic literateurs who show an impressive awareness of Borges and Kafka. There's no middlebrow. Mexican SF is a science fiction with no popular mechanics, no problem-solving stories, and very little ideational extrapolation. 'Hard SF' never took root in that soil." [my emphases]

Whereas in U.S. women writers are plentiful only in what we call fantasy, and barely evident in what we call sci-fi, HALF of these stories are by women. Given their quality, I have no reason to think the editors or publisher sought some gender equity in the contents. Another very refreshing aspect to the collection. The almost consistent length of 5 to 6 pages is also notable, something that will appeal to E-readers, since there is an E-book version.

Gabriel García Márquez

What's below are only some of my favorites:
1965 by Edmée Pardo, about as deep into what we call sci-fi as the collection gets. No spoiler here, but it recounts a boy's tale of his mamá and flying saucers. Just great.

The apocalyptic zombie-ish tale Photophobia--one of the longer ones--by Mauricio Montiel Figuieras fits more our definition of magic realism and, to me, shows great influence from colombiano Gabriel García Márquez.

Another sci-fi-sh story, Future Perfect by Gerardo Sifuentes, emphasizes what the book's introduction said above about hard sci-fi not taking root in Mexico. Check this passage where an illustrator enters the lab of a university professor:
"In Mr. Dobrunas' project, the plants with altered genes appear to be more the product of a delusional whimsy than the experimental fruit of scientific erudition. At the beginning his annotations described in extravagant detail sprouts of webbed leaves emerging timidly from thousands of test tubes in a greenhouse laboratory. But a few pages later, the flowers, and then vegetables, evolved to form part of a dark, unearthly garden, composed mostly of gigantic carnivorous plants with extravagant bulbs in every color. . . his digressions looked far from being scientific experiments worthy of being taken seriously. The findings focused more on a sort of metaphysics than genetic engineering." [p. 92-93] I won't tell you how it ends.

In fact, I can't tell you how many of the stories end, because, unlike U.S. lit where it is abhorred, Mexican lit still allows for the surprise ending, like Donají Olmedo's The Stone, which I read three times but still can't decide who's the narrator.

Mónica Lavín's Trompe-l'oeil is a magic realist tale about a mother-daughter experience. Bernardo Fernández Lions is a meta-tale of parody on spec lit itself.

Amélie Olaiz's Amalgam begins: "It was said she was a mermaid exiled by Neptune. She appeared on the island on a Sunday, barefoot, wearing a thin dress, with a  plastic bag in one hand and a soda can in the other." Then Olaiz takes you on a short romp of delight.

Others that stay with me: Carmen Rioja's The Nahual Offering, Lucía Abdó's Pachuca Second Street, Guillermo Samperio's Mr. Strogoff embodies a one-sentence story that makes me as envious as I can be about another author's writing. Check it out.

Óscar de la Borbolla's Wittgenstein's Umbrella is definitely a favorite. Nearly every paragraph begins with "Suppose," involves God, heaven, the afterlife, and a girl, and takes the Groundhog Day déjà-experience in a wonderful direction.

René Roquet's The Return of Night is cross-genre, entwining sci-fi with magic realism, and the latter emerging dominant. It begins: "The world was conceived far away from the sun and the stars, inside a black cloak, where it received energy from a warm and generous ancestral womb. It had neither movement nor universe; it had no time because time was useless. It was an unblemished sphere, still in a single night without a morning to count the days. That is how darkness founded its kingdom, and it kept at bay a shadow that was never upset by the light. Everything belonged to it." Ah, to be a mexicano author!

In case you couldn't guess, I could talk with you for hours about these and others, like Pepe Rojo's whimsical The President without Organs, Claudia Guillen's The Drop--vintage The Twilight Zone without the dated staleness; Lilianna V. Blum's Pink Lemonade, a novel eco-terrorist guy-gal tale;
or Bruno Estañol's The Infamous Juan Manuel that gives a unique take on the Devil compact story, again, with a surprise ending.

For any latino/chicano looking to enter the world of spec writing in norteamerica, I'd suggest you first enjoy this collection, study and think about it; then go for it. Our mexicano vecinos have much to teach us, whatever our specific ethnicity. Again, from the introduction:
"The USA is Mexicanizing much faster than Mexico is Americanizing. Ultra-weekly moguls, class divisions, obsessions with weird religious cults, powerful factions who shun scientific fact, an abject reliance on fossil fuels and narcotics--these formerly Mexican characteristics have become USA all the way."

However, better that we should let the 34 authors of Three Messages and A Warning bequeath us something more meaningful: how to write like the gente we inherently are, not the Other that U.S. society wants us to be.

Es todo, hoy,
RudyG

Rudy Ch. Garcia's debut novel, The Closet of Discarded Dreams, will be published 9/1/12. You can go to the new book website for info on how to win an autographed copy.

Spic vs spec - 3. Chicanos/latinos & sci-fi lit

by Rudy Ch. Garcia
continued from last week's post. . .

In the previous installment of this series, I promised to go into the importance of Guadalupe Garcia McCall's [Pura Belpre Award Winner] statement: "We definitely, absolutely, positively need more Hispanics writing SF."

There's nothing esoteric to her words. But, to better explain their import to Latino writers who don't write SF, I'll use an article by Nebula Award nominee, Jason Sanford, who asked, "Where Are All the Science Fiction Readers?" Understand that in the main, the readers he refers to are Anglo. I bolded relevant sections that could interest you the Latino writer.

"In the 1940s and 50s, the 'Heinlein juveniles' by Robert A. Heinlein introduced an entire generation to science fiction. This also laid the groundwork for science fiction’s domination of the literary best-seller lists in the 1970s and early 1980s. During this time authors like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, and others routinely published best-sellers and were paid massive advances for their novels. The reason for this was simple: The audience for these authors had been introduced to science fiction as young people. Now that they were grown up, they wanted more science fiction and had the money to buy what they desired.

"My own view on why most people don’t read science fiction literature is that 1) There are few entry-level science fiction novels being published these days; and 2) Many of today’s science fiction novels require a certain level of SF literacy before you can read them.

"There's a famous saying in SF fandom that 'the golden age of science fiction is 12,' meaning readers first learn to love science fiction as young people. However, in today’s marketplace there are relatively few current SF novels aimed at young readers (with the exception of dystopian novels, like The Ember series by Jeanne Duprau and The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, and movie tie-in novels related to Star Wars and Star Trek). Contrast this with the fantasy genre, where it sometimes seems like half of all the novels published are aimed at young readers.

"Unfortunately, without entry-level science fiction novels to read, newcomers can find it difficult to learn to love SF."

A 2001 National Science Foundation survey stated this in other terms:
"Interest in science fiction may be an important factor in leading men and women to become interested in science as a career. . . Scientists often say they were inspired to become scientists by their keen interest in science fiction as children. . . The positive relationships that exist between reading science fiction and level of education, number of math and science courses completed, and attentiveness to science and technology are … predictable."

There's also a tie-in to how few of brown children strive for careers in science, technology, engineering and math [STEM], relating to low high school graduation rates and generally doing poorly in math and science. So that, "Getting Latino kids excited about science and math seems daunting."

How bad has this been? Of the 15,000 PhDs in science and engineering in 1975, only 151 were granted to latinos--1%. In 1989, of over 15,000 PhDs, 387 went to latinos - 2.6%. In 2009, of 21,000 PhDs, 5.4% or 1,131.

If we tie all this together, here's what I come up with:

• There's a big niche today in YA sci-fi lit
• This niche once provided a market for bestsellers
• There's a huge niche in latino sci-fi of all age levels
• Writing sci-fi for a YA audience has led to an adult market in sci-fi
• Reader interest in YA sci-fi can lead to STEM careers
• STEM professionals have jobs and money to buy adult books.

The national association SACNAS [advancing Hispanics, Chicanos and Native Americans in Science] originated out of the 70s political movements. [Remember:151 latino PhDs in '75!] Based on the above information, they should be interested in promoting sci-fi literature, from a long-term standpoint. You latino writers who created El Movimiento might have the same interest, in the short term, as well.

What I've presented above is no scientifically based survey nor dissertation-level proof of why present-day latino writers should take advantage of these niches. There are of course contemporary conditions that make us different from the last century. But the economy is NOT one of them. "There are 3.2 million available jobs in this country in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. Right now. Today. This moment."

Those, and future jobs, will be filled by someone who will likely have an interest in sci-fi lit. If they are latino and there are no latino YA and adult novels for them to buy and read, they will turn elsewhere for books, as Ernest Hogan and I were forced it.

Am I suggesting that latino writers suddenly focus on sci-fi? Not necessarily. However, I'd expect that Junot Diaz's use of sci-fi [and fantasy] in his Oscar Wao will attract some sci-fi latino readers and possibly create others. That alone works toward building a readership today, and in the future. What I am suggesting is for established authors and aspiring writers not to automatically discount this genre as being irrelevant to latino readers. There are also different sci-fi elements that can be used in stories. Every tale doesn't need to be rocket-science level.

If we wait for new young latino writers to appear who do have that interest, we'll possibly have only limited our present-day prospects. In the meantime, if a flurry of Anglo authors turn their interest in this direction, I really don't want to hear criticism about how they should stick to their own. Literature, like Nature, abhors a vacuum; it gets filled by those who get there first, and best.

[to be continued next week, here]

And always remember to "make good art."
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG

Rudy Ch. Garcia's magic realism tale, Mr. Sumac, about an old guy who raises the tree-weed will appear in AQC Books' journal, Kingdom Freaks and Other Divine Wonders, altho he's not been informed if it's featured as one of the freaks or the wonders. You can go here to preview it or here for a lit bio.

Chicanonautica: Sci-Fi Evolution and Revolution in the Global Barrio

by Ernest Hogan

This was going be simple. I was going to do links to some of the Spanish-language blogs about science fiction that have come to my attention, but as per usual in these chaotic times, a wild and unpredictable monkey wrench came flying into the machinery.

The monkey wrench was in the form of fellow Bloguero Rudy Ch. Garcia’s post, Spic vs spec - 1. Chicanos/Latinos & Sci-Fi Lit. He told of a review disapproving of the “spanglo slanguage” in his story Last Call for Ice Cream. He also asked if Chicanos/latinos read sci-fi, how many are writing it, and should they. He got responses -- some from Latino writers. As a “sci-fi anciano” and author of the Chicano sci-fi classic Cortez on Jupiter, I feel compelled to offer my humble opinions. 

Besides, since Rudy has since done Spic vs spec - 2., it looks like this subject isn’t going away . . .

First I’d like to say yes, Chicanos, Latinos, and everybody else should be writing sci-fi, spec-fic, or whatever we’re going to soon be calling imaginative fiction that deals with changes brought along by technology. It affects our lives in the 21st century, so it will have an impact on our art and stories. We need visions of the future, all we can get.

We shouldn’t accept a one-size-fits-all, stereotyped future presented by an industry that’s trying appeal to the lowest common denominator -- though what does that mean in a global economy?

We need a vast selection of futures imagined by inspired minds from all over the planet, so we don’t have to buy our futures -- our identites -- off the rack. Let’s customize our tomorrows like mad scientist/lowriders and cruise them across the galaxy!

An interesting example of this showed up here in La Bloga, in Michael Cucher’s guest column, A Zapatista Encuentro in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s about a Zapatista art installation that emphasizes “intergalactic consciousness” centered around “the Autonomous InterGalactic Space Program, where visitors find themselves in a hanger with a snail-covered, ski-masked Mayan Mothership.” Sounds downright sci-fi if you ask me.

Though if they want to get the message out they need to go beyond the art gallery. I could see this material in comic books, viral video clips, even movies like Sun Ra’s Space is the Place. Or even stories and novels.

Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos in his book Our Word is Our Weapon, called Earth the Seventh planet of the solar system if you’re coming from beyond . . . With one phrase, my concept of the solar system was turned inside out. No science fiction writer ever did that for me.

Those of you aspiring scifiistas out there take note: Always try to outdo the science fiction that came before you.

I also have a place where you can send your stories -- they even pay! 

It’s called The Future Fire: Social Political & Speculative Cyber-Fiction. As in: Feminist SF. Queer SF. Eco SF. Multicultural SF. Cyberpunk. An experiment in and celebration of new writing. I’ve done a guest post for them, and they’ve done the same on Mondo Ernesto. Their latest project is We See a Different Frontier, “a colonialism-themed anthology of new stories told from the perspective of the colonized.”

As in: We want the cultures, languages, and literatures of colonized peoples and recombocultural individuals to be heard, not to show the White Man learning the error of his ways, or Anglos defending the world from colonizing extraterrestrials.

It’s a start. It’s not going to be easy. Traditional/corporate publishing with its policies of assembly-line escapism is dying in the face of emerging technology and evolving social structures. Most of the writer’s advice you find floating around out there is obsolete. To be a writer these days is a lot like being an astronaut who is launched into the unknown. The landscape is in metamorphosis -- apocalyptic, not to mention dystopian. 

If it's too scary, there are less demanding things for you to do with your time, but I hope you will follow the example of Ray Bradbury when he said, “I dare to shout our future now.”

Guess I’m going to have to save those links to Spanish-language science fiction blogs for next time . . .

Ernest Hogan is juggling projects that he hopes will soon astound the world. The authorities in Arizona have not tried to stop him yet. Muhuhahahahaha . . .

Spic vs spec - 1. Chicanos/latinos & sci-fi lit

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

For varied reasons, when I was growing up in San Anto, one thing set our home off from the others--we read science fiction. My father--the cabrón--assumedly was the precursor of this, though I can't say about my abuelos. The reading of sci-fi (yeah, I know some authors hate the term) continued long after we kicked el cabrón bruto's ass out of the house and began a semi-nomadic life through shanties and the projects. I kept the tradition alive.

I remember when and how I acquired the bug, the one time our sire read us a short story called The Rag Thing. Me and the others were all curled up in the bed with him and listening to this crazy dishrag that turned into a monster and ate the whole town. Actually, the cabrón stopped before the ending and never finished it for us. But we wanted to know how it turned out, so I became the reader from my siblings. Among other genres, I continue reading sci-fi to this day.

At some point in the past I decided to try mi pluma at getting something published. It finally happened this year when cyberpunk founder Rudy Rucker, Sr. accepted the story Last Call for Ice Cream on his personal webzine at Flurb.net.

Here's how Rucker described it:
"Rudy Garcia’s Last Call for Ice Cream is a hypnotic stew of spanglo slanguage, wry and funny, with a special surprise in every sentence, and a renegade view of life in these United States."

Now, when Rudy Rucker likes one of your stories, in the sci-fi world that's a gigantic plus. When your story is rife with "spanglo slanguage," it's a bigger deal because we know how hard it is for the mainstream lit world to accept "latino lit."

El cabrón is dead and can't read the story and there's no doubt some Freudian slivers to this whole thing in my life and this post, but let's set that aside.

When I read the following review of my story, I got surprised, and, sure, offended somewhat:

"The issue ends with Last Call for Ice Cream by Rudy Ch. Garcia, a rambling piece about a guy trying to write a vidscript. It has so much slang that it becomes tiresome very quickly." [by Sam Tomaino]

I guess Tomaino didn't like it much, though I don't know if the slang he refers to is the spanglo slanguage or the English terms I invented. Not to accuse him of monolinguistic prejudice, I put the vato's critique into the realm of no le cai, because to some people maybe the story is "tiresome."

The incident got my brain clicking, wanting to explore some old questions in new ways.

Do Chicanos/latinos read sci-fi? How much, how many? Why don't more? How many are writing sci-fi? Should more latinos be writing it? Why don't we have a bronce version of the Black Science Fiction Society or afroamerican sci-fi mags? Is there some significance to the answer of any of these?

Consider this only the beginning of a series to explore these and other questions that I haven't imagined. I welcome input from anyone--writers, readers, non-latinos, aliens--to see what new directions we might give the topic.

And if you want to add the either side of the critique of my first accepted sci-fi story, make certain you mention Garcia or Rucker, depending on which Rudy you're referring to.

This series continues here.

Es todo, hoy
RudyG

Chicanonautica: Defining New Frontiers/Borders, and Other Delusions

With this post, we welcome sci-fi novelist Ernest Hogan, author of Cortez on Jupiter, who we interviewed in two segments earlier this year. He adds to our cast of novelists, authors and poets, and as you'll read, Hogan es un caballo de color differente. He might be reviewing sci-fi, fantasy, horror or spec lit in general. He might be essaying on the great paranoid state of Arizona. He might be analyzing the crumbling of America. But whatever he does, it looks like he's going to add a little more picante to La Bloga. Join us in welcoming him, and leave a comment for el pobre nuevo.

I feel like a calaca in a spacesuit here. Just what is this all about? Futuristico? Fantastico? And oh yeah, I'm coming at you from Arizona, part of Aztlán, the metaphor so powerful that there are dystopian laws and the National Guard to protect against it.

Look out, Hispanophobes! Poets are out there, cooking up picante brujería that your smartest robot spy planes can't detect. Better beg the federal government for more research and development money.

Sounding a little sci-fi there, but I can't help it. Like I've said elsewhere, Chicano is a science fiction state of being, especially in this space and time where worlds collide, technology and spirituality intermingle, and magic realism comes at you through the Interwebs. I try to just document my environment, and people scream, “Science Fiction!”

“After eight disheveling hours we did not so much arrive to a new land as manage to shoot like a time machine to the next age over.” -- Victor Hernández Cruz, “The Bolero of the Red Translation”

Thirty years ago a Chicano science fiction writer was an absurd concept. I didn't know, because I was too busy living it to worry if it made sense. But in the Twenty-First Century, the New Millennium, folks aren't so quick to shut me down.

And I'm not the only one doing sci-fi to Latino rhythms. Sometimes it's alta clase speculative fiction, sometimes it fonqui sci-fi. Sometimes the lowbrow stuff works better than that attempts at highbrowismo.

Chicanos are plugged into the latest newfangled realities, and ancient myths and traditions. Mexico City was founded by people who listened to a talking idol and who built one of the most advanced urban centers on the planet. Today's equivalent would be a community of unemployed people getting together and building a space station. Where are those talking idols now that we need them?

Maybe Reyes Cardenas is listening to them.

We also don't follow the rules, leaping across borders of genre, and sensibility, boldly going where those-better-adjusted-to-the-culture-that-has-prevailed-for-the-last-century could not imagine. That century is over, and that culture is crumbling. We've already been apocalypsed, we've learned to live among aliens – wherever we go, it's a brave, new world.

What Hunter S. Thompson said about Oscar Zeta Acosta applies to Chicanos: “ . . . a high-powered mutant of some kind who was never considered for mass production.” But the new media offers the mutants new life, and is generating new art, new culture, even new technology that will science-fictionize your life.

So, in future La Bloga posts I'll charge across borders – and remember that frontiers and borders are the same thing -- claiming the cosmos as my barrio. I don't care if you call me a pioneer or an illegal alien. Let's go exploring, from Arizona, to the Edge of the Universe. We'll discover – and create – some new worlds along the way!

Ernest Hogan was born in East L.A., lives in Arizona, and likes to wander.

Interview 2 - Ernest Hogan Charla with the most-unknown Chicano author

Last week's post began the Charla-Interview with Ernest Hogan, an internationally renowned sci-fi writer practically unknown to Chicano readers. The purpose of this is not to tell Chicanos they should read his sci-fi; the purpose is to introduce this vato and explain why you might like checking out his work, because confining our literary experience to predominately "ethnic works" and avoiding vampiro detective or reincarnated Aztec god spec fiction might be the flip side of Anglos who shun Chicano novels.

But in fact, Hogan's works are "ethnic." The sociological, political, cultural backstories to his futuristic novels make them so. I'm still amazed he succeeded in getting them published, given how Chicano they are.

For instance, his third novel Smoking Mirror Blues is a blast of avalanching prose about protagonist Beto Orozco who gets caught up in his artificial-intelligence creation of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, set in future El Lay. It's not the Hollywood Blvd. we know; it's not the Chicano community you grew up in. But Hogan drapes his stories with elements of our world and herein lies the "ethnicity" that appeals, at least to this Chicano.

Smoking Mirror Blues has a Black President. Okay, that's not sci-fi anymore, but when it was published in 2001 it was. High Aztech features a U.S. government gone Christian-extreme, to the point of burning heretics on the White House lawn. Almost where G. Bush Jr. wanted to take us or Palin would have. With that, Hogan's taking the reader maybe more into the horror genre than sci-fi, but point is, his treatment of issues we face today proves the relevancy created in this genre.

El Texto

RG: With that intro, Ernesto, one of the common themes in all three of your novels is immigration. In Cortez, your graffiti-art hero emigrates to Jupiter for a better life; you've got the U.S. building the Tortilla Curtain on the border; and in High Aztech you give us a renamed Mexico City--Tenochtítlan--as the capital of a country U.S. gringos emigrate to because La Amerika failed as a superpower. I know you live in Arizona, but do you think you might have overdone it with the Migra issue? And why'd you think it'd make it past the slush piles?

EH: When you put it that way, I look like an obsessed, militant vato loco, but truth is, I tend to write about immigration because I can’t escape the issue. I just noticed that some the art I sent you for this interview is about the Migra, and was drawn long before the current firestorm. To be a Chicano is to be a stranger in a strange land, even if you were born here. And like I’ve said, Chicano is a science fiction state of being.

Migration is a big theme in science fiction; maybe that’s what attracted me to it. I emigrated from East L.A to West Covina to Arizona. Males in my family have tended to live far from where they were born and we’ve changed races and continents over the centuries. This all creates conflicts that make for good stories. Sometimes they don’t make it past the slush pile. I’ve got a huge collection of rejection letters saying that “the audience” won’t relate . . . One called Burrito Meltdown was finally published in England. I just sold Radiation is Groovy, Kill the Pigs, featuring mayhem and radioactive marijuana crisscrossing the Border, and am waiting to hear from an editor about another of my Paco Cohen, Martian Mariachi stories. Suddenly, this is something people want to read about. Maybe I need to thank Jan Brewer, Russell Pearce, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio for helping my career.

RG: An aside--any possibility your mom's (Garcia) related to my family who emigrated via Chihuahua?

EH: Good thing I had the eulogy may Aunt Christina wrote for Grandma Charlotte-Carlotta Chairez Garcia in my computer. My grandmother was born in Clovis, California, her parents came from Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico. Her father’s father, Feliciano, was a curandero, who “was often called upon by Pancho Villa to help with his wounded.” Feliciano was my great-great-great grandfather--the “great” thing keeps getting confused, by both me and people who repeat the story. Yeah, I’ve got a Villaista heritage. If we really want to get confused, we can always try to sort out my dad’s side of the family. Grandpa Hogan always said that the New Mexico church with his birth certificate burned down . . . Ay! These Wild West/Aztlán people can’t seem to keep records!

RG: I got a bummer for you, Ernesto; you weren't the first published sci-fi Chicano author. Donaldo Urioste left a comment to last week's post that he'd done a brief review of Arthur Tenorio's sci-fi novel Blessing From Above (1971, self-published?) in the pub, Chicano Perspectives in Literature (1976). Googling that, I also found a reference to Isabella Ríos's Victuum (1976), maybe also a sci-fi novel. Dude, you probably weren't the first. That make you wanna fall on your obsidian?

EH: Actually, it’s a relief. I wasn’t really comfortable with being the Neil Armstrong of Chicano sci-fi. “One small step for a vato, one giant leap for La Raza.” Science fiction in Spanish goes way back, and connects with the Arab storytelling tradition. The Ebony Horse in the Arabian Nights sure looks like sci-fi to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chicano science fiction was as old as Chicanos, and that shortly after the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, someone published a dime novel about being invaded and aliens taking over their world. Hmmm. Maybe that would make a good steampunkish story.

RG: Speaking of steampunk, Mario Acevedo of Denver says he likes your take in High Aztech and asks: "Does Hogan have any new words to describe the current political situation? Maybe a word for a political dumbass becoming regarded as a true leader, for example una Palin-mosca. Or someone glued to their iPhone/iPad?" Palin-mosca sounds too cute to me, but then, Mario believes in vampiros. Your suggestions?

EH: I don’t really see anything new in our current political situation, the same old desmadreization dressed up to tacky new fashions--a corpse in a plastic wedding dress clutching a cell phone. Some petty empires got threatened, so strings get pulled and the world is thrown into turmoil--I’ve seen it all before. Still, I can provide some brave new words: for a dumbass ruler--tontotecuhtli (foolish lord), and for someone stuck on their iPhone/iPad--xixacabeza (shithead). Though, I have to admit I had to consult the Aztec Gods app on my iPod--the next best thing until someone comes up with a good Náhuatl dictionary. The tontoecuhtlis are up to a whole lot of xixacabezaization; just remember the Egyptian Books of the Dead’s warning about never eating feces offered to you by a demon. Ticomotraspasarhuililis!

RG: Ticomotra--. I still don't get that one, but it reminds me I gotta ask something else. Where's your PC? Has Arizona's intolerant climate affected your brain testosterone levels? Or are you just a throwback to the machismo days? What I mean is, all three of your novels feature a young Chicano male que se hace loco con las mujeres, hops into sexual escapades and is an iconoclast about church, state and most standards of community morality. Didn't you learn anything from the 60s, 70s and are you just an unrepentant macho? IOW, did you expect to attract ChicanAs readers with all that mujerismo?

EH: My PC? It crashed and I got a Mac last year--

RG: I ever tell you how deprived my kids grew up? They'd abandon the home PC and go to their rich cousin's to stare at a Mac. No--not that PC!

EH: Oh, you mean political correctness as pioneered in Chairman Mao’s People’s Republic of China? When American academics started fooling around with it back in the Eighties, I thought it was a bad idea. “Just watch,” I said, “they’re going to turn it around and use it against guys like me.” I’m all for civility, but attempting to alter reality by restricting what can be said or shown, only leads to dystopia, 1984, Alphaville.

Censorship is always a tool of oppression. As far as I know, my testosterone levels are normal. Though I see nothing wrong with machismo, macho being Spanish for male--wouldn’t that make it a word equivalent to feminism? I learned my iconoclastics in the Sixties and Seventies, and my attitude comes out of my heritage. What was it Emiliano Zapata said about “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees?” How else do you think I survive in Arizona? I’ve been called a nigger by people who really believe in the word. I’m not intimidated by politicas who have panic attacks if they step out of a full-service consumer environment. I actually find it amusing when their fiercest attacks are that I’m not following their party line. Why should I care? Besides, there are women--even Chicanas--who like my work, and my characters, even find them sexy.

RG: Even ChicanAs, eh? Okay, we'll leave it at that. But has anybody ever called you to task for getting demasiado with your "brave new words?" There were points in your first novel Cortez on Jupiter when maybe it got a little thick. Like, your Spanglish there--assumedly invented?--roomicito, wordito, drinkicito, previewcito y hilariousisisimo. If I'd been in your writers' group, I'da chopped you down, liberally.

EH: I’ve always made up words. A new situation comes along and old ones don't work, I come up with something that does. Sometimes my wife will use these, forgetting that I made them up, and people give her funny looks. In Cortez, I tried to push it as far as I could, while being understandable to a non-Spanish literate reader. Yeah, I got silly, because I could get away with it. There was a review in Locus condemning my “atrocious style.” I’m always trying to see if I can get away with things, and with my writing, I’ve gotten away with some serious xixaóna and am proud of it. I know writers’ groups don’t go for this, which is why I gave them up decades ago--just before I started selling novels--they make people conservative and anal-retentive, and I have an easier time getting published than they do. Go wild on the page--that’s my advice to wannabe writers!

RG: Okay, I'll try that and see if does any good with my novels-nobody-pubs, but, now tell us about your favorite Latino authors.

EH: Though he’s primarily a performance artist, Guillermo Gómez-Peña is the Latino author closest to me in what he’s doing.

RG: I love that dude! I see some of him in Pablo Cortez. Coincidence?

EH: I had seen some of Guillermo’s work before, but wasn’t really aware of him until his book Warrior for Gringostroika, published in 1993, long after Cortez on Jupiter. But if my life was a little different I could have ended up being like those vatos. I’ll read something of his to my wife, and she’ll say, “He sounds like you.” I check with him to see if I'm in tune with the whole global Chicanoization enchilada--and I usually am. He also sent me a copy of his Dangerous Border Crossers, inscribed: “You’re one of my favorite writers, Ese.”

The Latino literary figure I have the most in common with is Oscar Zeta Acosta. His books, and association with Hunter S. Thompson, define Chicanismo as I live it. Paul T. Riddell cast me as a Dr. Gonzo type in his book Squashed Armadillocon. Though, Sheriff Joe, take note--I gave up drugs shortly after I gave up writers’ groups. My kind of gonzo requires a brain in top running condition. Like a writer I was talking to recently (name withheld on the advice of my attorney) remarked, “It’s different with writers--we do it because we want something interesting to write about.”

Victor Hernández Cruz’s poetry was a direct influence on Cortez on Jupiter. I think I’ll take his books off the shelf and read them again.

Assuming that being born in Chile and living for a time in Mexico trumps genetics, I am in constant awe of Alejandro Jodorowsky. El Topo is one of my all-time favorite movies. “Too much perfection is a mistake.” His writing is also brilliant.

Paco Ignacio Taibo II’s detective novels are wonderful, and he has written some science fiction.

I also like Ernesto Quiñonez’s books, though he writes as if there’s a barbwire fence and National Guard troops keeping Puerto Ricans in Spanish Harlem. I guess out West we think of such barriers differently.

Juan José Arreola's imaginative work gets science fictional at times, needs to be known better in the Anglo world. I practically lived his story El Guardagujas (The Switchman) while traveling by train through Mexico.

I guess I should mention Jorge Luis Borges, but then just about everybody else does . . .

RG: Okay Ernesto, I won't hold it against you for leaving out Gabriel Garcia.

EH: I enjoy Garcia Marquez, but didn’t feel it necessary to bring him up because the whole World Literature community (I wonder how many of them there are?) recognizes him. Besides, I stopped trying to be “literary” (whatever that really means) years ago. These days I’m more influenced by vatos like Polo Jasso--does the kick-ass comic strip El Cerdotado at Milenio.com.

RG: Moving on, you've got chingos of azteca lore, and other indigenes, in your works. Por qué?

EH: I consider it to be my heritage. And it’s a fascinating lost world to explore and uncover. It’s also a tezcalipoca, a smoking mirror to hold up to the madness of the real world so that maybe, in between the laughs and weird entertainment, somebody may get a glimpse of something real. It’s something that other writers keep getting wrong, or screw up in the name of some kind of snake oil.

RG: Speaking of the reptilian, your art on the pages of this interview is . . . distinctive. What do you use? Presidente or agavero?

EH: Alcohol tends mess up my hand/eye coordination. My wife describes my drawing style as Aztec Expressionist. These days I scan sketchbook pages into my Mac and play with it in GIMP, trying to combine the high tech with my primitive impulses. And being an artist saves me the expense of having to hire one.

RG: Okay, I gotta go back to last week, where you mentioned your "experience of being looked down on by academics", including Chicanos. I don't need to defend them, but some of those academic-literary types were Chicano Movimiento activists and in some cases, continue their involvement through their careers or community work. What do you tell your kids when they say, "What did you do during the 60s-70s, Dad?" And besides including such issues in your writing, are you using your literary notoriety to actively support any causas?

EH: I don’t have any kids; my niece and nephews don’t seem to be aware of history yet. I remember disagreeing with Chicano militants that I knew, but back then they tended to be stoned. I spent a lot of time educating myself about Chicano history and mythology, and trying to tell others about it--often they got disturbed, axolotl tamales aren’t for everyone. Being a Chicano science fiction writer doesn’t pay much--I’ve done a lot illegal alien jobs that don’t leave time for activism. And I tend to like (Groucho) Marx: “I refuse to be a part of any organization that would have someone like me as a member.” As for “literary notoriety”--it may just be Arizona, but does anybody care what a writer thinks? Besides, I’m always way ahead of my time: the world isn’t ready for LEGALIZE COCKFIGHTING or LEGALIZE BULLFIGHTING T-shirts.

RG: For La Bloga readers unfamiliar with, or uncertain of, your work, here's a taste from Cortez on Jupiter, with examples of literary elements we've discussed. The artist Pablo Cortez has just tuned his art into communicating with the planet Jupiter's gaseous alien Sirens:

"There was no space or time--Omeyocan all the way with superimposed flashes of stuff that wasn't quite tuned right so my nervous system could process it into any kind of information or imagery, but I gave it a good honest try and--ay! I heard the big beat of whales and dolphins in perfect sync with songs of sentient stars and the Sirens that toy robots and jude Betty Boops joyously danced to in endless halls that were covered with animated hieroglyphs that joined in the Futuro-Afro-pre-Colombian-Trans-Spacetime-Quantum Musical Comedy! "And no, no, no, I don't know what it all is and where it comes from--zapware dreamtime. I don't know! I was just there and real as anything you could plug into with your senses. First, just a scrambloso jumble like reality snapcracklepopping before my very eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and all those nervicito endings all over my brown skin. Made me feel like I was going to fall apart into a cloud of loose atoms, but I held on with all I was and tried to paint it all in the image lab behind my eyes. Then it started changing into things. . ."

EH: Guao! How did I do that?

RG: From your lengthy answer, I see this interview's almost done. Anyway, I see the Acosta in you in passages like that one. Sometimes when I read your stuff, I set the belt on loose, try not to hold on, and then just let your rollercoaster take me. But Ernesto, what some readers might want to know is, how much of this did you compose under the influence of 'shrooms?

EH: I never tried the magic mushroom. My drug use in the bad old days tended to take a toke off the funny cigarette that was circulating in a party. I deluded myself that drugs made people more open-minded to my far-out ideas. After a while I realized that they just dumbed me down to their level. I don’t go to those kinds of parties anymore. It’s a way I avoid boredom.

RG: Let's get to the nasty stuff, Ernesto. Why was your third book Smoking Mirror Blues published by a small press instead of Nueva York? You had a chance to break into the big-time; so what happened after that?

EH: Now it can be told! The whole sordid story. . . I was flying high there for awhile, all set up to be another William Gibson. My wife told me not to be so quick to turn down those offers from Hollywood (I laughed). High Aztech came out, and things turned odd.

The ad in Locus had no text, just the cover. There were no reviews. Later I kept hearing, “Your book is out? We got the box from Tor, but it wasn’t in it.” People had to call them and cuss them out to get review copies. I did my best to promote it, doing bookstore signings until I was informed, “We don’t have any more copies in the warehouse.” When my agent called to ask if they were going to print more, she was told that, “No, because it didn’t sell.” When the Mexican science fiction magazine Umbrales did a positive review, I sent letters to my editor and the publisher, telling them to make sure it was stocked along the Border. Both letters came back unopened, stamped “Address Unknown.” I checked the address with my agent, I had it right. “Gremlins?” she pondered when I asked what could have happened. After all that, they rejected the proposal for Smoking Mirror Blues, which no other Nueva York publisher would touch. I haven’t been able to sell anything to Nueva York book publishers since.

RG: Sounds like somebody realized they'd accidentally published a Chicano novel. So what did Bova say about all this? I woulda thought he'd have turned all-Orion over that mierda, protecting, nurturing his Discoveries. And when's the last time Tor released something Chicanoish? You think they're ripe for one?

EH: The folks at Tor did not realize that they were publishing a Chicano novel. Then they thought that I was this brave Anglo, unafraid of writing about minorities. "Could you use a partially Hispanic pseudonym?" Bova, being an Italian-American, was quite sympathetic. The plug got pulled on the Discoveries shortly after High Aztech; I have no way of knowing if it was because of me. I keep hearing from the Nueva York crowd that I'm not commercial--mierda! Tor is considered the more creative of American science fiction publishers, but I don't think they've done anything Chicanoish. Sci-fi these days likes to use Spanish names for their sexy characters, but they're just wet dreams for nerds. Short fiction editors seem to be responding to my Chicano stories, but I don't expect Tor, Nueva York, "big time publishing" to do so before it all crashes and burns.

RG: So, what's next from Hogan? You've gotten recent short stories accepted and I hear from another interview that you're gonna try something mainstream.

EH: Since I started blogging and got on Facebook, I’ve been selling stories faster than ever--not always for much money, if any, but at least people won’t think I’m dead. I spent most of the last decade writing a mainstream (another word I have serious doubts about) novel, Walter Quixote or Love in the Time of Terrorism that has been rejected all over Nueva York. I’ll probably have to publish it myself, which I’m learning how to do.

I also have an Arizona Chicano Private Eye novel called That Zapotec Thing, and my pre-Cortez on Jupiter science fiction effort, Nwatta- Nwatta-Nwatta, (a sort of a cross between Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy & Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) that are still orphans. And if anybody is interested in a collection of my short stories, I like to do my Futuro-Chicano stuff while the issue is still hot. If not, I'll just publish them myself, my way without any corporate or industry restraints, which will probably result in artistic and political turmoil that the world may not recover from. . .

RG: Okay, I swear--last question. You see any change in Nueva York accepting more Chicano or Latino sci-fi authors?

EH: I hate to be one to tell you, but Nueva York and publishing as we know it are dying. From my perspective of working as a bookstore clerk and a struggling writer, I see it all crumbling, and it will come crashing down around 2012, if not sooner. It’s a combination of insane corporate management and the coming of new technology. The hardcover and paperback formats are going the way of the dinosaur. Latino/Chicano authors need to learn about the new media, and migrate there. It’s just another border to cross--no big deal. Create the new literary Barrio Electrico. Come up with amazing things that people--all people--will get swept up in. Ticomotraspasarhuililis!

RG: I lied: one more. You got any messages for anybody special in Colorado? Oh, and, what's your favorite musical note?

EH: Hi to my cousin Yvonne. And Ed Bryant. And the folks at Flying Pen Press. I don’t have favorite musical note or a favorite color, like in a bullfight, you use what moment calls for.

fin parte II
all drawings by Ernest Hogan

Today we announce who won an autographed copy of his first novel Cortez on Jupiter and how you can win his second novel High Aztech. And the winner is: David Lee Summers. Now, to win Aztech, create one of Hogan's language-twisters: either a new Spanglish term or a recombo-Náhuatl-Spanish term and send it to me in an Email [rDOTchDOTgarcia@cyboxDOTcom]. Ernesto has graciously volunteered to judge which is the most original, funny or outlandish entry. But if you want to leave comments about this Charla/Interview, please do so here.

Es todo, hoy
RudyG