The deadline for the ‘Keeper of the Waters’ antho has been extended (read more…)

image post: PZ

Peace Fantastic Melanauts,

After quite a few hurdles, the 2nd Black Faery Antho is close to layout. There are still slots for flash fiction, a few longer tales, and images. The initial call was sent in the author-copy packets to contributors of the 1st tome. The guidelines have been pretty much the same as the first (see below).

The deadline’s been set for January 27th (*update: July 3, 2012). If you need more time, an outline or sample should be submitted by 1/27 to submit for a spot while you flesh out your vision. The aim is to have the digital version out by (edit: at least) Spring Winter and the combined print version of Books 1 and 2 released shortly after.

The call for the next Antho’s submissions (following the 2nd) will be announced likely at the end of 2012.


Guidelines:

-Stories should avoid being disempowering to Black/POC culture.

-Casts should be Black/POC in keeping with the anthology’s purpose to celebrate and restore communal culture (of color) that has been phased out/negatively rewritten in too large a part by mainstream media. Tales/Pieces shouldn’t rely upon Euro scapes/protagonists/traditions. This is an opportunity to focus on fresh scapes and those that are already a part of indigenous tradition (See the piece C’BS wrote in the first anthology for research help). We’re inundated with a glaring lack of indigenous voice/culture in the mainstream on a daily basis (I’m not counting tokenized corporate stereotypes fed to us regularly). Too many youth of color see no magik or beauty in themselves or their culture. This antho aims to increase diversity through celebration of actual diverse images/scapes/protagonists - rather than tokenism).

-Stories should be general audience friendly enough to be consumable by young minds that may read it. Media doesn’t have to be youth-targeted. Tasteful and necessary nudity and/or violence relative to a piece/story is acceptable if it’s not gratuitous.

-Reprints that fit the anthology’s purpose are acceptable.

-Simultaneous submissions aren’t accepted. If you’re submitting to the anthology, be sure to abstain from submitting the story/piece to another project or publisher until your story has been published for 3 months. This includes posting on blogs, and similar.

-Your story may be additionally optioned for the 3rd anthology which is a paid work and not a charity-focused tome as 1 and 2.

-(updated) The feel of the antho is nebulous, whimsical, imbued with the mystery of the High-feminine/Original mother/Night/Nurture/Comfort-sanctuary (even in the midst of conflict), etc.

Mer stories (especially Meingu and even Encantada-focused) flow well, but all tales don’t have to focus on aquatic fae. The feel should have a flow and enchant (even subtly).

Graphic design/photography imagery can do a lot with the antho’s feel (many ways to play with fluidity, sunset vibes, deep water, nebulous fae, willowy/spindly trees, etc). Both literal, abstract, and highly symbolic pieces are a good fit. Submit images at 300 dpi (2550x3300 for full page submissions) in .jpg or .png format.

Keeping in line with the general audience-friendly tone (at the top), profanity/vulgarity should be avoided.

Submission address: CandyAnomaly at gmail.com Add “Submission” to the subject line

*The deadline has been extended to July 3 to give authors enough time to develop new material that flows with the theme. Sneak peeks with be posted between now and then with author/artist permission. The deadline extension only applies to new works that fit the theme.

The Antho’s working title is: Keeper Of The Waters

The 1st antho

huemindfantastic:

*Public downloads available this month, to donators of Eastern Diasporic aid, with an emphasis on Haiti. Proof of donation will be required. Download and Print-Edition Details via CandyAnomaly @gmail.com *-^

*If you’re a literary or visual artist of underrepresented culture interested in submitting to this reconstructive celebration, email CandyAnomaly @ gmail with inquiries for second installment guidelines.
Please allow up to 7-10 days for response.

Click the image for the full post @ PurpleMag

In terms of classical monsters or mythic beings fairies get the least amount of airplay. Vampires dominate center stage, zombies are pretty well represented in the modern world, werewolves, and mages get their grove on also. Yetfairies, they’re rare. Also in the abovelist of beings, interms of literature and films, they are usually always portrayed as being of the European persuasion (well, in the zombie world we go rainbow coalition and we get some ‘voodoo’ priests thrown in sometimes). And let’s be honest, you ain’t never read about or seen a fairy of color.

The stereotype of the fairy is either the pixie-esh Tinkerbell, type or the pale, thin, vulcan eared court fairy type. Both are rooted in Anglo-folklore and mythology. If you would have “them” tell the story original indigenous people worldwide don’t have any of their own stories about “wee folk.” And people often forget to include the whole sprectrum of the fairie world that includes hairy dwaves, troll/ogres/giants and elemental spiritis.

What is funny is that even the European stories of the wee folk are influenced by Original People. The Twa, also known as the Pygmies of Africa, traveled world wide. They are also known as the Negritos who traveled throughout South East Asia into Indonesia (the recent discovery of the ‘hobbit’ skeletons on some of the Indonesian islands). Also pygmy like remains have been found in all of the Americas. This is documented in “African Presence in Early
Europe”, “African Presence in Early America”, and also “The Spiral Dance.” The above books point to the fact that there was a cross over period in European history where pygmies lived in proximity to the taller human. And the taller humans probably had a hand in ther demise yet they lived on in memory.

This crossover probably happened all over the world. In some places the pygmies retreated, in other areas they were whiped out, and in some areas they just disappeared. The stories of their existence being passed down from generation to generation until no one remembered exactly what they were. And thus fairies became memories.

And memories are mutable. They are dreams. They are essence. In some stories the fairies are the fallen angels who didn’t fight against God yet didn’t fight for him either. In other stories they are the land dreaming of man before the creation of man. In some areas they are degenerative deities or the children of deities after man has stopped believing in gods.

In the purest form fairies are the essence of dreams. With colonialism and imperialism, slavery
and genocide the dreams of Original people have been robed from them. With only fairies drapped in European garb one starts to think that only white people are allowed to dream. We just have to remember that our dreams are hidden. They are wandering in the recesses of our minds. We have to remember the right words to coax them out. We’ve always had fairies.

Continued in Lunewing (pg 15)

credit: Illustration within ivy frame, and story by Tiffany Osedra ‘Bassagirl’ Miller

CONJOO

(An Overture)

by

Tiffany Osedra Miller

Copyright 2010

Tonight, Conjoo island twists and writhes with the cackle-horn blows and stin-stin beats of Bacaban-Fairy songs. The Conjooners hear the soft
overtures to these songs just moments before the Bacaban-Train
arrives and the Re-membering begins.

Who can? We can!

Because we’re Bacaban

Who can? You can!

Because you love Bacaban

“The Bacaban have come early this year!” announces the Long-Legged Stidgeon, pausing beneath a Joontree.

“Isn’t it wonderful?!” shout a chorus of Galfellow Flowers, gathered together beneath the tentaclegs of the Stidgeon. The
Galfellows, shaking with the rhythm of the song, clasp their petals
together and open their eyes.

Who can? We can!

Because we’re Bacaban

“Wonderful? I don’t know about that! It’s much too early for Bacaban. We’re not ready. We’re not ready.” The Stidgeon
march-runs across the beach and across the surface of the water,
dropping below the horizon, then diving into its underwater home.

“We’re never ready for them, even when we know they’ll come,” say the Galfellow flowers in unison. The Stidgeon can no longer hear
them because the Bacaban songs have grown louder.

Listen:

All of this land

Blessed by Bacaban

Cry, when we cry

It’s for Shummingfly.

Black, we so black

As the Nightingjack

Twinkling lights infect the petals of the Galfellows, sending tremors through their stems. Each grain of sand opens its ears and eyes and the
Conjooners begin to suffer great bouts of imagination.

“Oh, how I want to be a fish,” the Whistle-flower whists.

“I want to be a Mountain!” shouts the diminutive Rose.

“I want to be the shining Sun,” says the Sunflower. They all laugh shaking their leaves until their laughter is drowned out by the
Bacaban-Train’s whistle.

The silver Bacaban Train comes winding through the island, like the Someday-Salamander. If you touch it, your hands, petals or
claws will turn into lights that won’t turn off until the sun rises
in the morning.

Tanty, the Black Ant Queen stops her descent through the winding paths when she hears the songs. Her entire colony becomes silent.
She turns to her children, most of them grown now. A question
she knows the answer to glistens in the pitch of her eyes.

“It’s the Bacaban!” they yell, like common bug-children. The ants run along their paths, nearly pushing Tanty aside but she stops
them with a stern tilt of her head and ascends to the apex of the
anthill. She peers out onto the island. The island’s fever is
rising, cooling the air underground.

“And so it is,” she says when she spies the Bacaban through the windows of their train. She wonders to herself why, though the
fairies seem to age and have hieroglyph-like wrinkles neatly roped
through their black skin, they never seem to lose their lights.

It is never easy when the Bacaban-Fairies come.

In the midst of their bacchanal, their mischief and mockery, their well-wishes and songs of spirit and love, they open up a tender
place. When they leave (and they always do, because they insist
they must) they leave behind the droppings of their unrequited
dreams, which mix with our own.

Listen:

“I want to be the Crowspus River,” announces the young field mouse.

“I want to touch the Heavens,” sings the sparrow.

“I want to be a house!” bellows the slug.

The first Bacaban emerges from the train. Her dark skin glows with a light behind it that rivals the moon. Some Conjooners
secretly wonder if the Moon is her sister. Her eyes, like most
of the Bacaban, emit black delicious lights that wander around the
island, searching for places to enchant. The Conjooners
wave to her.

“Hello Acaravanna!” But she doesn’t smile or wave back. Instead, she begins to flutter and sing in a low unrecognizable chant, her
little body bending into a dance imitating the movements and sounds
of the Shummingfly.

“Eh-eh, now what could be the meaning of this?” Spider Rock asks itself.

Many Conjooners instead of running to embrace the Bacaban-Fairies, as they usually would, remain mired in their roots. The Bacaban come
only once a year and they never imitate the Shummingfly, mockingly or
otherwise.

The Bacaban dances before the African Violets now, who shake their petal-heads with a mixture of confusion and delight until Tingro,
their leader, says to the dancer:

“You must stop this, now. You’ll anger them.”

“Where are the Shummingflies, anyway?” asks the Spider Rock. “I haven’t seen any of them around for a long while.” But the
dancer, oblivious to the questions, continues her Shummingfly dance
while other Bacaban-Fairies bless the ground around her.

Below the ground, the ants begin their ascent out of the anthill to witness the dancing Bacaban, Acaravanna, dance to the tune of the
Paraswan-whistle. Her little body moves with mourning and
matches the baroque pata-pata-rastatat rhythm of the
Stinny-Drum. The Stin –Beats produced by the
Music-caste Bacaban (a group of fairies so ethereal in appearance you
could mistake them for a warm Conjoo Island Breeze) pulse through the
entire island.

Yes, the garden glows with light tonight on the island planet called Conjoo, an island filled with animals and flowers, now overrun with
weeds and Bacaban.

Before the first arrival of the Bacaban, Conjoo had been a regular, dusty, un-enchanted island-planet. It hung in a corner of the sky like
a tumbleweed. Colorless, fruitless and barren, it was inhabited
by Stidgeons. Long before this, it had hummed with life from
the presence of the Shummingfly who built up the island into a
majestic place where great learning occurred. It was this
learning that produced the Bacaban, though the Bacaban would tell you
it was the other way around. A Bacaban would say that they were
there before anyone – that they built up Conjoo only to have it
swallowed up by lava from Filligus Volcano. Some
Conjooners might say that a Shummingfly and a Bacaban are quite the
same thing. But it isn’t true. Is it?

Oh Acaravanna! Great Peacock-Bacaban look at her wings as she moves them. The moonlight streams vibrant colors: deep
purples, greens and reds. Look at her great black beauty,
her antler-crown, a deep Shummingfly-sadness in her fluttering eyes.

The moonlight hovers above the Conjoo Ocean. A group of long-legged Stidgeons rise from beneath the water, dip their heads beneath the
horizon line and walk across the water to the island forest where the
train has stopped and where many of the Beings of Conjoo watch the
Shummingfly movements of Acaravanna. After she reaches the end
of her dance, she bows her head in prayer. All of Conjoo
stands, or sits, in silence.

Tanty, losing her patience, crawls up to the praying Acaravanna.

“What is it, Acaravanna? What has happened to the Shummingflies?”

“They’re gone,” she says, raising her head from her prayers, “all of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“We received notice today of their extinction.” A chorus of gasps escapes from the Conjooners.

“Who notified you?” asks Jinti, the Stidgeon.

“Monyo,” whispers Nester, a senior Bacaban.

“Monyo! But Monyo’s a Shummingfly,” shouts the slug. “If they’re extinct, how is it possible that they delivered this message?”

Nester turns toward Acaravanna, who looks away.

“We’ve come to pay our respects. Conjoo was their homeland. They are our ancestors.”

“Did you not hear the Slug’s question? Did-Did you not? How can a Shummingfly deliver a message when it is extinct?” asks
Jinti. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at
all.”

“This is not easy to explain. We come to honor the Shummingfly. Their presence on Conjoo has helped extend the work we carry on year
after year to ensure that this island remains enchanted. But,
in recent years, most of the Shummingflies ceased to aid us in our
work. Why? Because they were dying. When a
Shummingfly or a Bacaban-Fairy dies, a place loses its imagination.
Remember when the entire island would rise up, taller than the
Stidgeon, revealing hidden legs, and start to travel? Do
you recall a time when the flowers and plants in the garden moved
from place to place, and doors opened in the trees, revealing world
upon worlds hidden in the narrow bark of each? And there were
so many more wonders. Year after year, we Bacaban brought our
bacchanal and the Shummingfly continued it. But gradually
they ceased and none of you noticed.”

“Of course we noticed!” cries Jinti, his small head knocking the overripe Joon fruit off of a Joontree, “but what could we
do?”

In an earlier time, the Bacaban and the Shummingflies worked together: the Bacaban brought their magic from another place and the
Shummingflies continued to spread it; they preached the magic of the
Bacaban, though they often felt powerless to perform the magic on
their own.

“Monyo is dead like the rest of them, isn’t he?” Jinti asks Acaravanna, and she nods her antler-head. “So how did you speak to him,
then?”

“Have you already forgotten our teachings? Everything speaks. You only have to listen.”

A great heat descends, becoming a mist that rubs itself into the skin of the island and its inhabitants. A voice off in the distance
calls and shouts. A looming dark shadow appears in the
Joontree.

“Monyo!” shrieks the slug. Jinti and the other Stidgeons run away, deep into the forests of the island, but quickly return to find the
Bacaban with their heads down, kissing the ground, before the
angel-apparition.

“This is the Great Re-membering of what all of Conjoo, including those great carnival -conjurers, the Bacaban, have struggled to forget: we
are one, conjoined race.

We die, you die

Because you’re Shummingfly

Try to deny you are Shummingfly

You believe you soar high

above the Shummingfly.”

The Bacaban move closer together and the rest of the Conjooners move away from them.

“We’ve come to honor you and your people, Monyo, with song and dance,” pleads Nester.

“My people are your people!” Monyo yells.

Continued on page 35 in Lunewing.

Peace ^_^

Click the image to visit the announcement post @ UU, if you haven’t seen it yet. You can now read the online installment of Lunewing before the download and print editions are made available. There are magnificent scribes in these pages. Enjoy.

The call for the second installment comes in the Summer months <3

I began writing speculative fiction around 1981, but sporadically. I was primarily concerned with poetry and with mainstream fiction. Then I grew to understand that the issues that concerned me — honor, virtues, nobility, endurance— were best dealt with in speculative fiction. Plus I had a knack for creating worlds. 
Whether it’s science fiction, fantasy, alternate reality, steampunk or urban fantasy, the genre of speculative fiction is — at the very least— an examination of culture. Unfortunately most of the genre has been written by the predominant culture, and deals with the concerns of that majority culture. Although people of color share many of those concerns — fear of the unknown, awe or trepidation about the future of the cosmos, etc— there are some issues that are rarely dealt with from the viewpoint of people of color . 
When minority writers or writers of color write, they highlight issues the larger culture may not have explored. I understand that a good story will touch upon something that connects to every reader. So I’m not saying that White writers aren’t capable of writing about alienation and isolation or about being in the minority, But there’s a certain joy I receive in reading a story with someone very like me as the protagonist. And I suspect others feel the same way, especially young people. For me, it generally, it doesn’t matter what minority culture the main character belongs to. I recently saw Ping Pong Playa and was really thrilled. Perhaps it’s because we live in a multicultural country but something in us cries out to see how other cultures live their lives. We’re probably just tired of seeing middle class white lives. 
Visit Lady Carole @ www.carolemcdonnell.blogspot.com
Enjoy her mythwhispering via Amazon.

We contacted some of the authors that wrote faery-based stories for the anthology not seen in the 1st view we released on 5/10, that we thought would like to share why the mythwhisper, and wrote stories for Lunewing. Valjeanne Jeffers is one of these contributors. Well known in Lycan circles as the author of Immortal, she crafted an engaging tale introducing us to her trolls, winged ones, and even mermaids in her piece for the antho.

She sent us this response:

‘I’ve been writing stories since I was around nine or ten years old. As a little girl I loved stories of the paranormal too. During the 1990s I rediscovered my love of SF reading folks like Octavia Butler and Tananarive Due. When I caught the “fire” and started writing fiction again it had to be speculative fiction. I’m in love with this genre — in love with stories of the fantastic and strange.

In the 21th century there are very still few characters like us, and out of this small pool many are post-modern “Step-and Fetchits” (stereotypes). This is why speculative fiction is so important. This genre helps us to see outside reality, to say: what if? It helps us to imagine and create spectacular, wondrous realms, step back and find the beauty and wisdom there, and then transform our own space.

We need to dream, and we need our writers to help us to dream. Even if – especially if – these dreams are of fantastic, imaginary creatures and happenings. We need this because dreaming can be an escape. One should never underestimate the power of escape. Imagine a child living in squalor, and escaping into pages of a novel. Or a slave reading by lamplight and envisioning her freedom. Or a man working as a sharecropper, and at sunset telling his story with harmonica. We all need to escape, at least sometimes, into the worlds of those who dream like us, who understand us; who look like us. To paraphrase B.B. King, we need authors who get us where we live. Second of all dreaming helps us to change. If you can dream it, you can do it. You can move yourself and your corner of life forward.’

Scroll down to see Valjeanne’s excerpt among a few of the other excerpts from stories coming in the second part of the first installment, and click the link in ‘The Visitor’ excerpt to visit her network AAR.

Peace *_^

Before the full Lunewing release is downloadable, a few boons within its dimension will be extended for the innerchild’s splendor.

Click the image to download the Paperdoll from the UbatiMweze Black faery group @ Wagadu.

huemindfantastic:

The LuneWing intro is served.

Check back for more of the melinated splendors in two weeks :D

Also, new posts in the UbatiMweze group in Wagadu:

The Trade

Afrikan Trees

Check back for posts from the satellites, and excerpts from the next part of Lunewing ( the Black Faery Anthology installment).