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On Thursday, bloguista Ernesto Hogan's posted Chicanonautica: Latino/a Rising about the prospective publication, Latino/a Rising, called "the first collection of U.S. Latino/a science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres."
Editor Matthew David Goodwin already accepted stories by Kathleen Alcalá, Ana Castillo, Junot Díaz, Ernesto Hogan, Daniel José Older and Sabrina Vourvoulias, among others. If I can cut a story of mine down, and it makes the cut, the anthology will include my cross-genre Chicano/Mexica/alien/Diné SF/F/folklore tale, whose title doesn't matter yet. But even if mine doesn't make the cut, the anthology deserves and needs more support, not only mine.
Latino/a Rising currently has 66 Backers who've pledged $2,553 of the $10,000needed to reach their goal. Only 14 days remain. Thus, this first-time Latino publication will happen only with more backers. With your support, whoever and whatever you are.
Whatever you call yourself--latino, chicano, mexicano, Mexican-American, Hispanic, pocho, puertoriqueño, dominicano, or quién-sabe-qué-más --you should contribute to support your gentereach a readership that we have been historically shut off from.
If you want to see latinoheroes and heroines on the big screen, instead of the dominant Anglos or acceptable Asians, supporting latino lit can get such stories in front of the film industry. For instance, before it was a movie, Blade Runner was a short story. It happens to short story writers, just not often for latino writers. Yet. You can help change that. heroeshttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2019038492/latino-a-rising
Even if you individually are not sure you like science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres, but want your kids, young relatives and all latino youth to have such stories available to them, you should support this. We, and especially the youth, need more diversity in literature. Like Junot Díaz explains, we especially need Inclusion, where the main characters are latinos, not just the minority guy who's going to be the first one killed by the monster.
This Kickstarter campaign has the usual incentives--copies of the E-book, the print edition, T-shirts, etc.--so if for no other reason, your contribution will add goodies to your stash of Xmas or birthday gifts.
Now, for all of you non-latino readers and writers, here's the last suggestion. If you basically agree that latino writers should have more access to publication, you can contribute to this anthology to make that a reality. Period.
I'd guess that whoever contributes, for whatever reason, the present line-up of authors and the explosive possibilities of spec lit will make your contribution worth more than you can imagine. Maybe even more than the authors did. I'm already imagining what a book-signing event of Latino/a Rising will look like with authors Kathleen Alcalá, Ana Castillo, Junot Díaz, Ernesto Hogan, Daniel José Older and Sabrina Vourvoulias up front. [Check it out--so many women?] And maybe me. If I can just make this damn long story shorter...
Please help spread the word by Sharing and forwarding on your networks. Gracias.
Es todo hoy, because I have a story I have to trim. Chingos.
RudyG, aka Rudy Ch. Garcia, possibly appearing in an upcoming anthology you made possible
by Rudy Ch. GarciaEver have one of those mornings when you realize--what? That you shouldn't have done something last night. That you don't remember what you did. That you don't know where the chingaus you are or how you got wherever the chingada you are. And maybe you're even scared to turn around? Well, that's how my fantasy novel The Closet of Discarded Dreams begins. Then everything gets worse.
Today I'll probably receive the first copies of the book. It might be like all the Xmases ever, all combined into the opening of one gift, from a publisher, but nevertheless as latent with emotion as anything I probably ever received from Santa.
In a week, on Sept. 16th at Su Teatro's Denver Civic Theater I will do the premier reading and wonder and wonder how it will be received. In preparation for that and to commemorate holding a copy in my hands in a few hours, below is part of the first chapter, the opening to the novel. In the Denver Metro area, I'd encourage people to request the book from Tattered Cover Bookstore, since it only became available to stores in the last couple of days.
If you like what you read here and want to read more, spread the word, twitter and friend and like away to your networks, family and co-workers. Given logistical problems of not getting the book earlier, I assume it won't make the Colorado bestseller list. We'll just have to see.
When I opened my eyes I immediately realized I wasn’t in my bedroom, or in anyone else’s for that matter. From about twenty feet up, a seemingly endless ceiling overshadowed me, sparkling all star-like. It reminded me of a colossal version of an old Westside San Anto bowling-alley-turned-Mexican-dance hall, except no salsa blared here, nor did any banda play. Drunk like a borracho on a titanic waterbed, I floundered atop a never-ending loose collection of gear, goods, and possessions amassed in all directions.
My muscles not responding well, I must’ve looked like a stupid action figure in some messy kid’s closet. The ocean of stuff glutted my vision, overwhelming my mind. These sensations and images flashed through me like a dream—no, a nightmare—yet I felt conscious. In which case, what was all this chingadera and where in Gringolandia had I landed?
As I struggled to sit up, on my left I toppled over the heavy gold pieces of a nine-foot-square chessboard—of ebony and ivory? On the other side I squished an opened box of chocolates that reeked of liqueur. I wiped my hand on the mink coat lying there and smelled my palm—definitely Amaretto and Kahlua. Strange since I’d never had a sense of smell in a dream. I wiped the stuff off on my jeans and shook my head to try to get straight. Then I gave myself a cachetada hard enough to sting my cheek, and rubbed and stretched it. Nada of the surroundings changed. No, this felt nothing like a dream.
Facing me, as well as to my right, the distant horizon shimmered. I’d somehow awoken in a humongously long box, unfathomable miles across in two directions. Everywhere between me and the distance, piles of goods rose like a consumer society’s ultimate graveyard, leaving but ten feet of suffocating space overhead.
Now I felt like a forsaken knick-knack in some hoarding giant’s garage, stacked almost ceiling-high. In my mind, the stunted headroom choked off the horizontal boundlessness, threatened to crush me with claustrophobia. I wanted to puke, heave hard and bad, but forced it back down and swallowed. The nausea went away.
I followed the twinkling, pale ceiling to where it ran into a more exposed, orange wall behind me and a yellow one to the left. My eyes and brain couldn’t accept that the planes met at right angles, like this enclosure might be hexagonal or something. I shook my head again and squinted but the angles fluctuated worse. To boot, the disorientation wasn’t only in my head. My skin, my bare feet, my gut, didn’t feel normal. A hangover from an exotic drug I should never have tried? I couldn’t remember doing such a thing.
Fact was I couldn’t remember anything I’d recently done—last night, yesterday, the past week and for much longer. Maybe I’d been drugged with something that had wiped out my memory. So besides being lost, I had some kind of amnesia? And where the chingaus had my socks and shoes gone to? Had I gotten rolled? I checked for a wallet and found nothing, or anything in the other pockets.
Worried that if I stood I’d lose my footing on the stuff, I stayed crouched, scanning for someone or something familiar. I made out a third wall miles away but just barely, like this hazy place was gargantuan enough to have several climates, with fog in front of me and what looked to be a mirage to the far right. Between me and those distant walls, perpendicular shafts of darkness regularly sundered the background, pillars of black light rising out of the ground as if to keep the flat canopy from collapsing. I could have used a pillar myself, to keep my balance.
I shook off the vertigo and inspected the Flooring, as I’d learn they called it. It was impossible to believe. No wood floor, carpet, tile or linoleum anywhere. No ground, no dirt. Just thousands—no, it must have been tens of thousands of…things sat on I couldn’t imagine how many millions of others. In that sense, the place resembled a humongous junkyard, but most items appeared to be whole, useable, many even new. Any man-made object of value seemed like it would be here somewhere. I tore my eyes from staring too long because it confused me—like speeding through a liquidation sale of valuables from mankind’s every era. Besides, I was in no shopping mood for anything, except information, something to get my bearings or understand what had happened and where the chingada in Aztlán I could be.
Subdued noises came at me from every direction, like my ears were partially plugged…but I didn’t think my hearing was the problem.
From fifty yards in front echoed the steady clicking of roller coaster wheels. The contraption hadn’t been there a minute before, I felt certain of that. It stretched for possibly miles on prairie-like slopes of goods, bearing but one screamer riding with his arms raised. Further back stood a short oil derrick with its gushes splashing the ceiling or gurgling oil that seeped into the underlying goods. A couple of men in black-drenched overalls whooped it up. At least those people acted like they knew where they were. Yet, I hesitated running to seek their help.
Sprinkled throughout as far as I could see, larger groups were involved in different activities. There looked to be parties, a tamalada, a videogame tournament or quieter mundane events, like some kind of business meeting and a wedding ceremony. Plus more—a courtroom trial, a monster truck rally, a team of fresco painters frenziedly at work, and further out a score of naked people obviously involved in an orgy. At the limits of my vision, the eclectic mix of goings-on melded into grayed blurs.
 |
| publicity photo |
More odd than all these oddities, was that the participants seemed totally involved in their own special thing, paying no attention to groups near them. As if they didn’t know they had neighbors. It was like I’d Google-mapped in real-time and max-zoomed on a world of suburban barbecues. A place where each backyard gathering pretended it existed in its own private mini world, despite the nearby competing commotion. Except, these people needed no eight-foot fences to aid the illusion and suburbia had never looked this loco. . .
Rudy Ch. Garcia will autograph and sign The Closet of Discarded Dreams at
Su Teatro's Denver Civic Theater
on Sunday, Sept. 16th
at 5:00pm, 721 Santa Fe Drive
A free event with refreshments and suavísimo door prizes.
A reading and book-signing of Rudy Ch. Garcia's
The Closet of Discarded Dreams
Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012, 2:00 p.m.
at the
National Hispanic Cultural Center
1701 4th Street SW
Albuquerque, Nuevo Mexico
For info: 505-246-2261
Some of my promotion efforts for my new book, like the above, have born fruit. I'm honored at the opportunity, but a little nervous at the prospect of the Hispanic Center's membership cringing when I utter the word Chicano. Hopefully the literary experience will be good for both of us. Their September events will be listed here soon.
By coincidence, I'm in the same publishing stage as Melinda Palacio who posted yesterday on La Bloga about turning in her final manuscript for her upcoming book of poetry, entitled How Fire Is a Story Waiting. I too just turned in the final for my upcoming novel, The Closet of Discarded Dreams. Dos frijoles in a pod?
By an even greater coincidence, Melinda graced our patio in Denver this past week at a small gathering of writers, artists and familia. In her post Melinda wrote how she preferred live readings and we were treated to a sampling of both her work and her voice. It wasn't the sing-song rendition that some poets perform, it was more hearing descriptions of thought and feeling from the poetess' own mouth. Four poems representing the book's four sections gave us a great experience of the literary lyrics in her book. I highly recommend not only buying it, but seeing and hearing her in person. Melinda was a delight.
With all the work preparatory to my book being released in September, my head and days seem to be filled with book business, if not the literary. And with little prospects for employment this next school year, my life seems to be transforming into something like the writer's life, albeit with little to no income to support it.
Last week on my front patio the Friday evening, end-of-week cervezas turned into a discussion about the of starting one's own publishing company to distribute one's novels. Manuel Ramos, Pocho Joe of KUVO La Raza Rocks fame (that you can stream on-line here), myself and a neighbor who's completed a novel batted around this idea, ending with an agreement to agree that every novelist should decide his own path. Goes to show you how deeply cervezas can uncover the ultimate truth.
And one morning this week, an aspiring author and I traded our entries for Esquire Magazine's 79-word story contest. (No entry fee, great prize and only a couple of weeks left to enter.) This was no reading out loud experience, but instead a process of reading each other's work to ourselves several times. Some authors prefer not to undertake this sharing, but I sometimes find it beneficial, as happened that day.
My initial promotion was a great success. The first 25 autographed, monogrammed and numbered copies of my novel have been spoken for. I now know I'll sell at least that many the first week it's out. About mid-September or earlier when it's available, I'll have to aim for 26. Possibly even more.
Over on The Closet of Discarded Dreams website, it's obvious that it's not easy to give away an autographed copy of a new book from a debut novelist. Maybe I made the rules too difficult, so I decided to change them to make it simpler. Below are the new ways to win, so I encourage La Bloga readers to enter.
Winning an autographed copy – now made easier!
Beginning Sept. 1st, readers can enter to win an autographed copy of The Closet of Discarded Dreams (continental U.S., only; an unsigned E-book or pdf for others), following its release in Sept., each week I’ll randomly pick one lucky person.
Here’s how: This novel is filled with dreams, nightmares, aspirations and passions that people have abandoned. DON’T send me one of yours. Instead just send 5 words or more that pertain to your dream or whatever. If you don’t have one, make it up; I won’t know the diff. Example: bicycle, monster, nighttime, my BFF, eating nachos. Simple, huh?
Fill out the “Contact the Author” form on the homepage, put “My dream” or nightmare, etc. in the Subject line. Send me your words in the Message box. I’ll blindly draw one winner. I’ll only announce the winner, not their words, unless you prefer to.
Feel free to pass this info along. And hurry before the Closet’s Door slams shut!
This week Facebook and Twitter sites should be ready for the book. Hope you "like" them.
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG
by Rudy Ch. Garcia
You're at a writers' conference and you finally get to ask your question--what was it like working with your first editor?--and the panelists give you some minutes and maybe a good story or joke and then they go on because there's lots of others like you and lots more questions. Below I relate more of the details you wish others had given.
I just finished four days on the first round of editor's mark-ups of my debut novel The Closet of Discarded Dreams. First came the dread, the dread of neophyte novelist anxious about what the editor will find! My description would be belied by Neil Gaiman, so I'll let him talk:
"The first problem of any kind of even limited success [RG-like first novels] is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you. It's Imposter Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened the Fraud Police.
 |
| Neil Gaiman |
Imposter Syndrome induced by the Fraud Police, in my case, my first editor, who maybe carries her own titanium clipboard, razor-edged. Would she bust me for mediocre prose, cardboard characters and MIA plot points? Would she run to the BIG editor and threaten to resign if I wasn't reassigned to someone younger who hadn't earned their clipboard, yet?
In the real world, you
can get busted by your story's editor. Earlier this year, one of my short stories came back ALL marked up, changed, critiqued, and probably had clipboard indentations that I didn't notice. At the end was a long note that described how many of the editor's hours and hours my weak writing had cost. I followed each of his notations and spent my hours and hours on rewrites, and to this date don't know if it will be published. So there.
Back to this editor-experience. I'm a fairly thick-skinned writer, given that it's gotten wrinkly, desiccated and flab-
uloso, so the editor's comments, suggestions and questions don't bother much. There's chingos of them, but, really, I expected more, and worse. Like something the Fraud Police might say, like "This book sucks." But not this time.
When I was less experienced, and thinner-skinned, so many ideas from someone else about MY writing would probably have raised the hairs on the back of my neck, gotten me to pull my feet up onto the chair in dread, or maybe made me rise off the chair to pace the whole patio, exclaiming, "That's not how I wrote it!" But I have more experience now--especially the experience of countless form-rejection letters that didn't provide opportunities to improve my prose.
That's exactly the point of editing, no? I didn't write it that way and somebody else who's providing a different perspective is telling me maybe I should have written it differently. They're also giving me one last chance to change, improve it.
So I spent hours in four days running my editor's gauntlet. Could I make it? I went thru and took care of the easy stuff, mostly punctuation and realizing things like, "Oh, that's not what that word means, exactly?"
In the next round I dealt with more significant edit remarks in the realm of, "Think about changing this word/phrase/sentence/paragraph because . . ." I've heard other authors talk about having a good editor, or their editor catching errors that the author didn't. I get to realize what that means and I go with the flow. Mostly.
Then I'm done, but only with my editor's eagle-eye catches. I have one saving round yet to tackle: what did the editor, and me before that, miss that somebody should have caught? To salvage my POWER, CONTROL, PERSONAL WORTH and prove to the world that this is MY stuff. This sounds somewhat like a passage from
The Closet of Discarded Dreams hero's suffering. It actually wasn't that melodramatic, but a bit of that sensation was there. And of course I do find stuff. And work into the late night, patio lights fixated on me, but my vision blurring from the moonlight, my wizard-brain and writer-soul in the flow 'cause this is what writers do, until it's . . . all . . . fixed. I gotta quit my day job! Oh, that's right--I don't have one!
Al final, I sent off the revisions yesterday. Await her final verdict. Hope it's close. Close to perfect is what some might wish for. I just want close to finished. Not because it's too boring or tiresome or demanding of a process. Because it's no different than raising a son or daughter, or a lot like putting the last layer of shellac on a carpentry project. I need to say
Finis and let the work stand on its own two or four legs, as the case may be. A writer's passion is to write--not linger and lounge and homestead a work--and then move on to new writing.
At this point, initial reaction from the editor is very positive. I'll get finals back from her tomorrow. Then, in some days, BIG editor will go over it. And the last round will begin. That's what I get for writing a novel, no? For wanting
el mundo to see it.
Qué no? Plus, at least so far, it was a much less agonizing experience than I would have imagined.
Then I'll be ready for: What new thing should I start writing? So I can get edited, again.
Esperamos. . .
Es todo, hoy,RudyG
Rudy Ch. Garcia's alternate-world epic recounts a Chicano's experience going through worse than his first editor, but maybe not as
bruto as your own as a
latino in
Gringolandia. The Closet of Discarded Dreams will be released Sept. 1 But
read this before you buy it.
By: Contributing Bloguistas:,
on 6/8/2012
Blog:
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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.
Es todo, hoy
RudyG
Where the heck is he? An inferno of things, 9 circles of suburbia where we don't know our neighbors? Good lead in, makes me what to find out what's happening.
S.
Congrats on the book. Hope you sell a million.
Muchas felicidades
Thanks, Eses,
RudyG
Congratulations and great television interview. See you on Sunday!