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In a conversation this week, I was reminded again how mainstream academia doesn't consider speculative literature to be as respectable or of the same literary worth as what's called "literary fiction." U.S. culture traditionally looks down on us spec authors as not as refined and our works as not "worthy." Latino academics react much the same. [There's not one list of spec lit. I use: fantasy/sci-fi, magical realism, horror, alternate-world, paranormal and fables, at least.]
The argument goes like this. "Serious" book writers create literary sorts of books and are "better" writers. All of the most prestigious awards for fiction each year go to works of Literary Fiction. Genre Fiction, like spec lit, is "only for entertainment." Literary Fiction separates itself from Genre because it is not about escaping from reality, but provides a means to better understand the world and delivers real emotional responses. "Serious" works of literature are for highbrow, literary readers who believe genre fiction does not have much merit.
Of course, as a writer or reader, you don't need to choose between Latino spec or Latino literary works. You read and write what you want.
At the same time, out in the real world, Hollywood, cable and TV companies are on spec lit like moscas on mierda. You know that Hunger Games, Lord of Rings, Guardians of the Galaxy, and network TV shows like Extantand Touch--of my faves--proliferate, seemingly without end. Teen vampires, ghosts and zombies are everywhere on Netflix and cable, except in classrooms. Literary agents and publishers want to represent the next J.K. Rowling, maybe even a Latino one.
Mainstream, literary Latino lit is also still alive and has its audience and always will.
But what's new are the young people, our children and grandchildren, who drive many of the markets, including in movies, videogames, graphic novels and books in other forms. In videogames, 3 are Lego, 1 pirate, 1 auto, 1 war, 1 NBA, and 3 are spec-related, including #1 (SF war) and #2 (ghosts and Predator). 9 of the top 10 comics sold in Jan. were spec genre. Spec and War shared the top 10 in graphic novels in March. Right now there's no end in sight for the most sought-after stories that could become the next blockbuster.
I myself never sold 4 stories in the space of two years. So far this year, I've gotten 4 requests to submit to anthologies, which definitely don't result from my book sales. Ernesto Hogan is doing at least twice as well as me.
But the U.S. markets can't keep putting out the same ole white-hero stories, because many of our young people were raised or have become true internationalists. They hang with, date and marry across racial, class and cultural borders that were harder to cross in the last century. Yes, racism and prejudice are being enflamed in this country by right-wing vestiges of previous times. But the old fogies will die out. Will new young internationalists outnumber the new young prejudiced who inherited their worldview from dead parents? Time will decide that.
In the meantime and foreseeable future, Latino, and other, spec literature is a largely untapped source of new voices, perspectives, legends and unique cultures that interest the Anglo commercial world. They might shoot us on the streets, but they love J-Lo and Calle 13 and Mexican indigenous ruins and suck in the money from consumers looking for the exotic, the entertaining. The screen, for theaters or monitors, needs new material. And a lot of it will first appear in print and E-book.
This makes Latino spec authors ripe for the pickings. Every author is a desperate creature, willing to grovel for attention, publication or even a chance to read their works. Latino spec authors, maybe more so, speaking only for myself.
In the eastern U.S., latino and black authors are meeting, joining together and somewhat coalescing as collective entities. The legacy of slavery and U.S. Caribbean history naturally reflects the latino-black cultural and social ties. This has been manifested in Spec Cons, the We Need Diverse Books and some anthologies.
On this side of the Mississippi, peoples' cultures developed differently, especially from our heritage where Latinos link with our indio past, whether from here or Latin America. If Latino spec lit writers hang with their "better half," los indios, we may see something different develop than what has out East.
In the Southwest, our work, our specific peoples and cultures, we ourselves, are mestizo. It reminds me of José Vasconcelos vision of a raza cósmica that re-connects to its indio roots. Like Ernesto Hogan's Aztecofuturism stories.
Interest in Latino spec has taken off. There's new markets for it. It may not give such authors the respectability that literary authors receive, but young people, including Anglos, are ready for it. It can be "good" writing; it can be "serious, refined and worthy."
Just ask the next under-40-year-old if they'd buy into a videogame, comic, movie, cable series or graphic novel that was based on a spec book, written by a Latino, that had Latino and other characters. They'd probably answer, "If it was good, fun and exciting." They wouldn't say, "If it had literary worth."
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG
A while back, the subject of why there aren’t more Latino science fiction/speculative ficton/fantasy writers came up, and I don’t think we found a clear reason. It’s probably the same reason that we don’t see more Latino writers in general -- it’s usually not profitable, and we tend to end up doing other things just to survive. My father wrote, even published a few articles, but he had to work, keeping Flying Tiger Airlines’ planes flying to get the money to support his family. I imagine all Latino families have stories like that.
Another reason is that being a writer is something you are doomed to, like bearing the Mark of the Beast. I disagree with the cottage industry that claims anyone can be a writer if you just take their classes, go to their seminars and workshops, follow their rules and instructions. I don’t think that everyone should be a writer any more than we should all be bullfighters or astronauts. You gotta have the right stuff, cabrónes!
My idea of mentoring an aspiring writer is to say, “Okay! You wanna be a writer? Be a writer! Go do it!” Some of them do. Others need more help from me. If you need more help from me, you don’t have it. I feel like an old junkie listing to young hipsters saying, “I really want to get hooked, but I keep forgetting to take my shots . . .”
Encouraging people to be become writers is like helping them to become drug addicts -- a sort of Twelve-Step program in reverse.
I ended up a writer because I couldn’t quit. At age thirteen, I published a few letters in comic books, and I was hooked. From my typewriter to the world! What a thrill!
Lately I realize that I’m one of the most successful Chicano writers of my generation. If we narrow it down to science fiction, I’m number one!
It’s a cheap thrill I chuckle at as I work at my day job.
If I hadn’t had that taste of publication, I probably would have just done my creative stuff in private, like most Latinos. I ain’t no humble campesino toiling away in dignified anonymity -- if too long goes by without my being published, I get really depressed. And without thinking about it, I’m scanning for opportunities.
And I feel bad about my unpublished novels and stories.
Like Frankenstein’s monster, my career has a life of its own. It does things out in the world without my supervision. And these days, I spend more time managing it than writing.
And to think, once I believed I was a failure, after not being published in Nueva York, and only getting into print a few times a year (and not making much dinero at it). I got a full time job and slowed down -- or at least thought I was slowing down. Turns out I kept on publishing at the same rate as when I was knocking myself out.Also, it turned out that people actually read my novels and the weird, obscure magazines where my stories appeared. Some of them went on to become editors and publishers.
Now I’m working with a newfangled publisher in San Francisco, getting my novels ready for rerelease, and putting together a collection my short fiction.
All because I didn’t, and couldn’t, give up.
Still, I wish I was writing new stuff more of the time.
While going over my notes from my latest road trip with my wife, I felt good. Damn, I almost said aloud, I’m really good at Americana.
But then, when I do it, and put it out for the world to see, it becomes Chicanonautica. Even when readers don’t now anything about me, my point of view comes through loud and clear. I can’t help it.
In a motel in Flagstaff, I channel surfed through an alarming number of TV news stories about racism. An election is coming, and The Border is becoming an issue again. Rumors of cannibalism, human sacrifice, and Aztlán secessionistas are being dusted off, and thrown into the hysteria mills. As one of the anti-immigration protestors in Murrieta, California said, “We want to be safe.”
I’ve seen it happen in Arizona . . . a few Spanish words, some brown skin, and -- PANIC ATTACK!
And with the gradual militarization of The Border, who knows what kind of back up would be called?
So I shouldn’t be surprised when someone finds it odd that I’d write about America as an American, even though I was born in East L.A., but I’ve always resented it when someone decided that I didn’t look “American” enough for them.
I had mixed feelings when I saw Oscar Zeta Acosta in an anthology of “Latin American” writers. It was nice to see him with all those classy foreigners, but doesn’t he get to be considered an American writer?
Do I get to be considered an American writer?
Acosta had to sue Hunter S. Thompson to get his books published. It’s still not easy for a Chicano to break into the white man’s publishing industry.
What would happen if a Chicano wrote the Great American Novel? Our families have incredible stories of the American Dream.
Hmm . . . Could the Great American Novel be about an illegal alien? Because, aren’t we all illegal aliens under the skin, kemosabe?
Naw, better let it drop. New York wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. Another one of those brilliant ideas that “they” don’t know how to market.
Or are they just afraid?
Or maybe it’s just nostalgia for when American literature was hammered out by heroic, white, male alcoholics on manual typewriters, and U.S. immigration policies inspired the Nazis.
People wonder why I stick to surreal, pulpy sci-fi instead of going for proper literature . . .
Meanwhile, it’s time to check out the online coverage of La Fiesta de San Fermín AKA “The Running of the Bulls” in Pamplona. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises doesn’t do justice to what the Fiesta has evolved into. I’ve really got to get back to work on my futuristic bullfighting novel.
Ernest Hogan wishes a rapid and successful recovery to Bill Hillman, the American writer who was gored in Pamplona this week.
When my first novel The Closet of Discarded Dreams, a Chicano fantasy, received honorable mention last year, I felt lucky and honored. I'm not a contender this year, since I haven't had a novel published since. Still, on-screen, I can remember the feeling and hope some of my acquaintances do well, in my place. But only this year, remember.
Over the ruido of Las Vegas slots, the 2014 International Latino Book Award finalists will be announced this weekend. Here's some special Gritos! for books of friends, and contributors to La Bloga (may they have better luck on-stage than they do at the roulette table):
Señor Pancho Had a Rancho, René Colato Laínez
Noldo and his Magical Scooter at the Battle of The Alamo, Armando B. Rendón
Our Lost Border: Essays on Life Amid the Narco-Violence, Sarah Cortez & Sergio Troncoso
What the Tide Brings, Xánath Caraza
Good Money Gone, Mario Acevedo [w/Richard Kilborn]
Mañana Means Heaven, Tim Z. Hernandez
Desperado: A Mile High Noir, Manuel Ramos
The Old Man’s Love Story, Rudolfo Anaya
Ghosts of the Black Rose, Land of Enchantment 2, Belinda Vasquez Garcia
Reyes Cárdenas: Chicano Poet 1970-2010, Reyes Cárdenas
 |
| Sylvia Moreno-Garcia |
Another latina finalist. In Canada!
The novel This Strange Way of Dying by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was short-listed for The Sunburst Award Society for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, 2014.
The Sunburst Award jury said: "Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s short story collection This Strange Way of Dying is a grimoire of the beautifully macabre, capable of summoning up strange worlds imbued with the secret fears and thrills we try to bury in shadow. Moreno-Garcia’s words on the page whisper sweet seductions, inviting the reader to open doorways to her or his subconscious and become familiar with things that have been estranged.
This Strange Way of Dying bridges the divides between science fiction, horror, and fantasy, opening readers to the overall power of the uncanny, whether through Lovecraftian stories of summoning darkness, feathered snakes, vampires, necromancers, resurrected soldiers, witchcraft, or tales of murder and betrayal. Silvia Moreno-Garcia makes the mundane magical, the normal strange, and points out the macabre foundations of our social myths. This Strange Way of Dying opens funhouse mirrors, revealing for the reader her or his own distorted image, changed by the experience of reading.
Sylvia Moreno-Garcia is a writer, editor, and publisher who was born in Mexico but now lives in British Columbia. This Strange Way of Dyingis her first collection; her debut novel, Signal to Noise, will be published in 2015.
BIG Lástima:
On Facebook I claimed I'd be featured in an NPR broadcast yesterday. I lied. Due to broadcast quality, it didn't happen. Sorry, because it might have been my fault, what with doing the phone interview outside on the patio and my dog's barking. See last Saturday's post for info I would've given.
Es todo, hoy,
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on 2/28/2014
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Latino Sci-Fi1-day Conference!
University of Calif.-Riverside
Wed. April 30, 2014
To my knowledge, this is the first event dedicated to Latino Sci-Fi Lit. I'm excited by the possibilities. Given some of the presenting authors, I would guess that other Latino Spec Lit might also be discussed.
Please help spread the word to those interested in Latino SciFi. If you are in the L.A. area and can attend, come and add your input, por favor. You can check the presenters' websites for their works.
The event will be free and open to the public. More info on LaBloga as it becomes available and at UC-Riverside's calendar.
by Guillermo Luna
[What follows is a response to Rudy Ch. Garcia’s blog post, A Latino’s Chance in Hell of getting published? La Bloga understands that every author's career is unique. Some La Bloga's authors have agents or are seeking one. This guest post describes Luna's experience with the companies mentioned and the decisions he made about lit agents.]
I found Rudy Garcia’s post interesting because I was able to get my book published in December of 2013 and it was the first book I had ever written. In retrospect, it wasn’t nearly as hard as it should have been. The way I went about getting published was like this: first, I tried to figure out what would be commercial. I was reading Draculaby Bram Stoker at the time so I figured maybe I should write a book about a monster. You can’t go wrong with monsters, right? I also had no desire to write literary fiction since “pretty” sentences aren’t my game. I’m too manly for pretty sentences. Snork!
My writing began in 2008 but the biggest surprise about the whole writing process occurred in 2010 when I bought the 2010 Writers Market book and subsequently discovered that nobody wanted to read my book. The nobodies I’m referring to in that sentence are agents.
In 2010 my book, The Odd Fellows, wasn’t ready to be read by anyone but like all first time writers I was eager to get it published and fantasized that my book would sell millions of copies. Wisely, I wasn’t completely delusional and continued to rewrite my book for another 2 years even as I sent it out. I created an excel spreadsheet in order to keep track of where my book went and how the individuals who received it responded. I would suggest all writers do this.
Agents and publishers usually wanted between 5 pages and the entire book submitted to them for review. That’s what I sent to a total of 26 agents and publishers. (I submitted my book to Arte Publico Press twice because I was sure they would publish it. I was wrong. Foundry Literary+Media responded twice even though I only submitted once. They wanted to drive home that “no,” I guess.) I did receive a yes from Txxx publishing (even though they hadn’t read my entire book) but they required that I pay a fee to have my book publish. I don’t remember how much it was but it was somewhere around $2,100.00. I said, “No, thank you” but I did, crazily, consider it.
I also received a yes from Axxxxxxx Bay (even though they didn’t read my entire book either) but that publisher wanted to know how many Facebook friends I had and wanted me to acknowledge everyone I knew in the book’s acknowledgements because, “each and every one of those people will buy a copy of your book.” Also, he didn’t want to edit my book. He wanted me to find someone to edit my book (and pay for this service). I figured if I was going to pay to have my book edited I should self-publish and take all the profits. The final strike against this publisher was when I looked at the mug shots of the writers on the publisher’s website. All had long, unhappy faces. I’m way too happening to be part of a group like that!
Ten months later I signed a contract with Bold Strokes Books. I was certainly apprehensive about signing the contract (because I had never been in this situation before) and it took me almost a month to sign but it was a very smart move on my part. At every step along the way Bold Strokes Books allowed me to have the final say. The book that I wrote and that Bold Strokes Books published, The Odd Fellows, is the book I wanted “out there.”
The Odd Fellows is the book that was in my head. I’m very fortunate that I found a publisher for my book and what helped me get there was a book called, Ditch the Agent by Jack King. If I hadn’t stumbled upon his website I might still be unpublished. It never really occurred to me that publishers might look at a manuscript without an agent yet some publishers are willing to do just that. Jack King’s website pointed that out to me. I stumbled upon Jack King’s website sometime in September of 2011 because from that point on I no longer contacted agents. Instead, I contacted publishers. Between September 2011 and June 2012 I contacted six publishers, two said yes and I signed with one of them, Bold Strokes Books.
Advice I would give new writers would be:
1) Continue to rewrite your book even as you send it out. It can always be better.
2) Make an excel spreadsheet of who you send it to and their response. This alleviates confusion.
3) Don’t waste time trying to get an agent. Go directly to publishers.
I honestly feel God was looking out for me the day I stumbled onto Jack King’s website. I don’t know if Heaven is a place on earth but it felt like I was in heaven when I held my book in my hands for the very first time.
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG
October 6th, 2012
featuring best-selling authors and music performances, including Denver Sound’s
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
concert with Rocky Mountain PBS Channel 6
In anticipation of the new 2013 Americas Latino Festival to take place in Boulder, October, 2013, a preview event will be launched today, October 6th, 2012 on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.
The preview event features a presentation by festival director Irene Vilar, a Guggenheim Fellow and Latino Book Award winner, and a talk by best-selling author Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., recognized as a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature.
The program includes a piano recital of Music across the Americas, a musical intermezzo of the Colombian folkloric group Tucandirá, and a performance of Denver Sound band Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. All events take place inside the Black Box theater of the ATLAS Institute building on campus. Events are free and open to the public, with the exception of the Slim Cessna’s Auto Club concert, which will be recorded for Rocky Mountain PBS Channel 6 as part of the newly released Boulder Box Set series. Tickets for that event can be purchased at $20/$50 through www.americaslatinofestival.org.
The America for the Arts festival will take place October 3-6, 2013 at the University of Colorado Boulder. Over 75 speakers in the areas of human rights and justice, conservation, science, literature, music, visual arts, and film will participate in this event committed to promoting a panamerican consciousness and cross cultural understanding. The 2013 region: Mexico & the Caribbean. Theme: The Exhaustion of the Earth.
Among those confirming attendance for the 2013 event are: Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Junot Diaz, best-selling authors Isabel Allende, Mayra Santos Febres, and Cristina Garcia,
Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal, Guggenheim Fellow and International Literature Award Winner Daniel Alarcon, author and film director Lucia Puenzo, Babelfilm director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Future of Food producer Deborah Garcia, actor and film producer Benicio del Toro, Guggenheim Fellow Laura Restrepo, Pulitzer Prize winner playwright Nilo Cruz, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and NPR Latino USA anchor Maria Hinojosa, Latin Grammy Award winner Nestor Torres, PBS NewsHour anchor Ray Suarez, and McArthur Genius Grant fellows: installation artist Pepe Osorio, percussionist Dafnis Prieto, jazz saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenon, photographers Camilo Jose Vergara and Susan Meiseles, and Nobel Laureates Derek Walcott and Mario Vargas Llosa. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Mirta Ojitowill cover the event for the national press.
---------------
Bloguero authors in L.A.
Rudy Ch. Garcia will be joining fellow Blogueros Daniel Olivas, author of The Book of Want and children's books author René Colato Laínez (his latest,
Let's Play Football / Juguemos al futból
) at the Latino Book & Family Festival, next Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012, on the Calif. State University campus, Dominguez Hills.
Olivas' panels: Writing in Multiple Genres (10:00am) and How To Get Published (1:00, Garcia, too!). Laínez' panels: Using Multicultural Literature in the Home & Classroom (10:00am) and What's New in Children's Picture Books (1:00). Garcia will also be on the Great Young Adult Fiction panel (3:00). This year the event is being held in conjunction with La Feria Es El Momento - Edúcalos, presented by KMEX Univision. Check the program at the event for readings or signings.
After that, Garcia heads to San Anto, Austin & Houston, Oct. 25-31 on his book tour: River Oaks Bookstore, Fri. Oct. 26 in Houston; and Southwest Workers Union, Sun. Oct. 28 and Palo Alto College, Tue. Oct. 30 in San Anto.
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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
A lot of food for thought here. I may have to re-read it, and make notes for future Chicanonauticas. We need to make contact with the Spanish-speaking, sci-fi world -- there are several blogs en español that I'm following . . . As for this side of the Border, it's an interesting story -- my dad read science fiction magazines in East L.A. back in the Forties -- in the Seventies, some Chicano activists though that sci-fi and technology were tools of the Anglo oppressors. Of course, today Chicano hackers are part of Aztlán landscape. I guess I have some work to do . . .
And I almost forgot! Spic Spec Fic! I can see it on a book cover!
I'm Boricua, I read sci-fi and am writing a sci-fi screenplay.
You have better things to do than to fret about a review. A review, good or bad, doesn't make the story any better or worse. It is what it is.
By co-inky-dink, the current issue of The New Yorker has a "sci-fi" (somebody doesn't like that term, really?)theme and, sabes que, there's a story by the one and only Junot Diaz (and also stories/articles by Jonathem Lethem, Anthony Burgess, Ray Bradbury (QEPD), Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, etc. Le Quin's article talks about the gender ghetto of science fiction - I think her point is to write good stuff and it will be read.
STUPID WET BACKS ALL OFF YOU ESTAN CAGANDO PALO SIEMPRE Y SE SIENTEN MUY CHINGONES SWALLOW COCKS AND STAY AWAY FROM US STUPID DICKHEADS
I used to not like science fiction literature, thinking that writers didn't have to go to outer space to find characters, settings and conflicts worth writing about, when we have all of the above aplenty here on earth. "Childhood's End" changed all of that. Then I realized that I liked science fiction films and that I had a limited view of science fiction lit (bug-eyed monsters). I'm now aware of the breadth of the lit genre, from hardwired to gutterpunk and have a lot of respect for its writers. How's this for a character arc: I'm the author of "Destiny's Quest: Transformation" a YA novel manuscript about a teenager who discovers that she has powers and has to rescue her brother from some hybrid monsters.
I recently watched the movie 'Prometheus' with my girlfriend and she mentioned that there was no Brown jente in the film. I noticed right away as well but I didn't expect there to be any. This lead me think about the very topic you bring up about the lack of Sci-Fi literature coming from the Latino community. I remember hearing about the term afro-futurism from a companera and I thought about what that might encompass and thought it would be great idea to incorporate that genre into the Brown community and fully develop the concept. I thought about a world in which various Barrios began to create a community based on healthy lifestyles that would promote quantum leaps into autonomous education. This education would give the access to leaps and bounds into a world that would be a truly advanced civilization. My imagination went wild when I thought of the ancient indigenous cultures that had existed and the Barrios coming into full contact with these lost knowledge systems. What would happen if they re-examined these ancient knowledge systems and incorporated them into their daily live and synthesized something completely unique and free from conventional advanced technology. This is a topic I feel that is worth touching on because its not a popular idea I feel and gets easily overlooked because of the social stigmas conceived of the Brown communities. That is why the potential of a truly rich sci-fi story coming from the Barrios could and will blow away wigs.
So interesting. I was just talking about this with Rene Saldana and David Bowles at TLA last month. I am Latina, Mexicana actually. My second novel, Summer of the Mariposas from TU Books is fantasy/ magical realism, and I have another SF novel in the works, but I agree with you; we definitely, absolutely, positively need more Hispanics writing SF.