Monday Miscellany: 24 September 2018

A few links of interest from around the web:

Speculative Poets in Conversation: Holly Lyn Walrath

The Speculative Poets in Conversation Series features interviews with writers of science fiction and fantasy poetry about how their work addresses social justice issues. For the fourth post in the series, I spoke with poet Holly Lyn Walrath about her 2018 chapbook Glimmerglass Girl, published by Finishing Line Press.

Holly Lyn Walrath’s poetry and short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Luna Station Quarterly, Liminality, and elsewhere. Her chapbook of words and images, Glimmerglass Girl, will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2018. She holds a B.A. in English from The University of Texas and a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. She is a freelance editor and host of The Weird Circular, an e-newsletter for writers containing submission calls and writing prompts. Find her on Twitter @HollyLynWalrath or at www.hlwalrath.com.

Freethinking Ahead: In the introduction to Glimmerglass Girl, you note that the collection “is a fantastical account of womanhood [….] that draws upon my personal experience.” Readers encounter in the poems the mundane details of a present-day life, which are punctuated by references to other-worldly places and beings, such as in “Espejitos,” “Self-Portrait through an iPhone,” “I am Going to Find the Unicorn,” and others. Do you see womanhood as a sort of balancing the otherness of the fantastic with the ordinary of the mundane world?
Cover of Glimmerglass Girl

Holly Lyn Walrath: I’m very interested in the speculative writing of contemporary women authors, which in my opinion re-evaluates how women approach our bodies. Historically, the woman-as-fantastic tradition in fairy tales and fiction has been written by men. We’ve only just begun to challenge the so-called ideals of what it means to be a woman. The fantastic is one way to do this—to embrace the othering of women’s bodies and make it our own language.

FTA: Many of the poems in this collection have references to or are evocative of Texas, such as “I Want to be a Grackle, I Want to Caw,” “Blue Cadillac,” and “Premise of the Heart.” How does this sense of place affect your creative process? And since Texas can be a complicated place for women, given its politics and culture, how do you see place as a part of your aim to depict womanhood?

HLW: I was born in Texas and have lived here for most of my life. The beauty of Texas and its conglomeration of cultures are definitely a part of me. I currently live in southeast Houston near all the oil and gas refineries, so those landscapes get into my work unconsciously. As much as I acknowledge that I’m a southern girl who loves country music and fried chicken, I also struggle with the politics of Texas. The lack of access to healthcare and alarming rate of maternal mortality rates reinforce this idea of women’s bodies being othered. There’s still a lot of shame in this state about womanhood, gender, and mothering. I grew up Baptist and I see the harm that can come from the church in regards to women’s identities. But there’s a lot of strength in southern women. “Blue Cadillac,” is an homage to my grandmother, who wore white gloves to church and was as outspoken as a matriarch can get. I don’t think I’ll ever stop writing about this place I call home, because Texas is a complex, beautiful, gritty, difficult, and kaleidoscopic state.

FTA: In “I Swallowed the Moon,” personal details show the moon as an object readily consumed by the speaker of the poem as a medium for her imagination, then later as something “haunting” and outside the known. When the speaker at last consumes the moon whole, she has “doomed the world.”

I read this poem first in a literal, speculative mode–a woman dooms the world by consuming this symbol of feminism when using it as a medium for creation no longer satisfies her appetite–and on rereading as a metaphorical exploration of the dangers of consuming myths and their implications. How do you approach myths and fairy tales, especially the “unfulfilled fairytales” of “Behind the Glass,” as both source material to be consumed and to be wary of?

Holly Lyn WalrathHLW: For me, fairy tales began with Disney. I grew up in the generation that knew the golden age of Disney as not just something to be consumed but as a kind of religion. We lived, breathed, and ate (in the form of kid’s cereal and snacks) Disney. However, as much as I love them, those stories are being reexamined today for their implications. Women were taught to be princesses, not queens—damsels in distress, not heroes. But when we grow up, we realize those stories set false expectations. I’m in love with the new Disney stories like Moana, Rogue One, A Wrinkle in Time, Brave, and The Incredibles because they give girls new options. We’re redefining what a fairy tale means and where women stand in the narrative.

FTA: Can you recommend a couple speculative poetry collections that share the same themes as yours? And are there Texas poets you’d like to recommend to the readers of Freethinking Ahead?

HLW: I love the work of another Finishing Line Press poet and Houstonian, Saba Syed Razvi. Check out her 2017 book, Heliophobia, nominated for an Elgin award. Other poets who inspire my work are Rose Lemberg (Marginalia to Stone Bird, Aqueduct Press, 2016) and Kayla Bashe (Glitter Blood, 2017).

This Was Supposed to Be a Post About the Runoff Election in Texas

This was supposed to be a post about the past week of early voting here in Texas to determine party candidates for November’s election.  Because it’s never just about elections, is it?  Not about the two Democrats vying for the party’s gubernatorial candidacy, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez and Houstonian Andrew White.  Not about the slow start and the low turnout.  Not about strategies Democrats are using to encourage non-voters to vote.

Not when the week is punctuated by at least two mass shootings here in Texas: a mother whose ex-husband murdered all their children on Wednesday, and the Santa Fe High School murders on Friday.

But it is about elections.  It has to be.  In response to the shooting, Gov. Greg Abbott spoke at a press conference about his plans to address the issue of gun violence in schools.  From The Texas Tribune:

Abbott said that he had already been preparing to release several new proposals for gun laws in Texas.

Now, he said, he will begin meeting with stakeholders to propose “swift solutions to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again.”

“We need to do more than just pray for the victims and their families,” Abbott said. “It’s time in Texas that we take action to step up and make sure this tragedy is never repeated ever again.”

That said, we have to question how much this willingness to act is a response to the upcoming November election.  Immediately following Gov. Abbott at the press conference was Sen. Ted Cruz, who has received an A+ rating from the NRA.  Though Sen. Cruz should have been at the press conference as one of the elected representatives of the state, his presence after Gov. Abbott’s remarks seemed, to me anyway, to throw a shadow over any proposed action.  If any of the GOP elected officials from Texas had been serious about gun control after, say, the church shooting in Sutherland Springs or the shooting at a home in Plano last year or any other recent mass shooting, then why wait for this particular horror to announce the proposed new gun laws?

In a year when Gov. Abbott’s position isn’t realistically threatened by his Democratic opponent, whoever that turns out to be, Rep. Beto O’Rourke does have a chance at unseating Sen. Cruz, and in smaller races around the state, Republicans may be defeated by their Democratic rivals.  So perhaps Gov. Abbott doesn’t need to speak to moderate voters for his own good, but he does for those candidates in his party.

So, Gov. Abbott may be right about one thing: what we need isn’t more “thoughts and prayers.”  And what we need isn’t just announcements of proposals overshadowed by reminders that too many members of his party are beholden to the gun lobby, either.

What we need is solid blue turnout in November.

Monday Miscellany: 9 April 2018

A few links of interest from around the web:

Monday Miscellany: 26 March 2018

A few links of interest from around the web:

Stay tuned in April when Freethinking Ahead’s own interview series with speculative poets launches on the 4th.  We’ll be talking SF poetry, social justice, and reading recommendations.

Monday Miscellany: 12 March 2018

A few links of interest from around the web:

Early Voting Begins in Texas and Democrats Turn Out

Early voting for the primaries began yesterday here in the Lone Star State, and, turns out, Democrats turned out.  From The Texas Tribune:

On Tuesday, more Democrats cast primary ballots than Republicans on the first day of early voting in the 15 Texas counties with the most registered voters. That hasn’t happened since 2008.

Here’s hoping we see that sort of turn out in November.  It’s quite a mix of candidates, and the primary race for governor includes a number of promising candidates.  Here’s a list from North Texas NPR affiliate KERA.

Perhaps things aren’t so bleak as they seemed back in August, when the field of Democrats was far more sparse and far less well funded than the incumbent.  Still, November’s turn out is the key here.  We’ll see if the Democrats maintain their momentum.

Screaming into the Void: Or, a Letter to Senator Cruz

In light of recent events.  How useless do we feel “in light of recent events”?  Especially when there is little we feel, as individuals, can do against well funded special interest groups?  Especially when we feel, as individuals, we see the same things happening over and again, with nothing done to address these “recent events,” events which are just the latest in a long string of the same kind of event?

In light of recent events, I’m screaming into the void again.  That is to say, I’m writing to my red-state representatives.  I’m posting the body of a letter I’m sending to Senator Cruz, who received an A+ rating from the NRA, and whose campaigns received considerable financial support from the group.

As your constituent, I am writing to you to urge you to take action to ban assault weapons.

I might have begun by saying “In light of recent events,” but that would imply the presence of assault weapons and ease of access to them is a recent development. You know this is not the case.

You know the devastating history of murder involving assault weapons and that shootings involving them will continue if we as a nation do nothing to curb their availability. I don’t need to outline any of the recent terror involving such weapons in this letter: you know the details.

Given your A+ rating from the NRA, I realize that you won’t heed my concerns–I’m only one of your constituents, not one of your donors.

But let me remind you that you were not elected to represent special interest groups. You were not elected to represent groups whose ideology runs counter to the safety and well being of your constituency.

You were elected to represent the citizens of Texas.

Stand up for us, please. Stand up for your constituents and act to ban assault weapons.

If you find any of this letter useful, feel free to copy and modify as needed to send to your representatives.  In light of recent events, we need to keep screaming into the void.  And in November, those of us in Texas need to vote Cruz out.

On Writing: Drafting, Revising, and the Critique of an Ever-Shifting Present

One of the perils of writing–or, more specifically, revising–the sort of near-future science fiction that I write in the slow manner that I tend to write it is that the issue that sparked the story often changes significantly by the time I get around to polishing up said story.

Stepping back a bit: I’m in the camp that believes that one of the purposes of science fiction (and really, any form of literature) is to critique some element of the present. Yes, these stories should be full of interesting characters having interesting conflicts while doing interesting things. But there should also be something that grounds readers to the present, or something through which they can view that present.

But what happens when that present suddenly and dramatically shifts?

What got me thinking about this is that I recently came back to a story that I drafted in 2014, a near-future SF story about a young new mother whose repressive family twists the circumstances and narrative around her child’s birth. Back in 2014, I wanted to explore the collision between recent research on altering memories and the usual reproductive rights issues that find their way into my fiction.

And then in 2015, we saw a religious backlash in the US to the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling, a backlash that gave a platform to certain southern judges and county clerks.

And then in 2016, the current US administration was elected, sort of.

And then in 2017, the Texas legislature passed laws that allow child welfare agencies to deny adoptions and discriminate against prospective parents based on the agencies’ “religious freedom.”

And so on.

Which left me wondering, should events in the intervening years affect the story? Or the world-building around it? Given the damage done to reproductive rights in Texas in the last legislative session and the real threats to religious freedoms handed down from the state and federal levels, should I alter the society as I’ve imagined it?

The readers of the story will be inhabitants of 2018 (or 2019 as publishing schedules usually go), so it makes sense for me to address anything that no longer works with current policy and so forth.

But ultimately, the question must be what will make for the best story? If I just want to explore the consequences of a given law, then I should just write an essay or a blog post. If I want to write fiction and affect readers, then any changes have to be in service to that end. The critique has to be secondary.

After all, if no one is moved or intrigued or delighted or enraged by a character, then what’s the point of telling her story?

From Around the Web: 23 October 2017

A few links of interest from around the web: