I first encountered author Kiese Laymon when I read his essay “You are the Second Person,” an unapologetically bridge-burning reckoning of his encounter with a assimilationist editor who tried to deracinate his work. What stuck[…]
Category: Literature
Reconstructivist Art: The Neverending Story
Repost – In honor of the 40th anniversary of… Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story (1979) as an example of Reconstructivist Art Michael Ende’s international bestseller found an audience among children and adults alike, due to[…]
Reconstructivist Art – The 100% Perfect Story
In honor of the release of his newest book, Killing Commendatore, please enjoy this repost of Haruki Murakami’s On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning considered as an example of Reconstructivist Art On Seeing the[…]
Zora Neale Hurston and the Problem of Audience
My first real understanding of the power of affinity on attention came in 9th grade. When my teacher assigned a project called “The African-European Connection,” I was enthralled by history for the first time, as[…]
Kindred
Repost in honor of Butler’s birthday, and her selection for a Google Doodle: The late, great Octavia Butler was best-known as a rare black female superstar in a genre –science-fiction –largely dominated by white men.[…]
Wokepedia: Justice Trilogy
Fourth in my “Wokepedia” series of case studies of consciousness-raising Wikipedia edits. The Justice Trilogy: This week’s entry, the “Justice Trilogy,” is a little more involved, because it included not only creating a brand-new page[…]
Reconstructivist Art: American Born Chinese
Repost Reconstructivist Art: American Born Chinese is a critically acclaimed graphic novel by Asian American writer/illustrator Gene Yang, which centers around what at first seem like three very different narratives. The first is a superhero-themed[…]
Reconstructivist Art: The Princess Bride
to reawaken a sense of the Real in a world where everything has been demonstrated to be an illusion
Sister Mine
As I mentioned in my review of “The Justice Trilogy,” when you are a minority author writing a genre book, you’re risking ending up with a fractal audience, occupying a niche inside a niche. The[…]
The Mysterious Disappearance of the Strangely Beautiful Woman
Please enjoy this repost of an affectionate parody of one of my most favorite authors, Haruki Murakami I was in the bathtub, playing with my rubber duck, when the phone rang. It rang exactly five[…]