As I may have mentioned a time or two, I’m a huge fan of the late Octavia Butler’s work. The day I was lucky enough to meet her still stands as one of the 15 or 20 best moments of my life. I love her work so much that I’ve tried to convince my husband that if we should be blessed with a daughter [*cough*], we should name her Octavia.

Anyway, there was a symposium about Butler’s work at Medgar Evers College this past week, with panels and guests including some of the biggest names in black speculative fiction.

I wish I could’ve been there, but luckily, Nora on LiveJournal has reported what she saw and heard (my favorite part is the graf with author Steven Barnes describing most science fiction as ‘about white people and their imaginary friends’) at the event.

Read and enjoy.

Murder, Mayhem & A Fine Man
Claudia Mair Burney
Howard Books/Simon & Schuster

It’s Lent, so like the good girl I am, I’m doing my best to make even more time than usual for things spiritual. I decided a few weeks ago that I’d even try to include some works of Christian fiction in my Lenten study this year. Couldn’t hurt, right? This is rather a momentous decision because, as I’ve explained before, I generally avoid overtly Christian fiction, especially after I bought and tried to get through a couple of those vomit-worthy Left Behind books once (I kept thinking they had to get better, but they never did) on the suggestion of a then-friend.

Anyway, I picked up a book by an author I thought might interest me: Claudia Mair Burney. I’d been told that Burney is, like me, a black American Roman Catholic, which is a peculiar but wonderful mindwarping containing multitudinous contradictions.

So I was looking forward to this one.

(more…)

Today’s New York Times again remembers the good professor Franklin in the “Week in Review” section.

An excerpt:

…others argue that Dr. Franklin’s work helped empower not just African-American studies, but the whole range of alternative stories — of women, gays, Hispanics, Asians and others — now so much a part of mainstream academia.

Dr. Franklin accomplished this not through advocacy but rather through the traditional means of scholarly inquiry.

Shocking!

[snip]

Through it all, Dr. Franklin remained a public figure with a rich private life. He was famously generous and collegial, even to young scholars, a tall, impeccably dressed man of courtly mien and old-fashioned manners tending his beloved orchids at home in Durham, N.C., like a Southern gentleman of the old school who happened to be black.

Sigh. Because “Southern gentleman” and “black” are generally incompatible? GTFOOHWTBS, NYT.

[snip]

He was too serious a historian to think the past could simply be erased and was therefore not impressed by the current vogue for legislative apologies for slavery. “If I was sitting on a billion dollars that someone had made when I sat on them, I probably would not be slow to apologize, if that’s all it takes,” he said in an interview in 2007 with the Independent Weekly of North Carolina. This sounded bitter, and in some sense it was.

He took pains to remind us how much of our history — of his history — we’d like to forget. He told the stories often: about the time his family was ejected from a train for not moving from the colored section; of being crammed into a hot, packed segregated train car returning from a commencement exercise in 1945, while four or five white men lounged in the otherwise empty car behind it. It turned out they were German prisoners of war.

Oh, yeah, all this happened SO LONG AGO. I mean, Franklin was so old that he was totally the last person on Earth to have experienced/remembered any of this stuff, so it’s over now. It’s history. I mean, why aren’t black people over it? It’s not as though this all happened during the lifetime of people like my parents, who, if they’re blessed to reach Franklin’s age, have miles and many decades to go before they sleep.

Eh, maybe I shouldn’t complain. At least they tried, (and also did an obit), right? Failed, but tried. However, I’m glad to note that I wasn’t the only person who noted exactly how news outlets played Franklin’s death — or whether it received notice at all.

I’m with Coates: The nation doesn’t know what it’s lost, and what’s more, doesn’t know why it’s important.

• Well, wouldya looky here?! Beverly Jenkins and Monica Jackson to speak at Princeton next month. http://is.gd/piky Go, ladies! #
• RT @tobiasbuckell Hoped to get to Jamaica for the Calabash literary festival one day. Sad to hear it might be canceled: http://bit.ly/wiXYR #
• “With a few exceptions, race isn’t discussed much in the horror genre.” http://is.gd/pgMM #
• Author Leslie Esdaile “L.A.” Banks is in the March issue of Sister2Sister magazine: http://is.gd/oZis #
• I’ve got my laptop back, thanks to the miracle workers at Apple. I was afraid its time had come and I’d have to buy a new one. #
• RT @negrophile “I hardly needed to seek a way to confront American racial injustice. My ambition was sufficient…” http://bit.ly/BDcwe #
• Apple is working magicks on my iBook, so I’m behind on WriteBlack posts (won’t do them at work and it’s tedious on iPhone). Stay tuned. #
• @mdotwrites They sure do. When he’s eligible for Social Security, he’ll probably write about *elderly* black men having existential crises. #
• Walter Mosley’s newest is about a middle-aged black man who has relationship issues. I know you’re shocked. http://is.gd/oMKZ #
• Booooo. Just called courthouse and found out I don’t have to report for jury duty tomorrow. Cutoff was 5 people ahead of me! #
• RT @mosaicbooks NPR: A ‘Kindle Society’ Can Be Literate, http://tinyurl.com/ca4nba #
• @theelfinpoet I’m in FL too. I’ve never been chosen for a jury, which is why I think history will hold and I’ll get to read. #
• I have jury duty tomorrow. With any luck, I’ll have some spare time to read for pleasure. During the daytime! On a weekday! #
• RT @literaryobama Obama’s “Goodnight Moon” Initiative http://tinyurl.com/c52pn3 [So sweet!] #

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Dr. John Hope Franklin died yesterday at age 94.

Nothing I could say would be enough.

So, in his own words:

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine.

This is a podcast interview with Nigerian author Uwem Akpan, who also is a priest, discussing his Commonwealth Writers Prize-winning collection of short stories, Say You’re One of Them.

These are stories about family, struggle, sacrifice and compassion, told from the perspectives of children in Africa. They’re a worthwhile read if you’re thinking about the Lenten/Easter season — and even if you’re not.

The book will be out in paperback in July, by the way.

In the 25-minute interview, Akpan talks about how he discovered he has a gift for fiction, why he writes and why he writes from the perspectives of kids (he’s also got a great laugh!).

The interviewer is Paul Lauritzen, who is director of the program in applied ethics at John Carroll University.

• @deberryandgrant Seems hard for authors to break out when mainstream world has “room” for only a few AA authors at a time. #litchat #
• Happy 40th bday to The Very Hungry Caterpillar! http://is.gd/odn4 (and per @MuppetNewsflash, it’s also bday of Sesame Street’s Big Bird!) #
• @literaryobama Congrats! #
• These book sculptures are just gorgeous. http://is.gd/oaZd #
• @glciii At 1st, that news about black girls and binge/purge cycle shocked me. Then I remembered my own teens, and it made sense. #
• Barnes & Noble profit drops, but is better than expected http://is.gd/o469 #
• @faboomama @chr0me I’ll get back to it. It’s the only Stephenson I’ve not read. I would’ve taken it with me to SXSW, but, you know, heavy. #
• @mikecane Apple tablet would be fabulous. I got 100 enjoyable pages into Anathem, was discouraged by 800-some-odd pages to go, put it down. #
• @mikecane Waiting (hoping?) for the perfect e-reader, one to which I won’t have any objections. #
• Gave up on Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem” because LIFE IS TOO SHORT, but feel guilty now that it’s nommed for Clarke prize. http://is.gd/nWJt #
• Color e-book reader released from Fujitsu, said to be world’s first http://is.gd/nWx4 #
• Comic book bio of Nelson Mandela due this summer: http://is.gd/nQNx #
• RT @james3neal SXSW Publishing Panel Sparks Fireworks – mediabistro.com: GalleyCat http://tinyurl.com/czfz29 #
• @mikecane Thanks for that link. Reading now. #
• RT @GEM2001 Michelle Obama Comic Hits The Stand Next Month: http://tinyurl.com/cbmwfe (flashback to my 11/15 post on it: http://is.gd/7Epf) #
• RT @smartbitches Intro for “Beyond Heaving Bosoms” is online at Simon & Schuster. http://tinyurl.com/def32r [Yay!] #
• @ycoleman Thanks for that Farrah Rochon review. Gotta pick that one up! #
• During conference breaks, have been reading the new Francis Ray. I love her, but as usual, hero & heroine are dumb as a box of water. #

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• RT @negrophile: nytimes.com: “I rewrite endlessly. A novel for me is such an undertaking. It takes years out of my life.” http://is.gd/mY2N #
• RT @R_Nash @dediaf: Anthony Appiah to follow Francine Prose as next PEN president. http://tinyurl.com/abm57r #
• @Fledgist Exactly! After reading that, I could hardly make it through the rest of the article, which also was…not new information. #
• Am unsurprised to find something stupid in 1st graf of this article about Lorraine Hansberry’s gay politics at The Root. http://is.gd/mX5W #
• How the Web can help news organizations write a new chapter about the world of books http://is.gd/m8Hx #
• “Writers of color aren’t disadvantaged, per se; it’s just that white authors are very, very advantaged.” http://is.gd/mTGX #
• RT @ycoleman Fast Forward by Celeste O. Norfleet http://tinyurl.com/d2xry7 [Met Norfleet at Slam Jam '08. V. good at talking abt YA market] #
• @tayari I did. I think (I think) I wrote about it a few months back. I am also Not A Fan. #
• @ybpguide Thanks! #
• First African-American comic book up for auction http://is.gd/mIqw #
• @rawsienna Put it down for a while. It took me three tries and a full month before I could finish it, even though it’s short. #
• Black Clock Magazine celebrates 5 years. I’m only interested bc of the Samuel Delany sighting: http://is.gd/mBOQ #
• @claudia_m I know, right? Some of them are deeply, deeply awful, but I’m glad folks were inspired enough to do them. #
• Bad paintings of Barack Obama http://is.gd/mvRd #
• RT @mosaicbooks Marlon James interviewed by NPR http://tinyurl.com/bfmwgz [also, see this video of him: http://is.gd/mwUl #
• @Sha-Ron No real surprises. #
• @iamfabulous Thanks! #
• Just back from Watchmen. Review to follow. #
• What was it I’d planned to do today? Hurm. #

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I mentioned yesterday that I’m attending the South by Southwest Interactive festival.

Should also have mentioned that if you’re terribly bored and want to peek in on the minutiae of my activities at the conference, you can do so here.

…I’m in Austin, Texas.

Because I’m a huge geek, I’m again attending the South by Southwest Interactive conference today through Tuesday. SXSWi is one of the largest technology gatherings in the country.

This year, there are several sessions at the conference that are of interest to authors, book lovers and other people in the book industry. I’m a glutton for punishment, so I’ll try to attend them all.

I’ll probably be attending:

• Building Your Brand with Web 2.0 Tools
• Branded Entertainment: Brands Driving Content
• Marketing Meets New Media: Building Your Audience Online
• New Think for Old Publishers
• Online Comic Books: The Future of Graphic Novels?
• Not the Same Old Story
• Core Conversation: So You Wanna Write a Tech Book?

Got any questions about the changing publishing industry you want me to ask the tech folks while I’m there? Let me know.

This item has been crossposted at ReadersRooms.