New Gold City

Source: Electric Lit notes "from The Librarian by Giuseppe Arcimboldo" Moral Craft: Issues of Plot and Prejudice This Electric Lit essay should be very interesting for anyone concerned with racism in literature. The true insight of Mr. Salesses's essay is the question of how racism seeps into a story (at least perceived) if the author did not intend it. The issue kicked up a lot of thoughts for me. Here's my full comment in the Comments section of the essay: Such a fabulous and provocative essay. So are the comments! This is one of those times where the comments are as supremely valuable as the original work. Honestly, all of you, I'm printing out this whole dang set of opinions for my file folder on "Trying to Understand Racism "  Can't help putting my two-cents worth in here. I want to point out that each of us in our daily lives constantly categorizes people and locks them into symbolic interpretation. That categorization and interpretation is dy...

Author Matt Johnson and his book cover floating next to him You will find a lot of articles online that came out in the summer of 2014 claiming that Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority group in America. They apparently had a growth rate of 2.9% from 2000 to 2010, overtaking Hispanic Americans who only had a rate of 2.1%.  Let's get this straight: In actuality, the fastest growing "minority group" in America is people who identify as mixed race. Results from the 2010 US Census show citizens who identify as "two or more races" had a 32% increase in numbers from the 2000 US Census. Read about it at HuffPost in "Multiracial American Population Grew Faster Than Single-Race Segment In 2010 Census." So, 2.9% versus 32%. Who wins? Hell yeah, Mulatto Nation! We rock! And the media, once again, is full of shit. Of course, us hybrids only represent 2% of the U.S. population. Asian Americans sit at 5.6%, while Hispanics represent 17.1% of the puzzle p...

Note: I just started reading Mat Johnson's new book,  Loving Day  today. Here we have a powerful voice for us gold-brown people who feel not so much disenfranchised as partial. More later as I churn through Johnson's very interesting novel that kind of lays it all out there. (I'm jealous). Click below to read a very interesting interview, if you can open your mind enough. " On passing, wishing for darker skin, and finding your people: A conversation between two mulattos | Fusion " Related articles Books of The Times: Review: Mat Johnson's 'Loving Day' Takes a Satirical Slant on Racial Identities The Great American Mulatto: Mat Johnson Talks Identity and Facing Ghosts Review: Mat Johnson's 'Loving Day' reaches beyond black and white "You get a cookie for being offended": Mat Johnson on the fine art of racial satire Not the Marriage Plot: On Men Reading Novels in the 21st Century

I've published two stories to the Kindle site at Amazon.com in the past week. They can both be found at the following Kindle links: What Goes Inside Her Miniature What Goes Inside is currently listed as #57 on the list of free literary fiction offerings. Her Miniature is listed as #77. I'm hoping folks will download both as much as possible today and tomorrow while they're free. However, if you really want to make my day, wait until Monday and download them for the Amazon price of $2.99. Let me know if they're worth it, too. I admit that these stories are quite provocative and a bit nasty and even nihilistic. They are part of a larger manuscript, all dealing with the love thing as it affects those of us heading into middle age. Julia Davenport is an amplification of a lot of stuff I'm reading and hearing about these days. Many women are as full of wanderlust as men. Some of the stories I've heard over the past 6-8 years are quite interesting--and heartbreakin...