MY FIRST STORY COLLECTION! OVER 40 YEARS IN THE MAKING!

Thursday, October 27, 2022

MY LOST ART REFUSES TO DIE



I probably have the timeline scrambled. As usual. Everything turns into part of a collage eventually—the great cosmic recycling bin of existence . . .


Anyway, I’ve been without a printer/scanner since about the time Covid grabbed the world by the throat. Who knows? Maybe the virus killed the chingadera. You can never be sure about these things.


This had me and my wife following my dictum about how when the going gets tough, the tough get creative, learning that taping a strip of paper to a contract on a computer screen and emailing a JPEG of it does the legal hoodoo just as well an actual scrawl on a sheet of dead tree.




(I’m wondering if technology will soon make the written signature obsolete, but I digress.)


About that time, Emily (my wife for those of you who have better things to do than to memorize the details of my life) rushed out of the garage with an overstuffed, tattered manila envelope. It was full of a bunch of pieces of cardboard with pieces of paper glued to them. Collages.


 

They were something I did back in the late Seventies/early Eighties. This was a rough time for me. I was struggling to hack out a niche for myself in a world that didn’t seem to have a place for me.  I had an unhealthy and unnatural compulsion to create.


These mishmoshes of surrealism and sci-fi were inspired by the collages of Max Ernst and by the fact that I had a lot of old magazines moldering under my bed. Playboy, Life, Science Digest, and others whose names I can’t remember.


I had a lot of fun making them, and they were seen by practically nobody. I had no outlet for them. I put some in my portfolio, and people were disturbed by them.



Seeing them again makes me glad to once again have a printer/scanner. They are delicate and will probably fall apart. I also look forward to posting them online (thank Xochiquetzal for the interwebs). Maybe more people will be disturbed.


I can always use them for illustrations.


And maybe they’ll snag me some money.


Yeah, I’m a hopeless case.


The ones shown here are only a few. Watch out for more.


Friday, October 21, 2022

CHICANONAUTICA EXPLORES MEXICO WITH THE CUBAN AMERICAN JULES VERNE

 


Chicanonautica reviews another dime novel by Luis Senarens, at La Bloga.


Dime novels preceeded pulp magazines and comic books:



It’s about an airship:




It’s got alligators--or are they crocodiles?




And building a railroad across Mexico:


Thursday, October 13, 2022

EXTRA-FICTION CONTEST 2022!

 
Once again, writers of the Latinoid continuum:


Contest submission is free and is open for any Native or Latina/o/x person from or residing in the USA (of American Indian, Chicano/Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, Dominican American, Central American, or South American origin). 

Manuscripts must be unpublished, in English, Spanish, or Ingléspañol. Put “2022 Extra-Fiction Contest” in the email subject line. Email Word format (.docx) unpublished submissions with short bio in third person in separate Word attachment and author’s photo (label your name, not author photo) to somosenescrito@gmail.com. One submission per author, 6,000 word limit, contact us beforehand if the submission is over 6,000 words. Submission is free. 

Deadline is October 31, 2022.
Speculative-fiction stories published in Somos en escrito during the year are considered for the contest.

Judging the finalists is Ernest Hogan, godfather of Chicano Science-Fiction and author of Cortez on JupiterHigh Aztech, and Smoking Mirror Blues.

Prizes:
1st place: $100 and a copy of El Porvenir, ¡Ya!  Chicano Sci-fi Anthology.
2nd place: Copy of El Porvenir, ¡Ya!. 
3rd place: Copy of El Porvenir, ¡Ya!. 
Two Honorary Mentions.
All Finalists will have their stories published online in Somos en escrito Literary Magazine.


Friday, October 7, 2022

CHICANONAUTICA VS. THE PHANTOM OF COLONIALISM


Chicanonautica takes on Gaston Leroux, over at La Bloga.


He wrote the novel, The Phantom of the Opera, among other things:



The phantom was also in movies:



And on Broadway:



Did you know that Leroux also wrote a novel about Incan human sacrifice?