Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Are things ever going to settle down? With everything that’s going on, that’s probably not in the cards for the near future. Which makes it even more important to celebrate our victories and our accomplishments.
I hope this can be a place where we can all be excited when one of us has something good going on. You don’t need to have published a book, to have received an award, or be featured in a gallery, but those work, too! Maybe you moved into your dream house, or you finished rebuilding your 57 Chevy, or you just got married or you’re retiring, or you had a kid, or you just passed your boards.
When you have something to celebrate, I hope you’ll be willing to write up a little something and share it with us. Send me an email if you’re interested. ~WaterGirl
This barely needs any introduction – we have followed along with LAMH on her years of classes, while working full-time, her graduation in May, her quest for the job in Houston, and her on-site interview last week. Well…
I just heard from lamh!
“Just got a call from Houston!
They selected me!”
I couldn’t be happier for lamh. Just one question – how many excited GIFs will be posted in the comments?
Celebrating Jackals: LAMH Has Some News!Post + Comments (181)
On Sunday afternoon, Major Major Major Major mentioned that he had a story coming out that is part of an anthology. So I dropped him a note, and it turns out that he does have a personal story in the anthology, but he also has four co-authored stories in the book, as well!
That seems like kind of a big Joe Biden deal to me, so I wrote to Major Major and asked if he could be talked into either Medium Cool or a Celebrating Jackals post. He graciously agreed, so I’ll let him take it from here – telling us about the stories, about how he came to be a part of this, and how he came to start writing in the first place.
*****
Adventures in Writing: Five Authors and 15 Stories, by Major Major Major Major
Hello jackals!
As some of you know, I’ve taken creative writing fairly seriously for the last few years. Like so many people I’d always loved the idea of “being a writer”; also like many people, it wasn’t until my fourth decade that I had something worth saying, and the diligence to learn how to say it. I understand this isn’t easy for anybody, but I must be doing something right – I’m excited to say that I have five short stories in an anthology that was just released, under my real name of J. Tynan Burke.
Last year, the editor, B. Morris Allen, reached out to some writers he’d worked well with in the past. He had an intriguing idea: five authors writing five stories each, with one being a solo work, and four coming from round-robin pairings with the other authors. The result is fifteen stories about love and longing, ghosts and robots, growing trees in space, and much more. It was a great experience, even if some collaborations went more smoothly than others. If you’d like, I’d be happy to get into the nuts and bolts of this in the comments. Each pairing was unique.
Being a depressive artist type, I did a quick re-read before writing this, and can happily confirm that the stories are good. It is also interesting as an artifact; you can see how each author’s style and preferences manifest with different co-authors and across genres.
To pique your interest, here is a brief note about each of my contributions:
I’ll be around in the comments, if you have any questions or… comments.
~Major Major Major Major
*****
The anthology is titled Reading 5X5 x2: Duets
If you’re a fan of sci-fi and/or fantasy, you should check out M4’s book. (Yeah, okay, there might be some other people involved, too, but still…)
I love the cover.
If you get the book, and like it, I’ll bet Major Major would greatly appreciate some Amazon reviews!
One final note: the distributor for the hardcover edition is screwed up due to COVID; if you would like your book in a determinable amount of time, please get the paperback or Kindle edition.
Celebrating Jackals: Major Major Major Major – 5 Stories Just Published!Post + Comments (38)
So the birthday twins have their big day today.
If you have a favorite story about Omnes or a favorite verse from Subaru Diane, share it here. Or anything else you want to share, of course!
This is the internet and there’s an image for everything, so I searched for “subaru scales of justice”. This came up, so I figure what the hell, it works as well as anything.
We’ve been with you guys for all sorts of life changes, and will hopefully be with you guys for many more, including some big changes for the better in the coming year.
Happy Birthday to both of you! 💕
Celebrating Jackals: Birthday Twins – Subaru Diane and Omnes OmnibusPost + Comments (88)
On Sunday, donnah mentioned that she was hooking a rug for her youngest son, and the next thing we knew, people were asking about this rug or that rug that she has mentioned before. I asked donnah how she would feel about being featured in Celebrating Jackals, and she graciously agreed to tell us more about rug hooking and share some more of her rugs with us.
I’ll let donnah tell us all about it – how she got started, how she makes her designs, and all sorts of other things – in her own words. But first I’ll share the one that makes me tear up every time I see it. Various rugs hooked by donnah will be sprinkled throughout the post, in no particular order.
Semper Fi, Always Faithful 2019
*****
The Fine Art of Rug Hooking, by donnah
Hello, fellow Jackals!
I’ve been reading Balloon Juice for a lot of years and love the camaraderie and support here. I’ve found that BJ is welcoming and friendly even when the politics get heated. I learn a lot here, and it always feels like home.
Watergirl, a force of Nature, invited me to share some of my artwork and I jumped at the chance. I’m always working to promote the art that I create because so little is known about it and because it’s a really amazing medium.
No Greater Love 2017
Celebrating Jackals: “The Fine Art of Rug Hooking” by donnahPost + Comments (88)
We have “known” gwangung here at BJ for a very long time. I think of him as one of our two playwrights here on Balloon Juice, and I know he’s involved in Asian American theatre. But until now, that’s about all I knew.
On Friday afternoon I happened upon a comment of his, where gwangung mentioned that there would be a Zoom reading of his play, She Devil of the China Seas this Saturday at 10 pm ET.
I thought it would be interesting to get to know gwangung a little better and find out more about his play, so I asked if he would be willing to whip up a little something for this post. And he did, even though he had rehearsals on Friday night!
Take it away, gwangung!
Hi, there. This is very much a last minute thing…but, then again, that describes so much of my artistic life. My name is Roger Tang….I’ve been involved in theatre for a long time …but I’ve only considered myself a theatre artist for the past fifteen years. I’ve mostly organized and been a producer and I’ve dabbled in other areas…and I’ve managed to write a full length play, She Devil of the China Seas…but more about that later.
I’ve mentioned my background in bits and pieces over the years around here. I was a dual major in college – Journalism/Geology – and there was a tradition of dorms at my school producing plays in the lounge. Generally, these were Broadway musicals (WITH orchestra, singers AND dancers from the dorm). My final year at school, though, a dorm-mate said he wrote a play, and it struck all of us that it’d be fun to produce that play to make us stand out from the other productions.
That dorm-mate was David Henry Hwang (who won a Tony for M. Butterfly), that play was F.O.B. (which won an Obie for best Off Broadway play later) and that started a four decade career in Asian American theatre that’s covered being on the board of directors for various groups, helming my own group (Pork Filled Productions) and starting a website that’s the foremost authority on Asian American Theatre (the Asian American Theatre Revue), which earned me the nickname of “Godfather of Asian American Theatre.” (oh, and the iconic line from F.O.B. is ” Gwangung, god of warriors, writers and prostitutes!”, hence my nym).
Now I don’t have any hard and fast artistic philosophies, except, maybe, to write what isn’t there. So in the 90s, me and my group wrote sketch comedy. That changed in recent years, so we moved to genre fiction, about larger than life Asian American figures, like James T. Kirk, Peter Parker, Indiana Jones and so forth. That launched a decade of shows about families of Chinese American con artists, Thai American ghosts and, most successfully, a trilogy of steampunk plays.
Enter She-Devil. I’ve written sketches and full plays in the past. I had always been intrigued by the real life story of Ching Shih, a Chinese prostitute in the early 1800s who rose to command the largest pirate fleet in history, defeating both Chinese and European fleets. There were rumors of a Maggie Q-led miniseries a few years back, but nothing ever came of it. I got tired of waiting. And wondered…what if I added a bit of Marvel’s Conan…a bit of Lois McMasters Bujold….and that evolved into She Devil of the China Seas…an origin story of sorts.
It was originally set to be a full and proper production by another company…but the pandemic took care of that. So I took the same gang who would have been the company and had them do the reading, as a taste of what might have been (and might still be when we get past it). We’ll be presenting the play live on the 18th (tickets on Eventbrite). If we figure out what we’re doing, we’ll get a recording up for folks who can’t make it then…
Thanks for letting me ramble.
*****
Now we get to see one of gwangung’s plays being performed, from the comfort of our own homes! As gwangung put it, folks can rustle up a ticket here. ~WaterGirl
Albatrossity mentioned in this morning’s On the Road that he is the featured artist this week (June 15-19) at the Manhattan Arts Center – no, not that Manhattan, the other Manhattan, in Kansas. Where he lives.
I asked Albatrossity how he would feel about being featured in in the Celebrating Jackals series, and he graciously agreed to tell us a little bit about the arts center and the opportunity to be their featured artist this week.
But first, a bit of background in case you missed the first Celebrating Jackals a couple weeks ago:
Are things ever going to settle down? With everything that’s going on, that’s probably not in the cards for the near future. Which makes it even more important to celebrate our victories and our accomplishments.
I hope this can be a place where we can all be excited when one of us has something good going on. You don’t need to have published a book, to have received an award, or be featured in a gallery, but those work, too! Maybe you moved into your dream house, or you finished rebuilding your 57 Chevy, or you just got married or you’re retiring, or you had a kid, or you just passed your boards.
When you have something to celebrate, I hope you’ll be willing to write up a little something and share it with us. Send me an email if you’re interested. ~WaterGirl
And now, let’s hear from Albatrossity!
The Manhattan Arts Center (Manhattan KS) has a Facebook group devoted to local artists who are affiliated with the gallery. Each week a local artist is invited to share images of their artwork, discuss their art and their process, and answer questions from interested folks.
The first batch of photos went up today (Birds of Tanzania), and another batch (other topics and venues) will go up daily this week.
If you want to see some of those pics, of another glorious places: (requires facebook login)
link to the discussion on their FaceBook page
link to the images on their FaceBook page
Or you can go to either page and then click DISCUSSION or MEDIA to jump to the other one. From the MEDIA page, you can click on any of the images to make them larger.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.
~Dave Rintoul (aka Albatrossity)
*****
The Manhattan Kansas Arts Center is relatively new, so if you go to their site to check out Albatrossity’s work, you will also be supporting the arts by letting them know there is interest in what they are doing.
Tonight we kick off Episode 17 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.
In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In
You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI
Tonight’s Topic: TaMara’s new TJ Wilde Mystery: Underway
Take it away, BG!
TaMara’s piece/writeup below is such a great conversation starter that it seems like any further introduction from me would just get in the way. ~BGinCHI
So take it away, TaMara!
First of all, wow, thanks for this BG and Watergirl! How much fun.
Watergirl asked me to write something up. I wasn’t sure what, then I figured I’d just tell you how the TJ Wilde mysteries evolved.
But first, let’s discuss the genre. TJ Wilde Mysteries are in the romance/mystery/beach read style, they are very adult, definitely R rated. TJ is a strong woman whose life implodes and she is a straight up mess in Run Aground and has found her footing in Underway, but things never go smoothly, because what fun would that be? So nothing too serious here.
How did this “let’s write a book” begin? Believe it or not, one morning I woke from a dream, and it was pretty much the entire first chapter and general plot of the first book, Run Aground. I am not kidding. It was bizarre. And it would not go away. I’ve been writing all my life, but a full-length book, much less a mystery, was not on my life plan calendar. I checked. And then I double-checked.
Finally, I wrote out the first chapter. Then I wrote it again. And again. By that time, I thought, well, this is kind of a fun little piece, so I sent it to a few people I knew would get the in-jokes and enjoy it. The response I got back was “more pages, please.” So I wrote more pages until I got to about chapter five, and then life got complicated – I started my own business, and that was a time-consuming undertaking – so I had less time to write. Then Bixby came…and most of you know how that went. LOL
Nevertheless, I was being nagged by both the characters who would not go away, and my friends and family who would also not go away. And five chapters seemed an awful lot to waste. So I got serious and decided, well, why not, let’s write the entire thing. It took a while. What kept me going was I found I loved visiting the world and characters I created. I was always surprised when things went in a direction I hadn’t actually planned but worked because it was organic and authentic to the characters.
No spoilers, but there is a single line in chapter eight of book one, that I wrote as a throwaway line that became a plot point that now runs through all three books. That has been my favorite part about writing, how everything finds a way to fit together. As long as I have a solid beginning and ending, the story kind of unfolds itself for me. It was like doing a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. I love that. I also love reading romance/mystery/beach reads, so writing that genre felt natural.
The second book evolved after my bestest friend in the entire world and I were driving around Boston during my yearly visit. I had described for her the general outline of book two and we were scouting locations, when we stumbled on the SoWa art district and a Cuban art gallery with the most amazing gallerist.
And then suddenly, my vague outline had substance and heart. A few days later, she and I were walking along the beach (that I have walked hundreds of times in my adult life), and we were chatting about the outer islands, and she tells me this story of a now-abandoned hospital, that I didn’t even know existed. Seriously, I’d lived in the Boston area for years and I visit regularly. And suddenly, more of the story had taken shape. By the time I flew back home, the book was all done except for the actual writing. Oh, and a trip to Cuba.
I knew early on it was a trilogy – the mysteries are stand-alone, but TJ’s evolution (and have no doubt, this is all about TJ’s evolution) would need three books. From having her entire life turned upside down to finding her way again to flourishing (that’ll be book three).
That’s it. That’s how I became an accidental mystery/romance writer. I can’t say I love writing, but I do love watching the story unfold.
A full synopsis of Run Aground is here and a full synopsis of Underway is here. Excerpts of both books are here.
*****
I have read everything at the three links just above, and it was definitely worth it!
But first, some housekeeping. When we started Medium Cool, BG warned me that we Sunday evenings might not be great for him during the summer, and it turns out that his prediction was spot on. So until further notice, Medium Cool is changing to Wednesday evenings at 6 pm blog time.
So please mark your calendars: The next Medium Cool will be on Wednesday, June 24, at 6 pm.
And now, back to TaMara’s book. I can’t wait to ask her what it’s like to have your Dad read the sexy scenes in your book. That should be interesting.
~WaterGirl
Medium Cool with BGinCHI – TaMara’s New Book!Post + Comments (127)
