Sigma Tau Delta's International Convention: My Highlights

HOLY COW. What a week!

Last week I attended Sigma Tau Delta’s International Convention for the second time and what a trip! I had some great adventures, met some fun and interesting people, presented my own short story and was privileged to hear some other, absolutely spectacular work, and to top it all off, I am now the Student Representative for the Southwestern Region, which includes Arkansas, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and of course, Texas. The whole thing was an adventure and I am so glad that I went, especially with the wonderful group that accompanied me.

Wrapping up Day One, during which I got to hear some out of this world stories, I met up with some friends from the last convention, including our dedicated student representative, associate student representative, and the Southwestern reagent. Funnily enough, I didn’t actually know what their positions were when we met at the last convention. The group quickly swelled to include over a dozen people and we set out into the Minneapolis chill to settle into a cozy Irish tavern. Or that was the plan. The tavern was overflowing with so many people that they couldn’t accommodate our party. And so we struck forth, heading for an Italian place someone had mentioned, picking up a second group along the way. Several more blocks of Minneapolis chill and good natured laughter later the Italian restaurant has closed its kitchen for the evening. But third times the charm, right? So once more into the breech! Uncounted, but assuredly numerous blocks further than we’d initially intended, the party arrived in a tiny pizza parlor, where we filled all but one table. It may have been colder on the walk back, but between the pizza and the jokes we kept warm all the way…to the bookstore right across from the hotel. That’s dangerous to us writer types, you realize. Like hosting an AA meeting across the street from a bar. How could some of us NOT splinter off to check it out? The pull was especially strong for me having come from Huntsville Texas where there is only a single, solitary book store that sells used paperback romances. The whole experience was a breath of fresh air.

The following evening I brought my chapter associates to the Wild Rumpus. My wife is actually the one who discovered this gem in a Top Five article about indie bookstores. Her not being able to visit with us was the only point of bitterness in this whole experience—and what an experience! The original plan had been to duck out early, just after 4:00, because no one from our group was presenting in the final block scheduled for the day, and perhaps have dinner while we were out. In a way, this was an exercise in Murphy’s Law, and absolutely hilarious in hindsight—and admittedly not at all un-fun once we got started. One lost credit card, a rushed editing job on an application, splitting and regrouping the part amidst the overburdened hotel elevators, and working out transit instructions and directions with a concierge (who went above and beyond the call of duty!) and we set out at around 6:00.

 

We hiked through Minneapolis once more, pausing to play in the freshly fallen snow—a novelty for us Southerners, I assure you—and eventually arrived at our bus stop. Or what we thought was our bus stop. After a good five minutes of loading up and figuring out how the tickets actually worked (efficient public transportation is about as elusive in Texas as the chupacabra, so none of us had any idea what we were doing) we realized the bus we were on was taking us in the opposite direction of where we needed to go. One five block hike later we found our proper bus stop. The delay was a blessing in disguise. Our new bus driver serenaded our group with a song about Houston, shared a poem about her dog with us when she learned we were English types, pointed out the best restaurants, and actually pulled aside another rider to help walk us to the Wild Rumpus—a middle school science teacher following in his mother’s footsteps. A second, much longer hike than we expected later, and we arrived with less than an hour before closing time.

SO WORTH IT!

The Wild Rumpus made it into that Top Five article for a very good reason. Let me start with a general description of the place. It’s deceptively large, easy to get lost in (in the best possible way!) and wall to wall with books and critters. The ceiling is a work of art—literally—and is designed to look like a boat breaking through ice. Over all, I’d say that visiting the Wild Rumpus was almost as much visiting the children’s section at the zoo as it was a bookstore, with little houses and jungle-esque designs. And animals everywhere. Two cats, a tarantula, the chilliest rock star chicken ever, a pair of ferrets, and an unknown number of chinchillas and birds. And I cannot rave enough about how incredible the staff were! We weren’t treated like customers in this bookstore—we were treated like friends and they went above and beyond to accommodate our group and make sure we had a good time.

After our mix up with the busses and the hiking, we cheated and used Uber to get back to the hotel, a drive that took us all of five minutes.

Another reason for the quick return however, was because earlier that day, I’d been elected the student representative of the Southwestern Region and I was due to meet up with the former representatives, the reagent, and my new partner to discuss where things stood and where they were going. My props to the 2015 representative (I’m deliberately no using her name because I don’t have her permission at the time of writing this), she has been an incredible leader. If she was not graduating this year I don’t know that I would have run. As it is, she’s applying to graduate school and should hopefully be back in the academic scene come fall as if she never left, and I look forward to working with her. Heck, I’m looking forward to working with all of these fine folks. We’ve got some big ideas and I think we may just see something really special come out of this year.

On the subject of something special, the stories read at this convention were spectacular. I may have said that already but it warrants repeating. One of the projects I’ve been working on on the side is an anthology of fantasy and magical realism stories. The original goal was to use it as a fundraiser for our chapter…I don’t think that’s the direction I want it to go, especially with the power in some of these stories. Instead, I want to direct the royalties toward programs working to help women escape and recover from human trafficking. This was something my wonderful bride has always felt very strongly about and has taken action about before, and I think it may be my turn. I spoke to several students who presented exceptional work and all were highly receptive to the idea. Hopefully we’ll see this project through to fruition and bloom into something big.

And as exciting as all of this was—I am so glad to be home. I don’t know that I’m a genuine country boy, but I love living on this ranch. I love the nature, the isolation, the romanticism of it all. And I love sleeping in the same bed as my wife again. There was so much activity during the convention that there wasn’t really any time to avoid being in the present but somehow her absence was as present as my shadow. Not seeing her every day was strange, in an aching way, like my day was never really complete. I’m sure I annoyed most of the people around me by vomiting newlywed romantics all over them and talking about my bride every chance I got and I hope that they’ll forgive me. If not, oh well. I’ve had an adventure and now I’m home.

Ranch Life: Burritos and Bulls

Last week was ranch life all the way. Sure other things of note happened, but nothing anyone who wasn’t involved would probably care to hear about.

Last weekend we had a couple of accidents on the ranch. One of our horses got his head stuck between some bars in the paddock and skinned his forehead and chin and one of our donkeys got her leg caught in some barbed wire. Neither injury is life threatening, or really more than an irritant to the animals, but they have needed a bit of medicine applied.

With the horse this was no problem. Stormy is the biggest attention seeker you will ever meet, and something of a bully. He’ll bite, kick, and chase the other horses out of the way to make sure that he’s first in line to get his nose rubbed and be fed a snack. Our horses are really treated more like really big dogs than anything that’s meant to be ridden or worked. So despite feeling out of sorts, he enjoyed the attention and let himself be treated.

The burros, or as my bride has taken to calling them, the burritos, on the other hand are about as opposite from Stormy as you can get. These girls are rescues from the SPCA and were brought in together after they were found wandering up the road together, so swollen they looked like they were pregnant. We don’t know much about their pasts besides that but it’s pretty clear from the way they act that they were abused. This week was an exercise in earning their trust and my bride set forth to the task with gusto.

Now these are not mean animals, just skittish, and highly protective of each other, not to mention our livestock. Just the other week we walked outside one morning to find them chasing off a pack of about 5 coyotes from our cows. These little donkeys are small and don’t have much in the way of natural weaponry but they are tenacious little boogers and incredibly skittish. After many treats and soft words, Candy, the dark furred one, is willing to let us pet her and both her and Rose know their names and will come when called to see if there’s food. They actually had a bit of a standoff with our dogs while this was all going on, both dogs and donkeys were determined to keep my bride safe from the dangerous other animals. Funniest thing ever and so sweet. They got it figured out pretty quick and Candy’s leg is doing MUCH better.

 

Topping that off, yesterday we received a new addition to the ranch. Baldy is a dinosaur masquerading as a cow, specifically a bull. This animal is taller than my bride’s car and weighs in over a ton at 2,500 lbs. He’s here to be a stud, which had me worried at first that he might be hurt one of our smaller girls. I’ve been assured that this really isn’t a concern. Guess they know enough not to be crushed. And apparently he comes from a line of low-birth weights, meaning that he and his dad were born small and grew fast. Wonder what the heck they were feeding him. At any rate, Baldy used to be this woman’s pet, but she had to move and couldn’t take him with her. He’s not exactly domesticated but he’s friendly enough!

Is Stripping Demeaning to Women?

I had a conversation with an intellectual and passionate female colleague last week and I fear I may have offended her. I do not apologize for what I said or for my stance but her quiet anger and fiery stance on the matter did give me food for thought—and for that I am grateful. It is not my wish to offend but it is also my desire to be truthful and to more fully explain my position.

The conversation started when I flubbed a joke breaking a twenty for her and offering her a packet of ones. The joke was frankly terrible and blasé, and if there is something I should apologize for it was that. I forget the exact words but it was something to the effect of people might mistake you for a stripper with all those ones which brought us to the subject at hand: Is stripping demeaning to women?

I argued yes and believe I offended her. Before going any further, please understand that I am a feminist. I believe wholeheartedly in equal rights, opportunities, and treatment of both sexes. At some point in the last few years stripping has somehow become a symbol to some of women’s empowerment. What an amazing world it would be if that was the case but it is not. Stripping IS demeaning to women—it’s demeaning to all exotic dancers, males included but I’m not going to try to avoid running down that rabbit hole—because it is designed to be.

Make no mistake, the stripping industry is run by men for the benefit of men at the expense of the dancers. The entire sex industry is. It was pointed out to me repeatedly that stripping is not sex. I say neither is pornography but this is the sex trade. The stripper’s sexuality has been broken down into a commodity and in our day and age when it is given a price that commodity is about as valuable (and nourishing) as fast food. Yes, I’ll have a blonde with fries on the side, please and thank you. And yes, the dancers, human beings, are treated with about as much regard as that. The dancers do not own their sexuality, the club and the customers do—they’re paying for it.

I think that several reasons why my colleague was offended was because my stance seemed to be saying that it was dishonorable for women to be stripping. It is not dishonorable for anyone to hold a job, to support their family or to put themselves through college. This profession makes it a point to dishonor these women. Debasement is what is being sold. Not women’s empowerment.

What of the art? There is an art to dancing, a very sensual art. The recognition of which is unavoidable and this is why we are seeing pole dancing becoming more mainstream, separating itself from the sex trade because, like the women who practice pole dancing as an art form or for fitness, it is better than that. We recognize something of value there. Another acquaintance of mine, a comedian who I used to discuss writing with once described to me his time working in strip clubs as he built himself. To paraphrase, he described the dancers as akin to having seizures on stage. There was no art to it, just nudity and shaking body parts. Art and dancing is more than raw sex or the temptation of it—it is an enjoyable display for both viewer and dancer that inspires admiration and energy in a positive way. What goes on in a strip club does not.

What if she enjoys it? Great for her but let’s be honest. How many women in this profession do you really think are in it because they enjoy it? And I’m not talking about the money—everyone enjoys receiving that. I’m talking about the profession itself. Think about this one real hard for a moment. Maybe there are a few women who do enjoy this career for the career’s sake; I’d stake hard money however that most do not. Enough that this train of thought would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad. It’s a mentality that is incredibly damaging not only to the feminist cause but to women as a whole. It’s a question that is, tragically, asked about victims of rape and human trafficking on a disgustingly regular basis.  

Before a woman is an exotic dancer, before she is even a woman, she is first and foremost a human being. The sex industry is designed to bypass her humanity, designed in fact, to strip it away and break it down. Talk to any experienced exotic dancer and you are likely to speak to a woman with razor sharp cynicism cultivated to help her cope with a world that has been attacking her and telling her that she is valued solely for her sex. A world that is a major gateway for human trafficking (including prostitution) and drugs. This breakdown is calculated, precise, and worse still, deliberate.

So is stripping demeaning to women? The sex industry won’t allow it to be anything else and the notion that it is somehow empowering the woman is the best thing that has ever happened to it. 

My Highlight

You would think that the Super Bowl would be the highlight of my day yesterday, and that half time show was pretty brilliant. Loved the fun and simple aesthetic and did anyone else think that Beyonce and Bruno Mars kind of looked like modern superheroes? Yeah #ubernerd, no shame!

ANYHOW that wasn’t it. I was going to say that it was the dogs again because Oberon was SUCH a pain in the butt! My morning started off with lovemaking—or it WOULD have if a certain big baby hadn’t positioned himself right beside us and started crying for not being aloud up. Kiss. Whine. Kiss. That will be a change I’m looking forward to when we eventually move out. Doors. That in and of itself would have been enough except that later I’m reading in my armchair, my bride comes by and bends down to kiss me, and that same stupid dog shoves his face right into the mix, cold nose bumping our cheeks and his whining in our ears. And as if that wasn’t enough, when we finally settle down after homework, writing, and business, to watch the sunset over the pond from the back porch, he became so exuberant to be between us that he sent my bride’s beer bottle careening and I had to play a quick game of 52 card pickup—if those cards were unknown in quantity, transparent, and razor sharp.  

If this dog was one of Snow White’s dwarves his name would be NEEDY! Excuse me, sir, but I ordered an aloof and independent canine companion, not one incapable of surviving five minutes outside of the center of attention. This dog is spoiled rotten. SPOILED. ROTTEN. His dinner came straight from the table (or at least a huge appetizer) courtesy of my bride during the football game.

But the highlight, THE HIGHLIGHT, was my wife working on her novel. Some of her subject material is hard stuff to deal with and it makes me admire her more for all that she has done. This woman is beyond remarkable and her book is going to be far more powerful than anything I have ever written. Maybe ever will write. And for all that she has poured into it I will be beyond ecstatic. I love that my bride is so compassionate, so driven, and so intelligent and all of that is abundantly clear when she writes. That’s how we met actually, through writing.

What a great touchstone to start from, yeah?

Mournful Howl

We’ve all read the expression “mournful howl” and sort of moved on. The phrase has been used so often that we pretty much just read it as “howl” these days. This morning at 5:15 my wife and I were awoken by the saddest, most HAUNTING howl I have ever heard. Mournful came back into the picture full swing.

One of our dogs is part wolf. She’s a petite little thing who thinks very highly of herself and is both gorgeous and sweet. For reasons we’re not entirely certain of, Anya suffers from occasional bouts of separation anxiety and occasionally has bad dreams. Last night she had a bad one and woke herself up howling.

Let me clarify that we treat our dogs well. If anyone is following me on Twitter you can see the posts of the spoilage that has gone into my own dog from before marriage, Oberon. Let me further clarify something about Anya. She does not make noise. I think it’s the wolf in her. This dog does not bark, growl, or whimper—not that she’s ever had cause for any of these things but that hasn’t stopped the VERY vocal Oberon from making his opinions known or defending us from the dangerous cows and buzzards that live on the ranch with us.

This morning when she woke us up was the loudest I have ever heard her. I found her coming to under our kitchen table and brought her back to bed with us. Anya, unlike our two boy dogs, loves attention, but in small doses, and has a love-hate relationship with our bed. She’s starting to get arthritis and the bed is too tall for her to easily get up, and down on her own and if she cannot have her independence then snuggles usually aren’t worth it for her. With the exception of this morning.

 

She BURROWED in between me and my bride and proceeded to tell us all about her night, how much she loved us, and most importantly, how much she loved the attention she was getting in hushed moans and purrs. I didn’t know dogs could purr. If her head hadn’t been so close to mine (she insisted on a couple of good morning kisses to my chin) I probably wouldn’t have heard her.

After a good twenty minutes of snuggling she was ready to be done and so I lifted her from the bed and placed her in my armchair. I emphasize “my” armchair because if I don’t establish my dominance over it she would never leave it and I would have to replace my favorite reading spot (unacceptable). She KNOWS that it’s my chair and that when I want it I will use it regardless of how much she preens and tries to show what a pretty girl she is. Hey, I said she was quiet, I didn’t say she wasn’t vain.

 

Anyway, our snuggle time made Oberon jealous and I turned around to find that my spot on the bed had been taken over by the big lump head. I figured I had three options. One, kick him out of bed. Two, get up. Three, offer him his own snuggle time. Let me just say that option one was never really an option and that two would have earned me wounded looks from not only every dog in the house but my wife as well. Guess there are worse ways to start the morning.

Countdown to Outlaws of the Golden Plains!

The third book in the Hawkridge Chronicles is now available for pre-order—you can read it on October 23! Get your copy here.

To countdown the days I am posting one chapter a day of Hawkridge, the first book of the series, on Wattpad - for free!

Second to Last HWG Summer 2015 Workshop

Last night was my second to last workshop with the Houston Writers Guild and the Balance of Summer event. I’ve got to say, these have been incredibly fun and rewarding. Last night was geared toward writers who write by the seat of their pants, “pantsers,” if you will, also called Discovery Writers or Gardeners. I’ll share some excerpts from my notes on here later.

 I’ve been fairly confident in my approach to these sessions, but yesterday I was having one heck of an off day. Seriously, I was more absentminded than I’ve been in a long time. I forgot tasks, I left the lights on when I went out, and all manner of little things along the way. Whatever was going on, I couldn’t get my bearings. And then the workshop actually started. Everything went off without a hitch…until I realized that I was blowing through my presentation much too fast and the power point I’d slaved over only lasted us half the time I’d intended it for!

Let me tell you, my stomach just about fell out. I always leave time for discussion at the end, but writers tend to be introverts and a room full of introverts can be very difficult to get engaged in a group conversation. These ladies were amazing. We talked about their books and projects and how what I’d shown in the power point could be applied to help overcome their problems, we clarified ideas and discussed others at greater length. I was still nervous that I’d let everyone down, but three of the attendees told me that my presentation was great and one stayed late to shake my hand and tell me how much my presentation had helped them. I left feeling like a million bucks, a huge step up from the screw-up I’d been feeling like all day.

I am so excited for the next installment! Each of these sessions has been as much a learning experience for me as it has been for those who’ve attended, and knowing that they have benefited makes me feel like you would not believe. Honestly, I’m getting a little teary writing this.

The next session is August 25^th and will focus on how to help Plotters (or Architects as George RR Martin calls them) bring a sense of the organic to their work. This is going to be bitter sweet for me. This summer has been great and I’m sorry to see it end—the Houston Writers Guild has been an absolute pleasure to work with and I look forward to working with them again in the future. For now though, I’ve got two books to finish getting ready for publication, a wedding to get ready for, and a new semester at SHSU. Life is moving fast!

If you’re interested in participating in my last workshop, here is the link to the Houston Writers Guild’s website: http://www.houstonwritersguild.org/balancer-of-summer-series-with-julian-kindred/