Luisa Igloria blogs about the slur against the Filipino people on the show Desperate Housewives. I signed the petition after reading about it on Luisa's blog, and it's interesting to read about the influence of protests against slurs like this.

I'm posting the link to the BBC article (originally posted on Luisa's blog) so you can read what it's all about.

I find myself wondering who watches shows like this one anyway? I mean, I don't watch this show because the few occassions when I zapped by, it seemed to me that these housewives must be just about the saddest people on the planet. Okay... I confess to being a non-lover of soap opera and drama series. I confess to not even watching the famed Sex in the City. Why shows like these are considered entertaining are beyond me. I often find myself moaning about the stupidity of the characters and so instead of wasting my energy on that...I'd rather be doing something productive like reading a book...or updating my blog ;)

Anyway, the reason I'm thinking of this issue comes from searching for a column to replace last week's column on Haruah. Searching through columns submitted, I came across Selena Thomason's column on Diversity. I found it engaging and timely and thought I'd do some plugging and prompt readers to go over and check it out. Any thoughts on the topic are welcome in our forum.

Writing about Haruah and columns reminds me of my intention to post a call for voluntary one-time submissions of reviews to the column list. If you've read a book which you'd like to share with other readers, why not write a review and send it in as a column submission to Haruah. While we don't pay for columns, we do offer the opportunity for exposure.

And...last but not least...

I thought I'd post a reminder to vote for Maria Zannini's blog over at http://www.fictionaddiction.net/vote.html

You can vote once a day, so the more votes coming in the better :) I've got to go. I still have a column that needs to be written and sent in before midnight tomorrow.

Genoeg Getreuzeld

In other words, enough of this dilly-dallying.

Late News:

The hay(na)ku continues to find a welcome at Dragons, Knights and Angels Magazine. My fellow Editor, Rick Copple, has been bitten by the hay(na)ku bug and has successfully placed some hay(na)ku poems with DKA. His hay(na)ku poem, Black Hole Relationships, won honorable mention during DKA's 2006 poetry competition. Yes, I'm blogging about it a bit late, but I have my excuses. In December, my mind was occuppied by things other than blogging or writing or going on the net. Rick's Science Fiction hay(na)ku, The Path of Least Resistance, was published in August last year. Danged, but I am so behind on stuff. Anyway, I thought I'd raise my glass (of water) and toast to Rick.

Haruah update:

I think Haruah is a definite "she". Her development has been a bit slow, and it's difficult to find good literary pieces that adhere to the guidelines. Could it be the name of the mag? We get loads of outright preachy pieces, when the vision of Haruah is to publish good literature and not to convert folks.

Writing News:

So, I thought it was time to stop dilly-dallying. Adopting Dean Alfar's guerilla writing method, I've managed to do some sorting and have figured out what stories still need working on, what needs to be rewritten/sent out/fine-tuned.

Working on Little Goddess, I decided to trash almost all of it except the opening and went for wacky instead of serious. He, he. So, I have a furious goddess Momma wreaking havoc on shell worlds, while little goddess takes on a literal meaning in addition to the figurative one. We'll see what happens to this tale, and whether I manage to bring it to a satisfying conclusion. *happily wrings hands together*

I've completed work on Remembrance of Griefs and Losses, my tribute to my neighbour and am now working on a Dutch translation for the family. My deep thanks to Bec for reading the piece and for her feedback.

And finally, a post about a poem I'd forgotten all about. Between Kisses (Sam's Dot Publishing) has accepted my hay(na)ku poem, How to Prepare a Head, for publication. Yayness!

Blogging is also a form of dilly-dallying. Genoeg getreuzeld! I'll be back another day.

update

Yay! Blogger has let me back in . Blogger weirdness is one reason why I started an lj. But I do miss rambling on blogger. Perhaps it's the blog format, or the way the letters look when I'm typing.

So, while I was absent from blogger, Chickflicks has published "Falling in Love".

Some bug attacked Haruah, managing to erase everything backwards up to January--or was it early February? Drat! I've been soooo absent from the Net. Stuff has been retrieved and rebuilt, and Haruah is back online and accepting subs again, and lo and behold, we are now a paying market.

I've also volunteered myself to write an intermittent column about poetry (what else). I'm not a major poet, but I think I've read enough good poetry to know it when I see it. Also, I thought it would be a good idea to encourage readers to go out and explore, read more, venture out into the deep, dare to read the experimental as well as the known.

Said column will bear the title "In Pursuit of Poetry". Defining poetry is illusive (hence the"In pursuit" part), so I leave defining poetry to the experts and have decided to document what it is I've learned so far, and why certain works are poetry and why some are not.

Anyway, if blogger permits, I'll be using this blog as a sort of notebook on stuff I'm thinking about before it becomes all cohesive.

Writing updates

Sifting through my mailbox this morning, I found the following emails:

From Laurie O'Hare, Editor of Chickflicks Ezine .

Thank you for your submission. We enjoyed the creative prose of your nonfiction piece. We have accepted it for the upcoming issue.

This is about my non-fiction piece entitled "Falling in Love". Yayness and a big smile from over here.

The Skin Byteback book is out too. You can download it for free from Route Online or buy a hard copy of the byteback. I have a story in this book entitled, "My Skin, Us". Enjoy.

Here's the blurb:

Skin - Editor Crista Ermiya A mixture of fiction and non-fiction stories are to be found in this new byteback book edited by Crista Ermiya on the theme of skin. In her introduction Crista describes skin as 'a border frontier, the porous barrier between what's on the outside and the inside; appearance and reality.'

And on the fictional side of things, I got this email from Dark Energy SF editor, Jerry Davis

Just a quick note to let you know your story has passed the first round of readings and is in the final selection stage. 99% of the stories we receive don't make it this far, so even if we decide against it at this point, please consider this a compliment.

I'm quite pleased about this, and hope I'll have more opportunity to write and submit work soon.

In the meantime, my Being and Becoming column is up on, Haruah

And an Interview with Marshall Payne has been published at: The Sword Review .

I'm still grinning from ear to ear about the Chickflicks acceptance. Thanks to Laurie O'Hare and Stacy Taylor.