The Cascadia Subd uction A LITERARY Z QUARTERLY on January 2015 X Vol. 5. No. 1 e ESSAY Unqualified by Nisi Shawl POEMS Song of Steel Colonization: Marvels and Mysteries and Marvels Colonization: & Midnight Snack by Mary Alexandra Agner Scatter and Return by Rose Lemberg Gorgoneion IN THIS ISSUE by Sonya Taaffe GRANDMOTHER MAGMA Peerless Steerswoman: Rosemary Kirstein by Kate Elliott X a Day REVIEWS T ahli Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett Hate Crimes in Cyberspace by Danielle Keats Citron The Wilds by Julia Elliott Made for You by Melissa Marr Maplecroft by Cherie Priest “Since its launch in 2011 The Cascadia Subduction Zone has emerged as one of the best critical journals the field has to offer.” FEATURED ARTIST h Jonathan McCalmont, February 18, 2013, Hugo Ballot Nomination T ahlia Day $5.00 Managing Editor Lew Gilchrist VOL. 5 NO. 1 — JANUARY 2015 Reviews Editor Nisi Shawl ESSAY Features Editor Unqualified L. Timmel Duchamp by Nisi Shawl h 1 Arts Editor Kath Wilham POEMS Scatter and Return $5.00 by Rose Lemberg h 5 Song of Steel & Midnight Snack by Mary Alexandra Agner h 15 Gorgoneion by Sonya Taaffe h 19 GRANDMOTHER MAGMA Peerless Steerswoman: Rosemary Kirstein by Kate Elliott h 6 REVIEWS Elysium, by Jennifer Marie Brissett reviewed by La Shawn M. Wanak h 8 Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, by Danielle Keats Citron reviewed by Nancy Jane Moore h 10 The Wilds, by Julia Elliott reviewed by Victoria Elisabeth Garcia h 12 Made for You, by Melissa Marr reviewed by Aaliyah Hudson and Nisi Shawl h 16 Maplecroft. by Cherie Priest reviewed by Kristin King h 18 FEATURED ARTIST Tahlia Day h 20 Subscriptions and single issues online at: To order by check, payable to: www.thecsz.com Aqueduct Press Print subscription: $16/yr; P.O. Box 95787 Print single issue: $5 Seattle, WA 98145-2787 Electronic Subscription (PDF format): [Washington State Residents $10 per year add 9.5% sales tax.] Electronic single issue: $3 In This Issue Cover banner collagraph of the Cascadia subduction zone by Marilyn Liden Bode y Unqualified by Nisi Shawl How good do you have to be to make No one dreamed I’d come up with my it as a writer at this time, in this culture? own lessons, deliver my own messages. A writer writing in standard English, I recently read a review of a science a popular author whose work supports fiction novel written in 1906 and featur- your existence? A writer who earns more ing a “germicide for laziness” that was than a pot to piss in and a window to applied with good effect to “negroes.” throw it out of? The unwillingness of my elders to dream What if you want to stretch your tal- big, to voice high ambitions for those What if you want to stretch ent further than that, even, and make a in their community, resulted not from your talent further…and difference in the hearts and minds and “laziness” but from persecution that make a difference in the hearts and minds and souls souls of others, a difference in the world reached its height not long after that of others, a difference in we all inhabit? novel appeared. Thriving black farms the world we all inhabit? Do you think you’re that good? and businesses were frequent targets of Do you think you’re that Most people of color don’t. That’s a white supremacist terror. Doing well of- good? problem. ten meant dying horribly. Lynching of Most people of color don’t. There are so many obstacles to build- African Americans has continued into That’s a problem. ing a writing career, no matter what your the present day, occurring in the living race. I’m not going to claim poor self- memory of many, myself included. And esteem is our exclusive burden to bear, the persecution I’m talking about ex- but I can tell you some of the ways it tends beyond that outrage. When my has affected me, and I can describe how mother was nine (the age at which I was this losing attitude is fostered among dazzling older relatives with my etymo- African Americans in particular, how logical acumen) a black child, a boy of we’re constantly getting the message fourteen, was legally executed as a mur- i that we’re unqualified for the work of derer in South Carolina. creating a lasting literature — or even an The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but 1 interesting one. the nail that sticks up gets hammered And I can also discuss some ways to down. Probably it was instilled wari- fix what’s broken here. ness of standing out that kept my par- Where to start? To paraphrase, the ents from putting me forward for arts …the nail that sticks up personal is historical — especially when programs designed to nurture creative gets hammered down. you get to be my age. As a child in the children. In junior high school I learned Probably it was instilled 1960s I was praised by the old folks for about Michigan’s Interlochen Academy wariness of standing out being “smart,” which to them meant for the Arts and their Summer Arts that kept my parents from knowing lots of words. At the age of Camps. They accepted students from putting me forward for nine I could spell “antidisestablishmen- third through twelfth grade. One of my arts programs designed to tarianism” and “supercalifragilisticexpi- white friends had attended; she was a nurture creative children. alidocious.” I could define infinity. My violinist, but Interlochen also ran pro- nickname was “Encyclopedia,” just like grams for writers. And I knew at a very the little white boy who solved mysteries early age I wanted to be a writer. in the books. But did anyone predict that Yet it wasn’t until many years later, un- I’d be able to write my own books? No. til after I dropped out of the major col- In their very wildest imaginings I would lege my family was so proud to see me be accepted into a major college. enter, that I wondered why I also had not I was, to use the terminology of the been privileged to attend Interlochen. period, a Negro. A “smart” Negro, who Instead, I got sent to Pretty Lake, a could get away with correcting her par- summer camp for “disadvantaged youth.” ents’ pronunciation, who could absorb During the pre-camp physical all of us the lessons the predominantly white ed- had our heads searched for lice. I swam ucational system taught. But absorption and wove potholders and advanced my was as far as “smartness” would take me. literary career not one whit. Cont. on p. 2 n Unqualified It was a National Merit Scholarship and their internalized understanding of (cont. from p. 1 that enabled me to attend the University how non-blacks view those same experi- of Michigan. That scholarship was based ences. Something like this was at work on my high SAT scores, but according in me, so that when Greg Bear didn’t to a close acquaintance (I can’t really call respond to my submission to the anthol- him a friend), the reason I had been ac- ogy he had announced to me and my W.E.B. Dubois famously cepted as a student at the U of M was Clarion West classmates, I assumed that wrote about “double so that black football players would have my story had been rejected. In reality, it consciousness” as the someone to date. had been lost in the mail, as I realized disjunction between blacks’ This acquaintance’s remark wasn’t why after finally working up the nerve to ask own experiences and their I dropped out of college. I did so in large him about it many years later. The story I internalized understanding part because I didn’t see any way for U sent around the same time to instructor of how non-blacks view of M to help me write — and especially Gardner Dozois, then editor at Asimov’s those same experiences. to help me write science fiction and fan- SF Magazine, had been specifically re- tasy. Exposure to the feminist works of quested by him, so it only took me a year Joanna Russ, Suzy McKee Charnas, and to ask him whether he actually wanted it. Monique Wittig had taught me that this He did, but I had to resend it. The first genre was where I could do what I want- manuscript, as Dozois eventually discov- ed to do. And I wanted to do so much. ered, had fallen behind a desk. I had dreams, ideas — but any talent I These sorts of missteps occur on every possessed with which to carry out those writer’s path, I’m sure. But writers of col- dreams went unrecognized by my teach- or are more likely to lack the self-esteem ers and the rest of the English and Cre- necessary to correct them. ative Writing departments. I received Low self worth could well be a bar- Science fiction, by my no mentoring. There were grants I could rier to POCs attempting to write in definition, is fiction have applied for, and fellowships, prizes, any genre. With my longing to create H that promotes science: awards. I knew nothing about them and imaginative worlds that refuse to default its plot, settings, and heard nothing about them from anyone to the status quo, speculative fiction was characters are embedded 2 who did know. And I didn’t ask for that obviously the field where I needed to fo- in scientific values and cus my efforts.