CONTACT CAROLINE
facebook
rss
tumblr
twitter
goodreads
youtube

  • Home
  • Write Away Blog
  • Books
    • Books
    • Trompe l’Oeil
    • Heart Land
    • Gothic Spring
    • Ballet Noir
    • Book Excerpts
  • Video Vault
  • Audio
  • Press
    • News
    • Print Interviews
    • Plays
    • Ballet Noir in the Press
    • Trompe l’Oeil In The Press
    • Gothic Spring In The Press
    • Heart Land Reviews
  • Contact
  • About
  • Resources
    • Writer Resources
    • Favorite Blogs
    • Favorite Artists



Against All Odds

Aug 18, 2016
by Caroline Miller
Buried Giant, crowd sourcing, Jason Kehe, Kazuo Ishiguro, N. K. Jemisim, Patreon, Science Fiction, World Shaker
0 Comment

I received a lovely rejection letter the other day for one of my weird parables.  The editor hadn’t a clue about what I was doing but wanted to help, perhaps seeing a glimmer of  talent.  He made suggestions entirely inappropriate to the genre I was inventing but which, I suspect,  Kazuo Ishiguro may have already done in Buried Giant.  Like the Japanese author,  I am hearkening back to an early art form where the story instructs and characters aren’t allowed to get in the way.  Time, setting, place are characters as much, if not more than  individuals.  Proper subjects for what I call a didactic parable might be: the duality of human nature, over-population and climate change- issues mankind may have created but which have grown too large to control.

N. K. Jemisim is a writer of science fiction who deals with similar progressive themes. A 3 time Hugo Award nominee, she draws criticism from traditionalists, largely male, who want to return to the good old days of galactic heroes, monster villains and helpless damsels in distress. Jemisim and a growing number of largely women writers want to examine more pressing matters and so a schism exists in the genre. (Blog 12/17/15)   

Jemisim remains unchastened by criticism.  “I’ve always written  what I want to read and I don’t care if it doesn’t fit into the confines of what a bunch of reactionaries – can I say assholes? – reactionary assholes want of the genre.”  (“World Shaker, A Fantasy Writer Breaks Through,” by Jason Kehe,  Wired, August 2016 pg. 29.)

To retain her independence, the author, who had to work to pay rent, has turned to the crowdfunding site, Patreon, for support.  To her credit, fans responded, pledging monthly stipends that will allow her to create full time. Her goal is to complete the remaining two books of her trilogy that began with Broken Earth.

cave painting

Courtesy of www.headstuff.orgc

That readers should love a writer enough to become patrons touches me.  That this woman, Jemisin, so much younger than I, should  defy gatekeepers of the cannon inspires me.  Who are they, these critics, who pretend to judge art, after all?  Their role, if they insist upon having one, is to comprehend all the  fluttering and permutations of inspiration that have sprung from the human mind since the first bison found immortality on cave walls.

 

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

*
*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published five novels

  • Getting Lost To Find Home
  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

Subscribe to Caroline’s Blog


 

Archives

Categories

YouTube-logo-inline2 To access and subscribe to my videos on YouTube, Click Here and click the Subscribe button.

Banner art “The Receptive” by Charlie White of Charlie White Studio

Web Admin: ThinPATH Systems, Inc
support@tp-sys.com

Subscribe to Caroline's Blog


 

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Sitemap | Privacy Notice

AUDIO & VIDEO VAULT

View archives of Caroline’s audio and videos interviews.


Copyright © Books by Caroline Miller