Kuma2.net Blog

Remember the Kuma Artist Kaution?

The author / writer / high octaine entrepreneur is starting a new venture: an online, audio soap opera called “Kaution presents…Konfessions”

Kaution Media Concepts’ brainchild of author/artist Kaution announced the new online soap opera series entitled “Kaution presents…Konfessions” in development and set for production in early April. The unique online soap series is one of several Kaution Media Concepts projects due to be released in 2010. Konfessions will be the first audio production in KMC’s audio catalog.

Audio soap operas is not a new concept but Konfessions will be the first of its kind in the history of audio dramas to be based and targeted to the urban LGBT community. Each episode will be 35 minutes in length with a new episode weekly, featuring music from various cast members as well as Spoken Word stanzas with contributions from other LGBT artists contributing helping to shape each episode.

Created by the author Kaution, gay lit fiction writer and written by Kaution and new creative partner GYFTED the two tell the tale of two record labels in the fictitious city known as Hillside owned by rival lesbians once friends now turned enemies and the people caught inadvertently in the middle.

With power struggles to control the music scene close to erupting in the city and old debts of revenge needing to be repaid, Hillside City’s many dark secrets with seeds that were planted twenty years in the past struggle to surface only to reveal years of lies and deceit that was buried but forgotten now ready to show itself in the light of day. The show’s characters will have friendships tested, loves destroyed, lies exposed and families torn into pieces as all the major players work towards their own personal agendas at any cost. Even the “good” guys are bad in this audio drama packed with twists in every episode.

The story asks one question, “Can you handle the truth?”

Read the entire press release here.

For more about Kaution, visit http://www.kaution-online.com/

All FTM Peoples of African Decent
LAST CALL for SUBMISSION
New DEADLINE: open until Midnight, April 30, 2010

Volume I
21st Century Kings: An Introduction to A New Brown-skinned Masculinity

We’ve extended and expanded our call and the call date. We are now getting requests and submissions from the African continent and have no choice but to change the call to include all Brown-skinned/Black – Male, ThirdGender, TransMen, FtM, Boi, Daddy, Tranny, Tranny Fag, Butch, G3 (gee cued –gender gifted guy,) ’masculine/masculinized’ women (butches, studs, aggressives, ballers, playas….,) Drag Kings, male illusionists, Transgenders, Transsexuals, gender-queers, stealth, boys like us and the likes** from around the globe.

Please submit your stories, poems and art work. Please also refer to all of the more detailed information below.

Thank you, Thank you to all of you who have submitted. We appreciate your patience. Some of you have asked if you can submit more than one item. Yes you can. And as stated below, it’s your property until we confirm you for the book. Thank you!

Below is a copy of the original call. Please send us your submissions today – new and previously published are welcome. Thank you!

All FTM Peoples of African Decent
LAST CALL for SUBMISSION
New DEADLINE: open until Midnight, April 30, 2010
Volume I:
21st Century Kings: An Introduction to A New Brown-skinned Masculinity

3 Kings are three Brown-skinned/Black – Male, ThirdGender and/or Masculine identified Trans persons who seek to give voice and page to the array of persons of color* who may have been born female and now live all or a significant portion of their lives as TransMen, FtM, Boi, Daddy, Tranny, Tranny Fag, Butch, G3 (gee cued –gender gifted guy,) ’masculine/masculinized’ women (butches, studs, aggressives, ballers, playas….,) Drag Kings, male illusionists, Transgenders, Transsexuals, gender-queers, stealth, boys like us and the likes**.

When considering works written over the past 25 years, there are a plethora of books addressing the ‘social construction of masculinity.’ About 90 books deal specifically with TransGendered identities. To my knowledge only four of the 90, specifically offer more than an obligatory glimpse of what is repeatedly understood as the ‘illusive FtM of color.’ Where are the voices, opinions, insight of all the black, brown, red and yellow ’masculine/masculinized’ women, FTMs and others?

Ours are the voices missing from the page and the voices the next generation needs!

For volume One we are requesting your unpublished stories, photographs, poems, essays, drawings. At this time and for this volume, we are specifically seeking submissions from the African Diaspora who identify as and/or live all or a significant portion of their lives as FtM, Transmen, TransGender, Fag, Boi, Tranny, Tranny Fag G3 (gee cubed –gender gifted guy,) Transsexuals, Stealth, boys like us, Trans-identified Butches and the likes.

All submissions, commentary and visual works will be fully considered. Each submission will receive a receipt of delivery via email. We are also seeking/accepting photos, sketches, drawings, digital imagery, cartoons and did we say poetry?!

Word Count/Page Limits:
– Personal Narratives: Up to 15 pages/5000 words Double Spaced
– Fiction: Up to 15 pages/3750 words – Double Spaced
– Critical Essays and Cultural Critiques: Up to 15 pages (including bibliography) 3750 words – Double Spaced
– Poetry/Rhymes: No more than 3 pages per poem/rhyme and 3 poems per poet/mc – Double Spaced
– Graphic Stories: No more than three pages per submission (number of panels up to you). Up to three pieces/stories per artist.
– Photographs/Paintings/Collage/Drawings: 3-5, scanned as B/W only. (No Originals, we are not returning ANYTHING).

New writers welcome!

Please copy and paste your text into your email. Please send images in jpeg format or paste into document. Mail to: 3kingsanthology@gmail.com

Here is our CURRENT FOCUS of WORKS being requested:
1. As Men: African American TransMen on their life, experience, and journey to ‘man’.
¨ Tell us your story. We want anything you want to share about your transition
2. Third Sex/Recognize Me For Me: Passing African American butches and non-transitioned/No Ho transgender folks on their life, experience and journey to be a true expression of themselves.
¨ Here we imagine receiving work from African American Male/Masculine identified folks who are not currently on hormones.
3. In Spirit We Trust (?): TransMen and Spirituality

Here are some ideas that may help spur your writing…
* Self/personal journey: Who supports you? Are you coupled? How do you see yourself? What kind of challenges / issues do you have to deal with being you? Do you see yourself as gay, straight, bi or…? Are you okay with being referred to as a Tranny? Trans? Transexual? Are you stealth? Who are your friends? Are you a parent? Co-parent? Adoptive parent? Foster parent? Guardian? A Primary Provider for someone younger than 18?
* On the job: Did you transition at work? What was that experience like? Did you keep your job? Do you feel safe?
* Your Spiritual Life: Is spirituality important to you? Has your relationship to spirituality, religion or your spiritual or religious community change after you began taking T?
* Have you transitioned? How so, in what ways? Are there differences in life as a woman of color to life as you live it now?
* What about relationships with your family, children, “males” in your life, friends, intimate ones, girlfriends, tricks, neighbors and random human contact?
* Health / wellness: Do you have safe places to go?

********************************************************************************************

Contact: 3kingsanthology AT gmail Dot com

Copy Rights: We will retain copy rights until publication. You have full rights after publication.

Please note that we respect your privacy, while we prefer you use a pseudonym, we will be accepting a limited number of anonymous works.
*We are aware this term may be offensive to some…if it offends you we apologize. Our goal is to be All Inclusive

**There are as many terms as there are communities. Please contact us if you feel you fit in this group even if you don’t identify with the terms.

( Scheduled for 2011 -Volume II: TransMen of The Americas: Native American, Latin, Chicano and more… Volume III For our Asian, South Asian, Pacific Islanders and more…)

Did you know that you can get a copy of Speaking In Whispers by Kathleen E. Morris, one of the best anthologies of African-American Lesbian Erotica around, directly from the author herself? Why buy a used one–when you can get a new, signed/personalized copy…and it would make a great gift.

From the intro: “Speaking in Whispers is a collection of erotic short stories that celebrates the diversity in shape, style, and manner of loving of African-American lesbians…”

WORDS TO LIVE BY: 2010 and BEYOND

Vintage Entity Press Writers Retreat

May 21-23, 2010
@
The Oaks/New Dawn Foundation
New Rochelle, New York
http://www.theoaksndf.org/

Join us for
Workshops, Networking, Open Mic, Readings, Book Selling, and Community

Invited Presenters:
G. Winston James
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Pamela Sneed
Curu Necos-Bloice
Herukhuti (Editing and Revising)
Steven G. Fullwood (Creating a Manuscript Proposal)
April Silver (PR and Marketing)
Lamar Ariel (Self-Publishing)
Lenelle Moïse (Reading and Performing)
Anton Nimblett (Fiction)
Ellery Washington (Creative Non-Fiction)
And More!

For additional information and/or to get a registration form, visit Vintage Entity Press.

Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action, the pioneering, highly regarded South African gay and lesbian archives, invites African writers to submit stories on a queer African theme for publishing in a ground-breaking anthology. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action intends the anthology to query stereotypes, show that there are many ways of being queer in Africa, and encourage queer artistic expression and appreciation. Literary merit and an insightful response to the complexities of African queerness will guide the selection.

Submit your unpublished short fiction of between 1,000 and 5,000 words to queerafricanfiction@gmail.com by 30 June 2010. Provide a covering page with the title of the story, your first name and surname, your email address and a contact telephone number, and a bio of not more than 100 words. All submissions will be acknowledged.

The selection will be made by 30 September 2010, and writers will work with an editor to refine their stories for publishing in June 2011. The anthology will be launched at the 2011 Cape Town Book Fair and will be distributed locally, in Africa and internationally. With writers’ permissions, all submissions will be archived by Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action and will be accessible to the archives’ many local and international users.

For more information visit the Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action website at www.gala.co.za, or email queerafricanfiction@gmail.com.

Center for Black Literature
at Medger Evers College, CUNY

Presents

The Tenth National Black
Writers’ Conference TRIBUTE to

E. LYNN HARRIS

THIS SATURDAY
March 6, 2010
Brooklyn Public Library
at Grand Army Plaza
4:00 pm to 6:00 pm

This Event is FREE and Open to All

Co- Sponsored by
the Brooklyn Public Library
at Grand Army Plaza
brooklynpubliclibrary.org/central

For More Information on the
National Black Writers Conference (NBWC),
contact the Center for Black Literature
at 718.804.8884 or via email at nbwc@mec.cuny.edu

mec.cuny.edu/blacklitcenter • nationalblackwritersconference.org

E: info@putonblast.com · W: www.putonblast.com ·
T: 718.756.8501

None On Record: Stories of Queer Africa

This week’s featured guests are Julia Wallace of Queer Renaissance and Alexis Pauline Gumbs of BrokenBeautiful Press. They are the force behind A Queer Black Mobile HomeComing, a project to collect and amplify the social organizing herstories (1980’s and before) of black women who have been refusing the limits of heteronormativity and opening the world up by being themselves.

Out Loud & Proud IV
Curated and Hosted by Pandora Scooter
Friday, April 9 at 7:30

Gay, straight, queer, lesbian, bisexual—how do you identify? For this fourth annual gathering at NJPAC, some of the scene’s most provocative new hip-hop and spoken word artists (who collectively represent all orientations) come together to voice their views on one of life’s hottest topics: sexuality. This cutting-edge performance also incorporates an open forum for conversation. This performance contains adult/mature content and language. Part of NJPAC’s Alternate Routes Sacred Circle Café.

More Info/Buy Tickets

——————-

Newark Is Burning:
From Cakewalk to Catwalk
Saturday, April 10 @ 7:30

Gender-bending balls have been a fixture of the underground social scene for nearly a century. These “Houses” parodied the fashion houses of haute couture and first gained mainstream attention with the 1990 documentary, Paris Is Burning. Now NJPAC gets a cat walk of its own. A part of Newark’s house culture since 1990, Fire Ball is sure to take NJPAC by storm with outrageous runway performances, fierce competition and an absolutely fabulous display of the audacity and love that resides in a community that’s doing a whole lot more than simply surviving. This performance contains adult/mature content and language.

More Info/Buy Tickets

This week’s featured guest is Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene, a Nigerian dyke performance activist, poet, dancer, essayist, playwright and actress who was born with a mouth full of dynamite and sugarcane.

Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene