Haus of Rhi

I wanted to preface this impromptu discussion born of a stream of tweets churned out on my Twitter feed. This is not about inexperienced writers snubbing their noses at any sort of editorial effort on their work. This is about knowing the rules and knowing when to break them, and breaking them in a specific sort of way as an artistic technique. Let us not confuse the two, for we have all of us read unedited stories published on Smashwords or Lulu or Amazon that made our brains bleed with the urge to claw out our eyes. This is about the presence of prose poetry in fiction as a writing technique, and about how much of it is damaged or lost in translation through the course of the editorial stage of the publishing process. Prose poetry is a recognized form of art, in that it is  a recognized form of poetry . Sadly, it is not wholly recognized as a form of prose. Or at least, it is not recognized as a form of  fiction  prose. Had an interesting conversation about pro...

As though winter isn't rough enough most of the time, this year Mercury went into retrograde for the entire month of February, and of course, oriented in Pisces. That's my constellation, the one that resonates with me the most--I'm technically an Aquarius/Pisces cusp, but when it comes to art, and writing, the Piscean in me comes to the fore. (The Aquarian side I save mostly for forced social interactions.) At any rate, February was a big fat bust. The most I managed to write on any given day was 100 words, when words came at all. Oftentimes just that much took hours to accomplish. Yet life is cyclic in so many ways, and Mercury relented at last. I could almost feel  the floodgate giving way, the surge of words scourging away the residue built up by weeks of frustration and headdesking. Of course, the parameters of my upbringing demanded this sort of pagan resonance receive disbelief and an "evil" label, so despite the years and distance between us, I still dou...

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Haus of Rhi! Today we're joining in on a blog hop that's raising awareness about a very important subject. Today we're all dedicating blogspace in recognition of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia . And Haus of Rhi is joining in. This week I'll be giving away an ebook copy of "Blacker Than Black." Leave a meaningful comment on this post with a valid email address before midnight on May 27th to enter the drawing. Each comment will be counted as a separate entry (so if you leave more than one comment, each one will be a separate drawing entry). One winner will be selected via randomizer and announced here at Haus of Rhi on May 28th. It's about time. It's about losing the labels that discriminate and delineate. It's about accepting that not everyone's identity will fall neatly within the definitions you create in your unique perspective. It's about realizing that you have t...

I'll admit it here for the world to see and read. I am a nerd. A geek. One of my all-time favorite books on my bookshelf is Edward Tufte's volume titled "Visual Explanations." Between its hardback covers is a brilliantly executed argument for the method one uses to process data into information so that it impacts its audience with the desired effect, conveys the proper sense of urgency. It was given to me by my engineer of a father about seven years ago, and hands-down the best tangible gift I've received from that source. It triggered a realization that it is not enough to have a legitimate grievance, a valid argument, or stand in the right. If you are going to challenge the perspectives or perceptions of others, you as a human being have a responsibility to your fellow human being to present an alternative, and to do so in a coherent, rational manner that conveys your information effectively and succinctly.

The definition of the word is: the quality or state of moral, ethical, legal, or mental accountability; burden. Writers, as artists, have a responsibility to both entertain and challenge their audience. Granted, not every work of art will deliver both in equal measures. But both responsibilities exist, if the artist is one who seeks to challenge themselves, to grow and evolve. There's also the responsibility of quality, which encompasses any number of aspects including subject presentation with sensitivity, authenticity, etc.

I recently stumbled across a blogpost on the official OIIUSA website that made me hackle, hard . For those that don’t know, OII is Organization Intersexual International, the international awareness and rights organization for intersexuality. I began following the blog some months ago as a result of Black’s imminent release, doing research for content—news and otherwise—to feed onto a subject-related page. The content of the blogpost in question was to be commended, actually: 8 November was Intersexuality Awareness Day, and the post was the biographical information of one of the first known and documented intersexuals. What set me off was that the blog also stated the following:

There was a good bit of exhaustion-fueled hilarity at the day-job, yesterday. Some very interesting conversations. The regular overnight associate, with whom I worked most of a 17-hour shift, is a fount of such quality material. Last night's story was about her elementary-aged son. He has a backpack that he takes to school each day with a full compliment of "survivalist" supplies. A bottle of water, a utility knife, gloves, umbrella, cell phone with emergency phone numbers, that sort of thing. Earlier this week, her boy returned home from school absolutely drenched. Wearing a thin jacket not designed to keep one dry, the boy was saturated with water. And pulled his umbrella out from inside his jacket as he stepped inside. The umbrella was closed, and safely dry, tucked against his torso. I imagine the boy had a passing thought at how useless an umbrella was in the rain, for keeping one dry.

I've watched yet another large-circulation newspaper make sweeping changes to their book review section. From the Publisher's Weekly article  [emphasis added]: Sullivan, the VP of Communications for the LA Times, confirmed that this was a cost-saving move but would not provide details on the number of freelancers who were eliminated last week. “ Staff writers from outside the book department will take over for those who left. We have not changed our commitment to book coverage or the amount of space the Times will devote to it.”  I find it fascinating that no reference is made to the quality  of the content the LA Times will offer, going forward. Parceling out review assignments outside the book department doesn't bode well. They aren't the first news organization to revamp their book-related content. Back in 2009, the Washington Post did something similar , condensing and consolidating what had once been a fully separate section. Is it just a sign of the economy,...