SO HERE’S SOME MORE!

Broaddus shows little interest in predictable adventure narratives. Instead he packs this slim novella with alternate American history, fantastic technology and father-son bonding, for a far more surprising and satisfying result.

[Continue to read in THE NEW YORK-FREAKING- TIMES!]

 

“Black Steampunk. Yeah!!! I was so bummed I didn’t get a chance to review Nisi Shawl’s Congelese steampunk novel Everfair, so when I learned that Maurice Broaddus had also written a steampunk novella, I snatched it up. And oh, did it not disappoint. It’s not just steampunk, it’s western steampunk!”

[Continue to read LaShawn Wanak’s review over at Lightspeed Magazine]

 

“Buffalo Soldier is a story about stories. The stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell others, stories that hold our history and culture, stories that help us find our place in the world. Just as Desmond uses Maroon mythology to keep Lij grounded in his past, so too does Broaddus in using the science fiction genre as a tool for exploring the philosophies and social mores of the real world. It’s not just a steampunk novella with a majority Black and brown cast. Through the genre lens, Broaddus comments on the real world. Racism, white privilege, the uniquely white American form of conquest and domination (i.e.: Manifest Destiny), and intersectional feminism all get play. Power – who has it, who doesn’t, those who use it to exploit and abuse others, and those who fight back against it – is the name of the game.”

[Read the full analysis over on Tor.com]

 

But it is clear Broaddus’ world-building for Buffalo Soldier is complete and massively detailed. The reader gets just enough historical detail to glean that the American Revolution failed while Jamaican independence was successful, and that what we know as the United States is divided into three main regions: Albion, ruled over by Regents of the British government; Tejas (Texas and environs); and the Six Civilized Nations (various native tribes, occupying fortified holdings in the west after being forced out of the east).  The novella is set in what feels like the present day, or close to it…But it’s the characters that draw the readers into this world and keep us there; Desmond Coke, Lij Tafari, and the mysterious Cayt Siringo. Coke’s world-weariness is palpable in the early pages and deepens as the story progresses: he knows he’s doing the right thing for Lij, even though it has meant leaving behind everything he knows, and yet he still questions whether he’s doing the right thing.

[Continue to read Anthony Cardno’s review]

 

 

WisCon 41

Saturday, May 27th, 1:00–2:15 pm
From Airships to Elder Gods
Tor.com authors and friends deconstruct steampunk, Lovecraftian monsters, and other richly deserving genre tropes. Ruthanna Emrys will read from her new novel Winter Tide. Maurice Broaddus will read from the recently released Buffalo Soldier. Anne M. Pillsworth will read from Redemption’s Heir, her Neo-Lovecraftian YA series. Samantha Lynn, a Long Hidden contributor, will read from her suburban Chicago dystopia-in-progress.
Maurice Broaddus, Ruthanna Emrys, S Lynn, Anne M. Pillsworth

Saturday, May 27th, 7:30-8:45 pm
Gaming (The Craft and Business of Writing)
People from a wide variety of career paths collaborate to make video games, including producers, programmers, directors, artists, and writers. However, the mythic ‘Ideas Guy’—the lone visionary genius at the center of a project—simply doesn’t exist. In this panel, video game developers will discuss their jobs and other jobs in the industry—and offer an inside look at how games are made.
M: Ann Lemay. Maurice Broaddus, Tanya D., Ceri Young

Saturday, May 27th, 9:00-10:15 pm
Power, Privilege, and Oppression (Gaming)
A recent Beyond Good & Evil 2 trailer featuring a picture of a rhinoceros with prominent dreadlocs. Black hairstyles offered as accessories for nonhuman characters. Nonhuman characters standing in for POC in otherwise white games. Let’s talk about the various ways that video games treat POC as other, and why the games industry needs to cut it out.
M: Tanya D., Kenzie Woodbridge. Maurice Broaddus, Na’amen Gobert Tilahun

 

Today on, “Talking With Authors”, we speak to the innovative author Maurice Broaddus about his new book “Buffalo Soldier”, his short story collection “The Voices of Martyrs” and his love for world building. We learn the origins of the world he built for “Buffalo Soldier”. A world where half of North America remains under colonial control, Jamaica has fought off colonization and is now a leading technological power and the western portion of the North  American continent is under Native American control with a technology founded in nature.

[From Talking with Authors]

Which you can listen to here.

Maurice Broaddus is a rare treasure — the writer who is both nice as cookies in person and who is an authorial bad-ass on the page. His newest is Buffalo Soldier, and here he pops by to talk about the dreaded hell-beast known as writer’s block.

* * *

Like many writers, I’ve had to wrestle with the idea of writer’s block. Honestly, every time I sit down in front of a blank page, I have a flutter of anxiety, as if I may have forgotten how to string words together to form a sentence. At this point, I usually recall a comment my wife made early in my career:”we can’t pay bills with your writer’s angst.” Bills don’t wait on inspiration or the comings and goings of “my Muse.” To me, most times “writer’s block” is a romantic way to describe a story not being done yet, that the creative mind still had work to do on a project. Still, I’d say that I’ve had three occasions when I’ve experienced something close to true “writer’s block:”

[Continue reading on Chuck Wendig’s site]

“No*Con started (this year) because we took a 1 year break from Mo*Con which is a writing/artist convention Maurice put on here in town for 10 years. After we announced the end of Mo*Con, people complained that there were no more Mo*Con (which is short for Maurice Convention) and so we created No*Con (which is short for no convention, so no convention, which means no planning and hard work for us this year, it’s just hang out time at our house) which hangout at our house always happened at Mo*Con but it was always after the convention part was over and everyone would come to the after party at our house each night. So I guess this No*Con is just the after party part, oh and the great food part of Mo*Con. ” –Sally Broaddus

I love it when people are befuddled by Mo*Con. They want to know the same sort of things:
-“what’s the agenda?” (dinner, drinking, and dialogue)
-“what do we do?” (eat, drink, and talk)
-“do we bring books?” (sure, if you want)
-“will there be panels?” (there will be constant conversations, rooms full with some of the most intelligent creatives I know)

It’s a gathering of people who care about similar things–writing, reading, stories–who share meals together and talk. It’s strictly about building relationships. If you have an agenda to sell or make deals or basically anything other than building relationship, you will be frustrated.

Luckily, no one was frustrated this year.

This week we welcome back author Maurice Broaddus to tell us what inspired him to write his new steampunk novella from Tor.com, Buffalo Soldier! Not only does this book have a fantastic cover, but it has some very interesting origins. Read on!

In the alt-history novella, Buffalo Soldier, former espionage agent, Desmond Coke, stumbles onto a plot within his homeland of Jamaica and gets caught between warring religious and political factions. All parties vied for control of a mysterious boy named Lij Tafari. Wanting the boy to have a chance to live a free life, Desmond assumes responsibility for him and flees to the United States of Albion. Hijinks ensue…in the form of assassins and giant steam-powered robots. Here are five things that helped inspire the story:

[continue reading on Geek Speaks!]

MEDIA CONTACT:
Dave Lawrence
Arts Council of Indianapolis
President & CEO
davel@indyarts.org
(317) 631-3301

ARTS COUNCIL AWARDS 30 NEW $10,000 FELLOWSHIPS

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA – The Arts Council of Indianapolis will announce its 2017-2018 round of Creative Renewal Arts Fellows Friday night at a special reception at the Indianapolis Art Center. The evening will also celebrate the 2015-2017 round of fellows with a retrospective exhibition on display until May 31, 2017.

Launched in 1999 by the Arts Council of Indianapolis, the Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship program allows artists and arts administrators the opportunity to reinvigorate their work by renewing and refreshing their creativity. Fellows are awarded a $10,000 grant that they may use toward activities they believe will refresh their creativity and recharge their work. The Arts Council convenes a national panel of arts professionals to adjudicate the applications and select the fellowship recipients. Since its inception, the Arts Council has awarded more than $3.35 million in grants to 400 fellows. Grants are awarded on a biennial basis and funded through a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

“The entire community benefits from having professional working artists in central Indiana and the Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship provides those artists with the chance to renew their creativity. We are grateful to the Lilly Endowment for its ongoing support of this program and look forward to the impact it will have on this latest group of fellows,” said Dave Lawrence, President and CEO of the Arts Council.

The 2017-2018 Creative Renewal Arts Fellows:

ARTS ADMINISTRATION

Judy Byron, Partnerships for Lawrence

Chad Franer, Indianapolis Museum of Art

Liza Hyatt, Art Therapist

Jennifer Complo McNutt, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians & Western Art

Don Steffy, Indianapolis Children’s Choir

Karen Thickstun, Butler Community Arts School

Lisa Whitaker, Butler Arts Center

DANCE

Michael Johnson

Heidi Phillips

LITERARY ARTS

Maurice Broaddus

Kevin McKelvey

Wendy Vergoz

MUSIC

Leela Breithaupt

Dianna Davis

Victoria Griswold

Gregory Martin

Jordan Munson

Jayna Park

Tad Robinson

Miho Sasaki

THEATRE

James Solomon Benn

VISUAL ART

D. Del Reverda-Jennings

James Wille Faust

Reagan Furqueron

Wendell Lowe

Phil O’Malley

Orlando Pelaez

Meredith Setser

Barbara Stahl

Samuel Vázquez

About the Arts Council of Indianapolis

The Arts Council of Indianapolis fosters meaningful engagement in the arts by nurturing a culture where artists and arts organizations thrive. The Arts Council is an organization that advocates for the need and importance of broad community funding and support for a thriving arts scene; innovates by constantly pursuing and promoting innovative ideas and programs that better serve the area, its artists, and arts organizations; and connects artists, audiences, businesses, foundations, and arts and cultural organizations with opportunities to explore and expand central Indiana’s creative vitality.

The Arts Council owns and operates two performance and exhibition spaces, the Indianapolis Artsgarden (attached to Circle Centre Mall) and Gallery 924 (at 924 N. Pennsylvania Street). The Arts Council allocates public funding to arts and cultural organizations through a competitive grant program; offers fellowship opportunities including the Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship, the Transformational Impact Fellowship, and the Robert D. Beckmann, Jr. Emerging Artist Fellowship; provides programs, services, and technical assistance for artists and arts organizations; and manages the city’s public art program. The Indy Arts Guide provides a comprehensive arts calendar featuring thousands of events, performances, and exhibitions throughout central Indiana. For more information on the Arts Council, call (317) 631-3301 or visit online at indyarts.org.

Connect with the Arts Council of Indianapolis on Facebook/indyarts, Twitter and Instagram @artscouncilindy, and online at indyarts.org.

###

I am hugely honored to announce that I was am among the latest class of recipients. Of the hundreds who applied, there were a total of thirty artists who received the fellowship.

I look forward to the adventures in writing this grant will help take me .

One of the things I’m passionate about is community development. In trying to figure out how to do this using writing, I became a part of an arts collective called The Learning Tree. We’re a group of organized neighbors that specializes in Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). We identify and invest in the individuals, organizations, and the community to see and celebrate the abundance in our neighborhood. Simply put, our neighbors are our business partners.

The community I work in, like other communities, is rich with gifted talented individuals who care about each other and their community but don’t have financial stability. The problem is that poor people aren’t being seen. There is a misrepresentation of poor people, in terms of who they are and what their capacity is to effect change within their communities. The dominant narrative about poor people or neighborhoods is that they are impoverished, broken, and filled with needs. Most stories of the poor focus on their economic and personal failures. Stories define a people. Stories reflect a people. Stories shape our perception, from the news to media to politics. The thing about stories, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman, is that it’s easy to let a bad one in you. Once labeled, it’s a constant battle not to live into that label.

[Continue reading on Tor.com]

The Steampunk Symposium

Saturday, April 29th
7pm: The Steampunk Genre
What separates Steampunk from science fiction? How is it different from Gaslamp Fantasy or Dieselpunk? What are some of the classic must-read examples of Steampunk, and why do we love them so much? Panelists discuss all of this and more in this panel on our favorite genre. Panelists discuss what details make a story or novel fit into the steampunk genre, including a recommended reading list! – Moderator Sarah Hans, Panelists: KW Jeter, Cherie Priest, Leanna Renee Hieber, Maurice Broaddus

9pm: Read Your Favorite Page
Our Literary Guests join us to read a tiny tidbit of their favorite work, come see what our lit track loves the most!

Sunday, April 30th
10:30: Envisioning a Better Steam Society roundtable led by Diana Pho
Description: A discussion panel where panel participants discuss their thoughts about finding aesthetic inspiration in a historical era rife with sexism, racism and classist thinking. Can the steampunk subculture come to terms with its problematic past, or are we just repeating history, except with ray guns? Together with the audience, we hope to engage in an open dialogue about whether steampunk confronts or condones the historical ideas behind its inspiration, how nineteenth century thinking is re-interpreted in the present day, and what makes steampunk actually “punk.”