Outer Alliance #15: Jarla Tangh December 25, 2009
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 1 comment so farWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #15. Each Friday the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is writer and activist, Jarla Tangh.
Her Tangh-i-ness is a Clarion West 2001 Graduate. She owes her pseudonym to a vocalist friend who gave her the first name, a faery godmother of an editor, who told her using just one name is pretentious, and the surname from the Turkey City Lexicon. She considers herself African Descended rather than African American, but will still answer to Black and Colored.
Her Tangh-i-ness is a writer of homoerotic, multicultural, and kinky romance, science fiction, fantasy, and horror featuring people of color as the protagonists. Her work has appeared in Afro-Future Females (edited by Marlene S. Barr) and Mojo Conjure Stories (edited by Nalo Hopkinson). As a straight, cisgender ally, she joined the Outer Alliance because she wants to make sure there are always books with delicious LGBT characters to fall in love with on shelves, eBooks, online, on Kindle, etc.
Her Tangh-i-ness lives in Boston, and maintains a Facebook page and a Yahoo group.
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As one of the contributors to the Afro-Future Females collection, I suspect you’re in a great position to recommend some queer speculative fiction by or about people of color. Do you have any particular favorites?
I’m familiar with Jewelle Gomez; The Gilda Stories are on my to-read list. I’ve lucked out in knowing Nisi Shawl personally. “The Tawny Bitch”, her Gaylactic Spectrum Award nominated short story, is in the same anthology: Mojo Conjure Stories as my sadly unqueer offering.
But I cut my teeth on Samuel Delany‘s Nevèrÿon series and Heartspace by Steven Barnes shares the same magical volume as Nisi Shawl and I. Of course, read Cecilia Tan‘s short fiction. These are all people of color whose works touch upon queer lives and whom I heartily recommend.
What was your Clarion West experience like? Would you recommend the workshop to other aspiring writers?
Write a lot. Submit often. And go once accepted. I almost didn’t make it in my 2001 class. First, I was candidate number 19 out of 17 slots, but I asked to be put on standby and about a day later Leslie Howle called me to ask what kind of mojo I had because I was now going to Clarion! That year Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Brad Denton, Connie Willis, Ellen Datlow, and Jack Womack were the instructors.
Our class brought us six weeks of intense camaraderie, weekly short story writing, and into close contact with more speculative professionals than you could ever get at any convention.
My Clarion West class is a 100% published class and I still keep in touch with them via email, Facebook, personal websites, and whenever they make it into my neck of the woods. We’ve critted each other’s works, congratulated each other on publications, babies, marriages, and other noteworthy accomplishments. I’ve standing invitations to crash with CW2K1 folks in Vancouver, Seattle, and in NYC.
I got a faery Godmother and a Literary Godfather out of it. That sense of community can last outside the actual experience.
Mainstream acceptance of kink has grown in the past couple of decades, but still has a long way to go. Why do you think some people are so scared of it, and are there any resources you’d recommend for promoting more kink acceptance?
The Puritanical element to American culture has its foot firmly on many people’s libidos. I think that’s the number one stigma that accompanies Kink. There’s nothing in the holybooks to say Kink is Good. Lots of people absorb messages all their lives about the sanctity and secrecy of sex. So it doesn’t occur to them that healthy sex includes Masturbation, Sex Toys, Leather, Latex, Rubber, Wet and Messy (thank you for introducing me to this term, Chewtoy!), Cross-dressing, or BDSM elements.
Gloria Brame‘s manual springs to mind as a resource along with the transman’s Pat Califia‘s. Check out Caryl’s BDSM & Fetish page and Tammad Rimilia has a BDSM Questionnaire that’s useful to both Dominants and Submissives. There’s the Deviant’s Dictionary and read Circlet Press’s pro-Kink collections on a regular basis.
How did you get the idea to start a Yahoo group for all things Tangh-y, and what is your vision for that?
I believe we have the ability to manifest things for ourselves. Say I’m currently living in a literary desert. I’ve dug a ditch and I’m waiting for it to fill with rain, so to speak. I figured once I have an audience, where in the heck do they go to find out what’s up with me and my work? If I could grow up to be the literary version of Margaret Cho, I think I’d used my time wisely upon the planet.
Can you tell us anything about your work in progress? What can we hope to see in the future?
Current Projects:
I’m looking for homes for several queer or kinky short stories that run the gamut from mildly perverse to extremely Not Safe For Work in various milieux. I’ve been collecting non-form rejections, which my writer friends remind me is good.
These are the novel projects that I’ve been juggling since I returned from Clarion West in 2001.
The Nether Concern- a dark urban fantasy series set in 1915 Boston with a Gay, Black hero. Book One I’m closest to soon being at the shop around to an agent stage. I recently became acquainted with Boston author, Lewis Gannett, whose own Gay Gothic inspired it.
World Jumping- a multi-world urban fantasy series set in Boston with a Straight Black heroine. I’m deep in revision on this one. It features talking animals and vanished ancient cultures.
The Society for the Protection of Engineered Creatures- an alternate-world, sci-fi series with an African descended, intersexed, albino hero who is a poly. The protagonist enjoys lovers of both sexes. Mind you, I wrote this before Caster Semenya’s unfortunate ordeal came to light. I have two finished novels from SPEC series in revision and two others with a quarter written only.
The Caldlond Demon series- a multi-generational fantasy set in an alternate Ancient Britain. I wrote three first drafts in the series and am tinkering with these as well.
I’m an organic writer. My process is slower because I don’t plan everything out beforehand. I leave myself plenty of space to connect things in the right way. I’m fortunate in that I have a writing group and family who happily give me regular feedback.
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Thank you, Jarla! Join us for another Spotlight next Friday, and in the meantime, check out Mojo Conjure Stories and Afro-Future Females!
