Second stop on my Speculative Fiction Book Tour (in which I tour my unpublished, un-represented novel until folks begin to speculate when the heck my fiction will finally be published) is San Diego Beyond the Pale, an all Writers of Color story event I organized in collaboration with Marc Chery at the San Diego Public Library, and Joseph Ruanto Ramirez of SPACES at UC San Diego. Five writers of color telling stories about immigration, racism, resilience and life as minorities in this fraught times.

And in between our stories, my 14-year-old sang songs of social justice. Gotta start them young with good habits.

My SpecFiction book tour for The Rizal Dance Hall murder began, has been blessed with something new and exciting at each stop. First day at the Fil- Am Book Festival in San Francisco, it was a TV interview by Balitang America’s Emmy Award-winning Executive Producer Troy Espera. Second Stop was at the all Writers of Color Story Telling Event, San Diego Beyond The Pale at the San Diego Public Library, with my 14 year old singing Social Justice.

The third stop is at Cal State Long Beach, where I’ll screen “Rhumba at the Rizal” the short play I wrote based on the novel. Literary Agents & publishers take note: y’all are going to have to catch up, because this train has left the station.

Brown babes in Whiteface rule

No literary agent? No book deal? No problem! My Speculative Fiction book tour for The Rizal Dance Hall Murder kicked off last Saturday with full Media coverage.

…is when I do a book tour for my unpublished novel until everyone is speculating when my new fiction will be published. My book tour begins in October. First stop: Fil-Am Book Festival in San Francisco.

I’m giving a presentation on the archival research that went into The Rizal Dance Hall Murder at the Learning Studio, 5th floor San Francisco Public Library, on Saturday afternoon October 7, from 12:15 – 1:15.

Professor Linda Maram will present a more scholarly perspective on the topic. Her marvelous book Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles’s Little Manila provided much of the historical details I employed in my novel about California’s working class Filipinos in the 1930s.

More information can be found at this link: http://filbookfestival.org/

It’s free, but please register at the link below so we know how much food to preparee -we want everyone to have their fill of rice cakes! http://sandiego.librarymarket.com/san-diego-beyond-pale

After nearly two decades of attending literary events in San Diego at which I was the only or one of the very few people of color in the room, I finally decided to do something about it. (Certainly took me long enough.) San Diego Beyond the Pale offers six writers of color the chance to take center stage while wipipo and everyone else get to sit down and listen. For a change.

Our Storytelling event features stories of immigration, assimilation, peacemaking and reconciliation in San Diego is part of this year’s https://www.sandiego.gov/public-library/news-events/onebook selection. The event is up on the San Diego Public Library site The event is free and open to the public (of all colors!) and refreshments will be served. Please register at the link below so that we can prepare enough food for all.

http://sandiego.librarymarket.com/stories-beyond-pale

Parental advisory: some texts contain strong language that may not be appropriate for young children.

Even as I struggle to find a lit agent to rep my second novel, a google alert notifies me that a book I published 14 years ago, and whose digital edition was recently released, is now being offered FREE by some Trump-adelic morally-challenged pirate website. http://enterbooks.net/…/olip-gdr13169641-books-s1s11399262s…

I am so fucking fed up with this bullshit. So I wrote them this email:

Dear Pirates and Thieves,

A Google Alert notified me that you are offering free copies of my book, Suddenly Stateside, to your subscribers. Gee, thanks for choosing my book to steal. Thanks for profiting off a book that took me over a year to write. Thanks for giving it away without thinking that MAYBE you might offer me royalties for the “sharing” of a book that I wrote while working a minimum-wage paying day job so that I could support my writing vocation.

Thank you for leeching off of artists who are trying to make an honest living with the skills they have, which are already poorly compensated. Because you know, not STEM.

Thank you and all your subscribers for being assholes who produce nothing original of your own and compensate for your abysmal lack of talent and originality by stealing my stories. For stealing my life, which fed those stories.

Thank you for nothing. Which is what you pay me — that’s right, a big fat slice of fucking NOTHING — every time you offer my ebook for free to your equally ethics-free subscribers.

All the worst,

Marivi Soliven Blanco
Author
Suddenly Stateside
…Among other things

4 years after The Mango Bride was released, I continue to talk about advocating for survivors of domestic violence. So far, we’ve saved 9 immigrant survivors of domestic violence and raised additional money for community organizations that offer support services for these women and their families in the Bay Area and Anchorage.

A friend took this photo @ ParadiseHills library. The Mango Bride’s metaphor for love is food. So it’s so smart of them to put it next to Marvin Gapulto’s Adobo Road – a cookbook I actually use!

How do you get the word out about your new novel that a) needs a literary agent and b) hasn’t yet been published? By acting like it already has both. I’m reading excerpts from The Rizal Dance Hall Murder and chatting about lovers, killers and taxi dancers in the 1930s, at Philippine Expressions Bookshop in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 3.