Witches

The moon was on the wane when they were discovered. In the fens Up-left. Bodies, whole and perfectly preserved. An army of witches floated up to the surface of the bog water. They’d been dead for hundreds of thousands of cycles, perfectly embalmed in the peat moss. No one knows why they floated up that way, but we take it as a sign. The planet’s on the move. She sent us the remains of the War of the Witches, and she also sent us Born of Tree.

 

http://www.jafdesign.net/ 

Sulis of the S.U.L.

http://www.jafdesign.net/

S.U.L., Suberterranean Upper Lifeform, a government-church acronym given to this species of mole-people.

The SUL are descendants of a thousand multi-ethnic founding families who pioneered the Core of the planet before Ulger blew the blue orb apart, and it reformed as the Pangeic-like continent of Blinkin.

The SUL were rediscovered in 3654 of the Night Mare's reign.

The culture is inward and mystic, influenced by the ethylene laced gas in the air of their underground city. Ethylene, they say, influenced the Oracles at Delphi.

SUL are unwelcome in Winkin City as too delusional. Fantasies are free floating and anyone might catch them.

But the Night mare likes a good oracle, so they are tolerated at the Manus Market and as homesteaders in the ruins Off-right.

Dream Drifter Rampage

When Dream Drifters eat the fruit native to our planet they grow to 10x their ginormous size and rampage for fun.

http://www.jafdesign.net/ 

SULIS OF THE S.U.L.

S.U.L., Suberterranean Upper Lifeform, a government-church acronym given to this species of mole-people.

Descendants of a thousand founding families who pioneered the Core of the planet. The SUL were rediscovered in 3654 of the Night Mare's reign.

The SUL culture is inward and mystic, influenced by the ethylene gas in the air of their underground city. Ethylene is believed to have opened the minds of the Oracles at Delphi.

SUL are unwelcome in Winkin City as too delusional. Fantasies are free floating and anyone might catch them.

But the Night mare likes a good oracle, so they are tolerated at the Manus Market and as homesteaders in the ruins Off-right.

SULIS of the SUL

http://www.jafdesign.net/

S.U.L., Suberterranean Upper Lifeform, a government-church acronym given to this species of mole-people.

The SUL are descendants of a thousand multi-ethnic founding families who pioneered the Core of the planet before Ulger blew the blue orb apart, and it reformed as the Pangeic-like continent of Blinkin.

The SUL were rediscovered in 3654 of the Night Mare's reign.

The culture is inward and mystic, influenced by the ethylene laced gas in the air of their underground city. Ethylene, they say, influenced the Oracles at Delphi.

SUL are unwelcome in Winkin City as too delusional. Fantasies are free floating and anyone might catch them.

But the Night mare likes a good oracle, so they are tolerated at the Manus Market and as homesteaders in the ruins Off-right.

http://www.jafdesign.net/

PAP, the name taken from the ancient Paparazzi, a photographer who pursues celebrities to get photos of them.

The word Pap was  derived from a character name in Fellini's La Dolce Vita.

A name given by the Night Mare to babies randomly selected at birth to have cameras implanted in place of eyes. Paps supply the screen feed in Winkin City. Their tongues are removed to improve focus.

DREAM DRIFTER, personal guard to the Night Mare. Imported early in her reign to rid the world of dreamers.

Heron-headed thugs, white-eyed dream addicts in shabby wool overcoats and sunshades. The smell of a Drifter is like wet towels mildewed in a locker.

Squijal, is the term used to describe how a Dream Drifter moves, the way a slug slimes across marble.

*Dream Drifters are seriously allergic to the sweet fruit of the planet. If consumed they grow to 10x their ginormous size and rampage for fun.

MAVERICK CONCERTS - FRIDAY 8pm

DISCOVER THE SECRET CITY - WOODSTOCK!

I'll be reading a short essay on PLAY

Sulis of the S.U.L.

S.U.L., Suberterranean Upper Lifeform, a government-church acronym given to this species of mole-people.

The SUL are descendants of a thousand multi-ethnic founding families who pioneered the Core of the planet before Ulger blew the blue orb apart, and it reformed as the Pangeic-like continent of Blinkin.

The SUL were rediscovered in 3654 of the Night Mare's reign.

The culture is inward and mystic, influenced by the ethylene laced gas in the air of their underground city. Ethylene, they say, influenced the Oracles at Delphi.

SUL are unwelcome in Winkin City as too delusional. Fantasies are free floating and anyone might catch them.

But the Night mare likes a good oracle, so they are tolerated at the Manus Market and as homesteaders in the ruins Off-right.

Winkin City, the Bridge of Tears

"She sees the monolithic buildings of the Night Mare’s Winkin City, glowing blue and breathing, looming like asthmatic giants set to hunt her."

I was Brock Turnered.

image credit: http://usslave.blogspot.com/2012/05/fabrice-monteiros-amazing-images-of.html


(How many stories like this are there?  too many. I couldn't figure out why I was so angry about this whole scenario, until my own memories welled up. To Brock Turner's victim, I'm with you.)

I was 14, home from boarding school for the Easter break. It was the first time my mother hadn’t hired someone to take care of me. I’d begged her not to. I had a friend home from school with me, someone I wanted to impress. She was a southern belle, a year older, and much more worldly.

My brother was home then too. He’d been recently released from jail. I couldn’t tell you which time or for which crime. He was 17, he could pass for white, he was a sociopath. My friend liked him.

By 10am on that April weekday in 1970 my brother was bored. He made a few phone calls and an old cellmate of his arrived soon after. He was white, stringy blonde hair, tall and bean pole skinny, with legs that bowed as if he’d ridden there on a horse. I don’t remember his name.

It wasn’t long before the three of them were ordering Southern Comfort to be delivered. It was my friend’s choice. My brother's friend had an i.d. Maybe he was 21, possibly older.

My gut was churning.  None of this was supposed to be happening. My friend was supposed to be my ally and not theirs. Don’t be uncool. Come on it’ll be fun! I wanted to call my mother, tell her that I needed a babysitter. I wanted to run from the house and race up the wash to find my sister at her school. I wanted not to be there, but I stayed.

I’d had beer and wine before, sips on gin and tonics, but this sugary alcohol went down easy and way too fast, especially in rounds of drinking games. Soon everything was spinning.

What I remember:

I fell into the pool fully dressed, to laughter and cheering. I dragged myself out of the water and sloshed into my room. I was changing into dry clothes when my brother’s friend spoke to me. I don’t know when he came in.  I don’t know what he said. I couldn’t get my leg into the baggy sailor trousers, salvaged from some surplus supply store. I stumbled. I fell down. I passed out. 

I woke up with vomit in my mouth and the friend pumping away on top of me. I couldn’t figure out what was happening. I passed out again. When I opened my eyes next it was to my friend and my brother frantic beside me, both apologizing to me, naked, sprawled on the wall to wall carpet, vomit on both sides of my head and in my hair.

I never told my parents. I took a shower and went to a play rehearsal, where I was the only female in the cast at an all boy’s school. I’d liked it, being the only girl, till that day.

The few girls I confided in suggested it was my fault. It was a time when we were considered spoiled for having sex before wedlock. We were so steeped in rape culture that we worried more about ourselves as products to be selected fresh and unsealed off the market shelves, and not about the violence done to us when we have no say.

My brother’s friend came to see me, months after, when my brother was no longer around. He asked me out on a date. My mother and father were as surprised as he was when I shrieked at him to,

 “GET OUT!”

I shouted him all the way to the door,

"GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!" Like a mantra, a protective chant.

I slammed the door on his wide eyed face, and locked it after him, my parents staring open mouthed.

    “I don’t want to talk about it.” Is what I said, and walked past them.
   
    Now, suddenly, I want to talk about it!

Celebrate Summer Reading with FREE DOWNLOADS!

The trilogy is available to download FREE 6/7-6/11.  Or, get book one from Audible for only $1.99.

"Being the weird girl is never easy, but in a dystopian future where women are breeding stock and domestic pets, it's a nightmare. A magical foundling born inside a willow tree, Mina is raised by canny off-gridders who teach her to value herself and feign compliance. But talent will out, and her transformative gifts threaten the ruling Night Mare and her copper-skinned son. Quinn's feminist hallucination weaves gorgeous imagery and dimensional characters with glints of dark humor." Chronogram Magazine  

We can be Heroes

I particpated in the Woodstock Writer's Festival Story Slam last night.  I did not win, but I had fun.  Here is the story I told.

    I always wanted a hero who looked like me. I looked for her everywhere, in books in plays, and movies, but she was missing in action.
    At age five, I mounted my fist production of Peter Pan. I was ten when I produced it again. Both times I played Peter, and directed, and I cued everyone on their lines from the stage.  The nuns worried about me wanting to be a boy. I told them that they had it all wrong. Peter was a woman who didn’t want to grow up to be a man. Every production I’d ever seen had a woman playing Peter. Peter was my hero. A brave orphan who could fly, which is who I thought I might be under different circumstances.
    When I was eleven I attended a boarding school in Mexico. Returning home for the winter holidays I filled out the immigration form on my own for the first time. Under race I put human. I was detained until I chose a race. Though I pointed out that what they really wanted was my ethnicity. December 1967, I became a Negro.
    In high school I led a protest of the Vietnam War. Threatened with suspension, ten of us sat out on the lawn singing protest songs and sneaking cigarettes in the bushes. In a school of a couple hundred, 10 is a significant number, so instead of suspending us, they created courses in civil disobedience. I learned that being brave can effect change, but no one ever called us heros. 1970, I became an activist.
    When my kids were little I used heros to teach them the large arc lessons of bravery.
    “I think the bravest humans beings on the planet are superheroes,” I would bait.     “Yeah, because they have super powers,” my son would lisp through missing teeth.
    “Nah,” I’d say, “You’d have to be totally brave to get away with wearing underwear over tights AND a cape.” I think he got the point.
    When Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times for being black in America I was contacted to participate in organized civil disobedience, to be arrested blocking the doors to the NYC police precinct. I explained to my children why it was important to break the law, if the laws were unjust or unfairly applied. I told them that I might not be home that night, but that I hoped they would be proud of me, that they would think me a hero. I went to jail in excellent company. Ruby Dee and Ozzie Davis were arrested at the same time, we were held in the same cell. Two of my own heroes. 1999, the year I was arrested.
    When I came home from jail my son asked me if I wore underwear over my tights.
    “Yes,” I assured him, “and I had on my invisible cape.”
    We can be heros, all of us, but just for one day at a time please. Hero is too costly a suit to wear everyday, and underwear over tights is completely impractical.

Another Point of View

Witches

The moon was on the wane when they were discovered. In the fens Up-left. Bodies, whole and perfectly preserved. An army of witches floated up to the surface of the bog water. They’d been dead for hundreds of thousands of cycles, perfectly embalmed in the peat moss. No one knows why they floated up that way, but we take it as a sign. The planet’s on the move. She sent us the remains of the War of the Witches, and she also sent us Born of Tree.

 

http://www.jafdesign.net/

Photo Essay - Camera in the Upper Meadow

Thank you Michael Dinzebach! 

The camera is currently spying on the lower meadow.  Sh...

Thanks!

Racing Daylight screened at the Linda under the auspices of UPWIFT.  It was a lovely evening and the audience attentive and laughing at all the right moments. Yes, I'd shave a few seconds off some of the scenes, but in all I think it holds up, this magical-realism film shot in my back yard.

Thank you to all who came to make it those many years ago.  Camp Daylight is a lovely memory.

Onward to The Gold Stone Girl series!

WAMC Rountable:Nicole Quinn

http://wamc.org/programs/roundtable#stream/0
Roundtable with Joe Donahue and Sarah LaDuke
March 15, Nicole Quinn
on air: aprox 11:10 a.m.

 For:
Upwift presents: Reel Women In Film
The Linda WAMC’s Perfoming Arts Studio
Friday, March 18, 2016 from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM (EDT)
Albany, NY

Upwift presents: Racing Daylight

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reel-women-in-film-tickets-21731022072

Reel Women In Film
The Linda WAMC’s Perfoming Arts Studio
Friday, March 18, 2016 from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM (EDT)
Albany, NY

The Continent of Blinkin

Blinkin is Pangeic



http://www.jafdesign.net/