A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Red Room
Recently, the witty and insightful Alexander Besher got in touch with me about contributing to Flowers Under the Sand, an anthology of fantasy and sci-fi by Middle Eastern and Muslim authors. As we were swapping emails, he mentioned he had a page at redroom.com, a new site whose goal is to bring a myriad of authors to the same digital space, creating the largest concentration of literary talent and discussion on the web. I checked it out, and they’re not kidding: Amy Tan, Salman Rushdie, Khaled Husseini, Ayelet Waldman and Maya Angelou are all blogging there. Yes, blogging. As I was browsing through the About page, I discovered the site is run by none other than Ivory Madison, my dear colleague in superherodom, with whom I share an editor at DC. (Her miniseries Huntress comes out later this year.) It’s a small world, or as I’ve increasingly found, all writers eventually meet all other writers.
Now I’ve got a page at Red Room too, which I’m excited about--I’ve never been two clicks away from the likes of Maya Angelou before. You can take a peek at it here. I’ll probably reserve that space to write about writing, an indulgence I don’t usually allow myself.
Back to work. The more I do, the more there is.
Posted by on 01/19 at 04:02 AM
Willow, best of success with that anthology. I personally think anthologies are great inventions, along side light bulbs and pop corn. I’ve been to Red Room recently and was about to register (I think that’s the word), but then read the long “agreement”. It was extensive and sweeping. How’s your experience so far?
Posted by
ibrahim on 01/20 at 06:14 AM
Do you mean their terms of service? That’s the only agreement I ran across…
Posted by Willow on 01/20 at 06:29 AM
Yes. That’s it. I normally do not read them, but for some reason I decided to click. So nevermind that. But so far, how do you like the site and its services?
Posted by
ibrahim on 01/20 at 08:02 AM
I only really gave it a cursory glance, but didn’t seen anything particularly unusual...just the typical codes of conduct etc. The only thing they did do differently than other sites was spell out intellectual property rights, which is not surprising considering how many heavy-hitting writers post there. They’re also pretty strict about their own content, probably because it’s a money-making site (so none of this creative commons copy-left stuff). What specifically gave you pause?
Thus far I’m impressed: I frankly would not have believed it was possible to get that many authors in one place blogging away. It has the potential to be really exciting. Time will tell.
Posted by Willow on 01/20 at 11:02 AM
Ooh sounds exciting. More study-break browsing material 
Posted by
Muse on 01/20 at 11:14 AM
Islamic sci-fi and fantasy. Interesting. You wouldn’t happen to know if such anthologies will be on sale in the Middle East would you?
Posted by Sever on 01/22 at 05:33 AM
Hey, do you have enough clout at DC to keep Frank Miller from ever writing anything for them again? I can take the misogyny, the hard on for fascism, the bad characterization, the muzzie-hating, etc but not all at once.
Posted by
Dave on 01/22 at 07:41 AM
Sever, no idea. If I understand correctly, however, most of the stories involved were originally written and published in Arabic and French (spoken by many North African Arabs), so most of the material may already be available in the Middle East.
Why, is this going to turn into something about how science fiction is repressed in the Middle East? I saw a very unmolested copy of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods on sale in Cairo…
And Dave, I’m afraid Frank Miller is an institution. As long as people keep buying his stuff, he’ll doubtless keep writing it. You might try some of his early, most clearly tongue-in-cheek work, like Sin City. It’s good if grotesque fun.
Posted by Willow on 01/22 at 06:50 PM
Hello. I found my way to your website and blog through Irving Karchmar’s Darvish blog. I’m thanking God for nudging me to check the link that introduced me to you. You have so many ways you contribute to the writing world. Yes! The Red Room looks very interesting. I love surfing in my spare time. It’s the computer version of channel surfing, but lots more interesting, imho.
Anyway, just wanted to introduce myself. I’ll be adding you to my bloglines reads.
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