As an author I do alot of networking and from time to time I am invited to attend engagements where I might feature as a guest speaker. Whatever audience I may be addressing, more often than not, they are oblivious to my having sickle cell and quite possibly would know very little about it even if I was to disclose it. However on a few occasions my health issue has come up in one to one conversations with book lovers. And when it does, 9 times out of 10, the question that follows is, 'oh so your book is about sickle cell?' To which of course I respond, 'No!' What always gets me is the way the person comes over with a surprised look on their face.
So I explain to them, hey I'm a author with sickle cell not the other way around. As a person I have likes and dislikes and sickle cell doesn't rank high enough to fall into either category. Its just simply a fact of life for me. On the other hand, as an author
Each of my characters are facets of self through which I express my dreams, my ambitions, hopes, fears, contemplations and observations. I am a author of science fiction, who has sickle cell. Now if you really want to know what my book is about, find me on Youtube.com/TosinCoker and check out my video book trailers.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Black To The Future
On writing my book, 'The Mouth of Babes' I wasn't thinking about the impact it would have on some people, but British film director/screen writer, Menelik Shabazz, was so awed by my novel that he left a message in my local bookstore 'D'jed', for me to contact him asap and so I did.
During our conversation, he gave me serious food for thought. He mentioned that very few nubians write sci-fi and that it was almost as if we didn't see ourselves in the future. He labelled me a pioneer, for aparently before myself, there have been no other British black authors for this genre. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that, and have been searching hard to prove him wrong, but so far I'm coming up empty. So wait, we are in the 21st century, and only now we have a Black British presence in science fiction? Funny thing is, I wrote and published the book two years ago, but didn't make it available for sale til May 2009, because I didn't think anyone would be interested. Initially I had no intention in publishing, I was content enough to leave it sitting idly on my PC.
I'm still chewing over the part that 'black people don't see themselves in the future'. Do we really envision a world where we do not feature as a people? Or is it that we don't care to think beyond a seeing our children grow up? Could this be a factor as to why we have so much black on black crime? Because deep down we feel don't see ourselves as making enough waves to contribute to a future worth looking forward to?
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not trying to be looking at Orion's Belt from down here forever. I got gods/goddess that I need to bump shoulders with, and ships I need to catch a ride to Arcturus on. And I damn well know my co-pilot is going to be BLACK, the designer of my craft is going to be BLACK, I will be welcomed by ambassadors that are BLACK. If the advancement in technology makes access to the stars in my current physical incarnation unavailable to me, I will continue to write to set a precedence for my people to know they better do the dayum thing on my behalf! The future is bright, the future is BLACK.
Now talk to me, where do we as a people see ourselves say, 50, 100, 200 years from now?
During our conversation, he gave me serious food for thought. He mentioned that very few nubians write sci-fi and that it was almost as if we didn't see ourselves in the future. He labelled me a pioneer, for aparently before myself, there have been no other British black authors for this genre. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that, and have been searching hard to prove him wrong, but so far I'm coming up empty. So wait, we are in the 21st century, and only now we have a Black British presence in science fiction? Funny thing is, I wrote and published the book two years ago, but didn't make it available for sale til May 2009, because I didn't think anyone would be interested. Initially I had no intention in publishing, I was content enough to leave it sitting idly on my PC.
I'm still chewing over the part that 'black people don't see themselves in the future'. Do we really envision a world where we do not feature as a people? Or is it that we don't care to think beyond a seeing our children grow up? Could this be a factor as to why we have so much black on black crime? Because deep down we feel don't see ourselves as making enough waves to contribute to a future worth looking forward to?
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not trying to be looking at Orion's Belt from down here forever. I got gods/goddess that I need to bump shoulders with, and ships I need to catch a ride to Arcturus on. And I damn well know my co-pilot is going to be BLACK, the designer of my craft is going to be BLACK, I will be welcomed by ambassadors that are BLACK. If the advancement in technology makes access to the stars in my current physical incarnation unavailable to me, I will continue to write to set a precedence for my people to know they better do the dayum thing on my behalf! The future is bright, the future is BLACK.
Now talk to me, where do we as a people see ourselves say, 50, 100, 200 years from now?
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