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Welcome to Minnesota/catch up
Jan. 21st, 2026 08:50 pmWell, as a local friend said recently, "In 2020, it was us against us, and we're not very good at processing that. Now it's us against them and we know how to do that."
Okay, Me stuff first:
Okay, Me stuff first:
- I have started working part time at DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis. A longtime staffer is leaving so I'm stepping into their bookselling shoes, more or less. I'm on my second week and enjoying it so far. Stop by and see us or order online! But not on 1/23 (see below).
- I applied for and got an invite to be a participating pro at Dragon Con in Atlanta in September. I figure that's the sort of thing I should try for now while I can handle it physically. Going with a friend and am quite looking forward to it.
- Queen of Swords Press had a lovely first event of the year at the Lodge of Lazarus Crowe in St. Paul. Highly recommended!
- Jennie Goloboy and I are teaching "To Market, To Market: How Professionals Look at Your Manuscriptloft.org/classes/market-market-how-professionals-look-your-manuscript-0" at the Loft Literary Center at the end of February. We have tons of good advice and pointers! Come join us if you can.
- I have had 2 article pitches accepted and got an anthology invite so am plugging away at new projects and making progress on my novel and new stories.
- God, where to begin?
- So far: one known murder; many, many kidnappings; abandoned children, animals and cars; local people brutalized, beaten, gassed, shot and threatened; our streets are empty because immigrants and people of color are afraid to be out. Today, they kidnapped a 5 year old and a 10 year old and sent them from here to Texas. The impact locally is horrific. And we're getting the couch-fucker and more fascist shock troops this very week.
- The plus side is that as a group, we are tough, hold grudges like watching Sisu on rewind and thanks to the local disasters of 2020, are super good at organizing. Everyone I know is doing something - donating, fundraising, monitoring bus stops, patrolling, delivering food and other necessities, rescuing abandoned pets, etc., etc. Oh and hey, we're having a general strike on Friday 1/23. It's being called by organized labor and lots and lots of businesses and organizations are participating (a partial list here). Big march downtown too.
- What can you do? Call and email your Congress critters and demand that ICE be defunded NOW - Indivisible has a good setup. Author Naomi Kritzer has a good post up at about more comprehensive ways to help, including donation links. Please do these things. We are smaller than Chicago and have more immigrants than a lot of places our size or bigger - huge multi-generational communities of resettled refugees. This is part of why we're being targeted.
- Speaking of Target, the protests there are pretty lit - 100s of clergy doing a sit-in at HQ, people doing sing-ins at the store, buying and returning icemelt to gum up the works and more. Ask your local Target manager to send a message to Corporate to take a stand and stop allowing ICE to hunt their own employees in their stores and use their parking lots.
- In short, please help us. This is not sustainable and they're going to kill more people if this isn't stopped. Yes, it is real. No, Fox News is not real. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
