I Found Them
I got misty-eyed watching the DIY or Die panel at Little Ghosts Fest II yesterday. Here were a load of people doing precisely the thing I've been trying to do, but haven't been able to find like-minded people for, at least in the publishing space. Yet here they all were. I found them.
It sounds silly, but it's true: you go to the space where they will be, and sure enough, they will be there. Literally all the other events I've ever gone to have been for music. You really can't find your community unless you're going to the events your community goes to for that express purpose. I know this is all very, very basic day-one shit, but it's a good reminder. What matters most is that I'm not alone.
What was really heartening was hearing that they were all struggling with marketing. They all hate marketing, which gave me some relief, because yeah, this is fucking hard. I'm not the only person who struggles with it.
What I carried home
I talked with Chris Krawczyk of Little Ghosts Books, not as long as I'd have liked. I met new people and bought a shitload of books, way too many, but I would rather splurge on local creators than on Meta ads or some other such nonsense.
The House of Drought by Dennis Mombauer, direct from Stelliform Press.
Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum, direct from Undertow Publications, where I got to meet Michael Kelly.
Our Lady of Holy Slaughter by S.J. Shank, signed.
Bury My Heart With a Keyboard, a collection by Jacy Morris, direct from Third Estate Books.
The cyber horror issue of Slash Magazine, a new horror magazine. One of its publishers was on the DIY or Die panel.
The Pinoy Monster Horror Anthology, from the Filipino writer on the Cryptids and Creatures panel. She was awesome.
A Quick & Easy Guide to Coming Out by Kristin Russo and Ravi Teixeira, plus their zine Bug, all about bugs in video games as a form of body horror. Speaking with them was super, super cool.
Both volumes of Ugly Stories About Terrible People Doing Horrible Things by Tobin Elliott. He and I talked about Thomas Ligotti for what felt like ages.
Then the tapes. Nick from Undead Media makes awesome VHS tapes of recent movies, and he also sells highly curated, crazy VHS classics. I scored a copy of Battlefield Earth on VHS, which is hilarious and truly ridiculous. From Material Void I got a sweet green VHS tape of the visual soundtrack of Twin Peaks, ported over from a Japanese laserdisc released around the same time as the original show. Super fucking cool.
I spent way too much goddamn money and it was fucking awesome.
More than networking
A community does more than serve as a networking opportunity. It's a place for disseminating, reinvigorating and reaffirming values. It's a culture that is constantly being tested and reconstituted, over and over again.
Imagine taffy that is constantly being wound, stretched, condensed and unwound until it reaches the right consistency and hardens into its final form. That's what happens in these subcultures. The values we espouse don't come out of nowhere.
Going to that place made me re-evaluate. Why the fuck am I optimizing anything? Just write. Just sit down and do it. Don't have enough time? Well then, you don't get to do the thing.
There's a sense of entitlement I'm trying to do away with, and it's what Ger's book is trying to get away from too. Girl, you don't need to be all things to all people. You don't need to do what they say you should. You don't need to meet their demands. You just go ahead and do your thing.
That's how these two things are linked in my mind.
Wild to Wise is out Thursday
From Chapter 8: “You Are Not a Tree. You Can Move.”
From Wild to Wise by Geraldine Carriere.
When I talk about fighting, I mean mastering yourself.
There's a difference between not knowing and knowing. But when you know, when you have been informed, when life has shown you clearly that something is hurting you, that's when you have to make a declaration and make a change. If you are holding on to something that's hurting you, you are perpetuating your own suffering. That's the thing. At that point, staying still is a choice.
You are not a tree. You can move.
As Indigenous people, we understood that we were at the mercy of the world. We didn't own it. We were caretakers of it, and we were second to it. It provided what we needed. In summer, you had corn, potatoes, all of the harvests, all of the things you prepared for winter. In the wintertime, you had the foods you'd saved. That was storytelling time. You stayed in huts with the elders, and there was a lot of sleeping and a lot of resting. Then spring came, and you understood: okay, now we've got to get out, we've got to go hunt, we've got to move.
We were at the mercy of the seasons. We never took more than we needed. We didn't do things in excess. Everything was provided for us, and we understood that.
So when I say be flexible, I mean this: if you keep holding on to what hurts you, you're going to break. Like a river, you either go against the current or you trust where it takes you. Business calls it pivoting. Our people have always known it as living with the seasons.
And wealth? Wealth was never about how much you could keep.
There's a story from a book I'm reading called The Serviceberry. An interviewer is talking to an Indigenous man who just got back from a hunt. He's cutting everything up, dividing it out: this portion goes to this neighbor, this portion goes to that family, this goes to the community. And the interviewer says, why are you giving all of that away? You could sell it. You could put it in the freezer, save it for when you need more.
And the man said: "My wealth is in my neighbor's belly."
That's who we are. You are only as successful as the person next to you. Our richness comes from being able to give to others, to throw potlucks and ceremonies, and sweats. When you have abundance, you give it away. That's the opposite of the way the world works today.
Get it.
Wild to Wise is out Thursday, October 1: $19.99 USD / $24.99 CAD in paperback, $9.99 USD / $12.99 CAD as an ebook. Pre-order now: the ebook lands in your inbox on release day, and the paperback ships from October 1.
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