Multicultural Children's literature hasn't come far enough

Every once in a while one needs a reminder about the subtlety of racism in children's books. I've been assuming, wrongly it turns out, that children's writers are enlightened, fair-minded. I even assumed that children's writers wrote about what they knew. But then....I came across this blurb for No Castles Here by A C Bauer.

AUGIE BORETSKI KNOWS how to get by. If you're a skinny white kid in the destitute city of Camden, New Jersey, you keep your head down, avoid the drug dealers and thugs, and try your best to be invisible. Augie used to be good at that, but suddenly his life is changing. . . . First, Augie accidentally steals a strange book of fairy tales. Then his mom makes him join the Big Brothers program and the chorus. And two bullies try to beat him up every day because of it. Just when it seems like things can't get any worse, an ice storm wrecks Augie's school. The city plans to close the school, abandoning one more building to the drug addicts. But Augie has a plan. For the first time in his life, Augie Boretski is not going down without a fight.


Okay, is it me? Am I being touchy here? I'm wondering what a white parent/teacher will think about a blurb like "Skinny white kids keep their heads down."

But wait, this was on one of the writer's websites:

Book: No Castles Here
Camden, New Jersey, is the armpit of the world, as far as Augie is concerned. Home to losers and bullies, its schools offer nothing to someone who isn’t smart, isn’t stupid, and who isn’t a troublemaker. When Augie escapes to Philadelphia dreaming of castles and promise, he becomes a thief and steals a magical book of fairy tales.

Life only gets crazier. For sixth grade, Augie is assigned the meanest, toughest teacher in school. His mom signs him up with a Big Brother he doesn’t want. And he discovers that even in his world, there might be such a thing as a fairy godmother.

Augie is eleven-and-a-half. This is his time for adventure. He hadn’t figured it would begin in a bookstore.

Book Info:


ISBN (Hardcover): 978-0-375-83921-4

ISBN (Library Binding): 978-0-375-93921-1

Release date: October 23, 2007

Pages: 288

Now, honestly, I'm all for creativity. And I haven't read the book. But would such a blurb make me -- someone who lives in the hood, thank you-- want to read this book?
To the eyes of black folks -- especially black folks in a hood-- the blurb for No Castles Here sounds dang racist. The blurb seems to be written to only middle class or upper middle class white folks. The implicit stereotyping going on in the blurb for No Castles here is not only offensive but it shows that some authors are so in their little social cultures that they don't know the truth about other cultures. Interestingly, --and a bit terrifying-- the book got a starred review from Kirkus. Obviously, the reviewers at Kirkus also live in milieus where they think there's nothing wrong with the blurb.

But let's tackle the first basic untruth of this blurb: the notion that skinny white kids in the hood keep their heads down. Honestly, skinny white kids in the hood generally DON'T keep their heads down. By kindergarten every kid --white or black-- is part of the neighborhood and they all get along. How do I know this? Because I live in the hood and white kids and black kids in the hood --places like Camden, for instance-- generally all get along quite well, thank you! White kids in my town don't walk around in fear. The kids all walk around in these multicultural cliques that have nothing to do with race.

It makes me wonder if the author knows about living in black neighborhoods. And actually, if we are to be really honest here, it's generally the black kid in a white neighborhood who walks around holding his head down. Not the other way around. Black folks tend to be pretty inclusive when it comes to neighborhood kids.

And then there is this idea about roaming gangs. Where the heck did A C E Bauer get this idea that gangs bothered innocent kids? Especially innocent skinny white kids? (By the way, is she saying that all the black kids are beefy and overfed?) Reading this blurb and the excerpt on the publisher's site has pretty much convinced me that A C E Bauer has created a world which the white reader will instantly recognize as their worse fear. I generally don't get too annoyed about wrong-headed books but sometimes some stuff just annoy a person no end. And the inclusion of a so-called dignified "African-American gentleman" in the excerpt doesn't help her cause either. I just hate it when a "dignified" black person appears inside a book that seems to be built on racial assumptions about how black kids treat good/smart/skinny white kids.

Folks, we need more black children book writers out there. Or else we need more poor white folks writing children books. You know what I mean. Someone from the hood who really knows what life is like.

Leaving Wind Follower, finding an Inheritance

Now that Wind Follower is published I have to shake myself free from it. Marketing, interviews, reviews -- all must bow their heads and let me move from Wind Follower mode into Inheritance mode.

Inheritance is my new WIP. It is intended to be urban lit. The story so far (okay, I've tossed in some backstory also):

Female character: Novella. Fortyish Black woman. A cop who's going through burn out. She belongs to a people called the Kindred. These folks have various supernatural talents. Nothing over the top, mind you. I like my magic to be pretty real and gently paranormal. Natural supernaturalism and all that. Novella, however, lacks a lot of this power because she is too practical. And magic only works when one allows one's self to believe. Even though as a child the elders at the local gathering all taught her how to look into the mirror of life, she simply cannot "bring substance down" into physical reality.

Danny: Half-Chinese. His white mom --a minister's wife and a pro-lifer-- was raped by a rapist who happened to be Chinese. She and the minister raised Danny with a lot of love. When she was pregnant, she hid the pregnancy by visiting her sister in the city. Then she and her husband made up a story about going to China to adopt a child. She returned to her upstate all-white town with the baby. The story of the baby adoption was shown in an Albany newspaper. No one suspects the truth ...except the sister of the rapist who is a news reporter. Since Danny’s youth, she has written local news stories that somehow involved Danny and has made herself a friend of the family. She has also brought these newspapers to her imprisoned brother. It’s her way of letting him know about his son. Danny, for his part, was pretty much in the dark about the circumstances around his birth but when he accidentally discovered the truth at age fourteen, he acted up. Petty thieving, burglary, heroin addiction. He soon learned to accept it and around age twenty-five he meets the black woman and romance begins.

Oh, by the way, did I tell you that his dad in prison has an hankering to see him?
Oh, and did I also tell you that ever since Danny learned about the circumstances of his birth, a headless female torso has been visiting him in his dreams, forcing sex on him. Oh, didn't I tell you that?

This is the very same succubi who had visited his biological father and had resulted in his dad becoming a serial rapist. (Trust me on this, I can make this kind of thing believable. I’m a writer, after all. And all you feminists out there, please do not email me with comments about how I'm blaming the woman. It's a demon, for heaven's sake!)

So then...this is Danny’s inheritance…a spiritual battle for his destiny? Or is it a psychological battle?

Oh, yeah... didn't I tell you? Danny is also one of the kindred. And he has way more skills in the paranormal than Novella. Except he's useless against the succubi. And he needs some help -- burnt-out case Novella's help-- to free him from this demon. Yep, my heroine has to fight a demon for her man....and for the safety of every woman in the region. After all, we wouldn't want the succubi to get her way.

What I imagine is a sweetly normal, one might even say bucolic love May-December multicultural urban lit love story with this weird dark undercurrent. Can I do it? Yeah. ::patting self on shoulder:: Folks, I am one good writer!

Okay, there are moments of utter fear and panic. I won't lie. Times when I say: will my audience (Who the heck is my audience?) like this story? Will the story have the same sense of magic and sweetness and honesty as Wind Follower? What about this may/december bi-racial relationship? Will it annoy some folks? Will the novel be obviously Christian or subtly so? Will the woman or the man be the main character?

Lord knows. I'll just trust Him. -Carole McDonnell

vicious heroes

Okay, here it goes again.

Here we are trying to get rid of the romanticisation of violence in the black community and here are two movies which praise Black hoods.

The first is American Gangster.

The second is Untouchable. See below.

Now, I have nothing against gangster movies. Some of my favorite films were gangster movies. Remember the disclaimers on those old James Cagney and thirties gangster flicks?

So I'm nervous but I don't want to judge these movies without seeing them....just because I'm annoyed at all this violence/romance.
What to do? What do you think?



It better end badly for the baddie, that's all I'm saying. Nothing nihilistically romantic. Please! Just something that shows how sleazy being a heroin dealer really is.

Again...back to the old movies. Remember how little Ceasar died? Remember how all the baddies died? Even the ones we loved?
That's what I'd like to see. Bad guys coming to a bad end. It's good for our people to see that. What can I say?

-C

Demons, rebels, secular authors and Christian Scripture

Hi all:

I've been over at Tia's website, Fantasy Debut Blogspot and she commented that there are a lot of books with Bible themes being published by secular publishing houses. Including Wind Follower of course.

Wonder why?

I'm not as up on the novels and religions of other cultures so I can't say if there is a universal resurgence in books based on Scripture. Offhand, I can only think of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which was connected to the Koran. Honestly, I don't know if there's even a resurgence in North America. Many folks around the world are religious or philosophical...after all. But the Holy Bible is a great book and has some issues that will connect to atheists and religious folks alike.

The first is the nature of suffering. Mark Ferrari's, The Book of Joby, deals with this. And what better Biblical book for an author to play with than the Book of Job!

You know the story: God and Satan get into a wager and use Job as a pawn. (Of course there are many different ways of interpreting how they even got into this battle. Some word-of-faith Christians say Job got himself in that mess by speaking wrong words over his life....he removed the hedge God had put around him. Some say linguistically, that the Hebrew implies that God didn't start the challenge at all. The "have you considered my servant Job?" statement is God's referring to a past event in Lucifer's mind. Something like, "So I see you have been thinking about my servant Job?")

Mark Ferrari takes one of the more traditional Christian views: that God can do whatever He wants to with the lives of His creations.

I've got to say from the sampler I read that this is a really good book. I had my issues with it of course. The smallest first: I didn't like it that God was so flip about human suffering. Sure he believes in Joby and in humans, but I have a thing against cold humorous tongue-in-cheek portrayals of God. That's just me, though. As seen in movies like Evan Almighty, Oh God, and other small and large or printed or digital media, some folks like doing that with representations of God. Now, I only read the first chapter excerpt. It's in PDF format so I can't give you a snippet. But you can download the first chapter here.

It's possible --probable-- that Ferrari's portrayal of God in the rest of the story will amaze and awe me. I would try to get the book and check it out. But ...well there's my biggest problem with Book of Joby. Little Joby himself.

The first chapter has some humorous moments ...and I'm sure the humor will continue. But I have to tell you. I cannot cannot cannot deal with the suffering of children. This is my own issue. I simply cannot deal with suffering children. Yep, I walked out of many a movie, stopped reading many a book, and simply stand transfixed watching the TV whenever some suffering child is shown. For instance, I loved the film, A I: Artificial Intelligence. But I simply cannot see it again.

This is a mom thing. This is a mom with a disabled kid thing. It's probably even a dad with a disabled kid thing. Joby is an innocent and we moms with disabled kids understand innocence in a way most parents don't because we have to live with that continued innocence year after year after year. It makes it hard to see innocence wounded or hurt. Honestly, as I read the sample chapter, I kept anticipating all the struggles this little Joby was going to go through...and frankly it comes way too close to home. So, I have no intention of going out and buying the book. Again, I say this is entirely my issue. But I suspect mothers and dads (and brothers and sisters) of wounded children won't be able to read it without feeling a heartfelt pain.

Yes, yes, I know. All great books push some painful areas of our souls. But when it comes to kids suffering I just can't "go there."

The second book coming out is God's Demon and it's about the nature/possibility of redemption. Here's an exceprt.

There was the Fall. And no one was permitted to speak of it, or of the time before or of the Above. But it was the Fall that established many things in Hell, not the least of which was the distribution of territory. The future wards of Hell were randomly determined as each Demon Major, on his own sizzling trajectory from the Above, plunged headlong, meteoric, into the unknown wilds of the Inferno. Some impacted far apart, setting up their realms in relative seclusion and safety, while others, less fortunate, found themselves in close proximity, able to see the rising smoke of their neighbor’s arrival. These close arrivals began plotting and campaigning as soon as they could gather about them enough minor demons to form a court. The fratricidal wars that erupted lingered for millennia, occasionally flaring up into major conflagrations. These were the volatile times of Settlement and they were never forgotten by the survivors. Many of Lucifer’s original Host were lost, but those that remained, the strong and the cunning, established powerful kingdoms that would grow and prosper.

You can read the prologue and first chapter here

In this novel, the author Wayne Barlowe takes Milton's idea of Pandemonium and runs with it. (In Paradise Lost, the demons build Pandemonium and basically said, "I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.")

There is a mass case of selective memory, building, and worldbuilding going on in Barlowe's hell. Who wants to remember how low they have fallen? Besides, a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand long, can it? There are a lot of demons out there who are seriously peeved that they were deceived into rebelling against God.

Both these books deal with demons. And both these books deal with demons who rebel against God. Perhaps that's why their authors were intrigued by them. Rebellion against God, rebellion against authority. Rebellion against goodness. We still live with the effects of the Romantic Era. Rebels are seen as romantic. But I don't think so. In these stories, the rebels will be seen as having been wrong-headed, unknowing, limited in their demonic thinking. Very conservative thinking that. Father DOES know best.

But there is something else here...something very much like soul.

I remember reading Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire -- years before she returned to the Faith-- and thinking.... "this woman understands the need for a saviour. Most atheists don't understand it to such an extent. Or else they wouldn't be so snide, cruel and arrogant toward Christians." (Especially to poor innocent sickly black women like myself who never did them any harm.) When I read her books I saw something very much like soul. Well, these guys have something like soul.

Not that we Christians are the only ones who have the longing for a saviour or a loving understanding incomprehensible God. All nations look toward the Desire of Nations. It is only the Christian who knows that God not only understands suffering but that he came as a man of sorrows ACQUAINTED with grief (GOD-WITH-US suffering even as we suffer), and that God's love depends not on our righteousness or good behavior but on his mercy, the He is able to reach even into the depths of hell to save a repentant sinner who longs to be saved by him. -C

Angry Black Woman

Today I want to praise the inner strength and the external beauty of black women. We’re a strong, patient bunch. Honestly. I suspect if non-black Americans knew how much grief and hurt a black woman carries around – from past hurts and from daily immediate wounds—they would consider us saints ..symbols of patience. (All those singing slaves in old thirties movies notwithstanding.)

It isn’t easy walking through the world where people think you’re always ready to jump down some “innocent” white person’s throat. When I think of all the times I never complained because I feared some white person would think I was a touchy black woman!

It isn’t easy walking into a store and having the cashier follow you around suspecting you of wanting to steal something. Certainly more black women have grinned and borne it than have snapped, “Why the heck are you following me around?” I tell you… we are generally beacons of patience and forbearance.

It isn’t easy walking through a world where people assume you lack the great noble European trait of discipline. I went to a local gourmet supermarket run by a woman from Spain. I told her everything I wanted. She snapped, “I’m really busy. Do you really want to eat all that?” Why it didn’t occur to her that I was buying tons of food for a potluck dinner (’cause I didn’t want to cook) is beyond me. I’m sure she would’ve made kinder less judgmental assumptions about a white woman. And hey, although I was taken aback, I didn’t snap at her. But I didn’t explain myself either…I just kinda cowered shamefacedly and walked away feeling hurt.

It isn’t easy walking through a world where if you disagree with an editor, you are assumed to be touchy because well….”black women are touchy.”

It isn’t easy walking through a world where people assume you’re talking to someone because you want to have sex with him. Yep, I recently met a fallen church brother at the bar and began talking to him. He was drunk as a skunk and in order not to be seen praying on the sidewalk, we went to the parking lot behind the bar. The upshot of that: a Hispanic acquaintance of mine stopped speaking to me. When I asked why, it turned out he assumed I had sex with my church brother behind the bar. News flies fast. I didn’t snap at him. And again I didn’t explain myself. I just made a mental note not to speak to him again. (Yep, sometimes angry black women don’t get angry at all. We just make mental notes to write people off.)

It isn’t easy walking through the world when people – sometimes American but often folks newly arrived from the Old Country– —equate blackness with dirtiness. A Polish acquaintance of mine had a mother who actually believed blacks were dirty because they didn’t clean themselves and the dirt had stuck to their skin. And among many of the Ecuadoreans in my community there is a kind of home-country belief that blacks are naturally dirty. They would probably be insulted to find out that among white Americans in town they are considered uneducated and thieving. But that’s the trouble with prejudices…folks never realize when they’re making assumptions…and yet at the same time they’re assuming things about other people. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been in public malls and movie theaters where I see a Hispanic person avoid an open bathroom stall because a black person has exited it. Sounds old-fashioned, I know. But remember, much of the rest of the world doesn’t go around teaching racial enlightenment.

It amazes me to think that most of the black Women I know are gentle souls saying prayers for sick friends and generally doing good stuff in the world and yet, the world insists on thinking we’re angry people. And it amazes me that when we DO become angry they belittle our racial pain by saying we are “always getting angry.” Come now, we don’t!

Recently, someone sent me a question about the Bible story of Ham. For those who don’t know European history, the Bible story of Noah cursing his grandson Canaan (son of Ham) has been used by many racists to justify slavery against Blacks.

Of course, religion is not the only thing that has been used to justify racism. Science has played its part. Eugenics based on the European idea of perfection has done its part. Many atheists and scientists who blame religion for racism and other evils often forget that Darwin’s book was actually called “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”

I wish I could blame European racism alone for the problem but other cultures are also racist. When I was younger I used to be very hurt by the tendency in many cultures to equate dark and black with evil or impure. Everywhere I looked it seemed as if some culture was “naturally prejudiced.”

In India, for instance, after years of warfare with different nations rising up against different nations, darkness of skin…especially in women children…was considered a misfortune. When my Goan friend, Veronica, became pregnant, she told me, “It’s okay if a boy is dark but I don’t want to have a dark girl.” To this end, she drank milk every day because that was what women in her culture did. Yes, I know. She was in America and knew about genetics…but still she stuffed herself with milk. This girl became very cruel to her brother’s new wife when she met the woman, a white girl. The venom was amazing. But she did manage to add, “Well at least it wasn’t a black girl. That would have killed my mother.”

But even so, the kind of venom typically reserved for black people is often so feral that it is amazing we black women aren’t more angry than we supposedly are. I don’t think non-black people can understand the crap one goes through everyday. An hispanic person might get a glimpse of it if she feels that everyone she meets think she is an illegal immigrant. A Japanese-American during World War II might get a glimpse of racial hatred because every Japanese person –indeed, every Asain—was suspected of treason against the United States.

Times are changing, mercifully, and so black women are now being seen as beautiful. We’re even getting our first Disney Princess. I even include VH1’s “New York” in my list of black princesses. True, as a lover of science fiction shows I’m always wondering why there are so few black women in science fiction shows but hey, most of the black girls growing up in the United States won’t have the depth of emotional and psychological pain I or their ancestors have had to carry. That makes me happy. And I like being happy.

Dear Father in Heaven, keep healing my heart. Help me to learn to speak up. On the one hand I don’t want to be a touchy angry black woman, but on the other hand I don’t want to be so repressed that I never speak my mind. Make me feel beautiful, Lord. And make me know that no matter how dark my skin or how pudgy my body is…that I am as Psalm 139 says “Fearfully and wonderfully made.” I ask this in the name of my saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

First Wind Follower Book signing

Well, I'm all signed up. They are ironing out whether or not we'll actually be reading excerpts. Will see.


Carole McDonnell (Wind Follower) and other local authors will discuss and sign their books.

Carole's book is story about a quest, a vendetta, and a spiritual battle. It is a multicultural Christian fantasy about the relationship between race and religion.


WHEN: Saturday, November 17, 2007 @ 12:00 noon
WHERE: Barnes & Noble Cortlandt Town Center
3089 East Main Street, Route 6
Mohegan Lake, NY 10547
store: 914-528-6275

Autism Acceptance Project

The Autism Acceptance Project is seeking to showcase the work of autistic people everywhere. If you are poet, an essayist, a fiction writer, an artist or musician of any type, we would like to show your work and direct our audience back to you.

If you are interested, please contact Estee at estee@taaproject.com estee (at) taaproject.com

http://www.taaproject.com/

Second Chance Act

Hat Tip to Eddie Griffin,

Please take action to give offenders a second chance and help keep our brothers and sisters out of jail This is VERY IMPORTANT. Please visit this link to read more http://www.justicefellowship.org/generic.asp?ID=2225

This is the action alert...

Dear Friends,
We need your help immediately to pass the Second Chance Act, HR 1593. The bill is ready to be brought to a vote on the floor of the House. Yet, the poisoned partisan atmosphere may keep it from ever getting voted upon.
Leaders from both parties have reached agreement on virtually everything that will be in the bill, but there remains some Republican opposition. The Democratic leadership is reluctant to schedule a vote if it turns into a donnybrook on the floor. However, they will schedule a vote next week if they are assured that the bill has the support of at least 100 Republicans.
Therefore, I urge you to call your representative and tell them how important it is that this bill passes. If your legislator is a Republican, please ask them to call Rep. Chris Cannon, the lead Republican sponsor, and let him know that they will vote for the Second Chance Act. It is important that they let Mr. Cannon know by tomorrow (Thursday) so that it can be scheduled for a vote next week. If your legislator is a Democrat, please ask them to tell Rep. Hoyer, the Democratic Whip, that they support the bill.
The Second Chance Act will help ex-offenders with their transition to life on the outside—specifically, in five key areas: jobs, housing, mental health and substance abuse treatment, and strengthening families.
You can find out more about this bill at Justice Fellowship's Legislative Action Center, where you can also find out the name and phone number of your representative. Please do not close this email before you call your representative. It is that important to the bill.
In His service,
Pat Nolan
Vice President, Prison Fellowship

Spotlight: Cecil Washington

Cecil Washington is the editor and Publisher of Creative Brother , a magazine that publishes and explores speculative fiction about the black culture. I recently interviewed both Cecil and Frank Creed. See my post on marginalized scifi below.

Creative Brother is a zine that contains fiction, opinion essays, poetry, and sometimes analysis of issues at the juncture of speculative fiction and Black culture.

Authors included in Issue #10, which I believe is the latest issue, include Paul Blakeford and Malon Edwards.

Creative Brother doesn't shy away from controversial issues, two of which are included in this issue.

The first is: The Sophia Stewart plagiarism lawsuit against the Brothers Wachowski asserting they stole the Matrix idea from her. (I've heard a lot about this lawsuit and honestly I don't know what to think about it. It's possible they used her short story as a seed for the movie but where does influence begin and plagiarism end?) Mr Washington seems to have taken up her cause. I'll stand mute. If you wish to read more about the lawsuit, you can check out Sophia's website. www.sophiaoracle.com She's pretty angry...and if she is indeed right about being plagiarized, she has every right to be angry. If, if, if. Whatever the outcome of the courtcase, it certainly should make writers pause about sending their unpublished novels off to folks in Hollywood.


Another controversial topic mentioned in Creative Brother is the philosophy of Dr Frances Cress-Welsing and Neely Fuller, Jr. In fact it takes up much of this issue. If you don't know what the United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept is, you can either count yourself unlucky (according to Cecil) or lucky (in that you just don't get into such far reaches of racial flakiness.) Sorry, Cecil, but honestly! I consider you a great writer and I'm not particularly wimpy about racism...but I seriously wonder how anyone could believe in that entire Cress-Welsing concept.

The ezine also contains a great segment on black scifi resources on the web and in print. If you want to read some race-based scifi...or if you want to get an somewhat biased analysis on the Sophia Stewart case or the Cress-Welsing/Fuller philosophy, check out the zine:

Creative Brother Website



Other bloggers taking part in the tour are:


Interview with Cecil Washington

Check out the spotlight of Cecil on:
Spotlight on moondancerdrake's livejournal

Gregory Banks' website

Rachel Lindley

Plus I did an earlier interview with Cecil and Frank Creed, another writer of marginalized speculative fiction.


Cecil's websites are:
http://www.cecilwashington.com/

Creative Brother Website


-Carole

The Farthest Frontier - spotlight Frank Creed

Frank Creed's new book Flashpoint has just come out. I think a day ago.

Here's the blurb:

Persecution in Chicago has reached the Flashpoint.

In the year 2036, all nations are run by a one-world government.
The One State has only one threat:
Fundamentalist terrorists.
The One State has declared that
Bible believing Christians are now ‘terrorists’!

But the One State has not yet encountered Calamity Kid and e-girl . .

As you know already from my previous post, Frank writes Biblical speculative fiction. This means among other things that the values, truths and prophecies used in his fiction are the same shown in the Bible.

That doesn't mean Frank slavishly follows the mold of other Bible writers. This ain't your Mom's (or Janet Oke's or Beode Theone's) Christian fiction.

Like Cyber-punk? How about trying Biblical cyber-punk?

Well,

Click here to check out the youtube book trailer fof FLASH POINT






Christian Fiction Review Blog

Buy on Amazon


And check out some of Frank's sites:

http://www.frankcreed.com/

http://www.frankcreed.com/TheUnderground.html

http://afrankreview.blogspot.com/

http://blog.lostgenreguild.com/