Michael Janairo

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Author: Michael Janairo

  • Scenes from Antigua, Guatemala

    Agua Volcano looms over Antigua Guatemala to the south, as seen from Cerro de la Cruz to the north.
    Agua Volcano looms over Antigua Guatemala to the south, as seen from Cerro de la Cruz to the north.

    When thinking about going abroad, I always have these equations in mind:

    Tourist = Seeing others as others

    Traveler = Discovering self as other

    My take is that most people are a little of both: you can’t help but feel strange being in a new place, as long as you are open to learning about that place; you can’t truly let go of who you are — the sense of identity that allows you to feel at home in your skin no matter where you are.

    With that in mind, my wife and I headed to Guatemala, where a friend was house-sitting in the former colonial capital, Antigua Guatemala.

    Here’s a video of the yard of the house we stayed in:

    An elephant on a chain that supports a bench swing.The owners of the home, Americans who worked in international aid and development, had brought a few touches from past postings to their home, including lots of furniture from India. That includes this elephant, which was part of a chain that supported a bench swing just outside the bedrooms and facing the back yard. The yard was verdant with a green lawn and flowering bushes, including rose bushes. The city itself is referred to as the “land of eternal spring,” with low temperatures in the mid 50s and highs in the 70s year-round.

    The house is in the Candelaria section of the town, named for the ruins of a Spanish church adjacent to the property. Antigua had been the colonial capital until an earthquake in the 1770s destroyed nearly all the buildings, including this church.

    The ruins of the church in the Candelaria section of Antigua, Guatemala.
    The ruins of the church in the Candelaria section of Antigua, Guatemala.

    Some of the major tourist attractions of Antigua are the ruins of churches that have been converted into museums, but the one at Candelaria just sits there, protected by some rusty and sad-looking barbed wire. I took the photo standing on a basketball court, which must’ve once been the courtyard of the ruined church. Teens played there every day, and a fruit vendor and a tortilla vendor set up in the space between the street and the basketball court, so the area has maintained its use as a public gathering spot. (more…)

  • My latest identity upgrade: ‘Goodreads Author’

    I just got this email from Goodreads:

    Hi Michael,

    Welcome to the Goodreads Authors program! We have upgraded your profile to an official author account. Your special status as a Goodreads Author gives you greater access to the millions of readers in our Goodreads community—so expect to get to know some passionate book lovers!

    Here’s the link https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7796395.Michael_Janairo

    I haven’t done anything with it just yet, but this next step is all thanks to being listed as one of the authors of the Long Reads anthology.

    Anything you’d like to see on my Goodreads Author page?

     

     

  • ‘Long Hidden’ update: Giveaway on Good Reads and cover blurb news

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    This is getting real. The anthology Long Hidden, which is now up on Goodreads.com and includes one of my short stories, can be yours in a giveaway going on right now on Goodreads.

    Go enter the giveaway at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20642659-long-hidden.

    Also check out the book jacket copy. The blurb mentions five of the 27 stories in the anthology — including mine. Can you guess which one?

    In 1514 Hungary, peasants who rose up against the nobility rise again – from the grave. In 1633 Al-Shouf, a mother keeps demons at bay with the combined power of grief and music. In 1775 Paris, as social tensions come to a boil, a courtesan tries to save the woman she loves. In 1838 Georgia, a pregnant woman’s desperate escape from slavery comes with a terrible price. In 1900 Ilocos Norte, a forest spirit helps a young girl defend her land from American occupiers.

    These gripping stories have been passed down through the generations, hidden between the lines of journal entries and love letters. Now 27 of today’s finest authors – including Tananarive Due, Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sabrina Vourvoulias – reveal the people whose lives have been pushed to the margins of history

  • A few tiny steps toward publication(s)

    Big day yesterday as, within an hour of each other, I got the ARC (that’s advanced reader’s copy) of the Long Hidden speculative fiction anthology that includes a short story of mine AND a request to do an author interview for Veterans of the Future Wars anthology that includes a different short story of mine.

    With the ARC, I get to proof my story one more time. With the interview, I get to talk about me.

    These are small steps in the publishing process, but add a sense of fun and anticipation.

  • A Pittsburgh experience

    A Pittsburgh experience

    If you’ve ever been curious about what it’s like driving through a tunnel in Pittsburgh, here’s a shot of going through the Squirrel Hill Tunnel.

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  • Review: Go, Dog. Go!

    Go, Dog. Go!
    Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman
    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    When I was a little kid, this book seemed to be more my older brothers’ speed. It was longer. It was more complex, and it had a sense of danger about it that I didn’t truly understand as a young reader. When I finally did read the book, I thought it was really cool. I felt like I accomplished something, and I couldn’t understand what had made me apprehensive about reading it in the first place.

    View all my reviews

  • A little bit about ZZ on his birthday

    A little bit about ZZ on his birthday

    ZZ (Times Union archive)
    ZZ (Times Union archive)
    I got to write a little bit about ZZ, our family dog who died a few years ago and whose ashes we have saved. The article is called “A human need to say farewell to pets,” and is more about readers’ comments on the web about a funeral home planning to offer pet funerals and cremations than about my dog. But it was nice to see his photo in the paper. You can see a video about ZZ here.

    Anyway, ZZ died a few months shy of his 19th birthday, about six months after the photo of him was taken.

    I’ve just been thinking about the little guy today and missing him.

  • Long Hidden anthology cover revealed

    Long Hidden anthology cover revealed

    Long Hidden cover revealed

    So this is cool.

    The good people at Crossed Genres have released the Cover by  Julie Dillon and the Table of Contents for the anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, which includes a story I wrote specifically for the anthology.

    I am really honored and excited to be in the same book as all these writers, many of whom are big-name award-winners and all-around awesome people.

    • Sofia Samatar – “Ogres of East Africa”
    • Thoraiya Dyer – “The Oud”
    • Tananarive Due – “Free Jim’s Mine”
    • S. Lynn – “Ffydd (Faith)”
    • Sunny Moraine – “Across the Seam”
    • Rion Amilcar Scott – “Numbers”
    • Meg Jayanth – “Each Part Without Mercy”
    • Claire Humphrey – “The Witch of Tarup”
    • L.S. Johnson – “Marigolds”
    • Robert William Iveniuk – “Diyu”
    • Jamey Hatley – “Collected Likenesses”
    • Michael Janairo – “Angela and the Scar”
    • Benjamin Parzybok – “The Colts”
    • Kima Jones – “Nine”
    • Christina Lynch – “The Heart and the Feather”
    • Troy L. Wiggins – “A Score of Roses”
    • Nghi Vo – “Neither Witch Nor Fairy”
    • David Fuller – “A Deeper Echo”
    • Ken Liu – “Knotting Grass, Holding Ring”
    • Kemba Banton – “Jooni”
    • Sarah Pinsker – “There Will Be One Vacant Chair”
    • Nnedi Okorafor – “It’s War”
    • Shanaé Brown – “Find Me Unafraid”
    • Nicolette Barischoff – “A Wedding in Hungry Days”
    • Lisa Bolekaja – “Medu”
    • Victor LaValle – “Lone Women”
    • Sabrina Vourvoulias – “The Dance of the White Demons”

    The anthology is edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, and is slated for publication in May 2014.

  • How to write a bestseller with ‘stylometry’

    How to write a bestseller with ‘stylometry’


    Scientists say they’ve uncovered the secret to writing a bestselling novel. By using a process called “statistical stylometry,” which basically means data mining an overload of printed matter — in this case 40,000 books and film scripts — to find patterns of wood usage.

    The Stony Brook University researchers say that books that used more conjunctions (and, or, but) and thought-processing words, such as “recognized,” did better than books that had a higher percentage of verbs, adverbs and foreign words.

    Do you believe them?

    Here’s a quote from one of the researchers, which gives a sense of what it means to write about research (and maybe a good example of how not to write a bestselling sentence (look at those action verbs and a verb of being, but then again there’s that all-powerful “and”).

    “Based on novels across different genres, we investigated the predictive power of statistical stylometry in discriminating successful literary works, and identified the stylistic elements that are more prominent in successful writings.”