My sci-fi artwork "Tree-Climbing Crimbolain" now appears on the cover of Kids'Magination, Issue 11. Check it out!

This is the fourth time an artwork of mine has appeared on a cover of Kids'Magination. I guess you could say the editor likes my work! I think some of my artwork works well for publications geared towards kids. My style is well suited for such venues.

"Tree-Climbing Crimbolain" had been previously published in another publication for younger readers. It originally appeared, as a black and white line drawing, in the July 2010 issue of the Sam's Dot Publishing zine Beyond Centauri. Selling an artwork once is great, but selling the same artwork more than once is even better!

I'm no fan of the term or the concept of "white privilege". Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying that racism and sexism are still issues in US culture. Sexism and racism seem to be growing as of late, and it saddens me. I'm appalled to see parts of the US moving backward instead of forward in regard to gender, racial, and sexual orientation equality.

However, I think "white privilege" ignores the importance of class, wealth, and a whole host of other factors that might be just as crucial to individual privilege as race and gender. There are some pretty underprivileged white folks in the USA, underprivileged because of their socioeconomic status, underprivileged because of the happenstance of where they were born and what families they were born into.

Of course, "white privilege" is a term beloved by certain folks who suffer from white guilt.

A personal note: one of the nastiest bosses I ever worked for was a black female customer service supervisor who let it be known in the workplace that she thinks all men are worthless. She treated the few men under her supervision like crap. With modern awareness of sexual harassment and racial and gender inequality lawsuits, I doubt a  a white male supervisor would have gotten away with treating others like that, at least, not for long. This black female supervisor got away with it. The best I could do was stand up to her one time when, in a rather rude manner, she told another co-worker not to ask me anything because I knew nothing.

When a part-time job at the museum came my way, and she wouldn't adjust my schedule the way I wanted, I left. Mind you, she was very flexible in regard to the scheduling of one of her female workers. I was looking for an excuse to leave anyway, because it was a very hostile work environment.

Yes, I was very privileged to grow up in a family of psycho drunks, to grow up seeing my grandfather beat up my grandmother, to grow up never knowing my "real" father, to grow up with a step-father who never knew how to be a father, to grow up suffering frequent psychological abuse from both my step-father and my mother, to grow up always being made to feel that I could do nothing right and nothing I did was good enough, to grow up different enough to always be the kid other kids picked on and treated poorly, to go to a public school where the administration couldn't be bothered to deal with problems that made a student's life hell.

I get that white males have the most privilege in our society, but those who go on about white privilege seem to ignore the fact that individual experiences in our society may differ. Based on my own experiences, if race or gender doesn't set you apart, other things like family history and personal quirks might. People will always find some excuse to make other people's lives hell, if they need any excuse at all.

And the wizardly fantasy story gets rejected yet again! The story had been under consideration at one venue since December, it had made it to the second round there, the editor liked the title and thought it was a nice story, but there were other stories they liked more. (The same market did recently buy an artwork of mine.)

As much as I know one should be persistent and perseverant, I think I'm done wasting my time on this writing thing. I certainly can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Compared to where my poetry has gone and where my art is going, my prose writing is going nowhere. If I'm going to succeed with anything at this point, it's going to be the art. I guess I have to be satisfied with being an artist/illustrator/poet.