Tantra Bensko's Blog

On Being Performed

5/2/2016

I really enjoyed hearing my story performed by an actor at Stagewerx in San Francisco. I decided I'd put in my time as a featured reader and would move on doing other things with my time. But when they asked to perform my Science Fiction story, even though it meant taking buses to SF from Berkeley at night in a gritty district, I was up for it.

The actor was excellent, dynamic, active, even adding parts into the story, which he'd recorded and broadcast as he moved on stage. The experience was enhanced by the stage appearance and lighting, props, being immersed in the audience, the overall excitement of the evening with a variety of masterful interpretations of stories.

In Case We Die anthology free giveaway

5/2/2016

I loved reading this book. True stories of weird, incomprehensible things that have happened to people, or in some cases, the psychologically oddest events that have occurred. One of mine is in there too. Register for it at Goodreads now to win one of 6 books. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/184869-in-case-we-die

Innovative Fiction Contests

1/25/2016

Thank you for all the times your visits go over 1000 hits a day for this site. I'm always heartened to see how many people are interested in this kind of literature. I like to add new things and change it up, bringing new features and guest articles.

This site has a newish page called, imaginatively, New Links for You!

It includes several contests that are active right now for work that pushes past boundaries and explores new potentials for methods of creating something unusually unique.

There are other elements as well presented with a growing list of links to news, books, magazines, websites, aps and more. Many notices include more about them than the straight-up links on the regular, huge, page About Experimental Writing.

On Social Engineering

1/3/2016

I wrote on this blog just quick snippets mostly related to my publications in magazines and such. However, I have another blog which isn't particularly about my publications (though the idea of it is social engineering, which is the theme of my series coming out beginning this month.) That blog has around 50 posts so far, and some several pages on the site as well.

The Engineering of Society is meant as a primer for people unaware of the history, concepts or terms such as "spin doctor," and I hope it will help keep the original meaning of the term "social engineering" in the public eye, as the second meaning, relating to security, is becoming predominant on the web now.

The blog also explores possible ways to hack the personality in order to get over gullibility and vulnerability to hoaxes, scams, propaganda, forced stereotypes, cultural orchestration, etc.

It's entertaining just to see the GIFs on every post and page, which are often grotesqueries, surrealistic and playfully funny. If you check out The Engineering of Society, note that as you scroll down the blog posts, there is a tiny little "older posts" on the bottom right, to take you deeper into it.

Story in NovoPulp

1/3/2016

"Place Theory" is in NovoPulp, which is a print and ebook anthology. It's a good book, needing reviews, so contact the publisher if you're interested. The stories are fun and entertaining, yet seeking, and even providing answers to important questions.

What's the haps

1/3/2016

I just write little short informative blips here, though with over a thousand hits a day, I should be engaging people more. I'm so glad so many people are interested in innovative fiction.

I'll be teaching a class in it again with UCLA Extension beginning January 20th, so head over to their website and sign up if you want to write it. It's a 10 week class online, workshopping with other students, usually somewhere around 15 students, sometimes fewer.

I continue to appreciate avant-garde fiction and I coach individual students in it online. I review it once in awhile, though I do my best to keep reviewing to a minimum, as it's a lot to have hovering over my head.

Mostly, however, I've been focusing on writing fiction that has the chance to reach a larger audience, and blogging through the process once in awhile at Tantra Bensko's Genre Fiction.

I've written all genre stories for a long time, SF, Horror, Fantasy, Crime, etc. though I inevitably write in a little different from formula. It often veers off into Slipstream. One of my CF Crime stories, for example, in NovoPulp, is told in a very unconventional way.

But now, I'm not writing any more stories at all, only revising novellas and novels in the Psychological Suspense series, The Agents of the Nevermind,
about to launch January 31. The overarching theme of the series is the heroism of overcoming social engineering. Resisting insidious social conditioning, recognizing propaganda, avoiding taking part in sharing of disinformation memes therefore, and exposing reality for what it is. The first book is a novel called Glossolalia. I'm currently giving out ARCs for people committed to reviewing.

Anyone wanting to make sure to buy the book when it comes out can sign up to my newsletter to be reminded. It gives a lot of background information about the real world involving some rather shocking facts. Would love to see you there. If this book sells a lot of copies in the first week, the whole series has a chance. If not, it might tank, so your support would mean the world to me.

I made zero money on this website which I've been maintaining for years, so if you want to show your support if you have gratitude for it, that would be the way. A 2.99 ebook would be entertaining to read, I hope, and buying it would bump its Amazon ranking so more people saw it.

Nominated for Pushcart by Rivet

1/3/2016

Wow, I've been terrible about posting here for a long time, haven't I? I should have mentioned that Rivet nominated my story, Dr. Gorgonzola of the Ripening Caves, for a Pushcart Prize.