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In partnership with Walmart, Janell Stephens, creator and founder of ‘Camille Rose’, takes us through a day of her busy life as a wife, mom and entrepreneur.
Video games are cool and fun and not a waste of time MOM!
Hello! My name is Jeffrey and I love video games. I also love my Mom. But my Mom does not love video games.
I told my Mom that I went to E3 2017 (a video game convention) and she rolled her eyes!
Let me show you 7 cool things I saw at E3 and by the end of this post we'll be playing video games together Mom!
Sonic the Hedgehog
Mom you remember when I played Sonic the Hedgehog, right? He's a little blue guy that runs super fast. That's good because it's exercise and promotes good health! What more do you need MOM! It's cool!
I kept calling them "Snapchat filters" and the girl that worked at Facebook was not happy.
Also I said "My Mom doesn't have a Facebook" and she didn't like that either. Which is fair. I quickly ran away.
One of my New Years resolutions was dedicating this year to leveling up, specifically as an author and artist. Or rather as an auteur. 
Breaking personal records and churning out more pieces than ever, I’ve spent the better part of the year in nonstop writer mode which of course is the equivalent of Puppet Angel.
One of the ways I leveled up recently was completing Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due’s lifewriting class entitled Afrofuturism: Dreams to Banish Nightmares.
The 10-week webinar course included lectures, social media and interviews with everyone from Jamie Broadnax, creator of Black Girl Nerds to executive producer, director and Black Panther scribe, Reginald Hudlin, Bree Newsome, and many others.
The curriculum also included:
- How African-Americans spun the nightmare of slavery and oppression into dreams, art, and music that has changed and inspired the world…and how you can apply these concepts to your own life…today!
- How to use Theme to guide your storytelling and create even greater impact
- How to build new worlds and people them with three-dimensional characters
- How to turn your personal pains and fears into creative gold
- How to write about social injustice in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction and horror
I’m always happy for the opportunity to learn from two of the best in the industry today.
My thoughts on the course?
To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what I was signing myself up for. To be more honest, I also wasn’t terribly keen on the idea of having a class over 10 Saturday evenings. However I was dedicated and willing to make the necessary sacrifices and put in the work to evolve as an artist. Five minutes after logging into the webinar for the first time and I felt at home. The 1 hour and 10 minute class actually felt like a casual book club meeting at a coffee shop with friends.
Steven and Tananarive are an absolute delight. It was too cute watching them finish each other’s thoughts and sentences. They’re the epitome of #BlackLove and #RelationshipGoals. They kept each class light, exciting and engaging. The interviews with the industry pros were both insightful and informative.
After each class I felt galvanized to tackle my writing and as a result I have landed a few freelance gigs and sales. If you’re serious about taking your writing to the next level, then I can’t recommend this class enough. You’ll be richer for the experience. Real talk.
And in related news Steven has a new novel out.
You’ll definitely want to grab a copy which is available now. You’ll be glad that you did.
Following the heels of our Anime Expo intro article this year, our first main event we went to last night was the Masquerade, a cosplay and performance competition that has been running for over 20 years. This year’s event was MCed by Ezra Weisz and without a doubt, I can already say that this is perhaps the best masquerade I’ve gone to, solely from the strength of the MC himself.
Going to cosplay masquerades usually is a hit or miss, most of the time being misses as conventions have a bad habit of using hosts that have no experience in warming up crowds or the ability to do stand-up. Regardless of how strong the competition lineup may be, the show will drag into severe boredom if the MC cannot entertain the audience in between the transitions.
Such was not the case for this year’s Anime Expo so serious kudos must go to 3 hours briskly going by, thanks to the MC as well as the performances being extra screened so that there were more competitors with quality, as opposed to quantity.
Out of the competitors that showed up this year, the one that wowed me big time was Extreme Costumes’ rendition of Overwatch, (which won Best in Show not surprisingly). I mean, they got a freakin’ giant robot walking around in here.
This year’s intermission was provided by The Corps Dance Crew, a professional level dance crew that performs at various pop-culture conventions and events, both in and out of cosplay. Suffice to say, these fine men and women did an excellent job weaving the two elements together.
And there you have it! We will provide further coverage of some of the main events as we get to them but in the meantime, you can find Josephine and I cosplaying as Ghost in the Shell characters on the floor.
