M. Téllez's Blog

Here's a list of local, independent booksellers that keep Transitional Times Transitional Body (and Metropolarity books) on their shelves:

People’s Books & Culture (fka Penn Book Center)
130 S 34th St, 19104

Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center
210 S. 45th Street, 19104

Omoi Zakka Shop
Old City - 41 S. 3rd Street
Rittenhouse - 1608 Pine Street

Mina's World (café)
511 S. 52nd Street

For what it's worth, I added a list of Philly bookshops I like to my links list, if you're a local or visiting.

Howdy folks,

As someone who's maintained a personal website since the 90s I am happy to say that cyborgmemoirs.com now has a hot new HTTPS along with some updated content and layout tweaks. All my previously published work to date is available for reading there, with a goodly handful of works on offer in audio format too, plus reviews, links, smut, etc.

I'd also like to remind goodreads denizens to join my monthlyish newsletter, slow moving and for your reading leisure-pleasure. This most recent edition touches on dystopia versus fantasy, origins of magical practices, releases of sci-fi smut and magic zines, fighting games that made me gay, and more. You can read it here and subscribe here.

First off, if you enjoy my blog posts here, you may enjoy much more my longer form newsletters available at https://cyborgmemoirs.substack.com/

Last year I put out a short story zine that turned into a book, and it sold out right as the year came to a close. I decided for 2020 to make an expanded edition with a slightly different format and cover. That book is now available at DHD215.com, and here on goodreads: Transitional Times Transitional Body. w00t.

I also recorded a story excerpt for a 'Ghost of Mars' themed episode of the most excellent podcast, Floating World, streaming on Spotify and Apple, etc. Here's more info:

The Floating World Episode 5 is here! As usual check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play. In this episode some folks leave for Mars under dubious circumstances. Projecting the insidious logic of colonialism onto our (very hypothetical) spaceward expansion, M Téllez (@cyborgmemoirs) of Metropolarity weaves a tale of subjugation, coercion, and little resistances - amid neighbourhood walks, cyborg rhythms, and a strange goodbye from an old caretaker.

You can find out about M Téllez at their website, www.cyborgmemoirs.com

Submissions from:
John Morrison
Rodnie King
Cybee Bloss
Elissa Fredeen
Rachel MacDonald

compiled, edited and composed by Ada Adhiyatma / madam data
'little feather' composed and performed by Ada Adhiyatma

if you'd like to support and maintain The Floating World, consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/thefloatingworldpodcast

First, I appeared on the Weird Kids Wanted literary criticism podcast for a live-recording speculative fiction panel, and that episode [ep11] is up for your listening pleasure as well.

There is finally an audio story version of my tale, HEAT DEATH OF WESTERN HUMAN ARROGANCE, which if you didn’t know and are impressed by awards, was in two anthologies nominated for or that won Lambda Awards, and one that won a American Library Association Stonewall Book Award. So poo poo on you! Skssss ummm but for real, I honestly live to write my stories with the intention of delivering them aloud, so dear reader, consider this an invitation to luxuriate in my storytelling talents. Let me also express my gratitude to Paul Walker, who remains a steadfast support and is always down to contribute compositions & mix down my audio offerings.

Finally, I will stop posting book reviews here. I don't know why it wasn't blatantly apparent earlier, but I realized goodreads is owned by Amazon. I've started to post book reviews to my website, and also to my IG @cyborgmemoirs. I'll be making a more dedicated post about this decision in the new year.

On Palm Sunday, I was pleased to present VENUS SATURN SQUARE. It will debut in the physical the Philly leg of Hot Bits queer xxx film festival on April 26th & 27th at Lightbox Film Center, and in the DHD215.com webstore as of this posting.

Is it possible to write yourself out of a blocked situation and into your own fantasies?

VENUS SATURN SQUARE is a freshly shorn smut zine attempting to straddle a nebulous rift between fandom kink, queer cruising, and BDSM scenes.
VSS hopes to become a vehicle centering people who find themselves stuck, conflicted, in denial, or self-sabotaging of their own desires.
VSS features six smut stories by fledgling and experienced writers, for your reading satisfaction. We recommend reading the stories outloud.
VSS includes a desire practice worksheet to work through your own hang-ups.

CONTENTS
• Scorpio for Scorpio by Evie Snax
• Pits by L. Corn
• an illustration by Joyce Hatton
• Heavy Prosthetic by Magus Monk
• ALUMINUM TONGUE [an excerpt from The Body Remembers] by Blake P.
• The Violet Island by Malachi Lily
• Synaesthetic Sex by Fatherfucker
• Desire Practice Worksheet
• Contributor bio + Contact info

A Venus Saturn Square: "This aspect sometimes means unhealthy sensuality. They are hard, and do not know how to express their emotions. They are frightened of showing their love, and this leads to disappointments, break-ups, lack of satisfaction. It is likely that they had problems with their mother, who did not know how to love them or give them self-confidence. They doubt, are suspicious and jealous. They will learn how to be happy in love, to be at ease with themself and to control their jealousy in the second half of their life, thanks to an older person, who gives their self-confidence back to their, so they can then trust others." – AstroCafe birthchart reading

Purchase online from my webstore, DHD215.com

Looks like an essay of mine made it into CLOG magazine's latest issue on artificial intelligence.

CLOG describes itself as exploring "from multiple viewpoints and through a variety of means, a single subject particularly relevant now. "

I would call it a bit of a designer's/architect's/academic's type of magazine. It's quarterly. I got turned on to them when they dropped an issue on sci-fi a few years back, and again when they did one on prisons. The format is many multiple short essays on the given topic. I wouldn't really consider CLOG my crowd, but I had this chip-on-my-shoulder urge to submit to their AI issue, like I would be mad with myself if I didn't.

Anyway, it's quite a good looking magazine, so pick it up if you're interested. I'm still waiting to get my hands on a copy.

If you don't happen to follow me on Instagram (@cyborgmemoirs) or subscribe to my newsletter, I dropped a new zine a little over a week ago. It follows a few personal (or I suppose artistic) decisions I made after working with outside publishers, wherein I told myself not to forget that writing for myself and my network is what’s most rewarding, both spiritually and financially.

It contains four stories, two that were published in 2017, and two that debut in this zine.

For those who have followed my All That's Left work over the years, I’m pleased to include a 14,600 word story, welcoming you into the lusher landscape where Kay, Rahl, Suli, and Braga dwell, which has always been in my head but never managed to make it into those initial stories. Consider this an opening chapter with more on the way.

For those who are new to All That's Left, I released a series of zines under the same name starting in 2012, featuring a cast of struggling cyborg surveyors in a divested and similarly struggling environment. I described the series then as post-binary and non-linear, and while that still holds true, I currently describe it as “a living story, about dispossessed cyborgs and their many borders.”

71 pages.
Ships media mail.
>>> available in my webshop.

It's out. I've spent all day promoting my collective's latest publication across all channels.

BAD USER AGREEMENT is the latest episode of The Journal of Speculative Vision & Critical Liberation Technologies.

Bad user agreements are those that our societies are built upon. The promises we are taught are true and real and our continued existence in spite of the lies. These are stories of people surviving bad user agreements & ways to game the system.

Philly based sci-fi & other atemporal fantastic tales from accomplices & kin.

Available to buy at our webshop:
https://metropolarity.bigcartel.com/p...

And on goodreads here
Bad User Agreement

TL:DR
I have a new ATL story:
http://www.cyborgmemoirs.com/2018/08/...

"This is a living story, about dispossessed cyborgs and their many borders. This tale will change over time and become a different memory for each of you. Stories are either categorized as PROTOTYPE or SERIAL. Prototype stories were released from 2012~2015 in zine and audiobook form. Serial stories are brand new rewrites debuting in 2018."

I still have to guess that a certain number of my fans became as such through my ALL THAT'S LEFT series. I put out three zines and twelve tales and swore to write a book version, and then I sort of put it down for some years while I threw myself into METROPOLARITY efforts and side projects.

Sort of. Actually, I never put ATL down. I had to gather all my disparate notebooks and random background notes. Then I decided to buy a professional writing program, Scrivener. Then I realized I wasn't just adding on to existing stories, I had to rewrite them entirely. And then I realized I didn't just have to rewrite them but that I had to know more about what was going on in my character's universe. And so on.

I decided to release the stories serially in the tradition of how the original run of tales were released. Online. Then in print. Later on, I'll have to talk about my feelings with traditional legitimized publishing efforts...

But for now, please read and enjoy and let me know what you think if you do!

This feels appropriate for spring & the start of the zodiac year. A long-awaited grimoire regarding cleaning and organizing, something I seem to be known for/something I do for myself and also feel conflicted about.

I used to be a very messy child. You couldn’t see the floor in my room, and I would dash across the crap pile, and locate things by triangulating their last known whereabouts by crap quadrant. One day - I must’ve been seven or eight - I cleaned up my room.I don’t know why I cleaned it that day out of the blue. I had just decided, is my only recollection. It surprised my mom, as did the reason. I’ve kept my personal space organized ever since.I wonder now if maybe I hadn’t realized the burden it was to my mom who would have to spend the whole day cleaning her child’s room every few weeks.

Here’s some of the section titles:
The bitch’s retreat
Not purity. Not order.
Control.
Take good care of your tools and they’ll take care of you.
Keeping altars.
Beauty as a sensation.
Letting things go.
Just remember that you’ll have to live with it.

and others.

It's available for purchase from my webshop.