Chasing Ray

Recent reads & book news

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:48:24 -0800

1. My new column went up last week at Bookslut and included several titles of the "coming-of-age" variety. In particular please note Tales From the Madman Underground by John Barnes, a recent Printz honor recipient that I have not heard nearly enough about around the blogosphere. Go. Read. You will fall so hard and fast for this one that you really will not believe it.

2. Other titles in the column (all of them fabulous) are: Age 14 (gritty WWI drama); Stunt (spec fic/family drama mashup from one of my favorite small presses all about missing parents, bad parents and a discovered grandparent who is a trapeze artist); Shine, Coconut Moon (or what I like to think of as an Indian twist on the Gilmore Girls, including post-9/11 drama); A Very Fine Line (manages to be about clairvoyance, home schooling, cross dressing and family secrets all at once - plus BONUS crushing on the teacher); and the Colors gn trilogy from First/Second which is as pretty as it gets and very funny and also all about growing up in Korea. Nicely done, each and every one.

3. In the midst of January chaos there was also a new issue of Eclectica. (Read here to see how my editor is still waiting on one of his adopted children to arrive from Haiti - they have been in the process for Evans for about two years now). I had three review pieces for kids up in the issue, including one on Myths, one on learning books (that you don't realize are teaching you things and thus are supposed to be boring) and one on biographies of many people I did not know much of anything about. Amazing what you can learn reviewing picture books!

4. Oh - and bonus, another review of Shine, Coconut Moon from Eclectica contributor Niranjana Iyer.

5. I just finished reading Raina Telgemeier's delightful MG graphic novel Smile. I didn't intend to do more than give it a quick glance (it showed up unrequested) but after turning just a few pages I was completely sucked into this one. It follows the real story of the author's trials and tribulations after falling and severely damaging her two front teeth at the age of 12. All through middle school she is alternately tortured and healed by a variety of dentists, orthodontists, etc. and must deal with the physical discomfort and all too familiar emotional dramarama. Nothing truly exceptional happens in this book except growing up but it's told so well that you can't resist it. In terms of plot it is a perfect MG vacation book - add a sandwich, some chips and lemonade and this the 2010 winging in the hammock version of The Penderwicks. The bonus here is the fantastic multicultural cast - Telgemeier has truly drawn Raina's school in about the most realistic manner I've ever seen with all shades of brown and beige portrayed with great fun and aplomb.

Smile is a true winner - could very well be a dark horse award winner later this year (I'm thinking the Cybils are doing to love this one.)

6. Bonus - See much more about Smile at Raina's website.

7. Cory Doctorow YA SF alert! For the Win is due out from Tor this summer. Set in the future, it's about gaming, unions, and a "vast shadow economy, running electronic sweatshops in the world's poorest countries, where countless 'gold farmers,' bound to their work by abusive contracts and physical threats, harvest virtual treasure for their employers to sell to First World gamers who are willing to spend real money to skip straight to higher-level gameplay." Basically a novelization of his short story "Anda's Game".

Although I was not completely sold on Little Brother as the greatest YA SF title to hit the ground in forever, I do think he's a solid writer and has lots of teen appeal, so I'll be looking for this one. (Not a very good title though - sounds like a sports book which it certainly is not.)

Thoughts on Dorothy and Zelda

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:41:23 -0800

In case you missed the recent fabulous bookish news, Libba Bray has signed a four book deal to write a series that sounds fantastic:

In The Diviners, a supernatural fantasy series set in Manhattan during the 1920s, Bray follows a teen heroine she says is reminiscent of two of the era's most famous literary women—Zelda Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker. Bray, who admitted to having always been fascinated by the Jazz Age, said she's looking forward "to offering readers a wild new ride full of dames and dapper dons, jazz babies and Prohibition-defying parties, conspiracy and prophecy—and all manner of things that go bump in the neon-drenched night.”

The idea of teenage girls being exposed to Zelda and Dorothy (even a fictional/fantastic version) is a dream come true for me. I learned about Zelda only in the context of Scott's "drunken and crazy wife". I never knew Zelda wrote a book or was a dancer; in my English classes she existed solely in the context of Scott's greater genius. Zelda was the one who made Scott's life difficult and Zelda was the reason why Scott never achieved as much greatness as he should have. (She also apparently put the endless glasses of alcohol in his hand - even when they were apart. She was truly a devil woman.)

Dorothy Parker was a complete mystery to me until I left college. Although we spent a considerable amount of time (again and again) discussing many great white men of American literature, the women were not so much part of those conversations. (Five minutes of Alcott and Dickinson and maybe St Vincent Millay then we were done.) I don't think any of my teachers or professors were sexist - they were just all teaching general interest English and American Lit courses and there never seemed to be much room for women in the textbooks or lectures. When I did find her though, Dorothy was a revelation.

When did women stop being witty and passionate and creative? Remember all those fabulous movies from the 1930s? Yes, they wanted to capture men (specifically Cary Grant or Spencer Tracy or William Powell) but remember when women weren't determined to appear silly or foolish to get a man? Remember when they were smart and proud of being smart? And I don't mean smart in a "you betcha/Real Americans" kind of way, but intellectually smart, book smart, Katherine Hepburn in Desk Set and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday kind of smart.

Dorothy and Zelda were smart. They were born in a time that wasn't so easy on smart women and they had trouble with love and they didn't find all of their hopes and dreams so easy to pursue they turned to liquor for solace from all that was wrong with the world. And I hate that. But what possible reason do I have to ever complain about my life when these two amazing women were not lauded nearly enough in their lifetimes?(Zelda was committed to an institution and died there in a fire; Dorothy passed away from a heart attack and her ashes remained unclaimed for nearly two decades.)

I hope that Bray's series introduces millions of today's young women to the real Zelda and Dorothy - that after reading her fiction they go looking for the women who inspired it. That's the kind of thing that makes me excited about reading - and also, to no small degree, about writing as well.

[Post pics of Zelda top, then Dorothy. See The Paris Review interview with Dorothy here and a new scrapbook of Scott and Zelda's life here.]

Wherein I call it quits on a subject

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:46:44 -0800

I will not be posting on diversity in MG & YA fiction again for awhile. I'm tired of everybody arguing about it. And I'm tired of the time I spend going from one place to another to explain what I meant, or explain what I think, or try to make a point via email and comments when really it's always hard to do that without having something sound wrong.

I'm going to review books with diverse characters, just as I always have. I'm going to review books written by People of Color, as I always have. And I'm going to keep on reviewing books about Caucasian kids and written by Caucasian authors just as I always have. But right now as I am struggling so much to find any books at all about Native American kids for the TBD wishlists, it is beyond frustrating to be arguing with fellow book people about who is saying something wrong about diversity or who's fault it is that there aren't enough diverse books or what some random White kid will read as opposed to some random Black kid.

It's all opinions. That's all. Unless we had definitive numbers of books sales and marketing budgets then it is all and will only ever be opinion. And we aren't going to get any answers beyond our own.

I'm just tired of arguing all the many points of something so important when really, our arguments mean nothing. We're griping at each other over who is more or less right and I don't care anymore about any of that. I'm just going to try and cover excellent books that might be lost in the shuffle otherwise.

Otherwise, quite frankly, I'm going to lose my fucking mind.

And still I'm in the thick of this...

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:12:36 -0800

I wanted to let this subject go for a little bit and blog about some new Tor books and my deep excitement for what Libba Bray is working on but JL Bell has a long post up in response to my Bookslut feature and Roger picked that up and responded as well and so here I am again. The bit being discussed is about gatekeepers potentially keeping books by People of Color or with Kids of Color from Caucasian readers because they feel those readers will not identify and thus not buy those books. I thought the numbers on Millicent Min and authors like Gene Yang and Walter Dean Myers and Sherman Alexie (award winners, big sellers) had proven that Caucasian readers will read about characters of a different race and thus I wanted to point out the oddness of this persisting belief in my piece. Bell disagrees:

Sadly, in this world we have to consider the possibility that people—even kids—don’t behave the way we wish they would. Some, even many, “Caucasian readers” may enjoy books about “Kids of Color” equally with books about white kids. But as long as some don’t, their numbers can be enough to affect sales or circulation in a noticeable way. That preference doesn’t have to be vocalized, or even conscious, to exist.

People have no difficulty acknowledging that books about boys generally have more appeal for boys (especially at certain ages), and books about girls have more appeal to girls. Lots of folks agree that teenaged boys are turned off by pink covers. Much of the pressure on our field to create more books about kids of color is based on the idea that those titles would hold more appeal for kids of color than yet more books about white kids.

So is it really impossible to imagine that books about white kids have more appeal in the aggregate for white kids? Or is it just uncomfortable? Do we really have evidence that kids are colorblind? Or do we have evidence that they aren’t?

I don't think it's fair to throw pink covers out there because please. Pink covers? Let's just not go there. But as to the assertion that Caucasian kids won't reads books about Kids of Color because they don't and won't identify with them and that's just the way it is, well, sorry. I'm not buying it. It used to be that way in Hollywood. It used to be that White audiences would not watch movies with Black actors. Until it changed. And how about tv? Remember when The Cosby Show was revolutionary and no one thought it would succeed? Yeah. Those were the days. Hell, my mother can tell you stories about Black singers not being perceived as marketable to White audiences. And we all know how that turned out.

But somehow, a kid that will plunk $10 down to watch Will Smith and listens to Beyonce and The Black-Eyed Peas without blinking an eye and watches everything from Degrassi to CSI without paying the slightest bit of attention to what color everyone is in the midst of the dramrama, can not be expected to read a book about a teenager who is a different race.

I'm not buying it.

What I learned while researching diversity

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:38:03 -0800

In gathering info for my current piece at Bookslut I learned several interesting things. Here's a bit:

1. It is not all about the publishers.

2. For every author who told me they had a publisher who asked them to remove an ethnic or GBTLQ character from their book or presented a whitewashed cover, there was another author who said their publisher was fantastic, supported their choices in the text and designed an honest accurate cover.

3. I don't know why some publishers are more honest about America's diversity than others, but clearly that's how it is.

4. Someone should start tracking what each publishers is doing so we can so who see who is lagging in the diversity department.

5. And call them out on it.

6. Covers are not the most important aspect of a book (we should of course, "never judge a book by its cover") but they are the most visible aspect.

7. Fewer Kids of Color on books reflects American society's preference for Caucasians over all other ethnic groups.

8. See the "nine dolls" on the March cover of Vanity Fair if you don't believe that.

9. Librarians are gatekeepers. Booksellers are gatekeepers. Publishers are gatekeepers and if you review books in a public forum then you too - you and you and you and you - are a gatekeeper.

10. So get some diversity in your reviewing and get it now.

11. It's not that hard to do.

12. Meanwhile, authors are in a really tight spot.

13. But having said that, it is sad that an author would tell me they were bullied into changing their text, accepting a cover they hated and removing text from their personal blog because their editor/publisher told them they had to.

14. Would you put up with this sort of control at any other job?

15. I mean that - seriously. You need to think about that. If you boss walked into work tomorrow and said they had read your blog and thought you were being too political about something, and you needed to remove those viewpoints, would you do it? (And obviously I don't mean posting rude things about your workplace, etc.)

16. If you are afraid of your publisher then you need to rethink who you are and what you are doing with your life.

17. And keep this in mind - for every author I corresponded with who said they had a difficult relationship with their publisher, there was an author who said everything was great. This means not every publisher will treat you badly or is against publishing books about KOC and GBLTQ teens or is against accurately depicting KOC on book covers.

18. So if you have convinced yourself that all publishers are like that and you just have to suck it up in order to be published, then you are wrong.

19. Having said that, any publisher who wants a KOC on a cover so it can be heavily marketed during Black History Month even when its not historical fiction is stupid.

20. And librarians who say their patrons don't like books about "those kind of people" are caving to ignorance.

21. Change is not easy, for anyone. But still, in this case change really needs to come.

22. Standing up for what you believe in isn't easy either, but you will sleep better at night if you do. Trust me on this.

23. And honestly, if the worst your publisher can do is say "no" then really, what does it hurt to ask? Several authors said they were afraid to say a word about their covers or text - while several others didn't hesitate to send an email with their concerns. Which group would you rather be in?

24. Ask yourself that question again - "Which group would I rather be in?"

25. I thought the saddest quote I received was this: "...my bestselling novel, has an ambiguous looking teen on the
cover. All the others were clearly brown characters, and some booksellers/librarians have told me off the record that this hindered their purchasing as they don't have a "community to support such books."

26. Until I received this one: "I do think the issues of covers puts authors of color in a really uncomfortable bind. On one hand, with our work, we have an opportunity--or perhaps even a responsibility--to positively portray people of color. On the other hand, a contemporary fiction book a with person of color on the cover (especially an African Americans) tends to be lumped in the "street lit" category, despite what the book is actually about. And whatever the reasons, the fact still remains that most book buyers do not want to buy books with people of color on the
covers."

27. And then this one: "As to whether the author’s race makes a difference, it seems to me it does. Quite. The only examples of whitewashed covers I know of are books by white authors about black characters. I can’t imagine this ever happening to me, though I actively fear it, and I find this aspect of the cover issue to be the most insidious. Why will a publisher whitewash a white author’s book, but not a black author’s? Clearly, they want to market the white author’s book to a “universal” (read: “white”) audience, so as not to have it pigeonholed as a “black” book. Do they not want to market a black author’s book to the same “universal” audience? Or are they content to relegate us to the African-American interest section and not try for broader appeal? Is the race of the character incidental as long as the author is white, but significant if the author is black?

Absurd though it sounds, I find it offensive that only white authors’ books are deemed worthy of the best marketing possibility, in the publisher’s eyes. They’re basically implying that a black character cover won’t sell, but the author is black so it’s okay because her viewpoint isn’t “universal” to begin with. I don’t want my book whitewashed, but I hate being made to feel like a second-class citizen twice in the same hit."

28. Consider that - as hard as it has been for authors under the spotlight of the recent whitewashing controversies, there are authors of color who have disappeared into obscurity because publishers don't think their books - or they themselves - are even worth that lie.

29. Llying on the cover is about trying to sell the maximum number of books - and apparently there is a number for Authors of Color and GBLTQ authors and it is far less than the number for Caucasian authors.

30. And that is because still, so many years later, we continue to be a country that judges by the color of your skin and by the person you love. We are still not capable of looking beyond the surface, to content of character, to skill, to ability. We are still collectively such small-minded people.

Bummer.

31. Consider this: "The publishing industry is in a phenomenal position to radically, dynamically alter social perceptions. Putting multicultural teens on more book covers would give actual youth of color something to identify with, and also make them less of the “other” in the eyes of white youth. Publishers could do that, but they won’t. The industry simply isn’t compelled to act in an ethical way."

32. We force the change to come. We change what we read. We change with what we buy. We change with what we request at the library. We change with what we review. We change with what we write about. We do this because Bella could have been brown skinned and Percy Jackson could have been brown skinned and it shouldn't have taken almost one hundred years for a Black Disney Princess. We are only being shown what those in charge of making money think we insist upon seeing. We are only being offered what they think we want to buy.

Prove them wrong. Find the way that is best for you, and prove them wrong.

"Publishers claim “the market” can’t sustain more books about people of color; they act as though markets are organic, when in reality, they’re shaped, constructed, and developed over time. Personally, I think the publishing industry works the way it’s intended to work: the intention of those in charge is NOT to produce books that reflect the diversity of this country (which will be predominantly people of color by 2050). Publishers say they have to watch their bottom line, yet they annually publish loads of books about whites and most of those books don’t sell well, either! Any book that isn’t given a big push by the marketing department is likely to have disappointing sales (even with some great reviews). But many publishers don’t bother to market our books because they wrongly assume that books by or about people of color won’t sell to the majority white population. Bestsellers like Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian prove this isn’t the case, but publishers cling to the “anecdotal evidence” (racist assumption) that whites can’t appreciate or relate to a story that doesn’t have a white lead. We see the same thing happening in film and television. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: they publish a limited number of diverse books, fail to generate a market for those books, then continue to limit their publication of such books based on poor sales. Many publishers are satisfied with producing the same old slavery and civil rights stories, which are at least guaranteed to sell to schools and libraries for Black History Month…"

[All quotes given to me by published authors - I offered anonymity.]

Diversity article is up at Bookslut

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:09:52 -0800

I pounded this one out in the wake of the recent cover discussion, and it's about all forms of diversity - from race to ethnicity to sexuality. For the record, I didn't choose the covers in the piece, although I understand why they are used. (And I don't mention Liar at all.) Lots of quotes from lots of authors (some requested anonymity). Here's a bit:

"The assumptions based on not expanding diversity insist that Caucasian readers will only read books that are only (or predominantly, or at least advertised as being) about Caucasians -- and further, that enticing Caucasians to spend money on books is more important than providing an accurate depiction of America’s multicultural life. Further, the insistence that Kids of Color remain in a curriculum-based ghetto where they serve more as teaching tools then pleasure reading (Laurie Halse Anderson’s Chains, for example, versus Varian Johnson’s My Life as a Rhombus) might make some librarians think they are maintaining a diverse collection when they aren’t. For children and teens, this is especially dispiriting -- the way they fit into the larger world, after all, is a big part of what “coming of age” is all about."

Go read. And tell me what you think.

What a Girl Wants #11: Feminist is not a dirty word

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:03:26 -0800

In late December I read an article in the Washington Post about Geraldine Ferraro's extreme disappointment over the young women who voted for Obama rather than Hillary Clinton. Her point was that all other things being equal (meaning you were going to vote Democrat anyway) then women should have put Clinton over the top as women should have felt the higher need to place a woman in the Presidency. Here's a bit:

Ferraro was livid, and distraught. What more did Hillary Clinton have to do to prove herself? How could anyone -- least of all Ferraro's own daughter -- fail to grasp the historic significance of electing a woman president, in probably the only chance the country would have to do so for years to come? Ferraro hung up enraged, not so much at her daughter but at the world. Clinton was being unfairly cast aside, and, along with her, the dreams of a generation and a movement.

What intrigued me about this piece was the notion that feminism means you inherently must support the best qualified woman, over the equally qualified man - at all times. So if I voted for Obama and not Clinton, I am not as "good a feminist" as I should be. This also made me wonder just what being a feminist means in the 21st century and beyond that, if teens today have any idea what feminism used to mean and why it continues to matter. Is feminism an outdated word today? Is it even a negative word? And yet Lily Ledbetter proved that inequalities exist and must be rectified and who can argue with her situation - demanding equal pay for equal work regardless of gender? But do today's teens see gender bias - and should they?

Basically, the question is, what does it mean to be a 21st century feminist and on the literary front, what books/authors would you recommend to today's teens who want to take girl power to the next level?

Lorie Ann Grover: "No way, should a girl vote for a woman just because she's a woman, Colleen! Both my girls would be upset to hear that they were expected to do so. Thankfully, they are not of my mother's world, but their own. They have the luxury of looking at issues over gender representation. That said, a hip young feminist blog is The F Bomb . This was recommended by iheartdaily, and it's a great, fresh voice for teen girls.

Girldrive by Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein is compelling, both the book and blog. Here two young women hit the road and interview women across the country about feminism. Answers are different, current, and colorful.

Those two sources come immediately to mind. Other than that, I think reading broadly through YA lit will bring a great balance. The books of today empower girls to think for themselves and stride forward."

(ETA: Read a NY Magazine Q&A with Nona Aronowitz.)

Laurel Snyder: "What I cannot stop thinking about, as I ponder this question, is that no matter how much things change, teenage girls are still boy-crazy. For healthy natural reasons, of course, but this reality places boys firmly at the center of the developing girl consciousness, and at the center of their literature. As YA has developed as a genre, the boy-centric book seems to have risen to the top. I feel like the ratio of books about girls who struggle with non-boy-issues has dropped.

So I'm inclined to look to books that are a little younger, in which romance/boys are introduced, but where the stories don't revolve around the boys. An obvious book like that is When You Reach Me-- where there's a little spark of boy/girl, but the "adventure" that absorbs the reader isn't about the boy. Another example is the new Polly Horvath, Northward to the Moon. Same deal. Girl likes boy, but that feeling is an integrated part of her life, her world. The boy brings in some added drama, but so does family, mystery, travel, sense of self.

I'd love to think girls would be reading biographies of Gertrude Stein, but for me its enough to hope they're reading books about themselves, not just books about boys."

(ETA: That's a young Gertrude Stein, on the left, standing behind her younger brother circa 1900.)

Loree Griffin Burns: "My thinking about this question is all wrapped up in my reading of Phillip Hoose’s CLAUDETTE COLVIN: TWICE TOWARD JUSTICE. It’s purely coincidence that I happened to be reading it these past few weeks—but the coupling of book and question was instantaneous and irreversible. I have been unable to separate them.

As a teen, I would have been struck by Claudette’s courage, but also outraged by her mistreatment at the hands of adults. I’m talking not only of the abuse she suffered at the hands of white police officers and bus drivers, but also the way adults in her life—many of them leaders of the Montgomery civil rights movement—shunned her when she became pregnant out of wedlock. Middle-aged me skipped outrage and moved straight to admiration; I was mesmerized by Claudette’s inner strength, the hard-earned (and hard-edged) wisdom that I could hear in her voice as she spoke from the pages:

“… I wasn’t ashamed of myself. I knew I wasn’t a bad person. A more experienced and much older man took advantage of me when I was at my very lowest. I got caught up in a mistake, yes, but that’s all it was—a mistake.”

I’m not sure I could have appreciated those words at fifteen; at forty, they rang in my head.

I guess what I've decided is that what a woman needs, book-wise, is not only completely unique to the woman in question, but also changes as she ages. My advice is less about what to read and more about how to read, which is to say, widely, repetitively, incessantly, and with an open mind. What it means to be a woman will change, the woman you are will change, and the books themselves, somehow, will change. Just keep reading."

Margo Rabb: "I absolutely think feminist literature is necessary today! We've come a long way, yes--but we have a long way to go: women still earn less than men for equal work, there is still an appalling lack of women in high-level positions at scores of companies; we have yet to have a female president; and though the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was an important step, we have yet to provide all working mothers with adequate pay and leave time. I think many young girls don't realize how recently many feminist gains were made--that it's only been 89 years since women won the right to vote, and how few opportunities were available for women in the workforce until recently. Although 21st century teens probably wouldn't use the word feminist, they should know their history, and read about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ida B. Wells, Simone de Beauvoir and bell hooks. There's a great list called the Amelia Bloomer Project, which recommends feminist titles for readers from birth through age 18--Jacqueline Kelly's novel is on the list this year!"

(ETA: Ida B. Wells: Born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Ida Wells would become African-American educator, newspaperwoman, anti-lynching campaigner, and a founder of the NAACP.)

Zetta Elliott: "Feminism matters more than ever, but I think a lot of young people today don’t even know what it means to be a feminist. Many girls think being a feminist means being unfeminine, and unfortunately that matters a LOT to most of today’s teenage girls. I’m not sure boys know that they, too, can be feminists, but I do think that all teens are willing to talk about gender and sexuality in meaningful ways. It’s important, then, that we have literature that responds to that desire to engage in conversations around power and justice and equality. I hate to say it, but sometimes a problematic book can do more for the cause of feminism than an on-point but preachy one. I read Coe Booth’s Tyrell last year and was deeply disturbed, but the book is enormously popular with black teens and could be a useful teaching tool: why does Tyrell think it’s his job to “fix” everything? Should he follow his father’s advice and never date smart girls because they won’t need him for anything? I find I often fall back on stories that leave the reader unsure—there’s no clear winner because feminism is often a process of negotiation rather than an outright battle.

I like Second Wave black women writers like Ntozake Shange; her short story, “comin to terms” is always a favorite with my students even though they often can’t agree on the main character’s feminist status.

Would a feminist stay in a relationship with a man who tried to rape her? Would she cook and clean for him and let him stay out all night long? Can we respect her right to set the terms of her relationship? I also love the Combahee River Collective’s “Statement”; written in the 1970s it remains the most lucid feminist manifesta I’ve ever read and it reassures those who fear being a feminist means abandoning anti-racist struggle and black men in general:

We have a great deal of criticism and loathing for what men have been socialized to be in this society: what they support, how they act, and how they oppress. But we do not have the misguided notion that it is their maleness, per se—i.e., their biological maleness—that makes them what they are. As BIack women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic.

Feminism is for everyone, and I think everyone should read 20th-century activists like Audre Lorde and June Jordan, but also 19th-century anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells."

(ETA: Pic of Ntozake Shange.)

[Top Post pic: "Miss Janet Fotheringham, of Buffalo, N.Y. a teacher of physical culture, was arrested on July 14, 1917 while picketing in Washington D.C.; They were fined $25 or given the option of going to jail. Miss Fotheringham, like the others, chose jail, and all were sentenced to up to 60 days at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. The conditions were bad enough, but around 40 guards rampaged through this group one night, beating everyone and sending some to the hospital with severe injuries.

Miss Fotheringham was fortunate that her sentence was reduced to 3 days; by November, 1917, all were released. The resulting publicity in favor of woman's suffrage was priceless."]

Round-up

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:55:14 -0800

I should be posting about a wicked cool overlooked book today but I'm reading a ton of nonfiction for my next column and it is all too new to be overlooked (if that makes any sense). I also just finished Cross Creek and while that is not overlooked, it wigged me out to the extreme and does not meet wicked cool status on any level. (More on that in a day or two.) But I'm at least thinking about how I should be thinking about wicked cool books. So that's something, right? (sigh)

Several links of note have come to mind however:

1. Liz Hand reviews Patti Smith's Just Kids in a way that makes me desperately want to read it. To wit: "A brief stint at Glassboro State Teachers College ended with her expulsion when she got pregnant. She gave up her infant for adoption and a few months later, in the summer of 1967, boarded a bus to New York City with some drawing pencils, a notebook, $32 she pinched from a purse left in a phone booth and a copy of "Illuminations" by Rimbaud, her "archangel" and spiritual mentor. "It was for him that I wrote and dreamed. . . . His hands had chiseled a manual of heaven and I held them fast."

2. Speaking of Liz Hand, her short novel, Illryia is coming out for teens this May from Viking - a welcome announcement for those of us who have been longing for it since its PS Publishing release. A bit: "Obsessive love between two young cousins in a once-great New York theatrical clan, set against the backdrop of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and the ruins of their family's Hudson Valley compound. " (See Mumpsimus review here.)

3. And more on Liz Hand - does anyone know what became of her YA novel Wonderwall which was supposed to by out last fall from Viking? It was in the catalog but then never appeared and has now all but vanished. Inquiring minds want to know whatever became of it.

4. Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henriette Lacks is picking up more and more steam from positive reviews. Talk about a book for Black History Month! From the Boston Globe:

In time, Deborah Lacks [the daughter] joins forces with Skloot. The trail takes them to where it all began: Johns Hopkins. They meet Christoph Lengauer, a researcher who believes that the Lackses have been treated poorly and should be entitled to some of the proceeds from sales of their mother’s cell lines; the economically struggling family suggests they would like most of all to have health insurance. Lengauer invites Skloot, Deborah and her brother Zakariyya to see the HeLa cells.

“Her cells are how it all started,’’ Lengauer tells them. “Once there is a cure for cancer, it’s definitely largely because of your mother’s cells.”

“Amen,” says Deborah, a deeply religious woman who has by now come to believe that the spirit of her mother lives on in those cells. They look through a microscope and see the cells divide right before their eyes.

In the end, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’’ is a fascinating read and a ringing success. It is a well-written, carefully-researched, complex saga of medical research, bioethics, and race in America. Above all it is a human story of redemption for a family, torn by loss, and for a writer with a vision that would not let go.

They don't want money, just health insurance. If that isn't America in the 21st century, I don't know what is. Must read for sure though - especially as it is as much about the writer on the trail of her subject as the subject herself.

5. Gwenda has several links on the amazon vs macmillan war. I especially agree with her assertion about Scott Westerfeld's post - he explains the bits that do and do not matter about the whole thing. As a writer and reader it all annoys me to no end although ultimately, it just makes the kindle that much less appealing. But then again, I've never complained about actually opening a book which is apparently a big deal for others. (I also like cds and vinyl however - so I imagine my opinion carries little weight.)

6. RE: vinyl and cds, I have to tell you I have no interest, at all, in anything Taylor Swift has to sing about. She is just so bloody bland. And Beyonce reminds me of Whitney back in the day - great singer but is she going to rock my world for decades? I'm not so sure. We got the complete B.B. King for Christmas - now that's talent. (My son however still loves Jewel and Johnny Cash - equally. Go figure.)

7. Finally, Kage Baker. What an amazing writer. If you like SF at all and are not aware of her work then you are really missing something. Gwenda is right that most of the world will likely not realize what we lost in her but they should. Here's a review I wrote in 2007 of two of her Company books - Rude Mechanicals and the collection Gods and Pawns. Here is why I adored Rude Mechanicals so much:

Rude Mechanicals takes place in Hollywood in 1934, and is from start to finish one of those excellent screwball comedy romps that I am unashamedly fond of. If you exchanged the cyborgs Lewis and Joseph for Myrna Loy and William Powell in any one of the Thin Man movies, you would have a version of Rude Mechanicals that fits on AMC any night of the week. Lewis is back in time to work on a theater project as a translator for director Max Reinhardt. His real goal is to obtain an exact copy of Reinhardt’s notes and promptbook, however, which a collector in 2342 would like to purchase. That is what the Company does -- it finds things from the past and either duplicates them or keeps them safe for customers in the future. It’s all about the money (some things never change), but for Lewis things take an unexpected turn when his fellow cyborg Joseph shows up looking for a favor. It turns out that Reinhardt’s project at the Hollywood Bowl is endangering a treasure the Company had Joseph bury long ago. He has to find it and move it, and Lewis has to help provide cover. It sounds easy, but just about everything that could go wrong (in the most hilarious fashion possible) does. In the climax Joseph is dressed like Mr. Peanut and crashes a porn film being shot in a swanky house in the hills. Baker has successfully plugged a pitch-perfect 1930s wacky aesthetic into Rude Mechanicals.

For the record, Max Reinhardt was a real theater director who did put on an “epic theater” production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Hollywood Bowl before going on to direct a very ill-fated film version of the play in 1935 (James Cagny and Shakespeare? No wonder it wasn't a success). Baker grew up in the area and clearly knows the town and its rich history. There is a real rumored treasure, there was an infamous party house, and the set-up for what Lewis and Joseph find themselves in the middle of is quite firmly entrenched in what is known to be real and true. The personalities, of course, all belong to the author, and she does a fine job with the witty banter and snarkiness that seem to be hallmarks of this particular pairing. Add the Subterranean Press design and JK Potter illustrations and cover and Rude Mechanicals should be considered a boon not only to sf fans, but to anyone with affection for the glorious era of old Hollywood.

Off to review two books for Booklist now and a third baseball picture book (this time on Roberto Clemente). Then....well then who knows but many books await reviewing as the catchup from revision mania continues.

[Second post pic is of Henrietta Lacks.]

And so and so and so....

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:22:41 -0800

I am caught up.

Okay, not entirely caught up because there are several books I need to review for future columns, but the immediate stuff is all caught up.

I have sent the massive revision off to the wonderful agent. What we decided to do was blend the AK flying novel and the AK flying memoir (calling it still "The Map of My Dead Pilots"). This has created a blend of history, fiction and memoir. It is about the original bush pilots, the crew who worked at the Company with me in the mid 90s, the guys we knew, and also me and my father. It was not so crazy to blend as the characters/setting were all the same but I jettisoned some clunky memoirish stuff and fine tuned some history and, I don't know, made it work. It has the best opening chapter I ever wrote so that is something exciting. The concern has always been that the fact that it is partly fiction (the conversations mostly) that it won't sell to a pub. But I can't call it all nonfiction and the conversations really do help make it real. They are how we would have talked...but how could I say stuff from 15 years ago is true? Who remembers who said what? So fiction, but true fiction, if that makes sense.

Actually, any flying story is true fiction anyway so it all makes perfect sense.

Also finished my next column for Bookslut which is coming-of-age stories, several that folks have not heard of or at least mentioned much. One surprise was Tales of the Madman Underground which got a Printz honor and I LOVED. Great book for teens and must read for all YA fans. Can't talk that one up enough. John Green with some extra grit - more realistic but still idealistic. And has a great ending.

And I sent off a feature on diversity in MG and YA fiction to Bookslut that includes some cover discussion (of course) but not much. What it really has is a lot of quotes from a lot of folks. Kekla, Tanita, Neesha and Zetta all weighed in. Plus Susan at Color Online and Tim Traviglini at Putnam (editor for Flygirl) and Lee Wind and Bennett Madison and Steve Berman and Sara Ryan and Mayra Lazara Dole. And about a half dozen other authors who I quote with promises of anonymity who talked about publishing as POC and changing covers - some did, some didn't. What did I take away from all this? First, that some authors have changed covers with ease so it is a misnomer to say it can never happen. And these folks were not big name authors - so covers seems to be a case by case basis to me and I think it never hurts to at least ask. (I really think if you are afraid to even ask you editor about a cover then it is just sad. Just asking shouldn't be grounds for losing your contract.) Second, covers are a visual, yet smallish, part of the diversity problem in MG and YA publishing. I felt really bad for some authors - especially when you consider what some librarians and booksellers have said to them about books with brown skinned protagonists. It's horrible and it needs to change.

It's easy to blame publishers for lack of diversity but it is just as much about librarians and booksellers I think. (Gatekeepers all to one degree or another.) (And this discovery really surprised and depressed me.)

And I submitted a necessary review to Booklist on a book about feminism in the Middle East. Next up is a book on the politics of food and another on love in Burma. My editor continues to send me books that enlighten while completely freaking me out. At some point I'm going to get a cute and fuzzy bunny book, I just know it.

Also I received 18 books today - four of them were requested. If you're wondering where pubs waste money, well this kind of thing would be a good place to start. (All extras will be donated to Children's.)

Odds/Ends

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:53:16 -0800

Working on a new "What a Girl Wants" post to be up soonest. It will be shorter than usual as the crew are all working under other deadlines, etc. But I do have a few answers to a question on feminism in the 21st century so stay tuned this week for that. (Next question is on sex and the teenage girl - I'm expecting everyone will have an opinion on that one!)

For those who ever wanted to know the history of Bookslut, Jessa dishes in an interview.

Maud Newton wants to know what writers do for money (or would do) when the writing doesn't give you enough. She's looking for comments and the conversation is interesting, of course. While private investigator is high on her list I would most enjoy cold case crime I think - combination of problem solving and history with low probability of gun play. (Having been a teacher I must say that while I loved the students, the grading killed me.)

I recently finished reading The Broken Teaglass and highly recommend it as the best sort of light reading. It's a mystery that is uncovered through citation notes found in the files of a dictionary publisher. The protagonist and one of his co-workers become obsessed with discovering what story a long ago employee has left in the files, told in bits and pieces through index cards. It starts as a curiosity and becomes something much darker. It's not a blood and guts story exactly but does have a thread of tension that propels the plot along quite nicely. Plus there is the interplay between the main characters as they feel their way along in a friendship that has its own few secrets. I've seen it compared with Possession but wouldn't quite go there as romance is not a key part of the plot, however if you liked the literary hunt of Possession then this will equally appeal. I enjoyed it a lot.