Archive for the 'reading' category

what a writer can learn from reading 100 books and serving on an ALA committee

Jan 25 2012 Published by under general, libraries, publishing, reading

Early in 2011 (or maybe late in 2010?) my friend Arla sidled up to me and started asking a few not-very-innocent questions.

“You’re in library school now, right?”

I assented to the factuality of the statement.

“How would you like to get a bunch of free books?”

After a bit of back-and-forth, I agreed to serve on the Over the Rainbow Reading List Committee, which Arla was chairing. The committee selects a long list of well-written books with significant, authentic GLBTIQ content  published in the previous 18 months or so (there’s some overlap so books published late in the year don’t get short shrift).

Our committee selected 74 titles for the 2012 list, including our top ten picks (find them here).

It was a lot of fun, and I read a lot of books I never would have discovered otherwise.

What I learned as a writer

  1. You cannot predict quality based on the size of the publishing house putting out a particular book. Quite a few books from small presses made the list, and there were books from presses large and small that didn’t make the cut. And we did have several independently published books that made the list.
  2. There are quite a few books with GLBTIQ themes published in a year. We considered 140 books, and that doesn’t even include erotica titles. As someone who likes to populate her stories with characters who are not all straight, including queer protagonists, I was happy to see so many books from all kind of publishers.
  3. The little guys can make a big difference. Because it’s what I write, I paid special attention to speculative fiction. Lethe Press, run by Steve Berman, had five titles on our list this year (one graphic novel, one book of short stories, and three speculative fiction anthologies), which I think was more than any other publisher. (I’m hedging that, because  I can never remember all the subsidiaries and who owns who.) Not bad for what seems to be mostly a one-man shop.

Learn more here: Over the Rainbow Books.

P.S. – Also because I was on the committee, I went to the ALA Midwinter meeting, where I got to shake Jeannette Winterson’s hand and get a signed copy of her new memoir. She was very gracious in the face of my dorky introversion. That’s me on the far right in the photo; Jeannette Winterson is the tiny woman not holding a book.

P.P.S – Also at the Midwinter meeting, I got to see a bunch of public librarians screaming, literally screaming at the top of their lungs like fangirls at a Twilight movie on opening night, at the announcement of the Printz, Caldecott and Newbery awards. Seriously. I have never seen a bunch of librarians so excited about anything. Apparently they were VERY excited about the Printz winner this year, Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley (Atheneum Books for Young Readers). The Geisel winner also looks like a lot of fun.

 

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terry brooks on writing

Dec 09 2011 Published by under book review, reading, Uncategorized, writing process

Why didn’t someone tell me Terry Brooks wrote a book on writing? Just starting to read it, but it looks promising (and way more fun than that Norman Mailer book on writing).

Here’s a little tidbit:

The writer Walter Mosley wrote a few years ago in an article that appeared in the New York Times that writing is gathering smoke— the smoke of dreams, of ideas, of the imagination. We collect that smoke and try to make something out of it. It doesn’t happen all at once, but only over time and never on a determinable schedule. We visit our hazy treasure every day in order not to lose sight of it, not to let it evaporate from neglect. At some point in our tending and examination, something substantial will come alive.

Brooks, Terry; Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life.
Westminster, MD, USA: Ballantine Books, 2003. p 7.

“Gathering smoke” is just what I feel like I’m doing today.

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Review: Smoketown by Tenea D. Johnson

Sep 22 2011 Published by under book review, reading

I just finished reading Smoketown by Tenea D. Johnson (Blind Eye Books, 2011), and recommend it. It’s set in a somewhat dystopian future America in which climate change has drastically changed the landscape and therefore the people and culture, especially in the city of Leiodare (built into a crater in the middle of a lush jungle where Louisville, Kentucky used to stand). Smoketown is named after the neighborhood where the author’s grandparents met in Louisville.

I especially liked the cultural world-building in the book. There is deep dysfunction in Leiodare, the result of a traumatic epidemic thought to be spread by birds, after which the city killed every bird in the city and kept others out by means of an electrified force field. But that action had unintended consequences and repercussions; to fill the eerie silence created by the complete absence of birds, the city hired Callers who stroll through the city and sing. Humans also have to fill in for birds to try to control the multiple insect infestations and invasions that would otherwise rage unchecked now that their main predators are gone.

Although it’s set in the future, the book is a fantasy: the main character, Anna, can work a very specific kind of magic through her drawings, a magic that can trigger powerful changes in the world around her. She is in something of a love triangle between Peru, the woman she loved and lost (and is still trying to find and win back), and Seife, the Caller with whom she has become infatuated. The book interweaves her story with that of Eugenio, an anthropologist trying to get to the bottom of the epidemic that happened decades ago in the city; and Rory, a rich recluse who has literally not left his apartment since the start of that original outbreak.

Race, sexuality and class get interesting and believable treatment in the novel. In this new world, “most everyone [is] some shade of brown or beige,” and same-gender relationships are as accepted as straight ones, but class and where you come from are still very important. There are the Spires where the wealthy live, and the Dire where the poor live, and then there is Smoketown, a neighborhood that is held apart, and whose residents consider it to be “of Leiodare” but not in it, not part of the city.

Although the beginning was slow going for me and it took me awhile to connect emotionally with the characters, by a third of the way through I was hooked, and by the end I was really impressed and looking forward to whatever Tenea D. Johnson writes next.

I’m also interested in hearing what other people thought about Smoketown; if you’ve read and reviewed it, feel free to tag on in the comments (and link back to other reviews).

The book is only available in print right now – Blind Eye, any possibility of an e-book?

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review: black blade blues

Jun 30 2010 Published by under book review, character development, reading

Black Blade Blues

I just read Black Blade Blues, the debut urban fantasy novel by J. A. Pitts and first of a series of three from Tor, and it was a LOT of fun. The the book features left-handed lesbian blacksmith and martial arts expert Sarah Beauhall, who

  • inadvertently reforges a magic sword,
  • befriends a six-foot tall dwarf (the supernatural kind, not one of the Little People),
  • works out some issues of internalized homophobia with the help of her equally kick-ass girlfriend Kate, and
  • fights dragons, ogres and trolls to saves the world (naturlich) with the help of various friends from the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA).

Not necessarily in that order. Also, at one point she gets hit on by a Valkyrie (squee!). Continue Reading »

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and then I got ticked off (updated!)

Feb 25 2010 Published by under general, life, publishing, reading

A friend asked if I’d seen this op-ed by David Alpaugh in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. I responded to her directly, then figured, why waste a good rant? (Thanks for the nudge, Gretchen.)

Yes I did see this, and it ticked me off because it’s insipid. There’s too much poetry! The good stuff gets lost! MFA programs are cranking out too many writers! This is the sort of non-news, non-thinking blathering that pontificators of every generation seem to spout.

[CORRECTION: David Alpaugh himself has helpfully pointed out that the italicized portion of the preceding paragraph, which was originally placed in quotation marks, is not in fact a direct quote. He's absolutely correct; it's my characterization of the tone and main point of his op-ed. I hope the five other readers of my blog are not too disappointed in my lapse in rigor.]

Look a the final paragraph:

“Every now and then someone asks me, ‘Who are the best poets writing today?’ My answer? ‘I have no idea.’ Nor do I believe that anyone else does. I do have an uneasy feeling that a Blake and a Dickinson may be buried in the overgrowth, and I fear that neither current nor future readers may get to enjoy their art. That would be the most devastating result of the new math of poetry. The loss would be incalculable.”

No one has EVER had ANY idea who the best poets of their own times were. It is unknowable. Blake and Dickinson are perfect examples – they were both “buried in the overgrowth” IN THEIR OWN TIMES. Why should our time be any different? And why blame changes in media and publishing for it?

And why have an uneasy feeling about it? Relax, read the stuff you love, look around for more stuff that you might love, acknowledge the unalterable nature of Sturgeon’s Law, recognize the 95% of everything that is crud for what it is (fertilizer for the other 5%), and enjoy life.

That is all for now.

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