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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
