Tag Archives: #YAlit

Dismantling Rape Culture – Downloadable Resources

Writing, , , , , , ,

Just a quick heads up that I’ve uploaded a bunch of resources for NO MORE EXCUSES to be used in classrooms, libraries, and book clubs. All are available for download on my website as well as directly through these links:

Now let’s all get out there and dismantle rape culture together!

 

Deschutes Public Library Youth Lit Festival

Events, , , , ,
Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?

This was a critical question posed to me and my fellow panelists by the inimitable teen services librarian April Witteveen last weekend at the Deschutes Public Library Youth Lit Festival.

Can you guess how I answered? (Hint: I’m not a great multitasker. LOL.)

I love festivals like this where I get to interact with readers during panels and workshops. I taught a session on building three-dimensional characters and also played Pictionary with my writer friends in front of an audience. (Thankfully, April didn’t pit us against the illustrators!)

If you were in my session, here are the links to the handouts. (Sorry I didn’t get them up right away). Ping me with questions via the contact link.

Building Voice and Character Iteratively
Character Interview from Lee White
Character Interview from Gotham Writers

It was delightful to hang out with my fellow presenters. Fonda Lee writes badass sci-fi / fantasy. Matthew Cordell is an incredibly generous picture book master. Dan Gemeinhart writes deeply thoughtful MG novels. Katherine Roy hangs out with elephants!!! Catherine Alene blew me away with her honesty. Librarian Jaime Wong was a delight to chat with. Jason Reynolds Skyped in and gave a great talk. All in all it was a fantastic day, well-managed by all the brilliant people at the library.

If you were there, what was your favorite part?

Jamie, Katherine, Me, Dan, Fonda, Matt, & Catherine

I love that Matt Cordell captured this moment.

It’s been a long time…

My Reads, , ,

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve posted here. The last four months are kind of a blur. I had a very fast turn around deadline for my next nonfiction title, a cheery little tomb about rape culture. I’m also really busy running a progressive political action committee dedicated to resisting the heartless policies of the current administration. There is a lot to be outraged about, but I’m trying to turn my horror into action. That, at least, feels productive.

Here’s something else that feels productive:
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS!!!!

I’ve read some really good titles lately. Put these on your to-read list, and once you’ve read them, let me know so we can have a mini book club!

 

 

On wishes and real life

Connections, Navel Gazing, , , , , ,

I’ve been thinking about wishes (which isn’t quite the same as actually wishing). Specifically, I’ve been thinking about what we call wish fulfillment stories. These are stories in which the author writes a successful conclusion to her own inner fantasies. The most obvious wish fulfillment stories are romance novels, a denigrated genre if ever there was one. Pronouncements are made with supercilious distain: that’s not literature or it’s just a love story or that’s impossible.

I think Kelly Jensen nails it when she observes that the biggest wish fulfilled in romance novels is female pleasure. Consider that for a moment (and maybe read this essay by Lili Loofbourow about how the metrics for good/bad sex are so different for women than for men). It is merely a wish—a wish with all the unrealistic hopefulness that implies—for a woman to seek and satisfy her own needs for intimate pleasure. That’s impossible.

In the last year I wrote the draft of a new novel that I crammed full of things I love. Things like David Bowie and cosplay, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and taco carts, Jeff Goldblum and aerial silks. I wrote a book that made me happy, a book about friends that take care of each other and people who get along even though they are really different.

The entire book is pure wish fulfillment.

It wishes inclusion and respect.
It wishes tolerance and love.
It wishes the elevation of our best selves.
It wishes hope.
It wishes a extended hand.
It wishes glitter and bonfires on the beach.

Writing it was an escape from real life, a personal pleasure, exactly like a romance novel (but mine isn’t a romance novel FYI). Now I have to revise it, and here’s the problem: I write contemporary, realistic fiction, and this book wishes the opposite of what I see every day in the news. Most of the big issues I need to resolve in this draft are a direct result of this conflict between the world I want and the world I see. This is a harder issue to resolve than a hitch in the plot or an inconsistent character arc. This is big philosophical stuff.

I don’t have the answers right now about how to fix this novel, but I do know one thing for sure—there’s nothing wrong with wishing the world were different. I believe it’s called hope.

Tell me, what are you wishing for these days?

Editorial Cross-Pollination: Alix Reid from Carolrhoda Lab

My books, , , , , ,

My recent novel POINTE, CLAW came out the same day as WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF, a powerful novel about love and anti-love, female power and self-sabotage by Elana K. Arnold. She and I recently completed a West Coast book tour for these two books. We hit cities from LA to Seattle talking about  Feminism and the Female Body. You can read our notes from the road here and here and here.

Our novels are twins of a sort. Not only did they come out on the same day but both are heart-wrenching and rage-y explorations of what it means to be a girl in a girl’s body at this time and place in history, when the physical and emotional well-being of women is under assault. Elana and I also share an editor,  Alix Reid, the Executive Editor of Carolrhoda Books and Carolrhoda Lab, whose insights shaped our stories.

We asked Alix what it was like to work on these two books at the same time. Here’s what she said:

It was so exciting for me to have two books on my list, POINTE, CLAW and WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF, that both dealt with how young women are boxed into narrow definitions of what it means to be female and feminine and feminine “enough.” Although entirely different in content, the themes of each book touched on one another and made me ever more aware of how important it is to speak UP and speak OUT about ways in which girls are put in boxes, are silenced, are made to feel less than.

Both books show how ingrained patriarchy is, buried even in the girls themselves, so that they are the ones who are monitoring their own femininity as much as the outside world. I think that was one of the richest parts of working on these books for me—both Amber and Elana understood that what can pose the most danger to young women’s sense of themselves is that they unconsciously absorb false messages about what it means to be a girl the world around them—that they are they become their own jailers, in some sense, inflicting punishment on themselves if they feel they are not somehow matching an external definition of femininity.

We need books like POINTE, CLAW and WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF to show readers the dangers inherent in what continues to be a patriarchal culture, and we continue to need stories of girls who transcend the narrow definitions of femininity that can bind them and restrict them. Books like these two give girls ways of seeing they are not alone, show them how easy it is to get caught up in false definitions of femininity, and give them ways of thinking differently about themselves in ways that aren’t preachy or heavy-handed.

Editing these two books brought back many memories from when I was a teenager, and reminded me of by my own doubts and fears about whether I was a “good girl.” I wish I’d had these books to read back then—I know they would have helped me!

Book Tour: Bay Area Edition

Antics, Events, Travel, , , , , , , , ,

Finally, I’m getting a chance to post some fun pictures from phase two of the West Coast tour I was on with Elana K. Arnold to promote our new young adult and middle grade novels. We were hosted by Elana’s sister and nephew, who I fell in love with. Plus, I got to see one of my cousins too. I loved hearing about her geology dissertation project! (Be scared of earthquakes, people!) Here are some highlights from our Bay Area swing!

#1

We did a school visit at a lovely school in Davis, California, called The Peregrine School. Fun fact: The Saw Whet School in Elana’s book,  A BOY CALLED BAT, was based on Peregrine. The kids were great and so was the paper mache sloth in the entry way!

#2

We had a very lively and slightly argumentative crowd at Logos Books, which is a nonprofit bookstore that benefits the Davis Public Library. Ask us sometime over a drink (hint, hint).

#3

We took this picture with a giraffe for Heidi Schulz because we love her and her book GIRAFFES RUIN EVERYTHING!

#4

Avid Reader in Davis did an amazing window display for our middle grade event, which was attended by a very enthusiastic young girl and her parents. (Yeah, just one! Sometimes that’s how it goes.) Elana and I thought she was the bomb!

#5

Stephanie Kuehn is exactly as smart and insightful as everyone says. We had an amazing discussion in Oakland at A Great Good Place for Books. But you should know that I bought a copy of her book THE SMALLER EVIL and it freaked me out. (Read it! You’ll see!)

And that, my friends, is how we rolled on Book Tour: Bay Area Edition. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you have a chance to go on tour with Elana, TAKE IT! She couldn’t be more delightful to travel with! XO

Book Tour: Southern California Edition

Antics, Events, Travel, , , , , , , , ,

This spring, I have teamed up with the lovely author Elana K. Arnold for a book tour. We’re a great match up because we both have new middle grade novels (A BOY CALLED BAT and the QUARTZ CREEK RANCH series) as well as new young adult novels (WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF and POINTE, CLAW). For each stop on our tour, we are doing both a middle grade event and a YA event. I’ve just returned from the Southern California leg of our tour, and I am bubbly with things to report!

#1

Elana has a bird named Bird, a cat, and two dogs, including this endearing fluffball, who won my heart even though she ate my toothbrush!

#2

The Getty Museum is an architectural marvel perched on a hill overlooking Los Angeles. The paintings inside and the gardens outside were spectacular.

#3

Highland Park has vegan tacos and vegan donuts and men in high-waisted plaid pants. The Pop-Hop is a very cool bookstore, and I got to hang out with Antonio Sacre, one of my favorite writer-storytellers.


#4

Once Upon a Storybook in Tustin has reading nooks, a mouse door, and a wall of fame for authors to sign. I saw lots of my fav books on the shelves including VOLCANO RISING, THE MUSIC OF LIFE, THE SOMEDAY BIRDS, and RAMBLER STEALS HOME.


#5

Gatsby Books in Long Beach has a store cat, a Carrie Fisher super fan, and was hosting a Night Vale event right after Elana and I talked about Feminism and the Female Body. I regret that I did not buy a t-shirt!

#6

Planning an extra play day turned out to be a stroke of brilliance. The beach had whales and dolphins and lots of teeny-tiny bath suit bottoms.

#7

We ate at Snow Monster, and I found my new life motto.

#8

Being with Elana K. Arnold is incredibly inspiring. She’s a brilliant, deep thinker, and her books are some of the best I’ve ever read. We wrote together every day,  talked about our new WIPs, and debriefed this weird business we work in. She fed me donuts and let me hang out with her super cool family. I am grateful to call her my friend.

#9

We are coming for you in the Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle. Click here to go to my events page for details.

Q2: The Brutality of Ballet

My books, , , , ,

As POINTE, CLAW leaps into the world, I thought I might answer some questions posed by readers…

Q2: Is ballet really that competitive?

Yes.

At least at the elite levels it is.

Ballet is very much a metaphor for being female in this society. Little girls take ballet and fall in love with dance and tutus and pink tights and sparkles. As they grow, they are further indoctrinated (yes, I use that word on purpose) into believing that they can become ballerinas. They compete with each other and are brutal on themselves (dieting, purging, starving) all so they can achieve a dream (like being the “perfect” woman).

The dream is actually impossible for all but the smallest fraction of women because of factors completely outside our control: genetics and physiology. As teens, our bodies go wildly out of control (like Dawn’s in POINTE, CLAW) and most of us discover that we will never be “perfect” because that definition is so narrow, but by then, we are so firmly brainwashed that we keep trying to match what we see on stage (or on magazine covers).

As long as women continue to buy into the idea of the “perfect woman,” we will continue to do violence to ourselves and other women. This is POINTE, CLAW.