I’ve had a few links I’ve been keeping open on the desk top for a bit, and realized I need to get them out there! For some reason, most of these are writerly, so forgive the slant:
We had a REALLY GOOD discussion and follow-up exercise in our writing group the other week about privilege — and excuse me for linking to a personal post. We followed up by doing an exercise of identifying our core identities — and it was kind of a surprise. What we DON’T identify as is sometimes as surprising as how we do!
“…The thing is, publishing books is–even though our books are not ourselves–extremely revealing, by which I mean it opens us up to lots more casual judgment and criticism, especially when we voice opinions that not everyone agrees with or wants to hear.” This past week, the Bond Girl blogged about … self promotion. Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Just the phrase brings on panicky negativity. The personal becomes the public, and we, as authors – and women, and people of color, who are historically less reviewed and less visible – have to rely a lot more on social media, personal appearances, and being accessible, because sometimes to critics, we’re not even here. Add YA to the mix? Yeah. A thought-provoking, disturbing post.
Hip blog Guys Lit Wire just welcomed NINE new contributors. NINE. Guys are reading, and guys and girls are sparking, live wires on the subject, and Guys Lit Wire continues to support the written word. Well done, GLW, awesome sauce, since 2008!
Buzzfeed reveals some wise words on Writing the Other – by Daniel José Older, one of the editors of LONG HIDDEN which I was squeeing about just the other day. Am really looking forward to doing more reading on this topic, and am excited to hear others chiming in. Yaaay!
So, we’re fond of Reddit’s AMA’s, which of course stands for “Ask Me Anything.” Our favorite Tu Books editor, Stacy Whitman, spent time with author Joseph Bruchac on Reddit just the other day – and Wow. It’s an idea worth doing again, guys. Well done!
Meanwhile, Tor.com has risen to further levels of coolness by hosting a weekly YA roundup on their site. Now your new YA speculative fiction picks are all in one place. AND, there are tips for writers and just general cool informational stuff. Got Twitter? Got a novel you’d like to get out there, if you could just get through all the @($(*& publishing hoops and find the words to talk to a publisher or agent? #PitMad might just be your thing. “It gives authors the opportunity to pitch to agents over Twitter. Authors use 140 characters to sell their novel, including the genre and category, and agents can favourite the ones they like and contact those authors for submissions.” Click through for details on when the next one will happen! *Hint: March!*
SO, I got an email from an author about a writing retreat — with not a whole lot of details, but I’m brows-raised-interested to hear more. But, then I thought about it — someone else had a similar experience, awhile back… Note To Author Who Contacted Me: there will be NO SPARTAN RACE at any writing retreat I attend. NONE. Just being clear, here.
I have followed many of those links, which led to other links, which led to other links, provoking thought all along the way — whew! Mostly the chord it strikes is my recent musings about having published under my real, female name. My first two books were male 1st-person POV but I never considered publishing under a male pseudonym or even just initials.
So much of what I've seen lately has made me curious about whether my publishing experience would have been any different if I'd used a male name. I will never know, tempting as it is to design a controlled study!
@ Jennifer R. Hubbard~ I agree – sometimes I think a pseudonym would have freed up some part of my psyche which is still too cautious to let the characters truly speak. I am STILL tempted to see…