Source: hollyblackIf you are a female author, you are much more likely to get a package that suggests the book is of a lower perceived quality. We’re the high fructose corn syrup of literature, even when our products are the same.A great article and it’s really cool to see how some of the coverflips turned out.
To see more cover flips, go here.
>For the halfies and Truebloods of Bordertown.The lives of elves are long.
They are easily bored.
They eat dreams for breakfast,
Are empty again by lunch.
That’s Rabbit! How effing cool is this? It makes me want to write about her again…
Source: tofixtheshadows
Tonight, he began to think of words, words came from some well in him, lists of words that arranged themselves into poems, “The Death Mask,” “The Fairfax Wall,” “A Number of Cats.” He could hear, or feel, or even almost see, the patterns made by a voice he didn’t yet know, but which was his own. The poems were not careful observations, nor yet incantations, nor yet reflections on life and death, though they had elements of all these. He added another, “Cats’ Cradle,” as he saw he had things to say which he could say about the way shapes came and made themselves. Tomorrow he would buy a new notebook and write them down. Tonight he would write down enough, the mnemonics.
He had time to feel the strangeness of before and after; an hour ago there had been no poems, and now they came like rain and were real.
"A.S. Byatt, Possession
[I’ve never read anything that so precisely captures the joy of that moment of inspiration, when you realize that something you want to write can truly exist, almost does exist already.]
Source: diversityinyaAuthor Alaya Dawn Johnson stopped by to tell us about 5 things she learned while writing her latest novel, The Summer Prince:
1. Writing on a train is awesome, but three days is a day too long to spend in coach.
”Coach” on a train gives you about the same amount of legroom as Business Class on an international flight, but after I’d spent forty eight hours negotiating the Amtrak bathroom and doing laps through the train cars while watching gorgeous landscapes pass by the windows, I was lucid dreaming of showers and high thread count sheets. I do not regret a minute of that journey across the country, but if I were to do it again, I’d save up to do it in style, in one of the private rooms.
2. Do not quit caffeine in the middle of your third act.
When my coffee habit started to get out of control somewhere around 50,000 words, I decided to quit all caffeine cold turkey. There was a stretch of days when my writing days consisted of fifty word bursts, punctuated by confused naps. This did not help the word count.
3. The samba is the most exhausting and most awesome dance in the world.
My sister, my cousin and I danced for hours one night in Rio in a packed club with a fantastic samba band. And oh boy did we try, but by the end of that night of doing our best sambas—which were, uh, not so great—we felt like someone was going to have to peel us from the cachaça-drenched floor.
This is *hard* (YouTube) :
Meanwhile, all the Brazilians looked dewy and fresh and disappointed that the band couldn’t play for a couple more hours.
4. When it feels impossible is probably when it’s getting good.
There was a section of the book—okay, pretty much all of “Fall”—where I thought I might actually expire before I managed to type something that resembled an ending. Every sentence was a struggle. Every character interaction made me question what on earth I’d been thinking when I decided to write for a living. Now some of those scenes are some of my favorites of the novel. Writing can be fun; I’d never tell you otherwise, but sometimes it’s hard because it needs to be.
5. Don’t put those song lyrics at the heart of your big climax.
It turns out that music publishers think writers are fantastic revenue sources, because the licensing fees they requested to quote more than a line of any song lyrics in the novel made me cry over my keyboard. The writer has to cover any licensing fees, not the publisher. Which meant I had to re-write chunks of my manuscript when I discovered that my beloved song quotations would cost me half of the advance that I got to write the novel in the first place. It turned out okay, but I’ve learned my lesson: no lyrics!
And during one particular scene at the end of “Spring,” you might want to queue this one up (YouTube):
Write what you love. Whatever that is, even if it seems like an absolutely abysmal career move. Because if it doesn’t work out, at least you wrote something you’ve always wanted. If that carefully positioned market-friendly idea you only sort of like tanks, then you’ve spent years working on something that doesn’t excite you. If something you love tanks, then at least you spent that time creating art that you know, in your heart, is worthwhile.
And it turns out that agents and editors and publicists and readers can tell when your heart is in it. So my big idea was to do myself a favor, and put it there.
"Alaya Dawn Johnson on the Big Idea behind her new book The Summer Prince (via malindalo)
Ha, that’s a lot of notes!
(via diversityinya)
Happy book birthday to The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson!
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic
Publication Date: March 1, 2013A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the lush tropics of a futuristic Brazil.
The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of its heat, June Costa creates art that’s sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold, new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June’s best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than dark chocolate eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a fellow artist.
Together, June and Enki will create art that Palmares Tres will never forget. They will add fuel to a growing rebellion against the government’s strict limits on new tech. And June will fall deeply, unfortunately in love with Enki. Because like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.
Pulsing with the beat of futuristic Brazil, burning with the passions of its characters, and overflowing with ideas, this is a novel that will leave you hot and shaken and eager for more from Alaya Dawn Johnson.“In her YA debut, Johnson (the Spirit Binders series) depicts a future that’s recognizably Brazilian and human—June may have nanohooks, holo screens, and light implants, but 400 years on, teens still resent their parents and find ways to subvert the technology their elders theoretically control. With its complicated history, founding myth, and political structure, Palmares Três is compelling, as is the triple bond between June, Enki, and Gil as they challenge their world’s injustices.” — Publishers Weekly
“An art project, a rebellion and a sacrifice make up this nuanced, original cyberpunk adventure.” — Kirkus
Get The Summer Prince at IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.
YAY!!!
Source: diversityinya
The Tezcatlipoca impersonator was also touched by the special glamour, the special erotic poignancy, of he who must die….
The magic here is not spectacular courage in one or two battles but the glamour of commitment to death at the peak of youth and beauty: the poignancy of the exhibitionistic narcissism of youth determined once and for all on magnificent expenditure rather than slow wasting and remorseless physical deterioration. That public display of doomed youth, self-absorbed, yet feeding on the public gaze; marking the centres by stalking the furthest margins of society, has exerted a powerful appeal in more than one culture, including our own, with its voracious appetite for figures at once sexually vivid, blessed by fame, and dramatically disaffected from the society which courts them.
"
It’s Valentine’s Day! Which you may or may not be a fan of, but since I’m a sucker for a good romance, I thought I’d blog about some of my favorite fictional couples, starting with:
I am intensely jealous (and in awe of) your pic of Jo March & her garret! More than makes up for the missing moleskins. <3
Gil! Gil! Oh my goodness, Gilbert Blythe is the ORIGINAL literary crush. Happy Valentines Day!
Source: malindalo
Elissa Schappel, in the articulately-titled Salon.com article, Stop dumping on Lena Dunham!
So there you have it. Let’s be real, guys! People of color do not work in the multi-faceted fields of publishing or “the arts.” Nope. No Asians, no Blacks, no Latin@s. That would be unrealistic. But you’ll see some diversity — lots of people with old British ancestry, Swedish ancestry, Nordic ancestry, even French! Right?
BTW. Many people have “kvetched” over the absence of diversity in Seinfeld. But clearly, some white ears don’t hear voices of color.
(via sumney)
Depicting people of color working in publishing and the arts in New York would be, sadly, to lie.
Wow. Woooowwww.
(via zuky)
pssst. Anybody surprised?
(via lavienoire)
wow, defenders of lena dunham: YOU ARE NOT HELPING.
how about, “man i enjoy the show and it’s a good thing about white upper class urban women and all but that shit is racist”
there. that’s all you have to say. that’s it. copy and paste as you need.
(via couldbeyourlife)
Good LORD.
To suggest that publishing and the arts could do more to foster voices from people of colour is entirely fair.
To suggest that there isn’t any racial diversity to speak of in those fields, and certainly none that could appear in a show with a “documentary-like feel” is so entirely stupid and inaccurate I feel really sorry for the writer. And also, very, very angry that she is promulgating the kind of nonsense that erases the existence of, for example, my current Little, Brown editor, my former Little, Brown editor, and my current Little, Brown publicist, all of whom are women of colour, respected in their field for their achievements, and valued members of their publishing house.
Real women. Who really exist.
How’s that for documentarian?
(via karenhealey)
Blech. The thing that kills me about Girls is that it takes place in MY NEIGHBORHOOD, with people interested in the arts and publishing, which is MY INDUSTRY, and basically they manage to walk into my coffee shop and take people like me out of it so they can film their “documentary-like” comedy. And, apparently, never notice!
(via karenhealey)
Aaron’s commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life. He was instrumental to the defeat of an Internet censorship bill; he fought for a more democratic, open, and accountable political system; and he helped to create, build, and preserve a dizzying range of scholarly projects that extended the scope and accessibility of human knowledge. He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place. His deeply humane writing touched minds and hearts across generations and continents. He earned the friendship of thousands and the respect and support of millions more.
Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.
This is so, so sad.
Source: soupsoup
