What’s Wrong With This Picture, II

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January 16, 2007

11:36 pm

8 Comments on What’s Wrong With This Picture, II

Literary Life Observations, On Writing

Thanks to sharp-eyed Sara for sparking these thoughts…

Our Cybils team scrutinized and dissected novel covers more than I usually do, and since on average I don’t spend time judging books by their covers (but I do judge them by their flyleaf copy — and if it’s too detailed or too flippant and tries to strike a stylistic tone — ugh, I put it down, which is unfair of me, I know) unless their covers really stand out, so it was a new thought to me how much cover art can really make a difference to who you get as readers. Our team additionally found that covers in the YA world tend to be pretty similar, (as did Fuse#8), and to follow trends. But using the same model, to me, seem to be a bit… much. Surely we’re not all out of cover ideas — or models — this early in the millennium?! Fortunately, though this same model was used on the Review Copy cover of Angel’s Choice that I received, I understand that the powers that be changed the cover for the actual publication copy that went out to readers. Since both novels may actually appeal to the same group of readers, this was a smarter move, I think.

Since I tend to find my books in smaller bookstores (and usually head straight for whatever I’m looking for), the display copies are sort of …well, invisible to me. (As I say this I realize I’m a bookseller’s worst nightmare – a focused shopper. Aaargh!) The books I actually notice displayed for YA readers have a definite… well, slant to them. They’re either in candy (or is it CUPCAKE or POPSICLE) shades, like the ubiquitous “chick lit” and they look like they’re all written for girls.

I wonder, sometimes, why… Good books like Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) or An Abundance of Katherines are likely overlooked because of their covers. I absolutely love the cover Gail Gautier’s Happy Kid, and I think the cover of Kiki Strike is awesome – just random enough to leave out a hook for anyone, but artistically relevant. Both of those books are geared to the middle grade set(correct me if I’m wrong on Happy Kid.) – so maybe that’s where the breakdown in covers occurs? People often talk about young adult boys not reading… I’m not sure if anyone is actually marketing books in their general direction… the girls are already reading, so why skew everything their way?

As my publication experience grows, I look forward to seeing just how hard or aggravating it is for authors to deal with the novel cover selection process. One of my MFA profs said told that we as newly fledged authors would have no say in how our covers appeared, for at least our first several novels. He had at that point three in print, and only had gotten his say because he’d a.) taken a business course and b.) presented his professional opinion after begging to sit in on a publication meeting. They listened to him, he said, because he’d gone the extra mile to prepare something. And to humor him. YA/Children’s Lit might be different. Here’s hoping… If they’re open to it, when I am famous, I’m going to bug A.Fortis into designing my cover for me. (A.F., you have lots and lots of time to prepare.)

And now for something on the more random side of life: if you’re really keen to get into the marketing nuts and bolts of your novel, you can start by building your ideal male (an amusing promo for Anatomy of a Boyfriend), or just design a cover for that steamy romance novel you’ve been dying to write.

Oh, stop, you know you have one stashed somewhere. Cheers!

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Peering Into the Winner's Circle

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January 16, 2007

9:27 pm

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Ethnicity and YA Literature, On Writing

This just in: the newest Edge of the Forest is up and out, and features a great piece on cover art… since finding out that the cover art for the Little House series is in transit, and after finding how cover art really impacts my assumptions about YA fiction, I found this especially interesting. Also great is the round-up of historical fiction, and the realization that for once, I’ve read most of the books everyone is talking about! (Yay, Cybils!) Head on over and enjoy!

***********************************************************************************
After serving on the Cybils YA team, I have thought more and more about the process whereby we come up with “winners” in children’s books, and whether the process is really inclusive and reflective of all of the best books out there.

To be quite blunt, I’ve never thought that the major ALA awards did the majority of books justice. One of the reasons for this is that in grad school, many of the books we studied were award winners, and there was a marked lack of … diversity in these books. Even books about characters of certain ethnicities were generally written by Caucasian authors. In the end, it was an overall combination of my contempt for my professor’s YA lit choices (sorry, KR), and generalized contempt for the awards themselves. Serving on the Cybils team gave me a great new compassion for award committees… I still believe that some really deserving books are being overlooked, but I got a glimpse of some of what committee panels are up against. (And for a bit more strife, check out the UK’s Commission for Racial Equality’s pending suit against an ethnic book award – [thanks to Read Roger]).

During the lovely Blogger Brunch last weekend, one of the things we discussed, amid the detritus of half-empty plates and far too many cups of tea, was the issue of ethnicity in Children’s literature. Tockla’s PhD work is regarding the editorial process that has affected books written by non-white authors in the UK since the 1970s, and how the process of publishing, which in children’s lit is mostly white and female (until the upper echelons, and then it’s largely white and male), has changed a work from one thing into another more ‘acceptable’ thing. A.F. and I have been working with depicting characters struggling with various Typical Young Adult situations who happen to be ethnic minorities, and we’ve both had some seriously odd experiences with editors and other in-charge types asking for various manipulations of characters to better reflect their ideals of what a character of a particular ethnicity would do. We both found it revealing to talk with Tockla about the various experiences her interviews with authors have given her, and the phenomenon that sometimes authors are asked to peel away things their characters were and did, in order to make them ‘acceptable’ to mainstream publishing. We discussed the question as to how literature then changes to become shined up for a mythical ‘everykid’ who does not, in fact, exist.

These thoughts led to us wincing laughter over the funny story of an agent seeking out every African American editor they knew in order to more successfully pitch a novel … despite the fact that the character was biracial and the storyline wasn’t particularly ethnic. And, when it was strongly suggested that the author remove the bi-racial character’s other race, and just make the character “plain old black, like you,” it was, well, shocking.

I wished then, as I often do, that I could have expressed why the whole thing is so troubling to me — funny on one level, but on myriad others, upsetting. (I, sadly, will forever be one of those people who can only think of a comeback exactly twenty-five minutes later, which is why I write… and try not to talk!) As the weekend went on, I tucked our brunch conversation away in my mind, then just happened over to Mitali’s Fire Escape, and was relieved to find her usual articulate discussion on ethnicity and literature. Her thoughts touch on mine, and though she was talking mostly about ethnicity based children’s book awards, she put it beautifully:

“Winning the Super Asian Writer Children’s Book Award could reinforce your vocation as an “ethnic” writer, which in turn might relegate you and your book to a (short) list of obligatory “multicultural” reads in a book-buyer’s blackberry. Your stories will then be forced on kids by adults like some sort of necessary vitamin pill for the soul. Yum.”

(Vitamin Pills for the Beleagured Soul. I believe Mitali could give the Chicken Soup people a run for their money!!)

You know, I can imagine NOBODY who wants to be put in a corner and generalized as a writer of a particular ethnicity that is only of interest to those who are OF or interested in that particular ethnicity, or those who have that ethnicity thrust upon them by well meaning teachers one few days a year (one in January and perhaps a few days a month in February, along with a class video of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and couple of Phyllis Wheatley poems or a few by Langston Hughes). Part of diversity must be defined by integration — both integration of peoples and their cultures, and the books about them. In the great Someday, our best world would be one where I could go and grab a novel about a Pakistani girl and just read it and appreciate the commonalities of our lives without particularly feeling like I was reading a South Asian Novel, but as we continue to grapple with the Now, that isn’t maybe as realistic. While I personally don’t want to be relegated to the portion of the bookstore for African American books (nor shunted off to African American editors), at the same time, I understand that some people’s minds are segregated like that, and maybe that’s what will create success for minority writers and their books. Maybe that’s just the way it has to be, in the here and now.

Seems a pity…

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Peering Into the Winner’s Circle

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January 16, 2007

9:27 pm

6 Comments on Peering Into the Winner’s Circle

Ethnicity and YA Literature, On Writing

This just in: the newest Edge of the Forest is up and out, and features a great piece on cover art… since finding out that the cover art for the Little House series is in transit, and after finding how cover art really impacts my assumptions about YA fiction, I found this especially interesting. Also great is the round-up of historical fiction, and the realization that for once, I’ve read most of the books everyone is talking about! (Yay, Cybils!) Head on over and enjoy!

***********************************************************************************
After serving on the Cybils YA team, I have thought more and more about the process whereby we come up with “winners” in children’s books, and whether the process is really inclusive and reflective of all of the best books out there.

To be quite blunt, I’ve never thought that the major ALA awards did the majority of books justice. One of the reasons for this is that in grad school, many of the books we studied were award winners, and there was a marked lack of … diversity in these books. Even books about characters of certain ethnicities were generally written by Caucasian authors. In the end, it was an overall combination of my contempt for my professor’s YA lit choices (sorry, KR), and generalized contempt for the awards themselves. Serving on the Cybils team gave me a great new compassion for award committees… I still believe that some really deserving books are being overlooked, but I got a glimpse of some of what committee panels are up against. (And for a bit more strife, check out the UK’s Commission for Racial Equality’s pending suit against an ethnic book award – [thanks to Read Roger]).

During the lovely Blogger Brunch last weekend, one of the things we discussed, amid the detritus of half-empty plates and far too many cups of tea, was the issue of ethnicity in Children’s literature. Tockla’s PhD work is regarding the editorial process that has affected books written by non-white authors in the UK since the 1970s, and how the process of publishing, which in children’s lit is mostly white and female (until the upper echelons, and then it’s largely white and male), has changed a work from one thing into another more ‘acceptable’ thing. A.F. and I have been working with depicting characters struggling with various Typical Young Adult situations who happen to be ethnic minorities, and we’ve both had some seriously odd experiences with editors and other in-charge types asking for various manipulations of characters to better reflect their ideals of what a character of a particular ethnicity would do. We both found it revealing to talk with Tockla about the various experiences her interviews with authors have given her, and the phenomenon that sometimes authors are asked to peel away things their characters were and did, in order to make them ‘acceptable’ to mainstream publishing. We discussed the question as to how literature then changes to become shined up for a mythical ‘everykid’ who does not, in fact, exist.

These thoughts led to us wincing laughter over the funny story of an agent seeking out every African American editor they knew in order to more successfully pitch a novel … despite the fact that the character was biracial and the storyline wasn’t particularly ethnic. And, when it was strongly suggested that the author remove the bi-racial character’s other race, and just make the character “plain old black, like you,” it was, well, shocking.

I wished then, as I often do, that I could have expressed why the whole thing is so troubling to me — funny on one level, but on myriad others, upsetting. (I, sadly, will forever be one of those people who can only think of a comeback exactly twenty-five minutes later, which is why I write… and try not to talk!) As the weekend went on, I tucked our brunch conversation away in my mind, then just happened over to Mitali’s Fire Escape, and was relieved to find her usual articulate discussion on ethnicity and literature. Her thoughts touch on mine, and though she was talking mostly about ethnicity based children’s book awards, she put it beautifully:

“Winning the Super Asian Writer Children’s Book Award could reinforce your vocation as an “ethnic” writer, which in turn might relegate you and your book to a (short) list of obligatory “multicultural” reads in a book-buyer’s blackberry. Your stories will then be forced on kids by adults like some sort of necessary vitamin pill for the soul. Yum.”

(Vitamin Pills for the Beleagured Soul. I believe Mitali could give the Chicken Soup people a run for their money!!)

You know, I can imagine NOBODY who wants to be put in a corner and generalized as a writer of a particular ethnicity that is only of interest to those who are OF or interested in that particular ethnicity, or those who have that ethnicity thrust upon them by well meaning teachers one few days a year (one in January and perhaps a few days a month in February, along with a class video of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and couple of Phyllis Wheatley poems or a few by Langston Hughes). Part of diversity must be defined by integration — both integration of peoples and their cultures, and the books about them. In the great Someday, our best world would be one where I could go and grab a novel about a Pakistani girl and just read it and appreciate the commonalities of our lives without particularly feeling like I was reading a South Asian Novel, but as we continue to grapple with the Now, that isn’t maybe as realistic. While I personally don’t want to be relegated to the portion of the bookstore for African American books (nor shunted off to African American editors), at the same time, I understand that some people’s minds are segregated like that, and maybe that’s what will create success for minority writers and their books. Maybe that’s just the way it has to be, in the here and now.

Seems a pity…

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

This Week In Blog

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January 15, 2007

5:09 pm

4 Comments on This Week In Blog

Literary Life Observations, On Writing

Mindy from Proper Noun brings up a bunch of really great points about the whole Cybils thing, and what she’s learned from it. She comments,

“…I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t blog very critically. My reviews are more likely to capture my personal reaction than discuss literary devices, and I’m okay with that.”

It is, in fact, true that people who read blogs aren’t usually after things like long discussions of story arc and protagonist motivation, but I find that once I’m sitting down to write a review, I kind of have to do that kind of thing anyway. For me, it helps to think of story and characters from every direction that I can, because I tend to be a bit… inelegant with my descriptions. Inarticulate. Scrambling for words.

See, here’s the thing. I get a book. I breathe in that Book Smell. I ignore the flyleaf and check out the cover art. Then, I settle in to read. For me, reading is much akin to sampling desserts. There are some you instantly like, some that are too sweet, some not sweet enough, but since I read quickly, I tend to just take myriad books in at once. When I find a tasty book, I just want to squeal “Ooh! Ooh! I like that one!” and with no further thought, go on to the next one. That’s… not really reviewing, but more recording-gut-reactions, enjoying the experience, and having far too much fun, which is why I tend to defer to a. fortis when any actual thinking about writing is done.

Sure, once I’ve thought about a novel for a bit, I can start deconstructing… I eventually (ahem)managed to do the work for my degrees in litarature. The problem is, like many others, I tend to only blog about books I like — or ones that I dislike so much that I must let everyone know how disappointed in them I am. I am hoping to learn to be more balanced and intelligent about literature (like A.F or Tockla or MotherReader, who can be counted on to say what she thinks quite clearly and hilariously), but sometimes I don’t care… Frankly, it’s just a lot of mad love and catching-up-from-a-fiction-deprived-childhood that I’m doing, and that’s okay, too.

Of course, when you’re being looked to to provide a bit more… discrimination in your reading responses (as in, you’re a Cybils nominator!), you have to really slow down bolting your books and chew each chapter thoughtfully. That was the hardest thing about working with the list of eighty-some books we had – to tone down the enthusiasm at being allowed bunches of free (!!!!!!) books and try to sift through, reading and re-reading them critically and consideringly.

The second painful thing was that shortlist — and discovering that four of the final five are from one publishing house. We hadn’t noticed until we ‘heard’ that house described as having a stranglehold on the category. Ouch!

Additionally, it was hard not to feel regret for those books that we could not choose. I had to laugh, the night after we’d turned in our list — our team emailed each other about ways to highlight our personal favorite books that didn’t make the cut. It was difficult for people with such varying temperaments to choose well as a group, and I continue to hope that each of us felt our opinions were heard and respected. Certainly I think next year will be harder, as people will be more familiar with the format and maybe more confident. I can say this: we chose well this year – next year we will choose awesomely!

Finally, the worst thing about all of this? Parting with the books. I actually sat down to take a few to the library of a school. And then I said, “But I like this one. And this one. And this one…” and I was quite dismayed that I could part with no more than five or six of them. Am I that big of a book hoarder? Why, yes, I am. I’m still going to be giving some away — that’s a personal goal, to pare down the list by two-thirds — but to salve my wounds, I promised myself new bookshelves.

It’s the little things, people.

More on the Bay Area Children’s Book Blogger’s Brunch (the truncated version, since it was sort of spur of the moment, and there were only three of us) and the reason I’m saving my resolutions until the Lunar New Year on February 18th… later.

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Middle Of the Week, Huzzah!

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January 11, 2007

8:07 pm

1 Comment on Middle Of the Week, Huzzah!

On Writing

Thanks to my fellow Flickr Fiction blogger, Chris, for this completely time-wasting exercise in aristocracy.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Venerable Lady Tadmack the Deipnosophist of Westessexchestershire
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Dearling, please hand me my diadem. Oh, wait. You want to know what a deipnosophist might be? You’re not sure I am one? Tut, tut. The word deipnosophist is derived from Greek elements meaning ‘meal’ and ‘wise man,’ so we can assume it means someone wise in mealtime conversation…it could also just mean a gastronome, but if you spout it at a dinner party, I guarantee no one will ask you to which meaning you refer… everyone else will silently be trying to figure out if you’ve insulted them or not.

Meanwhile, why no, I am not a Deip·nos·o·phist n. (d ī p*n ŏ s” ō *f ĭ st) — I am dreadful at dinner conversation, which is why I eat at my computer. But still – everyone needs to be the lord or lady of something… even if it’s just rumors.

I am really loving the t-shirt of the week thing going on at ye olde Bookshelf. Like many others, I am not a fan of conjecture with regard to Hogwarths & Co… I don’t even want to think about HP-Finis until Book 7 is in my sweaty little paws … but it chortles me no end that you can get total strangers to argue with you about it just by having an opinion and a t-shirt. Yay for readers! When roused, we’re such a scrappy, shirty lot.

I guess we writers are also rather scrappy. This week, Simon & Schuster’s Sobol Prize was cancelled, due to a lot of people expressing patent disbelief that one should have to pay an $85 entry fee for a contest meant to reward agentless authors with a $100K book contract. The idea that after winning, one must also have a Sobol-picked agent also sort of guaranteed that S&S had a lock on the author, body and manuscript, which, in the sharply competitive business of publishing, didn’t necessarily mean good things for the author. How smart is it to have an agent who is totally involved with one house? So, yay, writers. Way to save that $85 entry fee to spend on postage for your query letters and sample chapters instead of on yet another contest to potentially exploit people desperate to get fulfil their dream of getting published.

I remember cringing through my high school production of 12 Angry Men, which, in the interest of the myriad girls in my drama class was renamed 12 Angry Jurors. How horrified I would have been, had playwright Reginald Rose appeared in our musty high school auditorium with the ugly mottled green carpet and theater seating, to watch us struggle through what is supposed to be one of those marvelously critical studies on the human psyche in the face of stress and responsibility. Seeing me as an incoherent, raging Juror Number Five (sound and fury signifying… um… nothing much, I fear…) I think Mr. Rose might have decided never to write again…

Students in Birmingham, Alabama had a simillar experience (only their play was most excellent) when Harper Lee attended their high school adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.How cool is that!? Yay for the future writers and playwrights of Birmingham, Alabama, and for Ms. Lee, who was gracious enough to come out of her usually quiet life to honor the students with her presence and be honored in turn.

Philosophy isn’t a subject that most young adults spend much time on, but UK author Lucy Eyre has an original take on the notions of Socrates and other philosophical greats that might make philosophy identifiable again as something other than a line of cosmetics. The book, If Minds Had Toes sounds both whimsical, silly and deep, and worth looking at as reading for the more clue-full young person in your life.

All right… back to work.
sigh.

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Some Situations Need William Blake

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January 10, 2007

10:01 pm

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Uncategorized

Blake’s notebook from 1793 comments on the Poison Tree: “There is just such a tree at Java Found.” The tree is upas, which legend has endowed with the power to kill creatures for many miles around; its native name means ‘poison’.

I’ve always wondered about this poem… listed in Blake’s ‘Songs of Experience’ cycle, it is anger, hatred, Schadenfreude; pruned, watered and nurtured. Every other poem on earth warns us that it will be us lying beneath the tree if we bottle up anger, nurture it, etc. etc., but not our William. No warnings, just …somebody dies. Songs of experience, indeed…

I don’t often gloat, per se, but I’m getting to the point with an Unnamed Annoying Person that I’d like to see him poisoned and laid out beneath a tree, any tree. Preferably one I don’t have to look at. It’s ironic, since we’re allegedly supposed to be both working toward the good of one project or another, yet we’re at total cross-purposes, and it’s all because I’m a girl, and he’s a boy; I don’t have his degree but a degree in a different discipline, so he’s all follicle defying static electricity and spark that I’m “criticizing him” and trying to take over, and I spend at least seventy-five percent of our time interacting trying to soothe his stupid hormonally imbalanced nerves.

I so tire of people who are threatened by others with a few more creative ideas than themselves. I go back and reread that line, and it sounds snobby. Let me restate: It’s tiresome to feel required to have to contain yourself for the sake of the other people in the world who might feel threatened if you speak up and have an idea. It’s quite ridiculous, really, and I don’t know what to do about it, I truly don’t. I want to be a Nice Person. We girls all grow up knowing how important it is to be a Nice Person, and the more I deal with this Annoying Personage, the more I feel I am veering radically from Niceness. This is a scary prospect. I am a girl: thus I am supposed to be Nice. Who am I if I’m not nice?

It’s especially bad because I think females tend to grow up stifled. It’s something that we don’t even notice, and it’s hard to resist it. Yet, according to American Association of University Women (AAUW) report, Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America, there are plenty of ugly statistics (which probably also relate to girls and women in the UK and otherwheres) that include the fact that women and girls are routinely exposed to teachers and school-work frameworks from childhood up that erode their confidence. And it’s not like I’m beating the drum of “boys are the awful enemy,” either. Somehow, structurally, our society seems content with boys always being the winners, and the rest of us have to just hush up and take second place. It’s just baffling and scary that this feeling still exists when we’re no longer in school.

Maybe the real issue is that Annoying Person never left, in his mind. He’s still fourteen or something, with apologies to all the fine and upstanding junior high kids out there.

I don’t know what to do.

I’m trying not to water the Poison Tree.

But those apple blossoms smell so pretty…

Writing Along…

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January 10, 2007

9:16 pm

4 Comments on Writing Along…

On Writing

Wow, has anyone else been trying desperately to get Blogger to function for the past three days!!? Sorry for the lapses between posts… good grief! I think this is all a plot to get us all to update our systems… well, I’m GETTING to it! At some point. Anyway… today’s thought: I’m not dying for anything to do with Harry – my Potter of choice this month is Beatrix! I hold out the idea of seeing the newly released movie as a little treat to force me through all of the necessary tasks of my week. That and the pile of books next to the bed are my carrot and stick this month.

Now that the Cybils voting has been over for a couple of weeks, I’m in novel recovery, reading wildly all over the place and selecting books that are only on my personal list, plus the inevitable “random handful” that I gather on my way out of the library toward the self-check machine. I’ve gone British with Diana Wynn Jones’ Chrestomanci series, enjoyed being introduced to Joyce Lee Wong’s Emily, and I also hope to sink my teeth into the rest of the Middle Grade Cybils list as well as some standouts I’ve heard of like That Girl Lucy Moon, or one of Ellen Kushner’s fabulous swashbuckling historical fictions for girls in her Swordpoint series.

Thanks to the many blogs and bloggers out there, I’m picking up things I’d never considered reading before, and I’ve found some surprises that still resonate with me these many weeks later. Though not all of these ended up on our Cybil’s shortlist, there are a couple of novels that I truly enjoyed that came with the theme of “You Can’t Tell Me What to Do!” These rebel yells were found in:

Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet. Ever heard the saying “the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice?” It strikes me painfully that it’s not only American persons of color but many other cultures who favor a European beauty ideal. In India where this story takes place, Jeeta is taught that she is too dark to be happy, too dark to be fortunate, too dark to marry well. And frankly, marriage is all that seems to be on the table for her future. This quiet novel could have been even more direct, but three cheers for the idea of not letting society have all the say about what is beautiful, who deserves to be happy, and how we should all behave.

Adora is a girl who struck out against what she perceived to be an unfair class system in her high school. Tired of being on the edges of the crowd, this Fringe Girl stepped up to change things by using a class assignment. Of course, she wasn’t totally successful, because when she started, she wasn’t totally sure of what she wanted, or what to do once she got where she was going. I was a teensy bit disappointed that the novel didn’t go deeper into the implications of class and social structures, but I have great hopes for another novel-in-process called Latte Rebellion, which is also about a social movement gone wildly awry which involves race… and coffee.

Don knows that you can put up with anything if you have a goal. Even the thug beating him up during PE is something he can just sort of ignore, because he’s got a goal — something more real to him that school, friends, and the people around him, including his mother, the Half Alien to be, and his Stepfacist. (And wouldn’t that be a great group: Half-Alien & the Stepfacists?) The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl was one of my favorite novels because it is a bright and shining reminder that there’s life beyond high school — and that nobody can box you into their narrow idea of who you are unless you let them.

I read this book and was thrown back into a time when being disabled meant that you were treated like you were completely a non-person. Accidents of Nature was an eye-opener. I was riveted by both of the main characters. Jean believes that she is just as mainstream as everyone else, and acts that way, while Sara sort of rebelliously revels in her other-ness, and forces others to not only see her as inseparable from her disease, but to accept her as she is. This novel was tough to read at times, as the young adults with full physical abilities at times seemed criminally stupid or unfeeling, and I wondered if this was just a bitterness of the character, or a reality in the 70’s. The ending is fairly enigmatic, but this is a novel that sticks with you for a long time.

I was never much of a prairie novel fan, but Hattie Big Sky won me over because Hattie just has so much heart. Nobody thought she could do anything more than be somebody’s wife or somebody’s maid, and in the end, what she chose to do was, in fact, too hard for her (although in real life it wasn’t… and I’m still not sure why the author chose to have her fail. I know it’s more realistic, and most people DID fail, but Hattie didn’t…? Anyway…), but she still gave it her everything, in her own quiet, rebellious way. Beautiful.

Sneaking out to audition for Oye Mi Canto isn’t the most rebellious thing Ali does. She concentrates on being herself — which is the gutsiest thing of all. Adios to My Old Life was full of twists and turns of show-biz, and really enjoyable. Though things didn’t go the way Ali thought that they would, she still came away with success. One thing I liked was that success wasn’t narrowly defined. Other contestants in the show lived life in different ways — some loved adulation, some loved flirting and jewelry, etc., but there was no defining “this is the only way to do it” type of rhetoric. I loved that the Latino people were portrayed as intelligent and educated and as varied as peoples of all nations actually are. It’s actually vanishingly rare to see Latin peoples portrayed that positively, and I hope this book attracts all of the readers it deserves.

To round out my Super Seven, I chose Nothing But the Truth and a Few White Lies, which I had the privilege of reading before it was nominated. Despite its deceptively pink cover, this is a riot grrrrl book, and Patty Ho is kind of queen of the rebels, as she first rebels against every stereotype placed on her by both her Asian and non-Asian acquaintances, and then she escapes from the narrow role she’s defined for herself. She’s not an Egg, a Banana, or any other schizophrenic snack-oriented racial category. She is just herself: and that has to be good enough. This novel’s gift is that it transcends race, hapa-ness, and other categories to appeal to anybody and everybody who hasn’t fit well into the categories other people have carved out for them. This novel gives readers the gift of knowing it’s okay to fight to be oneself.

Others have shared the fun and frustrations of being on the Cybils panel with so many great books and so few to choose. Check out what Little Willow and Mindy have to say about their favorite Cybil picks which did or didn’t get onto our shortlist.

Meanwhile, is anyone else still thinking about resolutions…? The longer I delay writing them down, the longer I don’t have to do them, right? … Oh, okay. I’ll get to them. Soon.

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Extemporanea

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January 2, 2007

7:39 pm

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On Writing

Things meant to bedevil: the new ISBN thing. Thirteen numbers instead of ten. And why? Because we’re running out of numbers… sigh. I know I should go back and fix all of my websites and make sure they’re using the 13 number isbn’s, but… well… laziness. It’s a sad thing to encounter this early in a new year.

And this year is a Potter year, according to the UK Guardian. Even if I’m not in a lather over the final year of the Harry Potter series, I do think that writers ought to take note of how JK managed things. The Guardian had kept track of what she’s done to keep hold of the series — and no doubt it’s been quite a wrestling match for her. But she insisted that all the movies be shot in Britian with an all-British cast, and that the major film sponsor donate $18 million to charity. And everyone did just what she said. She’s told them to back off, she’s told them to jump, and everyone has said “how high.” Of course, people have also called her names and figured her to be a poor sport about all of her money and fame. It’s amazing how people expect to own you once they’ve put you in the position of having to run from photographers… No matter that I don’t think that her series is the best thing since sliced bread — and I do believe there are other much better fantasy writers — I do have to tip the hat to JK, and I wish her well for what’s next… because I fear that is when people will judge her most harshly. Not this year necessarily. But next year…

The Golden Fuse Awards are cool, and they remind me that I need to come up with Best Villain in our YA Cybil Nominees. I’m leaning toward the dystopic football coach in Rash, but I feel like that’s almost too easy. The bodyguard in Speedos in Bad Kitty? Just being in Speedos, while criminally unhip, isn’t actually villainous, exactly… Still thinking, thinking… We may also need to come up with a “What Were They Thinking?” category. Not for the authors, of course, but for the characters. Like Mary Shelley: Indeed, what was she thinking to run off with that fey poet? More to come, indeed…

Finally the world acknowledges what we already knew: that our Jack is the Poet Laminate of children. Or laureate. Whatever. I love that Prelutsky describes himself as “99% the same as the next guy.” It’s just that 1%… that makes him completely weird, believable and amazing.

I am crushed that Cynthia Lord’s Rules didn’t make it into the Cybil Middle Grade finalists. Then again, I know that the Middle Grade people had just as bad a last few weeks as we YAers, with so many excellent novels, and just so few slots… I’m so glad that the book was nominated. If you haven’t yet — go! Read! This I beg of you! Such goodness so easily discovered at your local library… sweater-clad librarians and chipper bookstore clerks await you! Go!

You know you want to create your own romance novel cover. Thanks to Bookshelves O’ Doom for the hilarious things-to-do-when-avoiding-actual-work assistance.

Ah, well. I suppose I should get back to that… Actual work thing…

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Finnegan, Begin Again: Thoughts on a Clean Slate

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January 1, 2007

11:15 pm

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Today

by Jean Little

Today I will not live up to my potential.

Today I will not relate well to my peer group.

Today I will not contribute in class.

I will not Volunteer one thing.

Today I will not strive to do better.

Today I will not acheive or adjust to grow enriched or get involved.

Today I might eat the eraser off my pencil.

I’ll look at the clouds,

I’ll be late,

I don’t think I’ll wash,

I need a rest.

By default (READ: I put my nose in a book and block out the sound), I “watch” this retarded survival show — retarded in that I think the guy is British Special Forces, he’s handsome and well-spoken and young and he’s got a wife and kid he obviously loves (and has spoken of them, once, in dire straits, teary-eyed) yet he’s somehow contrived to land himself with the most asinine television show ever — to strand himself in the most dangerous, cold, wet, hot, hostile and stupid places where he has to work like a Hebrew slave to get out of them alive — anyway, on this show, he’s always saying that in a survival situation you have to keep trying. You have to keep striving, keep planning. And if that plan doesn’t work, you have to try something else.

Striving. Was there ever a word so apt to bring on total exhaustion just in the hearing? Striving. Trying. Climbing. Those are the words people get fed up with in January, mainly because they’re spewed at high decible and with astonishing repetition from various television and radio sets. We’re all supposed to be shiny new — look better, think faster, do more. And yet, I’m trying to gain the courage to at least come down the bloody stairs and greet the new day. Struggling. Straining. Attempting.

It’s been such a nice vacation. A nice break from the screeching goad of working toward a goal. I could hear that screeching voice, but I keep drowning it out with pie… I have a few more days of grace, but I’ll be alone here with the worries and the paperwork mounting while everyone else goes back to punching the clock. And I’ll have another year before me of wondering if I’m wasting my time pursuing my artistic dreams.

Endeavoring. Seeking. Aiming.

Sometimes I don’t even feel like writing is especially …part of the “arts,” per se. I want to slouch around and swill bitter black coffee around in the bottom of my cracked mug and mutter about art being a bitch mistress, but really, I have a cushy office chair and am only locking myself in this little room to write. I think the bitch is that I don’t feel like anyone takes it seriously, and seriously, that’s MY problem, not art’s. This feeling of total despair at having to face another day and rip apart this novel for the umpteenmillioneth time is bogus, because hey – other people aren’t having a chance to be published, already. This I know. This attitude I will strive to adjust.

Striving. Trying. Climbing.

It’s no good. January 1, and already I need a break.

No worries. I do plan to keep trying… but tomorrow is soon enough.

Huzzah! A Clean Slate to Start Cybil-ing Again!

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January 1, 2007

8:08 pm

9 Comments on Huzzah! A Clean Slate to Start Cybil-ing Again!

On Writing

Propsero Año Nuevo!

It was the best of times, it was… okay, let’s be serious. Making up the shortlist for the 2006 Cybils Award was bloody hard. Really, at times it was agonizing. We argued and posted lists and whinged and lay on our keyboards. We let our cats type (heh) and groaned and tried to defend our choices while deconstructing the novels for their innate… pickability. It was days and days of work. We sweated. We toiled. We completely blew everything off, took naps (ahem) and ate too much holiday junk food.

But hey – it’s done. And now we can gloat. And we can also think gleeful thoughts toward the judges who are having one helluva time deciding how to whittle down our top 5. Judges, we await your decision with interest! (And relief that it’s not us!)

Some of the more indefatigable and creative members in our team came up with more fun things to do with our list of nominees — aside from reading all of them, I mean. Because it was so hard to let some of them… go… (sniff) and because we could only have five in our shortlist (and may I just argue for SEVEN next time?! Please?!), we gave some props to a few characters who we think that readers will love. Of course, not all of us actually agree on our nominations — you didn’t think we’d all reformed since our shortlist discussions, did you?

You can read full reviews on each and every one variously good, bad or unique books on our book review site, Readers’ Rants, and I hope you’ll check out ALL of the books nominated. I’ve been so fortunate to be a part of this! I’ve picked up and read books that I might never have discovered had they not been nominated. And that’s what this has been all about — bringing some of the best new books to light!

Cybils Nominee Valedictorian
Colin from An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Did you love Colin? Did you want to smack him? Did he remind you of that geeky someone in your high school chem class whom you secretly loved?

Most Likely to Win a Grammy
Ali from Adios to My Old Life by Caridad Ferrer (pop/rock)
Liz Scattergood from Blind Faith (classical)
Ali ROCKS. Props to Liz, too, but Ali was my grrrrl.

Most Likely to Kick Butt (Literally)
The Gallagher Girls from I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter
Halfdan Strongbowfrom Viking Warrior

Drama Queen (and Most Fashionable)
Ashleigh from Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman
I need to add Polly the BeDazzler Queen from Bad Kitty here. I mean, adventure plus a BeDazzler? Is she dramatic? Is she fashionable? People, do you know how hip she is?

Homecoming Queen
D.J. from Dairy Queen

Prom King & Queen
Nick & Norah from Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
Awww… This year’s favorite urban fairytale.

Cutest Couple (tie)
Rachel and Howard from Goy Crazy by Melissa Schorr

Most Haunting Inanimate
Death from The Book Thief
Fate from Just in Case
I’m going to vote for Death. Because Death – gender free – has a sort of airless sense of humor. Fate? Sarcasm. That I could so do without.

Most Artistic
Betsy from The Pursuit of Happiness
Fanboy from The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl
I never got to say how much I liked Fanboy. So cool. So …smart. So right about the alien life form in his mother’s womb. And the phrase “step-fascist!” Quel hilarious.

Super Sidekicks
Hassan from An Abundance of Katherines
Rudy from The Book Thief
Is it wrong to love Hassan in part because there’s so much of him to love? Will there someday be a book where a plus-sized girl is a wise-cracking, faithful, clear-eyed, hilarious sidekick AND where she gets a boyfriend, and it’s not some weird self-conscious screed constantly referring to her size? Inquiring minds…

Most Likely to Succeed
Leo Caraway from Born to Rock
Hahvahd? Of course that boy’s going places. Probably on a motorcycle…

Captains Courageous
Matthew from The Rules of Survival
Lakshmi from Sold
Courage – real courage – means accepting help sometimes. Two stories with impact.

Most Popular
Morgan Carter from More Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet
NO comment.

Most Ambitious
Meg from A True and Faithful Narrative
Hattie from Hattie Big Sky
We love Meg too, but Hattie’s our GRRRL! Even though they didn’t have riot grrls in rural Montana during WWI. But if they had? Hattie would have been all over it. Tenacious. Determined. Courageous. Fending off the Cute Boys and the Easy Way Out. Yay!

Class Bookworm
Liesl from The Book Thief
Cordelia from This is All
Cordelia deserves some kind of award for longevity. Not hers. Her keyboard’s.

Top Mathlete
Patty from Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies)
Ouch! Poor Patty still can’t catch a break. Top mathlete? When all she wants to be thought of is normal – and maybe popular, and maybe get awarded for something that has nothing to do with her being stereotypically Asian or stereotypically smart? I vote Patty for Super Sister and Stereotype Slammer. It’s not every high school that has this category – and hey – what Patty learned is that sometimes, you’ve gotta make your own.

Most Valuable Players
Bo Marsten from Rash
Toyo Shimada from Samurai Shortstop
I may not be much of a sports fan, but I like darkly humorous dystopia and the well-researched historical novel. I wondered why the besoburo boys had to pee so much, however! Indicative of something!?

Best Dancer
Estrella Alvarez from Estrella’s Quinceanera
Ah, family fights, bad outfits and parties. Reminds me of the holidays.

Amateur Sleuths
Jessica Ortiz from Hollywood Sisters: Backstage Pass
A Super Sister Sidekick.

CSI-in-Training
Cameryn Mahoney from The Christopher Killer
Details I never wanted to know.

Future Therapist (or always in therapy)
Ruby from The Boy Book
Look, people, if I had as cool a cool therapist as the gum-‘smoking’ Dr. Z, I’d stay in therapy forever. Ruby rocks!

Girl Next Door
Alice McKinley from Alice in the Know

Boy Next Door
Nathan from Blind Faith
I’m going to have to step in and disagree again — I think Fisher from The Real Question is my boy next door. He was such a Boy Scout – and then he found out that adults aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and that sometimes you have to kind of take risks to find out things you need to know. Another worthy boy-next-door is Craig from It’s Kind of a Funny Story, because truly, mental blips can happen to ANYBODY – even the boy next door.

Hippest D.J.
Owen from Just Listen

More random thoughts on Cybil Nominees Forthcoming!

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.