My Fictional Boyfriends – Cheating Round!
Why on earth would I write up an epic ode to Michael Moscovitz WHO IS SO SWOONWORTHY AND AWESOME AND OMFG MICHAEL IF YOU WERE REAL…., when my favorite site, Forever YA, already has done so? So just go read it, and know how devoted I am to his dreaminess.
Anthology Interview
There’s an interview with me up at the lovely Sarah Skilton’s blog. I discuss submitting a proposal, writing the essay, and working with an editor on revisions. Go read!
Filed under books, feminism, interviews | Comment (1)My Fictional Boyfriends – Round One
I started thinking about fictional boyfriends because all the lovely ladies at my new office are deep head-over-heels crazypants in love with… Edward Cullen.
Now, look, you guys. I (sometimes) think Robert Pattinson is pretty hot:
…but Edward would be a terrible boyfriend! He can’t even enjoy a good meal with you (unless you’re into biting fresh bunnies or something)! I’m a foodie, so what the eff would we do on dates if we can’t enjoy food together and we can’t get it on? Also he tells you what you can and can’t do! He watches you sleep, which would be a total dealbreaker for me:
…and not just because I’m a snorer and I prefer the boys not to get a whiff of that right out of the gate.
The same ladies mocked me for my High School Musical calendar, but lemme tell you something: Troy Bolton is a way better fictional boyfriend.
Firstly, let’s just get this out of the way: not only is his hair just as dreamy, IT’S ACTUALLY FRESHLY-WASHED. You just know it smells like conditioner and freshly-applied product, not freshly-eaten animals and forest twigs and cold marble. Because, you know, speaking of that, also HIS SKIN WOULDN’T FEEL LIKE COLD MARBLE.
Also: he is a good dancer, he respects musical theatre, and he’ll prioritize your college/career plans ahead of his own when necessary. OK, he’s not perfect. Sometimes he gets a little caught up in his fancy-pants friends and Italian shoes, and he eschews washing certain garments to bring luck to his basketball team, but he’ll dance it out and make amends. This is not a boy tethered too tightly to gender norms.
Next up, because I suppose I should try to balance out my TV and movie refs with LITERATURE, is If I Stay’s (and Where She Went’s!!) Adam. Ag, Adam. You’re dreamy too, and even though I assume you have spectacular emo hair and a punk rock DIY touring sched, I bet it’s relatively clean and fantastic-smelling.
But, YES, he’s a musician! But even though he’s rock ‘n roll, he’s gonna respect my dorky tastes too, as evidenced by just how much (HOW MUCH!) he got out of that Yo Yo Ma concert. Right? Oh, yes. Boys who are passionate about things – and by “things” I don’t mean “how your blood smells” – are boys I can get behind. And, um, other prepositional phrases.
Which leads me to my last point about Adam, which is that he doesn’t care about not besmirching your precious virtue or whatever. BESMIRCHING BE DAMNED. VIRTUE BE DAMNED. PRECIOUSNESS BE DAMNED. Swooooooon.
This concludes Round One of My Fictional Boyfriends. Stay tuned; there are more in store.
Filed under books, feminism, movies, television | Comments (2)Awesome Book #2
Book #2 is one of those I got kind of mad about after I read it because, GRRR, I DID NOT WRITE IT MYSELF! Same Difference by Siobhan Vivian totally moved the hell out of me and has stayed fresh in my mind even now, months and months after I read it. So I guess because of its awesomeness I can forgive it for springing forth from the mind of someone WHO IS NOT ME. Ahem.
(Maybe? I can work on it?)
There are a lot of big themes in Same Difference: self-identity, reinvention, artistic passion, independence. But I think what hit me hardest was friendship. (If you read Vivian’s first novel, A Little Friendly Advice, you know this is something she really knows from all angles.) For me growing up (and even now) friendship is not this little simple easy breezy joyful experience. It is messy and multilayered and complicated and sometimes causes you way more pain than your romantic entanglements (or at least as much). You think you get your friends, and sometimes you’re right (to your horror) and sometimes you’re way wrong (to your relief… or, right, maybe your horror). It’s scary stuff to grow up on your own alongside other people who are doing the same. You can only hope you’ll end up at the same stops along the way. (Hell, I’m in my thirties and these sorts of concerns still occasionally give me pause.)
So I admire Emily’s journeys – both literal, to art camp, and figurative, as she navigates new worlds within herself. Keeping the story tethered to this theme of friendship really made it drenched in reality for me. It would have been an easy way out for an old choice to prove stagnant and immature, or a new one to be impulsive and dangerous, but Vivian doesn’t take the easy way out with this one.
Also! There’s art! There are makeover-type scenes! There is a cute boy! GO READ IT!
Buy it from an indie bookseller now!
Filed under books, writers | Comment (0)BEDA… Again! Also, Awesome Book #1
Last year I blogged every day in April. That was kind of crazy. And for some reason? I’m going to do it again. This actually dovetails nicely with an idea I had to talk about some YA books I love. I was really inspired by this fantastic post my friend wrote. The whole thing is really A++ but I loved this:
I hate that people are ashamed of reading beautifully written, delightful, award winning books just because they come from the young adult section of the bookstore.
HELL, YEAH.
Anyways, then I got all hung up on award-winning vs. non, people I knew vs. big shiny superstars, popular vs. not, new vs. old, etc., and decided WHAT AM I DOING LET’S JUST TALK ABOUT SOME BOOKS I LIKE A LOT!
Book #1 is one I’ve been discussing a bunch lately: Albatross by Josie Bloss. Agh, this book is awesome. It’s not a fun read by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s compelling and emotionally honest and painful-in-a-great-way.
The obsessive relationship at the center of Albatross is tough to read, tougher to ponder. I obviously can’t speak for everyone but I know many of the people I know, myself included, have at times let an individual without my best interests in mind have too much control over my life. I admire how deftly Bloss handles Tess and Micah; even my brain THAT TOTALLY WANTED THE BEST FOR TESS got swept away by it all at times too.
Also, in this age of ALL-CONSUMING LOVE STORIES (I’m not naming names) that sometimes make me a little uncomfortable, it’s refreshing to see a take on obsessive love that’s painted as dangerous. I also really appreciated how easily this book could have been the tale of girl-on-girl hate as well, one of my pet peeves in sometimes-otherwise-upstanding YA lit, and skirted that thanks to Tess’s growth and realizations.
Also! There is music and family drama and swimming! DON’T MISS IT.
Buy it from an indie bookseller now!
Filed under books, links, writers | Comment (1)Inspiration
When I was growing up, I always assumed if you wanted to be a writer, you had to write Very Serious Books, and to get ready to do so, you had to read Very Serious Books. That was really hard for me because in general I did not like Very Serious Books. I liked Middle Grade series about girls who did cool stuff and kissed dreamy boys and had neat pets and, also, I enjoyed reading about girls like that who had Very Serious Illnesses, but they also did cool stuff and kissed dreamy boys and had neat pets. That stuff made me love reading but I was convinced it couldn’t have anything to do with what I wrote, and what I read to be a better writer.
The good news is that eventually (I’m really not comfortable telling you guys how “eventually”), I realized I didn’t have to write Very Serious Books, and that I could embrace all the inspiration I could wrap my brain around. I thought about the books that I loved growing up, and I thought about the books that totally inspired me to start writing YA. Guess what? Most of them were not Very Serious Books. Most of them were not even A Little Serious Books.
And that is why, everyone, I am super-psyched that this morning I received a notification that The Summer Before has shipped to me. I am going to read the crap out of it.
Filed under books, reading | Comments (4)Click
I’m very excited to announce that my essay about feminism changing my life will appear in the forthcoming book Click from Seal Press, which hits shelves on April 27.
About the book:
When did you know you were a feminist? Whether it was a scene in a television show, an experience in school, or a specific day at work, many women can point to a particular moment in which they knew—or realized—they were feminists. Accomplished young authors Courtney E. Martin and J. Courtney Sullivan offer a look at feminism in the lives of young women—and tackle the questions of what made them feminists, how they came to define themselves as feminists, and how that identity has shifted and grown over time.
Click features a range of women, including Amy Richards, Shelby Knox, Winter Miller, Allisa Quart, Rebecca Traister, Jennifer Baumgardner, and Debbie Siegel, each sharing their self-defining and personal stories. Sometimes emotional, sometimes humorous, each of these stories offers something to which other women can relate.
In a time of feminist reflection, Martin and Sullivan offer a look at feminism for the under-forty set.
About my essay:
Say, do you like stories about dead-end jobs, riot grrrl bands, and hopeful futures? Oh, good.
Filed under books, essays | Comments (5)This Post Is Working Titled
You know what I hate? Titling things. I am so bad at it. I have over 65,000 words of my current project, which means it is VERY CLOSE to being finished. But what doesn’t it have? A frigging title.
I got very lucky with my last book. One came to me that I loved, that summed up everything I liked about it, and I can actually imagine on the cover of a real book. Yes, hypothetical marketing teams could still change it, and that’s fine (well, not fine, I’d cry, but I’d deal), but it was a good title to query with, and I love when people ask me what it’s called and I tell them and they say “OOOH!”
Now I have friends who think I’m excellent at titling. But, friends, you are wrong. It was a fluke!
Filed under books, writing | Comments (3)And That’s Why You Always Leave a Note!
One year ago, only a couple weeks after I got my shiny new car, some jerkface mcgee scraped the back corner of it in the parking garage and didn’t leave any sort of note. I buffed it as best I could and used some touch-up paint, but I was honestly pretty devastated. MY NEW CAR. This was especially troubling because the main reason I got rid of my previous car was it appeared to be made out of no heavier a plastic than used to make cups for iced drinks at Starbucks.
Flash forward to this week. I arrived back at my car from a day writing at my usual coffeeshop only to find the same kind of damage. This time, however, there was a note!! And now, only a few days later, my beautiful car has been fixed and is beautiful again. Thank you, Note Leaver!
Now back to reading the books the library wants back.
Filed under books, reading, real life, technology | Comments (2)Book Club FTW
The Pardon My Youth YA book club at Skylight Books continues on in its vein of awesome. This month we read and discussed Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied (moderator the always-fantastic and hilarious Lisa Yee) with next month’s book selection Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas (of Veronica Mars, ya know, not Matchbox 20).
Honestly, it’s fairly lame that I am such a lover of books and discussion about books and arguing about books and the search for meaning in books and BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS that it took me to my early thirties before joining a frigging book club. So I beseech you: if you too think books are awesome, do not wait! Get thee to this book club! Or one in your own town! Do it! You will thank me, or at least be happy you followed my advice.
Other discussions had: why we are all pro-library, and how we organize our books. Does anyone else out there adhere to my method of fiction alphabetical by author’s last name, just like a book store? I find it soooo easy to find my books this way, even if keeping them in this order when getting a pile of new books can be a pain. I was definitely an odd ball out for this though.
Filed under books, bookstores, reading, writers | Comments (3)
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