Vote!

The time has arrived to select my official author photo and guess what?

My family is split on the opinion, so are my agents. I have yet to run the pics by my editor, but will be doing so very soon.

In the mean time I'd love to hear what you have to say. What photograph should become my author photo? I'd also like to thank the amazing Gina Monroe for her spectacular photography skills - I wonder where she gets that from (ahem...Ed?). Gina, you rock!

If you don't already know who Kiersten White is and that's she's awesome, go read her blog. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I'm snatching Kiersten's idea of having blog readers vote for her jacket photo.

Thanks for helping me with this decision!!

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Banned Books Week Adieu

Thank you for all the wonderful comments and thoughtful responses during my dedicated week of Banned Books Week posts. Thanks especially to Irene Latham for her wonderful guest blog yesterday (go buy her awesome book, Leaving Gee's Bend!)

A few last words on book bans and challenges. If it wasn't already abundantly clear...ahem, I'm against both. I'm taking a page from Carrie Harris who has a lovely BBW post on her blog today. Bans and challenges are about fear and the burden of replacing fear with understanding falls to us - the authors (and to readers, keep reading and talking about why reading widely and deeply is important!)

And because I love any Muppet-like creatures, I'd like to give the last word to the good folks at bannedbooksweek.org

Guest Blogger: Irene Latham

I'm honored to host author, and fellow Tenner, Irene Latham not only for her contribution to my Banned Books Week post, but because her book focuses on a wonderful subject very close to my heart - women's and family history!

Leaving Gee's Bend will be released January 7, 2010 (Putnam), but Irene has already bumped up against a book challenge. She's been gracious enough to share her experience here:

When I set out to write a novel set in the tiny, isolated African American quilt-making community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, I had no idea this was the work that would land me on the list of Authors of Banned Books. I had no idea that my family story, one that celebrates courage and survival and the power of home, would, by a committee at an elementary school, be reduced to one word: “afterbirth.”

As a mother of three sons, I’ve always been frank with my children. We don’t use euphemisms for body parts, we talk about sex and drugs and all the things that make us human, including birth. In fact, one of my kids’ favorite birthday rituals even now, at ages 9, 12 and 15, is pulling out the scrapbook and poring over pictures of me pregnant and those precious first moment of life outside the womb, complete with blood and vernix and umbilical cord. And what is the umbilical cord attached to? Ah, another miracle, the one that has by then served its purpose. And in 1932 Gee’s Bend, Alabama, the thing that was buried in the orange dirt beside the cabin.

The fact that this book was banned in Alabama, when I am an Alabama author and this is an Alabama book, is particularly disappointing. Anytime a group chooses to deny children a meaningful reading experience due to their own fears or discomfort is a tragedy. Especially when it is something as innocuous as “afterbirth,” a word that has nothing to do with sexuality or violence or competing religious beliefs. One might blame it on the “gross” factor, but I still see Walter the Farting Dog and Captain Underpants on the school library shelves. Which is why we need parents, more than ever, to read to their children, to choose stories that reflect the human experience in all its complicated glory.

And just as I was inspired by the brave, unadorned practical beauty of the Gee’s Bend quilts, I hope other readers will pick up LEAVING GEE’S BEND and experience it not as a book that contains the uncomfortable fact of afterbirth, but one that reminds us of the strength and grace that exists in each of us, no matter the year or place on the planet. That even if you are barefooted and don't have a map to guide you and the path is unknown -- go your own way. Create the life you want. And tell your story in whatever way that makes sense to you. Maybe even in a quilt.

Thank you so much for your post, Irene! Can't wait for the book!!

Side Swipes and Collateral Damage

If an an attempted ban doesn't succeed, can it really hurt the book/author?

YES.

To talk about why a challenge can be detrimental, I'm taking a page from Jennifer Hubbard, who has an amazing post on this topic.

Neil Gaiman, my hero (swoon), also weighed in on the same topic yesterday.

Mainly it's about fear and the market. Books are a risky business in the first place and the people in charge of acquiring them (particularly librarians) have ever dwindling resources with which to buy books. If a book seems like it might cause a big kerfuffle then it might run the risk of not being acquired, shelved, or sold in the first place. The question thus becomes not "should I pull this book," but "do I dare even acquire this book in the first place?"

Also hooray for Yvonne at The Organic Writer for another great Banned Books Week post and challenge! How many banned books have you read?

I'd Like to Thank...

Brief interlude from Banned Books Week - I just received a prompt from Editor Jill that I need to send her my dedication and acknowledgments so they can be included in the ARCs.

I had to read that email several times before I could process it because it had dedication, acknowledgments and ARCs in it (and also something about how I wanted my name to appear on the cover).

Reality just smashed through my window to stand grinning me before me holding two dozen roses.

How can this really be happening!!!!

I don't know if other writers are like this, but the acknowledgments and dedication are something I've day dreamed about over and over. Now that I have to write them I'm terrified that I'll forget someone - I am so indebted to so many people. Family, friends, teachers, strangers who did funny things that gave me scene ideas... I love you all and THANK YOU!

As to the dedication, that is tip top secret and no one will know until the ARCs materialize.

Voice, Silence, History

Last night I had the pleasure of taking a group of students to see Jump at the Sun. A one-woman performance based on the life of Zora Neale Hurston. The piece is part of a Federal Writers' project education outreach program in partnership with the St. Paul Public Libraries and was performed at Central High School in St. Paul by the phenomenal actress, Regina Williams.

While narrating the trials and triumphs of Neale Hurston, it's also the poignant biography of a writer's life. The love, the work, the pain.

Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!

The play's title, Jump at the Sun, comes from something Hurston's mother told her when she was a child.

Jump at the sun, baby
Jump at the sun
You may not land at the sun
But if you jump you'll get off the ground

Jump is the story of a woman who created despite incredible odds - it's about the way life and truth weave into our stories. As she said "in the end, writers always get even."

Hurston's work was panned by many (mostly white and male) literati of her age; even her male peers in the Harlem Renaissance harshly critiqued her work. Despite her extraordinary craft, Hurston died in poverty in 1960 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

I first read Their Eyes Were Watching God in AP English, my senior year of high school (hi Mrs. Heisler!!! Thanks for everything!)

Hearing passages from this book last night brought tears to my eyes, reminding me of her incredible gift for language.

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.

What I truly loved about this performance was that it was targeted at high school students. They filled the black box theater, enraptured by the skill of the actress and the power of her words, Hurston's words. I hope they all left filled by that same electric buzz that pulsed through my veins - something I experience when I've been touched by humanity at its best. And I hope they all believed more in themselves because of her:

Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it.

And just in case you were wondering - yes, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a banned book.

Speaking Out

Today's Banned Books Week post honors those authors/bloggers who are discussing the ways in which censorship affects their work. In a couple of days we'll hear directly from an author about her first encounter with school challenge to her book.

Ellen Hopkins - Crank took the book world by storm in 2004. Loosely based on her own daughter's addiction to meth and written fully in verse, Crank is beautiful, brutal, and deeply moving.

Ellen has gone on to write five more books, all of which deal with very difficult issues that affect teens. I had the good fortune of meeting Ellen at the San Francisco Writers' Conference last February and she is not only an amazing creative force, she is a kind and empathetic human being. She cares deeply about the lives of teens and has experienced first hand the hardships they face.

And Ellen is facing book challenges because of the risks she's taking in her writing.

Laurie Halse Anderson - Speak, Laurie's first novel and a National Book Award finalist, explores the trauma of rape in the life of an isolated teenage girl. Wintergirls sheds light on the darkness of teenage eating disorders. Because of their content, Laurie's books are also challenged.
Ellen and Laurie are two writers whose work I deeply admire, and their stories are representative of many, many more brave authors whose craft touches many lives and serves as a healing balm for readers who've dealt with the issues these writers examine. An argument made in challenges is frequently that parents should be the ones to address these issues rather than allowing difficult subject material to float freely on public library shelves.

In a perfect world that argument might fly, but many teens are without parents who are willing or able to discuss these topic. And many teens who've faced trauma might not know how to broach such subjects with adults - there may be no adults they trust in their lives. Ellen and Laurie, like other authors who deal with this material, offer safe spaces for teens to ponder and discuss the hardships they and their peers face in this world, their realities that are too frequently painful and frightening.

Thanks to Ellen, Laurie and others for your courage and craft!

I'd also like to give a shout out to fellow writer/blogger Tricia O'Brien at Talespinning who is doing an amazing Banned Books Week series of posts. Today - A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, one of my all time favorite books!