Bookworms Carnival: Local Authors

Welcome to the end-of-June edition of the Bookworms Carnival! For this carnival, bloggers were invited to submit posts about their local authors, and they came through with flying colors. Let's work our way across the United States (since unfortunately I had no submissions from outside the U.S. this time) from east to west.

Boston, Massachussetts: On the Boston Bibliophile, Marie reports on her recent book club meeting with Boston-based author Scott Pomfret who wrote about his life as a gay Boston Catholic in the memoir she recently reviewed, Since My Last Confession.

Philadelphia, PA: The Betty and Boo Chronicles wrote a thank you note to Carolyn Haywood for her 111th birthday, reminiscing about the personal note she got from Ms. Haywood as a little girl, in response to a fan letter.

Rhode Island: Jess at Barney's Book Blog reviews November 22, 1963, historical nonfiction about the assassination of JFK by Rhode Island author Adam Braver.

Washington DC: S. Krishna submitted a review of Meredith Cole's mystery novel, Posed For Murder.

Chicago: Rebecca Reid blogs about Carl Sandberg's first poetry collection, Chicago Poems and its relevance to the Chicago of today.

Salt Lake City, Utah: Natasha of Maw Books Blog has challenged herself to read every local author in existence, and she's well on her way! She has tagged all her Utah author posts, to make them easier to find. Here are some of the highlights:

--She just posted a review of Shannon Hale's new book, The Actor and the Housewife.

--Here's the story of the day Natasha's husband met author James Dashner on the train . . . and how they eventually became friends.

--A review of Carolyn Jessop's Escape . . . and the day Natasha's neighborhood book club (many of whom knew Carolyn when she used to live there) dressed up as characters from the book.

--A review of Emily Wing Smith's The Way He Lived, which was recommended to Natasha in an interview with another local author, Sara Zarr.

Washington state: Michele at A Reader's Respite has a post spotlighting Debbie Macomber, including a picture taken in the town one of Debbie's novels was set.

Portland, OR: Rodney Koeneke reviews poetry readings. Most recently, he writes about a reading by locals David Abel and Beverly Dahlen.

Here's my Beverly Cleary Tour of Portland.

I interviewed YA author Christine Fletcher, who is a local veterinarian as well as the author of Tallulah Falls and Ten Cents a Dance.

One day last fall, my kids and I happened upon Bart King and Eric Kimmel giving out free milk and reading Halloween stories at A Children's Place, one of our local bookstores. (By the way I just bought yet another copy of King's book, The Big Book of Boy Stuff, for a young friend's birthday gift).

And, I just interviewed author Miriam Gershow, who used to live in Portland but now is a couple of hours away in Eugene. Her debut novel is The Local News.

California: Fizzy Thoughts takes us on a literary tour of San Luis Obispo county (home of Jay Asher of Thirteen Reasons Why fame, among other authors--and my parents!--and the setting for several Christopher Moore books).

Laura, of I'm Booking It, lives in the Silicon Valley, California, and has contributed her review of The Wednesday Sisters. She says, "I picked up the book at a local bookstore event, largely because it was set nearby."

Laura also has a review of The Writing on my Forehead, by Nafisa Haji. She says, "The author is here in Northern California, and the themes are very relevant in immigrant-heavy Silicon Valley.

Hawaii: Dreamybee had a heartwarming chance encounter with author John Orr at the beach.

Have you had an encounter with a local author? Are you more likely to give an unknown author a try if they're from your hometown? Do you notice where authors call home?

To submit a post for an upcoming Bookworms Carnival:

Edition 33 Theme: Whatcha Reading? – Your latest review or your favorite
Deadline for submission: July 10 2009
To submit a post, email: bookwormscarnival at gmail dot com

Edition 34 Theme: YA Fantasy
Hosted by: Bella at A Bibliophile
Deadline for submission: July 24, 2009
To submit a post, email: bellalee.mc at gmail dot com

The Local News--Miriam Gershow (book review and author insight)

The Local News, by Oregon author Miriam Gershow, is not so much the story of a missing teen. It's more the story of the resulting uncertainty and sorrow on the family left behind.

In many ways, fifteen-year-old Lydia is better off without her big brother around--Danny and his friends used to tease or ignore her; now she has near-celebrity status at school and is even included in his friends' social circle. Her parents are lost in their grief, but then again she always did come second to her brother. And, while she's somewhat nostalgic for the childhood Danny, truthfully she didn't like him all that much as a teen. The result is a complex protagonist with a riveting story to tell.

The story is told in hindsight, from the perspective of Lydia as an adult, and in fact the final forty pages take place ten years later. I had mixed feelings about this ending, and was glad to have the opporunity to ask author Miriam Gershow about this as well as other aspects of her writing process with this, her debut novel.

Ali: I'm always interested in the process by which a story unfolds in a writer's mind. Did you know from the start what had happened to Danny, or did you play around with different outcomes as you were fleshing out the story?

Miriam: There were very few things I knew at the outset of the book. I had only the briefest of sketches in mind: this would be the story of a girl whose brother disappeared and that girl would have ambivalent feelings about the disappearance. Everything else unfolded as I went along. However, one of the few things I knew was the outcome to Danny’s disappearance. I didn’t know the specifics, but I did know generally how it would be resolved. That outcome just made the most sense for me, in terms of the story I wanted to tell about Lydia and how she grew up and through this experience.

Yes, I thought the outcome was fitting. But there was one point where the private investigator started looking in a direction which totally took me by surprise, so I was curious whether you'd explored that possibility through writing it out. It could have been a totally different story!

Indeed, it could've gone in a different direction, though the whole time I was writing the Denis/investigation sections, I knew exactly the outcome of things.

What did you struggle with in this book? Was there one particular scene or character that was tough to write?

I have to say, I was very, very blessed with the story coming to me with a minimum of thrashing and flailing about on my part. Often, I really have to wrestle with projects for them to become manageable to me. That largely wasn’t the case with The Local News. Now my current project, that’s another story. But Lydia’s voice hooked me from the start, and following her though these events was–for the most part–not a tremendous struggle.

That said, I definitely had a harder time with the scene that comes about three-fourths of the way through the book, where Lydia has a big confrontation with someone on the sidewalk of a nearby neighborhood. I’m trying to describe it without spoiling it for those who haven’t read the book yet. In that scene, I was pushing Lydia past her normal limits and defenses, and it was quite a bit of work – and quite a few drafts – to get myself and her there. That’s probably the scene that I lost the most sleep over and shed the most tears – mostly cathartic ones – in the process of writing.

I remember that scene well, and the thing that stuck out for me about it was that I realized I had no idea what Lydia was going to do. It was at that moment that I realized how much she'd lost her way, through all that had happened.

That’s satisfying to hear, as that was exactly my intent.

Though the book is written from an adult perspective looking back on her teen years, it seems to me that teens would be drawn to it, too. Has there been any thought to marketing it as a crossover adult/YA book?

There hasn’t been thought to marketing it as a YA book. I have always thought of this as an adult novel, maybe because of the interiority of much of it, or the spots of brutality, or just because I’ve always seen myself as an adult fiction writer. However, when I was fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, I was reading adult fiction. I agree that teens could very much be drawn to this story. A dear friend’s 14-year-old daughter recently read it and loved it. So I can only hope more teens will do the same, even if I don’t consider it specifically a YA book. Certainly, the more readers who can relate to Lydia and relate to the story, the happier I am as an author.

The last 40 pages jump ahead 10 years, giving an Epilogue-ish feel to the end. Could you tell me a little bit about why you decided to do that? Did you ever consider ending the book at a different point?

Like I said, I didn’t have a clear vision of the whole structure of the book when I began writing it. But relatively early on, I started to think that the final part of the book had to take place when Lydia was an adult. It seemed to me that a trauma like this couldn’t be resolved at the point when it occurs. Years would have to pass before someone could begin to truly make peace with such an event. So I knew the book couldn’t end when Lydia was still a teenager.

That makes sense. A person really doesn't get closure on certain things without the perspective that only time can offer.

And on a purely selfish level, I really wanted to write a reunion scene. I wanted to see how all the other Franklin High characters, who I had very much come to love, had fared in adulthood. Originally the scene was much longer, with details about even more of the secondary characters. Smartly, it was edited down to its essentials before publication. But clearly I had a real need to revisit these characters and make sure everyone turned out okay.

I liked seeing how everyone turned out, too. Although in some ways the epilogue (if I can call it that?) left me with more questions than answers about Lydia, and whether she would ever be okay.

I've heard that response from other people too. I’m wary of saying too much about my intent, because I respect reader interpretation. I’ll say this -- I definitely wanted to present a realistic version of grownup Lydia, where she still has some of her same quirks and neuroses. And I never wanted a pat happy ending. But in that final section, especially in terms of Lydia’s interactions with her mom and with her classmates, I wanted to show some softening and opening on her part, which could then at least leave the possibility of a more hopeful future for her.

I like to pick a song for every book I review--one that somehow encompasses the characters or the story, or sometimes a song that occurs within the story. I haven't settled on one for The Local News yet. Any suggestions?

Such a good, hard question. This had me stumped for a while. I couldn’t settle on one, so I picked a pair, which I think together capture the flavor of The Local News.

The first is Richard Buckner’s Slept. Buckner is one of my all-time favorite artists. He is mournful and melancholic, yet also so evocative and compelling. I certainly think this song captures the darker, sadder, more contemplative side of this story. But Lydia’s also a pistol. She’s a survivor and the liveliness of her voice is what pulled me through the story, and what I hope pulls readers through, as well. So I’d have to combine Buckner’s melancholy with something more upbeat and rebellious and defiant. Who better than some early Ani DiFranco? Thirty-Two Flavors comes to mind as a great anthem for Lydia.

You've introduced me to a new artist! I'm listening to the Richard Buckner song right now on last.fm and loving it. I'll definitely be looking for more from him to add to my mp3 player. And I'm familiar with Ani DiFranco, but Thirty-Two Flavors is a new song for me. You're right, it's perfect for Lydia. "I am the poster girl with no poster." I love it. Thank you!

The Local News is also reviewed on The Boston Bibliophile, as well as other stops on the TLC Book Tour. Don't miss Miriam's essay about the connection between birthing a novel and becoming ready for parenthood at Books on the Brain.

Boy Toy--Barry Lyga (book review)

I wasn't going to read Boy Toy. In fact, I suggested that Barry Lyga not send it to me at all, but wait and send it directly to the winner of the giveaway so as to save me a trip to the dreaded post office. And when it arrived in the mail, I still had no intention of reading it. Just, maybe the Prologue. You know, to see what it was about.

Or, just the first chapter. . . or, well, maybe two. Two chapters, tops.

You know how this ends, right? Like that Alka-Seltzer commercial from the seventies: I can't believe I ate the whole thing. Except, I didn't eat it. It was a signed copy, after all.

The basic gist: 18-year-old Josh hasn't seen his 7th grade teacher, Eve, since the trial that sent her to prison after she initiated a sexual relationship with him when he was 13. Now she's out of prison and Josh finds himself finally dealing with emotions and guilt that he'd been burying for five years.

We see the story through three filters: 13-year-old Josh's in the flashbacks, 18-year-old Josh's as he narrates the story, and the reader-filter that allows us to understand things in a way that neither version of Josh is able to see. This balance is crucial, because neither of Josh's perspectives are what an adult would call "true," and yet they are what makes the story believable.

I'm not explaining this very well. Let me find an example.

Here's a flashback to the early parts of Josh's relationship with his teacher, when she first started having him over to her apartment after school. She always had a glass of wine after school, and this was the first time he had accepted her offer to try a sip.

She looked serious all of a sudden. "But really, Josh--you can't tell your parents I let you do this, OK? I could get in a lot of trouble."

Over a little sip of wine? Puh-lease. But whatever--I wasn't going to tell my parents anyway. "Don't worry about it."

(Boy Toy, Barry Lyga, p. 150)

So we get the 13-year-old voice ("puh-lease"), the 18-year-old memory ("I wasn't going to tell my parents anyway") and we view this scene with knowledge that Josh hasn't internalized: that this woman was grooming him, the way sexual predators do, easing him into keeping secrets from his parents.

The bulk of the story isn't about what happened when Josh was 13, though, it's about what happens when he's 18, mentally preparing himself for college away from home and figuring out the kind of adult he wants to be. It also goes into fairly explicit sexual details, so, while the voice and the story will appeal to teens, I consider it to be an adult novel (knowing that teens are perfectly capable of reading and appreciating adult novels, including this one).

Would you like to have my signed copy of Boy Toy? Drawing will be June 30. (It was July 1, but I want to mail it out on the 2nd so I've decided to do the drawing on the 30th)

The Soundtrack: I nearly rejected Salt n Pepa's Boy Toy, because although it shares a title with the book, I can hardly bear to listen to it. But then I read this deleted scene on Barry's website, on which he says Josh has terrible taste in music. It seems fitting to choose a song I wouldn't listen to if I found it on Josh's Ipod.

Publication Info: 2007, Houghton Mifflin. Available in hardcover and paperback.

Reading Down Memory Lane

I decided to go back to my old LibraryThing records and pull up my favorite reads that fit in with the Gay Pride Month theme. Now that I've done it, it was so fun that I may make this a regular thing--pulling old reviews that somehow tie together with a theme.

A Home At The End Of The World, by Michael Cunningham

This is still one of my all-time favorite books, and after overcoming my fear that his other books would dash my expectations and leave me despondent, I went on to read, and love-love-love, every book Cunningham has written (that link is to my gushy post about him). Rumor has it he's contemplating writing the screenplay for a slasher movie after his next novel. If so, it'll be the first slasher movie I ever go see. He'll probably manage to make the slasher lovable. Here's what I wrote in May, 2007:

I don't reread books very often, but this is one of those books where you read a passage and it so succinctly captures a moment, scene, or character, that you have to read it again just to take the whole thing in. Then you want to look up from the book for a minute to absorb it, read it again, and then dive back into the story to find out what happens next. This is the first book I've read by Michael Cunningham and I'm afraid to read any more. But, I'm going to anyway.

It's the story of two childhood friends, Jonathon and Bobby, who drift apart and together again throughout their lives because they can't quite admit to being in love with each other. They find various ways to be together, along with Clare, who becomes the mother to a baby that is biologically Bobby's but emotionally just as much Jonathon's child. They build a life together. But the brilliance in this book is the way it presents the characters in all their imperfections, the way they don't do what you want them to do and you understand why. No, the briliance is how it's written, actually. The plot is secondary. I need to go read it again.

My Heartbeat, by Garret Freymann-Weyr

I read this long before starting my LibraryThing account, so it's not in my library. The fact that I still remember it speaks volumes about how much I loved it, because I started on LibraryThing to keep authors and titles from flying out of my head so quickly. The gist: Ellen is 14 and fascinated by the close relationship between her big brother Link and his best friend James. When she developes a crush on James, she comes to realize that his relationship with her brother is more complicated than she had thought. This is so well done. I can't believe I haven't read any of Freymann-Weyr's other books--just got her latest from the library and it's calling to me over the top of my book pile.

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill

I picked this up because of my penchant for Irish fiction. Though my 2007 review was mixed, I find that I remember it fondly in hindsight:

I enjoyed parts of this book very much. O'Neill does a brilliant job of unfolding the relationships between people and letting them grow and contract in a very natural way. I read several of the scenes (no, not just the racy ones) two or three times because they were so beautifully laid out.

It was a little hard to understand at times, not because of the dialect ('tis very Irish, so it is--if you like the lilt of Frank McCourt's 'Tis you'll love this) but because of the author's style. Incomplete sentences. Thoughts unfinished. Many words on the page, one after the other, the way words normally occur, and yet—. Sometimes describing thoughts and at other times, the scene. Confusing.

The book takes place in 1915-1916, just before the Easter Rising that resulted in the independence of the Republic of Ireland, and it puts the reader into the middle of that conflict. This is good if you like history, which I do. If you didn't I think it might pull you away from the story, trying to figure out which side is which and how it all connects. I never did quite figure out which side a couple of the characters were on--or maybe that was the point. And, well, I didn't love the ending, but that's personal preference--it was very well done, it just wasn't the exact ending I would have chosen.

The Lost Language of Cranes, by David Leavitt

Okay, my review of this looks pretty critical, but I had friends who adored this book so I was coming at it from that vantage point. In fact, one person told me that if I'd liked A Home At the End of The World (still on my all-time favorites, list, remember) I would love this. So, I wanted to be blown away. Here's what I wrote after I finished it:

I wasn't impressed with this one. Leavitt has a tendency to tell us what's happening, then take three steps backward to tell us what led up to that happening, filling in the even earlier backstory along the way. The result is that you read 10 pages to find out: Owen is walking somewhere. His wife is home working (and they have to either buy their apartment or move, and they have a grown son, here's what his apartment is like, and here's what they talked about when she had lunch with him one time and then she took a cab ride but that was another day because now we're back in the apartment hearing about how her husband was gone when she woke up and now it's page 14 and she's working, like she was on page 4, and she's going to go for a walk.) Then we meet the son and his lover, but now we're going back 3 weeks to read the story of how they met.

Novels don't have to be completely linear, but I began to feel like I was floundering around inside this one, trying to find the story, trying to figure out if anything was actually going to happen that related to the situation the author chose to begin his novel with. (It does, but by the time it did I cared less than I had at the beginning.)

Some of the dialogue seems contrived. Phillip sounds like a bad parody of a mental health counselor: "I miss her. I feel very sad about it." And some of the conversations between father and son toward the end of the book, I just found impossible to swallow, which in turn made the relationship seem false. Since that relationship was a pivotal part of the novel, it was disappointing to say the least.

Do you have a favorite book or author to highlight for Gay Pride month? Why not participate in this month's Diversity Roll Call here on Worducopia?

Striving for Greatness

My boys still talk about the hamburger guy, though it's been years since that day.

I don't usually give money to panhandlers, always telling myself that I would, if only there was some guarantee that a dollar handed over would make a life easier, rather than contributing to an addiction. So when the bedraggled young man hovering near the door into Burgerville asked if I had any money so he could buy a hamburger, I paused.

"Do you want a hamburger, or a cheeseburger?"

He hesitated, then looked me in the eye for the first time and spoke with conviction. "A cheeseburger."

My kids and I went inside. The line was long, and by the time we got our food I wondered if he'd moved on, if I'd called him on his bluff. But he was still there, duffel bag at his feet, ignored by every passer-by. He looked startled when I spoke to him. He looked suddenly shy. He looked like somebody's little boy all grown up with no place to go.

"Still want that cheeseburger?" I handed it over, now wishing I'd gotten a bigger size, that I'd ordered a drink to go with it, and French fries. I accepted his thanks and went back to my boys, who had thirty-six questions about the man and who he was and why he was there and why I bought him a cheeseburger and whether I'd done things like that before.

In the book Something Beyond Greatness, Judy Rodgers and Gayatri Naraine examine stories of people who've gone beyond the realm of the simple good deed; people who have risked their life to save somebody, or significantly altered their own life to make a difference in the world.

In these beautiful stories, we began to make out the contours of an emerging pattern. It had three elements: 1) seeing with love, 2) acting with the heart, and 3) the mystery of destiny—right place, right time.

There are plenty of stories and lots of information in this 122-paged volume, but the section that really stuck with me was the research of psychologist Jonathon Haidt, who studies moral emotions. Haidt describes the feeling people get when they witness someone giving help to another in need:

Elevation is a warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of human goodness, kindness, and compassion. It makes a person want to help others and to become a better person himself or herself.

No, a middle class mother of two who buys a 99 cent burger for a stranger is hardly representing Greatness, much less Something Beyond it. It's not even the nicest thing I've ever done. So why did the book bring it to mind?

Maybe because I experienced the same three elements, though on a smaller scale, that Rodgers and Naraine found in the acts of greatness that they studied. Or because the fact that my kids still think about it is evidence of its impact on their psyches. Whatever the reason, Something Beyond Greatness inspired me to open my eyes wider as I trundle through life, not to wait for the "right place, right time" to present itself, but to seek out opportunities to see with love and act with my heart.

What's the nicest thing you've ever done for someone?

The Soundtrack: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

For more information about this book, please see the other sites on the TLC Book Tour.

Nerds Heart YA--Bracket 4

For our bracket of the Nerds Heart YA book tournament, Lenore and I judged two books with surface similarities. Both are realistic contemporary fiction, and both feature protagonists who don't fit in at a new school after moving from another city.

Teens who have experienced a family illness or other disruptive life change will likely appreciate Alive and Well in Prague, New York, whose main character has moved from New York City, because her parents feel that life in rural upstate New York will help them better cope with her dad's debilitation from Parkinson's disease.

Matisse thinks this is their worst idea ever, and she responds by whining about everything, avoiding people, and being rude. On the plus side, this seems realistic, and leaves a lot of room for character growth. On the minus side—ever spent time with a whiny teen who didn't want to be there? Reading the first half of Alive and Well is like that. Inside that grouchy obnoxious teen is a lovable person waiting to emerge—but in the meantime, you kind of want someone to slap them.

Matisse's parents (who, regrettably, don't slap her) and new friends in Prague are well-drawn, add comic relief, and help carry the story along instead of letting Matisse bog down in self-pity. But, a few plot elements (a misguided romance, an old friendship) drop out of sight as soon the action picks up, and some of the "mean girls" elements left me cold. Do teens really like that kind of stuff, the snooty cheerleader getting her come-uppance?

Lenore's review of Alive and Well in Prague, New York

Albert (Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before) has accepted his status as a social misfit, shutting himself down emotionally to the point where he doesn't bother trying to fit in with anyone but the sixth graders who hang out next door. A summer spent working with Mia at a local hotel changes his outlook. Albert tells us from the start that his relationship with Mia will fail, which adds tension to what might otherwise come across as a sweet love story, Albert and Mia bonding as they evade their boss and try not to finish the job before summer ends. You could trip over the foreshadowing here.

So, events conspire to keep Mia and Albert from their happily-ever-after—some of them the type that you might expect from a dorky-guy-and-popular-girl-fall-in-love kind of book, but there are plenty of surprises, too. Albert's mannerisms are painfully realistic--his dorkiness has more than its share of cringe-worthy moments, which contributes to the story's unpredictability. One minute things are going great for him, the next minute he does something utterly stupid that sends it all to Jupiter in a go-kart. At the same time, his emotional distance and sense of humor offer a unique perspective on high school social life.

One thing I wished for in this book was for the minor characters to be developed more. Billy, the 6th grader next door, could have added depth to Albert's floundering attempts at building relationships, but instead he's treated as more of a plot device. I'm still not sure what Yoo was going for with Albert's cardboard-cutout parents. He effectively shows the impact of being raised in an immigrant family--

It's not that they're phony in a malicious way; rather, it's that they talk phonily because they're thoroughly clueless and think it's how they're supposed to talk in this country. In keeping with the fifties feel to everything in our house, they unknowingly model themselves after Ward and June Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver.

--but takes it to an extreme of caricatured proportions.

Lenore's review of Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

So, which of these two worthy books advances to the next round in the tournament? Because of the narrative voice and the unique storyline, I think Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before is the clear winner. Stop Me will go on to compete against either I Know It's Over or Feathered, depending on which one Natasha of Maw Books picks today!

Other brackets:
1) My Most Excellent Year wins over The Opposite of Invisible
2) The Last Exit to Normal wins over What They Always Tell Us

3) Feathered wins over I Know It’s Over
4) Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before wins over Alive and Well in Prague, New York (read Lenore's post)

5) Cracked Up to Be wins over The Shape of Water
6) The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second wins over Debbie Harry Sings in French

7) The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine wins over Leftovers
8) The City of the Lake wins over Pretty Monsters

Diversity Roll Call: It's About Pride

June is officially Gay Pride Month in the U.S., so I thought we'd take the opportunity this week to look at some books by gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or queer (GLBTQ) authors, and/or that deal with GLBTQ issues. Do this in whatever way suits you best, but here are several ideas for you and lots of resources to help.

a) Post a list of books you would recommend which happen to be written by authors who identify as GLBTQ, or a list of books you recommend which address GLBTQ issues.

--or--

b) Write a post that highlights a GLBTQ author or book.

--or--

c) Haven't read any that you can think of? Bet you have, without realizing it, but if not, give yourself a challenge assignment--find one, read it, and blog it. Hopefully others will post their lists to help you out (I'll try to get a list done this weekend) and there are several resources below. Give yourself more than 2 weeks for this if you need to.

--and/or--

d) Sign up for the GLBT Reading Challenge and make your reading list for it (Mine is here:GLBT Reading Challenge).

Resources
The Lambda Literary Awards seek to recognize excellence in the field of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender literature
The African American Literature Book Club lists AA gay and lesbian books
GLBTQ.com has lots of information about literature, sorted into a huge variety of time periods, racial/ethnic identities, and genres.
Wikipedia's trained monkeys have put together extensive lists of gay writers and lesbian writers

I'm going to try the pop-up Mr. Linky this week and hope for the best, but if it doesn't work feel free to post your link in the comments as well.



The C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call is a biweekly meme, co-hosted by myself and Susan of Color Online, with the goal of promoting diversity in reading. No need to enroll, no need to fit a particular mold--just join on in! We'd love to hear from you.

Barry's Blogger Book Bonus

Contest winner has been drawn via Random.org--congratulations, Robin_Titan!

Author Barry Lyga asked for help giving away signed copies of his young adult books, and being the altruistic supporter of all things literary that I am, I'm stepping up to the plate. Even though this could very well require me to perform a task which I generally greet with the same enthusiasm as spending a night wandering through a swamp full of hungry, malaria-infected mosquitoes. (Translation: if you're one of those people who occasionally sees me in real life, so that I could get the book to you without a trip to the dreaded post office, I'll give you one thousand entries! Okay, one hundred. Okay, one. Please enter, so I can give you that one entry. Consider it a favor to me.)

So, I have a brand new (oops, I just read the prologue) gently used signed paperback copy of Lyga's 2007 book Boy Toy, winner of that year's Cybil Award.

[Ed: see my review] Here's what School Library Journal had to say in their starred review:

"For the past five years, Joshua Mendel has struggled with the aftermath of being sexually abused by his seventh-grade history teacher. Now a high school senior, he still experiences 'flickers,' his name for vivid, mini-flashbacks of his times with Eve. He still refuses to associate with Rachel, his seventh-grade romantic interest whose insistence on a game of spin the bottle at a party led to the exposure of his abuse, a trial, and Eve's imprisonment. Rachel is eager to resume their long-abandoned tentative romance, Eve has been released from prison, and Josh wants nothing more than to win a baseball scholarship to a college far from his small town where he feels certain everyone knows about his past. Despite years of counseling, Josh is unable to move on until he reveals the complete details of his experiences with Eve to Rachel and to his friend, Zik, and finally learns to accept the truth about it. Short groups of chapters set in the present alternate with much lengthier segments entitled 'Flashbacks, Not Flickers,' in which Josh describes his relationship with Eve from the beginning to the emotionally wrenching trial. The well-paced plot begins slowly, describing Eve's initial approaches to Josh as she wins his confidence and loyalty, then speeds up as their more frequent contacts move into the realm of inappropriate teacher/student behavior. Lyga's skillful writing subtly reveals Eve's cleverly calculated abuse of Josh in a way that older teens will find fascinating, distressing, and worthy of their attention." --Ginny Gustin, Sonoma County Library System, Santa Rosa, CA

This book is recommended for ages 16 through 106.

To enter, post a comment including your email address and anything else you'd like to say about Barry Lyga, or young adult books, or the post office, or...? Winner will be announced on June 30, 2009. In accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, you must be 13 or over to enter.

Lyga is also having a book trailer contest to mark the launch of his upcoming book, Goth Girl Rising. It looks like a lot of fun, and everyone who enters will win something, so go check it out after you've entered here!

Poetry

I'm reading a book by local poet Sage Cohen, called Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry. I wish I was far enough into it to be inspired in response to Susan's challenge to write some poetry, but my poetic synapses don't seem to be firing yet because I can't even come up with so much as a haiku.

So here's a poem by Lucille Clifton. What I like about it is the way she uses one part of her body to represent acceptance of herself. Instead of worrying that her hips are too big, she equates their size with power and freedom. Listen to her read it on Poets.org: Clifton's voice and expression really make the poem live.

Homage to My Hips

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top

The next edition of the C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call will be found right here, this Friday. The topic? Here's a hint from President Obama.

Who's Your Local Author? Bookworms Carnival, coming up!

I take it for granted, this vibrant community of artistic and literary folks I live in. Everyone here seems to know someone who's writing a book, or who has a stall at Saturday Market, or who works for the library or one of the locally-owned bookstores (or all of the above). Just the other day my friend Elizabeth mentioned that she plays cello regularly with Virginia Euwer Wolff. I could never keep up with the dozens of successful authors that call Oregon home.

But I know I'm not the only one with local author stories to tell, so for the next Bookworms Carnival, I'm offering you the chance to showcase your local lit scene. Could be an author interview, a book review, a story about an author or local book event. Could be an ode to your local bookstore or library. Maybe you're an author yourself with something to say about the town you live in.

To participate, submit a link to your post (or email your article to me if you don't have a blog), to Worducopia-at-gmail-dot-com. The deadline is June 26, 2009.

And in the meantime, check out the most recent Bookworms Carnival--Paranormal Fiction.

Final Winners and Last Call

Here are the final winners in the Parenting/Nutrition book giveaway from Hachette Book Group. Those who are winning for the first time have until the weekend to contact me with their mailing address. Those who are carry-overs from previous weeks have until Thursday, after which I'll draw new winners for those books.



N.D.D. Book: Marion (I've got your address, Marion, so you're all set)
G-Free Diet: Food Allergy Assistant
If Your Kid Eats This Book: Jeane

Aya--Marguerite Abouet (book review)

I so wanted to love Aya. As soon as I read about it on The Boston Bibliophile, I put a hold on my library's copy. A semi-autobiographical graphic novel set in the Ivory Coast! A glimpse back in time to 1978, before civil unrest wracked that part of western Africa, with illustrations by Clement Oubrerie to add to the ambience.

I didn't like it much.

Don't get me wrong, parts of it are funny or enlightening. In fact, any given page, taken on its own, has merit as a slice of life in another time and place. The problem comes in following the author's train of thought as she weaves the storylines together.

At first I couldn't figure out what my problem was. Abouet had gone to the trouble of introducing the major characters and their relationships to each other in the first few pages. So why the need to flip back to those pages repeatedly, as if I were attempting a complicated recipe? And why, even after checking the "recipe" two or three times, was I still confused?

It's all about point of view. The story is told in first person from Aya's point of view, but Aya isn't the focus of every scene. In fact, she's not even present much of the time. Here's her friend Bintou alone in her room. Here's a group of teens hanging out (but which one's Aya? No, she's not there). Here's Aya's friend--or is that Aya? No, because Aya was wearing a red dress--having private time with a boy.

Even when this wasn't baffling enough to send me back to page two, it distanced me from the story and kept me from connecting to any of the characters. Such a shame, because Abouet has created some wonderful, quirky characters from the friends and neighbors she remembers from her childhood in the Ivory Coast. Maybe she should have entitled it Friends of Aya, since that's who the story seemed to be about.

The Soundtrack: Ernesto Djédjé was a popular musician out of the Ivory Coast in the seventies. Here he is singing Ziboté (this video is still pictures only so shouldn't take too long to load). Who cares if I liked the book or not? Time to dance!

Into the Beautiful North--Luis Urrea (Book Review)

Luis Alberto Urrea's Into The Beautiful North is a road trip story with a twist. Three nineteen-year-old girls and Tacho, their gay male friend, are on a mission to save their village, which they've suddenly realized has lost all its men to the North. In an effort to recreate the heroics of the movie The Magnificent Seven, they aim to cross the U.S. border and bring seven Mexicans back to Tres Camarones with them to defeat the drug dealers who they fear will take over the town.

The naivety of Nayeli and her friends is part of the charm as they set off on their trek to the United States. Urrea is an artist when it comes to setting the scene, using just the right number of brush strokes to paint a clear picture without letting the action drag. Here's Nayeli, exploring the mini-village that's been haphazardly erected out of old garage doors and box springs, in the Tijuana city dump:

Nayeli backed away from the dog and wandered down the alley to the edge of the cemetery. She was startled to see smoke rising from one of the graves. The crosses and painted furniture were stark in the morning light. Etched like charcoal drawings. Somewhere, a radio was playing--she recognized the song. Dave Matthews. She always liked that rola, the one where he asked the woman to crash into him, though now it seemed like the loneliest thing she'd ever heard.

As the tale unfolds, their adventure becomes the backdrop for a subtle commentary on the politics of immigration. This should come as no surprise, given Urrea's history as the author of The Devil's Highway, a work of nonfiction centered around Mexican-American immigration, but Into The Beautiful North is entirely fiction. That is, except for Tacho. . . . And Aunt Irma. Those characters are based on real people. But, I digress. Where was I? Ah, yes--subtle commentary on the politics of immigration:

Nayeli was stunned to see mothers with children--the kids weeping and snot faced. She heard indiginous tongues in the pen--shamanic-sounding utterances that felt a million years old to her, sounds of jungle and temple and human sacrifice.

Nayeli looked at the migra agents through the iron mesh. Big men. Happy, bright-faced men. Shiny and crisp. Green uniforms. Short hair. Mustaches.

What made them different from her?

She could not tell.

The writing is beautiful, the story and characters are engaging. The only thing missing from the story is a sense of urgency. The bandidos in Tres Camarones don't actually do anything except sit around in their cars, looking ominous. The reader is able to enjoy the adventure of Nayeli and friends as if it were a topsy-turvy college Spring Break. A scene or two of these fellows wreaking havoc back in Tres Camarones would have turned a pleasurable read into a gripping, can't-put-it-down book.

The Soundtrack: Urrea is a big music lover, and has created an entire playlist for the book, soon to be published on Largehearted Boy. He says, "I think of Shake Away by Lila Downs as the theme song." And since I quoted the reference to it, here's the Dave Matthew's Band song as a bonus.

Publication Info: Little, Brown & Company, May 2009

Flaubert vs. the Oysters A Journey into Flaubert's Normandy

I once spent a week in Rouen, France, without ever realizing I was in the hometown of Gustave Flaubert. The Joan of Arc connection, I got. The oysters, I got (more on them, later). Famous nineteenth century author? Je ne savais pas.

Then again, I hadn't actually read any of his books at the time. No Madame Bovary. No Sentimental Education. So maybe the signs of Flaubert were all around me and I was too busy looking for the oyster guy at the market to notice.

Or, maybe my family and I took a Flaubertian walking tour of the town and my memory of that has evaporated in the intervening twenty years, having been obliterated by the memory of wandering Rouen's deserted streets late on New Year's Eve, desperately searching for a home for the shells of the two dozen (or was it three dozen?) oysters we'd feasted upon in our hotel room. We'd realized belatedly that the remnants of our bivalvian feast might not be welcomed by the hoteliers--or, frankly, by us--the next day. Public trash cans were distressingly hard to find in Normandy at the time.

If only I'd had Susannah Patton's A Journey Into Flaubert's Normandy, I'd have been in no danger of missing or forgetting the author's connections to Rouen and the rest of Normandy. Patton's book, packed with pictures and maps, takes readers on an armchair tour that includes Flaubert's old haunts, the museums and monuments devoted to his memory, and the towns that may or may not be the setting for Madame Bovary.

This last point is apparently quite the controversy. Despite Flaubert's insistance that the imaginary Emma Bovary took her legendary carriage rides in a purely fictional location, more than one town has laid claim to being that location. Road signs in the town of Ry bear Emma Bovary's image. Shops are named things like Video Bovary and Le Jardin d'Emma. Patton details the rivalry with the traces of humor that make her narrative so enjoyable to read.

Ry is undistinguished and plain. No famous writers or artists were born there, and its history can be reduced to a paragraph. So even though the Yonville described by Flaubert is filled with prudes and hypocrites, Ry clings to this distinction.

Patton puts the author's life into historical, as well as geographical context. She illustrates the ways in which his life and work were impacted by the 1848 February Revolution in Paris and the Franco-Prussian War, as well as his friendships with other writers and artists of the time, including George Sand, Emile Zola, and Guy de Maupassant.

A Journey Into Flaubert's Normandy offers a glimpse into the author's world that will likely be a welcome guide for his devotees, and motivation for others to delve in and give his work a try. If you're of the latter category, why not try a taste of Gustave? There's even a full pdf file of Madame Bovary (which was quite shocking at the time and got the author into serious legal trouble), though you can probably pick up a used copy for just a few dollars at your local used bookstore.

The Soundtrack: During Flaubert's time, the French were listening to the likes of Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner. But when Robert Wilson created an opera based on Flaubert's The Temptation of St. Anthony in 2003, he chose Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock fame, to write the libretto. A sample of one of the numbers, I knew the Carpenter's Son, can be found on Reagon's website.

Other books in the ArtPlace series, reviewed on Worducopia:
A Journey Into Steinbeck's California
A Journey Into Dorothy Parker's New York
A Journey Into Michelangelo's Rome
A Journey Into Ireland's Literary Revival

Additional ArtPlace titles can be found at Roarting Forties Press.

Giveaway Winners

My plan was to write a Sunday Salon post yesterday including the latest winners of the Parenting/nutrition books giveaway, but that didn't happen. Instead, the boys and I went to a big picnic, and then to a friend's garden to plant pumpkins. (We have too much shade in our yard to have success with most vegetables). Then dinner, the grocery store, a few chapters of Ranger's Apprentice with the family, after which my internet had apparently packed it in for the night.

I took this as a sign that I was meant to finish my book and go to sleep earlier. I was zonked out by 11:00. Ahhhhhhh! I feel so well-rested! Finished my book (Into the Beautiful North) this morning and now, random.org has chosen the winners. Some of these are from previous weeks and I haven't heard from you yet so please contact me soon because next Sunday I'll be drawing new names for anyone who hasn't contacted me (SpiralMama! This means you! It's been a month, girl!).

The N.D.D. Book: Korah (you also won the G-Free diet, last week!)
The G-Free Diet: Anita Yancey
If Your Kid Eats This Book: GAHome2Mom and (from last week) GShome and (from the first drawing) SpiralMama.

Congratulations to the winners!

Now we're off to yet another end-of-the-year picnic, as soon as I figure out how to get there.

Two Announcements

Announcement #1 is that I've become one of three contributors (well, four, if you count the site founder, Gabe) on Reading Local: Portland. I'm excited for the opportunity to increase my focus on local authors and events. Whether or not you're local to me, I hope you'll stop by and read my report on Luis Alberto Urrea's reading at Powell's last night. Here are some secrets I didn't share:

• Recommended reading: As soon as I started this book, I thought of 3-4 friends to recommend it to, including my husband. Once I told him the premise, he started reading it as soon as I put my bookmark in it and set it down.
  
• Swag: When Urrea offered to mail out book-related goodies to people following him on Twitter, I passed. Is it kosher for a reviewer--albeit a lowly amateur one--to accept gifts from an author before reading his book? What if I didn't like the book and gave it a scathing review--what if he TP'd my house while in Portland?
• Swag, part 2: The first thing Urrea did when he arrived at Powell's was to walk up to Bethany and I (she's easy to recognize in her gorgeous dreadlocks) and bestow us with swag. I didn't get a playlist CD, though. And I really want one. He has kindly offered to send me one once he's home. Will the fact that Urrea is the nicest author ever affect my review? Stay tuned and judge for yourself. 150 pages to go.
  
• Most Dedicated Author Family Award: Sadly, Urrea's mother-in-law died this week, in Seattle. He and his wife had to cut short his east coast book tour, fly home to get their kids, and fly to the west coast to attend the funeral this weekend. The whole family was at Powell's (his cutie-patootie daughter passed out fans to the audience), and then drove the three hours to Seattle after the reading and signing ended. I think they left Portland at 10:00 p.m.
  
  
  Another thing I'm really excited about participating in this month is the Nerds Heart YA tournament of underdog young adult books from 2008. The judging panel worked together to choose 16 titles that have been well-received but haven't gotten the press, or buzz, that others have. After my great experience participating in the Mock Printz Award workshop, I'm looking forward to delving into YA lit again. Between now and June 21, Lenore and I will be choosing the winner between these two books.
  
  Any predictions about which will come out on top?
  
  The rest of the Nerds Heart YA bracket is available for your viewing pleasure. I have strong opinions about three of the early brackets, even though I've only read one of the two books in each:
• My Most Excellent Year
• Last Exit to Normal
• Cracked Up to Be

I probably won't have time to read the books they're up against, though, so I think I'll keep my opinions to myself! But you don't have to. Feel free to make bets about who the winner will be and heckle the judges: Valentina in Valentina's Room, Jodie who is Book Gazing, Natasha of Maw Books Blog, Mary Ann at Libr*fiti, Trish of Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin', Vasilly at 1330v, Kelly at YAnnabe, Becky of Becky's Book Reviews, Kailana at The Written World, Heather at A High and Hidden Place, Amy as in My Friend Amy, Laza of Gimme More Books!, Stephanie at Confessions of a Book-a-Holic, Nicole on Linus's Blanket, Renay who is YA Fabulous, Susan who is Too Fond Of Books And It's Turned Her Brain, Chris of Stuff As Dreams Are Made On and Nymeth, to whom Things Mean A Lot. You can heckle Lenore and I, too. We can take it.

The Signal--Ron Carlson (Book Review)

I can't begin to tell you how I loved Ron Carlson's new novel, any more than I can explain the difference between the Butter Pecan ice cream from Babcock Hall in Madison, Wisconsin and the same flavor anywhere else. If you tasted it, you'd understand. I'll have a sample for you in a minute. (The prose, not the ice cream. Though you can order that delivered, I hear).

In The Signal, just as in Carlson's short stories, a lifetime of emotion is distilled into one event. This time the event is a six-day camping trip in the mountains--a final goodbye for Mack and his ex-wife, Vonnie.

Broken hearted by the death of his father, Mack blew it, big time. Amid the resulting drinking and drug-running, and the threatened loss of his beloved ranch, Vonnie left him. Several months in jail gave him time to dry out and think things over, but not to make a plan. He can just about manage one last annual fishing trip with Vonnie, and despite the fact that she's with another man now, she agrees to go. Big stuff happens on the fishing trip and it doesn't turn out how either of them planned, and that's the story. Six days.

Here's Mack waiting for Vonnie at the beginning of the trip, still unsure of whether she'll show up:

Mack was not scared. He had been uneasy and worried and scared and empty and sort of ruined, and he knew this, but now he had his ways of doing one thing and then the next and it kept the ruin off him. If she left Jackson by four, she'd be along in a while. If she hadn't left Jackson; well then.

An abundance of flashbacks fills in the details of Mack and Vonnie's courtship and how things went wrong. Flashbacks can be tricky business, more distracting than enlightening, but when they work well--as they do here--the result is magic. By the end of Day One while Mack waits for Vonnie to arrive--thirty pages--the reader has tasted enough of his history to be glad to see Vonnie, and to truly understand why his father's death so thoroughly devastated him.

His father's death changed it all. At the ranch everything was tilted, weird; it was more than something missing. Gravity had changed. Mack saw to the horses and painted the small barn, but there was no center for him without his father there.

The setting--the mountains of Wyoming--is as critical to the story as any of the characters are, and the plot becomes riveting at the halfway point. Luckily it's a short book; by the time you can't put it down, you might as well go ahead and finish it.

Some people like ratings; I don't. But if it'll make you read this one, I'll give it five (out of five) glorious pints of Babcock Hall butter pecan ice cream.



The Soundtrack: It's gotta be My Rambling Boy, which Vonnie makes Mack sing so he can't hear her peeing in the woods. Can't find it on Playlist.com but you can click on the song title to hear it at Last.fm.