It seems that anybody who is anybody–not to mention a few people who aren’t anybody at all–honoured the ALA Banned Books Week, one way or another. Even UK libraries joined in. The Let The Words Flow team and the Guardian were both out there with all guns blazing, publishing several related items through the week, and the Guardian rounded off the campaigning with a Banned Books Quiz. All in all, something of a success.
I feel for YA author Laurie Halse Anderson, who inadvertently sparked something of an internet meme when she blogged about the latest attempt to ban her 1999 novel, Speak, right before the Banned Books event began. All the subsequent media attention must have brought her a major sales windfall, but hush, cynicism. In fact the novel had already won several awards and made the New York Times best seller list, and Laurie’s blog post from earlier today reads mostly as stunned. She’ll be even more stunned tomorrow; LTWF have just named Speak their Book of the Month.
Marginally less successful author Brendan Halpin attempted to reclaim the Banned Books campaign for all books, which is definitely a good idea–personally, I still haven’t got over the news that Slaughterhouse-5 is on the bad list. In America! (Shakes head.) Lauren Myracle knows all about it; she’s one of the Top Ten banned authors in 2010. In one of the Guardian articles, she explained why it’s unhelpful to denigrate the would-be banners of books. Thought-provoking, no?
And so on to the rest of the blogosphere. It’s been all over the place this week, watch on as I struggle to form lucid paragraphs.
Speaking of lucidity (or the lack of it), The Office of Letters and Light have just re-launched nanowrimo.org ready for the 2010 season, which has awoken fear and trembling–or at least, anticipation–in a handful of bloggerly hearts. Two members of the Write Anything team and prolific novelist Lynn Viehl (Paperback Writer) declared an interest this week. Lynn has 46 novels behind her… I just thought you’d like to know that.
Jody Hedlund has just the one novel behind her, but she’s mightily pleased with it. The Preacher’s Bride is an historical romance which hit the bookshelves today; Jody is hosting an online party to celebrate. Hop over there before October 3rd to offer your congratulations and join in the fun!
Advice abounds on the interwebs, as ever, but not all of it this week is novel-centric, or even fiction-centric. There are tips from professional non-fiction writers from Ask the Publishing Guru, and an insightful post from Michelle V. Rafter about how to make non-fiction editors happy. io9.com linked to a parody of internet science reportage that totally backed Michelle’s main points.
Still a long way from the novel, Janice Hardy posted her interview with picture book author Nancy Raines Day. Janice was surprised at the similarities she found in the two very different lines of work; Nancy spoke about the need to visualise the pages, right from the start. Don’t novelists do that too, though, in a way, planting images in the mind of the reader? Alexandra Sokoloff certainly thinks they should, and explains in some detail how that can work for your story.
Elizabeth Spann Craig gave us a nice little slice of life when she posted about meeting an unreadable person in Costco. How, she wondered, could you make such a person a sympathetic character in a novel? Cheryl Ossola, meanwhile, struggled with the opposite problem: how to dissociate from a fictional character who is too close to yourself?
And finally, never mind the authors, let’s hear it for dovegreyreader! She’s been visiting Dublin this week, and has posted a daily scrapbook of impressions, history, cultural notes and above all, stunning photographs of everything she’s seen. Go on, treat yourself! Go on, go on, go on.
