Scott Westerfeld (pictured, via), Margo Lanagan, and Deborah Biancotti will collaborate on a new young-adult trilogy. The trio of writers have devoted two years to developing the characters and crafting the story for this project.
Simon Pulse will release book one, entitled Zeroes, on September 29th. Publisher Mara Anastas negotiated the deal with Jill Grinberg of the Jill Grinberg Literary Management. Editorial director Liesa Abrams will edit the manuscript.
Here’s more from the press release: “Who are the Zeroes? There’s Ethan, aka Scam, who’s got a voice inside him that’ll say anything you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. There’s Chizara, aka Crash, who can bring technology to its knees; Riley, aka Flicker, who can see through anyone’s eyes but her own; Thibault, aka Anonymous, who’s out of sight, out of mind; Nataniel, aka Bellwether, who can focus any crowd’s energy on a single goal; and Kelsie, who can amp up or damp down a mob’s emotions. They were all born in the year 2000, and live in Cambria, California. Their abilities make them anything but heroes—until a high stakes crisis changes everything.”
Which of the many books on your to-read list will you pick up (or click on) next? If you’re as indecisive as me, it’s a struggle each time.
In 2013, I will have a mission to guide me. I’m signing up for the second annual Australian Women Writers Challenge, with a plan to read 27 books by Australian women writers, many of which have been gathering dust on my real and virtual bookshelves for years (the full list to come in a future post).
I found out about the event too late in 2012, but tracked the progress of other bloggers who joined in via Twitter and GoodReads with interest. So what exactly is this giant digital book club, how did it come to be, and how can you get involved? Founder ELIZABETH LHUEDE explains all …
1. What is the Australian Women Writers Challenge all about, and what inspired you to launch the campaign?
The Australian Women Writers Challenge is a reading and reviewing challenge organised by book bloggers. It asks people to sign up and read, or read and review, a number of books by Australian women throughout the year, and to discuss them on book blogs and social media. Through the challenge, we hope to draw attention to and overcome the problem of gender bias in the reviewing of books in Australia’s literary journals, and to support and promote books by Australian women.
Indirectly, the challenge was inspired by the VIDA count, an analysis of major book reviewing publications in North America and Europe. This count revealed that male authors were far more likely to have their books reviewed in influential international newspapers, magazines and literary journals than female authors.
An analysis of Australian literary pages by Bookseller + Publisher showed a similar bias (reprinted in Crikey in March 2012).
From my own experience I know the problem isn’t just with male readers not reading books by women; it’s more entrenched than that: women, too, are guilty of gender bias in their reading. This is part of a much larger problem of devaluing work labelled as being by a woman. A 2012 study quoted recently by Tara Moss demonstrates that this bias exists independent of the actual quality and content of the work (see excerpt here).
To help solve this problem, the Australian Women Writers Challenge calls on readers to examine their reading habits and, if a bias against female authors exists, work to change it by reading – and reviewing – more books by Australian women. The quality of the work is there: it’s up to us to discover and celebrate it.
2. Is it just a coincidence that the challenge arrived on the scene around the same time as the Stella Prize for Australian women’s writing?
The challenge owes a lot to the people who created the Stella Prize. Kirsten Tranter, one of the Stella panelists, wrote about the VIDA statistics in early 2011, as did many others in the early part of that year (see a list here). Without the Stella Prize, the challenge wouldn’t have been the success it is.
3. How highly would you rate the influence of Miles Franklin on all of this, and why do you think she has become such a symbol for women writers in this country?
The Stella panelists chose Miles Franklin as a symbol, I believe, because no women were shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2009 and 2011, despite the prize having been established at the bequest of a woman – one who, incidentally, chose to publish under a male pseudonym.
I can see the strategic reasons for adopting Franklin as a symbol, but I also think it’s a symptom of the problem. There are far more talented Australian female authors. There are also other literary prizes that have been going for years that don’t get anywhere near the publicity of the Miles Franklin Award, such as the Barbara Jefferis Award and The Kibble and Dobbie prizes. To be honest, I hadn’t even heard of these awards before I started researching books to read for the challenge. Why is that, unless it has something to do with the fact that they, in varied ways, celebrate women?
4. A year on, do you feel the campaign has been a success?
The challenge has been a huge success. The Huffington Post Books blog published a wrap-up of recent releases of books by Australian women, Overland blog announced 2012 as The Year of Australian Women Writers, it has been mentioned on Radio National, and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Daily Life blog counted it among the 20 Greatest Moments for Women in 2012. I couldn’t have hoped for more.
5. How important has social media been to its reach?
Twitter especially has a major force in getting word out about the challenge, and has helped publicise the many reviews now linked to the blog (well over 1300). Recommendations via book bloggers and, to a lesser extent, Facebook have also been important. The real spikes in terms of hits on the blog, however, have come after mentions in traditional media.
6. You’ve done some survey research into AWW’s impact. Have you seen the results of that research yet?
A brief look at the results has revealed that the majority of respondents didn’t sign up for the challenge, but had heard about it; a majority of these also happened to read more books by Australian women this year. There are many other factors beside the challenge which have raised the profile of books by Australian women in 2012, so the challenge can’t take credit for this result, but it is a very encouraging trend.
Of the people who did sign up for the challenge, a majority read more books by Australian women than in previous years, and most reviewed more and read more broadly. A majority of respondents credited the challenge for their having a greater awareness of authors’ names, book titles and a sense of the breadth and diversity of genres being written by Australian women.
7. Do you have anything different planned for AWW in 2013?
In 2013, the challenge will remain basically the same, with the aim to read and review more books by Australian women. One change is that there will now be a ‘read only’ option for people who are reluctant (or too time poor) to review. This is a gamble – as it could easily diffuse the challenge’s goal. But it is my hope that people who sign up for this option will actively participate in the challenge.
How can they do that? By discussing books they’re reading on social media, using #aww2013 on Twitter, posting comments on the AWW Facebook page, discussing the books in the AWW GoodReads group, and – especially – by commenting on book bloggers’ reviews. Book bloggers have made a huge effort to read and review these books and I’m sure they appreciate people commenting.
8. Are the goals for the campaign the same, or have they grown with the movement?
The goal for the challenge remains to help overcome gender bias in reviewing, and also more generally to support and promote books by Australian women.
9. How can readers, authors, publishers, booksellers, the media and bloggers get involved?
The best way to get involved is to sign up to the challenge, to pledge to read and review books by Australian women in 2013, and to encourage others – friends, co-workers, family members, book group members, local librarians, school teachers and bookshop owners – to join as well. You can sign up here.
10. Can men participate (of course I know they can, but you never know, some might be too shy unless you extend them a really warm invitation!)?
Men are very welcome to participate – as they were in 2012. One male participant in the 2012 challenge was David Golding who recently wrote a wrap-up post on his participation which included a call for more men to sign up.
Another participant from 2012 is Sean Wright from Adventures of a Bookonaut blog. Sean has joined the AWW team and will be looking for ways to help get more male readers engaged in the challenge. (If you have any ideas, let him know!)
11. Who is/are your favourite Australian woman writer/s?
This is a tough question. I can honestly say my knowledge of books by Australian women is still too limited for me to have a favourite or favourites. This year I have discovered a wealth of genuine talent – world-class authors I didn’t know existed this time last year – and I’m convinced there are many more to discover. My favourite genre is crime, particularly psychological suspense, and in those genres I’ve enjoyed the work of Wendy James, Rebecca James, Sylvia Johnson, Sara Foster, Caroline Overington, Angela Savage, Sulari Gentill, Nicole Watson, PM Newton and my friend Jaye Ford. But one of my goals this year was to read widely, which means I’ve read a lot of single books (46 so far) by different authors. The only authors I’ve repeated have been Gail Jones, Charlotte Wood and Margo Lanagan (two each). It’s not enough to go on to develop a favourite.
12. What were your top three reads by Australian women writers this year?
Only three? Eva Hornung’s Dog Boy, Margo Lanagan’s Sea Hearts tie for first, and a shared tie second includes Emily Maguire’s Fishing for Tigers and PM Newton’s The Old School, while Kate Morton’s The Secret Keeper comes in third. These are all very different books but, in my view, compelling reading. (Sorry, that’s five, isn’t it?)
13. What are you planning to read next?
I’ve just finished Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan, an emotionally devastating and imaginative speculative fiction novel, and before that was Annabel Smith’s Whisky Charlie Foxtrot, a very readable literary book about sibling rivalry. I have a huge stack books by Australian women to read, both recent releases and older titles, but I’m also keen to get back to my own writing which I’ve neglected this year while working on the challenge. Creating the new websites has required fulltime work for the past few months, and I need to get back to my own writing.
13. Could you tell us a little about your own writing? Has your work on the challenge pushed your own literary career along?
I started writing novels after I finished my PhD (in 1995) and I’ve had success in competitions with several romantic suspense novels and a fantasy title, but so far no acceptances from publishers. My latest story is a page-turning psychological suspense novel which draws on some hair-raising encounters I had working as an intern counsellor at a private hospital, as well my experience growing up with a schizophrenic father.
Earlier this year I attracted the attention of literary agent, author and former editor, Virginia Lloyd, who loved the story and agreed to represent me. With a great team now supporting the AWW challenge, I hope to get on with writing my second psychological suspense novel in 2013.
Have I been inspired by what I’ve read? Without a doubt. It has also been intimidating to see the depth, breadth and quality of the work that is out there – work that clearly doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It’s scary, in a way, to go back to my own writing now with this new ‘anxiety of influence’. I would love to write with the richly textured imaginative flair of Margo Lanagan, or the terrible emotion of Eva Hornung, or the compassionate humanity of Charlotte Wood. I would love to write crime with the sense of history and stylistic precision of PM Newton, or have the exquisite appreciation of nature and human heartbreak of Favel Parrett, or the contemporary feel and nuanced characters of Emily Maguire. I’d love to write suspense, mystery and history with the scope and readability of Kate Morton – and to have my books be half as popular with readers. I doubt I can do any of those things and I feel grief about that. I know the next step in such thinking would be “Why even try?” But what I can do is what I’ve always – sometimes hesitantly – tried to do: to write as skilfully and honestly as I’m able, informed by who I am and my unique experience of the world. If one day I get published and find readers who enjoy reading the stories I’ve created, great: that will be a dream come true. If not, at least I can be an active and appreciative reader of those writers who have a great deal more talent than me.
Bebel Gilberto's new CD, All in One, came out yesterday! I'm a big fan and the disc doesn't disappoint. And I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who bought something from Amazon by clicking first on one of my links, because it was this summer's commission that bought me the CD.
Princess of the Midnight Ball Jessica Day George
You know I love a good fairy tale retelling and some of my favorites (
The Night Dance,
Wildwood Dancing) have been based on "Twelve Dancing Princesses." So, I was both really excited and kinda nervous about
Princess of the Midnight Ball.
Luckily, it was awesome (I'll admit I was a lot less nervous after reading George's
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow). Based loosely on pre-unified Germany, the kingdom of Wesfalin has just finished a long war against Analousia. Galen grew up in the army and is glad to be done with that life, finding work with his uncle, the head gardner at the palace. There, he meets the twelve princesses, bound and cursed to dance every third night for the legendary and evil King Under Stone. Their binding is the price their mother paid to ensure the Wesfalin victory in the war. And, as the story goes, the Westfalin king is disturbed to see his daughter's dancing shoes worn out so often (especially as how can he be expected to buy new shoes when his country is in such poverty after the war?). Things get even worse as the princes cannot find out where the girls go and rumors of witchcraft spread, prompting drastic action from the Church.
One of the things I really liked about this book is that we got a lot of Galen's side of the story. In fact, most of it is Galen's point of view, with some chapters focusing on the princesses thrown in. Also, Galen knits! After living with the army, he had to learn to knit if he wanted his own socks and hats, and it's something he continues to do to calm his nerves (and keep his feet warm.) Such knitting ends up playing a large role in the story and there are even knitting patterns at the end of the book, which is awesome. And more knitting patterns at George's website, which is more awesome. A most excellent retelling.
Tender Morsels Margo Lanagan
I read this book five months ago and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this retelling of "Snow White and Rose Red".
Liga retreats to a magical heaven (her heart's desire) after bearing two children--one the product of repeated rape by her father, one the product of gang rape by some neighborhood boys. While she is safe and content there, her daughters long for more and eventually they come back to the real world.
This isn't an easy book--lots of plot lines and a lot of sections switching to first person narration without telling us who the narrator is (and who the narrator is switches from section to section.)
It moves a little slowly and while I cared deeply for Liga and her daughters, it was a hard read for me. I had to put it down often and go do something else and then come b ack to it and I don't know why. It wasn't the complexity of the novel and it wasn't the content, something about it... I don't know. It's really well written and crafted, but it just didn't do it for me on a lot of levels and I didn't like it.
I also didn't like the gender politics that exisited in the real world. Really, really, really didn't like the societal rules and how much they were unquestioned by everyone else. This is probably really true of a certain time and place, but it annoyed the hell out of me.
And then the end! ACK!
Grades 9 and up
After being evilly abused for most of her short life, 15-year-old Liga attempts to end her own life and the life of her infant. Some benevolent power sends her instead to a parallel version of her cottage and village, where there are no bad people or even any unpredictability or unpleasantness. It’s a place where she can raise her two daughters (for she was pregnant again when brought here) in tranquility, where nothing and no one will ever make demands on her. It is, in fact, her own heaven.
When Liga’s daughters Branza and Urdda are still young, a small-time ignorant witch named Annie manages to accidentally cause a rift between the real world and Liga’s heaven, causing the occasional visitor, benign or malign, to cross over for a time from Liga’s old village into her heaven. Branza’s encounters with these visitors are sometimes confusing or unpleasant, but Urdda is enflamed with curiosity and must find a way to the real world. Find it she does, and manages to find good folks who understand who she is and can help her. Meanwhile, time spins much faster in Liga’s heaven, with one of Urdda’s years equaling ten of Branza and Liga’s years.
Urdda misses her family and wants to visit them; not only is she unable to do so, but an expert witch must be called in to bring out Branza and Liga from Liga’s fatally damaged heaven and make it vanish for good. Branza and Liga, one innocent by chance and one by choice, must figure out how to make their way in this dangerous, terrifying real world, where men and boys are violent and badness lurks around every corner.
This is the truly compelling part of the tale. Liga’s experience of the world was so awful that it is no wonder she created such a safe and static place for herself and her daughters, filled with bland folks who didn’t actually exist. But Branza and Urdda, being human, could not grow up healthy and whole in a place where the only complex beings were their mother and the occasional magicked visitor. They need to learn how to survive in this all-too-real world and to find their own heart’s desire if they can. Even Liga is human and belongs to this brutal world, and her slow healing is wondrous and painful to experience.
From its truly horrifying and brutal beginning to its satisfying but bittersweet end, this novel is mesmerizing. Language (characters speak in a country dialect that sounds both fantastical and utterly authentic) and tone remain consistent, whether the story is being told from Liga’s damaged but sweet perspective, from the perspective of one of the Bears who ends up in Liga’s heaven, or from those of any number of other carefully drawn characters. No one is perfect – all have flaws, some much more than others – but we can understand, if not sympathize with, each person. Often wrenching, at heart this is a truly tender story of healing, growing, and redemption.
Dinner last night with Margo Lanagan arranged by Allen and Unwin, where she reassured me about Clarion and told me about her new novel (I am excited) and we talked about words and about Australia and about a story I mean to write this year. Then back to the hotel and had a three hour phone call to Bloomsbury in London, calling in the copy-edits on The Graveyard Book. My copy editor was very patient with me, despite the oddness of The Graveyard Book meaning that sometimes things would be a bit counter-intuitive: I had to explain to her how a ten year old (dead) boy could have a twenty year old (dead) grandmother. But most of her queries were wise and smart and (this is important) will make me look good.
A flood of letters from Australians who inform me that I was having my leg pulled over the hamburger thing -- and if you read what I posted and imagine the chef as a dry-humoured assie bloke, that's just how it reads. For example:
> (Unconvinced Five Star Hotel Night Chef.) "If you say so, sir. It's just people here complain if their hamburgers aren't made of ham.
Major possibilities:
a) chef was sadistic or insane
b) chef had quirky sense of humour
c) balance of your mind disturbed by excessive book signing
d) you were unwitting participant in 'candid camera' equivalent
e) you had accidentally wandered into a neighbouring universe
f) other
In Australia, hamburger means ground up cow. Always.
Saw your talk at the State Library in Melbourne btw - very enjoyable, and The Graveyard Book sounds like it's going to be a good one.
cheers,
Steve
I'd go for f). Honestly, she sounded very young, very defensive and, I'm afraid, a bit upset, like someone who had actually been told off a few weeks ago by a hotel guest for the lack of ham in his hamburger and had been determined not to make that mistake again, and now here was a smartarse pom late at night telling her she'd been right all along. And I felt a bit sorry for her.
(This was at the Four Seasons Sydney in George Street -- a nice enough hotel, although the rooms are tiny, but also the first Four Seasons I've stayed in that felt more or less like a Mariott - as if they'd bought someone else's hotel and put a Four Seasons logo on, but not really changed anything else.)
I'm off to the US today, via Narita airport. A few people kindly wrote and offered to show me around during my 9 hour layover, and I was going to take at least one person up on it, but I now strongly suspect that instead of doing anything at all I'll get a local hotel room and try and sleep -- horizontally, rather than sitting down -- between two ten hour flights.
Let me point you at this Boing Boing Entry and this Locus Article, in which Cory Doctorow talks about dandelion and mammalian reproductive strategies and how these things relate to selling things or giving them away on the web -- some of this came out of a wonderful conversation last Christmas between Cory and Rob Brydon and me, which Cory and I carried on the next time we saw each other, at Eastercon. (The ideas are all Cory's. All I did was say, "What exactly do you mean by that?" and "But for Heaven's sake, Cory, what about...?" a lot.)
...
Hi Neil,
Quick question about The Graveyard Book - do you have plans to release signed copies in cardboard dumps as you did with American Gods and Anansi Boys?
I offered, but that's no longer possible for some logistical reason I never quite understood.
Neil,
I'd just like to thank you for your appearance at Books Kinokuniya in Sydney on the 6th. It was a great night, and truly inspiring to see that despite the 500-odd people eagerly queued, you still had time for each one of us.
Thank you also for posing for a photo with a sign expressly prohibiting personal photos (which can be quite shamelessly found at my blog; http://chasinggeese.blogspot.com/2008/05/please-note-awesome.html). It made my night.
Now that's all taken care of I'd like to ask if your short story 'Orange' is in print anywhere, as I've only seen it as a video of a live reading (or memorably first hand, when you were in Sydney in 2006).
Kind Regards,
Luke
Why thank you. "Orange" is in The Starry Rift. You can learn more about it at http://thestarryrift.com/
...
Michael Zulli sent me http://englishrussia.com/?p=1808#more-1808 -- beautiful pictures of fairy tale abandoned Russian wooden houses.
...
Despite following instructions on stripping this computer with Windows Vista down to its work and memory undies, it's still like working with a computer in 1986, in terms of slowness and pauses and delay. Dynamism.com helpfully sent me Windows XP to do a downgrade on it, which I'll do when I get home... I still love the computer, though: it weighs about half of a Mac airbook, and has a DVD drive to boot. But I can't simply type and keep typing - it suddenly stops to inspect itself for fleas or something and loses anything I typed while it was thinking, or squashes words together, or I find myself randomly typing somewhere else in the paragraph... argh.
...
And before I forget, a big, big thank you to everyone at Allen and Unwin, especially Sarah Tran, to all the booksellers (Ellison Hawker, Dymocks in Melbourne and Sydney, and Kinokuniya (who gave me the new edition of A Humument as a thank you for signing there, which made me unspeakably happy), and to the staff and organisers of the CBCA, the Melbourne State Library folk, to various old friends who waved or helped (you know who you are) and all the people who showed up at the signings and made it so pleasant...
And yes, in 1998, I brought the "stick" home with me.
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Liz,
If I click from your site to Amazon, and then from Octavian II to Octavian I instead, do you still get the percentage? Or does it only count for the specific title that's linked?