My parents are both from Wyoming Valley, and I was born there. I still have a lot of family in that area, including my grandmother and a ton of aunts, uncles and cousins. Though I haven’t lived in the area since I was a young child, I still feel very attached to it.
So it was with great disappointment that I heard about this recent witch hunt of romance author Judy Mays, who, under her real name, has been a high school English teacher in the area for more than twenty-five years. Mays, by all reports (including the one that is outing her!), keeps her writing life completely separate from her work in the school, and the appalling muckrakers who sought to have her disciplined/fired had to perform amazing feats of Google-fu to link her image to an obscure You Tube video of Mays in author guise being interviewed at a romance writer’s conference.
The predominant theme of the unbalanced and potentially slanderous “news segment” is how the woman’s secret profession that was unknown to anyone before these brain donors dug it up might somehow be corrupting the children. That’s right — the point of the news segment is pretty much: “No one knew about this until we went and found it out and are now telling you, and now that everyone knows, well, the kids are going to be affected by this knowledge!”
Disgusting. Appalling. In the news segment, one concerntroll parent even indulges in the baseless and highly damaging accusation that the teacher is a pedophile. There is not a single positive or even neutral person quoted in the entire segment, just a group of parents who have banded together (the segment features shots of them sitting together in one’s backyard, presumably plotting their next dastardly move against an innocent public school teacher) in outrage over something that has not the slightest effect on their children or the teacher’s ability to teach them.
Guess what, folks? Mays is fully aware that the writing of sexy, *adult* novels is not an appropriate topic of conversation for the children in her class. That’s why she never mentioned it to the children in her class! She took a pen name! She kept her day job and her writing work COMPLETELY SEPARATE. If you’re so worried about what will happen to your kids now that they know their English teacher has written about sex, then WHY DID YOU MAKE SURE THEY KNEW?
If any Valley folks are reading this, please write to WNEP and complain about their horrible reporting. The reporter’s name is Kena Vernon and she definitely needs to learn a few things about the difference between journalism and muckraking. You can also support Ms. Mays on Facebook, or better yet (if you’re an adult) you can buy one of her books.
I write fiction under my real name, but I know many authors who do not for personal reasons just like this. They might wish to separate their writing persona from their daily life, either to protect their jobs or their families, or, as in Ms. Mays’ case, the young minds of her academic charges. Shouldn’t she be applauded for managing to hold two challenging jobs at once and not letting one distract her from another? Shouldn’t she be held up as a shining example of an industrious American worker?
Keep it up, Miss Mays. You just got yourself at least one new reader.
Long time authors I know often talk about “author theme” — the common, even subconscious topics authors keep returning to in their work. I’ve talked about it a little before in regards to the fact that I write a lot about feminist issues. Though I think all of my books have been feminist, the Secret Society Girl series and Rampant and Ascendant are overtly about feminism — about issues of women and their roles in society. Ditto for “Errant,” and for another story I’ve written for Running Press.
But lately I’ve been noticing other themes emerging in my writing. For Darkness Shows the Stars of course has a strong woman at its heart, but it isn’t about the role of women, particularly, in society. Instead, it shares themes that emerged in the writing of Ascendant, as well as in some of the other projects I can’t quite talk about yet. And it’s not surprising, as it’s something that I’m increasingly interested in in my personal life as well.
Huh. Writing as self-analysis. And y’all just thought I was in this to make a buck.
Happy Earth Day, guys! I am spending Earth Day NOT being outside because 1) I have a manuscript due to my editor early next weekend and I’m working my butt off on it and 2) It’s freaking COLD out there. Seriously, how is it late April and 40 degrees outside? (And it’s supposed to be 80 on Easter! Weather in DC is WEIRD.)
Anyway, I have a puppy sleeping on my lap so clearly she doesn’t want to be out in this gray, dreary weather either.
What better way to celebrate earth day than to discuss tree-saving ebooks?
Today marks the publication date of Amanda Brice’s full-length debut, CODENAME: DANCER.This book was a Golden Heart finalist — it’s a light teen mystery suitable for fans of Ally Carter’s Gallagher girls and Jennifer Barnes’ “Squad” books.
Isn’t that cover divine? I swear, a lot of the indie covers I’ve seen lately are better than the ones coming out of New York.
Also out now is the ebook reprint of Mari Mancusi’s post-apocalyptic adventure, RAZOR GIRL. I read this book back when it was originally released and loved it. It was a huge inspiration to me when writing my own, recent post-apocalyptic book.
What’s very different and very cool about Razor Girl is it is told in two separate (and alternating) timelines, showing the characters both before and after the apocalypse that changes both of them forever. If you like dystopian, post-apocalyptic or zombie fiction. or just action-adventures and Disney World, this is totally the book for you. And of course, like all of Mancusi’s titles, it’s chock-full of winking pop-culture geeky references and tongue-in-cheek humor. (The “Razor Girl” of the title is a play on a William Gibson character.) Available on Smashwords and Kindle.
I have the paperback of this book (I keep it on my beloved out-of-print keeper shelf next to Rocki St. Claire’s Hit Reply and Cara Lockwood’s Pink Slip Party). But now it IS back in print! Yay for the ebook backlist revolution!
Speaking of ebooks, I will go ahead and put in another plug for Errant, which is my first ebook venture. (Buy it on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. Read a free sample here.) If you DID pick up a copy, thank you! If you’ve already read it, either in the ebook form or when it was in Kiss Me Deadly, thank you also. I’m currently working on another one but I had to take a breather so I could finish my revisions. Which it’s time to get back to.
Have a great weekend, everyone! I’m trying to decide if I should give my just-started solids baby a taste of Easter Candy. A little taste won’t kill her, right?
There’s a giveaway of Uma Manhã Gloriosa at the blog Leituras & Devaneios right now and through May 9.
The rules of the giveaway are all at the blog (Google Translate tells me it’s pretty standard, comment-leaving, following the blog, being a resident of Brazil, etc.). Please note, the giveaway is THERE, at that blog, not HERE. I have nothing to do with it.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Sailor Boy and I just gained a large art piece for our living room. The canvas came without any hanging hardware, so of course, I took to the internet to figure out how to install some in order to hang the art on our wall.
This is what I found:
There are several of these that have been uploaded, each funnier than the last. I honestly don’t know what to make of them. Are they skits from some sort of Kiwi Saturday Night Live-type show? This might be my favorite (skip to 2:45 to get to the truly funny bit):
But don’t worry. He fixes it:
Okay, I think it’s a joke, but the art school is serious?
It’s so hard to tell these days. Earnestness has gone so far one way and satire so far the other that they’ve circled back around and met in the middle. Reminds me of when I was posting joke covers for Rampant, and got calls from friends and family thinking I was serious about some of them.
(Though no one thought I was serious about this one.)
The sun is out, the birds are singing, and my baby slept for seven hours twice in a row this weekend. Things are great.
And I managed to make some headway on some of my big yearly goals.
In the realm of “home improvement”, we made some big changes to our living, room — some gorgeous wall art, and a beautiful new, baby-friendly china cabinet (we had been keeping our glassware in a Billy bookcase, which… well. Not so great for my soon-to-be-mobile kidlet’s exploratory tendencies).
And in the realm of gardening, I got some plants in the ground today! Yay! I’ve expanded my garden somewhat this year, and so I’ve used some of the extra space for a strawberry patch and yet another attempt at chocolate mint. In the herb garden I’ve already got going, I added some parsley and cilantro. And I’ve got a bunch of seeds to get in the ground sometime this week as well.
But hey, it’s progress! And now, back to revisioning.
There are some authors who believe writing is revising. I am not one of those, but I think that the longer I am in this business, the more I get there.*
This is my job, for the foreseeable future (i.e., the next few weeks):
While writing it, I joked to Sailor Boy that I often felt as if I was writing with a little Jane Austen at my shoulder. Well, now that I have the revisions, it’s more like this:**
Naturally, this is not “angel on one shoulder, devil on the other” — as my editor and Miss Austen are not in disagreement, and neither is attempting to steer me wrong.
And, if I’m honest, the actual situation is probably more like this:
As Stephen King says, you write with the door closed, and edit with it open. Since word of my book got out (and got added to Goodreads!) long before there was anything close to a real manuscript, and since, once word of the book got out, it became fodder for conversation on the internet and in and the forums of Janeites, that was a little harder to accomplish than usual.
But that’s a topic for another time. Right now, the topic is revisions.***
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* Conversely, there seem to be a faction of writers who believe that being a pro means NOT revising. I wonder if they would think I’m getting less professional as I go along?
** Yes, that *is* a drawing of Buffalo the Unicorn Slayer, made my the fabulously talented Daniel Jennewein. Why do you ask?
Boy do I have a busy day ahead of me. I got my revision letter for my latest book last night, so I’m excited to dive into that, I have a contract to sign (yay! Work!), and I have to finish reading my critique partner’s latest sure-to-be-a-bestseller.
But first, let’s talk about March. Ah, March. March, in which I wrote about 30k words, owing to the fact that I can’t seem to leave well enough alone when it comes to certain manuscripts, and must tear them open from the roots and rewrite them.
Writing: See above. I also figured out the whole digital vertical publishing thing. And I got a new short story contract.
Home: Way cleaner (though I still need to fix my office). ! Oh, and I did my taxes.
Blog: Only blogged 5 times. But they were quality ones. (In passing, this is already my fourth blog of April, so we’re seeing some general improvement there.)
Quality time with SB: We had another date night. Also, since the baby has started to sleep more regular hours, we have a lot of time together once she’s gone to bed.
Rio: Another rough month for Rio, though she did get some good weekend hikes. The weather is getting much nicer now, so I hope to get into a new rhythm of taking her out.
Garden: Still too cold to plant. But I’ve been making plans.
And, the big list:
Revise/finish my contracted novel.
Write short story #1
Write short story #2
Write short story #3
Write new proposal #1
Write new proposal/book #2
Go to one writing-related conference.
Walk my dog.
Plant a garden.
Make sure I spend quality time with Sailor Boy.
Do at least two home improvement projects.
Cut our budget.(Made massive inroads into this one this month!)
Now you can read the novelette Publisher’s Weekly called “A harsh and poignant take on the unicorn myth.” and Booklist claimed was “[A] deliciously dark tale of unlikely nuns and even more unlikely unicorns…”
…for only $.99 cents!
In 18th century France, a noble family prepares to celebrate their daughter’s arranged marriage by holding a traditional unicorn hunt. But when an unusual nun arrives at the chateau with her beloved pet to help the rich girl train, nothing goes as expected. Starring hunters, fine ladies, fancy frocks, and killer unicorns.
This story was originally published in last year’s Kiss Me Deadly anthology. It is a 2010 Locus Recommended Read. If you have been curious about the killer unicorn world but haven’t had a chance to read the full length novels, here is a marvelously low-cost, high-adventure way to see what I keep going on about. And if you have read Rampant and Ascendant but didn’t get your hands on the antho, here’s my novelette in all its glory!
I love this story so much. It’s my first historical, my first published work in third person, and my first story (despite having published not one but two novels with swords on the covers) in which I actually buckle some swash.*
Okay. Off to write. I’ve got three hours before Q’s doctor’s appointment. Wonder how much I can get done?
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* My dictionary app tells me that, to my dismay, “swashbuckling” does not actually refer to swordfights, but instead to adventurous/romantic derring-do. Naturally, all my books have that (hello! Dude jumped off a moving speedboat in Rites of Spring (Break)), but let’s just pretend we’re talking swordfights here.
Today marks the publication date of Amanda Brice’s full-length debut, 
