David Lubar's Blog, page 2

Sometimes, a dying snake is just a dying snake

For those who celebrate National poetry Month, I hope you enjoy this relevant excerpt from Sleeping Freshman Never Lie:

Mr. Franka started out class the next day by saying, "How many of you don't like poetry?"

Many hands went up. Including mine.

He passed an open book to a kid in the front row. "Read that out loud."

The kid started reading this poem about a guy freezing to death up in the Yukon. It was pretty cool. Mr. Franca grabbed another book and handed it to a girl. She read a short, funny poem about a pelican. Then I got to read one called "On the Naming of Cats." I liked it.

After we'd heard three or four more poems, Mr. Franka said, "There are as many types of poems as there are types of food. As many flavors, you might say. To claim you don't like poetry because you hate 'mushy stuff' or things you don't immediately understand is like saying you hate food because you don't like asparagus."

He looked around the room again. "So, who can at least tolerate poetry?"

All the hands went up.

"Let's visit Xanadu." He gave us a page number in our textbooks. "Read 'Kublah Kahn' to yourself. Listen to the music. Let Coleridge speak to you."

I started reading, and was hooked by the fourth line.

Mr. Franka read us another poem, called "To Augusta." This one was sort of mushy, but even so the words sounded pretty cool. They flowed, like good music.

"Byron," Mr. Franka said, closing the book. "You've all heard his work, whether you realize it or not. She walks in beauty like the night. You can't tell me that line doesn't kick butt. Byron even wrote a poem filled with ghosts and vampires."

That caught my attention. Before I could ask about the poem, he said, "I won't tell you the name. If you really want to find it, you'll have to hunt it down. Or should I say, haunt it down?"

From there, he skipped around to some of his other favorite poets. Not once during the whole class did Mr. Franka utter those deadly words, "Now, what does this line mean?" He actually let us enjoy the poems without analyzing them to death. As he told us, sometimes a dying snake is just a dying snake. Sometimes a leafless tree is just a tree.

Here's a link to the book: http://davidlubar.com/bpsfnl.html

I thought I'd be listless

The nicest thing about knowing I wouldn't get any sort of listing or honor from the 2013 ALA awards is finding out I was wrong. I just got an email from Don Gallo, letting me know that First Crossings, which contains my short story, "Pulling up Stakes," was picked for the Popular Paperbacks list. The list contains 90 books in four categories, but the book was also selected as one of the top ten for the year. (I'm pleased that Dian Curtis Regan also has a story in it.) My story is about a young man from Transylvania who immigrates, by mistake, to Alaska during the dark period, and then has to convince the local geeks that he is not a vampire. (Hush. It was written in 2004. I did not get the idea from you know what.) If you're interested (or know a teen who loves fiction), and have $2.99, I've collected all my best anthology stories into an ebook. The collection contains eleven stories, including "War Is Swell," which I think is my best short work, and "Words of Faith," which addresses the connections between faith and creativity. (If you need a read-aloud for high school, try "The Heroic Quest of Douglas McGawain," about a boy who is sent by his girl friend to buy tampons.) If you are only familiar with my Weenies stories, these will surprise you

To save you the effort of clicking a link, here's how it is displayed on my web site:



A Sharp Collection

Many things can pierce – sharpened stakes, fencing swords, cat's claws, short stories, ideas, earrings, and love, to name just a few. This collection of eleven penetrating stories, gathered from my contributions to YA anthologies, contains some of my favorite pieces, including a slapstick account of a young man sent on a mortifying mission by the girl he loves, a tale about the mysteries of faith and belief, and a comedy of errors where a Transylvanian immigrant arouses suspicion in the darkness of the Alaskan winter. I've had the pleasure of writing short stories for the best anthologists in the YA world. Now, I have the pleasure of sharing those stories with my readers in one sharp collection.

Only $2.99


Get it for the NOOK at Barnes & Noble

Get if for the Kindle at Amazon.com

Get it in ePub, mobi, pdf, and other formats at Smashwords. com

Sour Grenades

You know, I spent the entire election tolerating the comments from the other side on my Facebook acount. Sometimes we argued. Sometimes, we reasoned. I accepted some of your points, and tried to see your position. I have had several excellent debates with young men of middle-school age, and gained a great deal of admiration for several adult Romney supporters. I only unfriended one person, and that was because he was being a troll with one of my friends. (I had no issue with trolls attacking me. I was happy to spar.) But now, I'm starting to see a handful of folks on the losing side talk about guns and disaster, and all sorts of batshit crazy stuff. Yeah, your guy lost. And, yeah, my guy won. But if you want to spout wacko survivalist, seditionist militia bullshit, I don't want to hear it. Sour grapes are fine. Sour grenades are not. If this country has further problems, it won't be because Barack Obama was reelected. It will be because some people are so entrenched in their position, and so bitter and filled with hate, and, I hate to say it, so ignorant of the actual messages in the Bibles they clutch, that they refuse to consider the wisdom of working together. Spout away. I'm not listening.

Pregnancy by Rape is Not a Gift from God

Most people are disturbed when they see Tea Party and other far-right Republicans speak against the abortion rights of a rape victim by using the argument, "A life created by rape is still a gift from God."  There has been much debate about when life begins, and there are strong feelings on both sides about abortion.  But there's another aspect of this argument that disturbs me nearly as much as the thought of some withered fundamentalist trying to tell a twelve-year-old girl that she must carry to term the pregnancy forced upon her by her drunk uncle. If you claim that a rape-induced pregnancy is God's will, you deny that the rapist has exercised free will. This is not a minor issue.  Rape is a violent, heinous, hideous crime. We, as a society, condemn the act and punish the perpetrator. If God made it happen, the rapist bears no responsibility for his act. The rapist had no choice.  He was a puppet. He wasn't tempted, like Eve, into making a bad choice.  He was forced to carry out God's will. Free will is a slippery concept to contemplate, and doesn't lend itself to simple discussions. (To give just one example, there are philosophers who feel that the illusion of free will is equivalent to free will itself. In their view, we can be trapped in a deterministic universe, and yet still be free because our acts appear to happen by choice.) It's worth repeating: If you claim any act is God's will, you strip the actor of all responsibility. In a larger sense, we've become a society where people can fling dogma at issues without giving serious thought to the implications and logical consequences of their statements. A rape induced pregnancy is not a gift from God. Logic is a gift from God.  Compassion is a gift from God. An open mind is a gift from God. I wish more people would open their presents.

Ban-Proof Books

The Ban-Proof Bookshelf Don't you just hate having your day interrupted to deal with a book challenge? Whether it's in the form of a shouting parent, a sign-waving picket line, or a smoldering pile of burning books setting off the sprinklers in the YA section, there's nothing like a protest to put a crimp in a peaceful afternoon spent monitoring Internet surfing or helping ninety-six eighth graders find information about some obscure prehistoric trilobite that nobody except their teacher has ever heard of. It might seem as if every book is going to offend some group. But that's not the case. There are some books that nobody could possibly object to. They are ban proof. It is our pleasure to provide the following list.

Mommy Has Two Heathers — a touching story about a woman who is so startled to give birth to twins that she completely fails to come up with a second name and ends up calling them both “Heather.”
The Handmaid's Towel — a servant works hard to ensure there are no chapped fingers in her household.
Where the Mild Things Are — To help his parents cope with the stresses of life, a teen crosses the country in search of the blandest food, tamest tourist spots, and least-threatening people. He stays in the right lane throughout the book. 
The Bluest Pie — Hijinks abound at the state fair bake-off when a young girl whose family has always made apple pies finds herself envying her neighbor's berries.

Flowers for Algebra — a young math prodigy decides to brighten the classroom of his favorite subject with a bouquet of daffodils.
Huckleberry Fawn — an oddly colored deer takes a walk through the forest. Nobody shoots at her.
Private Ports — Howard Stern discusses secluded places to dock a yacht.
Lady Chatterley’s Liver — a genteel cookbook, emphasizing the use of organ meats and fresh produce from the garden.
The Story of O. Henry — coming in at a terse three pages, this is probably one of the shortest novels ever published (not counting those written in verse). Readers will love the twist ending.
One Flue Over the Couscous Nest — A pair of hard-working students spend the summer repairing the ventilation system of a Mediterranean restaurant in this multicultural romp.

You can read the full list, along with scads of other humor pieces for readers, writers, and home brewers, in It Seemed Funny at the Time: A Large Collection of Short Humor.

Mr. Mittiotic

Today's special word is "Mittiotic." Pretty much anything Mitt Romney says is stupid, but on occasion, he rises to special heights of Mittiocy.  The thing is, as simple as his mind is, his Mittiocies tend to have layers of complexity. For example, everyone is jumping on his statement, ""You can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open." People rightly point out that his wish for roll-down windows on a plane, in case of a fire, is moronic (or MorRomnic).  But fewer folks have seized on the alarming idea that, when there's a fire, you want to find oxygen.  I suspect Mitt was napping in science class the day they showed what happens when you feed oxygen to a fire. (Or, perhaps, his school didn't believe in atoms and molecules.)  Some might give him a pass on this, saying he obviously meant "air," and since we do require oxygen.  But politics is a game of nuance, and of exact language.  I shudder to think what a man who spews such Mittiocies would do if put in charge.

Genesis of a one liner

Twitter is currently down, so I can't post the one liner I just came up with.  Instead, I figured I'd use this space to show the thoughts that led to the joke.  It started when I saw, on Facebook, that Mick Jagger just turned 69.  The post included a picture.  Skipping over the first glimmer of the sort of tasteless response that generally rises into immature minds (such as mine) in connection with that number, my first solid thought was, "He doesn't look a day over 80."  Granted, that's fairly funny, but it is also fairly obvious.  There will be countless variants offered by countless tweeters throughout the day (assumign Twitter comes back on line).  My next though, as is often the case when years are involved, was to think about dog years.  Again, a decent source of one-liners, but also fairly common.  Then, it hit me that "stones" refers both to Mick Jagger's band and to a British unit of measurement.  Eureka!  (I wasn't sure how to spell "voila" or how to find that stupid accent character.)  It all fell together around "stones."  Double meanings are a rich mine for humor.  Part of the laugh comes from the listener seeing the connections.  My initial phrasing was "Mick Jagger turned 69 today, which is 97 when measured in British stones."  This could definitely be tweaked for timing and rhythm. (Perhaps "..turned 69 years old today...")  But you get the general idea.  

The most expensive book I ever bought

On December 7th (no symbolism there) of 2011, Marshall Cavenidsh Children's Books announced that they had been sold to Amazon. This announcement would have meant nothing to me, except that on March of that year, I sold a young-adult short-story collection to them. Extremities: Stories of Death, Murder, and Revenge is a book I had been trying to sell, in various forms, for at least ten years. (Along the way, it sat for two years with an editor who'd promised to publish it, and then broken his word.) The great irony is that, when I sold it to Cavendish, I was weighing a second offer. Had I accepted that one, the book would be on the shelves now. But that's a side issue. The crucial thing is that, on December 7th, anyone who had a book with Marshall Cavendish became a pawn in a larger game with several powerful players and far too many victims. I've been following the game closely, since I'm on the board. (Though I'm not a king's pawn.)

Soon after the news hit, I decided I needed to buy back my contract.  (One of my hobbies is performing grand and meaningless gestures.)  I didn't like the idea that my book wouldn't be available in stores. (I know that Barnes and Noble recently decided to stock those books that had been published or contracted by Marshall Cavendish before the announcment. But I suspect there are many independent stores that won't do this.) Book stores are crucial for both readers and writers. I love watching young readers browsing the shelves. That's a magic I hope we never lose. It's a thrill seeing their excitement as they spy a favorite author's name on a spine, or grab a book whose title intrigues them. I didn't want to lose my browsers. And, really, I didn't want to be part of this game. I'm happy to have my books on Amazon. I want my books available in all formats and for sale at all venues. But when I sold the book to Marshall Cavendish, they were a traditional publisher, well loved by both the chains and the indies. (And by their authors.) That's the deal I signed up for, and that's the deal I wanted for this book.

Last month, I sent a check to Amazon to repay the part of the advance I'd received. I've waited eagerly for news that the check was deposited. It finally happened. The book is mine. A weight has been lifted from my spirit. Tor/Starscape agreed to publish the book next year.  I'm excited about the collection. The stories are dark and horrifying. There will be illustrations, which I suspect will also be dark and horrifying. I know I'll be missing out on the powerful promotion Amazon could put behind the book, and I admit the decision was not based on career considerations, but I had to follow my heart. The book is right where it belongs.

I feel badly for the writers who have all their books with Marhsall Cavendish Children's Books. They weren't given a choice. Some of them have been unable to get their books delivered for signings at conferences or school visits. But I don't think of Marshall Cavendish Children's Books or Amazon as villains in this. The only real villain is the parent company, Marshall Cavendish Corporation. They didn't care whether they were escorting writers onto a cruise ship or tossing them under a bus.  This is disgraceful behavior for a publishing company. I now understand why, when I was introduced to the president of the company (or the CEO, or some high-up mucky-muck wearing lifeless eyes and a gray suit) last year at the Public Library Association conference, he seemed disinterested in meeting me. He already knew I'd been sold. Dear sir -- you suck.  Some day, I hope you learn that books are not commodities and that authors are not expendable. 

As I said, I am a very small player in all of this. And a YA short-story collection is hardly the sort of book that will earn as much as one of my novels (though it's really a sweet little volume). But, ultimately, I wanted a voice in the fate of my book. After ten years of trying to get it on the shelves, that's not a lot to ask. I might turn out to be a fool or a genius, but I won't be a pawn. And, when the book gets releases, I'm planning to throw one heck of a party. I suspect it won't be hard to find a willing book store to host it.

I can haz grammar

There's a place for bad behavior...A boy gets an alien de...

There's a place for bad behavior...

A boy gets an alien death ray from his uncle. A gamer gets hooked on casino gambling. A bully steals steroids from an enormous athlete. What could possibly go wrong? Once in a while, I'll write a story that contains an item, a scene, or an action that might be considered inappropriate for classroom reading. So that story can't go into one of my Weenies collections. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good story. I've gathered a selection of inappropriate stories, tossed in some other tales my fans might enjoy, and priced the whole thing as low as possible. Do the appropirate thing -- get a copy for yourself, or for your favorite young reader.

Only $.99 -- yes 99 cents.
Get it for the NOOK at Barnes & Noble
Get if for the Kindle at Amazon.com
Get it in ePub, mobi, pdf, and other formats at Smashwords. com