Keris Stainton's Blog, page 44

When is it okay to use the word “gay”?

I love this so much. Thank you to Lauren for tweeting it.

It’s from It’s Pronounced Metrosexual, which seems to have loads of great stuff that I will have to investigate further.

So. NaBloPoMo.

I decided to mark the run-up to publication of Emma Hearts LA by blogging every day in May. (Not entirely because it rhymes, but that certainly doesn’t hurt.)

I’m not going to blog exclusively about the book – although I will mention that the first review is over on Readaraptor today! – but I will write a bit about it, maybe share a couple of excerpts and write a bit more about the LA research trip. We’ll see.

It’ll be fun. I hope.

Happy Birthday, Girls Heart Books!

I’ve been thrilled to have been part of the wonderful Girls Heart Books website for the past year. (I can’t quite believe it’s been a year…)

To celebrate its birthday, the site has had a makeover and it looks utterly gorgeous. Please do go and check it out – there are some wonderful writers featured and there’s been a brilliant range of posts over the past year with, I’m sure, many more to come in future. (I’m up this time next week. Now what shall I write about… *ponders*)

All hail the King of Teen

I probably shouldn’t write anything about the Queen of Teen shortlist in case it sounds like sour grapes, but since I’m still a couple of days have passed and I’m still annoyed, what the heck.

My problem’s not with the shortlist, there are some really wonderful writers on there. My problem isn’t with James Dawson, a – gasp! – man being included on the shortlist, though I do imagine that the organisers originally intended this to be an award for women writers, hence the name, but it may just be that they never considered that books “for girls” are ever written by men. No, my problem is with how the inclusion of James Dawson has been presented in the press.

The Guardian’s article about the shortlist was headlined “James Dawson shortlisted for Queen of Teen crown” and subtitled “Hollow Pike author is first man shortlisted for a prize which celebrates the ‘feistiest, frothiest and most fantastic’ writers in teen fiction.” Under that is a link to ‘Read James Dawson’s top 10 books to get you through high school.’ The article is mainly about James – how he feels to be nominated, the fact that there’s a crown, what his book’s about – all illustrated with a big picture of James.

The Guardian Teen Books account tweeted “Male author is shortlisted for Queen of Teen crown.”

The Telegraph’s article is entitled “Queen of Teen… could be a man”. Again, it’s illustrated with a photo of James and the article ends “If Dawson wins he will, of course, have to wear the victor’s ‘Queen of Teen tiara’. Well, it is an age of equality.”

Is it really? There are nine women on the shortlist. Nine women and one man. So why do the newspapers think the only thing worth reporting – the most interesting thing about the award – is that there’s a man in the running?

(Yes, I know it’s called Queen of Teen, so there’s the ‘LOL, a man could be Queen’ aspect, but that alone doesn’t explain the extent of the coverage.)

I’ve been faffing with this post for a while now because this leads to so much more I want to say, about how apparently it’s embarrassing for a man to possibly have to wear a crown and a sash, but all the women on the shortlist would no doubt be totally cool with it. How so-called boys’ books are taken much more seriously than so-called girls’ books. How this “feisty” and “frothy” discourse plays right into this, leading to reviews like this one (would a book by a male writer be reviewed so dismissively? I doubt it). But I’m just going round in circles and getting more and more annoyed. So I’ll stop now.

52 Books: Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne

I’m cheating because I didn’t read this book this week, but thanks to my Olympic-level faffing, I haven’t finished a book this week and I really loved this one, so… I thought I’d share the blurb because it’s really good.

“They say I’m evil.

The police. The newspapers. The girls from school who sigh on the six o’clock news and say they always knew there was something not quite right about me.

And everyone believes it. Including you.

But you don’t know. You don’t know who I used to be. Who I could have been.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever shake off my mistakes or if I’ll just carry them around with me forever like a bunch of red balloons.”

Awaiting trial at Archway Young Offenders Institution, Emily Koll is going to tell her side of the story for the first time.

How fabulous is that? I was a bit nervous about reading it, because I thought it would be too dark for me and I am, as you know, a massive wuss, but I know the author on Twitter and she assured me I’d be fine and she was right.

It’s wonderful. Emily’s voice is fantastic and I was gripped all the way through to the powerful ending. A really impressive debut.

Remember Magic Smile?

I started singing this just now. No idea why, since I’m not aware of having thought of it for years, but I was obsessed with it when it came out and played it over and over (and over).

When I worked in the music business (*cough*) in the nineties, Rosie Vela was one of our clients. I spoke to her on the phone and, after talking about business accounts and other yawns, said something like “CanIjustsayIlovedMagicSmilesomuch!”  She said “Oh! Thank you.” If this was Twitter, I’d hashtag that #patheticclaimtofame #hashtagsarehandy

Homeschooling Harry: Week Two

Harry got me out of bed at 6-ish to watch Doctor Who with him. When we’d finished watching, Joe still wasn’t awake so I said we might as well start “school.” Harry rolled his eyes a bit, but since I said we’d start by watching a couple of videos on The Kid Should See This, he didn’t mind so much. We watched this one and then this one. Then Harry said he wanted to look on BrainPOP to learn more about Henry Ford.

As we searched for Ford, Harry said, “So I can learn about anything I want?” I told him yes, that was the point. He said, “So I could learn how ice creams are made?” “Yep.” “Hair? Brains?” “Yep.” “Computers? Bogeys? Cup of teas?” “Yes, yes and yes.” (Not looking forward to the middle one there, so much.)

We didn’t find a Henry Ford video, but Harry spotted the Martin Luther King Jnr video and wanted to watch that. By the end, we’d both welled up and I started wittering about how amazing it is that America now has a black president. Harry searched for Barack Obama and, when we found there wasn’t a video for him, I tweeted BrainPOP to ask them to get on it!

By then, Joe was up, so school was over until after we’d dropped him at preschool. I decided to head for a coffee shop again so Harry wouldn’t be tempted by the Wii. Last week, Harry chose a bag to use as his Flexischool bag and I’d been sticking library books and various other bits and bobs in it all week, so we had that with us.

We got some drinks and breakfast and we started with a poem from Read Me Out Loud (which I picked up in the library). It was Some Salamanders by Nick Toczek. We didn’t get it. Harry then did some more “literacy” and then we started on French. I’d found a book in the library called Harry Learns French and I recommend it, even if your child’s not called Harry!

We moved onto Science, which is all about plants. Again, I’d got a book from the library and we had a read of that and made plans to try one of the experiments in the book.

By then, Harry was flagging and I realised we’d been working for an hour and a half, almost without a break. (Well, apart from very short breaks for him to scoff some pancake.) I asked him what he wanted to do next and he said, wearily, “Just go home…”

I’m going to have to learn that just because I’ve got the pile of stuff I want him to do, doesn’t mean he’s capable of doing it all at once. We’ll find a balance, I know. Anyway, I was proud of him because he’d actually got quite a lot done and hardly complained at all.

We picked Joe up from preschool and, as David was home too, decided to go to the park. Harry and I talked plants and seeds, while Joe yelled “Yet’s RUN, Harry!” And off they ran. This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to do when I thought about homeschooling. When I look at the notes they school gave me about the plants project, my heart sinks, but actually being in the park, talking about the plants and searching for seeds was just fantastic. Plus we had the children’s playground to ourselves and I even went on the big slide. (Eep.) (We went for an ice cream and Joe said, “You enjoy your day off, Harry?”)

Back at home, we tried the experiment from the book, but it didn’t work. (It was this.)

Harry and I had a chat about how there are a few things he has to do each week – work on his writing and reading, Science – and then he can choose whatever he wants to do. I need to remember this too and be more relaxed about how the day goes. And of course, it doesn’t all have to be done in the one day – Harry’s always happy to learn, so anything we don’t fit into Friday can be done over the weekend. “Yeah,” Harry says. “Like my blog.” Indeed.

(In the photo at the top, the red dot bottom right is Joe.)

Boy Quotes (Part 15)

Told Joe MIL was having a check-up and he said “A chipmunk?! Grandma got a pet?”

Harry’s just said, “Middy, you will be surprised at how much I will miss you when you’re in LA.”

Joe is “armantising” my office. I have no idea what it means.

Harry tweeted this: RT @Keris: joe is love

Gave Joe two biscuits. He brought one over to me, saying, “There go, Middy.” I think he might be my favourite.

Equality lessons are working. Harry says he’s looking forward to making “snowmen… or snow-women.” Still wants to make snowballs though.

Joe’s ruined: “Goin’ hotel..?” “No, we’re going home.” “NO! JOE GO HOTEL!!!”

Harry’s arguing that Jesus didn’t wear trousers. He said, “If we had a bible, we could look in it. Or… Google?”

When we sing Twinkle Twinkle to Joe, Harry replaces half the words with “poo.” Just sang it to Joe and Joe replaced half with “bin day.”

Harry’s just told Joe that David’s in Guatemala and he’s showing him on the map. David’s in Chorley.

Friday favourites: the es ee ex edition

First, a warning. These links all lead to rudeness (reading about it, not doing it) (as far as I know). Do not click if you are smut-averse or underage. Please don’t click them and then complain to me after. Okay? Thank you. 

Did you ever read Sex Tips for Girls? I think I read If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t You Dead Yet? first (still love that title) and then all Cynthia Heimel’s other books. This would be about 1990 though, I’d say. I really should read them again. (I only mention it now since I wanted to use the cover to illustrate this post.)

Anyway, earlier this week my name was mentioned in two articles – published on the same day – about, you know… This one by my friend Diane on xoJane and this one by the author Lucy-Anne Holmes on her wonderful new (but, may I say again, ADULT) blog. *blush*

You’ve heard of the new book phenomenon 50 Shades of Grey, right? (I know it’s a phenomenon because one of the mums at school came up and asked me if I’d heard of it.) Well, if you’re not sure whether you should read it, Book Beast has picked out the muckiest bits so you don’t have to. And Ellen tried to read it, but… “If you go to Anastasia’s house, don’t eat the pancakes.” (via @dianeshipley)

And while I’m on this subject, here’s something I wrote (or rather collected) for Scarlet magazine about the first time you get a funny feeling, you know, down there: Do You Remember the First Time?

How about some reader recommends?

I was just tootling around on Twitter and having a little ponder about how often I discover something when someone tweets about it and how lovely that is. And then I got to thinking about the bit in the front of the Guardian weekend magazine where people recommend stuff – websites, products, etc. – they love (I think the Guardian put it there as a counterpoint to all the whining in the letters page). A magazine used to do it too (Easy Living, I think) and I always enjoyed it.

All of which is a longwinded way of saying I’d love to do a regular ‘reader recommends’ page here on this blog. So if you’d like to tell me about stuff you’re loving and think others will love too – it can be ANYTHING AT ALL – you can either leave a comment here, use my contact page or email me (keris [dot] stainton [at] googlemail [dot] com).

I’d like to start off by recommending Grandma’s House, Simon Amstell’s BBC2 sitcom. It’s ace. (Thursdays, 10pm.) (Watch last week’s here.)