Leigh Bardugo's Blog, page 641
November 11, 2013
25 DAYS OF GRISHA CHALLENGE
DAY 5 - favorite male character -...
25 DAYS OF GRISHA CHALLENGE
DAY 5 - favorite male character - The Darkling
Love Mison! (And surprised to see him as the Darkling!)
November 10, 2013
shadowandbone:
Nikolai (sexy) Lantsov appreciation because of...
Nikolai (sexy) Lantsov appreciation because of the book signing!
Perfect. Also, last night, I finally learned what the eff “what does the fox say?” means. Yeah, I live in a shoe.
hebeldesign:
Wear them all as necklaces or charms in bracelets....
Wear them all as necklaces or charms in bracelets. #grisha #shadowandbone @lbardugo
Ok, Vivian Hebel is amaaazing. I will gave them all. Oh yes. I will.
November 9, 2013
shadowandbone:
Just came back from the yallfest. I met Leigh!!!!! I cried afterwards (I was too shy...
Just came back from the yallfest. I met Leigh!!!!! I cried afterwards (I was too shy to tell her i run this tumblr but….) yeah so tht was the highlight of my life
wait, what??? why didn’t you tell me??? I would have buried you in swag and treats!
thank you so much for coming out. next time, I hope you’ll reveal your secret identity. I love you guys so much <333
November 7, 2013
cbheck:
I just finished Shadow and Bone the other day, and so...
I just finished Shadow and Bone the other day, and so here is a quick, not-thoroughly-researched sketch of how I imagined Alina Starkov looked at the beginning of the book before important stuff started happening to her, which apparently means Wednesday Addams + Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I’d like to try again and make her a bit less pretty, but I don’t have much experience drawing nuanced girl characters, so this’ll have to do for now.
I’m reblogging this again because I didn’t realize it was drawn by my delightful friend Colin Heck. Hellew, Colin!
malindalo:
marielubooks:
Tuesday night, at my first bookstore...
Tuesday night, at my first bookstore event for Champion, I received a great, fascinating question about Day. An audience member brought it to my attention that many consider Day a non-PoC character, that because he is described almost entirely as just blond-haired and blue-eyed, his Asian heritage doesn’t really stand for much or contribute much. The question was, “Why did I choose to make Day a PoC character?”
The instant she asked this, I totally understood. I understood the argument and the opinion of Day as a non-PoC character. Day is indeed described as a blue-eyed blonde, and his Asian heritage is mentioned only a couple of times. Day is very easily imagined as a white boy.
I think back on when I first created Day for Legend, and I honestly cannot remember thinking much of his race. I decided to make him a half-Asian, half-white person with blond hair and blue eyes because I saw a photo of a breathtaking Mongolian girl (shown above). My immediate thought was, “God, she’s gorgeous. I want my boy to be this.”
And that was it. That was the extent of my thoughts. In hindsight, I’m a bit embarrassed that I thought so little about it, that at the time I knew almost nothing about YA or the issues of race/lack-of-PoC characters in the book world. It just….didn’t occur to me. I simply wanted a diverse cast with varied races and characteristics, for the same reasons that you might want a cast that don’t all have brown hair or all have green eyes. I implanted this image of Day in my head, shrugged, and then went on to write about him the way I always had. If I were writing a story set in the real world, I think I would have thought harder about the implications of Day’s race.
Perhaps his race mattered so little to me because it mattered so little to him. It mattered so little to everyone in the Republic. The Republic is very much a dystopian world, but there are two things about the Republic that are more utopian than our own society: 1) there is zero gender/sexuality discrimination, and 2) there is zero racial discrimination. No one blinks twice that June or Commander Jameson are top females in the military. No one cares that Day is half-Asian or that Kaede is Japanese or that Pascao is black and gay. The Republic could care less what race or gender or sexual orientation you are. The Republic only cares what your class is. Misogyny, anti-gay bigotry, and racism are replaced here by severe class discrimination. This is the world that Day lives in, one where he is judged not by his appearance but by the poverity of his family. Day is an American who happens to look half-Asian. His race has absolutely no effect on his personality, actions, opinions, and preferences. I’m pretty sure I wrote him like this because I feel like an American who happens to be Asian. Aside from a diehard love for Asian food, the ability to speak and understand Chinese, and a few cultural quirks (i.e. I dislike the number “4”, because in Chinese superstition the word for “4” sounds almost exactly like the word for “death”), I am as wholly, completely American as the next guy. When I visit China, I feel as foreign as when I visit Europe.
I’m not sure I’m doing a very good job of answering the original question here; I’ve never been very comfortable at expressing myself in blog posts or articles. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t mean to create Day to fill a quota or to make a statement. I didn’t mean to “hide” his Asian-ness behind a blond-haired, blue-eyed mask. To think so is to discredit the fact that many people of color exist on a gradient—we are not always so noticeably Asian or Caucasian or Hispanic or African-American, etc. I’ve received quite a few emails over the years from parents who have hapa children with blond hair and blue eyes, and it makes me smile. Day is half-Asian and half-white, but he is not defined by it, nor does he dwell much on it. He’s just….Day.
Thank you, Marie, for taking the time to answer the question! Especially for this part: "I didn’t mean to “hide” his Asian-ness behind a blond-haired, blue-eyed mask. To think so is to discredit the fact that many people of color exist on a gradient—we are not always so noticeably Asian or Caucasian or Hispanic or African-American, etc."
macteenbooks:
We just got this email from Leigh Bardugo’s...
We just got this email from Leigh Bardugo’s editor. So of course we’re DROPPING EVERYTHING to read RUIN & RISING!
Awwwww! My editor didn’t tell me she wrote such a lovely email.
And yes, up until yesterday around 2pm, no one at my publishing house had seen Ruin and Rising except for me and my editor. Exciting and scary to have more eyes on it!
sanktilya:
25 Days of Grisha Challenge Day 5: Favourite Male...
25 Days of Grisha Challenge
Day 5: Favourite Male Character
✝ Nikolai Lantsov ✝
"Princes bleed just like other men."
Nikolai plucked an invisible piece of dust from his sleeve. “Yes,” he said. “They just do it in better clothes.”
I don’t know why, but this one really got to me. One of my favorite Nikolai edits thus far
