Emily M. Danforth's Blog, page 6

Ms. Bardugo, I loved your first books, but I was terribly disappointed to see you give in to political correctness in Ruin & Rising. You had a great story and then you ruined it with unnecessary lesbianism. Authors don't need to make statements, they just

I was really tempted to ignore this because I don’t believe in giving anon wangs a platform, but the term “unnecessary lesbianism” made me laugh so hard that I caved.

Authors can write good books and make statements. I’m going to make some statements now. (Get ready.)

Queer people and queer relationships aren’t less necessary to narrative than cishet people or relationships. In fact, given the lovely emails and messages I’ve received about Tamar and Nadia (and given the existence of anon wangs like you), I’d say making queer relationships visible in young adult fiction is an excellent—and yes, necessary—idea.

I do agree that story trumps statement or we’d all just write angry pamphlets, but queer people exist both in my world and the world of the Grisha trilogy. I don’t see how including them in my work is making a statement unless that statement is “I won’t willfully ignore or exclude people in order to make a few anon wangs happy.” If that’s the statement I’m making, I’m totally down with it.

Also, I’m going to take this moment to shout out Malinda Lo, Laura Lam, Alex London, David Levithan, Emily Danforth, Emma Trevayne, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, and Cassandra Clare, and to link to Malinda’s 2013 guide to LGBT in YA.  Because why just give attention to bigots when you can talk about awesome books and authors instead?

Ms. Bardugo, I loved your first books, but I was terribly disappointed to see you give in to political correctness in Ruin & Rising. You had a great story and then you ruined it with unnecessary lesbianism. Authors don't need to make statements, they just

I was really tempted to ignore this because I don’t believe in giving anon wangs a platform, but the term “unnecessary lesbianism” made me laugh so hard that I caved.

Authors can write good books and make statements. I’m going to make some statements now. (Get ready.)

Queer people and queer relationships aren’t less necessary to narrative than cishet people or relationships. In fact, given the lovely emails and messages I’ve received about Tamar and Nadia (and given the existence of anon wangs like you), I’d say making queer relationships visible in young adult fiction is an excellent—and yes, necessary—idea.

I do agree that story trumps statement or we’d all just write angry pamphlets, but queer people exist both in my world and the world of the Grisha trilogy. I don’t see how including them in my work is making a statement unless that statement is “I won’t willfully ignore or exclude people in order to make a few anon wangs happy.” If that’s the statement I’m making, I’m totally down with it.

Also, I’m going to take this moment to shout out Malinda Lo, Laura Lam, Alex London, David Levithan, Emily Danforth, Emma Trevayne, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, and Cassandra Clare, and to link to Malinda’s 2013 guide to LGBT in YA.  Because why just give attention to bigots when you can talk about awesome books and authors instead?

"It’s a total cliché, but it’s important to be true to yourself. That’s where your power is. That..."

“It’s a total cliché, but it’s important to be true to yourself. That’s where your power is. That doesn’t mean “Don’t take advice, don’t work on your skills.” It just means find what you’re passionate about—what you can devote your life to—and take it from there. (Here, I might add that talent is overrated, and a sense of purpose and dedication maybe underrated, for a creative career.)”

- Rebecca Solnit (via mttbll)

"Suddenly her mom’s silence matched Jackie’s own. “Oh, my God,” she murmured in disbelief. “Are you..."

“

Suddenly her mom’s silence matched Jackie’s own. “Oh, my God,” she murmured in disbelief. “Are you gay?”

"Yeah," Jackie forced herself to say.

After what felt like an eternity, her mom finally responded. “I don’t know what we could have done for God to have given us a fag as a child,” she said before hanging up.

[…]

She got a call from her older brother. “He said, ‘Mom and Dad don’t want to talk to you, but I’m supposed to tell you what’s going to happen,’” Jackie recalls. “And he’s like, ‘All your cards are going to be shut off, and Mom and Dad want you to take the car and drop it off at this specific location. Your phone’s going to last for this much longer. They don’t want you coming to the house, and you’re not to contact them. You’re not going to get any money from them. Nothing. And if you don’t return the car, they’re going to report it stolen.’ And I’m just bawling. I hung up on him because I couldn’t handle it.” Her brother was so firm, so matter-of-fact, it was as if they already weren’t family.

”

- You should read this Rolling Stones piece on Queer kids getting kicked out by their religious parents. And remember it.  (via fuckyeahdiomedes)

"One thing you notice very early on is that conversation is how we become human. The word “infant”..."

“One thing you notice very early on is that conversation is how we become human. The word “infant” literally means “without the possibility of phatic expression.” We begin our lives by being spoken to and then slowly by responding. It’s what makes us come together as a kindred species. Without this dialogue, without this possibility of exchange, part of our humanity — that which makes us truly human — is lost. So for me conversation is a way of going back to that initial moment. Conversation is a giving and a taking, back and forth.”

-

Paul Holdengräber, The New York Public Library’s interviewer extraordinaire, on the secrets of great conversation.

Couple with this timeless 1866 guide to the art of conversation. 

(via explore-blog)

austinkleon:Photographs of writers at work.Note how many...

austinkleon:

Photographs of writers at work.

Note how many standing desks! See also a great book on the subject, The Writer’s Desk.

Filed under: work spaces

"I suspect… that one would not be far wrong in saying that in addition to the people to whom it has..."

“I suspect… that one would not be far wrong in saying that in addition to the people to whom it has never occurred that a novel ought to be artistic, there are a great many others who, if this principle were urged upon them, would be filled with an indefinable mistrust… One would say that being good means representing virtuous and aspiring characters, placed in prominent positions; another would say that it depends for a ‘happy ending’ on a distribution at the last of prizes, pensions, husbands, wives, babies, millions, appended paragraphs and cheerful remarks. Another still would say that it means being full of incident and movement, so that we shall wish to jump ahead, to see who was the mysterious stranger, and if the stolen will was ever found, and shall not be distracted from this pleasure by any tiresome analysis or ‘description.’ But they would all agree that the ‘artistic’ idea would spoil some of their fun. One would hold it accountable for all the description, another would see it revealed in the absence of sympathy. Its hostility to a happy ending would be evident, and it might even, in some cases, render any ending at all impossible.”

- Henry James, “The Art of Fiction” (via mttbll)

"When you have symbols, they are operating on different levels, and I don’t even have to know what..."

“When you have symbols, they are operating on different levels, and I don’t even have to know what the symbols mean, but I have to gravitate toward the ones that feel charged in some way… George Saunders talks about looking for words on the page that have a charge to them and following those words, and there is something where you can train your instincts where you can write a page, and the page has a flatness to it, where there’s almost nothing interesting in it, but there’s one sentence there that you as the writer keep being drawn to. That sentence is a portal, literally, into where the actual story is. And the rest of the sentences were just warmup and can just go… That’s where the work acquires depth.”

- Aimee Bender (via mttbll)

fer1972:Underwater Photography by Ed Freeman

fer1972:

Underwater Photography by Ed Freeman

myimaginarybrooklyn:magictransistor:Charles A.A. Dellschau....

myimaginarybrooklyn:

magictransistor:

Charles A.A. Dellschau. Aeros. 1899-1922.

In the fall of 1899, Charles Dellschau (1830-1923), a retired butcher living in Houston, embarked on a project that would occupy him for more than twenty years, resulting in twelve large, hand-bound books with more than 2,500 drawings related to airships and the development of flight. Dellschau used watercolour, collage and pencil to create a fleet of craft resembling hot air balloons augmented with fantastical details and text.

His work was in large part a record of the activities of the Sonora Aero Club, of which he was a purported member. Dellschau’s writings describe the club as a secret group of flight enthusiasts who met at Sonora, California in the mid-19th century. One of the members had discovered the formula for an anti-gravity fuel he called “NB Gas.” Their mission was to design and build the first navigable aircraft using the NB Gas for lift and propulsion. Dellschau called these flying machines “Aeros”. According to a coded story hidden throughout the drawings which made up his notebooks, the Sonora Aero Club was a branch of a larger secret society known only as NYMZA. Despite exhaustive research, nothing has been found to substantiate the existence of the group. It is speculated that, like Henry Darger’s “Realms of the Unreal”, the Sonora Aero Club is a fiction by Dellschau.

After the artist’s death in 1923, the books were stored in the attic of the family home in Texas where they remained until being discovered in the aftermath of a fire in the 1960s. Like the eccentric outpourings of Adolf Wölfli, Darger and Achilles Rizzoli, these private works were not created for the art world, but to satisfy a driving internal creative force. Dellschau is now considered one of the earliest self taught visionary artists in America, and his work has been shown alongside the likes of Da Vinci. (S. Romano, Wiki)