Kibkabe Araya's Blog, page 8
July 1, 2022
A Discussion on Banned Books Looks at Disinformation
https://mailchi.mp/729f922e52fe/a-dis... https://mailchi.mp/729f922e52fe/a-dis... SHE LIT: A Discussion on Banned Books Looks at Disinformation A panel focused on the banning of books gets criticized by #BookTwitter over the topic of Holocaust denial books being in libraries. View this email in your browser 📚 Join the #shelitbookclub on July 31 as we discuss the novel Red Clocks by Leni Zumas amid the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Details can be found here. Words get twisted after an author and librarian discuss banned books at event Over the last week, the American Library Association hosted its 2022 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C., and a panel about banned books became a hot topic on #BookTwitter with numerous authors and librarians alike sharing their opinions. From the social media comments, young adult best-selling author and banned books ambassador Jason Reynolds was attacked over the assumption he supported Holocaust denial books being made available at libraries. Nancy Pearl, an author dubbed “Seattle’s most famous librarian” by The Seattle Times who was sitting on the Unite Against Book Bans panel last Saturday, implied she felt bad for keeping Holocaust denial books on library shelves because they’re “needed.” So, should books that promote disinformation and misinformation like […]
June 29, 2022
Jenny Han Talks Asian Representation in Books on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Tour
Best-selling young adult novelist Jenny Han has another series in the book-to-TV limelight. After finding success on Netflix with the three film adaptations of her To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series, she now has her first YA series The Summer I Turned Pretty getting the screen treatment with its recent premiere on Amazon Prime Video. Not new to advocacy for having more Asian and Asian American stories represented in books, Jenny spoke about the issue on her press tour while a mention made an appearance on the new TV show. On CBS Mornings this week, anchor Gayle King asked if Jenny was hurt when she wasn’t able to sell her early works featuring an Asian character. Jenny says her feelings weren’t hurt “because it was so matter-of-fact.” To be able to sell her first YA novel, she made her main character Belly Conklin, played by Lola Tung onscreen, appear White. “I had tried to sell a book with an Asian main character before this one, and people weren’t really interested in it,” says Jenny, who’s also the executive producer of the show. “The thing I would hear is we already have a book with an Asian. I thought […]
June 27, 2022
Book Review: ‘Juliet Takes a Breath’ by Gabby Rivera
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera is a coming-of-age novel that has been miscategorized in the young adult genre since it focuses on a college student on an unconventional ride to self-acceptance. Juliet Palante is discovering herself. On summer break from college, she’s at home in the Bronx about to embark on a journey to Portland, Oregon, to serve as an assistant to a feminist writer. But before she leaves, Juliet notices her sorta girlfriend Lainie has doubts about their relationship while she’s deciding how to come out to her family. She tells her family that she’s a lesbian at the dinner before her flight to Portland. The aftermath makes her look forward to Portland, where she lives with her new boss, Harlowe Brisbane. Once she’s inside Harlowe’s home, she’s quickly learning about the preference of pronouns to the range of sexuality. Where does she belong? Especially as a Latina in the very White-centered world of Portland. Her race, ethnicity, and culture intertwine with her sexual orientation as she meets young women like herself who seem so sure of who they are. As far as we know, this book has been banned by at least one school district. First […]
June 24, 2022
Will Great Reflection Usher More People Into The Book Industry?
*|MC:SUBJECT|* *|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* View this email in your browser June is Pride Month! Join the #shelitbookclub this Sunday at 11 a.m. as we discuss the recently banned young adult novel Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera. More info on joining the conversation can be found here 🏳️ Set to a recycled hypnotic beat, Beyoncé’s new single ignites dream job conversation In a week where rapper Drake dropped a whole album, pop queen Beyoncé made a splash Monday with a single from her upcoming album that is allegedly having people quit their jobs. But “Break My Soul” is emphasizing the path to self-expression, which speaks volumes in a creative field like book publishing. Only 7% of Americans surveyed were working their dream jobs, according to a report from MoneyPenny that came out last August. The survey also emphasized how that also meant a whopping 93% of employees were not working in their dream jobs. Last year’s Great Resignation, also being dubbed the Great Reflection, inspired 47 million people to quit their jobs as the demand for better treatment in the workplace became a rallying cry during the Covid-19 pandemic. One in five of those people who resigned say they regretted it, […]
June 17, 2022
How Juneteenth Became A Book Festival Holiday
*|MC:SUBJECT|* *|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* View this email in your browser June is Pride Month! Join the #shelitbookclub with reading the recently banned young adult novel Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera 🏳️ Black authors still struggle to get recognized for their creative freedom At the height of the racial justice movement in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Black authors started tweeting about their realities in the publishing industry. Floyd, a Black man whose life is the subject of the new book His Name Is George Floyd by The Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, died after White police officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee onto Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. A worldwide uprising followed people into their workplaces. Black authors like L.L. McKinney wanted to know how unfair pay can be for someone like her. The A Blade So Black fantasy young adult author created the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag two years ago, where White authors were asked to share the amount of money they had been paid for their books. But Black authors and other authors of color began to share how they had been lowballed for their books. With more attention to the Black experience, […]
June 14, 2022
LGBTQIA+ Books Are More Banned Than Ever
LGBTQIA+ Books Are More Banned Than Ever *|MC:SUBJECT|* Subscribe to the newsletter a href=”https://mailchi.mp/9a4f7d943f5b/she-l... the original newsletter sent June 10, 2022 June is Pride Month! Join the #shelitbookclub with reading the recently banned young adult novel Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera 🏳️• Why banned books are disappearing from library shelves The most banned book in the United States right now is Maia Kobabe’s memoir Gender Queer. Maia, who uses the pronouns e/em/eir, illustrates eir experience growing up in rural San Francisco Bay Area in a graphic book where e undergoes traditional gendered events from getting eir first bra to developing crushes on boys and girls. Published by Simon & Schuster’s Oni Press in 2019, the author’s autobiographical coming-of-age story held the top spot on the most banned and challenged books list compiled by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The group says the book has been “banned, challenged, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, and because it was considered to have sexually explicit images.” Most books are banned from libraries and schools without much media fanfare, as in up to 97% of these books that are challenged will never be covered by the news. That means Americans, […]
June 8, 2022
Book Review: ‘Detransition, Baby’ by Torrey Peters
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters explores the complexities of parenthood between two women and a man who unite in an effort to take care of a baby, but the closer they get, the more they convince themselves they’re making a mistake. Reese always wanted to be a mother. In fact, she acts as a mother figure in the New York City transgender community, taking in young trans women who remind her of herself when she first came to the city from the Midwest. Upon her arrival, she quickly became a go-to caretaker for children on the Upper East Side. She has the natural gift of taking care of others. One of the trans women she had taken under her wing was Amy, who returns in her life in a form she’s unfamiliar with. Ames is a marketing executive having a sultry fling with his recently divorced boss, Katrina. They soon realize they are expecting a baby. Katrina had a miscarriage during her marriage, so she’s nervous about the pregnancy. She’s also at the top of her game at work, and she’s unsure how a baby she’s having with a subordinate fits into her career plan post-divorce. Ames can’t believe he […]
June 6, 2022
From the Editor: Gabby Rivera’s ‘Juliet Takes a Breath’ Is She Lit Book Club’s June Pick
The June she lit book club selection is Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera for Pride Month. With a Latina lesbian as the main character, the 2019 book has enjoyed a market resurgence in the last two years, which has led to a recent banning. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) Pride Month kicked off with a proclamation from President Joe Biden for the month of June to acknowledge the history of LGBTQI+ individuals and celebrate the diversity within the community in the U.S. This year’s Pride Month in literary circles has become a time to reflect on the many books currently being banned across the country from school libraries by LGBTQI+ authors and/or about LGBTQI+ characters. Author Gabby Rivera calls herself a “Bronx-born queer Puerto Rican babe on a mission to create the wildest, most fun stories ever” in the book flap of the original publication of Juliet Takes a Breath from Dial Books, a Penguin Random House imprint. The book received a different rendition of a cover for paperback in 2021. Simon & Schuster and BOOM! Box in 2020 created a graphic novel version of the book. Earlier this year, Juliet Takes a Breath was listed […]
May 22, 2022
March 24, 2022
How Erica Kennedy Defined 2000s Multicultural Women’s Fiction
March 24th marks what would’ve been Erica Kennedy’s 52nd birthday. The promising author, who published two novels entrenched in media and entertainment through two multicultural female characters, died in 2012. Ten years after her untimely death, her novels Bling and Feminista remain pillars in the modern-day establishment of the “chick lit” and “bitch lit” genres for Black and multicultural readers that shouldn’t be forgotten. Born in 1970, Queens native Erica Kennedy Johnson worked in entertainment and fashion journalism with writing clips for New York Daily News, Vibe, and InStyle. She blogged at the now-defunct xoJane and other sites that dominated the female-centric blogosphere in the mid-2000s. Writing and commenting on entertainment gave her a platform as she amassed over 4,000 followers on her personal Twitter—a number in 2012 that would’ve paved the path for Black Twitter stardom. Her last tweets defend President Barack Obama against conservative attacks and give us a play-by-play of Scandal episodes. Famous film critic Roger Ebert even listed Erica as a tweeter to follow and tweeted about her death, directing users to Erica’s writer-friend and memoirist Bassey Ikpi’s now-private blog. Erica’s writing chops sprouted from her fashion publicity résumé working at Tommy Hilfiger and from her […]
