I forgot to take many pictures at World Fantasy. (I know! Me! Calling myself a “photographer”!) Plus, my laptop’s hard drive is literally so full that it won’t let me upload what pictures I did take. So you won’t get to see all the attending Utahns with author L.E. Modesitt and agent Joshua Bilmes (taken specifically to make Brandon Sanderson jealous, because he couldn’t make it this year–blame Dan, or if you’re a Writing Excuses fan, blame Jordo, who wasn’t even there and it was his fault), and you won’t be able to see me in my I Am Not a Serial Killer t-shirt, so you won’t be able to be reassured that I’m not a serial killer until next week.
In the meantime, head on over to Tu Publishing, where today is an open thread–tell us what you’d like to see on the Tu Publishing website. What would draw you to return to a publisher’s website?
Also, continued gratitude to all the people who are pledging to give Tu a kickstart! We’re up past 25%! Let’s keep the momentum going!
I’m heading out in the morning (at an hour I don’t normally see while conscious unless I’ve stayed up all night) for San Jose to meet up with friends at World Fantasy this weekend. Those of you who are going as well, I look forward to seeing you there! I’ll have tons of Tu Publishing bookmarks with me (about 300, I think!) so if you want one, or several to hand out to friends — or even if you don’t want one—you’ll probably get one.
I’m not sure what kind of internet connection I’ll have over the weekend, so I’ll probably be going relatively dark on Twitter and here (not that I post overmuch here, but you get the idea). I have internet access on my phone, but I’m hoping to be busy connecting with people in person, as you can imagine! It’s my first World Fantasy, and I’m looking forward to meeting new people and reconnecting with old friends.
I’m finishing up short critiques this week and next–if you don’t hear from me by next Friday, please drop me an email and be sure that it wasn’t overlooked. From now on, I’ll be even more choosy when it comes to taking on critiques—not because I don’t want to work with you guys, but because I’ve been so swamped for the past two months and I don’t want to make anyone wait too long. Between the day job and starting a small press, that’s been quite a load on my plate, and I’m grateful to all of you who have waited so patiently for me to get to your piece.
In continued celebration of the theme of Teen Read Week, even if the week itself is over, I interviewed author Cindy Pon about her new book, Silver Phoenix, and about reading beyond reality. Okay, sure, it was because our schedules didn’t meet up for getting the interview up during Teen Read Week, but I think it’s an important enough idea that we should continue to discuss reading beyond our reality long after the week officially celebrating it ends.
I especially like what she had to say about universal ideas in literature — even if you’re not Asian, or English, or a ballet dancer, “This is why stories are so wonderful to me. If the author did her job, you can love and relate, even to something that isn’t exactly like you.”
I plan to continue to interview authors, teen readers, and other bloggers over the next several months, probably one a week, so stay tuned. If you’re interested in this issue and have something you’d like to submit as a guest post for Tu’s blog, please also let me know at stacylwhitman AT gmail.com.
And also, a big thanks to those who have pledged to Tu Publishing this week. We’re getting closer to our goal. Once I catch up on critiques, my next project will be to add more content to the Tu site and make it more than a relatively static website.
We’re planning an anthology contest, rules for which will be announced when I’ve had time to put them in writing, so start polishing those short stories featuring multicultural characters or settings for young readers. I’m posting about it here but not at the Tu site yet because I want to post about it officially there when I’ve hammered out the rules, when I’m ready to take submissions. But in the mean time, be thinking about those stories. There will be a young writers category for teen writers, as well, so tell the teens in your life who love to write.
All I want to do right now is just play World of Warcraft and watch movies and pig out on food that’s really bad for me, but I’m actually going to go home and get critiques done. This week at work has been pretty scatterbrained. Weird problems kept coming up. Several things keep getting delayed because of weird errors that aren’t the norm. I kept thinking there had to be some easy explanation, some stupid mistake I was making–because it had already happened a couple times, when I would put http:// on an address that didn’t need it and didn’t work because I was doing a secure FTP instead, that kind of thing. Not realizing that I had the disc for the Norton problem I was having, and the associate editor having to ask me where the disc was when he was trying to troubleshoot the problem. Um, whoops. You know how a new job can be a little overwhelming at times!
But it turned out that the other problems that I was running into were actually real problems that the associate editor (who is our really smart all-things-computer guy to ask when it’s not a *huge* computer problem, for which we ask the actual computer guy) couldn’t solve either. I don’t know whether I feel bad about needing his time or justified that the problem was real.
At any rate, it’s been the kind of week that I just want to heave a big sigh that it’s done. Now, on to catching up on critiques for my “other life.” I really need to finish these up–some people have been waiting on me for months, which I feel awful about. Again, thanks for your patience, and I’m going home now, so at least 2 more people should hear from me tonight or tomorrow!
We’re up to almost $1000 on the Kickstarter project for Tu Publishing. Thanks so much to everyone for pledging, and please feel free to share the link with anyone who you think might be interested, even if they can only spare $5. We’re starting this through Kickstarter because it’s secure, run by a third party, and it’s a great way for me to be able to give back to the people who pledge — if you donate $10, you get a coupon for $5 off a book, and so forth. The idea is that if a lot of people pool together, artistic projects can get off the ground more easily. Tu Publishing will be a for-profit company, but we are committed to literacy for all children and young adults and will be getting involved in local and national endeavors as we grow, such as YALSA’s Teen Read Week. (If you have literacy projects to suggest involvement in, especially ones that I can volunteer for here in Utah, please feel free to let me know. I’m on the lookout, and will be getting more involved in the community once I finish up the critiques I’ve got in the queue.) If we reach our Kickstarter goal, and add to it the money from a private investor and some savings of my own, it will be enough to cover the costs of our first season’s books (author advances, small stipends for freelance, printing and shipping costs, and marketing), and it will also show a bank that we are a good investment for a small business loan going forward.
Our first two books will be fantasy or science fiction, and I’ll specifically be looking for books that feature characters of color, characters from minority or non-Western cultures, and/or non-Western/minority cultures. That’s pretty broad–it could be Japanese or Jamaican, Alaskan Inuit or African American settings and/or characters, and I’m not looking for books where race is necessarily the issue–just really great stories that will entertain readers from 7 to 18 (and up, if you count me and all you folks like me!). So if you’ve got a children’s or YA novel that you think will fit this criteria, if we make our Kickstarter goal I’ll be acquiring manuscripts beginning January 1. That means you’ve got just over three months to whip that manuscript in shape! I’ll be posting more specifics for our submission guidelines as that time comes closer, so keep an eye on the Tu Publishing Submission Guidelines page. As you can imagine, just as with the critiques, during this transitional period to my day job, these website changes will be coming along sporadically. I’ll post about them here as well to alert you.
In addition, several people have asked that instead of giving them the incentive, that I give it to their local libraries, which is completely doable. If we reach the goal, I will be contacting everyone to get their mailing information to send them their rewards. At that time, if you want me to send it to your local library instead of you, all you’d need to do is let me know their address. Full books will be sent later, of course, when the first season’s books are printed.
I’m hosting a book club tomorrow, where we’re going to discuss Justine Larbalestier‘s How to Ditch Your Fairy. The book is a fun read so far, but I need to finish it tonight! If you’re local and can’t make it tomorrow, feel free to go ahead and send your suggestions for what to read next month, so that we can have plenty of time to decide and prepare. If you can come tomorrow and need to know where to go (7 pm, my house), please drop me an email and I’ll give you the scoop.
The new job is becoming quite fun. In my off time, I’ve slowly been getting back to authors on their critiques, so thanks again to everyone for all your patience as I transition and finish up those critiques while starting a new full-time job. Now, if I can just get health insurance going, life would be just about perfect (it’s a small non-profit based in California that uses Kaiser Permanente, which means that here in Utah I’d have no coverage with that, which means that I have to get an individual policy, which is really, really complicated when you have chronic conditions like asthma). If you’ve been wondering why I twitter so much about health care, it’s because I have a personal interest in the health care crisis, seeing as how I’m having my own personal health care crisis. Hopefully, by my talking about it openly, it will put at least one face on the discussions out there–the face of a self-employed (and now employed by a small nonprofit) worker for whom taking care of something as simple as an asthma condition becomes out of the question due to the cost of health care and insurance.
I have a standing anime/movie night with several friends (if you’re local, remember: it’s Friday nights, and we don’t always do anime, so you’re welcome to join in and we’ll decide the week before what we’ll watch the next week; email me for details).
We’ve watched a lot of great stuff in the last year or so–the stuff coming out in the last few years is just plain brilliant:
Vampire Knight (if you liked Twilight, you’ll LOVE VK–6 or 7 volumes of the manga is out here in the States, and the anime just got licensed)
Fullmetal Alchemist
Saiunkoku (OH so good–I would really love to be the one to bring over the light novels through Tu Publishing, but if someone got there first, I’d be all over getting them; I wish I could find the full second season on DVD)
Gundam 00
Ouran High School Host Club (very fun, and a great look at gender roles)
Fruits Basket
Code Geass
Witch Hunter Robin (this stands out among a bunch of standouts–so good)
Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex
Emma: A Victorian Romance
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumya
Kuroshitsuji (we have to finish this one sometime) (also: this one is very hard to pronounce!)
Wolf’s Rain (good, but very sad ending)
Twelve Kingdoms (80s cheese, including a very whiny main character at first, but if you stick with it, it’s pretty fun)
Cele-something (dang, forgot the name; helpful, aren’t I?)
Moribito: Guardian of the Sacred Spirit (wow, what a show. And there’s a great book it’s based on, edited by Cheryl Klein)
… and many others that I’m forgetting. I should make a complete list to help me remember & help lead me to ones I like.
This has led me to many a good anime on my own (including older ones that I never saw when they were new), often because the friend who hosted anime night–who sadly just moved away–is so in touch with it and makes great recommendations:
Tsubasa
Samurai 7
xxxHolic
Last Exile
The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye (so good I want to add this one to my collection)
Ghost Hunt
Trigun
.hack//SIGN (and just as I got into it somehow all the discs became unavailable)
Death Note
Scrapped Princess
Noein
R.O.D the TV
Fushigi Yugi: The Mysterious Play (90s cheese, but fun)
Read or Die
…and so on.
Anyway, I make this list right now because I want to eventually break it down and review some of them, and also because I’d like to hear if any of you have suggestions–given that I’ve liked pretty much all of this list, and given that if you’re a reader of this blog you probably know the kind of fantasy and science fiction I’m into (there are some great YA-oriented school stories on there, too, that aren’t speculative at all, but absolutely entertaining, like Ouran), perhaps you’ll be able to recommend some I haven’t heard of. What am I missing? You can probably tell that my tastes tend to run shojo–I love the bishis, when it’s not too overdone!–but I’m also open to brilliant stories that aren’t terribly violent.
What would you guys recommend? What new anime coming out is a must-see?
**Oh, and a few I want to see but haven’t gotten to yet:
On Tuesday, I challenged everyone (teens, especially) to respond to my video with videos of their own talking about their experiences with reading and multicultural literature. Since then, I’ve figured out how to not squish my lovely friend Christine, who answered several questions for me, and was able to add music as well. (I really like the music, actually–it reminds me of a silent film now because of the slides between interviews.)
Here’s the updated video (I had to upload a new one, rather than just doing a straight replacement, so any links you might have posted to the YouTube video are out of date, though the Kickstarter link is the same).
Also, thanks so much to everyone who has retweeted, blogged, Facebooked, and otherwise shared this project with others. We’re off to a great start, and I appreciate everyone who has been so kind as to share the news and to pledge to the project. A special shoutout to Kimberly Pauley of YA (and Kids) Books Central, who has issued a challenge: she will send out a signed copy of her book to the first 10 people to donate $50. Also, thanks to Mitali Perkins, Cheryl Klein,Varian Johnson, KaedtiannHP, Jana Stocks, Kim Baccellia, Cassandra Yorgey, and all the other people who have been passing the word along!
I’ll work on getting a thank-you page going on the Tu Publishing site as soon as I round up a few other things I need to finish first–namely, critiques that people have been waiting on–and I also plan to add a few more things to the site as time goes on. Thanks again, everyone!
I’m cross-posting this from the Tu Publishing website, the website of my small press. I promised you the announcement of a project, and I’ve finally finished it at 3:15 a.m. I’m going to go ahead and share it everyone despite the video needing a little fine-tuning still. (I seem to have a different resolution camera than Christine Taylor-Butler, who helped me out by providing an educator’s and parent’s perspective on multicultural fantasy and science fiction.) The Tu Publishing site is a work in progress–I didn’t have time last night to completely update it when I posted the video, but it will be changing and getting more informative soon.
Just a reminder (though I iterate it below, too) that those who have used the “donate” button here on this blog are on the list to receive the same incentives put in place in the Kickstarter project. You’ve been very helpful as we’ve gotten through the red tape to start a company, and I want to reciprocate, even if it’s a pretty small gesture comparitively.
Tu Publishing is a woman-owned small press startup that believes in the power of books to change lives. Children’s books, especially, have the ability to inform, inspire, and entertain in a way that few mediums can.
The word “tu” means “you” in many languages, and in Ainu (the language of Japan’s native people), it means “many.” Tu Publishing is dedicated to publishing fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction for children and young adults inspired by many cultures from around the world, to reach the “you” in each reader.
Kids who love to read do better in school. One way to encourage that love of reading is to provide stories that readers can identify with. By increasing the number of books that feature multicultural character and settings, we can influence the multicultural world of tomorrow.
Fantasy and science fiction, mystery and historical fiction–these genres draw in readers like no other. Yet it is in these genres that readers of color might feel most like an outsider, given that such a large percentage features white characters (when they feature human characters). It is the goal of Tu Publishing to publish genre books for children and young adults that fills this gap in the market–and more importantly, this gap in serving our readers.
As author Mitali Perkins and many others have pointed out, books can be both a mirror and a window to other worlds for readers. Tu Publishing hopes that by publishing books that feature multicultural characters and settings and books with worlds inspired by all the many non-Western cultures in the world, we might shine a mirror on you and open a window to many.
To be able to achieve that goal, we need to raise enough money to fund the acquisition, production, marketing, and distribution of our first two books, for which we hope–with your help–to begin acquiring in January 2010. With your help, we can make this happen.
We have officially started our fund-raising project at Kickstarter.com and invite anyone interested in being a part of making Tu Publishing a reality to check out the project.
What is Kickstarter.com? If you know Cheryl Klein, you might have seen her project to publish a book of her essays on writing there. This project is similar, except that it’s a bit more than Cheryl needed because we also need to pay a modest advance to the authors and publicize and market the books we acquire. It takes a lot of money to get a publishing company started, and we thought that this would be a nice, secure way for anyone interested to get involved, and to get something back for it. Kickstarter runs their payments through Amazon payments, and the project is only funded if the full goal amount is reached by the deadline. If it isn’t reached, no harm, no foul, and no payments go through, with the idea being that it would be worse to have a project be underfunded than not funded at all.
For those who have already donated before we started the Kickstarter project, you are on our list already of people to receive the same incentives here. Thank you for your support.
ETA: Yay! I’ve figured out how to fix the video. I had to completely upload a new one to replace the one that squished Christine, so I ended up adding music and making it shorter, too. If you’ve been sharing it, please note the new location.
The challenge portion of this
Whether or not you can donate, I’d love to see people, especially teen readers/nonreaders, share their own video or blog responses to this video, discussing whether you identify with the characters in the books you read and whether it matters to you. Mitali Perkins got this ball rolling separately as a part of the larger conversation about race in children’s and YA in her blog post asking “are books windows or mirrors?” I found her use of the mirror/window analogy very important–books can be a window to other worlds, but they also need to be mirrors in some ways, especially for young readers. The more “mirror” books we have for every child, the more “windows” there are for everyone. What do you think?