Embracing Inappropriate, Violent & Blasphemous: Three Writers Make Negative Reviews a Fashion Statement...

As I prepare for the SCBWI Annual Winter Conference I thought it was about time I followed-up with three of my favorite Annual Summer Conference attendees, Emily Wing Smith, Brodi Ashton and Bree Despain, to talk about their outfits.

I spotted Emily, Brodi and Bree at the LA conference this past August wearing these t-shirts:


Word shirt ring leader Emily Wing Smith told me the terms emblazoned on their chests—"blasphemous," "violent" and "inappropriate"—were all stinging comments they heard about their own novels.

Below the three talk about those negative critiques, how they were impacted, and how they forged ahead through fashion.


Emily Wing Smith
I N A P P R O P R I A T E

When I wrote my YA novel THE WAY HE LIVED, I expected some backlash. After all, the book deals—however briefly—with some serious themes: suicide, homosexuality, mental illness. But I wasn’t prepared for the words of an anonymous commenter who left a review on a book retailer’s website, claiming she “tried to overlook the references to homosexuality and other inappropriate matters” but ultimately couldn’t get past it.

Okay, so I don’t happen to believe that homosexuality is an inappropriate matter. I don’t think anyone should believe that. But what really baffled me? Being offended by even a reference to something she deemed inappropriate. I believe that murder is inappropriate, but I’m not offended when someone refers to it. Maybe that makes me inappropriate—if so, then my “Inappropriate” t-shirt is actually appropriate!

www.emilywingsmith.com


Brodi Ashton
V I O L E N T

My YA book ECHO features a teenage girl who becomes an alien hunter, so I wasn’t surprised when readers called it “too violent.” The problem came when I tried to change every scene that had offended someone. I quickly learned two things: 1) No two people were offended by the same scene; 2) If I removed every scene that had one detractor, there’d be no book left.

Not everyone is going to like my book. Someone, somewhere, is going to think a story about a teenage girl who can kill an alien with a fork will be too violent. But if I let myself think that too, I never would’ve typed “The End” and found an agent who thinks my book is just violent enough.

My “Violent” t-shirt was a smart move because it got me to the front of one of the lines at the SCBWI conference. The lady said I could cut because she didn’t want to mess with me.

www.brodiashton.blogspot.com


Bree Despain
B L A S P H E M O U S

I think for many authors, one of the hardest things to deal with is occasionally hearing negative feedback about our book. It doesn’t seem to matter how much praise, or how many awesome reviews we receive, when somebody finds something not to like about our books, or is offended by something we wrote, we can let that negative energy eat away at us—sometimes even to the point where we find ourselves unable to write.

Around the same time that Emily’s book received a particularly upsetting review because of some supposed inappropriate references, I was dealing with getting over something someone else had said about my book THE DARK DIVINE. A writer friend had read the manuscript and told me that she thought my book was “blasphemous” because I talked about faith and mythological paranormal creatures in the same story. She also worried that people would think it was blasphemous to use a teenage girl as a metaphor for grace and redemption. I didn’t agree with my friend, but I found myself wondering if I needed to rewrite my entire book in a way that it couldn’t possibly offend anyone. (A completely impossible feat, I soon discovered.)

Luckily, Emily, Brodi, and I decided that instead of letting the negative things people said about our books cripple our writing; we would just put our bad reviews on t-shirts and “own” them. Our bad review t-shirts have been a lot of fun to wear. People love to stop us to talk about our shirts, which always leads to discussions about our books—and Sherman Alexie even remembered our names because of them!

www.breedespain.com

My SCBWI Summer Conference Tweets Transcript (#SCBWI09)...

Stealing an idea from Lee Wind (who says in Hollywood, it's referred to as "liberating" an idea), I've collected all the tweets I posted from the time I left the house for the SCBWI Summer Conference until I got home--when I wasn't blogging, I was tweeting. (I may have corrected a few misspellings and boo-boos.) Click here to find all the #SCBWI09 posts and see what everyone at the event was saying.

• The last thing I want to do first thing in the morning: clean up cat barf. Guess what I just did?
• My (awesome) brother just picked me up for the airport. I know, I'm surprised as you are that I got up this early.
• Worst CVG security line ever! Walked straight on to my (exit row) seat when I got to the gate.
• A guy in the back of my plane had a seizure. First time I've been on flight where they paged for a doc. Nice delay in CVG. Just left LAX!
• Why are LA cabs always uncomfortably hot?
• The cabbie has hockey playing curious George hanging from his rear view mirror which makes me like him better. Wish he would get off phone
• At faculty dinner sitting with @EllenHopkinsYA, @Suzanne_Young, David Diaz and others. The bartenders make fab cosmos.
• David Diaz kicked our butts at Hannah Montana Uno #SCBWI09

• Ahh. King size hotel bed. Goodnight, tweeps. Lots of tweets and blogging tomorrow! #SCBWI09
• #scbwi09 SCBWI TEAM BLOG @PaulaYoo; @leewind; @cuppajolie; @jeaimetem; @suzanne_young #followfriday
• Breakfast with Team Blog in The Breeze. Everyone is playing with devices. We start conference coverage in an hour. #SCBWI09
• Just went last in the faculty word parade. My word: blog! #SCBWI09
• Sherman Alexie has the room laughing. #SCBWI09
• Sherman Alexie can go seamlessly from tragedy to comedy. #SCBWI09
• Sherman Alexie has perhaps the best story ever about how books helped him get through childhood. #SCBWI09
• Sherman Alexie: "I'm rich but I still have class issues." #SCBWI09
• Sherman just dropped a very appropriate F-bomb. #SCBWI09
• Sherman: "The book is safe. The book is where I can hide." #SCBWI09
• Sherman: "It's easy to hand a book to a kid that's about that kid." The challenge is to engage a kid in a book that isn't. #SCBWI09
• It's super cold in the conference ballroom but David Wiesner's beautiful images will warm me up. #SCBWI09
• David Wiesner is showing clips from The Shining in relation to his process. Makes sense in person. #SCBWI09
• David Wiesner loves him some movies. Now he's discussing 2001: A Space Odyssey. #SCBWI09
• But really, is it any surprise movies inspire Wienser? Look at his books if you're not sure. #SCBWI09
• Lobby court restaurant is trying to starve me and make me late.
• Lin Oliver is telling contest winner jokes. There are some witty peeps here. Oh--door prizes! #SCBWI09
• Editor panel going on. I love listening to editors discuss books they're passionate about. #SCBWI09
• Ari Lewin from Hyperion: bookstores love series. Stand alone connected stories, even better. # SCBWI09
• RT @gregpincus: #scbwi09 Tweetup tonight at 9 in the lobby bar area. Come say "hi" or something longer than 140 characters!
• Agent Marietta Zacker is reading the first paragraph from an unpublished novel she says "gives her shivers" every time she reads it #SCBWI09
• Marietta Zacker said she recently counted how many manuscripts her agency receives daily. Answer: 10. #SCBWI09
• Check out the secret stuff behind the book jacket of Frank Portman's latest novel, Andromeda Klein

• Just rode the elevator with a guy who bathed in cologne. I can still smell it. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman just took the stage. I love her books. #SCBWI09
• Someone's phone just rang. Karen Cushman: "Sounds like the ice cream man is here." #SCBWI09
• Cushman: Writing is like exercise. I wanted to do it, planned to do it, but never got around to doing it. Until she was in her 50s. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman quoting a poet: Write what you know. This should leave you with a lot of free time. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman: I figured I could say 'shitty first drafts' since Sherman said 'f*** you' yesterday. (Big laughs.) #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman: Tell the truth--the emotional truth, the truth of your passion, the truth revealed from your research. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman: publication isn't the only reason to write. Let go of the outcome. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman: Like Flannery O'Connor, I write what I can. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black is leading an active discussion on critique groups. Blog posts soon. (No wifi in Brentwood room.) #SCBWI09
• Holly Black always wears cool shoes. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black just had the people in her session write something, swap with a partner, and tell each other what's good about it. #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkins: "The $8000 advance I got for Crank was not life changing." #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkins: There were dark phases in my life. I got through them. I worked them into my writing. #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkins is making me cry. I wish you were all here listening to her story. #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkin's Crank sold on 75 pages. #SCBWI09
• It took 2 1/2 years for Crank to hit the NY Times bestseller list. #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkins: Learn the rules before you break them. #SCBWI09
• Courtney Bongiolatti (S&S); "Literal hell or metaphorical? Because that would be important for the synopsis." #SCBWI09
• #SCBWI09 Conference F-Bomb Count--number of keynote speakers who have have dropped the f-bomb so far: 4. (I'll update you as f-bombs happen)
• Wendy Loggia (Delacorte) googles writers before she takes them on. So watch what you say in the blogosphere, tweeps. #SCBWI09
• Wendy Loggia: Contrary to popular belief, we do not take pleasure in crushing writers' dreams. (She's given a great session). #SCBWI09
• Our sundae came with an extra gravy boat of fudge

• Holly Black: Fantasy has real stuff to say about our own world and real things to say about us. #SCBWI09
• Holly: We have to believe in the fantastical when we read it. World building is one of most difficult things for fantasy writers. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black: In many ways fantasy resembles historical fiction. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black's crazy theory: fantasy plotting is slightly different than non-fantasy plotting
• Holly Black: When I started, I wrote a lot of scenes with elves sitting around drinking coffee and experiencing ennui. #SCBWI09
• Doing last minute presentation prep for my breakout session Practical Online Promotion. #SCBWI09
• I'm talking about twitter
• Just left the Golden Kite Luncheon. Getting ready to blog Marla Frazee's session, How Your Words Inspire Me to Draw Pictures #SCBWI09
• Marla Frazee: I [illustrate] one page at a time and I do them in order. Because I'm a Capricorn. #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: Egmont's profits go to children's charities. They are technically a not-for-profit publisher. #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: Writers need to know what the hook is for their books. Elevator pitches aren't two minutes long. #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: She thinks agents are important and advises writers to find one. "I rely on agents to weed things out for me." #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: "Winslow the Whale spouted emotions through his blow hole." (Posted because it's just as funny out of context.) #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law on social networking: Join networks, make comments, make friends, don't be embarrassed to talk about your work. #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: "If anyone does introduce me to my future husband, there's a contract for you at Egmont." #SCBWI09
• @mbrockenbrough That was one excellent banana.
• @chavelaque Thanks! And thank you for contributing. (Everyone be sure to read Cheryl's great piece on revision in the 2010 CWIM.)
• I'm having my final breakfast at The Breeze at the Century Plaza. (I recommend the oatmeal.)
• On my way to my least favorite airport LAX. (It is no CVG.)
• My cab driver's name is Igor. That's kinda cool. I've never met an Igor. (He's a very good driver.)
• Just drove past a Live Nudes place right next to Carl's Jr. I'm so not in the Nati.
• I'm standing in the line to get to the next place I will stand in line. LAX: you are living up to my expectations.
• Number of times 20-something dude in security line said 'dude' in his 5-minute phone call: 13. (I counted.) Dude. His Vegas trip ROCKED!
• I'd forgotten all about humidity until it smacked me in the face outside the airport.
• Back in the Nati and stuck in LA-style traffic. But someone's here to help.
  

National Book Award Winner Sherman Alexie Talks Politics with Stephen Colbert...

And there were some nice close-ups of his book cover.

How Could I Forget to Mention This?....


I've been so happy to not be fretting over my blog being locked that I forgot this important little happening: the 2009 CWIM is now available! And it's a beaut, if I do say so myself: more articles and interviews than ever; a First Books featuring all picture book authors and illustrators; interviews with Sherman Alexie, Katherine Applegate, Scott Westerfeld, Jay Asher and lots more; a roundtable with Coretta Scott King Award winners; articles by Kirby Larson, Cecil Castellucci, Kathleen Duey, Allyn Johnston, Andrew Karre, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Lisa Wheeler and so many other fantastic contributors on myriad topic. And of course info on hundreds of books pubs, mags, agents, conferences, contests, and other useful stuff. I'm very excited!

If you're a contributor (if you wrote an article or were interviewed) I'll be sending every wonderful one of you a copy very soon. So don't go out and buy one. (Unless you want to share then with your writer and illustrator friends. Then be my guest.)

If you're an SCBWI Regional Advisor or Assistant RA (anywhere in the world) I'll be sending you a copy as I have the past several years. It's the least I can do to thank you for your volunteer awesomeness. (Note to self: request address list from Sally at SCBWI tomorrow.)

In the very near future I'll be offering some excerpts here on my blog (when I'm not whipping myself into a frenzy of excitement over attending the SCBWI conference) so stay tuned.

National Book Award and Other Stuff...

• The National Book Awards were recently given and Sherman Alexie won in the Young People's Literature category for his first foray into YA, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. (Little, Brown). This is cool. I like Sherman Alexie and have read a number of his books for adults. I was keeping my fingers crossed for Kathleen Duey, though, and I'm bummed she didn't win for A Resurrection of Magic: Skin Hunger. But it's cool that her book gets a silver finalist sticker and I'm showing her cover in this post and not Alexie's. (I hope you found the right shoes for the ceremony, Kathleen. Zappos seldom does me wrong.)
• The New York Times Book Review recently published a special section on children's books (which features a review of Alexie's aforementioned award-winner). You can find it here. Be sure to click on The Best Illustrated Books of 2007 for a wonderful slideshow.
• I can't stop watching Gossip Girl. Oh I love that Chuck Bass. Anyone else think he's Logan Huntsberger with a healthy dose of 1980s James Spader?
  
• I've been light on the blogging lately--busy, busy pre-holiday stuff. And I'm off work all next week, eating pumpkin pie and whatnot, so my blog will be pretty quiet. After the holiday, I'll be back with more updates to listings in the 2008 CWIM. Stay tuned!
  

National Book Award Nominees...

Finalists for the National Book Award for have recently been announced. Authors nominated in the Young People's Literature include 2008 CWIM contributor Kathleen Duey, for Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One (Atheneum) as well as Sherman Alexie for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown); M. Sindy Felin for Touching Snow (Atheneum); Brian Selznick for The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic); and debut author and Class of 2k7 member Sara Zarr for Story of a Girl (Little, Brown).

The full list is posted in GalleyCat. Winners will be announced in November 14.