malinda_lo

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

Since I was out of commission during revision for six weeks, I’ve got a whole lot of things stored up to announce. Here we go:

I was interviewed over at Girls of Summer, which is a great blog founded by two writers that focuses on 18 books to read this summer (including Huntress!). Here’s a teaser, in which I answer a question with more questions:

Is there an assumption that only having one strong girl would be easier? Does having more than one girl make a story unbalanced somehow, and thus require the author to do some sort of fancy maneuvering?

On Sept. 26 I’ll be joining fellow YA authors Daisy Whitney, Nina LaCour, and C.J. Omololu at Book Passage’s Kid Lit Salon to discuss “Sex, Love, and Death: How Far Can You Go in YA?” It should be a fun evening of hot topics! We will be available to sign books as well.

Sept. 26, 2011 from 7-9 p.m.
Kid Lit Salon: Sex, Love, and Death: How Far Can You Go in YA?
Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA

Kid Lit Salon is a monthly event at Book Passage, and membership to the salon costs $120 per year. I was a member for a couple of years and there are always really interesting panels and also lots of local writers to meet and mingle with. I also think the first meeting is free for those who are considering joining (at least it used to be), but you should contact Book Passage to confirm.

In October, I’ll be participating in San Francisco’s Litquake, which I’m very excited about because LitQuake is so huge!

On Tuesday, Oct. 11 at 9 p.m. I’ll be joining Michael Alenyikov, Nick Krieger, Michael McAllister, Monica Nolan, and Rob Rosen at Joe’s Barbershop in the Castro, which will be “transformed for just one night into a nightclub featuring outstanding voices from the city’s LGBT community.” From what I’ve been told there will be adult beverages, which I think will make this the best reading I’ve ever participated in.

October 11, 2011, 9:00 PM
Barbershop Reading: A Little Off the Top and Over the Top
Joe’s Barbershop

2150 Market St.
free; $5-$10 suggested donation

On Friday, Oct. 14 at 8 p.m., I’ll be at the Teen Writing Awards, sponsored by Teenquake (the teen element of Litquake) and Figment. I’m going to be judging the fantasy entries, which I believe you enter somehow via Figment, but I’m not sure. When/if I get more info about it I’ll be sure to post it.

October 14, 2011, 8:00 PM
Teenquake and Figment.com present Teen Writing Awards
Z Space 

450 Florida St.
Free

At the end of October I’ll be going to San Diego for the World Fantasy Convention, where I’ll also be doing one more Diversity in YA event with some amazing MG and YA fantasy authors.

Diversity in YA: San Diego with Paolo Bacigalupi, Holly Black, Cinda Williams Chima, Karen Healey, Cindy Pon, and Greg van Eekhout
Oct. 27, 2011 at 7 p.m.
San Diego County Library Poway Branch
13137 Poway Rd.
Poway, CA 92064

This event is free and open to the public! Books will be available for sale from Yellow Book Road.

Of course, I’ll also be at WFC for the whole weekend, and I’ll post my panel info for that conference when I have it.

Last but not least, Huntress received a lovely review from Gwenda Bond in Locus magazine in July. I especially appreciated this review because I read Gwenda’s thesis on omniscient point of view while I was writing Huntress! Here’s a snippet from her review:

Lo excels at keeping the reader engaged during action scenes — whether the characters are battling for their lives or their hearts. … Readers of Ash will revel in the heavily Chinese-influenced, non-fairytale perspective on the Kingdom’s past offered here, while readers new to Lo’s work will find it an excellent starting point.

More soon …

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

Nancy Garden’s classic lesbian coming-of-age novel, Annie on My Mind, is one of the four books I resolved to read this year. Annie was first published in 1982, and is about two 17-year-old girls in New York, Liza and Annie, who fall in love with each other.

NOTE: There will be SPOILERS in this post!

Original 1982 hardcover jacket

I’m the first to admit that I generally do not enjoy young adult issue novels, and it’s kind of a strange experience to read an issue novel in which the issue is, well, people like you. When I first started the book I read it sort of with one hand over my eyes because I could just sense the badness coming. I actually had to read the last page very early on to reassure myself that the girls would both still be alive at the end.

In early novels about lesbians, often one of them winds up dead. (I’m not joking.) Even more often, both of them wind up depressed and alone. Luckily, that doesn’t happen in Annie, but there is a lot of tortured emotion and homophobia to get through before you arrive at the happy ending.

That said, the romance between the two girls is sweet. I thought the best scenes were about the two of them together and finding connections with each other.

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

On Monday I finished the latest draft of my next novel, currently titled Adaptation.¹ I say “latest” because it’s already been revised once before, but that was a very quick and dirty revise to get it in shape to submit to my editor. So what draft is this? Maybe the third? I don’t know, because the way I wrote this book was sort of convoluted, and involved several lengthy, narrative chapter-by-chapter outlines that I submitted to my publisher before the book was sold. I think of those outlines as mini-drafts, and then there was the “rough” draft that nobody saw except for me, then the “first” draft that I sent to my editor (and in between “rough” and “first” there was a halfway-there rewrite of the middle chunk of the book), and … now we have the latest draft. Done. Woohoo!

It took me about two weeks of thinking (rereading, being frustrated, going for walks) and six weeks of intensive revising. It was probably the most intensive six weeks of revising I’ve ever done. It was also the most rewarding. Some days I actually felt like I knew what I was doing, which isn’t always the case with writing! Usually I find that there’s a lot of stumbling around in the dark and feeling for the light switch. This time I felt like I brought flashlights.

I love the look on Mulder's face in this picture. Ha!

During those two weeks of thinking, I thought a lot about my editor’s editorial letter and my agent’s comments. I also thought a lot about the book I originally imagined in my head, and how it differed from what was on the page. I reread my early notes about the main character; I reread those narrative outlines; I skimmed through my writer’s notebook at the various “a-ha!” moments I had scribbled down during the process of writing. It turned out that I had to shuffle around a lot of plot points to turn this manuscript into the book I wanted it to be. And for the first time ever, I did this shuffling around entirely on my computer, using Scrivener.

I’ve been writing with Scrivener for a couple of years now. I actually bought my Macbook Pro primarily to use Scrivener, and I wrote Huntress with it. However, even though I went through all the tutorials and tried to use the program the way it was supposed to be used, it never fully connected with me until this most recent revision.

Scrivener: File directory system on left; editing pane in center; "inspector" on right

In the past, I’d been using Scrivener largely like a glorified file system. Every chapter got its own file folder, for example. I did like the way that Scrivener allows you to have all these folders listed like a directory, and how you don’t have to “open” each folder every time you want to use the file. You just click on the folder and then the text is displayed in the central editing window without any delay. So that was good. But I still didn’t entirely understand what made Scrivener so great.

1. It is due out from Little, Brown in fall 2012, but I don’t have the exact pub date yet. [↩]

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

Yes, I’m still revising my next novel! I will still be on blog hiatus for a couple of weeks, but I couldn’t resist posting an update.

These days I spend pretty much all day in a fantasy world I made up in my head. This is a pretty bizarre state to be in, honestly. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about what’s happening at the point in my manuscript where I left off. Currently I’m approaching the climax of the novel, which means I’m starting to get all freaked out about whether or not I can stick the landing. I’ve got a lot of balls in the air at this point in the story and somehow I’ve got to catch the right ones. (Mixed metaphors! Yay!)

So, before I go and continue juggling, here are a couple of photos from Comic-Con, which I went to last weekend. Er, the weekend before last weekend. (Time? What’s that?)

The folks from the panel I moderated! L to R: Dave Roman, me, Gene Luen Yang, Vera Brosgol, Cindy Pon, Elizabeth C. Bunce, Kiersten White

Here I am after dinner with Cindy Pon and Marie Lu (author of the upcoming LEGEND)

And one of my favorite sights from the exhibit floor:

I know, I’m evil. Back to work …

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

I haven’t been able to blog much lately because I’m deep in revisions on my next novel, and this situation is going to last until early August at least, so I am hereby declaring an official blog hiatus until I’m done with these revisions. (However, I will still be on Twitter because Twitter is much easier than blogging.)

Before I go on my hiatus, though, I wanted to share the details about some events I will be doing in the next few weeks:

Updated 7/12/11: The Forum show has been postponed. I’ll let you know if/when it happens in the future.

Later this month I’ll be heading to San Diego to attend my very first Comic-Con! I’ll be on the following two panels:

Saturday, July 23
12:30-1:30
Room 8
Diversity in Young Adult Works — It’s not all about being torn between vampire and werewolf boyfriends. This panel is a celebration of different genres, protagonists, and media for young adult readers. The diverse authors participating include Cindy Pon (Fury of the Phoenix), Kiersten White (Supernaturally), Dave Roman (Astronaut Academy), Vera Brosgol (Anya’s Ghost), Gene Yang (Level Up), and Elizabeth Bunce (A Curse Dark As Gold). Moderated by Malinda Lo (Huntress).

2:00-3:00
Autographing in the Comic-Con Autograph Area at Autograph Area table 2 

Sunday, July 24
10:00-11:00
Room 24ABC
Diversity and Fandom 102: How You Can Make a Difference — In the wake of campaigns like Racebending.com’s protests and the rise of safe spaces like Racialicious.com, fans, consumers and creators from underrepresented groups have more outlets for speaking up. This panel explores how those voices can be added to conversations with geeky business interests and fan communities. Director Kevin Tancharoen (Mortal Kombat: Legacy), showrunner/writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman), author Malinda Lo (Huntress), Arturo Garcia (Racialicious.com), Phil Yu (AngryAsianMan.com) and USC Professor Henry Jenkins (CivicPaths Project) promise a lively discussion, moderated by Racebending.com.

I am super excited about both of these panels and also about attending my first Comic-Con!

And now, I will begin my blog hiatus until I finish this revision. See you next month!

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

It’s almost the Fourth of July weekend! I have a zillion deadlines looming over my head! So how about some good old-fashioned procrastination in the guise of “writing a blog post for my blog which I’ve been neglecting”?

Back in May, I was part of the Teen Author Carnival, where I was on a panel about “Kick-Ass Females in YA.” A lot of the discussion centered on the fact that being kick-ass could, metaphorically, mean a lot of other things — you know, being a strong woman, having integrity, etc. That’s certainly true, but today I’d like to focus on, well, the deadlier side of being kick-ass. In other words, let’s get back to the heart of being kick-ass.

Here are some of my favorite kick-ass fictional ladies, in the order in which I discovered them:

Harry Crewe in The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

I’m pretty sure I read The Blue Sword when I was thirteen, which makes Harry my first favorite kick-ass lady. To this day, I think that Harry is the model I think of when I think kick-ass heroine, epic fantasy: She started off not knowing much about how to kick ass, but after being kidnapped by a sexy desert king (yes! I love this part too!), she is given a magical sword and special training in how to kick ass. One of my favorite parts of kick-assery (I believe one of the authors on the Teen Author Carnival panel coined this word) is the fact that there is often a training montage involved. I love a good training montage, and Harry gets one of the best out there.

Other things I like about Harry: She’s funny! She’s not full of herself! She doesn’t whine or complain about being kidnapped! And she doesn’t moon over her love interest, either. She does what has to be done, and she does it well. Also she gets a fancy hero name: Harimad-sol. But she’ll always be Harry to me.

Kitiara in the Dragonlance books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Kitiara is on the right. On the left is, um, a kender?

I don’t remember much at all about her except that she was thoroughly kick-ass, possibly evil, wore sexy armor and commanded armies. Also she was very good with the weapons. Sadly, I never saw Kitiara in a training montage. I also don’t recall if she was ever in any sort of romantic relationship, although I think she was pretty thoroughly sexualized in that kick ass lady = dominatrix way. I did not understand, when I was 14, why I found this so fascinating. I was kind of an innocent 14-year-old.

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

W.W. Norton paperback edition

One of the four novels I resolved to read this year is Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt. I read it while traveling for the Diversity Tour, and I’ve been meaning to blog about it ever since I finished. Overall, I really enjoyed it. It surprised me constantly, for many reasons.

First and foremost, I was stunned that this book was published in 1952. I’ve always envisioned the 1950s as this Leave It to Beaver world of perfect white nuclear families who are very prim and proper, but of course that’s just the upper middle-class myth. Obviously, people in the 1950s had love lives and desires and were just as reckless as people in any decade. And obviously, gay people existed then, too, but I’d always envisioned them as secretive, depressed people in an oppressive, closeted world full of homophobia. The Price of Salt suggests that there might have been an alternative — especially for women who could pass as straight, but who definitely were not.

The novel is about nineteen-year-old Therese Belivet, an aspiring stage designer living in New York and supporting herself by working at a toy counter in a department store. When Therese sees a wealthy housewife across the sales floor, she is immediately drawn to her, and soon afterward they begin a friendship. Carol Aird, the housewife, is in the midst of a divorce, and as her relationship with Therese develops, it becomes clear that both women are interested in being more than friends. Eventually they go on a cross-country road trip together that reminded me a bit of Thelma and Louise, and had kind of a crime caper feel to it.

I was surprised by how frankly Highsmith wrote about the women’s relationship. Therese’s attraction to Carol is always crystal clear, and there is never a hint of internalized homophobia in her. Therese accepts her attraction and love for Carol from the get-go; she doesn’t seem to have the tiniest problem with it, although Therese is aware that others could object.

Carol’s feelings for Therese are a little more opaque at first, probably because the story is mostly told from Therese’s point of view. But Carol is also older than Therese — perhaps ten years older? — and she has already had one lesbian relationship end. Carol knows that it’s difficult and potentially tragic to fall in love with another woman, and for a time, she seems to resist, although she can’t help being drawn to Therese, either.

I usually find it difficult to buy into love-at-first-sight tales, and I wasn’t entirely sold on it by The Price of Salt. But the fact that it was a lesbian love at first sight (which I hardly ever read about) made me try harder than usual to buy into the romance.

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

1. Cindy Pon and I were interviewed about the diversity tour and various other YA-related things for Asia Pacific Forum, which airs on WBAI in New York. You can listen to the show right here.

2. Karen Healey (author of the YA fantasy novel Guardian of the Dead) has written a thought-provoking column for Strange Horizons that includes a very nice analysis of Huntress. I totally agree with her. Read it here: “Heroes of Tomorrow: Adventures in Unreality”

3. Librarian Liz Burns has written a lovely review of Huntress at her School Library Journal blog, A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy. Pullquote:

Because Huntress is part of the world I loved in Ash. Because Huntress is different than Ash. Because the love between Kaede and Taisin is romantic and sweet. Because the action never ends. For all of this, Huntress is one of my Favorite Books Read in 2011.

4. Earlier this week, Scholastic’s This is Teen tour came by San Francisco, along with Meg Cabot, Libba Bray, and Maggie Stiefvater. I had the honor of meeting Meg, who was the first author to blurb my first novel, Ash, and I took this picture to prove it:

Meg Cabot (!!!) and me!

How cool is that? It’s one thing to write and publish one book — and that’s certainly an achievement — but Meg has written and published more than 50 (I stopped counting on her Wikipedia page). Wow. You know what I learned from that? I should get back to work right now and keep writing!

P.S. I’m going to Comic-Con this July! I will be on two panels (on July 23 and 24) but the details aren’t finalized yet. More info soon, and believe me, they are very awesome panels!

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

While I was on the Diversity Tour I took a lot of photos of what I ate, but although I have this shiny new camera that actually has a setting especially for taking photos of food in low-light situations (seriously! It is a Sony CyberShot), not all my food photos turned out well. But a few are verrry delicious-looking.

After our event at BookPeople in Austin, Texas, most of the panelists along with a few book bloggers went to a Mexican restaurant a few blocks away. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant (help?) but I did order this fabulous margarita and guacamole, which was made fresh at the table and was super yummy:

Austin

After the event at the Cambridge Public Library, I went to Grafton Street, a restaurant in Harvard Square, with Cindy Pon, Leah Cypess, Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan. I ate this butternut squash ravioli and I drank this manhattan:

Grafton Street

In New York I went to brunch with Cindy, S. Jae-Jones and Ellen Oh at the Comfort Diner, where I ate this heart-stoppingly tasty plate of biscuits with sausage gravy, cheesy grits, and eggs (it was all worth it!):

Originally published at MalindaLo.com. Please leave any comments there.

Last month I traveled across the country with Cindy Pon for our Diversity Tour, which made stops in San Francisco, Austin, Chicago, Boston, and New York. In each city we had panel discussions (along with several other local authors) at bookstores or libraries about diversity. I’ve been thinking back over the tour because I wanted to note down some of the things I learned from these discussions. It’s not that often that I get to talk about these things in person, repeatedly. In fact, it hardly ever happens, so this was a pretty neat opportunity. Here are a few things I gleaned from the tour:

1. Talking about race or sexual orientation in a mixed group can be very nerve-wracking, and I think that our audiences along the way did a fantastic job of being respectful and honest in their questions. Believe me, things could have gone a different way, and they didn’t! Kudos to everybody who came out to support us on the tour — and thank you for coming.

For me, the most comfortable panels were the two where I had the most in common with the other panelists: the San Francisco panel, which was composed of four Asian American writers (and all Chinese American, to boot), and the New York LGBT Center panel, which was composed of four queer writers.

L to R: Jon Yang, me, Cindy Pon, Gene Luen Yang at the San Francisco Public Library

L to R: Me, Cris Beam, Jacqueline Woodson, David Levithan, Cindy Pon (moderator) at the New York LGBT Center

I don’t think this is surprising, but it also gave me a renewed appreciation for spaces in which we can connect with people who come from similar backgrounds — or, at least, who are seen by others as being similar. The sense of solidarity was a nice boost for me, since in the YA world I tend to stick out a lot as the sole queer Asian writer.