News — writing
Writing to the market or writing for writing’s sake?
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There are advantages and disadvantages to both. More often than not, being a prolific and popular author generates significant in-the-moment income. It can also leave room for an author to experiment with other styles on the side, knowing they don’t have...
Should you contact an author?
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This question arose for a number of reasons. First, some big-name authors were discussing this on social media because they’d been sent pretty hateful messages about their work. Some readers seem to think that it’s not a real, live human being behind a book and that they are welcome to rant at them for perceived flaws. One big-name author in particular mentioned how hurtful it was to read that kind of angry private message.
Second, there’s been ongoing talk about whether or not it’s polite to correct people’s spelling, grammar, and punctuation in...
LGBTQ+ antagonism in a story?
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I recently finished a novel in which the author addressed bi-antagonism directly between the two main characters. When I went to post my review, I was surprised to find that a few people found that aspect of the book distasteful. It led me to wonder to what extent we should include queer antagonism as part of a story and in what ways it should appear.
That wasn’t the only type of antagonism I’ve read lately. It came on the heels of finishing a book in which both characters are gay, but one of...
Who has the “right” to queer stories?
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I’m a little late to the party on this, but I wanted to respond to the recent dust-up on social media involving some antagonistic, passive-aggressive tweets from Gaby Dunn directed at Becky Albertalli. There’s a lot to unpack here, so bear with me.
First of all, I do not agree with several of the things Dunn said in those tweets. No LGBTQIA+ person owes anyone a coming out. No one needs to be “comfy”...
Performing Gender and Sexuality in Writing
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A colleague shared the other day about people within the LGBTQIA+ community monitoring and judging how others express their gender and sexuality. It led me to thinking about how in writing, we often expect characters to “perform” their sexuality in a way that still allows readers to mentally catalogue them. This is of specific interest to me as a nonbinary bisexual person.
I’ve found that often, people whose gender and sexuality are binary don’t quite capture certain nuances. (The same can actually be said in reverse, to be honest, but I can’t speak...