Why I do What I Do

Last night, my fourth-grade daughter stayed up later than usual, finishing up her "A Woman I Admire" essay. She went on the computer and searched for images of Raven Symone, her inspiration, and printed them out. My daughter loves Raven because Raven acts, sings and designs clothing. She is not skinny and she is not afraid to be brown. And she is one of the only young women on mainstream television that look like my daughter.

This morning, as I was driving my girls to school, the fourth-grader looked at the picture of Raven Symone in her hands, crumpled it up and put it in her pocket. In a soft voice, she said, "Sometimes people say Raven is ugly." Then she looked up at me and I could see the sheen of tears in her eyes. "I don't think I'm going to talk about Raven, Mommy."

Even as my heart was breaking and I was doing all I could to remind my daughter of her beauty in the minutes before she headed off to school, I knew I had lost this battle. So much of this is bigger than I am. But I was reminded, with a surge of remembered pain, why I write what I write -- to counter some of what my girls see in the world, every minute of every day.

It will wear at them and they will not come out unscathed. But I can do my best to teach them how to fight. And part of that, I can do through my stories.

SHINE and JAZZ Giveaway

Book Smugglers is giving away a copy each of Shine, Coconut Moon and Jazz in Love . . . . Go and comment on my guest post (about why I love feminist fiction) to enter!

Upcoming Events & Signings

I'm in the revision cave, but here is a list of events where I'll be signing and/or reading for the next few months. This is a pretty solid schedule, but some things are still subject to change. More info will be posted closer to the events . . .

Thursday, March 17th, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m., Teen Author Festival, NYC - Reading from Jazz in Love at a Queens library (location to be announced).

Sunday, March 20th, Books of Wonder, 1:45 p.m.

Thursday, April 14th, keynote speech at San Gabrielino High School, San Gabriel, CA

Thursday, April 21st, 6:30 p.m. Toronto Women's Bookstore - Discussion with authors Zetta Elliott and Vivek Shraya on publishing options for under-represented voices. This discussion will be live-streamed from the bookstore, so even if you cannot attend IRL (in real life), you can attend virtually!

Saturday, April 23rd, 1:00 p.m. Booksigning at Yorkdale's Chapters/Indigo bookstore with authors Helene Boudreau, Mahtab Narsimhan, and Cheryl Rainfield.

Saturday, May 14th, 1 p.m. Diversity in YA tour with Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, Jacqueline Woodson, Rita Williams Garcia, Matt De La Pena, and Kekla Magoon.

If you're in any of the above areas, please stop by and say hello!

LIVE-streamed Book Launch

My dear friend, Sheila Batacharya, is celebrating the launch of a book she co-edited about the 1997 murder of Reena Virk in British Columbia, Canada. Reena Virk was a Punjabi teen who was murdered by a group of teen girls (and one boy) she wanted desperately to be friends with.

Most of the media coverage focused on the "girl-violence" aspect of the case and all but ignored the glaring race and hetero-normative elements. The book is called Reena Virk - Critical Perspectives on a Canadian Murder and takes a closer look at some of the issues that went largely unreported in mainstream media coverage.

The book launch will be live-streamed from the Toronto Women's Bookstore tomorrow, Thursday, February 24th, from 6:30-8:30 pm EST. At 6:30 EST tomorrow, go to www.womensbookstore.com, or www.ashrouder.com. I will most definitely be watching.

Margaret Atwood on Changes in Publishing

I love this keynote address from award-winning poet and author Margaret Atwood at the Tools of Change conference. She talks about authors being the "dead moose" of publishing and says, "Authors are a primary source. Everything else in the world of publishing depends on them." She includes libraries, schools, book reviewers/bloggers, publishers, agents, printers, book cover designers, etc. in that analogy--all of whom rely, first and foremost, on authors to write books. She also says that authors are like anchovies in the food chain, and the anchovies are getting restless. Ha! She's fun, witty and engaging, and offers some great food for thought. (No pun intended! But she does use lots of food metaphors.)

Watch live streaming video from oreillyconfs at livestream.com