Spells of Blood and Kin is getting closer and closer, you guys. You can now preorder it from a whole bunch of different US retailers here, or of course, from Indigo. And take a look at this cover! It looks even better in person–I am the proud possessor of a mockup (my cover wrapped around a similarly-sized hardcover, since mine won’t be printed for a while yet) and I can’t even describe the rush of seeing it brought to life. Next step for this writer: copyedits! I have a word list from the copy editors detailing things they’ve corrected, and I need to review the changes. (Side note: it’s hilarious to me how many swears appear on the list. Apparently I don’t spell profanity as well as the rest of my vocabulary. For instance, did you know “douche bag” is two words, not one?! It never occurred to me to look that up.) One thing I love about this process is the incredible number of talented people who are involved in making this book the best it can be. I’m grateful to every one and I look forward to thanking them all properly, including those I haven’t yet met… and […]
In which I think about bodies
My colleague has an eight-year-old daughter who worries about having fat thighs. Let’s pause to contemplate this. She’s eight. She’s active–she rides her bike and hikes with her dad–and she’s skinny. And so what if she wasn’t skinny… (a) that would be fine and (b) she’s eight. This kid isn’t a woman yet, won’t be for years, and she’s already dealing with the pernicious body-consciousness that women face. She knows the standard, and she knows she doesn’t measure up. What she doesn’t know yet is that it’s a fucked-up standard, and that no one measures up. The most beautiful women in the world don’t even measure up. Tabloid headlines find imperfections in Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Obama, Jennifer Lopez. How’s a kid supposed to read that? I really want to fight this standard. I want beauty to not even be a standard. I want beauty to be a grace note, something we can enjoy and celebrate, but not a job we have to do, not a price of entry. How does this tie into writing? I think it goes along with committing to diversity in general. Speculative fiction, like romance, has a lot of examples of princessy female characters whose worth […]