Megan Frazer

One of the cool things about being an author and a librarian is that when ALA has conventions, I get to see my library peeps and my author peeps. And my current peeps introduce me to new peeps. (All this talk of peeps and libraries reminds me of one of my favorite sites.)

On Friday, I did a workshop about standards for school library media programs that was awesome. It was led by Pam Berger, who was just fantastic. Then I went to the author panel with Eric Van Lustbader, Chuck Hogan, Tracy Chevalier, and Julie Powell. Ostensibly it was about books into movies, but they talked about all sorts of things. As a new author, I found it fascinating and reassuring when they talked about reviews. Except for Lustbader, who insisted he didn’t read his I should have taken notes and written down quotes because they were interesting. Chevalier talked about how the reviews balanced her, since most people who write to her or come to her events like the books. Both she and Hogan mentioned that they wished they could learn something from them, which is one of the fallacies of book reviewing, I think, that the author will read it, incorporate it, and somehow improve their work.

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I recently finished listening to the audio of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, and I’m halfway through the sequel, Catching Fire. It’s this little-known series about a girl, a dystopian society, and a twisted battle-to-the-death-as-entertainment scenario. Maybe you’ve heard of it?

In college for papers I’d often use compendiums, especially for Shakespeare. So, for example, I once wrote a paper on the use of the word “strange” in The Tempest, so I went to the compendium and found a listing of every single time the word was used. If ever a compendium is made for The Hunger Games, I’d love to see how many times food is mentioned. It makes sense that Katniss, who has had to struggle for every bit of food that passes her lips, would wax ecstatic over the bountiful food of the capital.

I was most interested in the bread.

I had a professor in college who was fixated on the use of bread in literature, specifically whole grain versus white. White is of course refined, while whole grain is more natural. He argued that you could tell the whole outlook of society by how they described the bread. If white bread was a luxury, then refinement, manners, and social class were highly valued. If instead it was disdained, and whole grain got the nod, then this was a time in society that valued the working class, was back to nature, and avoided pretense. So I loved that each district had its own style of bread.

Yes, it’s a New York Times bestselling sensation, and I’m focused on the bread.

I’ve heard that there’s some Team Peeta vs. Team Gale style rumblings (incidentally, listening to the audio, I thought the reader was just mis-pronouncing Peter for most of the first book). I’m Team Gale for what it’s worth, though that probably has more to do with his having less screen time. He’s capable, moody, and doesn’t have a chance to utter the cheesey lines that Peeta often does. But really, I’m Team Katniss. Witty, resourceful, stubborn, kind, and skilled, she’s a perfect heroine.

I really, really wanted a Google wave invite. Then when I finally got one, I didn’t know what to do with it. Some of the folks at the school where I work and I are going to try to think of something. In the meantime, though, the awesome and talented Kurtis Scaletta used it to do a group interview of a bunch of authors (specifically, Josh Berk, Steve Brezenoff, Jon Skovron, Sarah MacLean, Saundra Mitchell, Deva Fagan, and Laurel Snyder). I think most of them were there in real time, but I came late. And Kurtis was very nice to not point out that I put my answers in all the wrong places and what not.

One question I couldn’t answer was what book made me want to become a writer. I loved the other author’s answers, and some of those definitely inspired me, too (esp. A Prayer for Owen Meaney). I can’t point to one book, though, that was like a switch of a light. It was more the cumulative effect of reading wonderful books, and going to those worlds, and living through the author’s worlds. I wanted to create world’s and people like that, too, first for myself, and eventually for other people.

But I’m curious, writers, is there a book or author that made you want to write?

I

Elizabeth Bluemle has a great post in her PW Shelf Talker blog about negative stereotyping of fat characters. It’s a pervasive and unfortunate problem.

There are a lot of books, like mine, which are specifically about overweight characters. Body image and weight may or may not be the primary issue of the book, but the author is clearly thinking about it and, hopefully, approaching it thoughtfully.

But when you look at books where it’s not one of the main issues, authors all too often resort to making the baddies or the butts of jokes be the fatties. So, this made me try to think of books with fat characters who are neither evil nor used, unwillingly, for comic relief.

Hassan from John Green’s An Abundance of Katherine’s comes to mind. He is a funny character, and sometimes uses his weight for humor, but he seems in control. He’s a fully realized character. If I were an overweight teen boy, I wouldn’t feel assaulted by this depiction.

That’s kind of where my list starts and ends. There have to be more, though, right? I’m hoping I just can’t think of any because their weight is such a small part of who they are that they don’t spring to mind. Can anyone think of any other characters that are incidentally fat and not stereotypes?

I have a post up at my agent’s blog today about the myth of reading up.

Holly Cupala, readergrlz div and author of the upcoming Tell Me a Secret (HarperCollins, 2010) is doing a delicious series on her blog: Book Cooks. My recipe for Goat Cheese Pizza is up today. Carrie Jones has a recipe for truffles, Wendy Toliver has Sad Cake, Liz Gallagher has butterscotchies — the list goes on and on.

Aaargh! I’m too angry to have a more nuanced response to this: Scholastic Censors Myracle’s ‘Luv Ya Bunches’ from Book Fairs.

Luckily, Myracle herself is more eloquent:

“A child having same-sex parents is not offensive, in my mind, and shouldn’t be ‘cleaned up.’” says Myracle, adding that the book fair subsequently decided not to take on Luv Ya Bunches because they wanted to avoid letters of complaint from parents.

Fellow Deb, and author whose book I really want to read, Malinda Lo has written a terrific article about the current state of GLBT characters in YA:

Young Adult Books Move Beyond the Coming-Out Story, But Still Face Hurdles | AfterEllen.com.

I even get a little shout out in the article.

Malinda Lo is the author of Ash. How gorgeous is this cover?

Ash cover