The Lost Subway Station of New York
The City Hall station–worse for wear, but still elegant today.
Mayor George B. McClellan (front, center) inspects the brand new subway.
In The Ring of Honor (third in the Secrets of the Seven series), our intrepid heroes Sam, Marty, and Theo must flee through the New York subway system and wind up here–in the City Hall station, the very first ever built in New York. When you think of New York’s subways, do you think grime–trash–rats–filth–delays and frustration? You should have been there in 1904, under tiled and vaulted ceilings, glowing skylights, and elegant chandeliers, lining up for your five-cent ticket.
The station is long since abandoned (the curving platform is too small for today’s trains) but occasionally opens for tours. Wish I could have taken one!
Read MoreNurikabe
A visual representation of an invisible force–this nurikabe will hunker down in front of you and block your path.
It occurs to me that I haven’t shared a Japanese demon with you in a while. Meet the nurikabe, or invisible wall.
Not terribly threatening, but frustrating, especially if you have to be somewhere in a hurry, the nurikabe will spring up out of nowhere to block your path. It can’t be seen, it can’t be scaled, and it can’t be broken–but if you run a stick or a staff along the bottom (where I imagine its feet must be, to let it move about like it does), it will vanish. Perhaps it’s ticklish.
They are said to like narrow streets and alleyways, which is where Kata and her companions encounter one (or perhaps a pair working in tandem) in Deadly Wish.
Read MoreFinal Thoughts
Diversify publishing? Egads!
Okay, I promise this is my last post (for a while) about this issue–books (Blood Heir and A Place for Wolves) being cancelled pre-publication because of online outrage.
You know what the real solution is? Or rather, what the vast unspoken problem is? That publishing and its sister professions, reviewing and librarianship, are overwhelmingly white and female.
That’s what needs to change. We need writers of color, LGBQTetc. writers, immigrant writers–that’s a need that’s been talked about for a long time. But we also sorely, sorely need editors and reviewers and librarians (and teachers, let’s not forget teachers) who are not white and female and mostly middle class. We need publishing professionals who can bring a huge variety of experiences and backgrounds to the table, selecting and promoting books and authors who are similarly diverse.
But that’s a long term process. It takes time and effort and money. (Paid internships with housing stipends would be a start, publishers.) Far easier (but much less effective) to outsource the effort of diversifying literature to Twitter and then to ask authors to bear the financial brunt of it by pulling books and cancelling contracts.
#WeNeedADiversePublishingIndustry
Read MoreMore Thoughts
I continue musing about the face of Blood Heir and A Place for Wolves, two YA novels on the verge of publication cancelled after online outrage. I offered up a few thoughts about this last week, but want to add some more.
In her discussion of morality clauses (also a hot button topic in publishing lately), Judith Shulevitz points out that writers of color and women and LBGTQ writers are most vulnerable to online outrage, most easily targeted and most viciously attacked. The same issue is at play here. It’s ironic and I don’t think it’s coincidental that the two most high-profile cases of books being withdrawn pre-publication involve two writers of color, one of them an immigrant, one of them gay. When we use the level of outrage to judge whether books should be released, I predict that women and minorities will see their books cancelled first. Supression always hits the most vulnerable the hardest.
You may ask, what about own voices–authors, especially those from marginalized communities, writing directly about their own experiences? Important. Vital. I am all for it. We need black people writing about the African American experience, we need gay people writing about growing up LBGTQ, we need immigrants writing about immigration. Please do so. I am so eager to read what you write. But please use own voices to open up the marketplace of ideas, not to shut it down.
And finally, as writers and as human being, we will blow it sometimes. I’m sorry about that, but we’re flawed and it’s inevitable. Blowing it does not necessarily mean that a book should be cancelled, because that negates the possibility of such a book being flawed but valuable. Can The Merchant of Venice be, perhaps, a work that is disturbing for its anti-Semitism and still interesting for its cry of universal humanity? Does Dorothy L. Sayer’s casual racism mean I can’t remain fascinated by her intimate, heartfelt longing for a companionate marriage of equals between a man and a woman? Isn’t Huckleberry Finn both a sharp, satiric look at the American experience and a tender examination of a cross-racial friendship and an uncomfortable expression of bone-deep racism? Can’t we are as readers be trusted–or even allowed–to see all the sides?
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Sarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Thomson focuses on newfound connection, magic, and suspense to conjure a fast-paced, heartwarming mystery. Thomson’s world is populated by resourceful protagonists, fanciful creatures, and quirky supporting characters.”
—Publishers Weekly