Iron-rich water results in red waterfalls in Antarctica’s dry valleys. To which I find myself thinking, “They rode through red blood to the knee …”
Old news in Internet time, but still exciting: New multicultural SF/fantasy Tu Publishing has been acquired by Lee & Low. Congratulations to founder slwhitman, who will join the new imprint, Tu Books, as editorial director.
Hal Duncan on the whitewashing of The Last Airbender movie, as well as Facebook’s shutting down of a protest site. For those who don’t know, the casting call for this once-multicultural animated series’ adaptation was actively slanted towards Caucasians, and the main characters of the resulting cast are entirely white. (via shweta_narayan)
Alaya Johnson on her experiences with the segregated shelving of books with non-white covers.
Mississippi school board cancels prom rather than allow a lesbian to bring her date. I gather the ACLU is continuing to fight this one with her. (a happier update, via aamcnamara)
This DK Books video on the end of publishing has things to say about our assumptions about teens and readers.
Things it’s useful to be reminded of even if we know them: the importance of making mistakes to the creative process: Imperfection can be the pathfinder that leads us to new places IF we are willing to let go of our ego and put our trust in the wisdom of the work. (via telophase)
Another study supporting the notion that fitness matters more than weight. Basically, the link between weight and mortality went away when a study actively tested participants’ fitness on a treadmill, rather than just asking participants to assess their fitness themselves. (via lnhammer, I think)
Every serious movie released since 1979, in one trailer. (via a href=http://twitter.com/MitchWagner>Mitch Wagner)
Victoria Janssen on writing your bliss: “I also think that getting joy from writing is part of your payment. And I think readers can tell if you feel that interest and joy; if you feel it, they are more likely to feel it, too. Agents and editors can feel it, too.”
kmessner on when and how to push kids to read more difficult books: “Sometimes, I think well-meaning parents are too quick to categorize books as literary junk food with no value, swooping in to snatch away the graphic novels and vampire romances and replace them with Dickens and Melville. And really? It doesn’t work …”
papersky on why we see so few negative reviews: “I’m a midlist writer. I’m also a reader. From my point of view, I was a reader warning other readers to avoid a bad book. From that author’s point of view, I was one midlist writer putting down another midlist writer to my own potential advantage. This is so repulsive a thing to have thought about one that I’ve been extremely careful ever since.” I still think negative reviews not only have value but help sell books, so long as personal attacks are avoided. But it hadn’t occurred to me that a negative review might be seen as a sort of deliberate undercutting, rather than a “hey, I didn’t like this one,” and I’m still pondering that.
swan_tower on First Girl Ever Stories–and their less common counterpart, Second Girl Ever Stories: “I strongly suspect Keladry’s story rings true for every girl or woman who’s gone into a field that, while not exclusively male, is still heavily skewed that way … The First Girl Ever is a simple story. What happens to her after, and what happens to the women who follow in her footsteps, isn’t. But we need more stories about those things, because otherwise the First Girl is like Alanna: an exception, a fluke, a special person who gets exempted from the rules of her sex. I’d love to see more authors move on to the later chapters, rather than giving us the beginning over and over again.