This week's Outer Alliance Spotlight with YA author, K L Richardsson is up on the OA blog. This is the second week in a row that we've featured a YA author writing for the YA LGBTQ Prizm Books imprint. They're a small press, so you won't see these books in chain stores, but they're well worth checking out.

This week and next, the Outer Alliance Spotlight is featuring YA authors who have new novels out right now from Prizm Books. Today's interview subject is Hayden Thorne. She writes ghost stories and superhero stories featuring gay teen protagonists. Awesome! Here's the interview.

Moss and I went out on a leisurely drive today, exploring back roads to see the foliage. We saw several gorgeous cemeteries all ablaze in autumnal glory, but I hadn't my camera with me, so I just gasped in delight at each of them as we passed. There's been talk of a nor'easter, but though we've gotten sleet, snow, and rain in turns, nothing's sticking. It made for beautiful driving, though; the leaves shone through a shimmering curtain of silver and white.

But enough about my obsession with transitional seasons. Let's talk about books! In particular, free books! A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Maria Lima on the Outer Alliance Spotlight, and I neglected to mention it here. Oops. She's very nice and fun, and writes paranormal/urban fantasies about vampires, etc. And... She's giving books away! Here are the details in case you want to try your luck.

Off to work on altered books now.

And so he's the subject of the Oxford Daily National Biography life of the day. I'd read several of his books and short stories, but before today, nothing about his life. Talk about hardcore! Discipline, stoicism, athleticism, generosity, and a writing habit that would not stop for anything. What a Mensch!

Today is the official release date for Justine Larbalestier's Liar, the book most people probably know about because of the whitewashed cover that outraged people earlier this year. The US cover for the book has since been changed to picture a black woman, which is good (since, yay! woman pictured on cover is same race as character in book!) and bad (since she still doesn't seem to look much like what the author had in mind, being lighter skinned and having sleeker, tidier, more feminine hair), but the reason I'm totally excited about today being Liar release day has very little to do with the cover. I've been wanting to read this book for ages.

Here, check out some trailers on YouTube: Trailer one is short and features the US cover. It's more of a teaser, really. Trailer two has the Australian cover and a few minutes of the author talking about the book over a slide show featuring pictures of New York (where Liar is set).

As if that wasn't enough, today is also the paperback release date for Justine's last book, How to Ditch Your Fairy. I've got the hardcover of that one, and it's a lot of fun.

In non-Larbalestier release day news...

M-Brane SF issue #9 is out now, and you can get it for free if you pre-order M-Brane's anthology of queer speculative fiction stories, Things We Are Not. The anthology has a bunch of stories by Outer Alliance members, so naturally, I'm looking forward to reading that.

On top of that, Soulless by Gail Carriger is out. I've been curious about this one because it's billed as a humorous Victorian urban fantasy about vampires and ladies who whack them with parasols. I do love a good parasol whacking...

And everyone in my section of the internet is raving about Cherie Priest's new book Boneshaker, which is (surprise, surprise) also out today. Now I'm curious about that one, too.

So, um what are you reading at the moment?

I'm short on cash at the moment, but you may be just sitting around wondering where to throw those piles of golden coins cluttering up your parlor. Here are a few options!

Sleeping Beauty, Indeed is a collection of lesbian fairy tales edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft. Fairy tales! Lesbians! Talented writers! How can you go wrong with those things? You can get it on Amazon in paperback or Kindle edition. If you go with paperback, it's eligible for super saver shipping, so you might want to combine it with...

James Fairfax is a book set in an alternate Regency England in which same sex marriage is all good, and Jane Fairfax of Jane Austen's Emma is a man instead of a woman. Even though I tend to find books that build on Jane Austen worrisome, this premise is intriguing, and it comes recommended by sartorias, whose opinions are generally sound.

And lastly, an option for all the small press supporters with e-readers. Every Good Thing is an e-book by an awesome person I connected with through last year's Yuletide fanfiction exchange. This is her first full length novel, and it's a romance about a boy from a strict homophobic background who gets sold as a love slave to a male soldier. I know that Jules has awesome writing skillz, so if you're into the m/m stuff, this promises to be an excellent choice for you.

As for me, I'll be clinging to my library card for the next few weeks.

So, it's international blog against racism week, and I didn't even quite realize that when I posted my last set of Readercon notes on Monday. Today, however, I do realize it, and that makes the post I was already planning even more on topic. It's possible that you've already heard about this, especially since it's been a while now since the scandal first hit the internet, but I think it bears multiple mentions.

Over the past year or two, I've come to really enjoy Justine Larbalestier's writing. I don't remember exactly how I first stumbled upon her blog, but I remember that her posts amused and interested me, so I added her to my list. Eventually I decided to check out her books, too, and lo! I liked them as well. One of the things you pick up on pretty quick when you read anything by Justine is that she's pro-diversity and anti-racism, and she's usually not afraid to talk about it. She's a great role model for timid people like me, who don't speak up too much of the time.

I've seen a lot of people in the past year getting frustrated around issues of race and privilege, especially when we've been called out on things we've done or said that were offensive. I know my knee jerk response when someone criticizes me about anything is to get defensive, so in a way it's really not surprising that so many people seem to have said at various points, "I guess we can't ever write characters of color, or talk about race without offending people of color, so fine, we'll stop trying." At times I have seen posts like that and despaired, and sympathized, because this is hard stuff! It's not just a little hard, it's really fucking hard! Sometimes I have wondered if I could ever do those things myself, or if it was ridiculous to even try, and then I would look at Justine Larbalestier, and I would realize that it isn't impossible for a white woman to just get over herself and work towards a more inclusive mainstream society. It isn't impossible for a white woman to talk about race, and the write characters of color consistently, characters of color who are vivid and liked by people of all colors. This is something to remember, and maybe even aspire to.

Looking back, I knew all of that when Justine first posted the American cover art for her forthcoming novel, Liar, and I should have been surprised about the girl being white. But I wasn't. Justine seemed happy with the cover, and I thought it was a striking image, and a good cover, so why shouldn't she be happy? What I didn't know at the time -- what I didn't know until last week, actually -- is that the main character in Liar is black.

Let me say that again:

The main character in this book is black.

When I learned this, my assessment of the cover as a good one suddenly changed dramatically. Why was a white girl on the cover? Why wasn't she black? Bloomsbury suggested that the cover was itself a lie, but that really didn't sit right with me. I saw a lot of people who were unfamiliar with Justine Larbalestier questioning her personality since she was apparently unbothered by this. I thought surely she actually was bothered, that based on what I knew about her, she must be. And yet, she'd never said anything. This was troubling.

Thankfully, I only had to wait a couple of days before Justine weighed in on the controversy in this post. I was relieved, but I said in my comment that while I was glad she'd made her opinion clear, in my ideal world she would have said from the outset that although the cover was very nice, she was dismayed that the character was white instead of black. Silence, I said, could too easily be read as implicit agreement.

Of course, that's wrong.

In my ideal world, she wouldn't have to say anything because the cover would have a black girl on it, and this would be a non-issue. Unfortunately, though, it is an issue. It's one that comes up over and over and over again. And since I don't agree, I'm not staying silent. I'm e-mailing Bloomsbury to let them know how I feel, because if I don't, they might just assume that people like me won't buy books if they don't look like they're about white people. That's just not true. If you feel so inclined, you can send your own e-mail, fax, or letter. Here's the contact info for Bloomsbury USA.

Readercon 20 was my best con experience to date. I'll post more detailed stuff later, but for now, some stats:

Programming:

--4 panels (notes to be posted later)
--3 single author readings (Laird Barron, Jennifer Pelland, Catherynne Valente)
--3 Kaffeeklatches (Ellen Klages, Jeffrey Carver, Catherynne Valente)
--2 group readings (Goblin Fruit/Mythic Delirium and the Rhysling Poetry Slan, and I read in both of them, woo!)
--1 workshop (Mike Allen's poetry workshop)
--1 solo talk (Caitlin Kiernan's reading Dr. Seuss as weird fiction)

Extracurricular Activities:

--1 party (Goblin Fruit Summer launch)
--1 dinner with friends (cucumberseed and darkpaisley)
--1 coffee with friends (cucumberseed and asakiyume)
--1 dinner with Viable Paradise people

Acquisitions:

--Complete works of JoSelle Vanderhooft (5 volumes)
--Mythic Delirium 19 and 20
--Demon Lovers and Other Difficulties (Goblin Fruit sponsored collection of poems by Nicole Kornher-Stace)
--The Coyote Road (anthology of trickster tales edited by Datlow and Windling)
--Clockwork Phoenix 1 and 2 (anthologies of pretty, strange stories edited by Mike Allen)
--Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Well Being:

--1 Migraine (ate up most of Saturday, booo!)
--0 meltdowns in the car because of con-induced anxiety (wooo!)

I recently read a fun book, so I wanted to post a little review and a video about it. This is my first book trailer, but I think it came out pretty well (especially considering how terrible my drawing skills are).



Okay, so now that you've hopefully watched it, and gotten the basic gist of the story, let's get into details. Probably the first thing to know is that this is the first of a two-book series. The second book, Twice a Prince is out as an e-book, but not as a paper book, and since I have no e-book reader except the computer screen, I haven't yet read it. I definitely plan to when it comes out as a paperback, though, because the first one was a ton of fun. Here are three things that made me really happy:

*I didn't mention in the trailer that Sun, Sasha's mother, also goes back through the magic door. Sun goes because she wants to find Sasha, but she ends up having her own adventure. What's really neat to me is that Sun's adventure is cool while also believable for a middle aged woman who isn't at the peak of her swordfighting prime.

*Sasha is strong, intelligent, independent, and also a lot of fun. When she gets sucked through the door, she doesn't immediately fall in love with the first guy she meets like some fantasy heroines might. Instead, the first thing she does is kick some ass, and keep her guard up. She also has lots of amusing insights about her father's home world.

*There are pirates in this book, and they totally rock. I'm often wary of pirates because I don't love violence and sketchy morals, but in this book, the pirates are awesome. There's all kinds of fun swashbuckling that one can enjoy with a clear conscience.

If this sounds like fun to you, you can get a copy of the e-book, or the paperback, from Samhain Publishing.