tjohlerwrites

[tjohlerwrites]

“Juliet Takes a Breath” follows the story of Juliet Palante, a queer puertorriqueña who leaves the Bronx bustle (and her mami’s delicious arroz con maíz) for a summer in Portland, Oregon, where she interns for her fave feminist author Harlow Brisbane. During this time, the naïve, passionate and always hilarious Juliet comes out to her Latinx familia, gets some textbook and real-life instructions on feminism, queer terminology and radical politics, experiences the ups and downs of first romances and realizes that noisy subways, jam-packed dining rooms and speakers blasting Big Pun rhymes can actually be more serene than birds chirping on the West Coast.

Latina chatted with the queer brown Boricua behind the book, Gabby Rivera, about inspiration, representation, reception and more. Check it out:

You mentioned love, a theme present from the beginning to end of this book. We see the love between Juliet and her partner, the love that bursts into the room during a Puerto Rican dinner, the love of a mom, of a tía or a prima, the polyamorous love that seems a little strange to Juliet at first and, ultimately, the self-love Juliet finds. Was this intentional?

“Yes. This was absolutely intentional. I feel like there’s this catalog of stories of women who fall in love with other women but they die, whether it’s cancer or a brutal murder. There’s so much trauma associated with being lesbian, queer or identifying in a non-traditional sort of a way. As a writer, I’m over it. I didn’t want to tell that story at all. I wanted to look at queer relationships and show multiple models of the possibility of love: the first time you fall in love, how adults dismantle hetero love and create a love that’s theirs, polyamorous love. So, yeah, love was definitely important. It’s like a radical act, especially for a Latinx family. We are only viewed as warmhearted when we are caretakers. When it’s our own children, we are depicted as slapping them in the street. Our romantic love is sexualized. It’s not love, but sex. I just wanted to break that all away. I come from a family that loves tremendously, with a grandmother that taught me how to cook and helped me with homework. We talk loud and love hard. I needed to show this.”

Read the full interview here

[tjohlerwrites]

(Mis-)Representation of disability in fiction

Something I’ve been noticing more and more: if a disabled character exists in books AND is shown to be a leader or a badass or both (rare, I know), THEN something like this happens (example taken from the book “Six of Crows”, paraphrasing): 

“Since he had broken his foot when he was 11, walking hurt. He had gotten a cane and made it seem like an accessory more than a necessity. Stairs were the worst.” 

The character is 17, prematurely aged by enduring severe loss and living in a dog-eat-dog world of homelessness, crime, and prostitution in a fictional setting. He leads a gang of criminals. They mention him being in pain a lot. 

However, his “office” is on the 5th floor of a building. When they do a massive prison breakout for their mafia gang members, he runs all over that massive prison that has like 15 floors (and no elevators, obviously). At the end of it, he even climbs a 30-foot incinerator shaft and escapes over the rooftop with his dudes/gals/friendly humans. All this happens in a time span of 4 hours, no rest, no nothing. 

My point being: even when a disability is present and is mentioned more than once on 400 pages (huzzah!), the ACTUAL CONCEPT of disability never exists. That person never simply CANNOT GO ON. There is nothing they simply cannot do (like scale a 30-foot-wall). They never are dependent on others, even if those others offer help.

This perpetuates the idea that is ubiquitous among able-bodied people already that it’s all about “the right attitude” and that if you REALLY WANT TO or REALLY NEED TO or the lives of your incarcerated buddies depend on it, you can do literally anything, or at least as much as your able-bodied friends. 

THIS IS A FUCKING LIE. This is the worst thing you can tell people about disabled people, whether it is in fiction or in reality. It is so harmful, I can’t even find the words. A disability does not just conveniently disappear because you need it to. You can’t “power through” pain or limitations of movement because you will fucking INJURE YOURSELF. You will literally tear muscles affected by spasticity or tightness from misaligned joints or spines by straining and tendons shortened by badly-healed injuries. You will break stiff joints or the respective bones leading to a stiffened joint if you strain them beyond their capabilities. You will fall off that 30-foot-wall, and depending on how high up you made it, you will definitely hurt yourself to the point of being immobilized or fucking die, and/or the prison guards will catch you and you will be killed. 

The author cannot even have ever spoken to a disabled person. I understand they want this person to be a hero, to be successful, but that is not how to do it. 

I wish this notion wasn’t perpetuated in the very few books that feature ambitious, badass or otherwise not “burdens of society”-type characters. It does nothing for us in terms of representation. 

[tjohlerwrites]

QUERYING: FEBRUARY 2016 FEEDBACK GIVEAWAY ROUND-UP

In February, I did a “feedback giveaway” where I responded personally, if briefly, to submissions sent during a short three day window. In those three days, I received just over 300 entries. Broken down by category, I received 48.7% YA submissions, 33.9% adult fiction submissions, and 17.4% MG submissions (this does not include a couple of picture book and NF submissions since I don’t rep that genre and was not considering them). I am hungry for more middle grade, so the first thing I’ll say is: we need more great middle grade, so get on it!

A FEW COMMON REASONS FOR PASSING:

There were a lot of reasons for passing, but a few of them that came up quite a bit were:

Overly familiar – stories that are interesting but don’t feel like they’ll stand out enough in a saturated genre. The story feels “done before” and/or the characters feel too familiar for the category

The query was too crowded with ideas: your query should be concise and get to the heart of the story – what is the central conflict, and what is at its emotional core? 

The opening felt over-narrated: it’s needlessly descriptive. We get every little noise, movement and smell, and the plot gets buried beneath all of the imagery.

Interesting things are happening, but the characters themselves are not compelling. It’s a hard thing to do – to develop a character with depth and an opening with tension all in the first pages, but to care about what is happening, I have to care about who it’s happening to. We have to want to know what will happen next, but we should also want to know get to know our character. 

Not enough tension – the opening scene is too mundane or lacking in conflict. This is usually a sign that you’re starting in the wrong place, and often too soon. Be careful, though – a few submissions went too far in the other direction and started too late (resulting, often, in the previous bullet: interesting things are happening, but we don’t know enough about the character to care). 

WHAT I SAW, AND WHAT I’D LIKE TO SEE MORE OF…

In terms of genre breakdown within each category, in YA the trend is clear: the vast majority of submissions were either YA contemporary or YA fantasy. Because of this, it is hard to make a contemporary or YA fantasy stand out – there are a lot already published and soon-to-be-published, and there are a ton coming into agents’ inboxes. If you are writing in these genres, you need to know that they are saturated, and so your premise and story has to really feel special in some way. And it also means that if you received a pass in these genres, it does not mean the story isn’t working, necessarily – just that the timing is such that it’s harder to make your story work in today’s market. I’m still very eager to find really standout contemporary or really unique, accessible fantasy, but the bar remains high. In terms of what I’d like to see more of in YA: I wish I’d seen more science fiction (but not dystopian), more historical fantasy and alternative history, some historical mysteries or suspense, and more magical realism. But in young adult, more than anything what I’m looking for is standout voices, regardless of genre.

In middle grade, the majority of MSs were either contemporary or fantasy – both genres I’m still looking for eagerly. I’d also love to see some great MG historical, action/adventure/horror (either scary or funny horror), and science fiction. Honestly, I just want to see more MG in general, across all genres.

In adult, I’d love to see really strong contemporary or historical fiction that explore complicated relationships (familial, romantic, friendships, and any other type of relationship). I’d also love to see more character and voice-driven science fiction that feels grounded – I am not the right agent for adult high fantasy or space operas.

Across all categories, I am always excited to read stories with something to say, stories that challenge me, and stories that stick with me and change me in some way big or small.

[tjohlerwrites]

What YA books release this week?

Here’s a selection of new YA novels hitting shelves this week! For lists of weekly releases and all things YA lit, visit our website, follow us here and on Twitter, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter!

U.S.

Broken Crowns (The Internment Chronicles #3) by Lauren DeStefano Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers Release date: March 22nd Corrupted from the inside by one terrible king and assailed from the outside for precious resources by another, Internment could be destroyed because Morgan couldn’t keep a secret.

Harmony House by Nic Sheff Publisher: HarperTeen Release date: March 22nd After Jen Noonan’s alcoholic mother’s death, her father thinks a move to Harmony House is the key to salvation. But to everyone who has lived there before, it is a portal to pure horror.

The Hidden Twin by Adi Rule Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin Release date: March 22nd For eighteen years a girl with no name, a Redwing, has been hidden away in a small attic room while her sister, Jey – identical except for her eyes – has lived her life in public as an only child.

Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend by Alan Cumyn Publisher: Atheneum Books Release date: March 22nd Sheils has to come to terms with relinquishing control for the first time as she falls for the first new interspecies transfer student, a hot new…pterodactyl…at school.

I Woke Up Dead at the Mall by Judy Sheehan Publisher: Delacorte Press Release date: March 22nd When you’re sixteen, you have your whole life ahead of you. Unless you’re Sarah. Sarah wakes updead at the Mall of America, she learns that not only was she murdered, her killer is still on the loose.

The Last Execution by Jesper Wung-Sung Publisher: Atheneum Books Release date: March 22nd Based on the chilling true story of the last execution in Denmark’s history, asking the question that plagues a small Danish town: does a fifteen-year-old boy deserve to be put to death?

The Moth and the Flame (The Wrath and the Dawn #0.5) by Renee Ahdieh Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers Release date: March 22nd It starts as playful banter, but what begins as a tempestuous battle of will and wit in short order becomes a passionate affair spurred on by tragedy of the worst kind.

The Skylighter (The Keepers’ Chronicles #2) by Becky Wallace Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books Release date: March 22nd As the last of the royal line, Johanna is the only person who can heal a magical breach in the wall that separates her kingdom of Santarem from the land of the Keepers.

This is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang Publisher: Greenwillow Release date: March 22nd Janie and Micah have the perfect friendship—as long as no one finds out about it. But then Janie goes missing and everything Micah thought he knew about his best friend is colored with doubt.

Trust Me (Find Me #3) by Romily Bernard Publisher: HarperTeen Release date: March 22nd Wick is used to relying on herself…and only herself. With all her secrets, who can she trust? But she’s going to have to learn to trust someone if she’s going to finally escape her demons…

The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books Release date: March 22nd Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes.

Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke Publisher: Dial Release date: March 22nd Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous.

Zom-B Goddess (Zom-B #12) by Darren Shan Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Release date: March 22nd Double-crossed again, B is confused, enraged and broken. But the battle isn’t over. The end is nigh, but there are plenty of horrors to come. And who will survive? The Zombies? The humans? Or worse…?

AUSTRALIA

Dreaming the Enemy by David Metzenthen Publisher: Allen & Unwin Release date: March 23rd Johnny Shoebridge has just returned from fighting in Vietnam. Drawing on courage, loyalty and love, Johnny tries to find a way back from the nightmare of war to a sense of hope for the future.

Frankie by Shivaun Plozza Publisher: Penguin Release date: March 23rd When a kid shows up claiming to be Frankie’s brother, it opens the door to a past she doesn’t want to remember. And when that kid goes missing, the only person willing to help is a boy with blue eyes.

Special by Georgia Blain Publisher: Random House Release date: March 23rd A Lotto Girl – designed from before birth to be Special in every way –escapes the slums to shine at an exclusive boarding school. Where the future is bright. Until it all goes wrong.

U.K.

Book of Lies by Teri Terry Publisher: Orchard Books Release date: March 24th They are trapped, frozen. Waiting. She’s coming; it will be soon. They will run free on the moors again. The Hunt will return. And the ground will run with blood.

Flawed (Flawed #1) by Cecelia Ahern Publisher: HarperCollins Release date: March 24th Celestine North lives a perfect life. But then Celestine encounters a situation where she makes an instinctive decision. She breaks a rule. And now faces life-changing repercussions.

The Winner’s Kiss (The Winner’s Trilogy #3) by Marie Rutkoski Publisher: Bloomsbury Release date: March 24th As the war intensifies, both Kestrel and Arin discover that the world is changing. The East is pitted against the West, and they are caught in between. With so much to lose, can anybody really win?

[tjohlerwrites]

Reblog if you’re currently writing a novel, even if it’s only in your head or scribbled in the back of a notebook somewhere.

Think about how many books don’t exist yet.

[tjohlerwrites]

Read excerpts from new YA books!

Here’s a selection of excerpts from new YA novels that hit the web recently! For lists of weekly releases and all things YA lit, visit our website, follow us here and on Twitter, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter!

The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas Publisher: Delacorte Release date: April 19th 2016 There are ghosts around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Callie never left. Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. But now Tessa has to go back to Fayette to the one other person who may be hiding the truth. Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and it won’t be so easy to run away. To read an excerpt, click here.

Dreamfever (Dreamfire #2) by Kit Alloway Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin Release date: February 23rd 2016 Every night, Josh’s dreams are full of Feodor’s memories—his life, his inventions, and his descent into madness. With her abilities as the True Dream Walker nowhere to be found, the temptation to use Feodor’s ideas to her own advantage is almost irresistible. As her grandfather schemes to take control of the dream-walker government, Josh and Will join forces with a deposed princess against him. To read an excerpt, click here.

Jerkbait by Mia Siegert Publisher: Jolly Fish Press Release date: May 3rd 2016 Even though they’re identical, Tristan isn’t close to his twin Robbie at all—until Robbie tries to kill himself. Forced to share a room to prevent Robbie from hurting himself, Tristan starts seeing his twin not as a hockey star, but a struggling gay teen terrified about coming out in the professional sports world. Tristan is given the final call: sacrifice his dream for a brother he barely knows, or pursue his own path. How far is Robbie willing to go—and how far is Tristan willing to go to help him? To read an excerpt, click here.

Julia Vanishes by Catherine Egan Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers Release date: June 7th 2016 Julia has the unusual ability to be … unseen. It’s a useful trait for a thief and a spy. And Julia has learned–crime pays. Her latest job is paying very well indeed. But when Julia suspects that there’s a connection between her new employers and the killer leaving a trail of bodies across the frozen city, she becomes entangled in a struggle between forces more powerful than she’d ever imagined. Escape will come at a terrible price. To read an excerpt, click here.

Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1) by Cassandra Clare Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books Release date: March 8th 2016 Emma Carstairs is no longer a child in mourning, but a young woman bent on discovering what killed her parents and avenging her losses. Together with her parabatai Julian Blackthorn, Emma must learn to trust her head and her heart as she investigates a demonic plot that stretches across Los Angeles, from the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica. If only her heart didn’t lead her in treacherous directions… To listen to an excerpt, click here.

Two Summers by Aimee Friedman Publisher: Point Release date: April 26th 2016 When Summer Everett makes a split-second decision, her summer divides into two parallel worlds. In one, she travels to France, where she’s dreamed of going: a land of chocolate croissants, handsome boys, and art museums. In the other, she remains home, in her ordinary suburb, where she expects her ordinary life to continue — but nothing is as it seems. What may break her, though, is a terrible family secret, one she can’t hide from in either summer. To read an excerpt, click here.

The Women in the Walls by Amy Lukavics Publisher: Harlequin Teen Release date: September 27th 2016 When her aunt Penelope tragically disappears Lucy finds herself devastated and alone. Her cousin, Margaret, claims she can hear her dead mother’s voice whispering from the walls. Emotionally shut out by her father, Lucy watches helplessly as her cousin’s sanity slowly unravels. But when she begins hearing voices herself, Lucy finds herself confronting an ancient and deadly legacy that has marked the women in her family for generations. To read an excerpt, click here.

[tjohlerwrites]

[tjohlerwrites]

THIS IS WHERE THE WORLD ENDS giveaway! 

On March 22nd, Amy Zhang’s This is Where the World Ends drops from Harper’s awesome Greenwillow Books. I just got my first finished copy in the mail and it’s gorgeous. 

If you loved Amy’s first book, Falling into Place, I think you’d like this one. It got a starred review from Booklist and contains some gorgeous interior artwork by the author! 

RULES: Reblog this post to be entered to win an advanced paperback copy of This is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang. Winner will be chosen randomly. I will do my best to accommodate international tumblr users. 

[tjohlerwrites]

Gaga talks rape culture and victim blaming in her Times Talks interview with New York Times columnist and author, Frank Bruni

[tjohlerwrites]

The Trouble with Drowning by Dhonielle Clayton

This summer they dragged three bodies from the Potomac River. I don’t know how many they took out beforehand. I didn’t start counting until the end of August. I keep visiting the places where they washed up. I like to climb down under the bridge, and listen to the cars rumble overhead. I like how the water hisses as it licks the bridge’s concrete legs. 

Even though I’m sick about drowning, and I’m afraid to swim, and the idea of it all makes me want to never leave my room ever. Not for food – regardless if Bea fries catfish and hushpuppies. Or to visit the nursing home and walk Gram through the butterfly sanctuary.

I keep going back. Like the gravel on the boathouse shore needs me to stand there. Like it won’t really look right unless my shoes press into it, smooth it out for all the people who come to rent paddle boats. Like maybe those dead people might not have died if I’d been standing in that very spot. 

I climb up onto a nearby rock and sweep away cigarettes left there, letting them fall like snowflakes into the waters below. My sister Lena always smelled like cigarette smoke. She said the scent and the smoke clouds helped her think. Helped her work. I’ve been getting older men who think I’m pretty to buy me cigarettes for the past two weeks. Just so I can smell like her. Just so I can think like her. 

I’ve tried all different brands: Newports, Camels, Lucky Strikes, Marlboros, American Spirits. I like the shape of the boxes and their colors and how if you didn’t know any better, you’d think they were full of the most wonderful candy imaginable instead of just cigarette that could give you cancer or cause birth defects if you were pregnant. My favorite are the little black ones. Cloves. They come in an all-black box and smell like cinnamon and Christmas, and watching the stick burn down to a nub calms my brain. Even though that’s weird, and I couldn’t tell anybody why this happens, why feel better afterward. Because the words to try to explain it just don’t make sense. 

The cigarettes drift off in the water below. And I watch them, wondering if dead bodies float so effortlessly. 

My uniform skirt whooshes, filling with the air from passing cars, and becoming a bell curved around my legs. I like to feel the breeze whipping up through my panties, whistling inside me, reminding me that I’m awake.

That I’m here. 

#

The idea of drowning scares me, and that’s all there was this summer. On Dad’s radio and staring at me from his morning newspaper, on the tiny kitchen TV that Bea watches when she makes us dinner, and it even slipped out of the phone somehow, wedging its way into Momma’s endless phone conversations.

Those bodies really didn’t have much to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to let your insides die by filling yourself with water. To soak your heart, letting the empty spots flood. I think it might be either the best or the worst thing in the whole world.

Lena would say I’m just afraid of everything.

Even the sky and its constellations. 

#

The first body that washed up this summer was a man. A paddle boater found him on June 28th. The man’s jacket got caught on a rusty hook, and he just floated there for days until somebody spotted him, face down, legs stretching out from under him, bloated like a dead fish. I want to look for that hook. I want to press my finger against it, see how strong it is, see how it could catch that body, and hold onto something so heavy.

I take the newspaper clipping out of a shoebox. I smooth it out on top of my comforter and think about ironing the page if the paper gets wrinkled again.

His name was Jeremiah Flanagan, and he was from what Momma calls one of those towns with three people and a stoplight and a cup of racism. I wonder if people smile when they remember him or if they say good riddance. I wonder if you don’t know how people really feel about you until you’re dead. Would they wish you back? Would they think the world was better off without you in it? 

Would people cry if I jumped?

#

I found out what happens to dead bodies in the water. They swell and sometimes burst. Their organs become mush inside them. Clumps of hair come off the scalp. Sometimes fish eat away some of the skin, or bugs and insects leave larvae in the person’s ears and noses and vaginas (if the dead person has a vagina). 

One’s skin color can disappear entirely. You can jump into the water as a black person and die, and be discovered later having lost much of your pigment. You can become white after death – if you start out light enough. The dusty brown color I got at the Vineyard house would fade fast. I’d be cool yellow like the butter Gram always served at the Mississippi house. 

The construction workers on my street wouldn’t call me a “red bone” girl anymore. Dad told them not to talk to me if they wanted to keep their jobs. And he started parking the car in the back driveway instead of the front. So I wouldn’t have to walk past them every morning and have them stare at my legs. And when I asked Momma what the term meant, she’d said it was some old-timey term leftover from slavery. That our bones must be red cause we were fair-skinned black people instead of brown.

I know I probably shouldn’t look up facts about dead bodies. That it’s probably not a good idea. I know it makes it seem like there’s something wrong with me.

#

The second body didn’t really wash up at all. Police boats fished out a little girl. The news said her leg hung from her body like a broken twig. Reporters kept shoving microphones in her momma’s face asking what happened and how the little girl wandered off and why the little girl couldn’t swim. The momma cried so badly her tears glittered like constellations of stardust. 

Her name was Bree Feldman, and she was six-years old. Her momma fell asleep after drinking a bottle of wine. Bree went on an adventure. Her babysitter said the little girl thought mermaids lived deep in the water in an underground palace made of stars. She always wanted to see them. The police called it an accident.

#

I skip school almost every day now even though I’ve only been back for a week. I used to like it. When it was all brand new: the smell of the floor polish, decorating my locker, new textbooks, how the atrium’s stained glass windows could make your skin a different color if you stood under them. 

I go to the river instead.

“You know we should be in school, right?” My sister’s voice comes from behind me, but I don’t turn around. She doesn’t startle me. She hasn’t left my side since the last week of August.

“Lena, you’re late,” she says. “You hate being late.”

I throw a rock into the water and watch it disappear in the current. “I’m not missing anything important,” I say. “You hate school. Why you so worried?”

“Dad dropped us off over an hour ago,” she says. “First period started.”

“You didn’t have to come,” I say.

This time I turn to face her.

“Yes, I did.” Lena stares back at me. A cornrow snakes along her hairline, and purple beads hang from it, grazing her cheek. It’s a demerit-worthy uniform infraction. She doesn’t straighten her hair like I do, so her curls frizz a little from the humidity. Pale blue veins raise in her hands. One appears down the center of her forehead, and I know she’s hot. I feel hot, too, just because she does. Just because we’re always supposed to feel the same things.

I move away from her. I think I might stay out here all day listening to the water.

“You have to go back,” she calls out behind me. “We have to go back.” Her voice is desperate.

I ignore her. She never used to act scared of anything: always breaking curfew, not afraid to show Dad a bad report card or kiss boys in the basement or say curse words at Momma’s benefit luncheons just to be embarrassing.

I am the scared one.

I watch the water.

“You’re too close,” she warns, and now she’s right beside me, her hand reaching out, trying to pull me back to safety. Her nails are painted purple and there are wounds on the underside of her forearm. Red gashes, like lines drawn with a teacher’s red pen, mark up her light brown skin. A train of painted beads circles her wrist and hides many of the cuts. She always covers herself with pictures. I think one day the colors will seep into her bloodstream, and her sweat and tears will change colors. 

“It’s time to go. Too much time near the water.” She reaches for me again. The sun makes her hand see-through.

I don’t take it.

#

The third body that washed up this summer was my sister’s.

#

I drop into the same water. My head bobs in the cold and angry waves, ears filling and emptying. My hair turns curly again. The river carries me downstream away from my rock, its currents and peaks shards of blue glass.

I imagine what it was like for Lena. The sadness drowning her alongside the water. Her heart stopping. Her mind going silent. Insects nesting inside her. Her blue veins and red bones exposed to the light. 

[tjohlerwrites]

Late Night Book Review

Possible title for book blogging series? The only time I really feel like writing reviews is when I’m sleepy and tired. Mostly I just like to read books and twitter them. Never like to review because reading is so subjective sometimes. 

[tjohlerwrites]

The Laziness that Happens

The money has been sent. The words have not been written and I’m feeling the pressure.

Over a month ago, I applied to the Djerassi Young Adult Novel Writing Residency with Nova Ren Suma. I honestly didn’t think I was going to get accepted. I’d read twitter updates and see that she was getting great applications and I kept thinking, “I should apply but I won’t get it”.

I had been thinking about a novel for a while, but not writing it. I decided I was going to work on some pages and submit it for the application. Turns out that didn’t happen. I guess I wasn’t ready to write that book (or maybe I’m just lazy). 

It happens too often. I complain about not writing and I continue not to do it. I write this post about not writing just to feel like I’m doing something and still I have over thirty pages to write in the next five days and I honestly have no clue if I’m going to be able to do it, but I’ve done it before. Right? In college you become the master of writing a ten to twenty page essay in a night. It’s like you’ve taken a course on last minute writing.

The thing is I don’t want to be that kind of writer. I want to take the time to make the writing the best it can be.

But back to applying to Djerassi. So the deadline was in a few days I knew I wanted to apply, should. It had been a year since I graduated college and largely a year of no writing. NOTHING. Some scraps, but mostly nothing. 

One of those scraps was the first ten pages of a novel I came up with while thinking about my grandma. She was the first person that really motivated me to write. So I looked at the pages I had written months before. They were rough and not done, but they felt right too.

The beginning was where the story should start (or so I think, but who knows what will happen at Djerassi). The voice WAS there. I had felt it since the first line, that first day thinking of my grandma. The first page had unfolded so easily. The rest has come slower. Over the past sixth months I’ve thought of this novel, taking it apart, deciding it needed two POVs, needed to be honest.

I sent my Djerassi application in hopes that it would push me through my writing slump.  Within a week, Nova had sent out acceptances and somehow my pages were good enough. For about a day I had that positive spark of “i can do this”. Then the “maybe I just got lucky”, “maybe only ten people applied to the program”, “maybe I shouldn’t do this because everyone will hate my story and think it’s too slow”. IMPOSTERRRRRRRRRRR. (I’m normally not this crazy with all caps.)

Over this past month though I’ve realized something. I have people who support me. They want me to succeed. They believe in me even when I don’t. 

So the money has been sent and I’m going to write the words this week. They will be sent. They may be rough, but they will still have a voice. And they’re a beginning and not an end.

[tjohlerwrites]

Micro-aggressions, Unpacking privilege, and The Knee Jerk Response

Micro-aggressions happen all the time. Everyday. Even by people you think are your allies. For example: Black woman says:  I am so upset about the violence against the Black community. White LGBTQIA woman responds: What about the LGBTQIA community? What about violence against us? This is a micro-aggression. This is an invalidation of the Black Woman’s statement even though the White woman is right about violence in the LGBTQIA community. However, by co-opting the conversation, by making it about her own marginalization at that immediate moment, she has asserted her white privilege and any chance for a conversation ends abruptly. To be a good ally, we must learn to listen and support each other when people who are hurting are talking. Your time to talk will come soon enough, but don’t take it at the expense of others. Don’t let your privilege co-opt a conversation on race. I will give you a more personal example. I grew up during the race riots between the Korean American and Black community in NYC. My parents owned a store and we lived in the apartment above it. It was a scary time. At school I got into an argument with a Black classmate. She said it was incredibly hard being Black and having to deal with racism. In my young, resentful and admittedly self-centered mind, I didn’t like what she said. So I responded – “Well Korean Americans get hate and racism from both the Black and White communities.” That was a blatant micro-aggression. I invalidated her by pushing my marginalization over hers. And I was completely wrong. But at that time, I was unaware of my privilege. In my mind, my marginalization – being Asian – was just as bad as being Black. I was so wrong. Now I know that I have a privilege and if I I could go back in time, I would apologize to her. But I can’t and so the only thing I can do is keep learning and try my best to do better. I am Asian American, straight, cis-gender, educated, middle class. And even though I am a woman of color with invisible disabilities, I am also deeply aware of my privilege, because I am a woman of color who is not Black or Brown. I am also a woman with disabilities that are not visible. While these marginalizations make my life extremely difficult, I still have privilege and I must constantly remind myself to never forget that. It is not easy, and it is not supposed to be. But you check your privilege because it is the right thing to do. To be a good ally. Recently, I have noticed a troubling trend among white allies who, perhaps unknowingly, talk over and invalidate WOC by playing their own individual marginalization card. And in general, I’ve noted that it always comes on the heels of Black Women talking about race and intersectionality. This troubles me deeply because it causes resentment. It also bothers me when other WOC (especially other Asian women) aren’t as supportive of Black Women as they should be. I saw this happen in an online group, a good friend of mine (who is Black) tried to speak on race and found her whole discussion derailed in a heavy pile on by white marginalized feminists who co-opted the conversation. It was so frustrating that I posted the Huffington post video on White Feminism with this statement, “I think this video should be mandatory viewing for everyone especially because sometimes I think white feminists who are also LGBTQIA+ or disabled forget that intersectionality applies to WOC also, and that no matter what your marginalization is you have never experienced not being white. And if that statement makes you mad, you need to think about why.“

What I received back was a whole lot of angry Knee Jerk reactions. And what I mean by that is the “How dare she try to tell me that my marginalization is not as important as hers!” “How dare she try to police diversity!” “How dare she not check her privilege!” “How dare how dare how dare…” I call this a Knee Jerk reaction because these are not all bad people. These are people who are invested in the diversity movement themselves. So they are not the enemy. And yet they responded with a knee jerk reaction to being called out on having white privilege. But instead of getting so angry, accusing me of being a bully, demanding that I be banned and reported (for what, asserting my opinion?), and trying to silence me, they should have done exactly what I asked in that last sentence. They needed to think about why it made them so uncomfortable. They needed to reflect on their own privilege. What they did instead, was focus on their own marginalization as if it somehow negates their white privilege. The problem is that nothing negates white privilege. The poorest, most marginalized white person in the country will still not have the racist issues that the Black community faces. They will not be poisoned knowingly by their government. They will not live in fear that the police will kill their young children and never be punished. They do not have to worry about having the highest incarceration numbers in the land, simply because of the color of their skin. They do not have to worry about the school to prison pipeline because of inadequate resources in public schools. But because these issues do not actually affect white feminist’s personal lives, it is easy to focus solely on their own individual problems. After the responses so vividly proved my point, I left the group because I cannot stay where people believe that silencing the voices of POC instead of promoting open discourse is ever acceptable. Of course, this is not the first time I have been silenced and made to feel unwelcome by white feminists. Truth is this is commonplace for WOC. But it hurts more when it is done by people who say they are our allies.

I know that I will receive hate mail and harassment, but on this I feel too strongly to stay quiet. Because I stand in solidarity with the Black community. And we all need to speak out when wrong is wrong. The thing is, if a white person’s response to someone talking about White Privilege is to say “I’m marginalized too!” then they don’t get it. Because that is, essentially, how privilege works. It wants to take over the conversation and invalidate other people’s struggles. And if your response to that is “why is race more important?” I want to point you to one of my new favorite blogs -Reading While White. They address this very issue as follows:

This is a great explanation because it doesn’t say race is the most important issue, what it does is make clear is that race is the most all encompassing. That it crosses into all identities, all marginalizations. Intersectionality means that POC also exist in the LGBTQIA and disabilities communities. It affects all races, not just white people. But white privilege, even within those communities, wants to dominate. Unpacking your privilege is a hard thing. It is not easy. Nobody wants to think of themselves as being in the wrong, they’d rather think of themselves as being wronged. So you stay secure in your self-righteous indignation of “How dare yous” instead of thinking about how systemic racism and your own privilege has seeped so firmly into all aspects of your life that you can’t even see it. In order to be a good ally and make a difference in the fight for ALL OF US, we must recognize our own privileges and make a public stand to fight for what is right. But we cannot do that if our white allies don’t recognize what white privilege is and how deeply entrenched it is in our world. So I challenge white allies to really do some serious and probably very uncomfortable  self-reflection. When POC ask you to check your privilege, do you get mad and immediately demand that they check theirs? When POC talk about their experiences do you roll your eyes and snidely comment about how it’s not always about race? When someone says something racist, do you just stand there looking awkward and ignore it? When the status quo is racist, do you just accept it? When people talk about taking action, do you just nod your head in agreement and do nothing? When POC speak on oppression, do you respond with your own tale of oppression? 

In order to be a good ally, it is important to know when to speak up and when to shut up and just listen. And if you aren’t sure what to do, all you have to do is ask. How can I be a good ally to you? How can I support you? 

In conclusion, I will leave you with Daniel Jose Older’s The 5 Stages of Confronting Your Own Privilege. Here’s hoping that we can all get past number 1.

[tjohlerwrites]

Bicepsual curls ft. Rey Finn and Poe

Original gif from here

[tjohlerwrites]

#started from the bottom now we’re here

[tjohlerwrites]

January 2016 in 140 Characters

Didn’t write what I needed to. I’m hoping this month will be different.

Did read 15 books and kept the bills paid, so that’s good.

[tjohlerwrites]

When people ask how my writing’s going