Catherine Ryan Hyde Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of more than 25 published and forthcoming books, including the bestselling When I found You, Pay It Forward, Don't Let Me Go, and Take Me With You.
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For those of you who missed my big Jumpstart the World blog tour...or even part of it...well, I can see how that could happen, because it was quite extensive. Twenty-five stops. As it was going on, I'm sure it would be easy to miss bits and pieces of it. The posts just kept stacking up. (In a good way!)
The good news about the tour is that you don't have to experience it in real time. The posts will stay around a while.
Or at very least, semi-locals. If you live on the Central Coast of California, I hope you'll join me for a special event. It's a reading from, and celebration of, Jumpstart the World, my new young adult novel with a transgender theme. And I've teamed up with the local transgender support group Tranz Central Coast for this event. The idea is to raise consciousness for trans acceptance and money for TCC.
Copies of the book will be for sale, of course, all proceeds to benefit TCC. And I'll be reading from the book, talking and answering questions about it, and signing copies.
But there's more. I'll be giving away sets of two to
Today has been an incredible day for media. For media combined with me, that is.
To start out the day, I found I have a piece on the AOL News site Daily Finance. It's called The (Paltry) Economics of Being a Novelist.
Then I found out my Teen Ink Interview is posted online.
Then I was sent a link to two really outstanding pieces. One is a review of Jumpstart the World, and the other is an interview with me in relation to the book, both by Laur
Tuesday. Voting day. Did you vote? Are you about to vote? Or did you already send an absentee ballot in?
Whatever our views, this is no time for apathy. The U.S. seems to be at a turning point. Hell, mankind seems to be at a turning point.
I think the #1 reason people don't bother to vote is discouragement. They feel whatever
I think everybody knows that the book business is...how can I put this in fairly positive terms...unsteady, right now. And I think everybody knows that print newspapers are dying an agonizing death. I'm not sure anyone but an author would put the two together and nervously realize that print reviews are drying up just when authors need them the most.
So what do we do? How do we get the word out?
Enter book bloggers. Have I mentioned that I love book bloggers? They are the present
I can't really say, "Happy Spirit Day." Because it's nothing to be happy about.
The last few months have seen an epidemic of teens committing suicide in the wake of unmerciful bullying, violence and degradation. Because they were gay, or perceived as gay. Today the caring world wears purple in remembrance. And today I say, along with millions of others, "Enough!" You cannot tell
There sure is a lot going on right now around book banning and censorship. In fact, it's come to a town near me. San Luis Obispo, a small city about 45 minutes down the Coast Highway from me, reviewed a book today that someone wants taken off high school shelves. Here's the problem: We don't know who. After ten years in the school curriculum, the book was reviewed today as the result of an anonymous complaint.
The book is "Kaffir Boy" by Mark Mathabane, a memoir about survival as a child in South Africa during Apartheid. Some anonymous person is upset by page 72, which contains a fairly graphic description of children prostituting themselves for food.
I have an old friend, Dave Congalton, who's hosted a local talk radio show since...I'm not quite sure, but I think since the beginning of time. He asked me this morning If I'd call in
Now might be a good time to start. If you have a Facebook account, you probably know that "liking" a page is just hitting the button that says "like." It's a type of subscription. The only danger is that some page owners send you lots of pesky messages. But I don't. I don't spam.
Here's why you might want to like my page now. Because on November 1st, I'll be doing a drawing, and everyone who likes the page will be automatically entered. It doesn't matter if you've been with me since the day I created
This is the day for my Young Adult novel Jumpstart the World. This is its "on sale date." And I'm pretty excited. Even more so than usual. There's just something about this one. It's close to my heart.
I also want to announce that I have an absolutely incredible blog tour coming up. Four weeks. Seventeen blogs. Four Jumpstart the World reviews, one each week. Three reviews for other books of mine. Four author interviews, two book excerpts, two entirely new scenes I created just for this tour...had enough yet? I hope not. Because there's more. Two character interviews, one with Elle and one with Frank. And three guest posts written by yours truly.
This is the kind of tour that makes me love the Internet. If I had to get on a plane and travel for a tour of this length, I'd be history before the tour was.
Here are the terrific people and blogs who are supporting me and Jumpstart the World.
Here's a great way to do it. Lauren of Shooting Stars Magazine has been nice enough to organize a charity auction to celebrate two great events: National Coming Out Day (October 11th). And the release of my novel Jumpstart the World (October 12th). All proceeds will go to the Cincinnati chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Click on their acronym to learn more about GLSEN and the great work they do.
Lauren has lined up some great auction items, but, more importantly, it's our chance to
As you can see on your left, I donated to Swati Avasthi's Before The Split Blog Tour and Charity auction. I made two donations, actually. One is a signed ARC of my new YA novel Jumpstart the World, and the other might be of particular interest to newer writers: a critique of a synopsis, query letter and the first 30 pages of your manuscript.
To honor National Domestic Violence Awareness month, Swati Avasthi (YA author of Split, a terrific debut novel) has combined a blog tour with a charity auction. Over 40 authors, agents and editors have donated manuscript critiques, personalized books, and more to an online auction that anyone--reader, writer, book lover--can bid on and buy. All proceeds go to the Family Violence Prevention Fund. In addition to the auction, Avasthi is donating $1/comment
But who counts. Right?
On the 12th of October, my new Young Adult novel, Jumpstart the World will...well, hopefully it will do what the title suggests. In a small way. Or a medium way. Or...well, I don't know what it will do out in the world. I just hope people will find it and read it.
It's a novel about a teenage girl who falls in love with an older guy before realizing he's transgender. Which means, as a sort of follow-up for my "Speak Up About Speak" blog post, it's the kind of book the Wesley Scrogginses of the word would probably love to see banned. I'm not sure how someone would go about banning it, as it's about emotion, not sex. But I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried. But I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it, heartened by the knowledge that the book community stands up and speaks loudly for
Those of you who are reading the Sainsbury's Book Club edition of Second Hand Heart will already know Erin and Betty Ann. If not, a brief background. Betty Ann is a living kidney donor, and Erin is the recipient of her incredible gift. I wrote about their experiences in a true donor story as an exclusive for the Sainsbury's edition. Betty Ann was Erin's third donor, and Erin's situation was quite desperate by the time the third kidney arrived. And Erin and Betty Ann barely knew each other then. But they sure know each other now.
I also mentioned in the story that, after six long years of waiting due to her health issues, Erin and her finance, Joe, were finally planning their wedding. Imagine my delight when Erin's mother sent me wedding photos, including one of Erin with all three of her donors!
Who could possibly think the YA novel Speak is pornography? Unfortunately, there's an answer to that question. He's a guy in Missouri, Wesley Scroggins. In an article called Filthy books demeaning to Republic education, he mischaracterizes Laurie Halse Anderson's classic YA novel Speak, the story of a young rape victim, and says it should be classified as soft pornography. Because it contains two rape scenes.
Is the suggestion here that the purpose of writing about rape is to entertain and excite? Because that's a pretty sick sentiment, Mr. Scroggins. In a world where the statistics on child sexual abuse are so shockingly high, does he really think the solution is not to utter a word about the problem in books? It's better if they don't read about someone who survived it, even if it's happening to these readers right now?
Such dangerous logic. But then, all censorship is dangerous. If you think a book is
Well, it's here! Second Hand Heart has been in stores in the UK since Thursday. The blog reviewers have been wonderfully positive in their reception of the book (I just added a big bunch of review quotes to the Second Hand Heart book page) and I'm already beginning to hear from readers. That's what makes this all worthwhile.
A quick note for those of you who are reading the book, are just about to read the book, or who have read it. On the Second Hand Heart book page, I have some original photos that I took myself. You see, Vida and I have been to some of the same places.
The photo you see here on this blog is the memorial stone at Manzanar. The one Vida visited with Victor and Esther (and Jax). But I also have a photo of Mt. Whitney from
Yesterday I appeared on a KCBX Public Radio book program called BookWaves. It's a collaborative live program between KCBX and the San Luis Obispo (California, my home county) Public Library.
The book we discussed was Chasing Windmills. If you've read the book, or are interested in learning more, you can listen to the hour-long program at:
This time I got to see it. Through rain and fog for the first day. Through snow and sleet for the second. But I saw it. And the third day, the day I boated over to Wizard Island and hiked, couldn't have been more beautiful.
Press play to see the video:
Here's a pair of sentences for you. I have been to Crater Lake, once. I have never seen Crater Lake. Weird. But both statements are true.
Last September, I took my dog Ella and my 88-year-old mom on an RV trip to Oregon. One of our first--and most highly anticipated--stops was Crater Lake. We'd heard such great things about it. But before we could get there, we hit smoke. A wildfire, too new to have been reported before we left, had begun near the route we were driving. But we were still a long way from Crater Lake, so we were sure we'd pass through it. The trouble, though, is
There's Young Adult author Ellen Hopkins' reverse invitation to a Texas Book festival (they invited her, then withdrew the invitation). Then there was that mess regarding Glen Beck's 9.12 Project getting books pulled from school--and even public--libraries without any formal book challenge. I wrote a report on this backlash against (primarily) LGBT lit, and it's featured on the Red Room home page all this week. You can read it here. And it's almost Banned Books Week (September 25th through October 2nd, 2010).
But there is a bright spot in all of this. Some interesting and important groups and projects have emerged. Well, emerged to me. They've probably been around for quite awhile. But I'm now lucky enough to have discovered them.
The bookmark you see at left is free. It's individually hand-signed, so it's the next best thing to a signed copy of one of my books. It can be personalized on request. And I'm offering it to any and all of my readers for just an S.A.S.E.
But now I have a better offer for book groups who are reading one of my titles.
If you'll contact me and tell me how many people are in your group, and send me one mailing address for a group representative, I'll send you enough bookmarks for everybody. And the postage will be on me.
It's a small thank-you for reading and discussing my work.
And here's another small thank-you. When you've completed your book discussion, I invite you to email me any questions that came up. I'll be happy to answer them personally.
For more details, see my new page: S.W.A.G.
