Sunday Night/Monday Morning Cathcall: December 13, 2015

More activist-y megaphone pictures! I'm the blue puffy jacket person.

Janet Mock, author of Redefining Realness, is donating 120 books to schools through my organization, The Make It Safe Project. Want a copy for a school you know? Check it out!

The Onion has released its review of 2015. Uh oh.

As we near the end of the year, remember self-care! In the words of my friend Miles: "Eat lunch if you haven't yet. Take your meds. Please stay hydrated for me. Rest your eyes if you've been staring at a computer screen all day. Text a friend and check in on them. Take care of yourself."

My creative writing professor gave some ... different ... advice: "Creative narcolepsy can be your friend."

Weekly YA book rec: The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

Sunday Night Catchall: November 29, 2015

Thanksgiving existed this week. That's probably what everyone writing about their weeks is leading off with. *sigh* But, since I mentioned it, my six-year-old sister beat me at Mexican Train! (I was third; she was second.) She's also far superior to me at ice skating. (See the picture!)

Lots of great book recs with the #MorallyComplicatedYA hashtag on Twitter, and also in this Bustle article. To be clear, I have nothing against the author or book that caused the hashtag — I just find the contention that no existing YA books involve complexity or depth completely unfounded. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the attack at Planned Parenthood this week. My heart goes out to everyone hurt. No matter what your beliefs, I think the goal of peace should be universal. 

For all of you in the home stretch of NaNoWriMo, good luck! Congrats to those of you who've already reached 50,000 words and I'm sending lots of virtual support to those of you still fighting to get there. I didn't do NaNoWriMo myself this year, though I've so far stayed true to my "edit or write for an hour a day" goal. Wrote 10,000 words last week; hoping more will follow. I'm terrified of what will happen when I turn on spellcheck again to edit. (I turn it off when I'm binge-writing.)

Sunday Night Catchall: November 22, 2015

Not going to lie: one of the most satisfying moments of my week was beating my dad and brother at Catan. (Okay, fine — the most satisfying moment of my week ...) Anyone else play board games with your family that get really awkwardly competitive?

Speaking of competitive board games, I'm dying to know the answer to this: my friend Rebecca and I have been playing very intense games of Bananagrams (which, for those of you who don't know, is like Scrabble but about speed more than anything). I use nothing but super short words; she mainly uses longer words to free up board space. For those of you who play, which strategy do you use? Now I'm curious.

Obligatory cat photo! Sorry to be clogging up the internet with more cat pics than it already has. If I had a pet wombat, I'd post those pictures instead, but I'm stuck with this guy (who does not seem happy that my mom's taking a picture of him).

If you haven't already perused the hashtag on Twitter, check out some highlights from yesterday's #TransYAChat! It's interesting regardless of whether or not you're a writer.

Oh, and if you've followed my Twitter account this weekend, you know I spent my entire weekend working on a novel instead of writing an essay. Welp, want to guess what I'm supposed to be doing instead of writing this blog post? Oops.

#TransYAChat Highlights!

Today, the blog GayYA ran a fantastic chat on Twitter about trans representation in Young Adult literature. People raised great points, so I thought I'd share some highlights! Make sure to check out the hashtag #TransYAChat on Twitter to see all the questions and answers, because the posts below are by no means an exhaustive list on all the great things people said.

On the importance of good trans representation:

On what needs to be represented more in YA lit with trans characters:

On what writers should remember when writing about trans characters in YA:

Other thoughts:

Sunday Night Catchall: College Edition!

I'm back. And on a new website! Subscribe to the newsletter (hint: on your right) to get occasional writing updates! (And cat photos!) Now, in honor of failing to post over the past few months, I thought I'd try to give a rundown of not just this past week, but the past few months (because, you know, that sounds easy to do after the first few months of college):

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Finally got that obligatory activist-holding-a-megaphone photo of myself that I've been lacking for years, courtesy of speaking at a rally about sexual violence and discrimination.

On a separate but still activism-related note, mad props to all the activists at Mizzou, Yale, Howard, and other schools nationwide that have stood up against discrimination even in the face of threats.

I discovered that all the seasons of House are now available to stream on Netflix, as are some campy crime shows and The Office. In other terms, I've got limitless things to watch when procrastinating.

Friday the 13ths are cursed, as, apparently, are the days before and after them. My heart goes out to everyone in Beirut, Paris, Japan, Syria, and anywhere else I'm sadly failing to mention who has been lost in the deluge of media coverage about those first four things. Try to remember to treat everyone with respect, dignity, and compassion.

I found an Onion article that sums up exactly what I wonder if my creative writing professor is thinking every time she gives me feedback. (I'm kidding — her name is Ellis Avery; she's wonderful and writes kick-butt LGBTQ-related books that you should read!)

And for a new thing I'm adding to these weekly roundups, a weekly YA book recommendation: Traffick by Ellen Hopkins!