I love trees

I also love the "tree awards"! I'm so pleased that Another Kind of Cowboy has been nominated for the 2008 White Pine Award. The list is full of terrific books, including Droughtlander by Carrie Mac and The Space Between by Don Aker, which is an honour in itself.

In other fun news, I am finally having a book launch for Cowboy. It will be the first launch I've had since the first Alice book came out in 2000. I have a whole lot of party cooped up inside me! Well, maybe not. I do, however, have the need to share some cupcakes with friends.

The launch will be held at Book Warehouse at 1051 Davie St. in Vancouver, Sunday, November 11 at 4:00. I encourage all who attend to indulge their inner equestrian/ienne. There will be freaking excellent prizes for anyone brave enough to dress up in English/Western garb or, in extreme cases, as horses. (I know. I know. You don't have to dress up. You can just come and eat cupcakes and listen to me give a short reading.)

Thanks to Elinor at Book Warehouse for offering to host the event and to Andrea Coutts, who suggested it in the first place. Dem fine women, both!

Blackwater

In case you aren't already paranoid enough, check out this Bill Moyer interview with the journalist who has been investigating Blackwater, the mercenary company run by a prominent right wing Christian extremist:

Blackwater

Is it just me, or does Erik Price look like the type of guy who has a secret life that involves embarrassing kinks? Maybe it's just his hair. It's an untrustworthy do for a non-military person. I bet he wears dark, wraparound sunglasses on cloudy days, too.

(If I go missing and in the same period a dark helicopter is seen in the neighborhood, please don't forget this post. Ahem.)

Which reminds me that I have a new description for this blog:

Out there: an incoherent mix of news, free floating anxiety, confessions and patently bad advice.

Reading Rants

Many, many thanks to Jennifer Hubert Swan, author of the must-read YA blog, Reading Rants, for her nice review of Cowboy. I think her final lines about trotting to your own beat should be the tagline for the book! Also, her Closet Club post should be required reading for anyone who works with kids or books.

Oh the humanity!

My goodness that last post generated a veritable tsunami of equestrian-related questions! I guess people could sense they were getting some seriously authoritative information. Such things are hard to come by. But before I drop any more wisdom on the readers of this blog, I must tell you a bit about my recent trip to the Calgary Writer's festival and Banff.

At my first event I had the opportunity to read with the adorable (sorry, Matthew, but you are) Matthew Skelton, author of Endymion Springs. He was quite nervous about presenting to a group of students in grades 10, 11 and 12, but as I suspected, he was fantastic and funny and geniuine and they loved him. So did I.

My next event was the dreaded "Toeing the Line" panel. I was quite paranoid that I would be facing a hostile crowd or that my editor Lynne and I would end up alone in a room talking to each other about Melvin Burgess and how he has never seen a line he won't cross and how that makes him kind of cool. Luckily, quite a few people attended and we had a good discussion with Alex, a thoughtful and well-spoken retired teacher and a wonderful librarian from the Calgary Public Library, and members of the audience. In honour of the event I had a special T-shirt made up. (Photo to come if I ever remember to put batteries in my camera.)

I'm pleased to say that I am not yet banned in Calgary. And I got to hang out briefly with the very sharp and funny Ken Oppel and Richard Scrimger and Teresa Toten.

When that was over I went off to the Summit Salon in Banff. It's apparently a literary salon, but what it really felt like was summer camp for writers. We were put up in quite decent rooms in this dorm type place and given ID cards that gave us access to multiple food outlets, including one that served a giant buffet three times a day, and turned loose. It was much fun.

I got to see Joel Thomas Hynes and Ray Robertson read from their books and an Australian named Morganics do some great rapping about... you know, important stuff that I'm quite in favour of but can't remember right at the moment. I also spent some quality time with the lovely Alice Kuipers, whose very tender and innovative new book, Life on the Refrigerator Door, has become an international sensation. It's great and you should read it.

Alice and I took climbing lessons on one of those climbing walls. She scampered up ever-more difficult "routes" with no difficulty whatsoever and I laboriously hauled myself up the easiest ones and then spent some time making sure that Mike, our belayer and instructor, got some practice in the art of catching falling climbers. At our second session I learned to belay. It seems I'm not just a spazz when I'm climbing (and falling). I'm also a spaz when I'm belaying. Belaying involves reeling in your climbing partner's extra rope as they climb. In my case, it involves panicking as you continually bone things up. But ultimately, no one was killed or injured so I think we can call it a success.

I also went for a run with Lawrence Hill, one of Canada's finest writers, whose most recent novel is the much-lauded Book of Negroes. I thought it would be nice to have a jog with a fellow writer (plus, he said his kids liked my books, which gave me confidence.) But when I met him in the foyer of the residence, I realized I'd made a mistake in telling him I was a runner. I could see instantly that Lawrence Hill and I had different ideas about what constitutes a runner. For him, I expect it means only narrowly missing qualifying for the last Olympics. For me it means meaning to run but often forgetting and/or being too tired. He was extremely patient and gracious and didn't go sprinting off like a gazelle being chased by a lumbering hedgehog (me). We had a lovely run and I'm looking forward to reading the non-fiction book he published this year called A Deserter's Tale.

I was much taken with Neil Smith and his partner. Neil has a piece in Esquire magazine this month about his upcoming novel and I can't wait to read his book of short stories. He's very sly and funny and we like many of the same books. Plus, he didn't say anything cruel (to my face) about how I looked when I was climbing. I was practicing my falling (intentionally, this time) and happened to look out the window up near the top of the wall. There I saw Neil, Matthew and Christian staring at me with a sort of horror tinged with pity. I expect that was because a) I kept falling and b)my track pants really weren't designed for climbing or for use under a harness and looked quite unseemly. I'm just guessing about that last point.

So there it is, my Dominick Dunne-style breathless recap. Many new books to read and authors to admire. I am going to miss the hell out of that buffet and all the Australian staff at the Banff Centre. I wonder whether the Australian consulate insists that all males leaving the country invent elaborate spiky hairdos for themselves. These coiffures seemed to persist even when their wearers were swimming. I will always think with fondness on my time at the buffet. I mean, in Banff.

Horse Sense for Dressage Queens (and Kings)

It strikes me that because Another Kind of Cowboy is a book about two young dressage riders I should make this blog a bit more horsey. Plus, I have always wanted to be an advice columnist. So I've decided that I will begin my advice column right here, right now. Why wait until I'm qualified has always been my motto.

Oh god, it is raining so hard! I like my horse to spend as much time outside as possible, but this is too much. I will call and ask the folks at the barn to keep him in this morning. I'll be back in a minute...

Horse Sense for Dressage Queen and Kings,
This is Susan. How can I help?

Hi Horse Sense,
My name is Penelope and I'm interested in buying a horse and taking dressage lessons. Can you tell me how to get started?
Interested in Taking Dressage Lessons


Hi Interested,
Whew! That's a tall order right there. Let me think about that for a minute...
Okay, I've thought about it. How much money do you have in the bank right now, Penny?
Whatever the amount is -- it's okay, you don't have to tell me, although I am interested -- say goodbye to it. That's number one.

Number two: go to a local barn and ask if anyone knows a good dressage teacher. If you notice that a lot of people at the barn are riding their horses over jumps, get ready for hurt feelings. These are show jumpers and hunter jumpers and when you tell them you want to ride dressage they are going to think you are a wimp and a coward. Take solace in the fact that they are probably so hopped up on adrenaline and whatever else they aren't thinking about how their comments will affect your self-esteem.

You might find the odd jumper who will talk about dressage being the basis for everything else, but he or she won't mean it. If you dig a little deeper, you'll find that he or she hasn't taken a "flat lesson" since he or she was five years old. (Note: You must NEVER ask a rider how long ago that was. Riders from all disciplines can look significantly older than they are. That weathered fifty year old may be a nineteen-year-old who doesn't have access to an indoor arena or, alternatively, has been riding a completely unstable warmblood that has rearranged her face in jumps three or four times. Or she might have recently looked at her bank balance.)

If the barn you pull up to has a lot of riders in large hats that offer no protection whatsoever riding horses going either very, very slowly or racing at top speed back and forth and spinning around in circles, do not make eye contact or engage in conversation. These will be Western pleasure riders or Western reiners. If you aren't careful, you will leave the property towing behind your car a trailer ventilated with rust holes that contains a quarter horse who only has the use of three legs, two of which he uses to kick anyone who comes close. Horses need all four legs for dressage, no matter what that cowboy with the crooked grin and twinkly eyes told you. (Please note that he's a weathered fourteen year old so you shouldn't be looking at him that way, anyhow.)

With any luck, you'll pull up to a barn that has a lot of signs with "Dressage Queen Only" parking signs. Don't, for god's sake, park there. You aren't a dressage queen or king yet and the people who put up those signs aren't joking.

If you see horses going around and around in circles at all three paces while being yelled at by an instructor wearing a headset and slapping a long whip against his or her tall black boot, you are in the right place! If you end up in training facility run by a German person, that instructor will likely be holding a cigarette rather than a whip. In fact, he may have more than one going at a time. Sometimes, the German riding coach, or Bereiter, will have a student whose only job is to carry around his extra lit cigarette. Breath a sigh of relief (but not too deeply, due to all the second-hand smoke). You have located a dressage teacher!

Next time: Your first lesson. To be followed by purchasing your dressage horse.

Happy Banned Books Week!

Oddly enough, given that this is banned books week, I learned yesterday that the parent of a fourth grader was beginning a petition to have Alice MacLeod: Realist at Last removed from her child's school library. She referred to the book as "pollution" and to prove her point, pulled out several of what she felt were controversial lines. These included a reference to a condom and the mention of the word "gay". Now, I'm the first to admit my books are not aimed at a fourth grade audience. They are generally intended for grades seven and up. But I'm quite confident they won't cause actual harm to any younger child who picks them up. (Except, perhaps, if that kid gets caught reading them and is grounded.)

Thankfully for my faith in humanity, a parent who values intellectual freedom wrote a thoughtful and considered response and I weighed in with my own ideas:


To whom it may concern,

I was alerted to the controversy surrounding my book, Alice MacLeod: Realist at Last. I am saddened to hear that a work produced with the best of intentions has become the focus of acrimony. It might help to explain a little bit about what the book is about and for whom it is intended.

Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last is the third in a series of books about a young girl growing up in a small, northern British Columbia town. Alice has an unconventional family and quite a difficult time at school. The books are comedies with a serious subtext: i.e. that it's difficult to be true to yourself in the face of intense pressure to conform. The series takes Alice from age 15 to 17 and covers issues such as bullying, fitting in, standing out, career goals, relationships and sexuality, though there is no graphic sexual activity. The books are intended for readers in Grades 7 and up. I hear often from precocious younger readers (ages 11 and 12) but they are not the main audience.

As a child, I reveled in a wide variety of books. These ranged from books published for my age group to those written strictly for adults. I read books that I now recognize that some people, including my parents, would have considered wildly inappropriate and I am pleased to say that I am none the worse for wear. That said, I respect the right of parents to monitor and control the books their own children read. I do not think, however, that one parent or one set of parents should control what all children read. This is a matter that can be handled using good judgment rather than censorship.

It is the rare child who has not been exposed to some element of risqué or violent popular culture through television programs, music videos and video games, not to mention comic books and music. In my series, Alice reflects on and digests elements of popular culture in her individual (and intentionally humorous way) as she develops her own set of values. In this same spirit, it seems to me that not every book should be required to toe the same line. Indeed, the impulse to make books do so can only result in stifling the vibrancy of literature for young people. A sure way to make sure kids don't read is to force publishers to publish only books that everyone considers appropriate. Another way is to intimidate school libraries into second-guessing their choices or carrying only uncontroversial books. Our literature should be a reflection of our society and the vast experiences contained therein. If it isn't, it will no longer be a vital component of our cultural life.

On a more personal note, I'm dismayed over the vehemence of the objection to my book. It's alarming to have one's work referred to as "pollution". I find myself wishing that some of that energy might be channeled into outrage over the fact that there are children in the world who do not have enough to eat or a place to live.

I am grateful that my book was included in the library and I appreciate very much the support of parents who advocate for the freedom to read and the freedom of young people to choose books that speak to them. This is certainly a debate worth having.

I wish everyone a Happy Banned Books Week.

Sincerely,

Susan Juby
Author of Alice, I Think, Miss Smithers, and Alice MacLeod: Realist at Last

On this note, I hope anyone attending the Calgary Writer's Festival will join my Canadian editor, Lynne Missen, and I for a panel we are on called "Toeing the Line". It will be held Thursday, October 11 from 5:00 until 6:15 at the Vertigo Theatre Studio. The genesis of the panel was some early controversy that surrounded my appearance at the festival. As I've mentioned before, a few teachers and librarians were offended by some content in Another Kind of Cowboy and for a while it looked as though I wouldn't be able to attend. The festival found me other audiences and developed this event so Lynne and I could have a forum to talk about what the line is and how far over it our cowboy boots are willing to go. heh. Personally, I don't think Cowboy is within spitting distance of any "line", unless it's near a starting line in the race to see more and more GLB-themed literature published for young readers. But that's just me. I'm line-blind.

If you are interested in issues of censorship and intellectual freedom, I hope you will join us.