Last weekend was San Francisco Pride, and I actually went to the SF Pride parade for the first time ever. I took so many photos that instead of putting them all up one by one, I put them into a slide show. Just click Play below to start flipping through them. Enjoy!

* Updated with additional signing at ALA *

Today, July 1, 2009, is exactly two months before the official publication date for my first novel, Ash. Two months before this book that was seven years in the making will be available for anybody to read and like or dislike at will!

Cue minor panic attack!

So, yes, this is a little bit freak-out-inducing, but I’m also excited because it means I have many things to tell you about.

First, here’s a peek at some awesome swag I just got in the mail:

Posters are 12x18 inches

My publisher has made these fabulous Ash posters, which will mostly be sent to libraries, booksellers, and other Important Undisclosed Locations. But I have a bunch, too! And I am going to be giving some away! I just haven’t figured out how or where or when yet. Stay tuned, as they say. read more…

This past weekend I left my house in the country and spent two days San Francisco to celebrate Pride. This year Pride felt especially special because, well, this is the first year in a long time in which I don’t live in a major metropolitan area where there are tons of gay people. I am enjoying the small town I live in, but it’s not within walking distance of the Castro. Small-town life is just an entirely different experience from walking down the street and spotting half a dozen dykes with lovely tattoos peeking out of their T-shirt sleeves and/or a gaggle of gay boys with perfectly coiffed haircuts.

So. Pride. It felt good to be among the queer folks again. It was comfortable. Practically everybody I saw was gay; they all probably assumed I’m gay — we had a gay old time.

It was basically the opposite of what I’ve had to do more and more this year: come out to total strangers. I know that I’m going to have to continue to do this as Ash is published and I meet more people, who don’t know me, in non-gay settings like bookstores or conferences. I’ve already had to do this a lot this year, and so far, it hasn’t gotten any more fun. Let me show you what typically happens:

AT A BOOK EVENT

Me: Hi, I’m Malinda.
Person I Just Met: Hi! Are you a writer?
Me: Yes. My book, Ash, comes out in September.
PIJM: Oh! What’s it about?
Me (steeling myself): It’s a lesbian retelling of Cinderella.

[Note: I could leave the lesbian part out, but really, that's why my book is different. And somehow that will come out anyway, while the person asks me how my retelling differs from the original tale. It's better, I've concluded, to just shove Ash out of the closet right away.]

PIJM: Really! How unique!
Me (thinking: gee, yeah, being gay is totally unique): Um, yes.
PIJM: Are you a lesbian?
Me (taking a deep breath): Yes.
PIJM: Oh! (awkward pause) Well, good for you!

AT SOME OTHER LOCAL EVENT

Me: Hi, I’m Malinda.
Another Person I Just Met: Hi! I’m [Name]. Do you live around here?
Me: Yes. I live in Fairfax.
APIJM: Oh, Fairfax is so great. How long have you lived there?
Me: Just since last fall.
APIJM: Why did you move out here?
Me: Well, my partner lives here, so I moved here to be with her.
APIJM: Oh! (voice lowered) Are you a lesbian?
Me: Yes.
APIJM: So, when people use the term “partner” does that normally mean they’re lesbians?
Me (confused by the turn of this conversation): Um, sometimes.

I’ve provided you, dear reader, with these two examples of conversations that I have actually had in real life to point out a few things. read more…

As much as I love a delicious gourmet meal full of fancy-sounding cooking techniques and sauces, I also love simple food. I’ve written before about my obsession with finding the perfect pizza. Lately, Amy and I have been experimenting with tossing the dough and I think we are verging on a perfect home-made version! However, that doesn’t stop me from trying lots of other pizzas, too.

Here’s a slice from Zachary’s in Berkeley, CA.

A slice at Zachary's

This is a Chicago-style pizza, which means it’s of the deep-dish, stuffed full of layers of goodness kind of slice. Chicago style isn’t my favorite, but I had nothing to complain about with this pizza. I think it was stuffed full of spinach, pepperoni, mushroom, mozzarella and (my favorite) tomato chunks. Mmm. Also, we drank lots of beer with it.

Closer!

Burgers are also easily found but often poorly put together. Either the bread is too large or the beef is not tasty enough, or the toppings don’t stack up. I ate this burger at Market Bar in San Francisco while waiting for the ferry. It was sort of an accidental dining experience, but it wasn’t bad. read more…

My latest Notes & Queeries column went up on AfterEllen.com yesterday. This month’s topic: the allure of the lesbian vampire.

As any regular AfterEllen.com reader knows, the number of lesbian and bisexual female characters on scripted television in the United States tends to hover in the low single digits.

In movie theaters, we have even less to cheer for. Hollywood barely manages to make films with interesting women characters, much less lesbian or bisexual ones. Independent film, niche television programming and internet video are all doing their part to raise the visibility of lesbians/bisexual women in entertainment.

But the fact is, we also need mainstream visibility. And this year, for better or worse, our best hope for mainstream visibility may lie in the lesbian vampire.

Read the whole thing here.

Earlier this month, to celebrate finishing the first draft of my next novel (woohoo!) — as well as the fact that the strawberries this summer are fantastic — I made a strawberry pie.

The most important part of this pie is the strawberries, because except for a small amount of puree, they remain uncooked. That means the quality of this pie is directly related to the quality of your strawberries. The ones I used were bought at our local farmer’s market after a thorough taste testing of all available options.

I got this recipe straight out of Joy of Cooking, but I did amend the amount of sugar involved. Here’s what you do: read more…

Recently, within a period of about 24 hours, I got emails/questions from three different people about how they could get published. This was a little startling to me since the questions came in such close proximity.

I’ve gotten questions like this before. I wrote about it last November, in fact. Back then, I side-stepped the whole mechanics of how to get published and focused on giving aspiring writers a pep talk. This time, I think I’m going to have to actually answer the question, if only so that I can point future question askers to this blog post (hi, future question askers!).

The future!

But first, here are a few caveats:

1. I know nothing about how to get a nonfiction book published. For that, I suggest you try reading The ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing: A Professional Guide to the Business, for Nonfiction Writers of All Experience Levels (Amazon). It was published in 2003 and might be a bit out of date, but it’s a good place to start.
2. My experiences are my own experiences and will most likely be different than yours. All I can tell you is what I went through to get where I am today.
3. I know slightly more about getting young adult fiction published than I do about adult fiction. I know some about mystery fiction, a smidgen about science fiction/fantasy and romance, and pretty much nothing about literary fiction. This just means that the publishing industry is wide, and every genre has its own requirements.

So many books, so many requirements ...

Now, to start off with, a bit of background about my own qualifications to answer this question: read more…

Before I get to this week’s somewhat bizarre collection of photos, I have a couple of things to share. First, I have a nifty new header image on my website (and on my Twitter page) courtesy of Saundra Mitchell. In addition to being the author of Shadowed Summer, which I highly recommend, she is also a filmmaker and talented graphic designer. I love what she did!

Also, after posting twice this week about how I am not looking for reviews of my book, several people kindly forwarded on this review of Ash from Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf, in which she gave my book an A+! Such a sweet review! And one I will have to save for rainy days.

OK, so now onto the photos I was talking about. Last weekend was the Fairfax Festival, a small-town extravaganza set in the small town I live in. It starts off with a parade, followed by a variety of hippie-influenced things like organic food vendors, reclaimed wood products for sale, an Eco-Fest in which you can learn about solar power or water reclamation … Seriously, you have to see it to believe it. Here are some highlights from the parade:

This is a giant salmon. Really.

The following parade participant, the Fairfax Wish Fairy, even got her own article in the Marin Independent Journal! read more…

Apparently, at the end of every school year, many teachers and schools issue summer reading lists — lists of books that they encourage students read over summer vacation. I say “apparently” because I don’t recall ever receiving a list like this. I always read over the summer anyway, but I’m sure that if I were issued such a list, my natural stubbornness would rear its head and I would absolutely hate every book I was assigned to read.

(When I was a teen — and sometimes even now! — I tended to hate anything that I was “supposed” to do. Sigh.)

Anyway, recently the booksellers at Shelftalker were talking about reading lists — specifically, which interesting books might they suggest to teens? It got me to thinking about what I might read this summer, too. Not in an assignment way, but in a fun way.

I’ve been buying more books than I should lately (in fact, this is becoming a problem!), but at least this means I can even provide photographic evidence of what I plan to read this summer:

The book on top is The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe. It’s an adult novel about a grad student who discovers an old manuscript related to the Salem witchcraft trials. I’ve already started it and I’m enjoying it so far. Not pictured is another book I’m looking forward to reading: Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan, about a group of Smith College friends (also adult).

The rest of the books in this stack are young adult novels — mostly fantasy, but also a couple of real-world based, Word Ninja-authored ones (see Twenty Boy Summer and Sliding on the Edge). I don’t have a copy of Lisa Mantchev’s Eyes Like Stars yet, but that’ll join the list, too.

Just looking at this stack of books has me equally excited and afraid! But I’m telling myself that I can read them in whichever order, stop whenever I want, and add or subtract at will.

What are you looking forward to reading this summer?

This post also appears at Word Ninjas, Ink.

After writing my last blog post on reviews, I realized something kinda funny: I’m old-school, people!

I like newspapers! (I realize this is a doomed love affair.) I think that critics have stuff to say that’s important! And I also think authors should stay in their isolated garrets and stay the hell away from reviewers!

OK, I’m sorta joking here. But only sorta! Basically, it comes down to this: I believe in keeping advertising and editorial separate. I don’t think that any reviewer/critic/book blogger/random person on the street who happened to read my book should worry that I, the author, might happen to read their review and be offended or pleased by it. I think that reviewers should write whatever the hell they want — and I should stay over here and not influence them in any way.

The primary joy of the web — the fact that it brings us all into closer communication — can also be the downfall of my sanity. I love hearing from readers who like what I wrote, I really do. But I also have to make decisions and take actions that allow me to have a private headspace in which I can write stuff, without hearing the voices of readers reacting.

So, sorry for the sorta repeated post here. There will be new, non-review-related material coming to this blog soon. In the meantime, I’m working on an essay about lesbian vampires, and to do it, I’m going to retire to my isolated garret with an ink pen and a bourbon.

(Kidding. I’m bringing my Macbook Pro.)