March 2023 – Page 2 – Treehouse Writers

Today’s title is not a description of the unexpected (Australians are literate!) but of an annual event. We’ve been heading towards it for weeks. it’s this week, on 9 March. Schools and libraries specially have whole programs, and Young Adult writers are in particular demand. My big Australia reads function this year was talking about fantasy novels with Wendy Orr and Rik Lagarto for Libraries ACT. It will be put up the Libraries’ Facebook page on the day, and then readers in Canberra will be able to compare note and argue and chat about the books we talk about. We will probably join in the discussion. Of course we will. That’s what book discussions are for.

Australia Reads/Australian Reading Hour is an annual event where a lot of Australians read for a single hour on the same day. We’re not told what to read. We do, however, talk about books a lot in the lead-up. Some people buy a book they’ve been dreaming of, specially to read that day. I’ve done that, this year. A lot of the fun is in comparing notes and suggesting titles and worrying if we will get hold of our dream book in time or if we should find an alternate book, just in case. I always emerge from This lead-up period and from the day itself with a long list of books I need to take a look at. This is such a good feeling.

There are Ambassadors for Reading to encourage Australians to read something that day. I am one. Let me show you. https://australiareads.org.au/authors/gillian-polack/ It’s not my best quote ever. Every year I want to improve it and change it and every year I say to myself, “It’s probably better to spend the time reading.” And so I do. I’m very proud to be an Ambassador.

I don’t know if there are Reading Hours in other countries, but if you don’t have one and would like to join us, please do! Any book, the hour of your choice (or 4 lots of 15 minutes if life is simply impossible, though an hour is best, it gives time away from a fractious everyday). People often ask me if there’s a book of mine I suggest for Australia Reads. This year it’s The Green Children Help Out, because we really need a bunch of cheerfully quirky superheroes to help us deal with destructive fools. Me, I’m reading The Tangled Lands, a new novel by Glenda Larke.

What book will you choose?

Not Civilized Yet

by Nancy Jane Moore

March 3, 2023March 2, 2023

It seems to me that, in much of the world and certainly in the United States, the prevailing belief is that we are civilized now. If there was something terrible we did in the past — slavery, for example — we weren’t civilized yet. But now we are.

In fact, as someone who has read a lot of western literature over the years, I think that’s been the prevailing belief of at least the upper classes in the west for centuries now. Of course, in most cases they believed they were civilized but most of the other people on this planet were not.

That last point may still be true among some of the ultra wealthy. Certainly the tech bros who are convinced The Matrix is a documentary think they’re civilized and the rest of us aren’t.

(I’d say it was a core belief among white supremacists, except the very idea that white supremacists are civilized is too laughable to even consider.)

As for myself, while I think I have some good ideas that would make us more civilized if they were adopted, I don’t think one person, or even a group of people, with good ideas can really make us civilized if most people are outside of that system.

We can’t be civilized by ourselves.

But the belief that we are now civilized is a strong one. I once suggested on a panel at a science fiction convention that we weren’t civilized yet and everyone else disagreed with me. These were intelligent people who did not dismiss the wrongs of the world as aberrations, but that did not enter into their idea of civilized.

Perhaps they were thinking of electricity and indoor toilets, and even rocket ships and vaccines. But while all these things are good, and can provide a grounding, they are not markers of civilization.

We’re civilized. Sure. People are living on the streets because housing is an investment and a way to make “passive” income instead of a place to live. Police officers kill people for the hell of it and we “reform” the cops by giving them more weapons and money. Politicians make up preposterous “crises” instead of dealing with the ones we have. We invent reasons to start wars.

We can’t even manage a pandemic sanely.

Civilized people would do better than that. Continue reading “Not Civilized Yet”…

Manners

by Madeleine Robins

March 1, 2023

Life overwhelmed this week, and I didn’t finish the post I was working on. So: something from a few years ago.

Manners are important. I’m not talking about not chewing with your mouth open (though please, don’t). I’m talking about that old stalwart you heard when you were a kid: Don’t be a Brat. Don’t talk back.

Really: someone on Amazon doesn’t like your book? Pound a pillow, burn her in effigy, but resist the impulse to get on line and explain in detail why You are Right and She is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. It’s a losing game, I promise you. The best you can do is say “I’m really sorry it didn’t work for you.” Silence is even better.

Don’t Talk Back to Editors. You’d think this was a no-brainer, but sadly: no.

Case in point. An acquaintance of mine, years and years ago, wrote a novel. Friend, who liked my mother and valued her literary judgment, sent her a copy of the manuscript and asked if she knew any editor who might be willing to look at the book. So far, so good. This is how careers get started.

My mother, ever helpful, read the manuscript, was dubious, but sent it on to one of her best friends who was, in fact, an editor at a Major Metropolitan Publishing House. And the friend, because she loved my mother, read the book. And sent back an eight page letter to my friend, explaining why the book was not commercially viable, and giving detailed feedback about what problems needed to be fixed in order to render the thing more commercial and, therefore, more publishable.

Think about this: this editor took the time to read the manuscript and give pages and pages of useful feedback to the author on a book that she had no interest in publishing. She did it because she and my mother were friends. And what did my friend do?

Fired off a letter explaining the ways in which the editor was Wrong Wrong Wrong.

Now, even if the editor had been wrong (and, at least in my opinion, she was not), what my friend should have done was say “Thank you so much for your time and professional expertise, for which I did not pay a dime. I will take your cogent suggestions to heart, and hope to submit the revised novel to you at a later time.” After that, she could have gone home, pounded that pillow, burnt the effigies, whatever made her feel better. But writing a tantrum-like letter to the editor was dumb in a Big Dumb Way. Not only did she burn that particular bridge; she burnt a lot of bridges with one fell swoop. Cause editors talk to each other. They go out to lunch, they call each other, they email, and you can bet that if my friend submitted a book to someone who mentioned her name to my mother’s friend the editor, the feedback would not have been stellar.

This doesn’t mean you can’t advocate for your work. If someone says “we want to publish your book, but we really want the protagonist to be a lizard,” it’s perfectly reasonable to say “You know, that’s not the book I wanted to write, and while I appreciate your viewpoint, that’s a dealbreaker for me.” But don’t tell an editor that your therapist, your writing workshop, or the guy who makes your latte at Starbucks think your book is a flawless work of genius as it is. It’s the editor who’s going to have to persuade the company to spend money buying the book, and publishing and advertising the book. Anything you can do to make yourself look like someone she wants to work with is a good thing.

Being a brat, obviously, is not.