In Book News & Events

Support Reclaim by shopping!

By Rachel Gold

The Roseville Barnes & Noble is celebrating National Coming Out Day with a week-long bookfair promotion for Reclaim — Reclaim works to increase access to mental health support so that queer and trans youth may reclaim their lives from oppression in all its forms. A portion of the purchase price of books, games, music, gifts and more that you buy online from Barnes & Noble goes to Reclaim through 11:00 p.m. Central time October 15. (The portion is 12-25% depending on a number of factors.) It is not too early to do your holiday gift shopping — or to purchase items for all those Scorpios in your lives who have birthdays coming up. Here's how to make sure your purchases benefit Reclaim: Be sure to use this web address: bn.com/bookfairs to do your online shopping. Click on the button “Start Shopping Now.” When you’ve finished selecting your purchases, click on your cart and begin the check-out process. In the Payment section, scroll down to the bottom where it says Check this Box if this is a Bookfair Order. When you check the box, type the Reclaim bookfair ID number in the provided box: 12009270. If you already have a BN.com account with a default

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October 11, 2016
In Book News & Events

Readings and events for fall

By Rachel Gold

After taking the summer off, it's time for more blog articles, readings, events and more. In upcoming weeks I'll return to my book insights and cool science. Here are my upcoming events for October and early November: Oct. 7-9, Gaylaxicon — I'll be on a panel or two at the annual international science fiction, fantasy, gaming, and comics convention for gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people and their friends. I'll update here when I've got details but you can see general information about the convention at: http://www.gaylaxicon2016.org/. Oct. 10, 7 p.m., Roseville Barnes & Noble National Coming Out Day event — I'm reading with Juliann Rich in this event supporting Reclaim. Purchases in the store all day long will support Reclaim and the amazing work they do for queer and trans youth. Click here for the official info on the B&N site. Oct. 15, Twin Cities Book Festival — More info soon but I'll be at the Festival Saturday morning with books! On Nov. 5, 3 p.m., at Solcana Fitness — LGBTQIA+ reading and discussion with me, Kirstin Cronn-Mills, Molly Beth Griffin, Juliann Rich and Vee Signorelli. This is a benefit for Reclaim and you can see more info on Juliann's site at:

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September 28, 2016
In Book News & Events

Writing descriptions that reveal character

By Rachel Gold

If you're at GCLS this Saturday in D.C., I'm teaching a class with Laina Villeneuve: "Astonishingly Beautiful: Descriptions that Reveal Character." And if you were there, here's the PPT: Descriptionclass.pdf Among the cool things we're going to talk about is all the work that description can do in a story. We often think that the work of description is to show something visually or, at best, to cover all five senses (six if you're writing paranormal). But description can do so much more than that. It can: Continue the action Foreshadow Give us the character/voice of the describer Reveal character through traits/mannerisms Give us a world/culture Here are some of the examples we're using: Action: Karin Kallmaker's 18th & Castro “Stretch marks, the emergency C­section scar and the occasional thick black hair that grew back faster than she could pluck it— how could Brenda find any of that sexy?” Foreshadowing: Michael Gruber’s The Book of Air and Shadow “The nose was sharp and seemed to have more than the usual number of component bones making odd little corrugations all over it. Her lips were unfashionably thin and pale, and when she spoke you could see that her teeth were odd too, the incisors especially long and dangerous looking.” Voice: Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere "There are four

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July 6, 2016
In Queer and Trans Literature

Music for the Just Girls sequel

By Rachel Gold

You get a short blog this week with more videos because I’m hard at work on the Just Girls sequel. This story starts the night that Just Girls ends and follows the stories of Nico and Tucker over the next several months. After much brainstorming, the title is one again Nico & Tucker. It was the working title and I've yet to come up with anything better. Here are a few songs and videos that give you the feeling of the new book plus some musical background to Just Girls. And if you didn't see the early blurb of what the book's about, read the post where I signed the contract for Nico & Tucker. Also if you're wondering who did that great illustration of Nico and Tucker at the top of this post, it was the fabulous Mandie Brasington (more of her art here) and you can click here to view and download the full illustration. Trini Dem Girls It's not the song itself but the video that is core to the feeling of Nico & Tucker. Nico dances at a performance space called "Jim's Glorious Noodle," which I imagine is somewhat like the space you see in this video —

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May 26, 2016
In Embodied Neurodivergence

Book Insight: ADHD and the Edison Gene

By Rachel Gold

I first read Thom Hartmann in my mid-20s when I was informally diagnosed with ADD. I was highly anti-meds at the time so there didn’t seem any point in getting officially diagnosed. Plus I wasn’t convinced that it was a disorder. (I’m still not.) Hartmann’s books helped me understand how to choose environments that suited me and helped me be kind to myself when I didn’t fit with cultural expectations about work. This latest, "ADHD and the Edison Gene," takes his initial ideas and updates them with more current science. Instead of describing ADD brains as hunters (in a hunter/gatherer vs. farmer paradigm), he’s using the “Edison gene” and inventors. I’m a fan of all of it. I don’t care if you think of me as an inventor, a hunter or a superhero as long as it’s positive and creates an environment where we can do our best work together. In very brief summary, this book posits that what our culture labels ADD/ADHD arises from a combination of factors that includes a genetic trait for novelty-seeking, a mismatch between innovative brains and our assembly-line culture, and possible environmental factors, like diet. Many of the traits of ADD are positive and adaptive in the

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May 13, 2016
In Queer and Trans Literature

My Year Zero Playlist

By Rachel Gold

All of my novels have playlists, often multiple playlists if there's more than one significant character. The playlists for MYZ are very long, but I pulled out a few key songs for Lauren and Blake so you can listen with me. Lauren What's the quintessential Lauren song? Probably one from Halestorm below. But in the context of this specific story, the learning and changing she's going through, this is her song. I think she'd admit that in the novel she's doing her "shadow work," or at least she'd admit to it after Blake points it out for her. This is Tool's "46 and 2" covered by a group of incredibly talented kids. Vocals start just after the 1 minute mark.   Below is the video of the Halestorm song that Lauren is singing in the first scene of the book: And here's the other Halestorm song mentioned by name in the novel: "You Call Me A Bitch Like It's a Bad Thing." I love that this footage was shot in Minneapolis. I want to think that Lauren could've seen this performance live, but she'd have been too young for her big brother to agree to sneak her into a bar. But hey, maybe she got a

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April 27, 2016
In Embodied Neurodivergence, Power of Story

Book insight: FAST MINDS

By Rachel Gold

FAST MINDS is a great book for people with ADHD/ADD that does not pathologize our diverse brains. The authors write: Having FAST MINDS traits can mean there is a mismatch between the way the brain works and the demands of life. It’s a way of thinking and being that makes it harder to function in today’s world. The is the single most pragmatic and actionable ADHD book I’ve read in the past few years. I found a lot of it extremely useful. Some of the tips I’d already implemented over the years, but even then they usually had good input. If you need to skip science and theory for now and start making changes in your life to make it more workable, start here. It’s also got helpful information for partners and family members of people with ADD/ADHD or FAST MINDS (they’re used interchangeably in the book). If you’re wondering what FAST MINDS stands for, here’s the list from the book, slightly abbreviated: FORGETFUL: Do you forget what people have told you? Do you forget where you put things? Do you need reminders for every day things? ACHIEVING BELOW POTENTIAL:Do you feel you should be getting better grades than you do at school, or should have

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April 13, 2016
In Book News & Events

My Year Zero virtual reading

By Rachel Gold

For anyone who can't make the launch parties this weekend, or anyone who wants a preview, here is a virtual reading from the beginning of My Year Zero. Although the book has a March 29 publication date, it is already on sale and shipping from Bella Books and Amazon. You can get an eBook copy from Bella in either a DRM-free epub format or in the .mobi format that works on Kindle.   You can also see the interview at Gay YA if you haven't or read the post on why writing about mental health is important to me. And here's a quick outtake from the reading between chapters one and two with a little tidbit about me and my character Lauren: Chapter two isn't up yet because I flubbed the middle of it, but I'll try to get it posted in the next week or so. Encouraging comments are completely welcome!

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March 24, 2016
In Power of Story, Queer and Trans Literature

The My Year Zero cover explained

By Rachel Gold

I get more input on my covers than most traditionally published authors. This is because I have a marketing background and access to an amazing graphic designer, and because my publisher is awesome. So I can actually tell you some of what went into that cover. I worked with Kristin Smith, who designed the covers for my two previous YA novels, and brought in illustrator Alexis Cooke. Alexis was particularly ideal for this project because her illustrations frequently have mental health themes in them. Go check out more of her art here, I'll wait. The layout I wanted to do something different from the Being Emily and Just Girls covers to show that this is a different story. Also the main character is an illustrator, so it seemed natural to have an illustration on the cover. We looked at a lot of popular book covers that utilized illustration -- and that’s as far as my thinking went. The layout was all Kristin’s genius. I asked Kristin how she came up with the idea of two off-center pages: Since we wanted the cover to showcase the two main characters, and already had the page with Lauren’s drawing, we decided to add a second sheet

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March 19, 2016