July 27, 2014 In Power of Story By Rachel Gold

Age & Time part 2: author edition

In a fun confluence of events, just after Kristin published my guest blog about inspired age math and how to not freak out about being over 40, my publisher asked me last week if I was under 35 so they could submit me for an award given to young authors. I had to tell them I’m not under 35 (as you can see in the blog I wrote for Kristin, I’m 42). And then like every other adult in American culture, I freaked out for a little while thinking that I was too old and had waited too long to get published. The inside of my head sounded like this: Why didn’t I get published younger? What kind of failure is it that I’m not eligible for a young authors award even though I only have two books out? What did I do wrong? Culminating in: Oh my God, I wish I’d been first published at 30, not 40! Luckily I have a habit of at least trying to critically listen to my ego when it goes on a rant like that, so I delved more deeply into that statement. Is it really true? Not quite. What I really wished was that I was first

July 17, 2014 In Uncategorized By Rachel Gold

Gut feelings: gluten sensitivity is complicated

This morning Business Insider ran a short video: “Gluten Sensitivity Proven False,” which makes a few good points and some dubious ones. First off, a more accurate title for the video would be: “One Study Shows Gluten Not a Factor in IBS Symptoms,” but that’s got a lot less drama to it. (Here’s the video if you’re curious.) Basically, according to the video only 1% of Americans have Celiac Disease but about 30% report wanting to eat less gluten. Is there such a thing as “non-celiac gluten sensitivity” and how many of that 30% might have it? The bottom line in the video is there isn’t such a thing. The actual title of the video on the page is "The Science is in -- Why Gluten Sensitivity is Probably Fake." I get cranky when people cite "Science" when they really mean one study or a small group of studies and then use emotionally loaded words like "fake." My bottom line is this: self-care trumps all. If you feel better eating gluten-free or grain free or only foods that don’t begin with the letter “g,” then that’s what you should eat. Everyone is an individual. Just like there aren’t two one-size-fits-all genders, there

June 2, 2014 In Power of Story By Rachel Gold

Solving Gender Neutrality (at least at WisCon)

Being on the “Solving Gender Neutrality” panel at WisCon over Memorial Day weekend got me thinking about gender more deeply than usual the past few weeks and two things occurred to me: 1. I want to alter my language more because “dude” just isn’t gender neutral like I want it to be. 2. Non-binary femme should be a thing. The first is pretty straightforward and I’m cheerfully accepting better synonyms for “dude,” which I generally use to mean: person I’m fond of in a co-player sense. Coming from a gaming context, I use it for both men and women, but then I realized that if you don't know that and you randomly hear me use it, it sounds just a gendered as people who think there's such a thing as using male pronouns as a universal. So far my favorite suggestion for a replacement has been, “Peep!” We’ll see if I can rock that. On to #2. Trying to describe my gender in an email to the other panel members for "Solving Gender Neutrality" in the week before the panel was a lot harder than I expected. (If you want the excellent list of resources put together by another panel member, it's online at:

May 2, 2014 In Book News & Events By Rachel Gold

You wrote WHAT? Sex scenes in GLBTQ YA Literature

The headline above was the title of the panel I had the pleasure of moderating at the Loft Literary Center's Children's & YA writing conference last weekend (April 25-27). The other panel members were: Kirstin Cronn-Mills, Molly Beth Griffin, Dawn Klehr, Juliann Rich and Elizabeth Wheeler. Between the six of us, we read scenes about sex, sexual identity, and gender identity and covered a pretty broad spectrum of  GLBT (though we may have been a little short on the Q). Below are the stats that I cited at the start of the panel, plus some bonus stats: From the Teen Lit Lab studies — 250 teens surveyed n 2009 (read the whole Sex in Young Adult Literature paper here): 13.4% of girls said that the general level of sexual content in teen novels underestimates their level of sexual activity 32% of male respondents suggested that sex in YA Lit was most often tamer than what they personally experience 46% say that, in general, YA books overestimate the level of sexual activity they engage in When teens were asked to rank (in order of importance) the reasons they read YA fiction with explicit sexual content: ‘‘To be entertained’’ was the number one reason across all age groups (14-18) Exploring

January 21, 2014 In Book News & Events By Rachel Gold

Emily is going to college!

Being Emily has been picked as part of the curriculum for a Spring 2014 Intro to LGBTQ Studies course taught by Dr. Lisa Hager at the University of Wisconsin - Waukesha. Other books in the curriculum include: Michelle A. Gibson, Jonathan Alexander, and Deborah T. Meem's Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies Kate Bornstein's My New Gender Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace Through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name I can't adequately say how excited I am that Emily gets a spot next to Audre Lorde and Kate Bornstein! Kate is a huge influence on me and any time she and the world of Emily intersect, it's wonderful (see below).  I'm also delighted that Being Emily is part of the course called "Queering Digital Spaces," as you know I'm a huge fan of digital spaces and what they make possible for gender expression.      

November 8, 2013 In Book News & Events By Rachel Gold

I do have the best job in the world

Wednesday afternoon I got to visit the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at Valley View Middle School in Bloomington and read a bit from Being Emily and from the sequel that will be out next year. This is my second favorite aspect of being an author: talking to people about the book, the process, the ideas in the book, and in this case also video games. (My first favorite aspect of being an author, you might be able to guess, is writing books.) It's unusual for a middle school to have a GSA and the turnout was really impressive with about 15-20 students and a bunch of supportive teachers and other adults. I can't imagine what it would have been like for my middle school to have a GSA. I came out in high school and was lucky to have at least one friend who was a little older and GLBT-supportive. It's great to see that access to supportive peers and adults is much more open these days. The event was set up by RECLAIM, an amazing facility in Uptown Minneapolis that helps LGBT youth gain access to mental health support. They're sourcing book circles for Being Emily and Kirstin Cronn-Mills' Beautiful Music for

September 16, 2013 In Book News & Events By Rachel Gold

Book Festivals!

I like to think that fall is book season (along with summer and winter and maybe spring). The air is crisp, it's a good time to curl up with a novel or, if you're feeling more social, to head out in search of your favorite novelists. I'll be at two book festival in the near future: Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books, Sat. & Sun. Sept 21-22. I'm on the panel ”OUTspoken & OUTfront: LGBTQ Writers Moving Beyond Binaries.” (At 4:30 p.m. on Saturday in N129.) Twin Cities Book Festival, Sat. Oct. 12. I was on a panel last year and had a great time. Not sure if I'm doing anything official this year, but I'm definitely going to hang out. Book festivals are great because they're about books (I know, right?) and this tends to attract other book-lovers, which makes for a really great group of people to hang out with while to listen to authors say smart and/or funny things and get to shop for books. If you're around for either book festival, stop by and say hi!