June 2, 2014 In Being Emily, Just Girls 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.READ MORE

January 21, 2014 In Being Emily 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.

One of my favorite emails even contained this pic of Kate wearing the Being Emily t-shirt.

One of my favorite emails even contained this pic of Kate wearing the Being Emily t-shirt. Photo credit: Barbara Carrella.

 

 

 

June 26, 2012 In Being Emily By Rachel Gold

My book is available

My novel became widely available this week! Now I get to put into practice all that book marketing stuff I've been reading the last few years. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the basic info about my novel and where to find it:

Being Emily is first young adult novel to tell the story of transsexual girl from her perspective. It’s a story for anyone who has ever felt that their inside and outside don’t match and no one else will understand. You can read an excerpt on the publisher’s site http://blog.bellabooks.com/2012/06/being-emily-by-rachel-gold-now.html.

And you can buy the book there or on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Being-Emily-Rachel-Gold/dp/1594932832 or on Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/being-emily-rachel-gold/1104889199.

For an eBook you can use in most eReaders, click here: http://www.bellabooks.com/9781594932830e-prod.html.