Wednesday, July 22, 2015

A Post-Pourri of Thoughts

by Holly West

I'm gonna cheat on my post a little this week by directing you here:


Author S.W. Lauden interviewed me for his website this past week. Not only to I appreciate the screen time, I appreciate his patience when I accidentally missed the deadline for sending in my answers.

The interview aside, I'm happy to have met Steve last year at a literary event in Los Angeles. In addition to the numerous short stories he's had published, his novel BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION comes out in October and a novella, CROSSWISE will be published by Down & Out Books in 2016. Plus he's just a lot of fun to hang out with.

In other news, the Outrage Machine in my social media feeds seem to be working overtime lately. It's a big bummer. I know we don't live in a perfect world but re-posting simplistic and potentially offensive memes on Facebook doesn't strike me as a particularly good way to handle it. I've had to unfollow a few people this week just because the noise gets so tedious.

Sure, I might disagree with your positions, but if you take a moment to express yourself in a well-thought out way I'll respect your efforts and maybe even see your point of view. But re-posting some idiotic image from the political group of your choosing is just annoying.

One last thing: I started reading TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for the first time last week. I've never read a book that used the N-word so freely. I know it's reflective of the casual racism that existed at the time it takes place in, but I find it so jarring. Which isn't to say I'm not enjoying the book--I am.

That's it for me. If you have any random thoughts to share on the above topics or others, please feel free to do so in the comments. 

2 comments:

Manuel Royal said...

Holly -- glad to hear you're reading "To Kill a Mockingbird"; it deserves its reputation.

But -- if the word "nigger" in that book jars you, I'm guessing you've not read "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", one of the best novels of the 19th century (with perhaps the greatest moral epiphany I can remember in a coming-of-age book). Any novelist should definitely read that one.

And -- I think your advice about research as a means of work avoidance is very much on the mark. I've reached that point in my own WIP.

Best of luck.

Holly West said...

You're right--I haven't read it but it's moved up on my list now that I've finished TKAM. Trying to catch up on the classics.