Dave Eggers – whose books include A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering GeniusandA Hologram for the King – has been helping kids with their writing for years through 826 Valencia, a nonprofit he co-founded in 2002. He tells our own Elizabeth Blair that he hopes the I, Witness series will help young readers grasp world events that might otherwise feel abstract.
It’s a series of mid-grade books written by kids (or people writing about their own experiences as kids) who’ve witnessed global traumas: hurricanes, terrorism, injustice. You can hear the whole story here.
You’ve probably noticed that over the past month and a half, posts have been really slow. Fear not! I’m coming back this year with more content on publishing tips, writing advice, book reviews, and more of my rambling thoughts. #blog #WritingCommunity
Dear followers of my blog:
You’ve probably noticed that over the past month and a half, posts have been really slow. Fear not! I’m coming back this year with more content on publishing tips, writing advice, book reviews, and more of my rambling thoughts. With my wedding coming up in the next few weeks and my recent positive covid test, you can assume that things have been more than a little…
Dominican-American author (and slam poet! ❤) Elizabeth Acevedo just took home the prestigious children’s literature award for her incredible novel, The Poet X.
A novel written in verse, it tells of a quiet Dominican girl, Xiomara, who joins her school’s slam poetry club in Harlem and is, according to the judges, “a searing, unflinching exploration of culture, family, and faith within a truly innovative verse structure”. Xiomara “comes to life on every page and shows the reader how girls and women can learn to inhabit, and love, their own skin.”
After interviews with more than 600 people, from librarians to children, the review concluded that the UK’s overwhelmingly white librarian workforce, who nominate books for the medal, were mostly unaware of titles by writers of colour. It also found a dearth of books by writers of colour were being published in the UK. (Which, to be fair, isn’t a problem unique to that country.)
No-one from Waterstones was on their Twitter account at that time of night, but half of London was still awake and soon after #WaterstonesTexanand#FreetheWaterstones1 were trending across the city. The police were notified and managed to let him out before midnight :D
Afterwards Waterstones tweeted “We’re pleased to announce that @DWill_ is a free man once more.” (x)
They’ve also compiled a reading list for their future locked-in clients
This is the best thing I’ve heard all day.
The compiling of the reading list for locked in clients is perhaps the best thing about this.
My current book list! Almost all of these stories began on this blog. Some of those old stories can still be found here. Be warned—stories posted to my blog haven’t passed through my editor, and they’ve all been significantly expanded in the actual books.
Seeking an internship with her college professor, Marissa goes into the interview fully prepared to do whatever it takes to secure the coveted and competitive position. The position? To be Professor Harding’s latest sex slave. And what it takes is her unquestioning obedience and utter submission.
No longer called Marissa but “Missy” by her professor and those he chooses to share her with, the young coed finds herself following strict rules, suffering harsh punishments and corrective discipline as she is pushed to her limits. Missy is degradingly displayed and thoroughly used by the professor and his colleagues as his newest toy upon which they slake their needs, all the while her own needs are cruelly denied or drawn from her unresisting body….depending on her professor’s whim.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a collection of loosely connected vignettes featuring themes of dominance and submission, graphic humiliation, orgasm control, bondage, discipline and punishment, unequal power dynamics and power exchange. A purely fictional, kink-filled romp. This is intended for adult audiences only, and is not intended to be an accurate or realistic representation of BDSM activities.
PROFESSOR’S PET (I don’t think I posted this one to the blog)
She heels. She begs. She comes…for her Master.
A young female student receives special instruction from her college professor. On the outside, she’s the top student in class, regarded by her peers as the teacher’s pet. But on the inside, she’s quivering and struggling not to embarrass herself during lectures from the intimate teasing of a remote-operated toy, controlled by her Master.
After class, she becomes her teacher’s pet in truth, crawling around on the floor for him, reduced to expressing herself through barks and whines, and punished with a rolled-up newspaper. A graphic erotic short story of humiliation and and submission.
Contains BDSM themes, dominance and submission, pet play, spanking, anal play, and other explicit sexual situations.
DIARY OF A BAND SLAVE (If you’re good at search engines, you might find an early snippet of this on my Wordpress)
No book description yet! This is a 2021 release.
TRAINING MRS. OLLIVER (I know I started this story here, but I can’t find the link anymore)
On their wedding night, Anne confesses to her new husband her desire to sexually submit to him.
Edward enrolls her in a school for submission, where she undergoes strict and humiliating training. The trainers reinforce her dominant husband’s expectations for Anne, taking control over her body and supervising her behavior through a series of regimented programs designed to condition her body’s physical responses.
At this special school, Anne becomes a willing pupil, tutored in lessons on how to serve Edward’s sexual needs. Soon, she is crawling for her exacting husband, intimately and regularly punished, and calling him Mr. Olliver. As her husband becomes increasingly demanding, Anne learns just how deep her submission goes.
Contains strong BDSM themes, power exchange, sexual humiliation, ageplay, and explicit sexual situations.
In this alternate world, wealthy sons and daughters can purchase women as chiennes, sexual pets. Lacey finds herself acquired and given into service to Benoît Serrault, a scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest families—and the older brother of her best friend.
Presented as Benoît’s graduation gift, she is renamed Chouchou, “pet,” and transformed into his new sexual plaything. As she enters into the world of privilege and erotic excess, she experiences the often dehumanizing and decadent deviance of being owned.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This BDSM novel is pure erotic fantasy and features themes of dominance and submission, graphic humiliation, pet play, lactation, orgasm control, bondage, discipline and punishment, unequal power dynamics and power exchange. This is intended for adult audiences only, and is not intended to be an accurate or realistic representation of BDSM activities.
I woke up this morning to find TALES OF OWNERSHIP on the front page of Smashword’s Erotica section! Thank you to everyone who’s taken a chance on it. I’d love it if you would review it anywhere.
It’s also available on Amazon. So are my other books – HE CALLS HER MISSY and TRAINING MRS. OLLIVER.
Thank you to everyone who read those early stories about Chouchou and her Owner, Benoît, and were so encouraging as to ask for more stories set in this fictional world.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A dreamscape of deviance…
In this alternate world, wealthy sons and daughters can purchase women as chiennes, sexual pets. Lacey finds herself acquired and given into service to Benoît Serrault, a scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest families—and the older brother of her best friend.
Presented as Benoît’s graduation gift, she is renamed Chouchou, “pet,” and transformed into his new sexual plaything. As she enters into the world of privilege and erotic excess, she experiences the often dehumanizing and decadent deviance of being owned.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This BDSM novel is pure erotic fantasy and features themes of dominance and submission, graphic humiliation, pet play, lactation, orgasm control, bondage, discipline and punishment, unequal power dynamics and power exchange. This is intended for adult audiences only, and is not intended to be an accurate or realistic representation of BDSM activities.
TALES OF OWNERSHIP, Chouchou and Benoît’s story, will be out October 1! Their story began right here on this blog. Little did I know when I wrote that first bit in March 2016 that I would end up spending over four years working on their story!
Here’s the book description:
A dreamscape of deviance…
In this alternate world, wealthy sons and daughters can purchase women as chiennes, sexual pets. Lacey finds herself acquired and given into service to Benoît Serrault, a scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest families—and the older brother of her best friend.
Presented as Benoît’s graduation gift, she is renamed Chouchou, “pet,” and transformed into his new sexual plaything. As she enters into the world of privilege and erotic excess, she experiences the often dehumanizing and decadent deviance of being owned.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This BDSM novel is pure erotic fantasy and features themes of dominance and submission, graphic humiliation, pet play, lactation, orgasm control, bondage, discipline and punishment, unequal power dynamics and power exchange. This is intended for adult audiences only, and is not intended to be an accurate or realistic representation of BDSM activities.
Press Release: Lee & Low Books Acquires Cinco Puntos Press
Press Release: Lee & Low Books Acquires Cinco Puntos Press
New York, NY (June 28, 2021)—In major news for independent publishing, diversity-focused publisher Lee & Low Books has acquired the assets of El Paso-based Cinco Puntos Press. The acquisition brings together the lists of two award-winning independent publishers who are deeply respected for their commitment to a wide range of voices, and adds more than 130 titles to Lee & Low’s list. Lee & Low…
New Releases: The Shadow Prince and The Witch Owl Parliament (Clockwork Curandera Vol. I)
New Releases: The Shadow Prince and The Witch Owl Parliament (Clockwork Curandera Vol. I)
It’s a double release day at Lee & Low Books! Today we are celebrating the release of The Shadow Prince by David Anthony Durham, as well as the English and Spanish versions of The Witch Owl Parliament (Clockwork Curandera #1) created by David Bowles and Raúl the Third, with coloring by Stacey Robinson and lettering by Damian Duffy. (more…)
Today, we’re excited to release Magic Like That written by Samara Cole Doyon and illustrated by Geneva Bowers. A true ode to Black Girl Magic, Magic Like That successfully captures confidence, self-love, and the endless opportunities for imagination from cover to cover. About the book: Natural hair is magical, but magic isn’t easy. As a young Black girl patiently waits for her mother to finish…
2021 has gone by quite fast, and we’re now approaching the final leg of the year. The time for new books, however, is not over yet! Lee & Low still has some wonderful new books waiting to fall into your hands before 2022 makes an appearance. Read on for a sneak peek at our upcoming titles for fall 2021. Continue reading
We have 4 new releases hitting shelves today—a stunning graphic novel (KISS NUMBER 8), a sharp contemporary novel about friendship (SQUAD), an exciting fantasy (BEWARE THE NIGHT), and a sweet contemporary about a college student with Auditory Processing Disorder (MEET ME IN OUTER SPACE).
Which of these 4 amazing new books would you read first?
Books like Scott’s, which put disability front and centre, are important in an industry that undervalues these stories and sees them as niche rather than universal. Scott wanted to create the Amazon category to dispel this idea, and to encourage other authors to write stories that treat disability as interesting and worthy of artistic attention. Equally important, says Mitchell, is “incidental representation,” where a character “just happens to be disabled and it’s not really central to the plot”. This is almost unheard of in adult fiction, she says.
The reasons for this lack of representation are varied, but Mitchell and Huxley-Jones point to the inaccessibility of publishing as an industry. Hours are long and, for authors, pay is often delayed. Much depends on making contacts at long and inaccessible conferences. And because publishers pay an advance for a book long before they make money from it, they are incentivised to stick to narratives and characters they already know will sell. So it probably shouldn’t be surprising that we see the same tropes again and again.
There was talk of hitting Amazon more directly in the pocketbook. Brittany Ramos DeBarros, a Staten Island–born Afghanistan War veteran turned anti-war and community organizer running in the Democratic primary for Congress, trashed the corporate welfare boondoggle called the “industrial development agreement,” or IDA, that New York struck with Amazon. In exchange for more than $400 million in subsidies, Amazon is supposed to create an unspecified number of jobs, obey state labor laws, and, even more vaguely, stimulate the local economy. As usual, the public is paying for a bunch of shitty low-paying positions. The company is flouting every labor law on the books. And as for Staten Island’s economy, well, an Amazon worker would have to trek longer than the duration of a lunch break to find a deli where she might buy a sandwich. “I want my fuckin’ 400 million bucks back,” DeBarros bellowed. We whooped.
Not James Patterson – the most prolific writer of our time, with entire bookshelves dedicated to him for every genre in every bookstore and library, who has his own imprint, and who is literally a multi-millionaire– complaining that white male writers like him are discriminated against and don’t get enough work because of racism (yes, he called it racism T_T).
