Some thoughts on editing YA and kids books containing Indigenous content - guest post by Ambelin Kwaymullina

Some thoughts on editing YA and kids books containing Indigenous content

A few people have asked me recently about the kinds of things editors need to know in order to appropriately edit YA and children’s books that contain Indigenous characters/content. So here’s a few thoughts on some of the things that editors might find it useful to inform themselves about.  

A Lack of Sustained Engagement

It should be noted at the outset that a lack of editorial knowledge regarding Indigenous peoples and realities in part arises from the fact that most of the Australian publishing industry – and the literature industry more generally – lacks any history of sustained engagement with Indigenous peoples. Engagement has tended to be on a one-off, ad hoc basis with all the failings that can entail – inconsistencies in approach (including inconsistencies within the same publisher); a lack of retention of corporate knowledge (because knowledge resides with one person and is lost when they leave); and a lack of meaningful, sustainable connections between a publisher and Indigenous peoples.

The obvious framework through which publishers can foster engagement with Indigenous peoples is a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). RAPs are increasingly a feature of the public and private sector, including the schools sector. A RAP – which is a business plan that details how an organisation/corporation will achieve reconciliation – is built around three core elements: fostering respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, building relationships, and creating opportunities (both through Indigenous employment and through supplier diversity). Detailed instructions on the development of RAPs are available at the Reconciliation Australia website.

Best Practice Standards

Best practice standards are contained within the AIATSIS Ethical Research Guidelines, the AIATSIS Ethical Publishing Guidelines, and the Australia Council for the Arts Indigenous Writing Protocols. The research guidelines are relevant because there is an intersection between literature and the extensive work on working ethically with Indigenous peoples that has emerged from the research field. This is especially so in relation to non-fiction or fiction that draws heavily from fact (eg from historical events); and to collaborations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Editors should be well familiar with all these documents. In addition, every editor should have read Murri lawyer Terri Janke’s recent publication Indigenous Cultural Protocols and the Arts, which relates to the Australia Council protocols and sets out a series of questions that any arts practitioner should ask in relation to projects involving Indigenous peoples/knowledges/cultures. These questions are equally relevant for any editor to ask when seeking to ensure a best practice approach has been followed.

Editors should further be aware of two intersecting areas that underlie the guidelines and protocols: Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP), and the principle of free, prior and informed consent.

The leading Australian expert on ICIP is Terri Janke. I would suggest that editors read Terri’s presentation Who Owns Story (and the associated discussion on copyright on the AIATSIS website), and More Than Words: Writing About Indigenous Australia.

The principle of free prior and informed consent (FPIC) is an international best practice standard applied to projects and initiatives concerning Indigenous peoples, and will be especially relevant to collaborations with non-Indigenous peoples. In essence, ‘free’ means free from coercion, manipulation or pressure. ‘Prior’ means with sufficient advance notice, including allowing enough time for Indigenous consultation and/or Indigenous consensus decision-making processes. Informed – in the context of literature – means Indigenous peoples being comprehensively informed as to the nature of a given project/book, including (1) what ICIP issues arise and how ICIP will be protected (2) what return of benefits there will be to the Indigenous peoples/communities involved in the book/literature project; and (3) any potential risks for Indigenous peoples. For an example of an Indigenous FPIC protocol, refer to the Kimberley Land Council’s research protocol

Indigenous Cultural Competency

Cultural competency is often mistakenly understood as being something that is achieved solely through obtaining knowledge about Indigenous peoples. However, the research demonstrates that the achievement of cultural competency requires a person is aware of their own cultural standpoint and the limitations of that standpoint when it comes to comprehending the cultures of others. To aid in understanding the concept of cultural competency, I suggest editors read the summary provided in pages 37 – 50 of the National Best Practice Framework for Indigenous Cultural Competency in Australian Universities, and especially the models of cultural competency provided at pp 49 – 50.

In the context of the literature industry, cultural competency requires an understanding of whiteness. The industry itself is overwhelmingly white both in terms of its employees and in terms of the underlying structures and philosophies embodied within the institutions (including publishers) that comprise it. This includes unconscious but often deeply embedded assumptions as to the superiority of Western culture, cultural expressions and institutions over those of Indigenous peoples (and other non-white peoples). It also includes the operation of white privilege (although all non-Indigenous peoples who live on Indigenous lands are to some degree privileged in relation to Indigenous peoples, because everyone who came to Australia post-colonisation has gained in some way from the dispossession of those who were here before.)

White privilege was defined by US scholar Peggy McIntosh in her watershed work on the subject as an invisible package of unearned assets that she could count on cashing in on everyday, but to which she was meant to remain oblivious. In 2010, Black writer Zetta Elliott adapted Peggy McIntosh’s analysis to discuss the present day literary industry in the US; I’ve drawn on Zetta’s article to write about privilege in Australian literature. Other Australian YA/kids writers who have addressed privilege include Rebecca Lim and Justine Larbalestier. In the US, there is a wealth of online commentary on the subject of whiteness, privilege and YA/kids lit, including the following: Daniel Older, Diversity is not enough: race, power, publishing; Allie Jane Bruce, On Being White: A Raw, Honest Conversation; Zetta Elliott, It’s not me, it’s you: letting go of the status quo; Megan Schliesman, Lessons on Reading While White; Ellen Oh, Dear White Writer (and for some of the reaction to Ellen’s post, see hereand here). Any editor familiarising themselves with commentary in this area should also read Robin DiAngelo’s work regarding the concept of ‘white fragility’, as this concept is often referenced in US discussions.

What about gaining knowledge about Indigenous peoples? There are a range of online resources that editors may find helpful, including: Indigenous terminology guides (for example, the Flinders Uni guide); Reconciliation Australia’s Share Our Pride module; answers to basic questions as well as explanations of common myths about Indigenous peoples; resources on history including the 1967 Referendum, land rights, and the Stolen Generations; and the websites on culture and Country created by Indigenous nations, such as the Kaartdijin Noongar (Noongar Knowledge) website. Reading online materials is not of course a substitute for formal cultural competency training. But in the absence of publishers engaging Indigenous peoples to offer such training, editors should try to be as informed as they possibly can, and in this respect, there is one more source with which all editors should be familiar: Indigenous literature. There are a wealth of Indigenous Australian voices in Australia, and one of the best ways to learn about being Indigenous is through reading the works of Indigenous peoples speaking to our own worlds. And in relation to YA and children’s literature, begin with the extensive catalogue in this field of the Indigenous publisher Magabala Books.

The 21C diversity conversation

There is a global dialogue happening around diversity in literature – or rather the lack thereof, and in particular, the massive under-representation of diverse voices. In the US, this conversation includes websites dedicated to providing thoughtful, in depth analysis of representation in literature. We don’t yet have the equivalent of such websites in Australia. But anyone with an interest in Indigenous peoples and literature should be regularly reading the work of Nambe Pueblo Indian woman Debbie Reese at her American Indians in Children’s Literature website. Editors should also be informed about the diversity conversation more broadly. The intersections between different experiences of exclusion are important, especially because anyone who belongs to more than one category of difference will be even more marginalised still (in this respect, Indigenous women are amongst the most marginalised on earth; Indigenous LGBTI Australians are at a particularly high risk of suicide, and Indigenous Australians are almost twice as likely to be living with a disability as non-Indigenous Australians). Diverse Australian YA/kids authors who have written to diversity issues in Australian literature include myself, Sarah Ayoub, Rebecca Lim, Gabrielle Wang, Will Kostakis and Erin Gough. US websites that address representation issues in YA/kids literature include: Disability in Kids Lit; GayYA; Oyate; Reading While White; Rich in Color and the We Need Diverse Books movement.

There are a multitude of voices in this space speaking powerfully to why representation matters, and to the many dangers and manifestations of mis-representation.

So if you want to be informed – listen.

*** 

Ambelin Kwaymullina is an Aboriginal writer, illustrator and academic who comes from the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. She works at the Law School at the University of Western Australia and is the author of a number of picture books as well as the YA speculative fiction series, The Tribe.  

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Reflecting on Indigenous superheroes, Indigenous Futurisms and the future of diversity in literature - guest post by Ambelin Kwaymullina

Reflecting on Indigenous superheroes, Indigenous Futurisms and the future of diversity in literature

I cannot count the number of time I’ve been told it’s unusual to be an Indigenous speculative fiction writer who tells a story about an Indigenous superhero. But Indigenous superheroes are nothing new – at least, not to Indigenous peoples. We have always had stories of the Ancestor heroes, and through the long violence of colonialism, we’ve had other heroes too. These heroes include the resistance fighters of the frontier period; the undercover operatives of the protection era where intense government surveillance required Indigenous peoples to engage in a thousand hidden acts of defiance; and the child heroes who survived being members of the Stolen Generations.  In Australia and elsewhere, Indigenous peoples have also long been able to interact with the world in ways that the West might label as ‘magic’, but this is because the West often defines the real (and hence the possible) differently to the Indigenous cultures of the earth. There are many aspects of Indigenous realities that might be called ‘speculative’ by the West (such as communicating with animals and time travel). There is also much in Western literature that Indigenous peoples regard as fantasy even though it is labeled as fact, including the numerous negative stereotypes and denigrations of Indigenous peoples and culture contained within settler literature. In this context, speculative fiction has told many a colonial tale whereby Indigenous peoples become the ‘primitive’ populations of alien worlds, overcome by the equivalent of the colonial nation-states enacting their so-called manifest destiny across the stars. Spec fic has also told yet more iterations of the ‘white saviour story’ whereby it is only a white hero (and never an Indigenous one) who can ‘save’ the Indigenous peoples from their terrible plight (a plight that was itself created by white invaders). And it is a genre which has continuously engaged in the appropriation of Indigenous and other non-Western cultures, thereby causing much distress to the marginalised peoples of the earth.

But there is a growing Indigenous presence in speculative fiction. Indigenous Australian Young Adult and Children’s writers who write spec fic include myself, Teagan Chilcott, Tristan Michael Savage,graphic novelist Brenton McKenna, and the group of young Aboriginal people responsible for the NEOMAD comics. In the US, Anishinaabe academic Grace Dillon has coined the term ‘Indigenous Futurisms’ to describe a form of storytelling whereby Indigenous peoples use the speculative fiction genre to challenge colonialism and envision Indigenous futures. Since Indigenous cultures (and peoples) have long been relegated to the past in the mythos of colonial settler states, the very act of imagining Indigenous futures is one of resistance. There is therefore a degree to which being an Indigenous spec fic writer is to be part of what might be called, in Star Wars parlance, a ‘rebel alliance’, and it is an alliance that fights – of course – against the forces of Empire.  

Indigenous superheroes are nothing new. Nor are Indigenous stories. But since colonisation began, our voices have been silenced and our knowledges and cultures appropriated. So what is new are the existence of spaces where Indigenous peoples can tell and control our own stories.  This is not to say the battle to protect our cultural expressions is over. It most definitely is not, and here in Australia, we don’t yet have what could well be the single most effective measure of protection – a National Indigenous Cultural Authority. But there is a greater awareness of the need to deal respectfully and ethically with Indigenous peoples than once there was. There is also an ever-growing cyber-space presence of many diverse voices who are challenging misrepresentations and drawing attention to the need to read the authors who are writing to their own worlds. In 2015, spec fic author Corinne Duyvis – a writer with autism and one of the founders of Disability in Kidlit – invented the hashtag #OwnVoices, to promote books with a marginalised protagonist written by someone from the same group. Websites such as Disability in Kidlit and, in an Indigenous context, American Indians in Children’s Literature, provide a source of critiques that interrogate (mis)representations in literature in way that is still generally not done by mainstream reviewers and award judges. So do ally websites such as Reading While White, which is run by a group of White librarians to support the struggles of people of colour and Indigenous peoples in literature. There isn’t an equivalent to these websites in Australia … yet. But questions of authority, legitimacy, appropriateness, privilege and power are increasingly being asked of literature and of the Arts more generally.

The way is gradually opening for Indigenous peoples to speak our truths, whether alone or in equitable partnerships with non-Indigenous peoples. We don’t yet live in a world where all voices have an equal opportunity to be heard, and where all voices are heard equally. But we are on our way to it, and therefore on a journey to the stories that will exist when we do.    

Welcome to the future.  

*** 

Ambelin Kwaymullina is an Aboriginal writer, illustrator and academic who comes from the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. She works at the Law School at the University of Western Australia and is the author of a number of picture books as well as the YA speculative fiction series, The Tribe.  

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Signing recap: #JenniferNiveninPH book signing!

I am back with a new recap!

The month of May brings Jennifer Niven, author of the tear inducing and heart wrenching All the Bright Places, to Manila for a signing courtesy of National Bookstore.

She's here! What an amazing person and an amazing author. Some of the bloggers might or might've cried a bit during the Q&A. #JenniferNiveninPH #nbsevents #booksigningevent #booksigning #phyabookblogger #phyabooksigning

A photo posted by Kai A. (@amaterasureads) on May 28, 2016 at 8:40pm PDT

It never, never, never gets old. I mean that feeling of seeing an author walking straight towards you, all smiles and so excited to spend time and talk about writing books and the stories she'd written. Perfect example: Jennifer Niven. I love how she's so soft spoken, speaks with simple words and just makes so much sense.

As for what she said during the Q&A, check out the rundown below:

If Jennifer was to write a sequel for ATBP, what is in store for Violet Markey?

Violet wanders around New York, and she's going to NYU where she'd hope to go to a long time ago. She wanders around the world after she graduates and she will probably, one day, write a book about Finch. When people ask her what happens to Violet, Jennifer usually tells them what happened to her instead as she feels like she's like Violet in many ways. Violet has all these bright places with her where she will wander to and honor Finch with every day she has.

(At this point we were all starting to feel emotional, and it's only the first question!)

If she was given the chance to change the ending of All The Bright Places, would Jennifer change it? Why or why not?

Jennifer would love to change it and make it the happiest story. She thought about it while she was writing the book, as it is a personal story (for Jennifer) and Jennifer was really torn about just writing a happy ending. But she was writing what she knew in real life and she thought, that at the end of the day, she will write her experience and hopefully it will lead to a lot of happier endings for the people reading the book.

*cue more feelings here*

Was there anything any of the characters could have done to change the end of the novel/the fate of THAT character? Or was it, like Finch said, something that always had a built-in ending?

There's a lot that could have been done. The parents could've given better attention, especially the mother. Classmates could've been more accepting and less judgmental. And ultimately, THAT character could've been more responsible and could've reached out, let people in and asked for help.

*dump more feels*

All The Bright Places shed some light on some mental health issues that are relevant in today's society. How much research went into the novel for it to have such powerful and emotional portrayal of severe depression and was it difficult for Jennifer to take it all in while writing the novel?

Jennifer knows a boy like Finch and seen up close his struggle, everyday, to be seen in the world and to deal with all the things he's dealing with and try to make sense of them. It was what created Finch for her. Beyond that, Jennifer felt like she has this responsibility, as she was writing for Young Adult, to make sure that everything was as accurate as possible by talking to experts and people she knew who were suffering from depression, with suicidal tendencies to make sure that everything read as accurately as possible. At the end of the day, it was mostly knowing that boy and what he went through.

*oops, I accidentally added more feels*

What can readers expect from Jennifer's new book, Holding Up the Universe?

One thing: Fellow book blogger and the admin for @JenniferNivenPH, Jesselle (The Lifelong Bookworm) has a cameo as she is a character in the book. Jennifer was asked if All the Bright Places was a "ten tissue box" like book, and with Holding Up the Universe, it's a "five boxes instead of ten" kind of book. It's a little bit happier and fun for Jennifer to write. It was hard for Jennifer at first to get into Jack and Libby's voices as she (still) lives in the world of Finch and Violet so it was hard for her to make the separation, but once she did she had such a good time writing them and she hopes that it shows on the page. It's a story about learning one's place in the world and seeing others for who they truly are and not who people think they are. Jennifer hopes that readers get "all the feels with a little less tears."

(We calmed down a little on this part.)

(And then I just had to ask my question.)

As Jennifer's previous books were non-fiction, What made her transition into writing YA stories and how different is it to write for teens instead of adults?

Jennifer started writing non-fiction and then moved to writing novels for adults. She was in the middle of writing the fourth book in a series (for adults) and then in the spring of 2013, her literary agent passed away unexpectedly. Jennifer has been working with him for 15 years and his death turned everything upside down for her. She was feeling burned out because she was writing said series for adults and the last thing on her mind was writing a new project. After her agent died, she was talking to new agents and they were asking what her new project will be and she had to think of one and she kept coming back to the last conversation she had with her agent where he said "Whatever you write next, I want you to write it because you can't imagine writing anything else.". Jennifer felt like she needed to honor that and him and she took time to think about what her next project should be, and what she truly wanted to write. She kept coming back to this boy she loved all those years ago and she loved reading YA and has always wanted to write it so she thought that it was the perfect chance to do it. She talked to her fiance and asked if anyone would want to read that story and if there even is a story there and he said that Jennifer needed to write the book. And so she did.

(Yeah... sorry.)

How different or difficult was it for Jennifer to adapt her own book as a film screenplay?

It was really scary at first for her, especially because it has been a while since she had written a screenplay. (Jennifer went to film school!) The director of the movie told the producers that Jennifer was the only one who could adapt the book. For her, it was intimidating and people actually listened to the director. But it has been a wonderful experience and an interesting one as film doesn't have much space as books do, and they have to cut certain scenes and make certain changes for the film to make the translation and it was tough at first. Jennifer would look at every scene in the book and tell herself no, that they were all really important and has to be in there but if that is the case, the director told her that they will be making a 12 part movie. The readers, for Jennifer, has always been the most important and as long as she can tell the story in a way that honors the readers and their experience of the book, then that is crucial. Very early on in the screenplay process Jennifer asked readers online what scenes they would absolutely love to see (as Jennifer would have to cut some for the movie) so she listened to the fans, seen the fanarts and know all the favorite lines from the book and she made sure they were in the movie as well.

The movie is shooting in the fall and by the end of the summer, everyone will meet Finch.

(Okay, now we're happy!)

What does Jennifer do on her writing break?

Jennifer writes A LOT and she works ALL THE TIME. But of course it is important to have balance and to have time for herself so she would play with friends, her family and she would dance. Jennifer loves dancing and she takes dance classes in a place near her home. She would also go hiking, as she lives in LA and she loves to be outside whenever she can. She would also travel. And she loves to read! She loves binge watching TV series and she's a huge fan of Supernatural. It's a great kind of escape and a way of recharging herself after writing.

(More happiness!)

(But then Leslie had to ask her question.)

Mental illness is still somewhat of a taboo in our society today. What made her decide that Finch and Violet's story needed to be told?

Jennifer started to feel that it needed to be told because it is something she had went through and has been carrying around for quite some time. But when she really looked back while in the process of writing the story, she felt like when she lost her own Finch in real life, she felt like she wasn't allowed to talk about it because of how he died as it made people very uncomfortable. She kept those feelings in and carried it around for a really long time so in some ways she wrote All the Bright Places because she had to talk about it and ultimately, she wrote it because people need to talk about it. When the book first came out, some adults took issue with it and said the adults were unrealistic and that it wasn't something teens need to be talked about it, and that it is something they need to learn later on in life. Jennifer's problem with that is the teens she hears from, a lot of them, are not being listened to by the adults in their life and they need to talk about it so they'll know that they're not alone and that they are going through things like it or not and people need to be there for each other. Jennifer didn't really know all of these until she was well into the process of writing the book.

(This is so true.)

How was the writing process for Holding Up the Universe different from the writing process for All the Bright Places?

Jennifer has written 9 books including HUTU and every book wants to be written differently so it didn't surprise her that both books had to be written differently as well. It was challenging for her as she mentioned, as she was still in the heads of both Finch and Violet and really stayed in their world since well before the book was written. Breaking free of that for Jack and Libby was a challenge so what she did to help herself was she made playlist for both the characters, which were very distinctive and different for both Jack and Libby. Jennifer usually doesn't write to music if it has words as it distracts her from what she was trying to write but in the case of HUTU, she wrote to words, played Jack's playlist and just write and switch to Libby's. It was a good way for her to drop into the emotion and the voices of the characters which became a fun kind of challenge for her to write the book in that way. She told herself not to think about it too much, that she will just listen to music, write and go where it takes her. One of the fun things writing HUTU for her is that Jennifer kept surprising herself. She would try to do the unexpected and the characters would do the unexpected as well it made the writing a lot of fun to do.

As if it wasn't enough, Jennifer had to give such an emotional message to her readers. And she cried, and we were so teary eyed as well!


Honestly, it was one of the most emotional Q&A we have had and still I wouldn't trade every moment of it. You can feel Jennifer's emotion throughout the whole thing and we just want to hug her!

Nevertheless, it was still a bright place for all of us that we get to spend some time with this amazing lady! I was able to ask her what her favorite quote was, while she was signing my book and you know what she told me? It would be very hard to pick, because as a writer, she loves every word from what she had created.

With that, I leave you with this photo, the highlight of every book signing we attend: #kaiselfie

I practiced so hard to have everyone fit inside the frame but fitting 24 people inside was just impossible. Please say hello to my forehead.

Kai selfie (featuring my forehead)! I love how I failed so hard it turned out great. 😂😂😂 #jenniferniveninph #phyabookblogger #nbsevents #booksigningevent #booksigning #nbsevents

A photo posted by Kai A. (@amaterasureads) on May 28, 2016 at 9:19pm PDT

Thank you so much to National Bookstore for bringing in another amazing author for a book signing! Jennifer deserves so much love from her readers and I am so proud of all the Filipino bookworms who showed up today and gave Jennifer so many bright places!

What an amazing crowd for @jenniferniven! #JenniferNiveninPH @nbsalert @JenniferNivenPH pic.twitter.com/YZC640VxZL

— Lyra Gill (@lygill) May 29, 2016

What an amazing day! Share your experience during the #JenniferinNivenPH signing!

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My events at Melbourne Writers Festival 2016

Hello Darling Readers,

Long time no see! I am still in the thick of deadline-itis, but thought I'd interrupt my Blog of Solitude to *squeeeeee* a little, and say how excited I am to be back at Melbourne Writers Festival this year!

I'm going to be involved in two Schools sessions: 

How To Review → Tue 30 Aug, 11.15am, VENUE: ACMI Cinema 2

What are the ingredients of a review that does all the right things? Film reviewer Myke Bartlett and YA book blogger Danielle Binks take students through the craft of reviewing, with special tips for reviewing the page and the screen. Learn from the professionals!

More info here: http://www.mwf.com.au/session/how-to-review-2/

*** 

Opinion Writing → Thu 1 Sep, 12.30pm, VENUE: ACMI Cinema 2

How do you write a killer opinion piece, making your voice heard and maybe even changing minds? Opinion queen Clementine Ford and fellow feminist Amy Gray will open their toolkits and teach you about voice, structure, argument and more.

More info here: http://www.mwf.com.au/session/opinion-writing-2/

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ARC review: Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff

"The days are strange and the nights feel like some hyper realistic dream I can't wake up from." p. 275

This is exactly how I feel about the book, in a nutshell.

Title: Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff
Release Date: May 17th 2016
Published by: Delacorte Press
Source: From the publisher (Thanks Julia!)

Buy online: Book Depository

Summary:

Waverly Camdenmar spends her nights running until she can’t even think. Then the sun comes up, life goes on, and Waverly goes back to her perfectly hateful best friend, her perfectly dull classes, and the tiny, nagging suspicion that there’s more to life than student council and GPAs.

Marshall Holt is a loser. He drinks on school nights and gets stoned in the park. He is at risk of not graduating, he does not care, he is no one. He is not even close to being in Waverly’s world.

But then one night Waverly falls asleep and dreams herself into Marshall’s bedroom—and when the sun comes up, nothing in her life can ever be the same. In Waverly’s dreams, the rules have changed. But in her days, she’ll have to decide if it’s worth losing everything for a boy who barely exists.

I have never read any of Brenna Yovanoff's novels, so I didn't know what to expect. What drew me in to this book was the summary, and the "magical realism" theme underlying in the whole story.

The first one hundred pages, I can truthfully say that I only stayed because of the romance, which, when thrown into the mix of messy adolescent thoughts and emotions end up being so confusing I wasn't sure what I was reading. There was just so much to take in. And it took me a while to digest the whole dream side of the story, mainly because I have to go through both of Marshall and Waverly's thoughts first, and boy were they tough to get out of. I had to stop a couple of times because I felt like the heaviness of their feelings are bleeding out of the pages and into me.

One question kept on floating in my mind while I was reading this book. Was high school that complicated? In some level, I understand Waverly. The need to present a version of yourself that everyone approves of, to be perfect. It was hard being her, and at some point in her life she and Maribeth had developed a destructive give and take type of relationship that you can barely call "friendship" while making up versions of themselves which will help them achieve what they thought was something that will make them have a successful high school life. They were, of course, wrong. Waverly denies herself a lot of things, and never acts carelessly because she always thinks of the consequences, and what was best at the time even though that wasn't what she feels. And she feels, despite being called a 'robot'.

Marshall, on the other hand, is a very different person altogether. So much hurt, so much pain. Angst. Drama. The level of 'darkness' he was in is in some ways similar to Waverly, and I think that is what draws him to her. Like with Waverley, who was calculated and careful with her every move, Marshall is someone else entirely underneath the underachieving, bad boy persona. To find that he's actually a kind, sensitive soul was a surprise, though I was still a little bit apprehensive with the way his character was built. To feel nothing and be numb, escape reality by hiding behind the haze of drugs and alcohol. What a sad boy.

And speaking of characters, the one I like the most is Autumn. If the things happening in this book are weird (for me), then she's even weirder. But as I get to know Autumn, that's when she makes sense. Everyone thinks she's weird because she was being true to herself, and does what she wants without caring what people might think. She's frank, she pisses people off, but she's also caring. She's the complete opposite of Waverly in daylight, and I like how Waverly described her: "a friend she needs when she didn't even know she needed to have a friend". Her relationship with Marshall perfectly describes friends growing up: sometimes they just drift away and grow apart. She was also the perfect contrast to Maribeth, who lives to undermine people secretly, slowly and deliberately, to be on top. When in all honesty, she really is just lonely, just like Waverly once was, before she met Autumn and Marshall.

Despite the heaviness, I still find myself smiling at times during heated scenes, because it can get very intense, in that quiet, rushed, secretive kind of way that gives it an entirely different feel. Brenna Yovanoff did an awesome job diving into the characters of both leads that sometimes it's impossible not to get affected by what they think, what they feel. I love that with the alternating point of views, we see what's behind the many layers that define them, not just in high school or their social standing, but in their individual lives as well. Each character added in the story widens the reader's understanding not just of it's like to be Waverly and Marshall, but what it's like to be students at that point of their lives and what they go through as teens.

Spill walls with secrets, crying for help anonymously, it makes one look back and reminisce their own lives as teenagers. Striving to be polished and perfect and realizing that sometimes being perfect just doesn't work, and having the strength to speak up, to be strong and say what's on their minds, what's bothering them, and then work to be better. The lessons this book imparts to readers are powerful. The whole dream part was very tricky and shaky, but it kept me thinking if it was deliberately done as a part of the book's overall appeal. Magical realism always tend to confuse me, but I like how it leads to so much development in the story, in the case of this book.

Places No One Knows is such a loaded read. Different, but worth all the befuddling, puzzling moments. Sometimes, people can only find solace in that very narrow gap between reality and dream, and that certainly is the case for Waverly and Marshall, who can only be their true selves and connect when they're toeing that line. I still can't quite put this story into one form or place, but that's what made this an appealing read for me.

Content (plot, story flow, character):

It took me a while to get used to the whole dream concept, for a while everything seems so vague and outrageous, and the story is so heavy at times I had difficulty in continuing.

Shining: Worthy of a Goddess' Love!

Book Cover:
I love how the cover completely defies the expectation it sets when one reads the book.

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#LoveOzYA Committee and Community response to: Productivity Commission’s Report on Australia’s intellectual property arrangements

Hello Lovely Readers, 

I've been a bit incommunicado lately, and I do apologise! It's also that I've been in a bit of a reading slump and haven't been reading enough (or fast enough) to post reviews. Freelance writing, creative writing, and letter-writing having taken up all my brain power, and unfortunately the blog has laid dormant .... and the crickets will probably continue to chirp until I've got a few deadlines out of the way. Apologies again - I shall get back into the swing of things soon! 

But one of those other writing projects that's been occupying my time is this - #LoveOzYA Committee & Community response to: Productivity Commission’s Report on Australia’s intellectual property arrangements.

I sit on the #LoveOzYA committee, and last week we on the committee decided to speak up and oppose copyright proposals and parallel importation (for all the reasons why, you may want to do some additional reading up here).

This is something I feel really passionately about, and if you #LoveOzYA and want to show your support for the Australian youth literature sector - and Australian publishing in general - then you are welcome to add your name to this submission as a co-signatory (and if you feel so inclined, a paragraph or two response too!): 

#LoveOzYA Committee & Community response to: Productivity Commission’s Report on Australia’s intellectual property arrangements

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'Night Shift' Midnight, Texas #3 by Charlaine Harris

Received via NetGalley

From the BLURB:

Welcome to the most intriguing mystery you'll read this year.

Welcome to Midnight, Texas.

At Midnight's local pawnshop, weapons are flying off the shelves-only to be used in sudden and dramatic suicides right at the main crossroads in town.

Who better to figure out why blood is being spilled than the vampire Lemuel, who, while translating mysterious texts, discovers what makes Midnight the town it is. There's a reason why witches and werewolves, killers and psychics, have been drawn to this place.

And now they must come together to stop the bloodshed in the heart of Midnight. For if all hell breaks loose-which just might happen-it will put the secretive town on the map, where no one wants it to be...

‘Night Shift’ is the third book in Charlaine Harris’ ‘Midnight, Texas’ urban fantasy series.

I must admit that I went into ‘Night Shift’ a little bit wary. I really, really disliked Harris’ sophomore effort in a series that brings minor and beloved characters from all her other series together … But second book ‘Day Shift’ lacked emotional heart for me, and largely because two of my favourite characters established in book #1 were inexplicably cut down. But I was quickly buoyed by ‘Night Shift’, because those two favourites – Fiji and Bobo – and their unrequited love affair was touched upon quickly, hinting that it’d be a lodestone for this instalment. And lo and behold, it was;

 Bobo had seemed a little broody for days, though no one was sure why. Fiji who was always aware of Bobo, was a little hyped by the fact that she was almost certain that he was staring at her even when she wasn’t speaking. She didn’t know why; she sadly suspected it was not for the same reason she liked to look at him. In fact, looking at Bobo was one of her favourite things to do.

Something is stirring underneath the town of Midnight, Texas. Strangers are being pulled to the town to commit suicide at the crossroads, and everyone in town is aware that this is just the prelude to a bigger bad waking … The best way to describe the action of ‘Night Shift’ is with this exchange between witch Fiji and psychic Manfred, which I loved because it speaks to a more menacing and intriguing “big bad” that’s plaguing the town of Midnight, and just because I love how meta it is that Charlaine Harris gives some love to ‘Buffy’ when she herself is the creator of what has become another iconic vampire series (there’s also mention of Fiji reading some Anne Rice, which also tickled my meta);

“Maybe you’re right, Manfred. Did you ever watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” 

The change of subject left him teetering. 

“Ah … sure. My grandmother loved it.” 

“Do you ever wonder if Midnight’s on the Hellmouth? Like Sunnydale?” 

Manfred laughed. “That’s exactly what it feels like,” he said. “You must be Willow, and Olivia must be Buffy. And Lemuel is Angel.” 

That brought a smile to Fiji’s face, too. “I would classify Olivia more as Faith,” she said. “Bobo can be Xander.” 

“So Diedrik would be Oz.” 

For a reason Manfred couldn’t fathom, Fiji flushed.
 

I loved the mystery at the heart of ‘Night Shift’, both because it’s more satisfying than the more human mysteries of the past two books and because Fiji very much gets to be at the centre of things. For this reason also, Bobo doesn’t get a lot of page time which I didn’t love … but I can appreciate this book being more Fiji’s show, Bobo had to remain a bit of a mystery to her (and therefore, to readers). I adore Fiji and any time Charlaine Harris chooses her as the series focus, the plot is vastly improved.

I also appreciated that Harris at least touched on a little mystery for Manfred, by mentioning the young woman he crushed on in book #1, but who has all but vanished from the series since; 

Manfred wondered how Creek Lovell was faring. He’d had a crush on her the size of a boulder, and he’d never figured out if it was returned.
 

I can’t find anything on the internet about whether or not ‘Midnight, Texas’ will continue beyond ‘Night Shift’ – but I sure hope so, for this little emotional nugget about Manfred and Creek, and also because my old favourite from Sookie’s world – Quinn, the weretiger – has hope in his heart by the end of ‘Night Shift’, and I’d love to see how it works out for him.

I really, really loved ‘Night Shift’ – even as things got a little ridiculous towards the end, I just found it great fun and really thought Harris hit her stride juggling all these characters and their relations against a menacing big bad. ‘Midnight, Texas’ is currently filming as a TV-movie, which I’m also ridiculously excited about (not least because Dylan Bruce – who played Paul in ‘Orphan Black’ is onboard to play Bobo!), and the IMDB description has it billed as “Twin Peaks meets True Blood” which is just so on-the-money I can’t stand it, and my hopes are up high.

‘Night Shift’ is Charlaine Harris at her tangled, paranormal-noir best – with beloved witch Fiji as the emotional centre of this instalment, plus a good subplot about Olivia and Lemuel and enough kernels of complication to leave fans hoping for more instalments … ‘Night Shift’ is the high of this series so far, and I want more.

5/5

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