Entertainment Weekly's review of Adam Lambert's new album reminded me of why I canceled my subscription (uh, about a million years ago!) in the first place: their reviews are out of touch. At least, they're out of touch with me -- their reviews almost never jived with my personal experiences and apparently that's still the case.

Nevertheless, the tongue in cheek "hipster homophobia" use of gay stereotypes (and lack of fact-checking, sheesh!!) really doesn't sit well with me, so I wrote a note. Some people wrote much longer screeds (I was linked to this one this morning, which is great and eloquent; ETA: and this one by blakkrrox), but I kept mine short.

Here's what I wrote; you're welcome to copy and paste and send to EW with your own name attached if you want.

I am writing in response to Melissa Maerz's review of Adam Lambert's new album, Trespassing.

The tongue in cheek use of gay stereotypes in Melissa Maerz's review of Adam Lambert's new album is absolutely horrifying. Gay stereotypes are just homophobia in sunglasses; they are hurtful, they are wrong, and I am appalled that EW would allow them to appear. Whatever Melissa Maerz thinks of Adam Lambert's album and career (and I do wish the facts had not been plainly wrong, eg given the *lack* of gender-neutral pronouns in songs like "Fever" and the fact that "Outlaws of Love" is about much much more than gay marriage), surely those opinions could have been expressed without displaying what comes across as anti-gay sentiment.

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

It seems that recently I crossed an apparent line from "person with a few tattoos" to "tattooed person" and that means that now strangers approach me when I'm out and ask me not just about my own tattoos but about theirs. They show me tattoos and ask what I think about the design, the placement, how it's healing; they eye my tattoos and ask, "Do you think I'll get a disease?" and "Will it hurt a lot?" and "Do you think a tattoo artist will make fun of me?" People want to know what the words say -- or they want me to know they recognize the words.

(The other day at the mall, a teenage girl came up to me and interrogated me on getting her first tattoo; when she was done, she said, "I knew I could trust you when I saw you had a Fall Out Boy lyric on your arm.")

To me, there are two great things about this:

1. I can give people information and advice! I love giving advice, and I love helping people be informed so they can make the decisions that are best for them.

2. When I had just a few tattoos, people would touch me without my permission to look at my tattoos. However, I have realized that the more tattoos I have, the more people are afraid that I will hurt them if they touch me without permission. They don't know I am a pacifist and am much more likely to snap irritably, "KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF." Yay, cultural stereotypes working in my favor! \o/

Here are the questions I hear the most, and the answers I usually give, and some unsolicited advice I always try to work in. I am the kind of person who prefers more detail to less, so... there's a lot of detail here. And, of course, if you have questions when you're done reading (or you want to jump in with something I've missed), go for it!

Disclaimer: IANATP (I am not a tattoo professional!) -- I am just a person who has a lot of tattoos, who has sat for a lot of tattoo sessions. I'm at the "I can't even count anymore" point. So this is all what I know, what I've picked up; it's not the one true way or medical advice, blah blah blah. I also want to shout out to belladonnalin, bessyboo, and sassbandit for pre-reading this and giving me some invaluable suggestions.

Figuring out how to organize this was a little complicated, so I've organized it the way I would want to read it. Feel free to skip around. Additionally, note that this is US-centric; I've never gotten a tattoo outside the US, so I can't speak to how that works. However, I've been tattooed all across the US (from MA to WA!), so this speaks to my experiences throughout the country, not just on the East Coast.

( I. How do tattoos work? )

( II. Aren't they dangerous? I am going to get a disease! )

( III. Does it hurt? )

( IV. What kind of tattoo do you want? )

( V. I want a tattoo but I don't know what I want. )

( VI. What if the artist is drawing something for me? )

( VII. Where do you want your tattoo? )

( VIII. Finding a tattoo artist. )

( IX. How much is it going to cost? )

( X. What do I do to prepare before I get a tattoo? )

( XI. Can I bring someone with me? )

( XII. Tattoo procedure )

( XIII. What about when it's healing? What do I do? )

( XIV. It's normal when your tattoo... )

( XV. What about paying and tipping? )

( XVI. I had a terrible experience with my tattoo artist. )

( XVII. But won't people think -- )

So there you go, that's my two cents and 6200 words on the subject. I do, in fact, run through pretty much all of this with people, which is why when I went to Sephora, I spent 10 minutes trying on tinted moisturizer and 45 minutes giving a tattoo tutorial to the salespeople.

Go forth and have needles poked into you! Enjoy!

(And, as I said above, feel free to leave questions in the comments, or add your own experiences/thoughts.)

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

Hello, hello! c_katherine and I have abandoned our old "proper" blog for "Anna Katherine" and have moved to doing more brain radio over at Tumblr. You can follow us here: saltsilverandblood.tumblr.com.

You will notice, if you head over there, one of the most recent posts is about fridging, manpain, and failure. It took us a long time to write this post, because it's embarrassing and humiliating and felt awful, but we ultimately felt like it was important enough to us that we needed to write it and put it out there.

Attached to the post is a short story that is the last thing we're going to write in the Salt and Silver universe specifically focused on Ryan and Allie, but I urge you not to scroll right to it. Read the top bit.

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

Hellooooo, LiveJournal & Dreamwidth! So much has happened since I last logged in months and months ago. I have been living in the internet version of a cave, no lie. But, of course, I faithfully update Twitter.

Hitting on the high points -- I'm no longer with Jones & Bartlett Learning, instead returning to freelance editing full time. (Although... if some awesome fiction publishing company wanted to hire me, I would be open to hearing about that. :)) Anyway, it means I'm moving back to NYC, which I have missed desperately this past year, and I'm hopeful that there will be awesome gatherings and readings for me to attend to get back in the swing of things and catch up on everything I've missed.

And... c_katherine and I have delivered the Salt and Silver sequel to several friendly editors -- while we've been told it's not really something the current market would support, once it's been edited, we're thinking about ways to turn it into performance art (public revising! Yeah, we'll see) and get it to readers who have expressed interest. Additionally, we're writing another romance novel -- this one with no paranormal elements, just a lot of weird stuff.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, tonight I was chit-chatting with Cathy Clamp (new Cat Adams book came out today!) and Lisa Spangenberg about the newest kerfuffle -- repurposing fanfic for wider publication.

(Now, I'm pretty open about the fact that I've been reading and writing fanfic for most of my life; I love it and support it; I donate to and volunteer with the Organization for Transformative Works, post my fic to the Archive of Our Own, record other people's works as podfics, regularly post fanfic recommendations to Twitter, etc. I'm a big fan of the "gift economy" -- while, at the same time, I did publish repurposed fanfic as part of Tor Romance (bet you can't guess which books!) and invite fanfic authors to submit proposals for both repurposed and more traditionally original fiction. So -- I don't think my opinion on this issue comes as a shock to anyone paying attention.)

While having this discussion, though, I observed that I've seen some really bitter people saying pretty crappy things about a newly famous piece of repurposed fanfic (Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James). My comment on this was to say something that I wish more people would take seriously. It's sort of a corollary to what I've been saying for years, that the "secret handshake" of the publishing industry is to be a professional. I said:

Free advice: A really good way to network & get attention is to be the kind of person people want to be around & work with. *

I truly believe this and I'm sticking to it. Anybody else have advice in a similar vein that they swear by?

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

Obligatory hurricane update: my mom's house in Brooklyn flooded, and we don't have an idea of the extent of the damage yet. Up in Lowell, though, we barely got any rain and emerged entirely unscathed.

I am posting for a completely different reason, though: the team I run at Jones & Bartlett Learning is looking for a few people who know what metadata is and are good communicators. I know that sounds too good to be true, but seriously. I run the photo research team (under department manager c_katherine, actually!), and we are looking for several assistants.

The environment is a mostly-casual cubicle farm, all stripes of queer friendly, heavy on people who are female-identified, and a few of us are definitely fannish and/or weirdos. We are considering people who do not have elaborate work histories or college degrees; we are way more interested in people who can communicate and represent our department than people who have extensive experience with metadata (but experience with metadata -- like, even just knowing what it is and how to do it to an image in Photoshop -- definitely helps).

Please check out the job ad below if working for a textbook company in Burlington, MA, appeals!

( Photo Research Assistant at Jones & Bartlett Learning )

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

So I finally finished Slow River by Nicola Griffith. It's taken quite a while, thanks to the 12-hour work days, writing, and other books coming between us.

It's really good, and I think a lot of you would love it. It's the story of a woman whose comfortable life is ripped apart, and she has to start over, a new identity, a new person, figuring out who she is and what she wants and what she's willing to do to get it, what she's willing to compromise.

The whole book is set a relatively bleak future -- it's not bleak like the Hunger Games, but there's not a whole lot of hope, either. The book switches between first person narration for the stuff happening "now" and third person narration for what happened to the protagonist before she became her new person. It's very effective in distinguishing the now, being present for life, from the then, being disconnected, separated, even more unhappy.

It actually didn't work for me personally; I enjoyed parts of it, but I wished the narrative had been more linear, had been one thing or the other. I felt invested in the protagonist as a child and in the protagonist as a self-aware adult, but the stuff in between... I would've happily taken an exposition dump instead of the thousands of words of narrative. But that's just me, and we all know how peculiar I am about narrative I read for fun.

Were I writing content notes for this book, I'd include in my list: pretty graphic sexual and emotional abuse; scenes dealing with issues of (mostly sexual) consent; a recounting of a kidnapping; some (mostly but not entirely off-screen) physical violence; interesting examination of privilege -- getting it, keeping it, losing it; dysfunctional and (delightfully) functional lesbian relationships; someone learning how to make friends (and sometimes failing).

Oh, and seriously, my understanding is that this should go without saying for Nicola Griffith, but the prose? It is flawless.


...Next up on my list: I am torn between Holding Still for as Long as Possible by Zoe Whittall and The Dreamer, Her Angel and the Stars by Linda S. North. Queer Canadian twentysomethings or futuristic lesbians? Decisions are the worst!

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

Announcement #1:
Bad news for anon commenters: I am turning off anonymous commenting everywhere. Not because I have anything against anonymous people, but because dealing with the spam has grown altogether too tedious. Apologies, people who wish to stay anon!

Options for commenting on LiveJournal beside an actual LJ account include OpenID, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. I realize those are all associated with "real" identity, but nothing is stopping you from grabbing a pseudonymous Twitter account and posting using that. I continue to not track IP addresses!

(Note, I believe Dreamwidth allows only Dreamwidth accounts and OpenID.)

Announcement #2:
I am on Google+ as Anna Genoese. I believe I am, thus far, the only Anna Genoese over there. Come add me! If we don't actually know each other, a short note to say who you are or what name you comment here under would not go amiss. I've had a few people add me without telling me who they are, and it's pretty confusing.

It's pretty unlikely G+ will take the place of blogging or Twitter for me, but it's nice to have a Facebook-type thing that is not Facebook (which I despise).

Relatedly, if you know me fannishly, I also have a profile for my fannish pseud, and you're welcome to add me to your circles in that way as well.


...I hope everyone's having a decent weekend! I'm pretending it's not 80F outside my apartment and baking bread. Oh, and I am still trying to figure out my xbox. I feel really old and stupid every time I try to use the Kinect and realize that I can't do so wearing a dress -- oh, and figuring out how to play first-person fantasy games? Wow. It took me eight hours to do something my baby sister (who grew up playing this kind of video game) accomplished in an hour. I'm thinking about retreating to Mario, frankly!

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

Good morning! As is typical for this time of year, I've had a couple of clients drop their contracts. No matter how diligently I screen, no matter how much money they put down as a nonrefundable deposit, there is something about June that makes people totally flake out. That's okay, though, because I always overbook my July, so I can just do some clients early.

It also means that I've had more time to read than usual, which is helpful, since kink_bingo has started. If you've never heard of this challenge, here's anatsuno's introduction to KB post.

In the past, it's been strictly a fan work challenge -- this year, it's accepting original works as well. I personally find it a really inspiring challenge, especially since even though the stories are meant to be kinky, they don't also have to be about sex, so there are many ways to stretch the mind to come up with awesome stories for each square.

I've also just finished reading Sub Rosa by Amber Dawn. I know a couple of people who read it and loved it, so I thought I'd check it out. I found it really difficult to get invested in, and I pretty much cringed my way through it. I think I read it from the wrong perspective, because it seemed to me that it was basically a book about how glamorous and literally magical prostitution is, while secretly it's actually a book about trying to find the most magic in the least awesome situations, and building a chosen family, and never giving up, and going after what you want even when you're not in the best position to get it.

Basically, it did the book equivalent of rubbing me the wrong way with a little bit of it, and being awesome in other parts that I couldn't really appreciate enough.

I would definitely recommend it to the people I know who like reading books about (1) glamorized prostitution, (2) urban magic, (3) chosen family, (4) never giving up. And I know a lot of people who like one or more or all of those things!

My other book recommendation today is Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food by Jeff Potter (kindle edition). My baby sister and I bought this for our dad for father's day, and he absolutely loves it. He is a nerdy software programmer (since the 70s!) who spent the majority of the time while I was teaching him to make bread asking about the chemistry and science behind everything we did, and I got the distinct feeling that my answers, while accurate, were not as comprehensive as what he was looking for. So: cookbook for geeks! It is exactly perfect (I flipped through it when it arrived, before I wrapped it), and he emailed me this morning to say that it's already making him laugh.

I'm also sitting on Sweet Vegan: A Collection of All Vegan, some Gluten-Free, and a Few Raw Desserts by Emily Mainquist... At this point, I've read through it and figured out a few things I want to make, but I haven't gone forward and made anything yet, because I'm trying to find the soy-free, dairy-free version of Earth Balance... I may have to go to Whole Foods for that. But if you know someone who is a regular vegan, who is happy to eat stuff made with soy margarine, this is perfect. It even includes a recipe for homemade gluten-free flour that seems to be an improvement on the store-bought stuff.

...What are you reading?

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

Recently, one of my clients asked me what my recommendations were for someone starting out in the publishing industry. Here's the answer I gave her:

My big recommendations about publishing are:

1. Educate yourself.

2. Stay polite, even when dealing with someone who may not be polite to you.

3. Be open to hearing ideas, but keep hold of your own vision.

4. Be persistent! Don't give up after the first few rejections; it can take years to get published.

...These are the same things I've been saying to people who want to be professionally published for years. Sometimes I rephrase the advice, but it's basically stayed the same. E-book, comic book, print book, whatever -- these four pieces points hold true!

Is there any advice that you wish someone had given you? Or advice that's held true as you navigated the murky waters of publishing?

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.

Wow, internet. Knowing that academic publishing is totally different from fiction publishing is not the same as being immersed right in that difference. When I worked in fiction publishing, a book went into production at least nine months before it was supposed to be on shelves; here, if production gets six months to work on a book, it's considered a luxury!

I think the big difference (and, actually, one of the reasons why production can work so quickly) is the lack of bound galleys. Because there are no review copies, several months can be cut out of the schedule and never missed!

Of course, there are other (huge) differences, but that's the one that tripped me up on the first day. I was all, I'm sorry, a book sometimes goes through production in six weeks? What?

I sit in a little cube inside an office (everyone does, even my boss!); the other people in my department are mostly nice (and patient!); I have the Durmstrang Institute for Magical Learning listed on my employee info under "education"; I'm laughing in the photo that went up on the company's intranet; I'm in a fight to the death with my mouse (that I will eventually win, if only by bringing in my trackball from home); and I leave promptly at 5 pm every day. I know, that is the part that is totally bizarro!

The big relief to me is that I really do still have time to work with all my private clients. I wasn't really worried, but I had a definite concern that has been very alleviated.

Also, I have a super awesome new thermos for toting coffee around -- it only holds 26 ounces, but that means I drink a cup of coffee before leaving, and bring the rest to work, and it stays hot (even with milk in it!) until two or three in the afternoon.

But let me tell you something: living in a hotel is the absolute pits. It's dreary and lonely, and even maid service doesn't make up for that, because I have to wash my own bed linens anyway (I'm allergic to their detergent!). I can't wait to be in my new apartment in Lowell. I signed the lease over the weekend, I pick up the key on the 6th of May, and... some time between now and then, I have to buy a bed. (Locals, if you have any furniture store recommendations, I'll take 'em! Otherwise I'm just going to call 1-800-MATTRES.)

In the ten minutes of spare time I have every morning (well, when I'm not writing blog posts), I'm reading Slow River by Nicola Griffith; I love it so far. I'm at the point in the narrative where I sort of can't figure out what's happening, but am desperate to know. No spoilers!

This entry is cross-posted from alg@dreamwidth.org, where it has comments.