Blogfest 2009

The recent historic presidential campaign made writers (and readers) nervous, since one of the candidates apparently favored the banning of books. Quite a chill along the collective spine, that. My upcoming novel Swoon is the sort of book to get a lot of people wringing their hands and clutching their pearls and stomping their feet. How would I feel if banned? I’d feel…

* Confused They’re banning books? Books?! But wars are okay?
* Pissed They’re banning books? Books?! But wars are okay?
* Hungry Since writing books is not an especially stable way to earn a living, on a practical level, if Swoon were banned I’d be hard-pressed to buy groceries. And I like groceries.
* Proud The main reason for writing a book (besides groceries) is to generate a reaction—incite thinking and arouse feeling. For Swoon to be banned, it would have to be pretty successful at that.
* Sad If Swoon got banned it would mean people missed the point—that plain and simple, at its core, Swoon is about love. And if they’re going to ban love, they might as well ban life.

My books have been banned, sometimes overtly (like a school board refuses to allow them on reading lists, despite the request of teachers) or quietly (like when the powers-that-be refuse to order the book because of its “edgy” content, but don’t make a public issue of it). I prefer when the book banning is made public, because then I can defend the book and the teens’ right to read it, and so can others.

I’d throw a party!

Well, I would try to be understanding.