VIDEO: What would YOU do if someone tried to ban your book?

As a fan of literature, it annoys me when people try to, or do, ban books. As a writer though, I'd never contemplated what it would be like if someday people ever tried to ban a book I wrote.

Well, today's technology lets me get a peek at what that's actually like, in the moment. I can hear, from the author himself, what it's like for an author I respect to have his work called pornographic, to have his work described as something that causes "immoral thoughts and actions in children." Strangely, while "they" say the book encourages kids to have sex, the author explains quite articulately about why, actually, it does quite the opposite ...



The book in question, "Looking for Alaska" by John Green, already needed a parental OK in the class to read due to sensitive subjects (and that I can handle because parents should be able to have a say in what's OK for their own kids), but a group of people who don't even have kids in the class are apparently trying to remove the choice completely. Apparently they know better. And that kind of pisses me off.

It's bizarre. And I appreciate John's commentary on which has to be a very personally insulting matter. (And now I really want to read the book ...)

"Godspeed" ... an excerpt

This summer, before all the recent chaos, my little family and I went on vacation to Orcas Island, my first visit to the lovely San Juan Islands, and I had a rare moment to reflect on a few things, one such thing being the impending death of my maternal grandma who died last week. Watching her struggle the last year or two or more had been hard on us all, and while staring out at the water, which heavily reminded me of my grandparents', now parents', beach house, and reflecting on my grandmothers impact on my life, I was inspired to dabble in reflections via poetry ... a road I hadn't venture down in quite awhile. And so I share a mere rough draft of a first stanza ...

Godspeeed (an excerpt)

I see you
There
Drifting
Not here; not there
Just drifting
Halfway to somewhere
Halfway to out there
Halfway to heaven
But now
Just drifting
In the middle of nowhere