Sex, drugs and vampires November 20, 2010
Posted by William Kostakis in Appearances.Tags: Aimee Said, Georgia Blain, Laura Buzo
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Next Friday night, I’m on a panel talking all things YA for the City of Sydney awesomely titled ‘Sex, drugs and vampires’. Here be the details:
Everything you secretly wanted to know about young adult fiction but were too afraid to ask! Once upon a time young adult fiction involved babysitting clubs and ponies. Now it is a brave new world that reflects our modern anxieties. Join four young adult authors when they discuss the new landscape of young adult fiction.
Georgia Blain has published four novels including Closed for Winter. She has been named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Novelists and shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
Laura Buzo has worked as a social worker in various community-based mental health settings. In 2005 she wrote her first novel, Good Oil.
William Kostakis is the 21 year old author of Loathing Lola and winner of the Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year.
Aimee Said is author of Finding Freia Lockhart: How not to be a successful teen. She is also a web content manager, writer, editor and proofreader.
Suitable for 15+ years
Friday 26 November
6.30pm – 7.30pm
Surry Hills Library
Telephone: 8374 6230
Bookings are essential.
UPCOMING EVENTS
November 28: Angus & Robertson Carindale booksigning (QLD)
December 11: Angus & Robertson Woden booksigning (ACT)
December 12: Borders Kotara booksigning (NSW)
December 16: Angus & Robertson booksigning (NSW)
Dearest Douchebag November 16, 2010
Posted by William Kostakis in Shits Me To Tears.Tags: David van Gend
6 comments
I was reading an op-ed piece about the dangers of same-sex parenting in today’s Courier Mail (click here), and I thought, there’s no better time for another open letter, this time, to David van Gend, a Toowoomba GP and a committee member of the Family Council of Queensland.
To catch you up, here’s a choice quotation from his article:
Gays are not second-class citizens but a gay man certainly makes a second-class mother. Two lesbian women may be model citizens, but neither of them can be a dad to a little boy. The most serious objection to gay marriage is that it means gay parenting, and gay parenting means depriving a child of either his mother or his father.
Dear David,
Firstly, ‘gay’ is not a noun. ‘Moron’, ‘bigot’, ‘ignoramus’, they’re nouns.
Secondly, sexuality does not equip someone with the skills needed to be a good parent. The closest thing my (straight) father did to parenting was avoid paying Child Support and not call on Christmas, teaching me the importance of being self-reliant and never trusting anyone. I was raised by two women, my mother and my grandmother, who, between them, kept me in school, kept me clothed, kept me fed, and you know what? I think I came out pretty darn fantastic. Yes, I have my quirks (who doesn’t?), and yes, I was deprived of a father, but you know what? The father I was deprived of? Not so great.
If you have two parents, be they opposite genders, or ‘gays’, and they love and support you, and they nurture you, then you know what? That’s what matters in the end. See, the funny thing is, my two female parents, they taught me to respect, and embrace, difference. My male parent taught me to hide my money in my new wife’s name so that I can avoid my parental obligations.
Kind Regards,
William
F-Me boots, crazy grandmothers and dulcet tones November 12, 2010
Posted by William Kostakis in Media Stuff.Tags: radio
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Hey everyone, quick update from EssayLand, this morning, I did a radio interview with Barry Eva, you can catch the audio here. I talk about everything from editing Lola, to F-Me boots, to what how much I hate authors overstuffing their YA with characters with issues. and you get the awkward we’re-on-the-phone-on-two-different-sides-of-the-world between answers, all for free.
Boy, I’m glad Lola isn’t Peruvian… November 1, 2010
Posted by William Kostakis in Random Musings.Tags: Loathing Lola, Peruvian, Sofia Vergara
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Okay, little tidbit: In the first 500 drafts of Loathing Lola, Lola was Peruvian. She had the same penchant for leopard-print clothing, but she said everything in a funny accent. Why? Because my only (and limited) experience with stepmothers is with Peruvian stepmothers.
One of the last-minute changes made to the manuscript was changing Lola from Lola Lopez to Lola Bogan White Woman. See, Lola wasn’t really working, she was ludicrous and stereotyped. But then again, most of the characters in Loathing Lola are unbelievably ludicrous and stereotyped. Why was she being singled out? Eighteen-year-old me figured it was probably because she was ludicrous in a Spanish stereotype kind of way, and that more than likely unsettled the publisher. Reading it, I could see how it could be interpreted as me singling out her race, and not her ludicrousness. So, I decided to write the single most ludicrous and stereotyped character ever – but I made her white. In other words, I threw Kath from Kath&Kim in and called her Lola and waited for anyone to notice.
No-one did. They said she worked much better now. It went to print. Crap.
I guess I’m lucky. Yes, An episode of Modern Family that recently aired in the US, and which I saw through completely legal means, recently aired a two-second joke about Peruvians:
“Now, maybe in Columbia…” Jay, played by Ed O’Neill, begins.
“Ah, here we go,” Gloria, played by Sofia Vergara, interrupts, “because in Colombia, we trip over goats and we kill people in the street. Do you know how offensive that is? Like we’re Peruvians!”
Okay, this made me pause the video and laugh hysterically, call Mum in and replay it. The line was funny, and the delivery was perfect. But ultimately, it isn’t a joke about Peruvians, it’s a joke about South American nations making fun of each other for ludicrously stereotyped reasons (when honestly, they’re all kind of the same).
But that hasn’t stopped the Peruvian ambassador from sending a stern letter to the producers of Modern Family demanding an apology. Part of me is happy I won’t be getting bombarded with Twitter insults like Vergara is at the moment, but… part of me kind of wishes I received a stern letter from the Peruvian ambassador…
