Dr. Lilly Lu 🍉 豆腐心
@LillyLuWrites
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writer 🌈💕 | English PhD @UCLA | race & regency prof | fiction editor @mentmagazine | words in @yuzupress @olicketysplit @heartlinesspec | rep: @triadaus
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Our article on asexuality and Jane Austen is HERE!!! 🥳 🖤🤍💜
Thanks to my brilliant co-author
@RegencyNoir
and to
@profchander
@zugenia
& Jacqueline Langille
@ECFjournal
for an exciting special issue!
If folks want a pdf of this, let me know ✨
It's here!
A little good news for a Friday:
ECF January 2024 is now available by subscription at the University of Toronto Press
@utpjournals
This very special issue will land on Project MUSE soon. Stay tuned!
#18thCentury
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my hot take on fantasy is that, sure, magic systems need to make / narrative / sense but they don't need to make "sense" (in the enlightenment way aka to a western audience) and be overexplained; some bipoc authors' magic systems are pulled from culture & folk traditions
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it's just baffling to me how much work and care diaspora authors put into (and anxiety we have over) representing our cultures while, for example, a white guy in my screenwriting class who spent a few months in shanghai felt like he could write a film about being a chinese woman
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decolonizing fictional magic systems by making vibes matter more than "logical explanation" ✨✨✨
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let marginalized authors write FICTION without being read autobiographically !!! let marginalized authors write without their works having to be Educational for a white audience !
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this is a loving reminder to fellow marginalized writers (and myself) to have fun with your fiction 🥺 your story doesn’t have to appease everyone, or educate, or bear some one-to-one reflection of all aspects of your identity and autobiography. Be kind to yourself!
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english is technically my 1st lang, but like many kids of immigrants, i grew up in a multilingual home & my prose reflects that! my prepositions are a little wonky sometimes, i use phrases that aren't actual idioms, and i think we can & should make room in fiction for this.
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I've been thinking about how increasing diversity in publishing will also have to mean opening our minds to subversions of genre expectations. for example, for me, a demisexual romance plot will be paced differently from an allosexual romance plot.
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publishing industry’s sales teams: “‘chinese fantasy’” doesn’t sell
also them: *publishes tons of white fantasy authors pulling from chinese magic systems, xianxia & asian folklore traditions, and reusing orientalist tropes*
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As a kid, I was always surprised when authors didn’t remember details from their own books. Now that I’m writing my own books, I GET IT 😩 My sister was beta-reading for me, commented on a line, and I was like “omg who is sheeeee did I write that??”
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I urge everyone to call the CDC & tell them to keep the 5 day isolation guidance and 10 day masking for people with COVID!
CDC Contact Info:
English & Spanish (language assistance services may be available)
800-CDC-INFO
(800-232-4636)
TTY 888-232-6348
CDC is reducing covid isolation to 1 day because so many people are getting sick so often that it’s keeping them from work - NOT because covid is magically less dangerous & 1 day is safe. It’s absolutely about treating people like cogs in a machine, not health or science.
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I want the burden of representation to fall less heavily on marginalized authors. I want to have the right to fictionality, instead of our work always being read as autobiographical, which it is, even when we're writing fantasy. We shouldn't always be in a position to educate.
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Diversity in stories should also mean diversity in storytelling form! So much of what we’re taught is “Good Story Structure” has the cishet white dude protagonist in mind: individual hero, Enlightenment-based knowledge systems, emphasis on AGENCY TM…
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the very specific kinds of representation i wanna put out in the world:
- asian girls who hate cooking lmao
- eldest siblings who are seemingly put together but very chaotic, actually, and who slowly give themselves permission to be their full queer selves
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one of the challenges of being a POC author is that people expect fANTASY books to be autobiographical (???) so my writing process sometimes looks like:
me: how do i explain my asian character's silver, glowy hair???
me: LILLY IT IS FANTASY DO WHAT YOU WANT 😤❤️
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When I was 12, I had written on my Dreams Board: "Get an Agent." I wanted to be an author.
An older relative (who I no longer talk to) saw this and laughed at it.
I am now an agented YA writer, represented by someone who loves my story 😭🌈💕
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let bipoc fantasy writers write ... FANTASY (read: not "history textbooks")
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sometimes orientalism is painting asia as very conservative about queerness when actually there are amazing, experimental asian queer shows that are simply miles ahead of anything hollywood has done. yes, censorship is a thing, but let's not act like the US doesn't censor lol
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accidentally chose SALTBURN for family movie night without knowing what it was about & i no longer have a say in what movies we watch
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demisexual romance writers will drop one moment of eye contact in and ascend for the rest of the day
(i am demisexual romance writer)
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writers on twt: omg this is my mc and li
my chinese american brain: who is li???
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I told my wonderful agent today that people who like my books are probably people who've also watched a lot of Sailor Moon.
She confirmed that she used to watch a lot of Sailor Moon.
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I’m so happy to share that I’m now represented by Brent Taylor
@triadaus
! 🥳
Brent’s enthusiasm and vision for my work blew me away. My protagonists and I are lucky to have him as our champion. I’m excited for what we’ll do together! ✨
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Hey if any of y’all like MXTX’s books here on booktwt, you should know that
@gomanga
, the company in charge of MXTX’s official English translations, refuses to recognize its union and has hired a union-busting firm instead of paying its workers
@_UW7S
#OurFlagMeansUnion
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2 things are happening at once on my TL. Sales doesn’t think that “chinese fantasy” sells. Meanwhile, gomanga (run by a white man) is making BANK off of danmei xianxia in translation & refusing to acknowledge their union. Capitalistic greed 🤝 racism.
My last agent literally stated “Asian fantasy don’t sell” as the reason for dumping me. We were only on sub for 3 months and got to acquisitions 5+ times bc while editors loved it, sales& marketing saw “Chinese Fantasy” and laughed. But white people are the ✨true minorities✨
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With all 3 MXTX books in the NYT bestselling list, I hope “western” publishers take note that there is a huge desire for diverse books—not just books by POC authors & authors outside of the US, but also books that are formally diverse (though the two are def linked).
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SCREAMS i met my partner’s parents and ??? this morning i find out theyve read my zombie story, a story im proud of
but
there is a sex scene in it that ends in my mc eating the guy
😭😭😭
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sometimes i have imposter syndrome about whether i am « queer enough » and then i inadvertently spend 1 hr with cishets and i come away the most confident queer ever
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I am really excited to announce that I will be joining UC San Diego’s Department of Literature in the fall as an assistant professor of English & Cultural Studies, specializing in global anglophone eighteenth century literature 🥳
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my sibling: how was your day today?
me: good! I worked on my revenge plot.
my sibling: …
me: of my novel. my fictional novel. fiction plot. fiction.
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okok I see a lot of talk about messy bisexual rep but what about EXTREMELY PUT-TOGETHER ELDEST DAUGHTER OF IMMIGRANTS BISEXUAL WHO GOES THROUGH A TON OF COMPHET ONLY TO BE UNDONE BY A LOVE INTEREST WHO HAS DIIMPLESSS SO SHE HAS TO BALANCE THIS AGAINST HER ENTIRE SELF IMAGE
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it's simply striking to me how marginalized, disabled and/or bipoc authors work hard to find comps because of sheer lack of representation while other authors comp their books to (read: capitalize on) poc-led media that draw from extremely specific cultural contexts
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dark academia but it’s just academia with its underfunded facilities, broken desk chairs, and microaggressions from people making careers out of studying justice
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*bangs pots and pans* GENRES ARE NOT FIXED!!! GENRES ARE SETS OF SOCIALLY AGREED-UPON NARRATIVE CONVENTIONS!!!
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6 years for this funky hat!!!
You can call me Dr. Lilly 💕🥳🎉
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���they're here! ✨
meet, from left to right, Peng, Athena, and Jane, the trio in A CLAN OF CASSANDRAS, my YA fantasy novel pitched as Jane Austen but with Gothic gaysians fighting against colonizing forces!✨🌈
🎨 art by the wonderful
@lycheecandraw
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on the topic of sapphic shows, may i recommend some c-media ones that are ongoing, super tropey and fun, and subtitled?
Couple of Mirrors (do crime, be sapphic)
Legend of Yunze (ancient fantastical lesbians, reincarnation, immortal love)
The Vampires (in my queue)
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hello????? my partner’s parents used both my pronouns to talk about me?????? happy prideeeeee???? 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
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white fantasy writers worldbuild without drawing from trite ideas of "the Orient" challenge
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🌙 Gothic gaysian girls with Jane Austen aesthetics✨
Meet the sapphic rivals-to-lovers from my YA fantasy, A CLAN OF CASSANDRAS.
Athena encounters her icy finishing school rival while wandering the halls at night. Has Peng been kept up by the same horrific visions Athena has?
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// racism, biphobia
a couple of weeks ago when I was posting about biphobia in the industry, hundreds of people 1) assumed I was dating a white man & 2) said "at least you feel safe walking around!!!"
they said this to me, an asian woman. I am still angry.
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henlo please see my childhood friends-to-rivals-to-lovers gay Asian romance set in an alt-universe REGENCY era. they have powers and they fight against colonizers.
🎨 by
@yuyu_finale
i am so tired of white-poc romances what do y'all have against poc-poc romances?
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when i tell you how little chr*stian-based magic systems makes “sense” to me as a non-chr*stian but that i still…get it…
if you’re demanding magic systems make “sense,” think a bit about your position first, tis all i ask
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and of course the chinese woman in his film falls in love with a tourist lmao
one of my most harrowing memories ever was BEING CAST AS THIS WOMAN for the final workshop where we had to cast our classmates in a scene.
that was 2014. and yet...
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I am so happy for & proud of the gen z writers who have put their work out there & gotten agents already!!
But wow I was appreciative today of the older writers who posted their publishing timelines, the writers who took detours & found their way back to creative work 🥺
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thinking about cathy park hong writing that kids of color are often treated like adults—and how often BIPOC YA books are deemed “too adult” even if they’re on par with thg in content—and how many of those stories are kept from the shelves because of biases like this
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fellow writers have mentored me.
fellow writers have beta-read for me.
fellow writers taught me how to navigate the industry.
fellow writers have commiserated and celebrated with me.
i hope that i have paid even a fraction of forward.
i love my fellow writers!!!
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✨Gaysian gals in Jane Austen aesthetics, but make it Gothic✨
Introducing Athena, the main character of my YA Gothic fantasy and sapphic romance, A CLAN OF CASSANDRAS! She is spooky and wants friends.
content note // blood
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We’re going back to Hogwarts!!! Maybe this time we’ll FIND that hidden swimming pool?
@TeamStarKid
#starkidhomecoming
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re-read my book and not only did i NOT hate it, but i also wept 🥺 this was a story I really needed when I was younger and I hope one day to spread the queer joy!
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part of the trouble i've faced in getting feedback is that acespec stories are less legible to people. we are trained to read "good pacing" and "good writing" as a certain thing--but so much of that, especially in romance, is framed by allosexuality.
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I am only half-joking. the idea that magic systems need to be explained by some Enlightenment rationality is......pretty icky to me
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Do NOT message poc who are not explicitly offering sensitivity reads and ask them to do this labor ?? Do not reach out randomly to ask us to “approve” your stories. I’ve been seeing this a lot lately across platforms.
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IRON WIDOW X THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
⚔️ revenge and disguises
⚓️pirates against colonialism
🏳️🌈 acespec characters
💜 found family
🏮xianxia-inspired magic systems
#Pitlight
#YA
aesthetic by the wonderful
@sarahastreet
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also connected to my suspicions about Relatability being the ultimate metric for good character writing, but I will save that for another day
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the demand for novelistic character agency is a fairly recent (& very western, colonial) one. i write characters who are queer, who are living under colonial rule, who work together in community. there isn't 1 hero. they have wants & needs, but, alone, their *agency* is limited
Guys I’m getting real sick of people complaining about agency or passive characters…
Not all mcs need to be on the go 24/7, sometimes things just happen to people 😭😭
And it doesn’t help that the concept of active characters is a very westernised way of telling stories
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My fiction books are not Chinese cultural textbooks and will never be! If anything they’re about finding pockets of joy in harsh worlds. They’re about the tangle of interlinked problems in an oppressive society, and finding community, however nebulous, amidst that. Also magic.
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a call for diverse voices and diverse stories means opening our minds to different forms of genre, and perhaps a challenge to genre altogether.
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more eldest daughter MCs! I didn’t realize I, an eldest daughter, used to write only younger sibling MCs until recently—but hey, eldest daughters are narratively interesting!! The seeming stoicism, but if you dig deeper! The juggling of responsibility! The secrets they hear!
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oh hello
#writersoftwitter
I’m Lilly, and I write genre-bendy fantasy novels about love and friendship found amidst harsh worlds ✨I am particularly fond of ace-spec rep!
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“Relatability” is such a weird metric for good storytelling to me, not just because it favors whiteness as a “universal experience” but also because some of my favorite fictional characters are Very different from me—gremlin meowmeows, while I’m just a nerdperson lol
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My fantasy book is now on sub!!! 🥳🥳🥳
Anise, heartbroken & cynical, wants only to do well in her PhD program—which is hard to do when she transmigrates into a xianxia novel with her academic rival.
🏳️🌈 demi romance
🏮diaspora feels
👻 ghosties
🎨
@lycheecandraw
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Yes, and how many European-lang references without footnotes exist in the “western” canon that I have had to look up? How many B*blical references show up that I have had to take upon myself to learn? Wandering outside our realm of knowledge is the norm for so many of us…
Readers, especially white readers, are *not* entitled to footnotes / explanations / direct translations of non-English words that a BIPOC author chooses to use in their books with intentions of not translating.
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like if you're calling for diverse stories, and acespec stories (which i've seen more discussion of, happily!), you cannot expect it to be a typical romance (read: allo) plot with an acespec character wedged in.
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I want to say it more eloquently in future but PART of what's so frustrating about bi discourse is that it always lays so barely 1) biphobia 2) the social order's limited understanding of bisexuality 3) how ownvoices can be leveraged by those in power against marginalized groups
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hi,
#writersoftwitter
💕 I write fantasy infused with my knowledge of the Regency and my love for xianxia. I am currently on sub with two anti-colonial books and drafting another with queer gaysian pirates (moodboard here) ⚔️
can we bring this back? it was so much fun! (re)introduce yourself with
#writersoftwitter
! 👀💜
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really excited to teach a course on the queer eighteenth century next year and to include an ace studies unit 🥹🥹🥹
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begging people to understand that sexual & romantic attraction are separate spectrums and that romances don’t need spice to be romantic! @ publishing, if you want diverse stories, know that the beats will be different 🌈
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UM OKAY I REREAD MY DRAFT AND I AM NOW CRYING??? THIS MIGHT BE A GOOD BOOK ACTUALLY??? 🥲
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feedback I got from (white) peers for early drafts of my YA fantasy (currently on sub!) : the finishing school (read: British) part was good (legible) but that the folktale aspect (more Chinese) was confusing 🧐 & i wonderrrr
✨they're here! ✨
meet, from left to right, Peng, Athena, and Jane, the trio in A CLAN OF CASSANDRAS, my YA fantasy novel pitched as Jane Austen but with Gothic gaysians fighting against colonizing forces!✨🌈
🎨 art by the wonderful
@lycheecandraw
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idk but asking bipoc folks to do more unpaid labor is not the DEI move you think it is
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adding on: it can be slow burn and yearning, but it can also look like (esp in the case of demi characters)--no burn no burn, just friends, what is this, omg are these FEELINGS?
to my demi betas, this IS romantic. there's also so much room for clownery and humor!
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i used to take english classes SO seriously and correct family when they used phrases or idioms "wrong" (they encouraged this too), but now as an adult, i pause to appreciate the capaciousness of what language can create!! I love the turns of phrase my parents use!!!
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Depressed grim reaper Amory Ng does what any LA girl would do: take a ceramics class for her mental health. But when a soul she reaped 60 years ago shows up at her art sale, she must shake up her afterlife & solve this mysterious undeath—&defy the gods in the process.
#pitlight
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what might be a ~ vibe ~ or ~aesthetic~ to you might actually be someone's actual lived experience, folk tradition, culture
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I’d actually love for more Adult books to be about self-discovery. To exclude that from these narratives just because of some reified definition of the genre is to exclude so much nuanced material and storytelling—not to mention queer narratives and discovery that resist telos.
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Diversity =/= the usual US/UK (not universal but assumed as such! Not inherent but assumed as such!) story structure just with diverse characters wedged in
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^I feel
#3
so keenly. the way ownvoices can be leveraged by those in power against marginalized groups ownvoices was meant to help--the way the onus of proof falls on the marginalized. i must always prove my asian-ness, my queerness.
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Pub is so hard. Protect your love for your craft and the joy of writing as much as you can. Find creative inspiration in rogue ways, read something you don’t usually read, read something that comforted you when you were young, do something completely unrelated. You got this!! 💗
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I need to unlearn that anxiety that comes from those expectations. Not everything in my fantasy books has to be a direct reflection of "my culture"! Sometimes I can make stuff up for fun!!!!!!
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my demi heart loves c-dramas because they depict THE way of falling in love: getting into situations for a period of several months (maybe even years, sometimes ten-thousand years) and building trust and understanding, and then, one day, feeling a stir of attraction!!
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I don’t want “a brand,” I want to be an amorphous and elusive being with the capacity to create beautiful and comforting aesthetic experiences, much as a lava lamp does ✨
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marginalized authors spend so much time & energy worrying/wondering if we've done our job, if our communities are accounted for in our fiction (even as we know communities are not monoliths, even as we know we're writing fiction.) I wish us more ease and joy.
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LOVE HYPOTHESIS X SAPPHIC THE UNTAMED
Grad student rivals transmigrate into a xianxia novel ⚔️🏮
#pitlight
📚the real dark academia was the institution all along
🌈 rivals to allies to lovers
♾ there are at least 5 queer couples
Now revising! aesthetics by
@cindycwrites
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My YA/NA for
#FinishUrBookFall
is a queer pirate xianxia-infused fantasy about a young woman escaping her colonized hometown, seeking revenge for her people, & meeting found family along the way. ⚔️🌈
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hi, I’m Lilly! 💕 I was a PW mentee 2020. I’m a fantasy & queer romance writer (mostly YA but branching out), and a PhD Candidate in English. I love tea, Gothic novels, c- and k-dramas, and BTS ✨ let’s be writer pals!
#PWPoePrompts
It’s
#PWPoePrompts
time again!
Join us for the fourth annual
#PWPoePrompts
social media challenge and get to know the Pitch Wars community!
#PWPoePrompts
is a completely optional, just-for-fun, social media challenge.
More info:
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my official doctoral regalia came! and more importantly, the funky hat i did it all (mostly hehe) for 🥳
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Often when I tweet about stuff like this, I get comments about how “we” should “learn from ‘Eastern’ storytelling”—and those people are also wrong and sound Orientalist so
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ppl who think asian women are submissive have clearly never spent any meaningful time around them, like you can't step two feet in my canto grandma's household without hearing her swear about someone who miffed her in the slightest way lmao
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just thinking about how much Time and Energy marginalized writers spend worrying about how "accurate" their work is, if they're doing enough, if their research is sufficient for their fiction/fantasy pieces, and how the burden of representation falls disproportionately
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writing friends are so good??? a year ago i felt like a shy little bean and I’m looking around me now very grateful for my pals who have been on this raft with me, helping me navigate the craft & the industry
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-left an agent who broke my trust
-queried & signed with my current agent!
-went on sub with the book of my heart
-made strides in mental health
-opened myself to love again 🥹
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related: ann's wonderful post
i say this as someone who both creates and consumes romance: we need to let go of the idea that the ultimate goal is romance, both for the sake of aromantic people but also for allos! a thread:
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Hi everyone! I’m a PhD Candidate in English at UCLA and my YA
#ownvoices
manuscript is a sapphic romance/Gothic fantasy set in 1800s China under foreign occupation. Spooky powers, soft love & sparking revolution🔮👩🏻❤️👩🏻🔥
Excited to be here!
#PWParty20
#pwclass2020
#pitchwars
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The other thing to highlight here is how trad publishing sales/marketing team doesn’t seem to know the sheer size of global fandom around xianxia. I am not saying I want them to profit off of xianxia/appropriate it. But it just goes to show how out of the loop they are!
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querying authors, i still don’t have my sublists and it’s been 3 months. I probably won’t, and I suspect from my friends’ experiences with that same emla agent that even if I did, the accuracy would be dubious at best. please talk to previous clients of agents before you sign.
idk I just personally find it really concerning that 20+ clients (majority BIPOC) can leave an agent within the span of a few months and the agency head gaslights and threatens the clients but when that agent starts fucking up deals for white clients they finally get fired???
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this is a systemic issue. the industry should encourage more diversity, but not by putting marginalized authors under the pressure to disclose their lives, while systemically INCLUDED authors get the privilege of fictionality, of saying "it's just fantasy"
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