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Visit Tor/Forge Books at ALA!

AC16-General opens in a new windowThe American Library Association’s 2016 Annual Conference is in Orlando this week! Tor/Forge Books will be there. Come say hello at Booth #2114, or at one of these events:

Saturday, June 25

  • 9:30 – 10:15 AM opens in a new windowBook Buzz Theater: The Future According to Harlequin TEEN, Tor Teen, and Starscape
    We’re pleased to present a selection of must-shelve upcoming fiction from Harlequin TEEN, Tor Teen, and Starscape. Join us as Tor’s Ali Fisher and Harlequin TEEN’s Siena Koncsol discuss some of our excellent forthcoming titles, as well as highlights from the current season. Galleys, posters, and other giveaways are available in booth #1402 and #2114.
    Location: Orange County Convention Center, Exhibit Hall – Book Buzz Theater
  • 1:00 – 2:30 PM opens in a new windowTor/LITA Author Panel: Science Fiction/Fantasy and Information Technology: Where We Are and Where We Could Have Been
    Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature have a unique ability to speculate about things that have never been, but can also be predictive about things that never were. Through the lens provided by alternate history/counterfactual literature one can look at how the world might have changed if different technologies had been pursued. For examples what if instead of developing microprocessors computing depended on vacuum tubes or something fantastic like the harmonies in the resonance of crystals? Join LITA, the Imagineering Interest Group, and a panel of distinguished Science Fiction and Fantasy writers as they discuss what the craft can tell us about not only who we are today, but who, given a small set of differences, we could have been. Featuring authors Charlie Jane Anders, Brian Staveley, Catherynne M. Valente, and Katherine Addison.
    Location: Orange County Convention Center, Room W208
  • 3:30 PM – Thomas Olde Heuvelt will be signing copies of his nightmare-inducing novel opens in a new windowHEX
    Location: Booth #2114

Sunday, June 26

  • 9:00 – 10:00 AM opens in a new windowYA Author Coffee Klatch
    Enjoy coffee and meet with YALSA’s award winning authors! This informal coffee klatch will give you an opportunity to meet authors who have appeared on one of YALSA’s six annual selected lists or have received one of YALSA’s five literary awards. Librarians will sit at a table and every 3 or 4 minutes, a new author will arrive at your table to talk about their current projects! Featuring Tor Teen author Kathleen Baldwin.
    Location: Orange County Convention Center, Room W110
  • 1:00 – 1:50 PM opens in a new windowPop Top Stage: Thomas Olde Heuvelt
    Named as “One of Europe’s foremost talents in fantastic literature” by BBC Radio, a multiple winner of the Paul Harland Prijs for best Dutch Fantasy, and nominated for a Hugo and World Fantasy Award for his short fiction, Thomas Olde Heuvelt brings his bestselling Dutch horror-fantasy— opens in a new windowHEX—to the English language. HEX has been praised by authors such as Paul Cornell, Sarah Lotz, among others, and lauded by venues including Crimezone, for “…expos[ing] how psychological fear can make a modern society spiral into dark, medieval practices…. Terrifying and tantalizingly good.”
    Location: Orange County Convention Center, Room Exhibit Hall – PopTop Stage
  • 2:00 PM – J. A. Souders will be signing copies of the first book in her young adult series The Elysium Chronicles, opens in a new windowRenegade
    Location: Booth #2114

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About our newsletter: Every issue of Tor’s monthly email newsletter features original writing by, and interviews with, Tor authors and editors about upcoming new titles from all Tor and Forge imprints. In addition, we occasionally send out “special edition” newsletters to highlight particularly exciting new projects, programs, or events. Read a sample here >>

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Crying Bully

Crying Bully

Renegade by J. A. Souders

Written by J. A. Souders

“I know you are, but what am I?” Chances are you’ve heard this once or twice in your lifetime. This may be a simple child’s joke, but it’s no joke when it comes to bullying.

Bullying might seem like a new epidemic, but I’m sure most of us can think back to that person we’d call a bully from our pasts. Why the big fuss lately, then? It might be because bullying seems to be getting worse every year and I’m fairly certain that has to do with how connected we are, due to the Internet and smart phones. We can never get away from it. When, once, we could leave school, or work, or wherever and escape from our tormentors, now they can reach us through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and our phones push their messages straight into our hands the second they send it. There’s no safety zone.

Because of its prevalence and inescapability, bullying has become the new “hot-button,” much the same way drugs and smoking were back when I was in high school. Organizations have been founded. Politicians vow to change laws to prevent bullying. A quick Google search shows pages and pages of different schools’ initiatives to stop bullying. Most schools have a zero-tolerance policy for it and kids accused of bullying are often expelled, just as they would be if they were found with drugs.

This is both a blessing and a curse. It’s easier now for a bullied child to get the protection they need, but at the same time it may have become too easy to “cry bully.” Every time someone says something we don’t like, or when they disagree with us, or someone says something mean, we immediately yell bully. That accomplishes exactly what we hope it will—it gets that person in trouble and we feel better about ourselves.

So we keep doing it, but we take it one step forward. We strike back. Sometimes it’s a good thing. Other times? Not so much. Can anti-bullying become bullying itself? It certainly can look that way some times. There are entire websites devoted to “outing” the “bullies” who dare dislike our books. Some even go entirely too far and send death threats to the bully and their families.

However, no matter how many rules we pass or how we strike back at the bullies, stopping them is almost impossible. There have always been mean-spirited people in the world. Always that certain person who needs to put other people down to feel good about themselves. But, a lot of what they do is protected under free speech. And even when it turns to harassment and/or violence, punishing that one bully is like plugging a dam with your finger. Our leaders and teachers and those in a position to stop it, often find themselves impotent.

From my book, Renegade, Mother—the leader of Elysium—has addressed this epidemic in her own brand of leadership. Eradicate all differences. Remove the right of free speech, make sure punishments are so extreme no one would dare argue. And when all else fails, brainwash. It’s effective—in Elysium—but do we really want that here?

But more damaging than all of that is all the people who’ve been “crying bully” and turning bullying into just another word. Like the boy who cried wolf, the more time we cry bully, the less people are going to pay attention. And the real victims of bullying will get ignored again, but this time it’ll be even worse, because no one will care at all. It’s a type of brainwashing and punishment all in one. One Mother would be proud of. One of which requires no more effort than watching the masses becoming indifferent to the issue because of constant exposure. And like that boy who cried wolf, the victim will get eaten.

We really need to focus on educating people on what bullying really is and stop using it as a buzzword to get people to respond to us, because if we continue to call everything bullying, then eventually nothing will be.

…………………………

From the Tor/Forge December newsletter. Sign up to receive our newsletter via email.

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Waiting on Wednesday: Renegade Sweepstakes

Waiting on Wednesday: Renegade Sweepstakes

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For a while now we’ve been seeing this title come up in your Waiting on Wednesday picks. So now we’re giving you the opportunity to enter for the chance to win an advance reading copy of Renegade before it pubs!

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NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. You must be 18 or older and a legal resident of the 50 United States or D.C. to enter. Promotion begins October 17, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. ET. and ends October 24, 2012,12:00 p.m. ET. Void in Puerto Rico and wherever prohibited by law. Please see full details and official rules go here. Sponsor: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

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