No, it's not a phone number. Nor is it the number of excuses I've made for not blogging lately (though it's probably pretty close). Before I reveal this number's importance, I'll rewind a little.

Every now and again on this blog, or in comments to friends, I've said things to the extent of, "I will be a normal human being again when I'm not busy with the Chinese Democracy Project," or, "Sorry, can't talk, I'm on a deadline for the Chinese Democracy Project." That usually elicits a response of, "I didn't know you were interested in Chinese politics." I'm not, but I am interested in rock music. In rock music, Chinese Democracy is the name of the newest Guns N' Roses album, an album that famously took Axl Rose about 20 years to make. Less famously, I embarked on a project that took 4 years to make. That was way longer than I'd originally intended, so in homage to GN'R, I named my project after theirs. My project, however, was not an album, but a book, namely, this book:


and the number in the subject is, as I'm sure all avid readers know by now, its ISBN.

Isn't that a great cover, btw? Major win for the design people at Libraries Unlimited.

I haven't talked much about writing this book because there was a point in the writing process where I wasn't sure it was going to be published. I had huge problems with making the page count because this is strictly a reader's advisory guide, not a library services guide like Jack Martin's or a look at the history of GLBTQ YA literature like Michael Cart and Christine Jenkins's. By keeping the focus tight on YA books and following what I perceived to be the Genreflecting series vision, I sort of wrote myself into a corner. I had originally envisioned writing about movies, tv shows, music, and books, but that meant taking the focus off YA literature. It also meant that I had to be very judicious about what adult books I added. The Genreflecting series already has a book on GLBTQ literature for adults and I was charged with writing a companion, not a competing, title. What I ended up doing was writing in the introduction and chapters about how pop culture has some effect on GLBTQ YA lit and the people who read it. For examples...and more...you can read the book.

The book, which will be out on March 30, is available for pre-purchase through my publisher, Libraries Unlimited, Amazon.com, and major book distributors (B&T, Ingram, etc.).