To read next: I Love Yous Are For White People by Lac Su

I had a chance to read a lot on my trip - one book I'm reviewing for Penthouse, as well as Robyn Harding's YA novel My Parents Are Sex Maniacs... (which I won in the contest from pubilsher Annick Press, Ayelet Waldman's Bad Mother. Yesterday I was very slow and lazy and stayed home to finish reading Jon Ginoli's memoir Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division. It has tour diaries (especially interesting are their tours with Green Day) and an insider's look at both wanting to make gay rock songs and the music industry. Definitely recommended.

I have a huge list of books I want to read, plus Book Expo is next Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but one I am really look forward to is I Love Yous Are For White People by Lac Su. I heard about it from this interview at LitPark and it's published by one of my favorite imprints, Harper Perennial.



I especially loved this part of the interview:

You joined a gang when you were a teenager, and I was very, I don’t know, I think the word might be touched to find out it was a graffiti art gang, and all these little thugs had sketchbooks. What’s the connection for you between art and healing?

The beauty of art is that you can dump your negative energy into a medium and make it beautiful. It’s called “channeling”, I think. I understand how the most tortured and grieved writers and painters can create such beautiful masterpieces. When you look at a Van Gogh or Pollack, those intricate scribbles, patterns, and colors come from somewhere. Writers, like painters, tell stories with emotion. For a long time, I had a lot of negative emotions that I kept bottled up inside. Being able to release these bad vibes and make art out of it is soothing. Art says things that you’re unable to otherwise express. Writing is cathartic, and you hope that someone will connect with your art. For someone to say, “I know what that’s like,” serves as a form of healing for me.