1. alison-rowan: ‘Cause homophobia sucks. Let’s go be awesome today.

    alison-rowan:

    ‘Cause homophobia sucks. Let’s go be awesome today.

  2. ‘Cause homophobia sucks. Let’s go be awesome today.

    ‘Cause homophobia sucks. Let’s go be awesome today.

  3. “And the point of great writers like [Oscar] Wilde is that they make that invitation to you; they welcome you”. - Stephen Fry

    Stephen Fry is a hero

    (Source: linda-mccartney)

  4. milfofspace: Look I did a coverflip because the idea is just so neat. Wilted daisy for metaphorical resonance, natch.

    milfofspace:

    Look I did a coverflip because the idea is just so neat. Wilted daisy for metaphorical resonance, natch.

  5. youdonothavetochoose: My offering for Maureen Johnson’s cover challenge; what might a copy of Romeo and Juliet look like if written by a woman and marketed toward girls? I call is headless girl in fancy dress holding plot-relevant object.

    youdonothavetochoose:

    My offering for Maureen Johnson’s cover challenge; what might a copy of Romeo and Juliet look like if written by a woman and marketed toward girls? I call is headless girl in fancy dress holding plot-relevant object.

  6. When I saw Maureen Johnson’s original post about the Coverflip project earlier today, I was all over it immediately. I knew I wanted to be a part of it, but what I didn’t realize how complicated it would be. I decided initially that I really wanted to do a female-to-male flip, because the books of male authors seem to be given more leeway in how they can be designed in the publishing world—as soon as the author is a woman, well. Better make it frilly, throw on a cute boy, and preferably get a little pink in there. But here’s the thing: I could barely find a single well-known book written by a female author on my bookshelf. Don’t get me wrong—my bookshelf houses dozens of wonderful books by women. The problem is that they haven’t become as well-known as their male counterparts, and if they have, they’re J.K. Rowling (hey there, initials disguising female identity) or Suzanne Collins (could the cover designs be trying any harder to look like a “boys’ book”?). I ended up doing a male-to-female simply due to a lack of well-known women-authored books with which I felt I was well-enough acquainted. And, y’know, due to loving The Fault in Our Stars. That, too. TFiOS actually managed a wonderful cover design, minimalistic in a way that book covers generally aren’t allowed to be—John explained a bit of how that managed to happen here. But something tells me that if this book were written by a Jane Green instead, the cover wouldn’t have been granted such privileges. For the woman-authored version of TFiOS, I naturally had to go with a picture of a boy on the front—What’s that? The book’s protagonist is a compelling, strong female character? Forget about her, what we want to portray here is a love interest. Get those teenage girls swooning in the aisles. (Sorry, what’s this “heteronormativity” you’re on about?) Bonus points for super artistic cropping of a photo. You’ll notice that my failure to obscure the majority of the face is actually quite innovative and edgy. Fun fact: I went ahead and used a picture I took of my boyfriend because 1) I figured I’d rather use something original than a stock photo and 2) since when was a book cover ever faithful to the actual physical description of a character, anyway?

    When I saw Maureen Johnson’s original post about the Coverflip project earlier today, I was all over it immediately. I knew I wanted to be a part of it, but what I didn’t realize how complicated it would be.

    I decided initially that I really wanted to do a female-to-male flip, because the books of male authors seem to be given more leeway in how they can be designed in the publishing world—as soon as the author is a woman, well. Better make it frilly, throw on a cute boy, and preferably get a little pink in there. But here’s the thing: I could barely find a single well-known book written by a female author on my bookshelf. Don’t get me wrong—my bookshelf houses dozens of wonderful books by women. The problem is that they haven’t become as well-known as their male counterparts, and if they have, they’re J.K. Rowling (hey there, initials disguising female identity) or Suzanne Collins (could the cover designs be trying any harder to look like a “boys’ book”?). I ended up doing a male-to-female simply due to a lack of well-known women-authored books with which I felt I was well-enough acquainted. And, y’know, due to loving The Fault in Our Stars. That, too.

    TFiOS actually managed a wonderful cover design, minimalistic in a way that book covers generally aren’t allowed to be—John explained a bit of how that managed to happen here. But something tells me that if this book were written by a Jane Green instead, the cover wouldn’t have been granted such privileges.

    For the woman-authored version of TFiOS, I naturally had to go with a picture of a boy on the front—What’s that? The book’s protagonist is a compelling, strong female character? Forget about her, what we want to portray here is a love interest. Get those teenage girls swooning in the aisles. (Sorry, what’s this “heteronormativity” you’re on about?) Bonus points for super artistic cropping of a photo. You’ll notice that my failure to obscure the majority of the face is actually quite innovative and edgy.

    Fun fact: I went ahead and used a picture I took of my boyfriend because 1) I figured I’d rather use something original than a stock photo and 2) since when was a book cover ever faithful to the actual physical description of a character, anyway?

  7. ihateyourfavoriteteam asked: Hey so I go to Columbia College Chicago (graduating in two weeks woot!) and I just wanted to tell you that the computer lab has one of your prints (the "That's So Not Gay" one) hanging in their tech room. I spied it the other day when one of the techs opened the door!

    That’s so cool! It’s always so exciting when I hear about them actually being out there in the world somewhere—I mean, I know they must be, because I ship them out, but I love knowing where they end up!

  8. Just gonna leave this here, for those of you who are interested!

    Just gonna leave this here, for those of you who are interested!

  9. Maureen Johnson: LET'S DO THE COVERFLIP  →

    maureenjohnsonbooks:

    I had this little idea on Twitter today. I have lots of little ideas on Twitter. And I have no doubt that this idea has been had before, because it’s that kind of idea. But it’s also the kind of idea worth repeating.

    It started like this. I made a comment along the lines of, “Okay, Publishing. I…

  10. jbbartram:

    Here’s the completed pattern featuring my new little characters and their well-behaved bugs! Feel free to right-click & download the first square for personal use (if you use it as a background on a blog, I’d appreciate credit please & thankyou!) - the last image shows how it looks on my desktop right now.

    I’m pretty happy with how these turned out, but part of me wants to do an analogue painted version, as my digital stuff never looks quite as good as the real thing (yet. I have much practicing to do).

    Stay tuned for my next pattern, which will also involve teeny burly naked dudes.