10 years ago I uploaded the first post to this blog (please don’t
judge me by the quality of my first post J). Those that know me in
real life would not consider me particularly introspective or such (my wife
would laugh at the concept), but those who have read this blog over the years
have seen a different side of me. And as one may expect from a blog post about
a blog’s anniversary there’s a fair bit of introspection (or self wankery?)
below. Read as you will, but at least let me say that it’s been a wild ride for
10 years and I have no plans to stop anytime soon.
This blog began rather simply – as a place to throw up a few
attempts I had made at writing reviews. I had been active on a few forums
(mostly Wheel of Time forums – remember wotmania?) and people actually seemed
to care what I thought of books I was reading. The format of wotmania was
rather terrible, so I threw my fledgling reviews up on a blog as a repository
of sorts and because blogs seemed be gaining popularity in genre circles and
even drawing attention away from forums and the like. I never actually expected
people would read that blog, so I was quite surprised to find that people were –
I was even more surprised when I learned that some of the people commenting on
the blog worked for publishers. Eventually I worked up some courage to ask for
a review copy of a book – and then I discovered the key to blog happiness –
free books, or at least a way to finally address my book buying habit and cut
that annual expense by several hundred dollars.
OK, it’s not really about the free books and it never was, though
I’d be lying if I pretended it hasn’t been a factor. It’s pretty cool to get
books early. It was really cool to be in on the early trend of blogs. Did you
know I was the first blogger to interview Patrick Rothfuss – he was completely unheard
of and the publisher was trying hard to get his name out there (this was for
another forum I was a part of and it seems to be lost to the intranets
junkyard). Anyway, I’m indulging the wankery, so let’s move on.
What I really want to say with all this has little to do with the
opportunities that this blog has afforded me or even the hundreds (thousands?)
of books I’ve received over the years. I want to talk about how writing this
blog has been an agent of change for me. I’ve said many times over the years
that the reviews I write are really for me, and for the most part that’s
actually true. The majority of my reviews are a conversation that I’m having
with myself. And many of them are full of obscure references and jokes that
only my warped sense of humor would find funny or even recognize as a joke. And
through all of those conversations with myself, with other reviewers, with
authors, with industry people, and with the multitude of fans I’ve had the
opportunity to interact with, I’ve grown as a person.
Let’s face it, my life is an excellent example of cis-gendered,
white male, privilege. 10 years ago I would have joyfully informed you how I
was not racist or sexist and that I’m completely ‘colorblind’ and ‘genderblind’
in my selection of books to read. And the fact that 90% of the books I was
reading were written by white men would have been written off with one excuse
or another. Over the years I have become aware of this. Informed. I now strive
to recognize the unconscious sexism and racism buried within me that’s been fed
to me by society my entire life. I actively seek out diversity. I will look at
the books I’ve read and say ‘gee, that’s 3 book in a row written by men, I need
to read a few written by women’ or ‘when’s the last time you read a book
written by a non-western writer, you need to do something about that’. Am I
perfect? No, absolutely not. I have not achieved parity in this or even what is
probably a reasonable balance. But I do continue to strive. Last year I think
about 50% of the books I read were written by women, though I’d guess that only
about 20% were written by people of color, non-western writers, or other
disproportionally ‘overlooked’ peoples. So, there’s a lot of room for future
growth.
But, what’s really making the difference for me, is that this all
goes beyond reading and beyond the blog. Because in the real world I have a job
where I interact with people and even supervise a few. In the real world I am a
family man with an 8-year old son and a 5-year old daughter. I am more aware of
the nasty racist and sexist messages society is trying to engrain in my
children. I am aware of some of the ‘extra’ challenges faced by the young women
I supervise. I am more aware of the challenges my wife faces as a research
scientist surrounded by men who have the ‘freedom’ to work 80 hour weeks.
And I use this awareness. I’m the father who seeks out children’s
books about girls and minorities. I’m the father browsing feminist book
recommendations for children. Yes, I do this to help my daughter. But I don’t
let my son off the hook – I read those books with him too. Books about girls
are just as cool as books about boys. I’m the father who starts the
conversation with my son about how Rey is my favorite character in the new Star
Wars and how I admire how Finn makes very difficult decisions and comes around
to make the right decisions in the end. And these things work – before such
conversations he would talk about Han and Kylo Ren and such. But now, he talks about
how Rey is his favorite too. I seek out ‘dolls’ for my daughter to play with
that are engineers and scientists. I actively try to break societal
expectations and show my children that it’s no accident. These are only a few
examples of many that I can point to, but the point of all of this is that it
began in a very different place with very different ideas and expectations 10
years ago with the start of yet another blog in yet another corner of an exponentially
growing internet.
So, it has been a journey, a really spectacular journey. Maybe
even a hero’s journey (OK, that’s way too far, but maybe you see the kernel buried
in that analogy). I am thankful for journey and grateful that it has helped me
improve as a human being.
And the journey will continue. I have no intention of stopping
blogging anytime soon.
Party on!
And be excellent to each other!
