As we count down to the end of DEAD GUY on New Year's Day, we've asked some of our wonderful alumni to visit us one more time. Today we're thrilled to welcome back Barbara Poelle, vice president at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency. Barbara's wonderful humor and honesty about the publishing business always made her a favorite here at DEAD GUY. Welcome back, Barbara!
Barbara Poelle
…Hm? Oh you’re right! I did wander off there a bit. But I’m back! Now what were we talking about?
Ah yes, books! I love ‘em. Don’t you? Sometimes when I am reading a really good book I jam my nose in the pages and sniff really deeply. Don’t you? And sometimes I hide from my children in a bathroom or a pantry to steal a few more pages of reading. Don’t you? And sometimes I get them tattooed on my body. Don’t you?
Did I lose anyone?
Okay, lemme paint the picture: last year at Bouchercon in New Orleans, I was with several authors, and Jamie Freveletti was handing out temporary Jane Austen tattoos because all of us were sober and it was the best idea anyone had ever had. Ahem. Anyway, I loved my temporary tattoo so much that the very next night I found a tattoo parlor and had those lovely artists do the exact same tattoo on my right forearm. It is a straightforward outline of a single, nameless book. Just a book. But I love it.
Because, really, is ANY of them “just a book”?
Books are many things: time travel machines, therapists, camouflage, chick magnets, dummy repellent, doorways, mirrors, portals, best friends, worst nightmares, greatest surprises, biggest let downs, secret loves and booming proclamations. When I hear my children sounding out words in their beginning readers and feeling frustrated, I very helpfully bark in their face “YOU’LL SEE! BOOKS ARE THE GATEWAY TO ADVENTURE!” careful not to slosh any wine on them while I do it. Because Mother of the Year nominations are coming up. And if no one remembers the “Poelles Don’t Quit” speech hissed into my five-year-old’s sweet and darling face at karate then maybe I have a shot at the long list. (Oh man. I am maybe averaging a steady 37% competence on this mom thing. But I’m trying.)
But I really do mean it. Uh, that Poelles don’t quit part, yeah, but also BOOKS ARE THE GATEWAY TO ADVENTURE! Books give us the opportunity to see lives and places we couldn’t have imagined on our own, yet still feel such a connection to the journey of the characters. And this is why the diverse movement in books is so very important. I am a heterosexual white woman with two kiddos and a full time career, but I have seen myself in a boy in Iran with a kite. I have seen myself in a drifter with an old shrapnel wound. I have seen myself in a dog who loves racing, a young man who grew up in Baltimore against the backdrop of gunfire, a detective in Botswana, a housewife in Australia. I have seen myself in a neurologically atypical teen. I have seen myself in Death in World War II. In an impossible- and illegal- love in 1972. As a lead detective in South Central. I have seen myself serving tea to royalty, field dressing a squirrel, burying a body, being unloved, running a marathon, burning down a house, betraying a husband, fighting a system. Because with great diversity comes great connection. It is our responsibility as human beings to connect to one another in order to move forward through calamity and chaos. The first steps are the simplest in this case. They come with giving our children opportunity to read diverse and varied books and challenging ourselves to do the same.
Thus, I leave you with this: make a list of the last ten books you read. Did they all come from similarly described authors with similarly described protagonists? If so, head to your local library or bookstore, pop on line to an Indie or even a goliath and get a book that is outside of your usual read, that asks you to see yourself in a new experience, a new character, a new backdrop, a new set of stakes that you never considered before.
It has been a joy to connect with you all through this blog over the last decade. I wish all of the contributors and readers a happy, healthy and safe journey through the many gateways to come.
See you at the tattoo parlor in 2019.
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