Hearts of Glass living in the Real World is almost here! It is the first YA novel in the Hearts of Glass series! 3 books and a series of short stories in an expanded universe based on the Fem Fridays we have written about here at Gen X Watch! It is unique and we need your help at our Indiegogo campaign!
What is Hearts of Glass?
“These Children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They’re quite aware of what they are going through.”-David Bowie
This quote is the best one sentence pitch of what the Hearts of Glass Series is about. Semi autobiographical with the major characters based on women I knew, and loved. The women and friends these characters are based on have inspired and moved not only me, but thousands of people in my Fem Friday series at Gen X Watch and Tawnlandia.
“Hearts of Glass Living in the Real World” is the first book in the Hearts of Glass Trilogy and associated short stories in the expanded universe (The Mallverse).
Set in the late 80’s, 3 teens meet each other while discovering themselves and facing seemingly insurmountable odds. 2 will fall in love and all will find community in the midst of struggle. That struggle is found in 2 dangerous man. They have wealth and power. These kids have none of that. They just have each other. Will it be enough? Does love win or just put up a hell of a fight?
Ford is a traumatized former child model who works in a clothing store in the Fox Valley Mall. Cassie is the epitome of DIY punk with a life full of poverty and pain serving smoothies at the Orange Julius. Finally there is a Jenny, a young preppy with talent and dreams held back from a society not designed for women like her.
As their lives intersect with common bonds, there will be love, confusion, and dangerous adversaries.
The important themes in this first book includes sexual assault, partner violence, neurodiversity, and life with a disability in an ablest world years before the ADA existed. While set in the 80’s , it has timeless and timely themes that affect teens and youth today. This serves as an opportunity to bond generations and showcase that love and friendships are for everyone regardless the struggles and dismissive judgment of others. While these traumatic things occur, love and friendship happens. It is fun, funny, beautiful, and powerful. And it is also how we survive the storms…together.
What Will the Money be Used For?
Besides the normal things needed to get a book with important themes to be made, marketed, and distributed, “Hearts of Glass Living in the Real World” has some unique facets to it.
ASL and the Deaf Community
One of the characters is profoundly deaf. To ensure the book gave authentic and respectful representation, research and engagement with the Deaf community was critical. While I speak ASL and have friends who are in the Deaf community, I do not have the lived experiences.
With information about proper representation and writing of ASL as dialogue from a romance author in the Deaf community, we also had test readers that are women in the Deaf community. Nothing was considered a final draft unless all the amazing women who read this story approved of the character and enjoyed her.
At every public event I will have an ASL interpreter. This also includes many of the digital appearances you will learn about later.
The publisher has agreed to partner with me in joining forces with spaces dedicated to creatives in the Deaf community. That will include events with the Deaf community to engage about proper representation. In the creation of this work I have benefited greatly from members of the Deaf community and we will need funds to ensure we have interpreters and other services and equipment needed to discover the book and the unofficial soundtrack together.
In the Chicago area, ASL interpreters will cost $90 an hour for every event. When abroad, I do not know what those services will cost yet.
Your investment in this project will make that possible!
Survivor Outreach SA/DV
Another area I did research on was partner violence and sexual assault. As a survivor of child physical and sexual abuse, I have first hand knowledge. Many of the other characters are based on real people from my life, I have their insights as well. But it was important to get insights from nurses, mental health professionals, and others in the DV and SA work to ensure that proper representation, consequences, and even common misconceptions and stigmas were written accurately. Some of these experts served not only as consultants, but also as test audiences. We had to strike a balance between telling the story with these elements and ensuring there is more hope than harm for readers.
I have forged partnerships with local area DV and SA shelters to give them copies of the books for the teens and young adults there and to make myself available for events. Many of these teens and young adults arrive in these shelters with just the clothes on their back. Some of the shelters do have tattered books in various stages of disrepair. Access to new books, signed by the author, with visitations from the author as we find hope and light bonded by our common experience is deeply meaningful and important. As there is a high turnaround of clients in these spaces, these are ongoing relationships as opposed to one offs.
Your investment will make that possible.
Special Travel
While there will be travel to cons, coffeehouses and indie bookstores throughout the Midwest, Arizona, and California, there will also be specialized travel to spaces where the themes of the book can be explored and access to the story can be made viable regardless of financial ability.
Your investment will make that possible.
Coffee House Tour and Unique Placement
There are many independent stores and coffeehouses in neighborhoods that, like small creatives, do not have the opportunity to stock their shelves without cost and risk. To remove that barrier and create audiences, we need sample copies and test consignment copies to give access to the books for their store fronts and also create events that will draw members of their community in to get their next cup of coffee or game there as opposed to a large chain. I believe that small business is the lifeblood of a community and the backbone of our economy.
Perks Perks Perks!!!
As with any crowdfunding there are wonderful perks!
Advance digital copies!
Signed copies of the book!
Special packages for book clubs that include engagement with the author!
Mall tours with me to see the sites written about in the book in Fox Valley Mall in Aurora Ilinois!
You can be a character in the expanded universe who will not only be featured in a short story, but also have a cameo in the second book, Hearts of Glass Fade Away and Radiate!
How to get involved!
Go to the indiegogo, choose your perk, and share it with your friends!
https://igg.me/at/heartsofglass/x/38415051#
Stay totally awesome!
Stay True to you!
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