Oh, I'm glad you have that one! A GIFT OF MAGIC was my first venture into writing about the paranormal. It was rejected seven times before one courageous publisher decided to take a chance on it. Ironically, today, over 40 years later, it's still in print and selling well.

The publishing industry is constantly changing. Right now the emphasis is on dystopian novels. But that's a fad that soon will be replaced by something else. Yes, DAUGHTERS OF EVE as regarded as a 'rabble-rouser" and was banned in many school districts. Because I attempted to show both sides of a controversial issue,…

I wrote DAUGHTERS OF EVE at exactly the point in the late '70s when the feminist movement started. I saw my own teenage daughters and their friends struggling to define their adult roles in a changing society. Career women? Housewives? Could they do both at once? If so, how? It was an era of anxiety for young women…

Michael Amott, the lead guitarist from Arch Enemy, plays in another band called Spiritual Beggars. If you don't dig the whole as loud and as fast as possible thing, but admire his playing, they might be a band you would like to check out. Though you may well have already, given you're familiar with Arch Enemy. More of…

It isn't emotionally expressive and it lacks dynamics. It certainly is not sloppy. There's a certain kind of skill to balancing different types of notes and tempos to elicit different emotional reactions in the listener. Arch Enemy is just LOUD and FAST and as much LOUD as FAST AS POSSIBLE.

On a more serious note...

I love this kind of musical elitism. The things you like are objectively good and the things other people like are objectively garbage, right? You must be the specialist snowflake of them all.

Oh my gosh! Hi!!! Thank you for popping by!

In the new edition, I was asked to update the story by changing old-fashioned names that today's readers would relate to. So we've now got a Kristy and the dear slut Bambi is "Madison." But they did retain their personalities.

I'm Lois Duncan, the author of DAUGHTERS OF EVE, which, to my amazement, appears to be just as controversial today as it was when I wrote it back in the late '70s. I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion (thank you Jia and Kelly) and would be happy to respond to any questions that anyone might have. (As long as you…

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I think my favorite Lois Duncan was just a standard crime thriller, Don't Look Behind You, the one where the family has to go into witness protection. The teen girl misses her boyfriend and can't take it, and ends up putting them all in danger. It scared the crap outta me when I was in 5th grade! I know I read…

I also read it as a teen and I had the same feelings as you. The science fair thing sticks out as being kind of like "Hey, ladies, come on now, that's maybe not the best decision." but the rest of the time it angered me. It awakened some sense of feminism in my 6th grade heart.

The fact that it wouldn't occur to him that the young woman who should be among his prize students would be upset at all is the most damning thing. Not that he was deliberately putting the woman in her place, but that it never crossed his mind at all. Or that promoting a smart but lazy kid, rewarding him for that…

I vividly remember the male teacher's dismay upon discovering the wreck of the science project. He says something like, "There was real *hate* there". And I just couldn't even with him. You completely forget to do *your job* by not overseeing a precocious, over-achieving female student's project and fail to advise her…

I did like that she devoted a page or two to Peter's POV, because that way you don't see him as cardboard villain. Duncan shows that the men in the story are just as trapped and ruined by these stifling gender roles, but that doesn't excuse their often unconscious but constant wielding of power.

I actually read this book while a teenager, and I remember also thinking, "Damn, these guys are all assholes who had it coming. Good for those girls!" The only revenge-y bit that bothered me was when the club ruined the male science student's project cause the female student got disqualified (but not because she's a…

I'm glad that the music you "can do" is the be all end all of music. Everyone else go home, if you don't listen to the same genres as LocoEsteban, you don't listen to creative or talented music.
Protip: there's dozens of genres of EDM, too, and some of them are just as manufactured as you claim "all" pop and country…

I was neutral on TS until Red. I don't listen to a ton of pop music, more of a rock girl, but I do like a good pop album every so often when the mood strikes. Sometimes you just want to dance to the GoGos, you know? My daughter is a huge fan, so we buy them all anyway. Red was what made me actively like her music. I…