Friday, May 6, 2011

Laurie Faria Stolarz's Essay

Bullying is a subject that is very important to me, which is why I’m so honored to be a contributor to the upcoming anthology DEAR BULLY, published by HarperCollins, and edited by young adult authors Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones.  DEAR BULLY will be out this fall, and features the personal stories of 70 authors.  

My story tells about an experience I had in middle school, and how I was able to revisit that experience in my adulthood with a new understanding.  My essay is called “Dear Bully,” and I was honored when the editors chose it as the title to the anthology.

I write a lot about bullying because I think it’s something we all experience on some level and at various stages in our lives.  It may not always be the overt bullying, as we often see on TV.  Very often bullying is subtle, especially when it occurs amongst girls and within families. 
My novel BLEED has a great deal of bullying in it – mother-daughter bullying; bullying amongst friends; and bullying where there’s an obvious imbalance of power.  BLEED is a collection of interlocking short stories that take place over the course of a single day.  In one of the stories, 11-year-old Sadie Dubinsky is bulled by her mother who forces her to wear a sign on her chest that says Please Don’t Feed Me.  Joy Ryder is bullied by a boy in school who makes sexually explicit comments to purposely make her uncomfortable.  Kelly bullies Ginger by making her feel inadequate.  Maria bullies Sadie, trying to get her to cut her.  The bullying in this book is palpable, and so is the message:  that we all bleed, that the decisions we make each day – no matter how seemingly small – can and do affect other people.  

Please check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yad28nt0sYI

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