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EXCLUSIVE Talk with MLA. Kanwar Sandhu (aap) on PTC's Claim Over Gurbani & Hukumnama Sahib (2020-01-18)
Exclusive Talk with Dr. Kanwaljit Singh on PTC's Claim Over Gurbani & Hukumnama Sahib (2020-01-16)
Claiming Copyright On Relay Of Divine 'Gurbani' By A Company Amounts To Act Of Desecration: Kultar Sandhwan (2020-01-14)
EXCLUSIVE: Sikhs Won't Tolerate PTC Saying Gurbani & Hukumnama Is Its Property (2020-01-14)
Evidence Emerges That PTC Claims Gurbani As Its "Intellectual Property"; Sikh Sangat Should Take Notice (2020-01-14)
Evidence of PTC's Offensive About Gurbani Hukumnama To Be Make Public in Press Conference (2020-01-12)
Condemning PTC Punjabi's Claim That Gurbani Kirtan & Darbar Sahib Hukumnama Is Its Intellectual Property (2020-01-12)
EXCLUSIVE REPORT: Sikhs Challenge PTC Punjabi's Claim of Exlcusive Rights Over Hukumnama Sahib (2020-01-11)
India Is Increasingly Isolated in Global Opinion: Former NSA Shivshankar Menon (2020-01-11)
Sikh Siyasat's Response on PTC Claiming Exclusive Rights Over Darbar Sahib Hukumnama (2020-01-11)
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BJP May Have Expelled Sunita Gaur, But It Has Always Rewarded Communal Violence
July 3, 2019	| By Sikh Siyasat Bureau
author: Pieter Friedrich*
Sunita Gaur of Ramkola, Uttar Pradesh, India secured for herself a place in history when she soared to international infamy after an explicit social media summons for "Hindu brothers" to gangrape Muslim "mothers and sisters".
The jaw-dropping demand might have attracted little attention if it were not for Gaur's role as head of the Ramkola chapter of the Mahila Morcha of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Even then, it likely would have been dismissed as an aberration – the freakish ramblings of some bigoted crackpot who managed to slip unvetted into a party leadership role – if it were not remarkably consistent with the actions of some of the most notorious members of her party and the Hindutva ideology upon which it was founded.
"It was a religious duty of every Muslim to kidnap, and force into their own religion, non-Muslim women," alleged V.D. Savarkar in the 1960s. Decades after he articulated Hindutva as a religious nationalist political ideology – one which undergirds the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP – Savarkar penned a history of the Indian subcontinent which was posthumously published in English as Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History.
Sunita Gaur [File Photo]
The voluminous work of questionable historical accuracy claims that Muslims (both as invaders and as rulers) systematically raped "millions" of Hindu women as part of a deliberate plan for "increasing the Muslim population with special regard to the unavoidable laws of nature". Mixing his telling of history with scathing criticism of the Hindu leaders of past ages, he accuses them of embracing "perverted religious ideas about chivalry to women" which restrained them from paying "the Muslim fair sex in the same coin".
It was, as journalist Ajaz Ashraf noted, a call to employ rape as a political weapon.
Survivors of rape who speak about their experiences invariably talk about how they wish that no one else ever has to go through such suffering. Savarkar, however, put his own words into the mouths of imagined victims.
Envisioning the "plaintive screams and pitiful lamentations of the millions of molested Hindu women which reverberated throughout the length and breadth of the country," he speculated that their souls might say: "Let those Sultans and their peers take a fright that in the event of a Hindu victory our molestation and detestable lot shall be avenged on the Muslim women. Once they are haunted with this dreadful apprehension, that the Muslim women, too, stand in the same predicament in case the Hindus win, the future Muslim conquerors will never dare to think of such molestation of Hindu women."
While employing distinctly unvarnished rhetoric in contrast to Savarkar's flowery language, Sunita Singh Gaur proposed an identical policy. "To protect India," she said in her Facebook post (which came to light in late June 2019), "Hindu brothers must barge into every Muslim home by making a group of 10 to 20, and gang-rape their women." The defilement, she insisted, must be done "openly on the streets," after which the victims should be hung "in the middle of [the] bazaar for others to see."
Gaur's post prompted swift and extensive outrage as it was first shared across social media platforms and then widely reported by mainstream media. On June 29, Mahila Morcha national president Vijaya Rahatkar posted on Twitter: "The lady in question has been expelled." Rahatkar offered words of assurance. "BJP Mahila Morcha will not tolerate any hateful comments whatsoever.
Yet, while the expulsion was necessary action, other recent statements – and actions – by higher-profile BJP leaders suggest that Gaur's dismissal merely means that the party is washing its hands off a low-ranking member who became a liability.
Yogi Adityanath remains one of the most prominent and egregious examples of the BJP not only turning a blind eye to poisonous rhetoric but actually promoting those who employ it. Few are more notorious – or prolific – when it comes to producing hate speech. When he was appointed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Amnesty International India took the exceptional step of issuing a statement directly denouncing a single politician. He must, said Amnesty, "publicly withdraw his previous inflammatory statements against Muslims and other religious minorities."
A former MP, the volatile Adityanath founded the Hindu Yuva Vahini in 2002 to, ostensibly, "promote the harmonious development of society." Allegations against the HYV include conversions, targeted killings, incitement of riots and burning of trains.
"If I ask for blood, they will give me blood," said Adityanath in 2009. "When I ask them to rise and protect our Hindu culture, they obey."
Adityanath's idea of how to "protect Hindu culture" closely resembles Sunita Singh Gaur's idea of how to "protect India." At one rally in the mid-2000s, he argued that a religious war is imminent because Muslim and Hindu cultures cannot co-exist – then sat and listened as another speaker called on the audience to dig up Muslim women from their graves and rape them. At another rally, Adityanath dwelled on the supposed problem of Hindu girls eloping with Muslim men. In a call and response with the crowd of 1,000 or more, he declared, "If they take take one Hindu girl, we'll take 100 Muslim girls. If they kill one Hindu, there will be 100 that we kill."
Nevertheless, Adityanath was sworn-in as chief minister at a grand ceremony in 2017, attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
Elsewhere in India, the use of rape as a political weapon has seen instances of BJP support for the rapists. In January 2018, after the abominable gang-rape of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua, it emerged, was a conspiracy to terrorise the Muslims into fleeing the region. The conspiracy backfired as several people were arrested, including a local Hindu priest and multiple police officers – one of whom was accused of master-minding, others of destroying evidence.
Rather than disavowing the accused, sections of the BJP leapt to their defence. The party's state secretary, Vijay Sharma, founded the Hindu Ekta Manch for their support. When the HEM organised a February rally of more than 5,000 people, at least three BJP state legislators joined: ministers Choudhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga as well as MLA Rajiv Jasrotia. "We went there on the party's instruction," Ganga said. In April, when the Kathua rape – and these BJP leaders' support for the rapists – made international headlines, Ganga and Singh resigned.
Meanwhile, as the Indian diaspora organised protests to support the child victim, Modi spoke out during a mid-April visit to London. Rather than censuring the ministers, he merely noted that "rape is rape," and instructed to not "politicise rape incidents".
Two weeks later, Jasrotia was sworn-in as a state cabinet minister and assigned the same portfolio vacated by Singh. Explaining that the party did not want Singh and Ganga to step down, BJP spokesperson Ram Madhav stated, "They resigned because the media created an impression that they were supporting the rape accused."
In June, Madhav described their attendance at the rally as an "indiscretion," using the opportunity to lash out at Congress for "trying to politicise the issue."
If attending a rally to support a gang who raped a child is an "indiscretion," what does one call participation in a full-scale massacre of a minority community?
During the 2002 Gujarat riots too, attackers implemented what was essentially Sunita Singh Gaur's recommendation. "Women and girls were gang-raped in public view before being hacked and burned to death," reported Human Rights Watch. Gaur's explicit post advised rapists to "cut them and impale their vagina" – and, as HRW reported, countless eyewitnesses reported women in 2002 were "raped and cut" while one victim even arrived at a refugee camp "unconscious and with an iron rod stuck inside her vagina."
"I made bombs, rocket launchers, swords, and distributed them across Gujarat," boasted Haresh Bhatt in a video secretly filmed by Tehelka. Then coordinator of Bajrang Dal, Bhatt continued, "Firearms and swords were smuggled in from other states as well."
Speaking about Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat, he said, "What he did, no chief minister has ever done…. He had given us three days…. After three days, he asked us to stop and everything came to a halt." Speaking to The New York Times at the conclusion of those three days, Bhatt dubbed himself "the first enemy of Muslims."
"We didn't spare any of them," local Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi told Tehelka. "They shouldn't be allowed to breed. Whoever they are, even if they're women or children, there's nothing to be done with them; cut them down. Thrash them, slash them, burn the bastards."
He bragged about his role in the attack on the Muslim majority Naroda Patiya neighbourhood. In one of the worst massacres of the three-day pogrom, over 70 of the Naroda dead (according to official figures) were women and children. "Everyone was on a killing spree," said Bajrangi. "There were bodies everywhere." They "dumped the corpses in a well" – except for those they set on fire.
"Hacked, burnt, set on fire, many things were done," he said. "We believe in setting them on fire because these bastards say they don't want to be cremated." Praising Modi for doing what "nobody can do," he declared, "It was his hand all the way."
At the end of the day, he said, "I came back after I killed them them, called up the home minister, and went to sleep." The home minister then was Gordhan Zadafia. In charge of state security forces then, he is a long-time VHP activist turned BJP politician.
"I spoke to Gordhan Zadafia," said Bajrangi. "He told me to leave Gujarat and go into hiding."
One of the participants who didn't go into hiding was BJP MLA Maya Kodnani, despite partnering with Bajrangi as a key leader of the Naroda Patiya massacre. Eyewitnesses repeatedly identified both of them, testifying that they distributed weapons and urged on the attackers. "Mayaben was moving around all day in an open jeep," Suresh Richard, one of those attackers, told Tehelka. "She was saying, 'Jai Shri Ram. Jai Shri Ram.' … She kept raising slogans. She said, carry on with your work."
What was Richard's work? "When thousands of hungry men go in, they will eat some fruit or the other," he said. "Many Muslim girls were being killed and burnt to death anyway, some people must have helped themselves to the fruit. The fruit was there so it had to be eaten. I also ate…. That scrap-dealer's girl, Naseemo…. I got on top…. Then I pulped her." Afterwards, he said, he "had to go killing again."
Although Vijaya Rahatkar claims it has expelled Sunita Singh Gaur because the BJP Mahila Morcha "will not tolerate any hateful comments whatsoever," participation in the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children was not enough to convince the BJP to expel MLA Kodnani. She was later made Minister of State for Women and Child Development. Haresh Bhatt, meanwhile, was rewarded with a seat in the state legislature.
"Clearly, it was the Hindutva card that worked in our favour," said Bhatt when he won in December 2002. "This election was fought for establishing a Hindu nation."
Bhatt was never charged. Kodnani and Bajrangi were finally charged, however. Their trial began in 2009. In 2012, ten years after the pogrom, both were convicted and sentenced – Kodnani to 28 years and Bajrangi to life. Yet Modi – who allegedly did what "no chief minister has ever done" – never faced any legal repercussions.
In 2010, while the Supreme Court was investigating the pogrom, there was talk that Zadafia might testify against Modi. That idea died as Times of India reported that RSS executives were contacting Zadafia to "persuade him not to take this step at this juncture." Then, in 2012, the court's investigating team concluded that there was not enough prosecutable evidence to charge Modi. That cleared the path for him to campaign for the prime ministership. Then in April 2018, a Gujarat court acquitted Kodnani. In March 2019, the Supreme Court determined that Bajrangi was "in bad shape" and should be granted bail.
For his loyalty and silence, Zadafia was entrusted with managing the BJP's campaign in Uttar Pradesh during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It was a cathartic release for a man who once was considered likely to turn state's evidence against Modi. It was also an affirmation of his ideological commitment. Upon announcement of his appointment, Economic Times reported, "What is, however, unquestionable is the 64-year-old leader's Hindutva credentials as his ties with RSS and VHP always remained strong."
Zadafia's efforts paid off. The BJP swept the parliamentary elections in Uttar Pradesh. "Earlier it was a Modi wave," he told The Week. "This time, it is a Modi tsunami across India."
On May 28, just a few days after the results of that 'tsunami' were announced, Modi posted a video on Twitter. Set to a melodramatic musical score, the video shows him paying obeisance to a photo of Savarkar.
It was not Modi's first time eulogising the father of Hindutva. "Savarkar ji's personality was full of special qualities," he said in 2014. "He was also a striking poet and a social reformer who always emphasised on goodwill and unity."
Yet what was it that Savarkar so poetically emphasised as necessary for regeneration of the motherland? "Were a serpent (an inveterate national enemy) to come with a view to bite the motherland, he should be smashed to pieces with a surprise attack, deceit, or cunning or in any other way possible," he wrote in Six Glorious Epochs. Accusing Muslims of "slaughtering Hindus irrespective of their age or sex and pulling down the Hindu holy places of worship," he declared: "Because the Hindus did not emulate the Muslims in this respect, these local Muslims who were left alive and unmolested, turned traitors, like serpents fed and fostered as pets."
"A serpent, whether male or female, if it comes to bite must be killed," he asserted. Arguing that "the whole of the Hindu nation" was, during times of Muslim rule, "utterly infatuated with the perverted sense of virtues," he specified one of those virtues as "the suicidal Hindu idea of chivalry to women."
The problem, he insisted, was that "only Muslim men, and not women, were taken prisoner" and that "even when they were taken prisoner in battles, the Muslim women – royal ladies as also the commonest slaves – were invariably sent back safe and sound to their respective families."
He was horrified that "this act was glorified by the Hindus as their chivalry towards the enemy women and the generosity of their religion."
Such chivalry must be rejected as a vice rather than a virtue – so thought Savarkar.
Sunita Singh Gaur seems to have thought the same. Her despicable comments are inexcusable, yet she may certainly be excused for mistakenly believing that she could get away with expressing such views as a BJP leader. Many other party leaders have succeeded in actually enacting rather than merely expressing the extent of violence Gaur recommended. Perhaps the simple truth is that she lacked the social capital necessary to receive the party's protection – even reward – for what she did.
She lacked the political power of an Adityanath, a Kodnani, or a Modi.
One thing is certain. Expelling Gaur is not a panacea for the hatred which the BJP has not only tolerated but given safe haven, fostered, and purveyed throughout the country. The very first step on a sincere journey towards eradicating "hateful comments" – and the horrifying atrocities they produce – would be the rejection of Savarkar and his poisonous ideology of Hindutva.
Pieter Friedrich is a South Asian Affairs Analyst who resides in California. He is the co-author of Captivating the Simple-Hearted: A Struggle for Human Dignity in the Indian Subcontinent. Discover more by him at pieterfriedrich.net.
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I couldn't wait to dive into this article. First, I knew that the fan videos would be different and fun this time. Second, it is always nice to show some new sides of the fandom. The word for this article is of course "cartoon" but in true Scooby fashion it is also so much more. We have a fan-made introduction to "ScoobyNatural" the video game and also we are toying a little bit with legos Supernatural style. I also found an incredible mystery that ties together Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and Supernatural (or was it just a lucky coincidence?)! See what I mean in the trivia below!
The first episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! aired on the same day of the year as Supernatural's first episode! The pilot for Supernatural aired on September 13th, 2005 on The WB, 36 years after Scooby premiered on Sept. 13, 1969!
Due to Scooby's heroics, he is included in the will of an eccentric millionaire. Along with some other heirs, he will only get this fortune, however, if he spends the night in the Colonel's haunted mansion. It proves right when two green phantoms frighten the heirs away.
Enjoy the videos! - Also check out a few extra videos at the end!
Also, you can find another "Baby", the 1967 Chevrolet Impala from the show Supernatural, Here!
Alecia Beth Moore (born September 8, 1979), known professionally as Pink (stylized as P!nk), is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. She was originally a founder of R&B girl group Choice in 1995. LaFace Records saw potential in Pink and offered her a solo recording contract. Her R&B-sounding debut album, Can't Take Me Home (2000), was certified double-platinum in the US and spawned two US Billboard Hot 100 top-ten songs: "There You Go" and "Most Girls". She gained further recognition with the collaborative single "Lady Marmalade" from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack, which topped many charts worldwide. Pink's musical direction moved away to pop rock with her second album, Missundaztood (2001). It sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and yielded the international number-one hits "Get the Party Started", "Don't Let Me Get Me", and "Just Like a Pill".
Pink's third album, Try This (2003), generated considerably low sales, but earned her the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. She revived her popularity with multi-platinum studio albums, I'm Not Dead (2006) and Funhouse (2008), as well as a string of successful singles, including the US number ones "So What" and "Raise Your Glass". Her sixth studio album, The Truth About Love (2012), was her first album to debut atop the Billboard 200 and spawned her fourth US number-one single "Just Give Me a Reason". In 2014, Pink recorded a collaborative album, Rose Ave., with Canadian musician Dallas Green under a folk music duo named You+Me. Her seventh studio album, Beautiful Trauma (2017), became the world's third best-selling album of the year and spawned the track "What About Us".
Recognized for her distinctive, raspy voice and acrobatic stage presence, Pink has sold over 40 million albums and 50 million singles worldwide, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. Her career accolades include three Grammy Awards, a Brit Award, a Daytime Emmy Award and seven MTV Video Music Awards, including the Video Vanguard Award. In 2009, Billboard named Pink the Pop Songs Artist of the Decade. Pink was also the second most-played female solo artist in the United Kingdom, during the 2000s decade, behind Madonna. VH1 ranked her number 10 on their list of the 100 Greatest Women in Music, while Billboard awarded her the Woman of the Year award in 2013. At the 63rd annual BMI Pop Awards, she received the BMI President's Award for "her outstanding achievement in songwriting and global impact on pop culture and the entertainment industry."


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Also published on this date: Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013: Maximum Shelf: Close My Eyes
by Sophie McKenzie
Award-winning author of many books for teens and children in the U.K., Sophie McKenzie makes her U.S. debut with the decidedly adult novel Close My Eyes, a fast-moving tale of psychological suspense full of twists and genuine surprises. While comparisons have been made to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, McKenzie's page-turner is more reminiscent of the creepy Gaslight, the 1944 film that so powerfully depicted a terrorized woman it led to the term "gaslighting," a form of mental abuse wherein the victim is made to believe she is going insane. Told from the point of view of a woman whose fragile emotional state and inability to move on from a terrible trauma have rendered her tremendously vulnerable to such cruelty, Close My Eyes quickly draws readers into her world--a place where the lies are so tightly woven that reality itself starts to lose its meaning.
McKenzie's protagonist is Geniver Loxley, a novelist in her late 30s whose career and personal life have settled into a state of permanent, cloudy hold. Eight years earlier, Geniver gave birth to a stillborn child--a daughter she'd named Beth--and is still mourning the loss. Time, therapy and the sympathetic support of her best friend, Hen, have done little to alleviate Gen's depression; she is haunted by vivid dreams of her lost child that seem more real than the fog of her waking hours. While deeply affected as well, Gen's wealthy and successful husband, Art, has been able to move forward emotionally in a way that seems impossible for Gen. Though their previous attempts have been unsuccessful, Art presses a reluctant Gen to try in vitro fertilization one more time. Though she still loves her husband, it is in an abstracted way. Through Gen, McKenzie offers an excellent insight into a marriage where politeness has overtaken passion: "One day I'll talk to Art properly about it," Gen says. "He'll listen, I know he will. He'll want to make it better. Which means he will. I've never known Art to fail at anything."
While contemplating how best to "talk to Art properly" about not wanting to try IVF again, Gen receives an unexpected visitor whose information is so shocking it calls into question everything she knows to be true. The visitor is Lucy O'Donnell, the sister of the nurse who was present at Beth's birth. Lucy claims that not only is Beth alive but that Art was involved in the scheme to give away their baby and convince Gen that she had died in utero. Shocked and deeply shaken, Gen dismisses Lucy as a fortune hunter trying to extract payment for her information. But something about the woman's story--and the possibility that it might be true--lodges in her craw and she can't let it go. What disturbs her even more is Art's outraged reaction and his sudden loss of patience with her questions about the doctor and small private hospital where the baby was delivered. When Gen tries to talk to Hen about Lucy, she receives a similar response. It's all in your head is the message she gets loud and clear. And perhaps, Gen thinks, it is. After all, she has all but switched off her brain for eight years and let herself be swept under by the tidal wave of her grief. And perhaps that grief really has driven her mad.
The only person who seems to believe in Gen's sanity is Lorcan, a shady but appealing ex-friend of Art's who has a troubled past of his own. For reasons that may or may not be altruistic, Lorcan offers to help Gen investigate Lucy's story as well as track down Dr. Rodriguez, Gen's obstetrician, who seems to have vanished without a trace. But although the two traverse London looking for evidence, even Lorcan appears to be mostly humoring her, until Lucy turns up dead--the victim of a hit-and-run suspiciously similar to an accident that befell the anesthesiologist present at Gen's delivery. And although he has reasonable explanations for all of it, Art is beginning to act very strangely, disappearing at odd hours and shredding household documents. Worse, Gen begins to suspect Hen of lying to her as well.
To reveal any more is to spoil the intricate network of twists and turns that McKenzie has expertly woven into the plot. The revelations become more shocking as the novel picks up pace in the second half and even the best guessers won't see the novel's dark final twist coming. McKenzie, however, has created more than just an edge-of-your-seat suspense novel; she has effectively portrayed the psyche of a woman pushed to the brink by both grief and hope. Part of the enjoyment of Close My Eyes is the continuing question of whether or not Gen really has imagined it all--and we with her. It's a chilling and unsettling feeling that pervades this page-turner right up to its last word. --Debra Ginsberg
St. Martin's Press, $25.99, hardcover, 9781250033895, July 9, 2013
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Sophie McKenzie: The Challenge of Writing an Adult Book
photo: Jonathan Ring
Sophie McKenzie is the bestselling author of more than 15 novels for children and teens in the U.K., including the thrillers Girl, Missing and Sister, Missing. Girl Missing was named one of Richard and Judy's Best Kids' Books, and her books have won numerous other awards and twice been longlisted for the Carnegie Medal. McKenzie lives in London and writes full-time.
Close My Eyes is full of twists, left turns and layers of deception that keep the reader guessing until the very end. Did you know how the novel was going to end when you began writing it, or were you surprised by the way the plot developed?
I began work on Close My Eyes so many years ago that I can't now remember exactly how much of the story was planned from the start! The main narrative to do with Gen's loss of her baby and what, exactly, has happened to the child was definitely always there. However, almost everything else developed as I wrote. The final page was a total surprise. I hadn't realized I was going to finish the book that way until I got there--then I went back and added additional scenes in order to make sure the ending I wanted would work.
Geniver Loxley is a complicated character; she is filled with grief and longing yet, as a writer trained to filter her life through the lens of fiction, also able to distance herself from her emotions. What was it like to inhabit this character? What aspect of Geniver was most challenging for you to write?
I loved writing from Gen's point of view. As this was my first (daunting!) excursion into the greater complexity of an adult novel, I decided to make several aspects of Gen's life similar to my own. She is a writer and a creative writing teacher because I am/have been those things, and so I didn't need to worry about getting the references right. She lives in the same town as me for similar reasons. However, Gen is very definitely not based on me at all. My biggest challenge when writing her was probably the delicate balancing act between making her sufficiently unreliable as a narrator for readers to suspect she might genuinely be unhinged, while at the same time trying to ensure she is also believable and sympathetic.
The nature of friendship--and the counterpoint between the friendships women have with one another and those they have with men--is an interesting theme in Close My Eyes. What, in your opinion, makes female friendships different from the friendships between women and men or the friendships that men have with one another?
That is a big question! There are the obvious differences, of course; I am generalizing massively here, but I do notice that with my female friends the conversations often revolve around how people feel while with men the chat generally focuses on what people do. However, with true friendships, the same qualities are always present: acceptance, loyalty and a willingness to listen and support each other. Most essentially, the two people must trust each other. In Close My Eyes, various characters keep secrets from Gen, thereby proving themselves untrustworthy. In all cases a need to save face (presented frequently as a desire to protect Gen in some way) is at the heart of their decision.
You have written series fiction and standalones for teens and for adults. I won't ask you to pick a favorite, but can you tell us what you find most rewarding--and, conversely, most challenging--about each?
I love working on all of them! The brilliant thing about writing series fiction is that each time you come to a new book, you get a chance to reconnect with the old friends you met in the one before. With standalones, there's the opportunity to start something fresh which is always really exciting. I am very much at home writing from a teenage point of view but I love the challenge of adult books, too. Essentially I don't think about the age of the reader as I write; I'm primarily writing for myself. However, I really enjoy the challenge of developing a longer story through a more complex plot and more layered characters. It's all good! --Debra Ginsberg
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