As with any large endeavor, there are going to be challenges. TUGG is brand new – premiered at SXSW in March of 2012 – and to my knowledge, we’re the largest movie/event to test its services yet. And with 700 screening requests occurring in the first week alone, we are definitely testing them!

We’ve heard a lot of varying feedback, but the bottom line is, we want to help everyone make their screening A) happen and B) be as awesome as it can be. So, I decided to put together KL Going’s Top Ten Tips for TUGG Promoters based on my own experience of bringing the film to my hometown. This blog post is not affiliated with TUGG or the official Fat Kid movie team – just my own effort to give promoters as much support and advice as possible.

And yes, I will admit, the TUGG experience has been different for me because, well, I’m here and could invite all my enthusiastic friends and family (seriously, have any of you read my dad’s posts on Facebook?) but even for me, the hardest part has been getting the word out. What’s the best way? Personal e-mails? Facebook posts? Twitter?

Here’s what I’ve learned. Please let me know if you have tips I didn’t think to add!

KL’s Top Ten Tips for TUGG Promoters

1) Select a screening date at least four weeks in advance. We know, you want to see the movie right now! But publicity takes time and most event calendars/newspapers need lead time.

2) Go to tuggthefatkid@gmail.com and ask for a sample press release that you can customize for your screening. Send it to local newspapers, especially those that have a GO section, and to local NPR or other radio affiliates.

3) Make it a fundraiser! Partnering with a local charity, library, or youth center is a wonderful way to A) do something great  B) garner yourself a team of willing promoters and C) have access to a much larger e-mailing list of potential contacts. And did I mention you’ll be doing something great? Add in a raffle or pass the hat after the film.

4) Make a flier. Samples are available from tuggthefatkid@gmail.com. Check the Fat Kid movie Facebook page for fliers others have made. Plaster that flier around town – don’t forget the library and local booksellers. Speak to them personally. Hug them. These people are invaluable links to those who may have read the book!

5) If you choose a date during the school year, contact local schools and libraries and let them know that award-winning author KL Going will Skype with them for FREE if they bring groups to the event.

6) Banned Books Week 2012 is Sept. 30th through October 6th, and yes, Fat Kid is a banned book. Ideal tie-in. Other tie-ins? National Novel Writing Month is in November. Teen Read Week is in October. Look for local film festivals or theater events. Be creative and enlist groups who are already publicizing these types of events.

7) Make sure your potential audience realizes they must buy tickets ahead, on-line. This is new. People are used to showing up and buying tickets on the night of a movie. Dispel them of this notion so your event can get confirmed.

8) Call the Fat Kid Hotline for advice, help, and free giveaways. We’re talking T-shirts with a custom heat press labels with your design of choice tattoos, posters… 1-213-6fa-tkid.

9) Both KL Going (that’s me!) and Matthew Lillard are willing to do call-in radio interviews. Let your local radio stations know. Ask if the radio station wants to help sponsor the film. See if any local companies would like to be sponsors. Ask them to donate 5 tickets for radio station contests. $50. Easy corporate donation. (Note: Matt is currently filming on location out of the country, so he may not be available right away, but will be back soon!)

10) Remember, you are awesome. This isn’t just a movie screening. It is your personal party. If your screening happens, take lots of pictures, and have fun!

D126 official receives threats through e-mail because of book debate

August 31, 2007
By Angela Caputo Staff writer
A cyber debate about a controversial summer reading selection turned menacing Wednesday when an Alsip school official was targeted with threatening e-mails, prompting police to investigate the source.

Despite the violent nature of one message in particular, police don’t believe the students of Alsip, Hazelgreen and Oak Lawn School District 126 are in any danger.

“There are no immediate threats at the local level,” Alsip Deputy Chief Christopher Radz said of the series of e-mail attacks that have flowed into district officials’ in-boxes.

One writer said he hoped Osama bin Laden would attack the school (though he added he hoped it wouldn’t happen when children were in the building).

Officers are combing through the communications, attempting to make contact with the sources. They’ve also stepped up security measures around Prairie Junior High, which is at the center of the controversy.

“We’re treating it very seriously,” Radz added. “It’s illegal to transfer threats along electronic communication.”

Local controversy about the book “Fat Kid Rules the World,” by KL Going, erupted earlier this month when the mother of a Prairie Junior High student called on district officials to pull the profanity-laced selection from an eighth-grade summer reading list. School officials stood by the book but agreed they would warn parents of its mature content in the future.

The award-winning teen novel has faced similar challenges elsewhere since it was published in 2004. In each of those instances, the debate about the coming-of-age book has centered on questions about the appropriateness of introducing foul language and sexually suggestive materials to a young audience.

Like in Alsip, individuals and groups with conservative Christian affiliations have fueled the debate by expressing their outrage through mass e-mails and blogs, which suggest Going’s novel is lewd and contributing to the moral decline of America.

“It appears that we are being attacked by one side,” school board member Jerry Mulvihill said of the barrage of information floating around the Internet. Among the criticisms was a statement the Concerned Women of America sent to the Daily Southtown on Tuesday declaring that District 126 is “Guilty of educational malpractice.”

Illinois Family Institute director David Smith defends the challenge as a means for “teaching kids a higher standard, not a lower standard” of values.

In the blogosphere, the debate about the “Fat Kid Rules the World” involves deeply divided camps who use words like “army” and “leftist agenda.”

“You can live in a virtual community, and it can lead an ideology to grow very rapidly,” said Eric Meyer, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The divisiveness is particularly troubling to Mulvihill.

“We want to see a balanced approach about solving this problem,” he said.

Since the book’s appropriateness was called into question, district officials have begun creating a selection criteria policy for the district, he said. They also have agreed to send reviews and information alerting parents to mature content that may arise in future recommended reading materials.

“This is a serious issue for us to address what kind of materials are acceptable for our schools,” Mulvihill said.

Angela Caputo may be reached at
acaputo@dailysouthtown.com
or (708) 633-5993.

Obviously, I am against book banning. In my opinion, profanity is something kids are exposed to already and I don’t believe it is used gratuitously in my books, but rather it’s there to paint a realistic portrait of the life of a teen who lives in a particular subculture where profanity is present. If I was writing about a religious community or the world of a very sheltered teen I wouldn’t use it. I believe that the ability to accept cultures different from our own, even when there is a part of them that we might find offensive is an important step towards developing empathy and finding alternatives to violence as a means to squelching view points we disagree with. Fat Kid Rules the World is a book with so many positive messages, about self acceptance, accepting the hard parts of reality, and learning to love ourselves and others despite our grimy, less than perfect selves. It’s about seeing through the facades of perfection and being okay with the reality underneath.

Isn’t the attempt to ban a book with these messages simply an attempt to deny such imperfections exist in the world? To me, it’s the equivalent of saying, “I can not learn to love people who use bad language or have sexual thoughts, therefore I will try to pretend they do not exist.” Is this what we want to teach our children? Or instead might we use this book in the way it’s intended, as a window into another life that, whether alike or different, is just as faulty, beautiful and fragile as our own?

What do YOU think? ]]> http://klgoing.com/more-book-banning-and-this-time-its-my-book/ http://klgoing.com/more-book-banning-and-this-time-its-my-book/#respond Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:17:36 +0000 http://klgoing.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/more-book-banning-and-this-time-its-my-book/ Continue reading →]]> Did you ever hear this saying?:

“First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”  Pastor Martin Niemoller

I am very glad I spoke out aganst the banning of the Newbery winner in my last blog. Less than a week later I was contacted by a reported from Pickens County, South Carolina where they’ve banned Fat Kid Rules the World from all the school libraries because of a parent’s complaint. This is not the first time Fat Kid has been banned — it’s happened at least two other times that I’m aware of — but the closeness in proximity to my writing the blog about the Newbery banning reminded me of the saying above. It’s so true. We ignore actions taken to limit freedom at our own peril.

I’d like to write more about the book banning, but I have only limited time today so I will keep it short. I will say that some very positive stuff has come from it as well as the more obvious negatives. I think I’d rather share the positives, so here they are:

A student has been inspired to work together with his high school English department to try and get the book back on the shelf (go, Ethan!). That kind of activism is fabulous and I couldn’t be more thrilled to see someone moved to action like this.

An author friend of mine said that he’s no good at writing angry letters, so instead he bought a copy of Fat Kid for his local library to “replace” the copy that was lost from a different shelf several states away. He donated it in my name, and I couldn’t be more touched at such a thoughtful gesture. Thanks, David.

A reporter who writes for three newspapers in Pickens County allowed me space for a rebuttal article in which I got to speak about my feelings about book banning, and for that I was really grateful. Jason, I appreciated your willingness to present my views, not just the criticisms of my book.

People have written in on various forums to say that they disagree with the banning of the book, and all four copies of Fat Kid Rules the World that are available through the public library system are currently checked out.

I will also add that Pickens County, SC just HAPPENS to be where my grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousins live, and my grandmother found out about the book banning by reading a front page headline in her local newspaper as she had her morning coffee. My mom keeps saying, “But why did it have to be the exact town my mother lives in? Of all the places in America!” Part of me agrees with her (I mean, what are the odds?) but part of me has also been grateful for the opportunity to speak with my grandmother about the banning and to learn that she has a pretty open mind — more so than I might have given her credit for. You go, Grandma.

So, there are silver linings. And even though we live in a world where ideas, words & thoughts, can still be supressed, we also live in a country where we still have the freedom to speak out and make a difference. I count my blessings.

This has sparked a NY Times article and has caused people to pull the book from their schools and libraries. What??? The NY Times finds it worth an Op Ed piece because the word scrotum is used in a book for kids in third through sixth grade?

I think this is very indicative of how warped our country is in its attidude to sex. We use sex to sell every conceivable product from hamburgers to college loans — we print pants with the words “Sexy” across the butt and market them to six year olds, we show people of every age, race, and gender making out on the top of a car because their toothpaste is so fabulous… and yet, when it comes to anything that might present the ACTUAL human body in a realistic light, we run for the hills. Heaven forbid our children might find out the names for our body parts.

I can’t even begin to express how disappointed this makes me in the good old USA. Let’s saturate our kids with violence. Show them 10,000 murders by the time they reach adolescensce. Taunt them with Barbie dolls with breast sizes they will never achieve without plastic surgery. Dress them up in all the latest manifestations of materialism. But ban the book that wins an award for the zenith of literary achievement because it uses an actual name for a body part. A body part that 50% of the book’s readers have.

Shame on us.