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schmericaHere are some awesome YA writers' blogs you all should be reading (or watching), because if you're not, you are missing out and also I am totally judging you.
Meg Cabot. Duh.
I don’t really remember what this book is about, I just remember that I really liked it. Also, I had to post a picture of it here, because check out that cover. That’s Fabio, people.
I think the girl in this story disguises herself as a boy for some reason and stows away on a boat and the guy figures it out pretty fast and there’s Big Time Sex, and it’s AWESOME. That’s really all you need to know.
Except that I’m pretty sure Fabio is wearing blue eyeshadow on that cover.
Justine Larbalestier. Writer of Magic or Madness trilogy. Also nonfiction and fiction anthologies on women and science fiction.
What is the difference between young adult literature and plain old adult literature?
Now there’s a question that should be first on my faq. I sure do get asked it a lot. Invariably by someone who knows nothing about ya, often by someone who hadn’t even heard the term until they asked me what I do for a living, and sometimes by someone with a big ole sneer on their face.
It’s a hard question and my answers depends on how irritated I am by the asker. Here are a few:
* Unlike adult fiction YA is actually good
* YA can be read in less than a day
* YA is never about a middle-aged professor who has affairs with his students
* Or about anyone moving to Mexico or Indonesia to find themselves
* YA is commercial fiction where the writer gets to experiment with the form without their publishers’ head exploding
* A YA writer can write whatever genre they want—romance, crime, sf, fantasy, horror, western, whatever—and still have all their books be in the same place in the bookshop and not lose the love of their publisher
* YA writers get to meet some of the smartest teenagers around (hi, Erinn!)
* And hang out with all the cool librarians
Maureen Johnson. Writer of The Bermudez Triangle (the one that just was in the news for book banning), Devilish, and 13 Little Blue Envelopes.
I started thinking back a little more about things that were just considered “givens” in my house. Here was another one: I wasn’t allowed to say that I hated anyone. There was no human being, I was told, who deserved to be hated.
On the surface, this is a very good rule, and one I applaud. But, it had a weird rider, like one of those laws they try to get through Congress with a strange little sentence attached. I wasn’t allowed to say I hated anyone . . . except Hitler. It was perfectly acceptable to hate Hitler. So, if I was angry, I would often shout, “I HATE HITLER!”
Now, maybe this is something that would have been normal in, say, London, during 1941, at the height of the Blitz. And hating Hitler really is the little black dress of hatreds—you can’t go wrong taking a swing at him. Coming out of a small child in Philadelphia in the late 70s, though, it was a bit odd. I hated Hitler when my toys broke. I hated Hitler when I had to go to bed early. I was doing an awful lot of Hitler-hating.
Brotherhood 2.0. John and Hank Green, one of whom is a YA novelist (Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines) and one of whom is a environmentalist blogger, are going a year without text communication between them. This means they are doing daily video blogs to each other for this entire year. Basically, they are awesome and hilarious, and I'm only caught up through January -- I hear they get better as they go on.
Describe your perfect day:
I wake up in the morning and write 4000 words, Sarah comes home from school, we have sushi dinner together, and then we read until it's time to go to bed. Oh! And the Office is on, and I watch the Office, and Pam and Jim hook up. YES!!!
Meg Cabot. Duh.
I don’t really remember what this book is about, I just remember that I really liked it. Also, I had to post a picture of it here, because check out that cover. That’s Fabio, people.
I think the girl in this story disguises herself as a boy for some reason and stows away on a boat and the guy figures it out pretty fast and there’s Big Time Sex, and it’s AWESOME. That’s really all you need to know.
Except that I’m pretty sure Fabio is wearing blue eyeshadow on that cover.
Justine Larbalestier. Writer of Magic or Madness trilogy. Also nonfiction and fiction anthologies on women and science fiction.
What is the difference between young adult literature and plain old adult literature?
Now there’s a question that should be first on my faq. I sure do get asked it a lot. Invariably by someone who knows nothing about ya, often by someone who hadn’t even heard the term until they asked me what I do for a living, and sometimes by someone with a big ole sneer on their face.
It’s a hard question and my answers depends on how irritated I am by the asker. Here are a few:
* Unlike adult fiction YA is actually good
* YA can be read in less than a day
* YA is never about a middle-aged professor who has affairs with his students
* Or about anyone moving to Mexico or Indonesia to find themselves
* YA is commercial fiction where the writer gets to experiment with the form without their publishers’ head exploding
* A YA writer can write whatever genre they want—romance, crime, sf, fantasy, horror, western, whatever—and still have all their books be in the same place in the bookshop and not lose the love of their publisher
* YA writers get to meet some of the smartest teenagers around (hi, Erinn!)
* And hang out with all the cool librarians
Maureen Johnson. Writer of The Bermudez Triangle (the one that just was in the news for book banning), Devilish, and 13 Little Blue Envelopes.
I started thinking back a little more about things that were just considered “givens” in my house. Here was another one: I wasn’t allowed to say that I hated anyone. There was no human being, I was told, who deserved to be hated.
On the surface, this is a very good rule, and one I applaud. But, it had a weird rider, like one of those laws they try to get through Congress with a strange little sentence attached. I wasn’t allowed to say I hated anyone . . . except Hitler. It was perfectly acceptable to hate Hitler. So, if I was angry, I would often shout, “I HATE HITLER!”
Now, maybe this is something that would have been normal in, say, London, during 1941, at the height of the Blitz. And hating Hitler really is the little black dress of hatreds—you can’t go wrong taking a swing at him. Coming out of a small child in Philadelphia in the late 70s, though, it was a bit odd. I hated Hitler when my toys broke. I hated Hitler when I had to go to bed early. I was doing an awful lot of Hitler-hating.
Brotherhood 2.0. John and Hank Green, one of whom is a YA novelist (Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines) and one of whom is a environmentalist blogger, are going a year without text communication between them. This means they are doing daily video blogs to each other for this entire year. Basically, they are awesome and hilarious, and I'm only caught up through January -- I hear they get better as they go on.
Describe your perfect day:
I wake up in the morning and write 4000 words, Sarah comes home from school, we have sushi dinner together, and then we read until it's time to go to bed. Oh! And the Office is on, and I watch the Office, and Pam and Jim hook up. YES!!!
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13/5/07 10:09 (UTC)I think this says something about me.
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13/5/07 12:45 (UTC)...Yes, I'm just commenting to use this icon. Why do you ask?