When YA and A are valued equally, with thanks to Main Line Today and Main Point Books

Anybody who knows me knows how I feel about labels. Applied to people. Applied to literature.

Still, those of us who write young adult fiction must, at times, face those who suggest that it is a lesser form, not nearly as important as the work written expressly for adults—a problem I discussed in a story for Publishing Perspectives titled, "Removing the YA Label: A Proposal, A Fantasy."

(Those of us who write quote-unquote literary contemporary YA fiction must also endure the suggestion that John Green has singlehandedly ushered in this genre's golden era, but that's a topic for another conversation, and we must be careful not to blame John Green for what is written about him.)

The problem with the YA-is-lesser assessment is that the YA writers I respect aren't writing down, aren't writing in haste, aren't writing with any less literary ambition than those who write novels for adults. We're just writing stories that happen to have younger protagonists at their heart; often we're writing "whole family" tales. Always, if we're serious about this stuff, if we're writing not toward known trends but toward felt story, we're writing as best as we can.

And so I will admit to feeling equal measures of joy and peace at finding Going Over on the Main Line Today list of 10 great beach reads by local authors. Not 10 YA books. Just ten books by authors ranging from Robin Black and Jennifer Weiner to Kelly Corrigan and Ken Kalfus. Ten books curated by Cathy Feibach of Main Point Books, who has made it her business, in this, the first year of her store's existence, to get to know who is writing what and to evaluate each book on its own terms.

I am honored. And I am looking forward to next Saturday, when I will drive down Lancaster Avenue and stop in Bryn Mawr and spend an hour signing both Going Over and Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir in Cathy's store. My signing caps a full day of signings, the details for which are here. And when I'm not signing, you can be sure that I'll be buying the books I want, seeing straight past their labels.

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Looks like I'm going to the BEA: Thanks so much to everyone who voted for Small Damages as the Best Young Adult Novel of 2012, in the Armchair BEA Awards

Truly, truly unbelievable. Truly impossible, without all of you. Thank you!!!!! to those who nominated Small Damages for this first annual award. Thank you to those who nudged it toward the win against two truly special artists, John Green and CJ Redwine. Thank you to those who make the Armchair BEA possible each year. I can't even imagine how much time and effort you Armchair BEA creators and coordinators put into this program. You have full-time jobs and responsibilities. We are lucky to have them in our lives. I am especially lucky.

Looks like I'll be going to the BEA after all, to accept the honor.

Wow.

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Please Vote: Small Damages named to Best Young Adult in Armchair BEA List!

This is sort of amazing to me (sort of! who am I kidding?) but Small Damages has just been named to the Armchair BEA Central Best of 2012 list, along with The Fault in our Stars and Defiance. I'm pretty darned sure this is the first time my book has ever been mentioned in the same breath as the work of John Green or CJ Redwine, and, well, yes, of course I'm the gonzo underdog here, but...> It would be so cool if you voted. It just would be so cool.

You can vote for this category and many others here. Voting ends May 13. 

I am so, well, grateful! Truly grateful. Is there another word?

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Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers: Tomorrow's YA: the keynote address, in full

I was so grateful for the opportunity to give the keynote address at the Publishing Perspectives Conference, YA: What's Next, held at the hospitable Scholastic auditorium in New York City this past Wednesday.

Today the fine folks at Publishing Perspectives share the text in full, along with the illustrations by William R. Sulit.  These illustrations were modeled with 3D software, all with the exception of the beautiful face and hands, which belong to my niece (daughter of my famous I Triple E brother), Miranda.

In her keynote address from the YA: What’s Next? publishing conference, author Beth Kephart makes an impassioned case for YA books that are heartfelt, authentic and empowering.......

(Just added:  gratitude for a week of kindness toward Small Damages.)

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John Green on the BEA. Yes, I Love Him. Yes, I Agree With All He Says Here.

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There I was, sitting beside John Green and right near Christine Hinwood and Ruta Sepetys

... I mean — there was SMALL DAMAGES sitting alongside the work of Those Great Writers (at the Public Library Association meeting in Philadelphia), and of course I had to take a picture, because, seriously, what dream am I having that my book would be right there, in that glorious Penguin mix?  Of course, we all do know that Penguin rules.

When I wasn't busy being starstruck by my own shelf position (I hope you all do know that I am kidding; I am biologically predetermined never to be self-starstruck), I was taking photographs of the real stars—people like Carl Hiaasen and Gayle Forman, pictured here.  I was also running around looking for my dear friend Siobhan Vivian, whose THE LIST is due out soon (check back here for more on that soon).  Siobhan and I never found each other (sadness and sobs) but we got to talk for a long time on the phone as I took the train home.  Making the day even more special.

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The Fault in Our Stars: the goodness of John Green

A few years ago a friend told me about the long drive she'd made with her teenaged daughter to see John Green.  She described the lines that had wrapped the streets near the bookstore, the legions of teens and how they screamed for this rock-star writer.  I hadn't read Green yet, but shortly after that I did.  I understood.

Last night and early this morning I read The Fault in Our Stars, Green's new novel about teens living with cancer. Not long ago I interviewed a girl in recovery who was destined to make it—she told me her plans, she was certain—and didn't.  You can't forget a girl like that.  Nor will you forget Green's teens. 

It is true, perhaps, that Green's characters have a tendency to speak and think alike—that they are all, even the minor characters, equally witty and in the same gentle ways witty—but I'm not sure that matters here.  What matters is that John Green creates characters we care about, and that he allows them to think deeply, and that he sets them on life's course, which is to say that he can't protect them, he can't save them, and sometimes they can't save themselves.  What he can do is give them what we all need, which is to say love.  John Green writes from a place of goodness.  His stories are soul-centric.  They move us because they are not afraid of kindness, gentleness, tender affections.  They don't bother to wrap themselves inside the hard casings of excessive irony or gore, the aren't-I-outlandish, the please-look-at-me.  They may take some unusual plot turns, but they're not trying to pretend.  They're trying to love.  And they are succeeding.

There are so many lines in this book that are worth quoting.  I'm going to quote the simplest one.  "She is funny without ever being mean."

Yes.  And why not?  And why not more goodness like the kind we encounter in John Green?

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Illyria: writing up to teens

Had it not been for Colleen Mondor's high praise, I might never have known about Elizabeth Hand's Illyria, an alternate reality that seems supremely tragic.  Because oh my goodness, is this a book, is this writing at its no-holds-barred, no-compromises best. When I say, as I have been known to say, that the best of young adult writing honors the intelligence of teen readers, expects vocabulary and delivers it, leaves explication in the reader's hands, and entrusts the reader with the odd and the new, I am referring to writers like Markus Zusak and John Green and Rita Williams-Garcia and now, with Illyria, Elizabeth Hand, who yields sentence after sentence of un-redundant perfection in this strange and unapologetic tale of kissing cousins.

I'll be writing more about the story in a blog to come. I will be musing, too, on the power of past tense in a story like Illyria.  But for now, on this Friday morning, might I give you this—Hand's description of the boy cousin, Rogan, who "looked like he'd fallen from a painting."

He had high cheekbones in a feline face—not like a house cat's; more a cougar or a lynx, something strong and furtive and quick.  His nose was like mine, although it had been broken more than once.  His mouth was wide and surprisingly delicate, the only thing about him that might have seemed girlish.  Until he smiled, and showed narrow white teeth that were also like an animal's.  He had huge, deep-set eyes—wary eyes, which made it slightly alarming when he suddenly turned them on you—and they weren't Tierney blue but a true aquamarine, the palest blue-green, changeable as seawater in sunlight or cloud.

Find out more about this book, and about Hand herself, here.

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The Abundance of John Green (in Looking for Alaska)

A few years ago, during fellowship hour at my church, a friend and her daughter began describing their most recent literary adventure.  They'd driven to New York, they said, to see John Green read.  The line to get in was at least a block long.  When the crowd finally fully compacted, when it contained its excitement and hushed, John Green wasn't just the funny, smart, wonderful, warm writer my friend and her daughter thought he would be.  He was infinitely better than that.

I believe it.  Like Libba Bray, John Green emanates a good Bigness, not just of talent, but of spirit.  Travels to his web site yield a glimpse of a guy whose humor, occasional gentle self-mockery, and unabashed love for World Cup Soccer have remained intact, through the tsunami of his success.  If you had a chance to visit readergirlz during their John Green month, you'd find the man waving with both hands, talking up playlists, and jiving his way through his infamous tweets (he hates the term social media, apparently, but he's textbook good at it). If you've read any of his books, or even just the acknowledgments in his books, or maybe the extras in his books, you get the aforementioned good Bigness.

This morning I've been reading the book that launched Green's career, Looking for Alaska, because it is a good thing, I think, to go back to the beginning with authors, to remember what was first for them, the platform that they built from.  Everything is right about this book—the tone, the relationships, the slow build of tension and mystery (slow, or fast, depending on how you take to the chapter "titles' which are all variations of "fifty-eight days before" or "one-day after").  Alaska has the intelligence of A Separate Peace and the wit of a Salinger.  It has something only this former hospital chaplain might have written about The Meaning of it All.

Green's work will, I'm certain, be around for a long time.  He is an author who makes me proud to be counted among the YA writers of right now.  Because Green's work is first-rate  no matter what genre label you give it, and that's what YA books must be, first and foremost—well-written, thoughtful, funny if the author can swing it, capable of leaving readers psychically richer than they were. 

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The YALSA Coffee Klatch

On Sunday morning, in a gigantic room at the very beautiful Washington, DC convention center, YALSA conducted its much-anticipated coffee klatch (in which authors are given but a few minutes at each librarian-stoked table to discuss his or her books)—and I, as I have already posted, was a very privileged author participant.

I could say many things—about the kindness of many toward this first time "speed dater," about the dearness of Laura Geringer and Elizabeth Law, who stayed by my side.  But what I want to say right here right now is what a privilege it was to stand among those authors for that hour—to meet the entirely lovely Libba Bray, to share an old reminisce with Laurie Halse Anderson, to see the gracious John Green move among the crowds, to hear a rumor that Rebecca Steadman was among us, to laugh, again, with James Lecesne (note to self:  when in a photography session before many flashing lights, stand next to James; he knows the ropes).

YA authors, YA readers, librarians:  good folk.

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