A Jury of Her Peers: what a girl should want

For the 11th question of her What a Girl Wants series, Colleen Mondor asked a number of us one of her typically challenging questions: What does it mean to be a 21st century feminist, and on the literary front, what books/authors would you recommend to today's teens who want to take girl power to the next level?

Lorie Ann Grover, Laurel Snyder, Loree Griffin Burns, Margo Raab, and Zetta Elliott all came through with reliably interesting responses. I was caught up in a series of corporate projects and could not respond in time.

Today, however, I'd like to put my two cents in by recommending Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx to readers of any age, gender, or race who wish to understand and celebrate just how hard women have had to work to put their voices on the page—and how women's voices have and will continue to shape us.

Anne Bradstreet, one of this nation's first women writers, entered print, in Showalter's words, "shielded by the authorization, legitimization, and testimony of men." In other words, Showalter continues, "John Woodbridge, her brother-in-law, stood guarantee that Bradstreet herself had written the poems, that she had not initiated their publication, and that she had neglected no housekeeping chore in their making."

No vanity allowed, in other words, and no leaving those dishes in the sink.

Showalter's book—which yields insight into the stories of Phillis Wheatley, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, Zora Neale Hurston, Pearl Buck, Shirley Jackson, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, S.E. Hinton, Grace Paley, Joan Didion, Lorrie Moore, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sandra Cixneros, Amy Tan, Louis Erdrich, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gish Jen, and so many others—is itself a piece of history, for it is, unbelievably, the first literary history of American women writers.

Showalter suggests that the development of women's writing might be classified into four phases: feminine, feminist, female, and free. Anyone who wants to know just how we got to free (and to ponder, with the evidence, whether or not we're really there) should be reading this book.

Read more...

What a Girl Wants: The Mean Girls Question

In her ever-popular What a Girl Wants series, Colleen Mondor over at Chasing Ray is asking about that notorious literary mean girls fad, specifically wondering, "Does teen literature exaggerate the mean girl phenomenon too much?" Laurel Snyder, Zetta Elliott, Lorie Ann Grover, Melissa Wyatt, Sara Ryan, Kekla Magoon, yours truly, and others have opined. As always, the conversation is rich.

On other fronts, I am about a chapter and a half away from finishing the first draft of the adult novel I've been writing this past year. If silence begins to emanate from this blog, it's only because I've lost myself, temporarily, in another place and time.

Read more...

What a Girl Wants: Because we are not all rich girls

In question number seven of her fantastic series, What a Girl Wants, Colleen Mondor asked us to reflect on whether historic MG and YA fiction addresses socioeconomic status more effectively than contemporary titles, and whether or not readers need to read about people who are experiencing their same financial struggles, or prefer to live vicariously inside socioeconomic fantasies. As always, I had to think long and hard about this one. Check out what Jenny Davidison, Zetta Elliott, Melissa Wyatt, Laurel Snyder, Sara Ryan, Loree Griffin Burns, Kekla Magoon, Mayra Lazara Dole, and I had to say about the topic. As always, I wish that I could be in a room with these bright lights, talking the issue out.

Read more...

The Nonfiction Question

For the fifth question in Chasing Ray's fascinating series, What a Girl Wants, Colleen Mondor asked the panel to reflect on those subjects that "should be addressed in YA nonfiction that teen girls would want to read about and just as important — should read about." Colleen never asks easy questions, but this one proved to be tougher than the rest.

My answer, as you'll see, if you travel over to the site, relates to place and culture—to the need (in my estimation) for books that transport YA readers to places they've not yet been and puts them there not in textbook fashion but in a way that opens doors to compassionate, empathetic, engaged living. I was thinking about Juarez, among other places, when I developed my response, and so my photo choice of the day.

But it's not really my answer that concerns me here. It's what Lorie Ann Grover, Zetta Elliott, Laurel Snyder, Jenny Davidson, Sara Ryan, Mayra Lazara Dole, and Colleen herself have to say that I hope will interest you.

Read more...

The Why YA Question in the What a Girl Wants Series

Do teen girls need YA books? Is there something innate in the genre that shapes growing up like nothing else can? Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray is asking that question today, and some really smart people are offering their perspectives. Here, for example, is Zetta Elliott:

The more YA lit I read, the more I’m struck by the split: novels that are about teens versus novels that are marketed to teens. The latter are often marked by “lite” writing and silly gimmicks that aim to make the novel seem experimental or innovative in terms of form. But real daring resides in the writing itself, and I think teens deserve novels on every topic, told from as many different points of view as possible. Books that offer narrative possibility (instead of filling in all the blanks) open the door for continued conversation, so I’d also say that we need adults who have the courage to face the daunting questions that teens need to ask.

I've contributed my two cents to the conversation as well, for what they are worth, and I encourage you to take a look—and to join in the discussion.

Read more...

What a Girl Wants

From a Sunday New York Times (Douglas Quenqua) story entitled "Blogs Falling In an Empty Forest," this:

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream—or at least an ambition—unfulfilled.

And later:

Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the internet, but "it's probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views." He added, "There's a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one."

Statistics are statistics, and I'm not here to counter those. But I do wish to suggest this morning how downright thrilling it is when blogging communities emerge and thrive. Readergirlz, the online book club for teens, is a prime example. The virtual worlds that bloggers such as My Friend Amy, Presenting Lenore, HipWriterMama, Ravenous Reader, The Holly and The Ivy, The Curly Q, An Aerial Armadillo, Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder, and Pop Culture Junkie (among many others) generate are real and human (if you doubt the human part, follow the adventures of Cuileann, Faith, and Miss Erin—long-time blogging friends—who met in person for the first time this week). And last evening, Chasing Ray—always inventive, always forthright, impeccably well read—launched a project in which I am honored to participate—a summer-long tour of the minds of a rich slate of YA authors, all of whom are answering questions spawned by the general theme, What a Girl Wants.

Today, Lorie Ann Grover, Sara Ryan, Melissa Wyatt, Laurel Snyder, Margo Raab, Jenny Davidson, and others (including me) are reflecting on the question, "What book affected you most as a tween/teen?"

Check it out, if you have some time.

Read more...