I was lucky to get to go to the International Reading Association conference in Orlando this week. Highlights included an excellent shopping expedition to the outlet mall, meeting lots of amazing teachers, and eating lots of room service. I also had my own little book signing at the Simon & Schuster booth:

(Sorry the picture’s a little out of focus, but at least my hair’s cute.)

The best part of all was the amazing three-hour panel featuring four of the most exciting voices in contemporary YA. To give you an idea, here’s the title of the panel: Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Edgy YA Novels that Teens Like to Read but Make Adults Nervous. To say I was inspired would be an understatement. I was struck (as I am often struck by YA authors in general) how devoted they are to their readers, how much the lives of teens mean to them. You don’t hear this kind of stuff at an adult lit talk.

I won’t summarize the entire three hours for you, but I do want to share some of my observations and favorite quotes by the authors. DISCLAIMER: these are not direct quotes; they are my tiny hand’s attempts at scribbling what I heard as correctly as possible. So if I mangled some of their words, I am truly sorry.

Here are some highlights from the panel:

Lauren Myracle: author of many books including TTYL and the new Shine which sounds amazing)

Title: Speaking an Edgy Language that Teens Understand

• After defining ‘edgy’ as ‘new’ and ‘innovative’: “There’s nothing new about drugs and sex. Our material isn’t ‘edgy’—it’s just unsanitized.”
• On being told that she’s brave to write about difficult subject matter: “I’m not brave. Bravery is facing something you’re afraid of. Writing about this stuff doesn’t scare me. It’s our characters who are the brave ones.”
• “If I’m not trying to make a home for justice, then I’m not doing my job as a writer or a human.”

David Levithan: author of many books, including Boy Meets Boy, and co-author of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn) and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with John Green)

Title: Gay Love: Refusing to be Pushed Off the Edge

• First of all, he brought props—two Mickey  Mouse dolls (we were in Orlando after all), which he configured in compromising positions in honor of the original title of his talk, which was changed at the last minute: Gay Sex: Refusing to be Pushed Off the Edge
• “Hiding gay sex only emboldens the people who are afraid of it.”
• “’Edgy’ is the code word for ‘the truth.’”
• He made me cry. Like a baby. I think the people around me thought I was crazy. It happened while he was reading a sex scene between two boys from his book Wide Awake. It was so beautifully and tenderly written. The characters were so much in love and in such control of their bodies. They were safe, physically and emotionally. It was not just a perfect gay sex scene, it was a perfect sex scene, period. I kept thinking  of the kids who might find this book, might see this representation of what love can feel like, what sex with someone you love can feel like. I want kids to read this, queer and straight. I want this to be the kind of sex they hope for. I kept thinking about how this could be the light that gives a queer kid hope.

Gayle Forman: author of If I Stay and Where She Went

Title: Bloody Car Crashes, Out-of-Body Experiences, Steamy Sex Scenes, Angsty Rock Stars, Punk-Rock Parents, Heartbreak—It’s all catnip for teen readers. But is there anything in there for teachers?

• First of all, let me just say I plan to model myself after Mia’s “punk-rock parents” when I have a kid.
• On swearing in her books: “I write the characters as I hear them. Sometimes they curse. My mom cursed like a sailor, but then we’d go volunteer at a soup kitchen—so I never equated swearing with morality.”

Ellen Hopkins: author of Crank, Impulse, Perfect, Fallout and many more

Title: Pushing the Edge: Abuse, Drugs, Suicide and Other Difficult Issues

• Ellen is such a powerful voice in the fight against censorship. Her books have been challenged perhaps more than any other YA author. But she always perfectly articulates why she writes what she does. She explained how her book Crank puts a personal face on addiction, which is the most effective way for kids, or anyone really, to absorb info. Instead of just telling them what to do, it shows the choices and outcomes in a way readers can connect to emotionally.
• “As much as we want to scrub childhood clean, we can’t.”
• “Even the kids who aren’t going to do this stuff—they need to have empathy for the kids who do.”
• “Information won’t kill children; ignorance kills children.”

At the end of the session, a librarian asked the panel what she can do when parents or community members demand that a book be banned or removed. Ellen’s answer gave me chills, made me shed a few more tears, and made me so incredibly proud to be doing what I’m doing:

“Send them the letters we get from readers that tell us how our books saved their lives. Literally saved their lives. It’s hard to argue with that.”

I’m reading Punkzilla again. I think it’s been less than a year since I read it last, but I can’t stay away. It’s that good. I’m studying it for inspiration for my current WIP, but I have to admit that I often forget I’m supposed to be “studying.” I’ll find myself totally lost inside it, then realize “Oh crap, I’m supposed to be paying attention to how Adam Rapp crafts the story, how he uses the epistolary form, the techniques he uses to create such a unique and memorable narrator, blah blah blah.” But it’s hard to focus on stuff like that when the book is just so damn good. I’m a softy for anything about misfits, stories that honor the lives of people society prefers to ignore. Here’s a boy who’s been written off by everyone as a lost cause, but the author believes he’s worthy of our love; he puts us inside him, and we get to feel all his intelligence and kindness and vulnerability, and it’s so frickin’ awesome it makes my heart burst. Sigh. Hopefully someday I can write something this good.

 

 

Seems like I’ve been reading a lot of books about boys lately. I recently finished The Highest Tide, by Jim Lynch, which I highly recommend, especially if you’re a lover of the sea. It takes place in the Puget Sound where I grew up, and I felt homesick the whole time I was reading it. I remember being a kid and wandering around on the rocky beach down the road from my house, looking under rocks for crabs and other hidden life, sticking my fingers in sea anemones to make them squirt. Rather than take an AP science class in high school like I was “supposed to,” I chose to take two semesters of Marine Biology, learning all the science behind the sea life I loved, learning all the Latin names for the creatures I grew up with. Whenever I come across a tide pool, I still turn into a huge nerd and start reciting the scientific names of invertebrates.

 

 

Before I took a detour with Punkzilla, I was working on The Lacuna, by Barabara Kingslover. God, I love her. Not YA, but she writes great kids. I love alternating between reading YA and adult fiction. It’s kind of like exercise, like lifting weights. YA uses certain muscles, the ones that focus primarily on the “I” of the teenager, where the world is as big as what the main character can sense, and it’s bright and intense and immediate. But then I’ll read an author like Kingslover, something in the 3rd person, something slower and layered, where the world spreads away from the main character and the path becomes windy and intricate, and it’s like a whole different set of muscles are being used. And as I read these different types of books, as I challenge myself to approach story from as many angles as possible, I can feel myself becoming a better writer. Because what is writing but stealing from authors who are better than you? This is perhaps the best thing I learned in my MFA program: steal wisely.

So I was tagged on that Facebook note that asks you to write down “15 albums in 15 minutes” with the following guidelines:

“These are the rules if you want to play: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you’ve heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes….”

Yeah, like I have the time to do this.

Well, yes, apparently I do. And if you’re my Facebook friend, you know that I post crap on there ALL DAY LONG because I have addiction problems and I sit at a desk all day long and I get lonely and Facebook is almost like human contact.

But I think this is actually a pretty fun exercise. Especially when you have work you’re trying to avoid. You can tell a lot about a person from their taste in music. And as you will see, I am a total cliché: I grew up in Seattle and went to a small liberal arts college in Portland in the late ‘90’s.  I like pretty songs about feelings. Which brings up another question—when did “Emo” become a bad word?  Because I remember when it was still cool. Or at least I thought it was.

So here’s my list, in no particular order. The 15 Albums That Changed My Life, the ones I played over and over and over until I knew every word and chord change, the ones that created the soundtrack of the B-movie that was my life.

What’s on your list?

1. Elliott Smith—Elliott Smith

2. Either/Or—Elliott Smith

3. This is Pinback—Pinback

4. Dry—PJ Harvey

5. Rid of Me—PJ Harvey

6. Like I Said—Ani Difranco

7. Hips and Makers—Kristin Hirsch

8. I Know About You—Ida

9. Call the Doctor—Sleater-Kinney

10. This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About—Modest Mouse

11. Dirty—Sonic Youth

12. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea—Neutral Milk Hotel

13. Exile in Guyville—Liz Phair

14. There’s Nothing Wrong with Love—Built to Spill

15. Manos—The Spinanes

My Top 10 Favorite YA Books (So Far…)

I’ll admit it. I was one of those people who was judgmental about the YA genre at first, even though I later realized it’s what I wanted to write all along.  All I knew were the silly stories for tween girls that were around when I grew up, the ones whose plot lines consisted of the following: crushes on boys, insecurities about pimples, dates with boys, insecurities about weight, hearts getting broken by boys, insecurities about hair, and, um…babysitting? I didn’t read these books.  I tried a couple of times, but I just couldn’t do it.  The only books about young people that really meant anything to me were Go Ask Alice and Girl, Interrupted.  Stories of a runaway drug addict and a girl in a mental institution—fun stuff, right?  I guess you can say my taste for gritty, realistic teen fiction was decided early on, before the genre really existed.

When I was sending Beautiful around trying to land an agent, I was shocked when one finally informed me I write YA. How dare he lump me in the category of those silly books I grew up with? Sure, my characters were teenagers, but they weren’t exactly babysitting and cheerleading and crushing on the quarterback.  And, like, I wanted to write literature.

I have to admit my ego was slightly crushed. My definition of “writer” was based on fancy conversations in my MFA classes where people used words like “meta” and “juxtapostition” all the time and wrote experimental poetry I could barely pretend to understand.  I didn’t even know what “Young Adult Author” meant.  So I decided to do some research.

I scoured the internet for information about YA, bought the books I saw mentioned over and over again.  And then—well, all I can say is WOW. I was floored.  It was like someone had just opened the door into an entirely new world, a world I had been longing for, a world that immediately felt like home. I had been walking around with these tortured teen characters in my head for years, and I had no idea there were more like them.  These were the books I desperately needed when I was a teen. These were the books I wanted to write since I was thirteen years old.

The following ten books (in no particular order) speak to me in a way few adult books have. I am proud to be in company of these brave, brilliant authors. And hell yes, these books are literature. But most importantly, they tell the truth.

Speak—by Laurie Halse Anderson: I think this might have been the first YA I picked up. And thank God! So began my devotion for Ms. Anderson. An achingly honest portrayal of what a girl must do to emotionally protect herself, and begin to heal, from the memory of sexual trauma.

Wintergirls—by Laurie Halse Anderson: Haunting is the best word to describe this book.  It’s about a girl’s struggle with anorexia, but it’s so much more. I’ve said before elsewhere, but I’ll say it again: If anyone doubts the literary merit of YA, they must read this book. Some of the more beautiful prose I’ve ever read.

Luna—by Julie Anne Peters: The story of a girl whose brother is transgendered.  At its essence, I think this story is about how incredibly brave people can be in their journey to find and love themselves.  And thank God such an amazing book exists for kids going through similar things.

Punkzilla—by Adam Rapp: According to Goodreads: “a searing novel-in-letters about a street kid on a highstakes trek across America.”  One of the most memorable voices I’ve ever read.

Looking for Alaska—by John Green: You’ve read this, right? Don’t tell me you haven’t read this. That’s just completely unacceptable. All I’m going to say is I have never cried so hard on public transportation as when I was reading this book. Just thinking about it is making me teary. This man can sure tell a story. Someone should combine John Green’s DNA with Laurie Halse Anderson’s and make a The World’s Greatest YA Author EVER. Anyone out there know anything about genetics?

The Perks of Being a Wallflower—by Stephen Chbosky:  I hate trying to summarize books because a description of the plot could never encompass the feelings I had while reading it. I guess I’d say this one’s about a sensitive outcast’s journey toward finding himself. I just loved this kid. Plus, this book was banned all over the place, so that gives it major cool points, right?

Girl–by Blake Nelson: I kind of hate this description from Goodreads, but it’s pretty accurate: “A Catcher in the Rye for the “Grunge” generation, this instant classic will speak to anyone who has ever had to choose between the suffocation of conformity and the perils of rebellion.” And if it took place in Seattle rather than Portland, it could kinda be my teen years. Ah, vintage dresses with fishnets and big boots, how I miss you.

King Dork—by Frank Portman: Quite possibly the funniest book I have ever read. In contrast to Looking for Alaska, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed this hard on public transportation. The main character is one of the weirdest, most loveable characters I’ve ever read.

Cracked Up to Be—by Courtney Summers:  I guess you could say it’s about a “perfect” girl’s fall from the top and the horrible secret that causes it, but the most amazing thing about this book is how realistic the characters are, how complicated, and how brave Courtney is for making the MC so incredibly unlikeable at times. The way she crafts the story so that the reader learns to like the MC as she learns to like and accept herself—just genius.

Hunger Games—by Suzanne Collins:  Which one of these books is not like the others? Not really though. Dystopian adventure and gritty realism aren’t really that different when you think about it.  The edgy fiction I love explores the psychology of troubled characters, while good dystopian fiction explores the psychology of troubled societies.  Plus this series is also just plain entertaining adventure. Who says an emo girl doesn’t just want to be entertained sometimes?

So I guess my taste is pretty obvious. You won’t find many happy families or well-adjusted characters in these books (and don’t even get me started on vampires and werewolves). I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of all the wonderful YA there is to read. So I’m curious—judging from this list and the kind of stuff I like, what books do you think I need to read next?