YA Readers Are So Worth Writing For

I once attended a talk by Meg Rosoff (How I Live Now) at which a middle aged lady raised her hand and expressed surprise that Rosoff was wasting her time writing for younger people – at least, that was the gist of what I remember, it was a while ago now.

Now comes the hoo ha over this New York Times review by Dave Itzkoff.

To paraphrase Itzkoff’s rather wordy controversial statement: Itzkoff declared that there was “no self-respect”, no “artistic satisfaction” or “dignity” in writing for younger readers. Here is what he said in full:

As someone whose subway rides tend to resemble scenes from an “Evil Dead” movie, in which I am Bruce Campbell dodging zombies who have had all traces of their humanity sucked out of them by a sinister book — not the “Necronomicon,” but “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” — I sometimes wonder how any self-respecting author of speculative fiction can find fulfillment in writing novels for young readers. I suppose J. K. Rowling could give me 1.12 billion reasons in favor of it: get your formula just right and you can enjoy worldwide sales, film and television options, vibrating-toy-broom licensing fees, Chinese-language bootlegs of your work, a kind of limited immortality (L. Frank Baum who?) and — finally — genuine grown-up readers. But where’s the artistic satisfaction? Where’s the dignity?

I had to read it twice because having declared YA an undeserving audience, Itzkoff proceeded to lavish praise on two YA books (Un Lun Dun by China Miéville and Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reeves).

Itzkoff was impressed that the authors didn’t “sugar-coat” their stories for their young readers. Here’s what he says about Un Lun Dun:

When its disheveled characters are sent on exactingly prescribed quests, you can be sure these heroes will cut corners or otherwise fail to fulfill their missions; when prophecies are invoked, they generally don’t come true; and any character complacent enough to believe he or she is some sort of Chosen One is all but guaranteed not to save the day

Well deserved praise for Miéville but hey it’s rather obvious this guy hasn’t read any YA recently if he is so astonished that YA can produce edgy, intelligent novels that twist and turn and surprise.

Author Shannon Hale (her Book of a Thousand Days just won the Cybil for YA fantasy) wrote in her blog:

He must just be speaking outrageously to garner attention--his attitude is so Victorian, so narrow-minded to the point of melodrama. But I have met this attitude so many times--the goal for any real, self-respecting writer must be to have "grown-up readers." Writing for children is less than.

Even Neil Gaiman weighs in:

It's an odd review -- I think that rule number one for book reviewers should probably be Don't Spend The First Paragraph Slagging Off The Genre. Just don't. Don't start a review of romance books by saying that all romance books are rubbish but these are good (or just as bad as the rest). Don't start a review of SF by saying that you hate all off-planet tales or things set in the future and you don't like way SF writers do characters. Don't start a review of a University Adultery novel by explaining that mostly books about English professors having panicky academic sex bore you to tears but. Just don't. Any more than a restaurant reviewer would spend a paragraph explaining that she didn't normally like or eat -- or understand why other people would like or eat -- Chinese food, or French, or barbeque. It just makes people think you're not a very good reviewer.

Me? I write YA because young people delight and surprise and excite and inspire and challenge me – and as Scott Westerfeld said in a recent interview when he was asked, "Were you worried about being pigeonholed by having your novels called Young Adult?”

Young adults are far more universal readers ... politically and all sorts of other ways, kids are more open to things ... they are less narrow.

Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestiere on the YA Fiction Boom

Justine Larbalestiere and Scott Westerfeld appeared on Cult Pop to talk about the why's and wherefore's of Young Audult fiction. Click on the image and go to Cult Pop 13. What Scott said:

Young adults are far more universal readers ... kids are more open to things ... they are less narrow.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Discovered (alternative title: Matching Faces to Rejection Letters)

So last night was the reception for winners of the Undiscovered Voices competition of British SCBWI, sponsored by Working Partners.

It was held at Foyles Bookstore in Charing Cross at the height of the rush hour which made the turn-out of people from the book world all the more incredible.

A few days before, the organisers emailed the authors a list of people who had RSVP'd. This gave us time to compose ourselves and thus reduce the chances of anyone inadvertently drooling on unsuspecting agents.

The superhuman Saras (Grant and O'Connor) - who organised the event and edited the book - went so far as to provide guests with a photographic contact sheet to make it easier for agents and editors to identify and snatch a chosen author before any of the others get there first.

That's me, bottom right, in a photo taken by my eight year old daughter. I must say I photocopy rather well.

Surveying the Foyles reception space, I rather regretted ditching an earlier plan to smuggle members of my critique group into the invitation-only party. There was a good sized curtain at one end that would have been a perfect hiding place.

Natascha Biebow, British SCBWI's energetic leader, in her welcome speech described the anthology as a "creative way for creative people to get noticed".

Chris Snowdon, managing director for Working Partners, recalled the "mind-boggling number of scripts" submitted. "There is some damn fine writing in the anthology," he said.

The celebrity guest of the evening was the wonderful David Almond who wrote a foreword to the anthology. David delivered an inspiring talk, recalling how he himself had been an "undiscovered voice" for a long, long time and the intense humiliations he went through - people who want to write "must dare to feel stupid". "There is something inside us that drives us to write stories," he said. "You spend your lifetime trying to find out what that thing wants to say."

Hobnobbing with agents and editors is a strange experience. I had to restrain myself from curtseying and kissing the hems of their wide-leg trousers - being a supplicant is a hard habit to break. It was the oddest thing finally putting faces to all those rejection letters I had received over the years!

The best thing was my agent (MY agent) came along to say hello. She was probably aware of my need to be reminded that she really does exist. I promised her that I wouldn't splash her identity all over my blogs to keep her safe from stalkers and wannabe-authors-who-jump -out-from-behind-bushes -at-night. But here's a lovely picture of her anyway toasting my success with uber children's author Jane Clarke on the right.

The weirdest thing about the evening was that people kept saying, "You're not UNdiscovered anymore!"

Which is very nice in theory. That said, there's plenty of work to be done.

Still. Pinch me someone!