Each week, The Passed Note wades into the internet to provide you with recent news and listicles from the Young Adult literary world. We specialize in recommending your next marathon read, tips about becoming a YA author, and author spotlights.
Never have we read truer words than this article by Laura Ruby–the hard facts about becoming a YA author and all it implies. My favorite quote is, “There will be days when you don’t feel creative. The work I do is my dream job, yes, but it does still feel like a job. There are days when I’m in awe of the worlds I get to create with my writing, and other days where I’d rather do almost anything else. When I’m not feeling creative, I try to do a little more research and find new facts for the book. It’s also nice to fill your head with other forms of art, like visual art and music.”
A case for YA in The Collegian: “But for a young adult fiction novel to resonate beyond the hallways of high school, it must offer more than a mental refuge. It must take readers on a journey that teaches them how to live.” (Elsewhere on the internet, a similar article arose about how social media is changing the way YA is marketed and, as a result, is growing in rapid popularity. “)
This article briefly touches on some of the panels about diversity in YA at #AWP16. One author said, “It’s young people on the margins for whom he writes and “takes risks” by writing YA “urban fantasy” novels that feature characters who are people of color. And, he added, “I’m writing for the kids who are people of color who are getting the shit kicked out of them or worse.””
I haven’t read anything on the internet this week that has been more needed more than this article by Bustle. From the opening paragraph, it shows the truth and doesn’t back down: “It became so natural to me that it wasn’t until I was a junior in college, sharing stories of “firsts” with close friends, that the repressed memory came surging forward, sending me into a cold sweat. I suddenly didn’t want to lie, but telling the truth was not an option. Sexual assault, no matter how hard I’ve tried to laugh it off, never ceases to be a mood killer.”
And, finally, a woman who stole a book as a teenager (cough we’ve never done that cough) pays back the bookstore two years later and apologizes in an anonymous letter. My favorite part is that, in the letter, she called her past self “angsty.” The book she stole was Agatha Christie’s Third Girl.
Have a great week!
