I'm taking advantage of still having internet at home when I thought it was going to turn off last night (we're in household internet transition) to post one last thing before I go dark for a week. I'll be at IRA next week, so it's unlikely I'll be posting from there.

On the flip side of the content question coin, a reader asks,

I’ve been reading your blog for awhile with interest. I have written a teen fantasy and I have a question about Mirrorstone and YA in general. My novel has some profanity, drinking, and sex. (I like to call it a Veronica Mars meets Tamora Pierce meets Joss Whedon type of book) This seems quite ordinary to me as my protagonist is seventeen years old. (And I remember high school vividly.) But I keep hearing that YA should be ‘cleaner’. Is that true and does it mean that I should submit to Wizards under the adult imprint?

Thanks for reading! As are most of my answers, this one is "it depends."

How graphic is the mature content? We at Mirrorstone keep to a fairly strict PG-13 standard, so anything of a graphic nature really isn't for us, but that doesn't mean we don't shy away from tough subjects. But Wizards books often have that restriction as well (though not as strictly) because of corporate policy--there is just a line we won't cross as a company.

That doesn't mean you won't find that kind of thing out there, though, in the YA marketplace. There is a YA book to suit pretty much any teen's taste, from the gamut of innocent adventure and fantasy like Shannon Hale (who nevertheless also doesn't shy away from extremely tough subjects) to the darker work of Holly Black and Melissa Marr. (See that previous post for more on that.)

But that doesn't mean we're the right publisher for you. Or it might. The best way to answer this question is to read widely. Read all our YA books--check out our anthology, Magic in the Mirrorstone, and see the kind of variety we're looking for--and notice that it has a Holly Black story and a Cecil Castellucci story, both authors who are known for their edgy material. Look at how they crafted their stories, and see if your work fits within that same gamut. Then check out other books from other publishers putting out books similar to yours, and after all that, submit accordingly. You may decide that we're not quite a fit for you--but then, you might.

Now, the secondary issue in your question is adult versus YA. Is an edgy novel with a 17-year-old protagonist YA, or is it adult?

Again, it depends.

Generally if your protagonist is living your story in the moment--not looking back on being 17 from the point of view of a 30-something--then that's one clue that it's YA.

Generally if teens (including the teen you remember yourself being at 15 or 16, because kids read up) would be more interested in the story than adults would, then it's YA. Check out coverage of the "Think Future" Panel Debates to see some good discussion of this issue. Note what George Nicholson of Sterling Lord Literistic said about S.E. Hinton's books:

Nicholson provided some historical perspective, recalling the days there was no category called “young adult.” Then, in the 1970s, a few writers came along “who had a social context,” such as S.E. Hinton, and a teen audience was identified and located. “When [Hinton] was first published by Viking,” Nicholson recalled, “No one wanted it in the adult world. But when the book was republished as a book for teens, with a new cover, it began to sell in the millions.”

With that in mind, who do you see reading your books? Thirty-somethings? Twenty-somethings? Or right smack in the teen years, anywhere from 12 to 18 or 19 year olds?

Also, boys or girls?

If you're looking for teens to read it, you should be trying to sell it to a publisher who publishes books for teens, and then target a YA publisher who targets the readership you're looking to reach. 

Teens, especially boys, do read the books published by the adult imprint at Wizards, so perhaps that complicates it and takes you back to square one, but I think if you just make sure to keep in mind what kinds of books that publisher makes and send it to the imprint with books most like your own, you'll be fine.

We've discussed here, I believe, what a great age gap exists in YA developmentally. There's a big difference between a 12 year old and an 18 year old--even between a 12 year old and a 16 year old.

So I found this article on PW Children's Bookshelf pretty interesting, about an independent bookstore that has separated younger YA from older YA. Teens don't have to walk through picturebooks to get to books that appeal to them, and tween content is separated from heavier-themed content that would appeal more to high schoolers.

What do you all think? The bookstore says it's working for them, and I think it's a great way of helping kids navigate books and helping parents feel safer about that navigation (tweens mature enough for the more mature topics would be able to walk over to the high school section, of course--but it helps prevent accidental stumbling). Yet at the same time, there are a number of books that would be appealing to the wide age range, and it might be hard to know where to shelve them. Should more bookstores implement such a section? 

As you may be aware, because I'm certainly not hiding the fact, I am a Mormon (a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). It's kind of interesting to note how many Mormon professionals there are in fantasy and children's/YA lit. I get past counting on both hands (especially when including editors), and while that might not seem as much compared to the various other religious and/or nonreligious groups a professional in this industry may claim, it's always an interesting subject for Mormons to talk about. :D

I've been asked to write an essay for a Mormon publication, Dialogue, on Mormon writers of mainstream YA and children's literature. While I'm working on that, I thought I'd throw the topic out there, both to my readers who I know for a fact are LDS, and to anyone else who might be interested in the subject. What YA and children's fantasy writers out there are LDS? Does knowing they're LDS affect how you perceive the book? Did you learn they were LDS before or after reading, and did that change your perception of the book?

Let's contrast this to a notorious example, and a timely one at that. You've all probably heard of the emails going round some parts about boycotting the movies based on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.* Would you go to see the movie? Do you believe that it should be avoided? If so, why? If not, what do you like about Pullman's work? What influence, if any, does his background have on your reading?


( A smattering of a list, if you're curious )


*Full disclosure: I think Pullman's writing is beautiful. While I didn't necessarily agree with the conclusion of the series (as a member of a slightly unorthodox religious group that in a way rebelled/withdrew/rejected the teachings of the organized church of its day, I'm in a strange position of agreeing with him and disagreeing at the same time), I did think that HDM was beautifully written and a well-crafted fantasy story. And so what if I don't agree with him? I think that there's room for all of us to read each others' perspectives and learn from them, and that freedom to do so brings to our world beauty and understanding of both our differences and similarities.

In all the correspondence I've seen from Pullman himself on children's lit listservs, he's always been respectful, articulate, and a knowledgeable advocate for children in education. And he's got one of the best first lines of all time, too. I've got the Sally Lockhart mysteries lying on my bedside table begging for me to finally getting around to reading them.

So I certainly don't advocate boycotting the movies. On the contrary, I think they look gorgeous from what I've seen so far and I'm interested in seeing how the books are adapted to film.

I think tltrent had a good idea, so here is the thread to post your YA LoLcats. I'll start it with her suggestion for my MoggetLOL:



And for fun, a bonus LOL with selimsa803's suggestion, which has nothing to do with YA lit:





Now, it's your turn! Make your own YA LOLcat and post it here in the comments or link to your own journal.

The local NPR station, KUOW, was talking with famous librarian Nancy Pearl (of Book Lust and Book Crush fame) about books for children and teens. "Oh," I thought on my morning drive, "I should call in! This is such a great topic!"

They asked for callers to recommend books. Well, I would love to recommend my own books, but I thought perhaps that might not go over so well, so I thought I'd start by just recommending urban fantasy for teens, such as Holly Black. I had such a well-thought out response in my head, how I could segue that into similar stuff like A Great and Terrible Beauty and by the way, look for Hallowmere this fall! :) Well, I'm not terribly articulate over the phone on the radio--I did talk about how urban fantasy appeals to contemporary teens' modern sensibilities or something like that--but Nancy Pearl had a lot of great things to say, and she talked about slipstream and the meshing of genres in YA and brought up Charles de Lint (I don't hear people talk about The Blue Girl as often as I do Tithe, say, but it's one of my favorites in that genre).

Anyway, I might not sound all that articulate as a caller, but you should listen to Nancy's recommendations on the podcast. And now that I'm no longer on the phone on live radio, I have all these thoughts about how great it is in YA that genres can slip between each other, that historical fiction can mesh so nicely with fantasy in books like In the Serpent's Coils and A Great and Terrible Beauty. Thoughts I don't have the time to articulate now, because I should get back to work, but let's just open up this thread for what you love about YA and children's books, books you'd recommend, any books you thought the broadcast missed?

ETA: Oh, and Nancy makes a wonderful point about reluctant readers: how sometimes we unconsciously make reading a punishment--e.g., "you can't go outside until  you've read this book." She goes on to talk about how instead reading should be portrayed as the exciting and interesting activity that it is. Very good program. Go listen!