The CBC Diversity Committee was established in 2012 as one of the committees created by the Children’s Book Council, the national nonprofit trade association for children’s trade book publishers. It strives to increase the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to children’s and young adult literature. Alvina Ling, executive editor at Little, Brown, is a founder and chair, and has edited titles by Grace Lin, Matthew Quick, Bryan Collier, Libba Bray, and Karen Healey.

Ling says that it is important for young readers to have access to books with diverse characters because “it helps foster acceptance and understanding of different people. These titles are for that child who is not seeing himself in the books he’s reading or a child from a different culture to have compassion towards people who are not like him.”

Stacy Whitman, editorial director of Tu, multicultural publisher Lee & Low’s young adult fantasy and science fiction imprint, agrees. She adds, “In our growing multicultural world, kids need to know what it is to empathize with people that are different. I think fantasy and science fiction does that best, because you’re already putting yourself in a setting that is already so different.”

Whitman cites recent projects such as Joseph Bruchac’s Killer of Enemies—a postapocalyptic Apache steampunk novel—and Karen Sandler’s conclusion to the Tankborn trilogy, Rebellion, as examples of non-Northwest European and Tolkien-influenced fantasies.

In recent weeks, #DiversityinSFF was a trending conversation on Twitter, of which Whitman was an avid participant. And though according to her it is very similar to the Race Fail 2009 discussion—in which fantasy and sci-fi fans lamented the lack of diversity in the genres—she hopes that this recent flare up will stir into action those with influence in the industry. “The recent Twitter conversation pushed agents to change their submission guidelines, encouraging people of diverse backgrounds to send their work. The publisher Tor also changed their guidelines. I hope others will do the same.”

And while Putnam editor Stacey Barney agrees that the clamor for more diverse books isn’t a recent one, she has noted a change in the discussion in recent years. “It’s creeping up to the top of more people’s agenda. The tenor in the conversation has changed in a positive way. It’s moved beyond ‘we need to have more black characters or black authors’ to ‘we need characters of color who are experiencing everyday events,’ not historical landmarks or in an urban setting.” She cites Crystal Allen’s How Lamar’s Bad Prank Won a Bubba-Sized Trophy (HarperCollins, 2011) as a great example of this.

Barney, who has edited several books with diverse characters, such as Tara Sullivan’s Golden Boy (2013), about the albino killings in Tanzania, and Kristin Levine’s The Lions of Little Rock (2012, both Putnam), does believe that more can be done to market books and authors of diverse backgrounds.

“I think people miss the point when they argue that there should be more editors of color, which I think is true,” Barney says. “However, what we lack is an infrastructure that will support these books once they’re published. We’ll see more acquisitions when we have more success stories. We have to remember that this is a business. Editors want to acquire books that will get the best marketing launch possible. We just don’t have that in place yet.”

The desire to promote their books is what inspired Malindo Lo and Cindy Pon to start the Diversity in YA tour and website in 2011. The two authors discovered that they were both publishing Asian-inspired fantasies that year, and wanted to celebrate them and all diverse teen literature with this initiative. Relaunched in 2012 with a Tumblr account, Pon and Lo continue to promote books about all kinds of diversity, from race to sexual orientation to gender identity and disability.

And while Lo agrees that there’s been a recent explosion in the blogosphere about the subject, she’s also discovered that writers continue to struggle to get their LGBQT books to the public. “As I have talked to more authors, I have heard stories about many of them—published and unpublished—who have been blocked in their endeavors,” she says. “I’m getting this impression that we’re in this stuck point. I’m hoping that the continued discussion raises awareness of this issue, and that there will be considered effort to change that for the better.”

What can librarians do? Whitman suggests, “The last few years people have been talking about the need for diversity, but it’s time to put our money where the mouth is. Librarians have always had finger on the pulse of what their readers need, but these resources haven’t always been available to them.”

Responding to the point that Sun made during Summer Teen about the importance of diversity in YA book covers, one attendee asked how librarians should act in regards to cases of “whitewashing.”

Logo for Disability in Kid Lit website.

Klise, an author and a librarian replied, “I work at an urban high school in Chicago, and know that to engage my very diverse student population in reading for fun, I need to display books with faces they can identify with. We have to be aware of the [whitewashing] cases. It makes for really provocative conversation for my book club at school. The teens share my outrage—and outrage, when funneled into activism, is what makes the world change for the better.”

Whitman adds that librarians can make sure to include diverse books in their collection development budget, even if their communities are not diverse. “Look for awesome books no matter what the characters’ backgrounds may be. Even if your community isn’t diverse, the world is. Buy your books accordingly. Seek out resources to help you booktalk those titles. The resources are out there; become aware of them and use and share them with your colleagues.”

RESOURCES FOR FINDING DIVERSE BOOKS FOR TEENS AND KIDS

From School Library Journal:

Collection Development
Tamora Pierce’s Fantasy Novel Picks | SLJ SummerTeen
By Tamora Pierce

Straight Talk on Race: Challenging the Stereotypes in Kids’ Books
By Mitali Perkins

LGBTQ Lit: Speaking Out
By Megan Honig

From Diversity to Civil Rights | Nonfiction Notes
By Daryl Grabarek

Jackie Robinson: Remembering an American Hero | Watch and Read
By Joy Fleishhacker

Islam in the Classroom
By Lauren Barack

Books to Celebrate the Everyday Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement
By Rhona Campbell

Resources for Finding Latino Kid Lit
By Shelley M. Diaz

Kick-Starting a New Life | Recent YA Titles
By Mahnaz Dar

Our Bodies, Our Minds | Confronting Self-Image in YA Fiction
By Mahnaz Dar

YA Underground: Books for Teens You Might Have Missed
By Amy Cheney

Interviews
Between Violence and Tenderness: Aristotle and Dante Author Sáenz Talks to SLJ
By Karyn M. Peterson

Lesléa Newman Discusses her Novel in Verse About the Death of Matthew Shepard, ‘October Mourning’
By Mahnaz Dar

The “Radioactive Energy” of Bullies | An Interview with Meg Medina
By Jennifer M. Brown

The Power of Pictures: A Visit with Bryan Collier
By Rocco Staino

Andrea Cheng on Etched in Clay, Which Charts the Courageous Life of Dave the Potter
By Rick Margolis

Looking for Light: In Darkness Author Nick Lake talks to SLJ
By Karyn M. Peterson

News Articles
First Book’s “Stories for All Project” Lobbies for Kid Lit Diversity
By Karyn M. Peterson

Community Angered by Tossed Black History Collection
By Lauren Barack

Picture Book About Islam Ignites Twitter Battle
By Shelley Diaz

Librarians Sound Off: Not a Lack of Latino Lit for Kids, but a Lack of Awareness
By Shelley Diaz

Kid Lit Authors Discuss Diversity at NYPL
By Mahnaz Dar

Blog Posts/Opinion
2013 Middle Grade Black Boys: Seriously, People?
By Betsy Bird

America’s Changing Face | Consider the Source
By Marc Aronson

From The Horn Book:
A Very Good Question
By Roger Sutton

Young dreamers
By Christopher Myers

Indigenous protagonists and people of color
By Elissa Gershowitz

Horn Book Resources for Talking About Race
By Horn Book Staff

Other recommended sites:
Children’s Books by and about People of Color Published in the United States
CCBC Blog
As Demographics Shift, Kids’ Books Stay Stubbornly White from NPR
CBC Diversity (Maintains a Goodreads account with updated booklists of diverse books and resources.)
Stacy Whitman’s Pinterest Board on Diverse YA Fantasy
Disability in Kid Lit
The Brown Bookshelf
American Indians in Children’s Literature
Rich In Color (Reviews YA books that feature or are by people of color.)
Gay YA
De Colores Blog (Reviews books that feature Mexican American characters.)
Diversify YA (A collection of short interviews that focus on all sorts of diversity.)
Cynthia Leitich Smith has compiled resources on diverse books, including multiracial titles with biracial characters.
Forever Young Adult’s new series on diversity in YA
Articles on Diversity on YALSA’s Hub Blog
It Matters if You’re Black or White: The Racism of YA Book Covers
Lee & Low Blog (The multicultural children’s book publisher’s blog.)
First Book Blog (The organization’s commitment to diversity in children’s books.)
Crazy QuiltEdi (Promoting literacy for teens of color, one book at a time.)

Hilari Bell. Fall of a Kingdom. Bk. 1. 2003

________Rise of a Hero. Bk. 2. 2005.

________Forging the Sword. Bk. 3. 2006.
(The Farsala Trilogy). S & S.

Holly Black. Tithe. 2002

__________Valiant. 2005
(Modern Faerie Tale Series). S & S.

Elizabeth C. Bunce. A Curse Dark as Gold. Scholastic. 2008.

Bruce Coville. The Monster’s Ring. (first pubdate: Knopf, 1982). 2002.

____________.Jennifer Murdley’s Toad. 1992.

(Magic Shop Series). Houghton Harcourt

Esther Friesner. Nobody’s Princess. 2007.

_____________.Nobody’s Prize. 2008.

(Princesses of Myth Series). Random.

Rachel and Mike Grinti. Claws. Scholastic. 2012.

Shannon Hale. Enna Burning. 2004.

____________. River Secrets. 2006.

(Books of Bayern Series). Bloomsbury.

Rachel Hartman. Seraphina. Random. 2012.

Robin McKinley. Beauty: A Retelling of the Story Beauty & the Beast. HarperCollins. 1978.

_____________.The Blue Sword. HarperCollins. 1982.

_____________.The Hero And the Crown. HarperCollins. 1983.

_____________.Deerskin. Ace. 1993.

Garth Nix, Abhorsen. (Abhorsen Trilogy). HarperCollins. 2003

Nnedi Okorafor. Akata Witch. Viking. 2011.

Terry Pratchett. Wintersmith. (Discworld Series). HarperCollins. 2006.

J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Bk. 3. (Harry Potter Series). Scholastic. 1999.

Delia Sherman. The Freedom Maze. Big Mouth House. 2011.

“I like strong women who stand up for themselves… there aren’t enough of those” “kicking butt doesn’t have to mean weapons” GOLD. #sljst

— The Brigand (@bookrarian) July 24, 2013

Also love the talk of newer titles mixed with older fantasy books. A great reading list for sure. #sljst

— Jennifer Rummel (@yabooknerd) July 24, 2013

Photo by Michael J. Okoniewski /Getty Images for SLJ.

When Tamora Pierce found out that she had won the 2013 Margaret A. Edwards Award, she was initially speechless. Murmuring too softly for Jamie Watson and the rest of the award committee to hear, Pierce wondered, “Has anybody

mentioned I have a bit of a problem with potty mouth?” Fortunately, nobody on the committee heard this remark, and the secret has been safe until now. While choosing a person “with a bit of a potty mouth” might make for an entertaining Edwards speech, Pierce’s selection as the 2013 Edwards winner honors several decades of writing feminist fantasy featuring kick-butt female protagonists who appeal widely to both male and female readers.

Pierce’s writing, however, has never won the Printz or Newbery awards. In fact, her “Song of the Lioness” series, honored by the Edwards committee, was initially conceived of as an adult novel. Fortunately, she says, that much different (and horrible) version does not exist today. She credits her transformation to beloved teen author to the time she spent telling stories as a house-mother in a group home for teen girls. Since her first book, Alanna the Lioness, came out in 1983, Pierce has been quietly writing exceptional and thoughtful fantasy that serves as a beacon for young readers who want to see themselves as heroes. This year, the Margaret A. Edwards Award, sponsored by SLJ and administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, honors her lasting and significant contribution to readers of all ages and both genders with a tribute that many claim is 10 years overdue.

In Pierce’s shoes, I might be tempted, in the face of all the attention showered upon Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) or Veronica Roth (Divergent) and other wildly popular authors of fiction featuring strong female characters to scream, “BUT I HAVE BEEN WRITING ABOUT WEAPON-WIELDING FEMALE HEROES FOR YEARS!” Pierce, however, welcomes the company.

“Actually I’m just glad it ain’t so lonesome out there anymore,” she says. “I like to read it, too, you know. Some of them are like guys in drag, but not Suzanne Collins and Kristin Cashore. When Graceling and Hunger Games came out in the same year, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It made me so very happy.”

As for the current meme lamenting the lack of action-packed boy books? Even over the phone I can see Pierce’s eyes roll as she instantly names authors and titles, only stopping because her website lists many such titles for those who mistakenly insist that somehow boys are not served by recently published books, to say nothing of the fact that her fans include many boys, including this one.

Pierce lives with her “Spouse-Creature” in Syracuse, New York. This interview was conducted on International Women’s Day—I’d love to say that it was intentional, but it was just serendipity. On that cold, winter day we enjoyed a warm discussion of her writing and the issues and themes she regularly addresses in her fiction. She even offered men the absolute best advice for how to nurture the innate hero in their daughters.

A person with a misspelled name is obviously destined to become the winner of the Margaret Edwards Award for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature, right?

What you said about me not having won any previous big awards, like a Newbery or a Printz? That sort of piles up. So when you do win a big one, you’re sitting there going, “I could have sworn he just said I got the Edwards Award.” It’s sort of not sinking through. It’s just too unbelievable.

My mother wanted to name me “Tamara,” but the nurse who filled out my birth certificate had never heard of such a fancy name (we are talking Pennsylvania coal country in the 1950s), so she misspelled it, and I legitimately became Tamora (pronounced like “camera”). I actually like it better than Tamara, which means “graceful” and “a palm tree,” and is the name of a Russian saint. I am none of these things.

I had started my fantasy-writing career in college. I had written a lot as a teenager, but my adult career didn’t really begin until college. I broke through the short-story-to-novel barrier in June of 1976. Five months later I had a dream. I woke up, and by the time I got to the typewriter and sat down and started to write, I actually only had a fragment left. I don’t retain dreams very well. And I only had an image left from that dream, and I never included it in the finished book.

But somehow that dream or that fragment unlocked something in my head, that same story that I’d been attempting to tell all along of a girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to become a knight. I wrote the first scene in which the father tells his twins that he’s arranged their lives for the next eight years or so, and I wrote the next scene and the scene after that and the scene after that. I sometimes call it my string-of-pearls novel because for the first and only time, I just kept writing the next scene until five months and 732 manuscript pages later I had a finished novel. I got the title from my boyfriend. He said, “How about The Song of the Lioness?” And I said, “Sounds good to me.”

Then you split that one book into the four books?

I was sending it around to adult publishers, and my life was sort of going up and down. I was out of college, living with my dad and stepmother in Idaho. I had gotten the only job that I ever was educated for. I became a housemother in a group home for teenaged girls. The girls wanted to read my book, and I wanted them to read it because I didn’t want them to think I was shining them on when I said I was a writer. When the director found out it was an adult novel with sex and violence and drug and alcohol use in it—and since those were the things that had gotten the girls into the home in the first place—he didn’t want them reading about them in a book by an authority figure, which is what I was passing for at the time.

So every afternoon, when I was on shift, the girls would come home from school or before bedtime and literally drag me to the dining room table and give me the binder I had the manuscript in, and they would say, “Pierce, tell us more about Alanna.” And I would sit there with the binder in my lap and I would retell the story to them, suitably edited. Well, apparently not as suitably as the director of the home would have liked, but if he wanted it more suitably edited he should have been there.

I moved to New York after I left the home and went to work for a literary agency. The agent took a look at my manuscript and said I should turn it into four books for teenagers. I knew it would work because I already had the girls’ reaction. So I had to rewrite it. We tried it on three publishers, and Jean Karl at the third said, “No,” because of the number of pages, so Claire Smith, my agent, talked her into meeting with me, and we talked about the changes she felt the manuscript needed. I rewrote it again, and Atheneum took me on as a writer.

“Protector of the Small ” is a very different series!

Yes. Well, I’d sort of done Alanna a disservice by making her a mage, a wizard, and a knight, and I’d been thinking that I really wanted to try the idea of a girl knight. And these books just caught fire.

Alanna is such a hothead and Kel is so grounded—I always feel like I am reading about real people.

I try to do that. I try very hard to make it so that people can feel they can turn a corner and find my characters there and hang out with them. I base a lot of characters on either people I know or actors or characters they play, but the important thing is they have to feel as real as humanly possible.

Your early books are all around 200 pages and then we get to Trickster’s Choice and the page count doubles and almost triples with “Beka Cooper.”

Ever since they took us off that cursed 200-manuscript-page limit, I just spread out a little, and I don’t have to do four books anymore.

When you think back to “Song of the Lioness” or “Protector of the Small,” now that you have a little more word freedom, what changes would you make?

Well, Song of the Lioness in particular, I look back on it now and I think, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t jammed so much plot into every book. I wish I’d spread out a bit.” But I couldn’t do that to my fans. They’ve fallen in love with those books as they are, each and every word, so I would not touch them. I would not dare to touch them. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Mark Reads. He will record himself reading and reacting. He’d just finished the Alanna books, and it was through his reactions and his audience’s reactions that I discovered that, even though I could see all I would improve, I actually had some good stuff in there.

Do you have a writing routine, an average day?

I have multiple book contracts. So these days by the time I sit down to actually work on a book, I’ve been generally thinking about it at a minimum for four to six years. I’ve been turning the material over in my head. I’ve chosen whoever I’m going to base the characters on. I always try to start—it may not end up that way in the final version, but I try to start—with us meeting the main character, and he’s doing or she’s doing something that tells us something about them. In my first chapters I introduce the main characters, the secondary characters, the main plot, the overarching themes for the book. And if you know me at all, you know my endings are fairly simple. There’s a forest fire, an epidemic, a war, the ground opens up, the palace collapses inside, and the rats reign supreme over all. Then I get to writing, and I’m toggling along, and I hit chapter four or five, and all of a sudden I hit that vast wasteland that I have not outlined for because I don’t outline really. And I realize I have no idea what’s going to happen then. I’ve got to line up my ducks to fetch up the earthquakes, forest fires, ground opens up, palace, rats.

That’s when I scream for my husband.

You and your husband created Sheroes, an online hang out for young women. How did this evolve?

I had fallen into conversation online with a very new to YA writer named Meg Cabot. We were talking about how hard it was for us to find female heroes when we were growing up, real women in the real world. We basically wanted to cover anything that would get girls and young women to talk about female heroes and real-life ones and Meg’s books and my books and anything else that came along. I left in about 2006, because my life sort of exploded, too, but I think it’s still running.

Sex, GBLTQ issues, racism, class warfare, social justice. Have you had any backlash about any of these elements in your work?

Not really. Once or twice in person, usually on the sexual aspects. Twice—once in a county in Oregon and once apparently in North Carolina—Alanna got challenged for sexual material. That’s it.

Is it because it is fantasy writing?

I have no clue. I think it was in SLJ, in an article on YA romance writers getting challenged, someone said, “I don’t get it. Tammy Pierce writes every bit as much sexuality as I do, and nobody ever says anything about her.” I laughed, but it’s true. All that stuff about Harry Potter and witchcraft, and I have been writing plain old paganism ever since 1983 and nobody has said diddly-squat.

What new words may readers expect from Tamora Pierce this year and in 2014?

Well, right now it’s Battle Magic, which is the “Circle Universe.” I’m crunching every day finishing the second draft. Briar, Rose-thorn, and Evvy are caught up in a tiny country fighting off a very much larger and bigger China-like country. I’m almost done with the second draft. My poor editor is working away, and I’m just sending her chapters. It’s very dark, but there’s a lot of really crazy stuff. I don’t know what happened to me, but somewhere along the line when I was writing it, parts of the landscape started to come to life. That’s unusual for me. I usually like to keep the organic stuff organic and the inorganic stuff dead. But it had its own opinions.

Tell us about problems young women face today.

There are just so many traps out there for girls and women. There is the domesticity trap, there is the sexuality trap, there is the intellect trap. If you say too much, you could get called this; if you do too much, you could get called that; girls don’t do this; it’s rude if you do that; if you talk about this, you’re weird; if you talk about that, you’re a slut. I talked too loud and was hushed up. I was interested in boy things and was told to be quiet. I wrote to the FBI to see about becoming an agent and was told that the only option for me was secretarial work. And then I got to college and went to work with a feminist, and got told that because I had a sense of humor it was wrong, and because I was straight I was wrong….

You just can’t be right!

Yeah. It just seemed like judgmentalism is something that women and girls smash into all the time. Writing ways to deal with that and writing ways to say, “Well, here’s who I am”—that seems to be the thing that people take away from what I do. And it doesn’t matter what sex they are, they seem to take away that you do what you want to do with your life, you become who you want to be. It’s going to be a lot of work, it’s going to be really hard, but you can do it if you want it badly enough. But you have to want it badly because the world sets up so many barriers for young people in general. I mean, even for boys.

What advice would you give me and other men to nurture that inner hero of the young women we know?

Be determined and dare to be stupid!

Ed Spicer (edspicer@me.com) teaches first grade at North Ward Elementary School in Allegan, MI. He was a member of the 2013 Margaret Edwards Award committee, as well as the 2005 Printz Award committee. He reviews teen literature for the Michigan Reading Association.

Gareth Hinds, Marissa Meyer, and Sean Michael Wilson were among the speakers participating on the “Classic Twists” panel during SLJ’s SummerTeen virtual conference on August 9, sharing their views on writing adaptations for young adults.

Hinds, a 2011 participant in SLJ’s Battle of the Books, uses graphic novels to retell classics such as Beowulf (2007) and The Odyssey (2010, both Candlewick), as well as adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. “Gods were the ancient Greeks’ superheroes,” says Hinds. “What better way to read about them than through the comic book medium?” His versions of the classics allow “the page to be a stage that characters walk around on.” During his presentation, Hinds shared a sneak peek of his next project: an adaptation of Romeo & Juliet with a multiracial cast.

Meyer shared the experience of her long road to finally getting published and how her fascination for anime and the popular ‘90s Japanese TV show, Sailor Moon, inspired her to write fanfiction that would later plant the seed for her debut, Cinder (Feiwel & Friends, 2012). The first book in her the “Lunar Chronicles” sci-fi/romance updates the classic rags-to-riches tale of Cinderella and is set in the future. Complete with spaceships and hover cars, the novel reinterprets the classic tale with a mechanic and cyborg as the main character.

Influenced by Jane Yolen’s and Anna Sheehan’s fairy tale reworkings, Meyer will follow up with Scarlet, based on Little Red Riding Hood, which is coming out in 2013. It will be followed by Crest, about Rapunzel, and Winter, about Snow White. Meyer says the theme of good conquering evil is one that attracts teens, and she sees a resurgence of teen interest in fairy tales as seen in the films Snow White and the Huntsman and Once Upon a Time.

Based in Scotland, but speaking from Japan, Wilson spoke about his range of graphic novels, from manga to American/British style comics, some bilingual and others in English and later translated to Japanese. Wilson’s “Classical Comics” series offers readers titles such as A Christmas Carol and Wuthering Heights in unabridged and “Quick Text” editions. His texts stay true to the originals and have been designed to be used in classrooms as a companion to the original text. Wilson has also adapted well-known Japanese stories, including The 47 Ronin, which follows the fate of former samurais wanting revenge for their master’s death. His dream adaptation? Franz Kafka’s short stories.

Although the three authors have distinct styles and approaches to their books, they did have one thing in common: they were all active storytellers long before they published their first books. Meyer spent years as a managing editor and then as a Seattle-based proofreader, while Hinds drew the characters and backgrounds for video games. Wilson stated simply: “Before becoming a writer, I was a reader.”

SLJ SummerTeen Interviews

• Gareth Hinds
• Earl Sewell
• A.S. King
• Johan Harstad
• Barry Lyga
• Sean Michael Wilson
• Peter Hautman
• Karen Healey
• Cecil Castellucci
• Julie Kagawa
• Katie Kacvinsky
• Marissa Meyer

Kate Kacvinsky focuses on realistic love stories, where relationships have rocky, uncertain beginnings. The protagonists of her latest novel, First Comes Love (Houghton Harcourt, 2012), don’t fall in love at first sight—in fact, they don’t even like each other. However, Kacvinsky wants readers to see that surviving tough, challenging times is what makes romances so rich and rewarding.

Lurlene McDaniel, a RITA Award winner and author of several IRA-CBC Children’s Choice Award books, is no stranger to romance, but her upcoming book, Year of Luminous Love (Random, 2013), the first in a new series, explores different kinds of love, such as parental love, affection, and the highest form of love: transcendent love. While her books deal with tough subjects, such as romance in the face of sickness and death, she believes that they resonate with teens because of the encouraging message that love can triumph over anything—even death.

Earl Sewell, the author of the “Keysha and Friends” (Kimani TRU) books, says many of his fans turn to his novels for advice in navigating the strange new territory of first love. In addition to relationship drama, he also addresses current themes that readers can relate to, such as social media or the Internet. His latest, Back to Me (Kimani TRU, 2012), explores the dangers of sexting when the naked photo a girl sends to her boyfriend goes viral.

Miranda Kenneally, author of Catching Jordan (2011) and Stealing Parker (2012) and co-editor of Dear Teen Me (Zest, 2012), says her books give young readers hope for the future. Her upcoming Things I Can’t Forget (2012, all Sourcebooks/Fire, 2013) deals with a Christian girl who finds love even after committing what she believes to be the worst sin imaginable–helping her best friend get an abortion.

While the panelists address dark and difficult themes in their work, they all expressed the need to give fans a positive message, with McDaniel concluding that, “Hope is what we’ve got down here.”

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

• Gareth Hinds
• Earl Sewell
• A.S. King
• Johan Harstad
• Barry Lyga
• Sean Michael Wilson
• Peter Hautman
• Karen Healey
• Cecil Castellucci
• Julie Kagawa
• Katie Kacvinsky
• Marissa Meyer

Speaking on “The Rockin’ Women of YA” session during SLJ’s SummerTeen online event, the panelists—which also included Nina LaCour and Jackie Morse Kessler—emphasized the need to write from a universal, rather than a male or female, perspective.

LaCour, the author of Hold Still (Dutton, 2009) and The Disenchantments (Dutton, 2012), says she initially found adapting a masculine point of view daunting but concluded that, “Even though some experiences are probably uniquely boy experiences…really it’s all about the human experience.” King, who was a tomboy growing up, says she prefers using male protagonists. And Stiefvater explains that she particularly likes the fact that her book covers appeal to both male and female readers.

Both Stiefvater and Kessler contrasted their approaches to writing series. Kessler says her “Riders of the Apocalypse” series, which concludes next spring, was an accident. There were no plans to write a sequel to the first book, Hunger (Houghton/Graphia, 2010), but Kessler says her editor asked her to write additional books focusing on the other three Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Stiefvater, on the other hand, intricately plans the plot points of her series well in advance. Despite her love of the world she created in The Scorpio Races (Scholastic, 2011), she has no plans for a sequel because, she says, the story is complete.

LaCour and Stiefvater say they’re actively involved in creating their own book trailers.  King and Kessler say they’ve had to slow down on promoting their work because of their heavy workload. Although social media has made marketing easier for the authors, King cautions against overdoing it, stating that, “The Internet is not a billboard.”

Several authors say they’re also branching out beyond YA, with King co-writing an adult novel, LaCour returning to an adult novel she started in graduate school, and both King and Kessler exploring options for younger readers.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

• Gareth Hinds
• Earl Sewell
• A.S. King
• Johan Harstad
• Barry Lyga
• Sean Michael Wilson
• Peter Hautman
• Karen Healey
• Cecil Castellucci
• Julie Kagawa
• Katie Kacvinsky
• Marissa Meyer

“I can’t tell you how astonishing it is to me that I have written five books about this girl and this boy, about their families and their friends, who do not exist in real life, but are so large in my heart and my history,” says Cooney, the keynote speaker at Thursday’s SLJ SummerTeen, a daylong online event featuring the hottest names in YA lit. “The fifth book poured out, as if I had known all along what really happened to Janie Johnson and [her boyfriend] Reeve Shields.”

The best thing about her series, about a young girl who sees her picture on a milk carton and tries to uncover the truth behind her kidnapping, is that reluctant readers who enjoy her work are always looking for the next book in the series, which include The Face on the Milk Carton, Whatever Happened to Janie?, The Voice on the Radio, and What Janie Found.

The latest installment is “full of suspense and threat, but I’m in that ever dwindling group of YA writers in whose books the good guys win,” says Cooney. “So you don’t know the details, but you do know that romance will triumph, Janie will honor all four of her parents, and the kidnapper will get hers. “

Cooney personally knows what it’s like to deal with a reluctant reader. Her son, Harold, couldn’t learn how to read for years. That’s why the YA author is so pleased that many of her books have ended up on reluctant readers lists.

“I love reluctant readers, since I know how they’re behaving at home, dreading the act of reading, postponing it, hoping it will somehow go away,” says Cooney. “I love to hear from a kid who writes to me in wild excitement, because she actually enjoyed a book.”

Cooney went on to praise librarians for putting students in touch with good books.

“There’s so much competition, and for many kids, like Harold, reading is not a joy; it’s a chore” says Cooney, whose books have received an IRA–CBC Children’s Choice Award and have landed on ALA’s Best Book for Young Adults lists. “And you librarian are the one who is picking out a book that this unwilling reader may actually decide to finish and may even go on to read another book. Your jobs are crucial.”

What’s up next for this writer? Cooney says she’s busy conducting extensive research for a historical fiction novel about the children who sailed on the Mayflower.
“I’m writing about kids who really and truly did have a hard time,” says Cooney, who was inspired by the topic after reading Make Haste from Babylon by British scholar Nick Bunker. “I was fascinated by the Pilgrims,” Cooney goes on to say. “I became fascinated by the children who would eventually sail on the Mayflower. We know about the Founding Fathers and in the last few decades, we’ve begun to learn about the Founding Mothers.  Now I’m going to write about the Founding Children.”

Cooney’s just returned from England, where she visited the villages where the various families lived and followed their escape routes. Now she’s heading out to Plymouth, MA, to work on the American side of the story.

“I don’t have a title for this book, and I’m open to suggestions, because this is one of the world’s greatest adventure stories,” Cooney says. But don’t bother suggesting Children of the Mayflower, she adds, explaining it sounds too much like a textbook.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

• Gareth Hinds
• Earl Sewell
• A.S. King
• Johan Harstad
• Barry Lyga
• Sean Michael Wilson
• Peter Hautman
• Karen Healey
• Cecil Castellucci
• Julie Kagawa
• Katie Kacvinsky
• Marissa Meyer

Photo: Robert Severi

Waitress, calligraphy instructor, and technical editor are just some of the jobs Maggie Stiefvater had before becoming a writer. Now the New York Times bestselling author is busy working on the sequel to The Raven Boys, the first in a four-book series.

Stiefvater’s Linger, the second book in the “Shiver” trilogy, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list, and there are more than 1.8 million copies of the series in print. The Scorpio Races, Stiefvater’s latest novel, received five starred reviews and was named a 2012 Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association.

Stiefvater, who lives in Virginia with her husband, two small kids, dogs, and one criminally insane cat, is an avid reader, an award-winning colored pencil artist, and plays several musical instruments, including the Celtic harp, the piano, and the bagpipes. Follow her on Twitter @mstiefvater.

Stiefvater is a is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Stiefvater speak on the “Rockin’ Women of YA” panel from 3:45 p.m.–4:45 p.m. Registration is still open.

What do you like best about writing for a YA audience?

MS: I really love the idea that I might be the author who introduces a teen reader to the incredible world of folklore and mythology. I still remember novels from my childhood—The Dark is Rising, Fire and Hemlock, The Black Cauldron—that introduced me to myth, and they literally changed my way of looking at the world.

How did you end up writing fantasy novels?

MS: Oh, there was never a time when that was in question for me. Well, I take that back. I had a brief stint as a 16-year-old where all I wrote were IRA political thrillers, but we all have those phases, right? Right? I got a piece of advice when I was young—”Write the book you wish you could find on the shelf but can’t”—and what I love to read is fantasy set in the real world.

What’s one of the most moving things you’ve heard said about your books?

MS: I think I would have to say one of the most stunning letters I’ve received in the past year was from a teen who had just lost her father. She said that reading Shiver had made her think about the nature of love and loss and realize how purely her father had loved her and her mother, and that she could believe that that love carried on after he was gone, and she didn’t have to be afraid anymore—she could be a hero. Letters like that don’t ever leave you.

How valuable are librarians about getting the word out about your work?

MS: This is a trick question, isn’t it? Because of course they are invaluable—I have countless emails from readers saying that a librarian had been the one to put my novel in their hand. Word of mouth is beyond reproach. Isn’t that how we all love to find a book?

Do you ever worry about your books being censored or challenged?

MS: No. I write the story.

What are you working on now?

MS: I’m working on the sequel to The Raven Boys (September 18), which is the first in a four-book series. It’s about a wealthy private school boy searching for the body of an ancient Welsh king and the daughter of a psychic who has been told that if she kisses her true love, he’ll die. It’s mythology and boys behaving badly and fast cars and magic—so, the book that I wish I could find on the shelf but can’t.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

• Gareth Hinds
• Earl Sewell
• A.S. King
• Johan Harstad
• Barry Lyga
• Sean Michael Wilson
• Peter Hautman
• Karen Healey
• Cecil Castellucci
• Julie Kagawa
• Katie Kacvinsky
• Marissa Meyer

Marissa Meyer’s

Born and raised in Tacoma, WA, she Meyer was initially inspired to write Cinder after participating in a 2008 writing contest where she wrote a story focusing on a futuristic Puss in Boots.

Meyers attended Pacific Lutheran University, where she received a degree in creative writing. Before writing Cinder, she worked as a book editor for five years and would write Sailor Moon fanfics under the pen name of Alicia Blade.

Meyer is a is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Meyer speak on the “Classic Twist” panel from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Registration is still open.

How did you end up writing fantasy novels?
MM: I started writing my first novel when I was 16—a fantasy novel about a 16-year-old princess (of course!). That novel was never finished, and I would attempt many more ideas and stories throughout college and into adulthood. I grew up, but my characters never did. When I started seriously looking into publication, I realized that I’d been writing YA all this time.

What do you like best about writing for teens?
MM: There’s a certain freedom that comes with writing YA. Teens are so experimental with their reading—they haven’t yet gotten locked into any specific genre, and when I ask a teen what their favorite books are, they often mention dystopians, paranormals, contemporaries, horrors, and more—all in one breath. This openness also allows for a lot of genre mashing and bending, which gives us writers permission to let our imaginations run wild.

What’s one of the most moving things someone has said about your books?
MM: I received an email from a teen reader who was about to go in for surgery to have metal splints put into her leg. She said that reading about Cinder with her cyborgness had made her feel not so scared and alone, and even made her feel pretty cool. I’m so honored to think my book could have that sort of impact, and I was of course quick to tell her that she is cool. A real-life cyborg!

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?
MM: There will never be a replacement for a good librarian. They know their genre and they know their readers—they’re in a perfect spot to connect people with the book they’re looking for and didn’t even know about. When a librarian succeeds at getting the right book into the right hands, it can open up a whole new relationship with books for that reader. That’s so special, and as a writer I appreciate what a difference a hand-picked recommendation of my book can make.

Do you ever worry about your books being censored or challenged?
MM: There isn’t much in the “Lunar Chronicles” that I worry about, but I sense some of the stories I have in mind for future projects could have touchier subjects. I like to think that I would have the confidence to write the story that I feel needs to be told, regardless of how it might be received.

Tell us about what you’re working on now?
MM: I’m currently knee-deep in revisions for Cress: Book Three of the Lunar Chronicles.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell

A.S. King

Johan Harstad

Barry Lyga

Sean Michael Wilson

Peter Hautman

Karen Healey

Cecil Castellucci

Julie Kagawa

Katie Kacvinsky

Katie Kacvinsky

Kacvinsky is a is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Kacvinsky speak on the “Who Will Mend This Broken Heart” panel from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is still open.

How’d you end up writing romance novels?

KK: I used to teach high school English, and my favorite class to teach was creative writing. You can learn so much about students through their writing; it’s amazing how many walls they will let down. The more I worked with teenagers, the more I realized all of the challenges they face in high school with family, friends, jobs, independence, relationships…there is so much drama.  It’s endless writing material.

What’s one of the most moving things you’ve heard about your work?

KK: I had a fan come up to me and thank me for being so honest in First Comes Love.  She said her uncle had recently passed away and she was having a hard time dealing with it. She said that my book gave her a different perspective on grieving and it helped her to cope with what happened. When my writing reaches anyone on a personal level, it’s really rewarding.

What do you like best about writing for a YA audience?

KK: I love the enthusiasm from my fans. Teenagers get so hyped up about books, probably more so than any other fan base.

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your books?

KK: Librarians are paramount in spreading the word about my books. I owe most of the publicity I have done to librarians, whether it’s setting up a school visit, a library visit, or a teen workshop visit, it’s the enthusiasm of librarians that have helped to spread the word.  They are an author’s best friend.

Do you ever worry about being censored or challenged due to the sex and language in your books?

KK: I don’t really worry about it. There is sex and some swearing in First Comes Love, but, you know what, that’s realistic stuff. A lot of authors shy away from writing about sex, so they might infer that it happens, but I couldn’t do that in this book. Besides, my favorite authors are the ones that take risks, who aren’t afraid to be completely honest in their writing.

What are you working on now?

KK: The sequel to First Comes Love. It’s called Second Chance.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell

A.S. King

Johan Harstad

Barry Lyga

Sean Michael Wilson

Peter Hautman

Karen Healey

Cecil Castellucci

Julie Kagawa

Kagawa’s passion for writing continued into adulthood, but to pay the rent, she worked in several bookstores. When she was caught on the job reading more than shelving books, Kagawa turned to her other passion—training animals—and worked as a professional dog trainer for several years. Once her first book sold, Kagawa started to write full-time.

A New York Times and internationally bestselling author of “The Iron Fey” series, Kagawa is a is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Kagawa speak on the “Aftermath Lit” panel from 3:45 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Registration is still open.

How did you end up writing fantasy novels?

JK: I originally wrote a novel I thought was an adult fantasy, but most of my characters were young, so my agent decided it was actually YA. Looking back, almost all my characters in my previous stories have been teens, so I’ve been writing YA for a while now, I just didn’t know it.

What do you like best about writing for a YA audience?

JK: I just really love the genre. I love writing for and about teenagers; they’re incredibly dynamic, both in story and real life They love and hate with such a passion. I also love that I can find a lot of my readers online in social media, which allows me to talk with fans and others who love YA. 

What’s one of the most moving things you’ve heard about your work?

JK: It’s always the “your book inspired me to write” compliment that gets me every time. I myself began writing because certain books and authors inspired me, and to know that my books can do the same is the best thing someone can tell me.

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?

JK: Invaluable. I have nothing but awe and respect for librarians; they are so essential in getting people to read and spreading the word about great books. If they like a book, they will tell people about it, and I know of many people who will read a book or a series just based on their recommendation. They are the unsung heroes of the literary world. 

Do you ever worry about being censored?

JK: To me, censoring is far more dangerous than the content of any book, and I believe it is a parent’s responsibility to decide what books their child is ready for, not a group’s decision to ban a book from everyone. To that end, I try to write what feels real—how real teens speak and act and think. I write what the story calls for, and if that somehow gets my book censored or challenged, so be it. It will still find its way into the hands of my audience, regardless of censorship.

What are you working on now?

JK: At the moment, I am working on the sequel to The Immortal Rules, the second book in the Blood of Eden series, titled The Eternity Cure, and it will be out sometime in early 2013.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell

A.S. King

Johan Harstad

Barry Lyga

Sean Michael Wilson

Peter Hautman

Karen Healey

Cecil Castellucci

A School Library Journal online event

EVENT TIME: Thursday, August 9, 2012, 10:30 AM-5:30 PM ET

Join School Library Journal and SLJTeen for SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books and take your summer reading to new heights! Be the first to find out about the hottest upcoming titles, and attend panels on romance, science fiction, classics and more with YA’s coolest authors.

SummerTeen will bring together a blockbuster keynote with presentations on topics near and dear to the hearts of youth services and school librarians including the hottest genres and latest formats. Experience the excitement of the virtual exhibit floor with new offerings from publishers and sponsors, new book trailers, prizes and give-aways and much more.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Caroline B. Cooney, author, The Face on the Milk Carton

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

Maggie Stiefvater, author, Scorpio Races
Pete Hautman, author, The Obsidian Blade
A.S. King, author, The Passengers
Karen Thompson Walker, author, Age of Miracles
Andrea J. Buchanan, author, Gift
Terri Clark, author, Hollyweird
Gareth Hinds, author, The Odyssey
Johan Harstad, author, 172 Hours on the Moon
Julie Kagawa, author, Iron Fey series
Lurlene McDaniel, author, Heart to Heart
Marissa Meyer, author, Cinder
Earl Sewell, author, Keysha and Friends series

Can’t make it on August 9? No problem! Register now and you will get an email reminder from School Library Journal post-live event when the event is archived and available for on-demand viewing for 3 months at your convenience!

Follow us on Twitter! @SLJEvent #sljsummerteen

We’ve been talking to the great authors who will be part of our SummerTeen virtual event on August 9. Read on if you missed a few or just want to review as you get prepped for this summer author-palooza! Registration is still open.

• Cecil Castellucci
• Gareth Hinds
• Earl Sewell
• A.S. King
• Johan Harstad
• Barry Lyga
• Sean Michael Wilson
• Peter Hautman
• Karen Healey

Castellucci, whose works include Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, and First Day on Earth, is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Castellucci’s speak on the “Alternate Formats: New Approaches to Teen Fiction” panel from 1: pm.-2:00 p.m. Registration is still open.

What’s one of the most moving things you’ve heard someone say about your work?

CC: Well, with Boy Proof, once I got an email from a girl saying that it was the first present that her mom had ever gotten right. They read it together, and she said that they talked for the first time in two years over breakfast discussing it. That really moved me. With the Plain Janes, a lot of girls write me to tell me that they did art attacks or noticed street art and are now pursuing art in college. I’m all about everybody becoming an artiste of some kind-amateur or professional-so that thrills me to bits.

What do you like best about writing for a YA audience?

CC: I like best that teens like what they like and don’t like what they don’t like. They cut right to it. They don’t like things that don’t ring true. So, for me, as an author it means that there is a no fluff kind of approach. Tell the truth. Tell the story. And either a kid will like it or hate it, because either it’s for them or not. Also, I adore the fact that a lot of times it’s the first time that they are processing sophisticated ideas, and I love how excited they get about that.

How did you end up writing for your specific genre?

CC: I always wanted to write YA, so I was always aiming for here, rather than ending up here. I fell in love with stories as a teen-books, movies, comics-and so that always seemed like the best people to write for.

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?

CC: Librarians are one of the master keys to getting the word out about books. They know their kids. They know how to read a kid. And because librarians are so knowledgeable, they can get the right book into the right kids’ hands. I know for me, as someone who writes about outsiders, that is very important. My books are the perfect book for a particular kind of teen, and, of course, rip roaring fun for every one else.

Do you ever worry about your work being censored?

CC: I don’t worry about that because worrying about that is the death of art. It is our job as artists to follow the story wherever it wants to go. We must write with no fear.

What are you working on now?

CC: I’m working on a book called The Tin Star. It is book one of my new sci-fi duet (two book series), and it takes place on a space station and has lots of aliens in it.

Pete Hautman

Hautman, who lives in Minnesota, is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Hautman speak on the “Science in Science Fiction” panel from 2:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Registration is still open.

We spoke to Hautman about how he accidentally fell into writing YA, why he thinks librarians are indispensible, and why it’s OK to offend his readers.

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?

PH: They are the reason I can do the work I do. My books are not what you would call “highly commercial” (to my regret!), and if not for librarians and teachers, very few teens would discover my books. In other words, indispensible.

What’s one of the most moving things a teen has said about your books?

PH: “Until I read your books, I never knew there were other people out there who thought like me.”

How’d you make the transition from writing for adults to writing for teens?

PH: My first several novels were written for adults. I began writing for teens by accident-I wrote a time-travel novel that covered about 70 years in a man’s life-and it turned out that the most interesting part of the book was about things that happened to him when he was a teen. The teen character came to dominate the story, and when I tried to get it published, I was told that I had written a YA novel. “What is why aye?” I said. Once that book (Mr. Was [S & S, 1996]) was published, I started remembering what a magical and revelatory thing it was to read books as a teen. I thought it would be fun to write a few more. Turns out, I’m writing a lot more.

What do you like best about writing for young adults?

PH: The audience. Teens are far more open-minded readers than your average adult. I love writing for readers who, when I take an unexpected left, lean into the turn just to see where it will go.

Do you ever worry about your works being censored or challenged?

PH: I think about it, but I don’t worry about it. I write what I want to write with the understanding that it won’t be embraced by everyone. In fact, if I ever write a book that offends no one, I will think I have failed. Any good book, in my opinion, should challenge the reader. Why should I be offended when some readers fight back?

What are you working on now?

PH: I am working on the “Klaatu Diskos” time-travel trilogy. The first book, The Obsidian Blade, came out last spring. The second book, The Cydonian Pyramid, is coming next April. The third (untitled) book will be published spring, 2014. That is, assuming I finish it on time!

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell

A.S. King

Johan Harstad

Barry Lyga

Sean Michael Wilson

Karen Healey

Now an award-winning YA novelist, Healey wrote Guardian of the Dead (2010) and The Shattering (2011, Little, Brown), both urban fantasies set in New Zealand. Guardian of the Dead won the 2010 Aurealis Award for Best YA Novel and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award. She’s now working on the forthcoming When We Wake.

Healey is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Healey speak on the “Aftermath Lit” panel from 3:45 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Registration is still open.

Moderator Angela Carstensen, the head librarian at Convent of the Sacred in New York, says she plans to discuss the popularity of dystopian themes with teens beyond The Hunger Games, as well as the crossover from writing for adults to teens.

What’s one of the most touching things you’ve heard from someone about your books?

“Thank you for writing someone like me”.

Including an asexual teenager in Guardian of the Dead wasn’t a particularly momentous decision for me. I just thought, “Well, why not?” I did some research and talked to some asexual friends, and that was pretty much it. But a lot of asexual teenagers and adults found the inclusion of Kevin a huge relief-just the acknowledgement that asexuality existed was really satisfying for many of them.

Some asexual readers were less pleased with his portrayal, and that’s an entirely valid reaction. I’m very sorry that I failed those readers as a writer. But I do treasure those emails and comments from readers who were happy to see someone like them.

How’d you end up writing urban fantasies?

Although my books are classed as urban fantasy (Guardian of the Dead, The Shattering) and near-future dystopia (the forthcoming When We Wake), I am basically a cross-genre nerd, which is another great thing about YA-readers tend to be much more accepting of works where it’s an urban fantasy and a crime thriller and a horror and a romance. I read voraciously across a number of genres, so it’s lovely to be able to pull inspiration from all of them.

What do you like best about being a YA author?

Teenage-and and adult!-YA readers tend to get very involved in their reading. They review, they make fan products, they passionately debate nuance and analyze the text. I love it. To me, discussing a book is just as much fun as reading it, and it’s so great to see so many young people delve into their favorite-and sometimes less favorite-works.

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?

Librarians are priceless. Librarians have pushed my books into the hands of readers, and asked me to come and speak at their schools, and nominated my work for awards, and written thoughtful, thought-provoking reviews, and invited me to nice lunches-and basically they are just great. Sometimes I get an email saying, “I got your book at the library because I couldn’t buy it, sorry,” and I’m like, “Are you kidding, that’s the best, support your libraries!”

Do you ever worry about your work being censored or challenged?

Not really? Granted, I don’t publish in the U.S. exclusively, where I understand it’s more of a concern. But I think censorship and book challenges are the worst possible ways to respond to content and ideas that you find unpleasant or objectionable. Well, second worst, next to book burnings. I regard the people who employ challenges as bludgeons against librarians, schools, and authors with complete scorn, and if I caught myself thinking, “Well, I’d better not write that because the book banners might not like it”, I’d be ashamed. Why would I want to make those people happy?

What are you working on now?

A sequel to When We Wake, my forthcoming dystopia following the adventures of Tegan Oglietti, who dies in Melbourne 2027 and wakes up 100 years later into a very different world. This is my very first sequel, I’m so proud! There are gunfights, daring escapes, perilous stakes, fraught ethics, and of course, lots of making out.

Currently, the book has the Internet working title, Cheerbaby Goes to State.

After I wrote two books, which had several title changes between the first draft and final publications, I started giving manuscripts Internet working titles for the purpose of talking about them online. The first was Mysterious New Novel, which was the working title for When We Wake, which never had a single title change. But I’m pretty sure this one will!

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell

A.S. King

Johan Harstad

Barry Lyga

Currently working on books for the Tokyo publisher Kodansha, SLJ caught up with Wilson, who is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Wilson speak on the “Classic Twists” panel from 2:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Registration is still open.

Tell us about the kinds of comics and graphic novels you create?

SMW: I work in three or four genres within the general art form of the comic book or graphic novel. Adaptation of classics and historical work, manga, biography and documentary books are what most of my books have been. I can understand why librarians are more prone to classification, but in my mind I don’t make much distinction between the various types of books I write. The key elements of what leads me to write a specific book are two in all cases: what is interesting for me to create, and what will publishers want/ask me to do? (Unfortunately, those two are not also going in the same direction in this money-dominated system we have at present!)

How does it feel to have such a strong teen fan base?

SMW: Well, my books are not just for the YA audience, but for adults in general. In both types, what we are dealing with are human emotions, social situations and relationships, ideas that engage and motivate people-basically about the human condition. YA books are about the human condition at that particular age.
Of course, one of the basic aims is to increase YA’s interest in reading. We might take it a step further and say what is the point of reading, what advantages does it bring? I’ve been reflecting on [author and media theorist] Neil Postman’s point that reading helps encourage logical thinking, analysis, and a feeling that the world has some pattern, and that our current lives take place within a continuity. He contrasts that to television, which encourages a short-term memory type processing, the visual, the instantaneous, thinking that’s divorced from building patterns of connection. These are perhaps less desirable. So, graphic novels with the mixture of both visuals and text are one good way of bridging between these two ways of thinking.

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?

SMW: Very important, libraries and librarians are crucial, and getting even more so recently with graphic novels. In fact right now a good example of that is happening. My Wuthering Heights book has been shortlisted in the Stan Lee Excelsior Awards, which is an exciting new
award scheme where readers aged 11-16 choose the winner from eight shortlisted books held in their school library. In the process they, of course, read the eight books, and give some considered opinion on the merits of each—a good way for libraries to encourage reading and analytical thinking. This is organized by the libraries of around 170 schools in the UK.

What’s one of the most moving things you’ve heard about your work?

SMW: I was giving a lecture about my books in a college, and a teacher was there with her 14 year old daughter. She told me that so far she had not let her daughter read comics/graphic novels, as she had thought they would be detrimental to her reading development. But that after
listening to my talk, she had changed her mind and intended to buy my book for herself and her daughter. So, I managed to bring over both an adult reader and a younger reader-success!

Ever worry about your work being censored or challenged?

SMW: Censored no, challenged yes. I don’t think any publishers I’ve worked with so far have said ‘Don’t do that.’ The challenges often come from critics and often rather narrow minded and ill-informed ones at that. I do often get upset when a critic makes some point that seems totally inaccurate to me, and based on not having thought about the book enough or just mouthing off their own prejudices. People tell me I need to be more ‘thick skinned’ about it. But sometimes a point raised can make me reflect on how I write or what I write and lead me to try to do better next time.

What can you tell us about the books you’re working on now?

SMW: I’m working on a 150-page historical manga book with Kodansha, my first Japanese/English bilingual book. It’s exciting to have this bilingual version. Also a documentary-style comic book called ‘Parecomic’, with Seven Stories Press in NY. We’ve almost finished
that one now, a 200-page book with an introduction by Noam Chomsky. I’m also doing some library based use of comics to promote literacy with the ‘Upside Comics’ group in the UK:

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell

A.S. King

Johan Harstad

Barry Lyga

Fanboy and Goth Girl received two starred reviews and made the School Library Journal‘s 2006 Best Books list. Lyga is the author many books in different genres, including, Boy Toy (2007), Hero-Type (2008), Goth Girl Rising (2009) and Mangaman (2011, all Houghton Harcourt), and is currently hard at work on the sequel to his thriller, I Hunt Killers(Little, Brown, 2012).

Lyga, who lives in New York City, is a guest speaker at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Lyga speak on the “Alternate Formats: New Approaches to Teen Fiction” panel from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Registration is still open.

SLJ spoke to Lyga about what how he started writing for teens, his view of librarians, and how his books have possibly saved lives.

What do you like best about writing for teens?

BL: The enthusiasm and passion of the audience. Teens are at an age where a good book—or just the right book at the right time—can still dramatically change their opinions, their visions of themselves and the world, and their futures. Adults are pretty much set. Very few adults radically change their lives in adulthood. But teens are still amorphous, still in progress, so a book can still set them off on an entirely different course. That’s a pretty amazing thing to contemplate. I don’t write books with the intention of changing a teen’s life, but just knowing that it’s possible is phenomenal.

So what’s one of the most moving things someone has said after reading one of your books?

BL: Quite simply, this: “I was going to kill myself, but then I read your book and decided not to.”

How’d you end up writing your first YA novel?

BL: Sheer accident. I had written a couple of adult novels that I didn’t sell and friends kept telling me that all of the characters in them acted like teenagers, even though they were intended to be adults. This made me decide to try my hand at a YA novel. I got about three pages into The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl when everything just clicked for me and I knew that this was what I was supposed to be writing all along.

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?

BL: Enormously so! I write for an audience that doesn’t always have a great deal of disposable income, so the ability to read my books for free at the library is a gigantic benefit. And librarians—in my experience—are the best people in the world at performing that invaluable service of noticing what a kid is reading and saying to him/her: “Hey, if you liked that, I bet you’d like this…and this…and this…”

You sometimes write about sensitive topics. Do you ever worry about your books being censored or challenged?

BL: I wouldn’t say I “worry” about it. I think about it sometimes. It crosses my mind. But it never affects the writing itself. It can’t. You can’t write a story while trying to please some invisible, unknowable army of hypocrites who will never, ever be happy with what you write in the first place. There’s just no winning that game. So you write the story you want to see out there in the world, and if someone challenges it or yanks it off a bookshelf, you go and you fight the good fight. But to write a book trying to avoid a challenge or censorship… that’s ceding your authorial voice and your very soul to the forces of, well, blatant idiocy. Who would want to do that?

What are you working on now?

BL: I’m working on the sequel to my thriller, I Hunt Killers. I’m also working on a couple of other things. I always have multiple projects on shuffle—but nothing I can talk about yet.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell

A.S. King

Johan Harstad

Harstad, who lives in Oslo, is a guest speaker atSLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your teens to hear Harstad speak on the “The Science in Science Fiction” panel from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Registration is still open.

SLJ spoke to the award-winning author, musician, photographer, and playwright about why he thinks librarians are “guides of literature,” his strong views on artistic freedom, and the progress of his upcoming novel for adults.

How did you end up writing for your genre?

JH: A coincidence, really, I had only written novels, short stories, and plays for adult readers and never thought I’d write a YA novel, or a commercial novel like this. Then I was contacted by a publisher who asked if I felt like giving it a shot. I had just finished a new novel for adults at the time and wanted to do something different for my next project, so the timing was perfect.

I ended up having a lot of fun writing it, not only because all the films and novels of the genre that I watched and read when I was young sort of came back to me, but also because of the freedom and the fact that I was sometimes scared while writing it, which was done mostly at night and in the early hours, looking up from my computer and seeing my own reflection in the window. Contrary to what many people think I’m not a space geek so I had to do a lot of research, which I also enjoyed immensely.

What do you like best about writing for a YA audience?

JH: Without a doubt the fact that YA readers are still young enough not to have cemented their preference in art. They are still searching for what will reflect them and their interests, and even though they may be the hardest crowd to please, they are still very much on the lookout and somewhat open to the weirdest ideas. For the youngest YA readers, I like the opportunity to do my best to scare them for life.

What’s one of the most moving things a reader has said about your books?

JH: I get my fair share of emails from teens who have read my books, not only my YA novel, but also my other work, and I’m often both extremely thankful and moved by what they write. Being told that you have changed someone’s life is quite powerful thing to hear, it makes you want to work harder, as you remember how your own life was changed by books, films, and music that made you who you are. Also, I’m sometimes surprised and touched to hear that young readers have read my YA novel “172 Hours on The Moon” and wanting to read more, they jumped directly for instance to my 500 page play about the war in Bosnia and the Genocide in Rwanda, which they apparently enjoyed even more.

More than anything, I have to say that what has moved me the most are those few people who have ended up getting tattoos with a sentence or graphic inspired by one of my books because the books mean so much to them. That is very humbling, knowing they will carry it with them for the rest of their lives. My French translator and dear friend also has one, a sentence in my handwriting from a short story collection of mine. The tattoo, running from the side of his torso all the way up to his armpit, says something like “All the time people whom you can love are being born. All the time.” Still, no one has gotten a tattoo based on my YA novel, so the spot to be no.1 is still open…

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?

JH: Very valuable, indeed. Especially when it comes to the younger reader who’s searching and glad to be pointed in the right direction. I’ve met both public librarians and school librarians who have done a great job in promoting my work, so I’m very grateful to them as a group. In many bookstores around the world the people working there are not as well-read as they once were, but librarians, I think, still read a lot. And therefore they are able to be guides of literature. I remember my high school librarian who probably felt she was fighting a lost war to get kids to read, but she would light up whenever someone asked her for a tip. Then it was always worth it. That one kid. She had read everything, it seemed. And for more than 10 years after I finished high school, she kept promoting my books on a special display in the school library.

Do you ever worry about your books being censored or challenged?

JH: If you’re talking about political censorship or any form of censorship that threatens the release of a book, I’d have to answer theoretically as that has never been an issue. Partly because my writing isn’t particularly controversial, partly because I check my facts thoroughly when writing about potentially controversial subjects and partly because there’s very little you can’t get away with-in Norway at least. What happens to my works when they are being translated to languages I don’t speak by translators I don’t communicate with is a different thing, of course. But I don’t spend energy worrying about things that I have no ability to control. The bottom line is that I write as freely as I possibly can and am always ready to stand up for the text if needed. In general, I strongly believe in importance of artistic freedom to explore whatever feels necessary, as long as it tries to say something about us and who we are. And I have great respect for some of those artists who have put their whole lives on the line to create something that makes us all better. Or tried to, anyway.

What are you working on now?

JH: I’m working on a new novel for adults, which may come out in Norway sometime next year. If all goes well. I don’t really want to say very much about it other than that I’m in the middle of it, which is both the best and the worst place to be. Parts of it will be set in the US during the 90′s. But the characters are Norwegians. Well, most of them. It’s a novel I’ve wanted to write for years, and now I’m finally ready to do it.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell

A.S. King

King is just one of the 21 blockbuster authors scheduled to speak at SLJ‘s August 9 online event, SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. If you’ve signed up for SummerTeen, make sure to gather your students to hear King speak on the “Rockin’ Women of YA” panel from 3:45 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Betsy Bird, a youth materials specialist for the New York Public Library system and an SLJ blogger, will moderate the session.

We spoke to King about why librarians are her heroes, what it’s like writing for teens, and what she’s working on now.

What do you like best about writing for a YA audience?

King: While I’m writing, I don’t think about the age of my audience. That said, I really enjoy visiting readers in their schools, libraries, and communities and talking very frankly about issues that are facing them in everyday life. I especially love widening this conversation to all age groups, especially adults, because so often they are left out of the conversation and end up somewhat out of touch with teenagers.

How did you end up writing for your genre?

King: I have absolutely no idea. My books have been nominated for awards in many categories: mystery, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary/literary. I guess I don’t really have a specific genre.

What’s one of the most moving things someone has said to you after reading one of your books?

King: In the months that have passed since releasing Everybody Sees the Ants, I have heard more than once from both librarians and teens that the book “changed their life.” That’s pretty awesome.

I [recently went on] Twitter and found this comment: “A book that changed me forever, Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King.” That is worth more than heavy chain store backing and all the money in the world.

How valuable are librarians at getting the word out about your work?

King: Librarians are pretty much my heroes in this respect. I am not a commercial author-meaning my books do not get top billing at chain stores and on the big online sites. I seem to fit more into libraries and schools and because of this, librarians and teachers are my closest career allies.

Do you ever worry about your books being censored or challenged?

King: I do not worry about this. It doesn’t affect how I write at all. As a library trustee who has had to field one very small challenge at our branch, I feel very strongly about a board who would limit the reading material of all their patrons based on the complaints of few. So, my only ‘worry’ in the case of a book of mine being challenged would be for the patrons or students in a library where the professional/s entrusted with the job of collection management could be overruled by people who did not have library science experience.

What are you working on now?

King: I am editing my 2013 book, Reality Boy, and I am writing the first draft of my potential 2014 book, co-authoring an adult book, and getting ready to write the first draft of the potential 2015 book by the end of the year.

Other SLJ SummerTeen Interviews:

Gareth Hinds

Earl Sewell