A Summer Giveaway...

Here are some truths about me:

• I am not Veronica Roth.
• I did not write the amazing Grasshopper Jungle nor the delightful Eleanor & Park.
• I did not get to go to Book Expo America this year, therefore...
• There was no giant flag featuring the cover of my latest book hanging from the ceiling of the Javits Center.

But I'm hanging in. I'm writing and teaching. I'm walking my dog. I invented a pretty amazing recipe for a sort of tiramisu/trifle thingy bathed in dark chocolate. And, despite not having been the toast of NYC...

I'M HOPING YOU MIGHT WANT TO WIN MY BOOK ANYWAY

(honestly, it's been getting great reviews and I think you may enjoy it)

I'm giving away 2 signed hardcover copies PLUS swag

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Sound of Letting Go

by Stasia Ward Kehoe

Giveaway ends August 09, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

John Green & the Beautiful Brain

From ALA to Bologna to BEA, the young adult publishing world has been abuzz with two notions/ideas/people:

REALISTIC CONTEMPORARY & JOHN GREEN

Perhaps these two concepts can, at this point in the dire, scary, Amazon-Hachette battle scarred world of publishing, be conflated into one notion: HOPE.

This word, HOPE, brings me to the central topic in today's post--what I think is John Green's secret to writing books that capture hearts and minds of teens and tons of other-aged folk. His characters, despite diseases, emotional scars, loss and fear, offer readers a very special kind of hope.

Green's protagonists are ALL super-intelligent, puzzle-solving actors in their worlds. Their worlds are our world, dystopian only insofar as modern life is dystopian; oppressive in the ways as we oppress ourselves through negativity and lack of understanding. Green's characters testify to one of the great faith notions of our time: THAT INTELLIGENCE IS THE GREATEST GIFT and our minds hold the keys to living a full, rich life, no matter its length or economic circumstance or related heartbreaks.

And here's another piece of the fascinating phenomenon that reaches at least one apex this week with the opening of the movie, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Green himself is a sort of extension of his protagonists. Google him and learn about his complicated childhood, his love for his brother, his passion for learning, his genuine admiration for the talents of teens--those up-and-comers upon whose shoulders our world's future rests. Swing by one of multitudinous vlogs and allow yourself to be swept up in the wordplay, the ability to connect disparate ideas into some odd, temporal sculpture of words--of moment.

Rabelais...a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke...Neutral Milk Hotel...a book (and movie) title inspired by Shakespeare's Julius Caesar...and teens, lots of quirky, sharp-talking, dynamic, crazy, philosophical, often funny teens who draw connections between the confusing, bizarre, old, new, classic, imaginary, not-yet-invented images they encounter. Who make meaning.

Readers want to BE Green protagonists because they want to be smart enough to see the grace, elegance, and value in the world beneath the detrius of high school hallways, lost friends, even cancer. The hope that John Green depicts in his novels is in the beauty of the brain. 

It's hope enough to make a 46-year-old woman Google the term "nerdfighter." Need I say more?

DFTBA, everybody. D.F.T.B.A.

WHY I'M INSPIRED BY… @loversdiction & @realjohngreen

 

I want to tell her that's what the voices in your head are for, to get you through all the silent parts.

-John Green & David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson p. 34

Shouldn't letting go be painless if you've never learned how to hold on?

 -John Green & David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson p. 247

...maybe there's something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. it's gonna hurt. it's gonna hurt because it matters.

John Green & David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson p. 305

 

Craft Chat: THE BOY VOICE

My current w-I-p is the only the second time I've used a male protagonist. (The first time was a (rightfully) never-published fantasy featuring an anthropomorphic tweenage rat-like character so, yeah.) The voice came to me quite clearly. It is supported daily by living in a house with three teenage boys (and their friends). Still, it is scary crossing the gender line. I feel like I need to use extra caution. I am deleting and changing more lines because they don't feel "boy" than I tend to do when I write girls. I feel a strong sense of obligation to do this correctly so that the final product doesn't feel like an abstract, non-gendered narrator but truly like a guy. (I won't cite any specific works here but I have read several novels in which I get this sense of "stock" character and not rich, specific masculine individual.)

Sometimes, when I feel extra terrified by the task upon which I have embarked, it is helpful to see that it can and has been done before. This Publisher's Weekly article has a list of adult titles of this type. Looking over my own reading list for examples, I invite you to read Kendare Blake's fantastic ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD, Megan Whalen Turner's THE THIEF, Melina Marichetta's THE PIPER'S SON, Philip Pullman's delightful Sally Lockhart mysteries and, of course, John Green's Hazel in THE FAULT IN OUR STARS for a start. This list of male protagonists from The Faculty Lounge includes a few other women who have risen to the gender challenge work (um, J K Rowling!). 

Have you tried writing across gender lines? Do you have another title to add to my reading list? Do you think this type of writing requires more care and, if so, what kind of care?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Why I Love Banned Books Week

Because those lists are filled with books I have loved so,
you know, they're useful :)

Some of my must-reads on the banned list are LOOKING FOR ALASKA, THIRTEEN REASONS WHY, THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN and, a personal favorite CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS (I mean, really?). Head over to the Academy of American Poets longer list of banned books and you'll also find GRENDEL, JUNIE B. JONES (yep), A WRINKLE IN TIME, THE BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA and so many other examples of powerful, thought-provoking BOOKS PEOPLE SHOULD READ!

Even more telling than the titles to which people have chose to object are the REASONS they don't like the books--from homophobia to objection to a particular religious viewpoint to what seems to me to be nothing less than ignorant misinterpretation of what an author is trying to do.

I know authors who wear their "bans" like badges of pride and others who are deeply hurt at being misunderstood. I feel for both types. And I am NOT a fan of people who put other people on lists and those who elect themselves arbiters of their community's morals.

Pop on over to the BANNED BOOKS WEEK website and see if you agree.