Marisa Hopkins @marisadaydreams - Tumblr Blog

Lilo Hess Cristine de baby chimpansee 1954 ill t 1-6 by janwillemsen

Oh, Those Clever Librarians and Their #Bookface

Bookface involves strategically lining up your face or another body part alongside a book cover that features a matching body part so that there appears a melding of life and art. Librarians and other book lovers post these photos weekly on visual apps like Instagram, using the caption #BookfaceFriday. The minitrend is giving a boost to the digital presence of institutions that are, by definition, purveyors of analog information.

wasbella102

theinturnetexplorer

Poor Grandma

that-mutt-marie-deactivated2017

PLOT TWIST OMG

skylorde

WHAT IN THE WORLD

marisadaydreams

I'm pretty sure this is my grandma. #nonstopbadassery

cliwrites-blog

The Unspoken Ageism in YA

Today, I ran across an article by written by the New York Daily that said that in order to sell YA books you need to write about threesomes. Because I don’t want to generate site traffic for them, here’s a safe link: http://www.donotlink.com/gaus

Not only was that article biphobic, written by someone who didn’t know the first thing about YA and also didn’t know how to honestly quote authors, but it was also incredibly ageist.

There is ageism in the YA community. It’s not talked about often, but it should be. There, of course, is ageism against YA, too, but today I’m going to talk about the ageism that occurs when teens decide to read and write Young Adult fiction. I just want to throw a disclaimer out there that this is not an attack against any YA adult writer or reader. I love how YA is a wonderful reading experience for every age group. I love that adults read YA and stay active in the YA community. The YA community has been thoughtful, sensitive, and engaging in many social issues, and some of the books themselves are incredibly relatable. But the ageism and the way some people conduct themselves has gotten to a point where teen readers I know, including myself, are not sure if we even belong in the YA community or not, and it’s ridiculous to think that teen readers feel so distanced from the books that portray teenagers. I’ve talked to teen readers, and some of us have concluded that, frankly, sometimes we don’t see ourselves in YA anymore.

Don’t know what ageism in YA is? It’s:

-When adult school boards decide what Young Adult books teens should be denied to read, and teens don’t get a say in it.

-When I’m in a room at a conference and there’s a panel of adults instructing YA writers how to “write YA”, but I know they’re thinking of how to write for YA trends and how to write for the industry because there is not a single mention of what teen readers want to see on shelves. And I, a teenage YA writer who does not identify with anything that’s being said, shrink behind my conference badge. Because the adults Must Be Right.

-When several YA authors try to deny and shame a teenage reader’s sense of discomfort regarding an author.

-When teens I go to school with and the friends I have care about grades and AP scores and tenuous friendships. They cry about family troubles and college apps and fear for unknown futures and unknown careers. But many protagonists in YA, incidentally, just overwhelmingly care about kissing that hot person. (Relationships are major, but they’re not the only thing teens think about.)

-When adults write articles saying that all teens want are threesomes, and out of all the woefully misquoted people in there (who may or may not share the same opinion as him), none of them are a) YA readers or b) the very teenagers who open YA books in an attempt to see some of themselves in the author’s words. I think Kate Brauning tweeted the other day that teens shouldn’t be grouped and written about in a single narrative or manner, because teenagers are diverse. And it’s absolutely true. It’s infuriating when adults decide how teens should be collectively be portrayed in books. When they arrive on a consensus on How All Teens Should Act And Do, they inadvertently co-opt our voices, and tell US what we should read and what we should write. There is no dialogue. And that should change.

We are not your perfect high school fantasies. We are not your constantly witty, gorgeous, and sexually confident characters. We come from all races and from every type of social situation. We develop all kinds of identities of sex and gender. We can love boldly or hesitantly, or not at all. There is no one “right” way to write YA. The next time you write about teenagers, listen to us. Respect us. And please, please don’t try to speak for us without considering our voices.

And Allen Salkin, the next time you decide to write about “What YA Readers Want”, maybe you should consider also including a teenage reader to purposefully misquote as well. And for your information, New York Daily News, I’m a Young Adult reader, a young adult, and I’ll still like a book even if there isn’t a threesome in it.

marisadaydreams

THIS. Such a smart point.

tracichee

DOUBTS Traci Chee

2015 c1950s glass medicine bottle, vegetable cellulose capsules, non-pareils, tissue paper, ink

I submitted my first short story for publication in 2006.

Unsurprisingly, it was rejected.

Thus began my adventures in publishing. I joined the thousands of other writers who have to swallow rejection on a daily basis, who accept their rejections as rites of passage, as payment of their dues, as the lashes they must take while they march onward through the perils and pitfalls of their artistic journeys.

In the nine years since then, I’ve racked up 49 additional rejections, ranging from the impersonal “Dear Author”s to the painful “not strong enough”s. Most were kind. Some were not. And in 2014, as I slogged through the query trenches in search of a literary agent, this life of rejection finally dragged me under.

I thought I knew what I was getting into. I’d done my research, after all. I’d read the statistics. I knew the likelihood of squeaking by with only a handful of rejections before an agent recognized my genius was a distant dream, a rumor whispered behind bookshelves and steaming coffee cups, but never a reality.

I wasn’t prepared. Not in the slightest.

After I sent my first batch of queries, I became obsessed with checking my email. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Every twenty minutes. Every ten minutes. Every two minutes. Maybe something came in. Maybe someone requested my manuscript. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

The rejections trickled in. Never fast enough to satisfy me. Never with enough information to help. I was riddled with uncertainty. Should I revise my query? My first ten pages? My whole manuscript? Should I trunk the idea entirely? Was I failure of the most gigantic proportions, completely oblivious to how awful my writing really was?

I tried to distract myself by writing another book, but there was no joy in it anymore. Whenever I faced the page, all I felt was fear and anxiety and self-doubt. It was like rejection had robbed me of my ability to work.

And I loved the work.

I needed to get my mojo back.

DOUBTS arose from this need to turn my dejection and despair into something creative and positive. I needed to build something. Something that would help me laugh off all the “unfortunately”s and “just didn’t love it enough”s. Something that would help me take the power out of rejection and claim it for myself. Something weird and booky and full of joy.

DOUBTS is a compendium of 50 rejections collected from 2006-2014, and as far as books go, it’s a little on the unconventional side. The binding is a vintage pill bottle with a rusty metal cap. The cover is a label, complete with dosage directions. Each page is an edible capsule containing one rejection—verbatim, with the date of receipt. The story is one of epistolary and memoir, pain and transformation. And also one of hope.

Yes, rejections are bitter medicine. They’re also battle scars and badges of honor. They’re proof that I’m trying. That I’m chasing this wild dream of doing what I love. And when my books are published, I’ll be able to shake all my rejections in their little bottle, cackling madly, because I didn’t let them stop me.

I’m not done with rejection. In this business, there are always going to be more of them lying just around the next submission, waiting to pounce. But when that happens, when the “just not for me”s and “not a good fit”s start rolling in again, offering nothing but despair and discouragement, at least I’ll have this.

Because if it ever comes down to it, if I’m ever impulsive and desperate enough, I’ll literally be able to swallow my doubts.

Onward, writers. There are books to be made.

Traci Chee is an author of speculative fiction for teens. A lifelong lover of books, she has degrees in literature and creative writing from UC Santa Cruz and San Francisco State. In her spare time, she likes to get crafty, play board games, and traverse the California backcountry with her fast-fast dog. The Reader is her YA debut.