Category Archives: YA

May 07, 2013   John   conferences, John, opinion, writing, YA  
6

Writing What You Know About YA

This past weekend, I attended the DFW Writers’ Conference in Texas. Extremely well organized with surprisingly tasty conference food, it made for a great atmosphere in which to hear pitches—lots and lots of pitches, most of them for YA. Perhaps best of all was keynoter Deborah Crombie, who did a great job of reminding the audience that “write what you know” is nonsense—as a native Texan, if she’d listened to that, she’d never have come up with Scotland Yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid and hit the Times bestseller lists year after year.

Well, in a perverse way, Crombie’s speech hit home for me with a lot of the pitches I heard. SO many of them were fantasy of one sort or another—high fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, historical, mythic, you name it, I heard it at least twice. I guess you could say these writers were not writing what they knew, in that none of them had lived in outer space or fought with witches. But by following so many of the genre conventions and storylines that have dominated YA over the last five years, I’d venture that these writers actually are very much “writing what they know”, i.e., writing in the same book worlds they’ve lived in for so long now.

So, here’s the plea I’ve made before on this blog—how about some realistic YA fiction for a change? I’d suggest that realistic YA offers writers a way to avoid both sides of the “write what you know” trap. For one, realistic YA has been in such short supply lately that there aren’t a lot of people to slavishly imitate. And second, as adult writers, viewing the “real” world through teen eyes is a total act of not-knowing. I’d particularly make this plea to my new friends in Texas, which is such a fantastic setting for realistic YA—hey, all you need to do is look to S.E. Hinton’s nearby Oklahoma for proof!

May 03, 2013   Lauren   chat, fun, Jim, Lauren, opinion, reading, Twitter, YA  
1

“She seemed to realize that she’d lost her right to knock.”

Were you with us on Twitter this past Tuesday, when Jim and I chatted with a bunch of folks about the first half of Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park?  As promised, we want to take the conversation to the blog as well, for those who couldn’t make it.  If you want to read it without the SPOILERS you might find below, why not give it a read in the next two weeks, then come back and check out part one’s conversation here, and join us on May 14th at 6 p.m. EST on Twitter (#EandPdglm)?

I’d say the subject that most dominated our discussion was the 1980s setting.  Jim and I both felt that though we love how it plays out in the book, it might have given us some pause as agents considering the book in the slush pile: as Jim asked, “Do kids care about the 80s?”  Fortunately, we had some researchers in the chat to uncover the answer for us.  Anecdotal evidence from Susanna Donato (@SusannaDonato) and DGLM client Brian Bliss (@brainbliss) suggests that teens didn’t mind the choice, might even have been intrigued by it, but would not have cared about the music referenced, which is the source of much of the bond between the two characters.  I was perplexed when Bryan reported that his teen creative writing students wouldn’t have bothered to look up the bands on Park’s mixtapes, until I realized that I didn’t bother to look up the comics that take up an equal amount of the narrative, if not more.  Of course, I’ve heard of them, but it doesn’t mean I fully understand the context.  In the end, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.

After all, that moment where Park first realizes Eleanor is reading his comics along with him and stops to let her catch up has plenty of impact no matter what.  That was one of Kellie Lovegrove (@k_love671)’s favorite parts of the book.  Other favorite moments in the first half included: the very end of the first half, which made Susanna’s heart race.  She also loved when Park asked his grandmother for batteries for his birthday so he could give them to Eleanor.  Jim swooned over “You look like a protagonist…You look like a person who wins in the end.”  And for me, the line referenced in the title of this blog entry, which I loved so much I ran across the room to get a post-it to flag it.

So if you couldn’t make it, tell me, what was YOUR favorite part?  And what did you think of the time period?  Do you have the same sense of dread about whatever Richie reveal is coming our way in the second half?

On May 14th at 6 p.m. EST, Jim (@JimMcCarthy528) and I (@LaurenAbramo) will reconvene at #EandPdglm to talk with everyone about the rest of the book.  If you haven’t gotten started yet, please jump on in!  It’s a pretty quick, short, wonderful read.  (Though Jim and I were rooting for a contrarian to come along and mix it up—are you that person?  Come tell us why!)  I can’t wait to find out how the rest of the book will unravel.

And in case you want to catch up so you can join us next time, here’s a handy dandy widget with all the good stuff to come out of our chat under the #EandPdglm hashtag:


 

 

April 08, 2013   Jim   book club, Jim, Lauren, Uncategorized, writing, YA  
3

The Abramo/McCarthy book reading bonanza

Looks like Lauren and I (and hopefully you!) will be reading ELEANOR & PARK by Rainbow Rowell for our first foray into an online book discussion.

We have lots of ideas that we’re going to try out with this. Keep eyes on this page and on both of our Twitter feeds for updates.

Throughout the process, we’ll have Twitter chats and longer form blog discussions, and we want you to be involved.

If there’s one thing Lauren and I have learned over the several years we’ve worked together, it’s that neither of us has any shortage of opinions, so with any luck this will be a lively discussion.

So what’s next on the docket? Read the first half of the book! Our first Twitter chat with be at 6:00 Eastern on April 30, and the first big blog discussion will be on Friday, May 3.

Hope to see you all there!

 

 

UPDATE: Join us tonight, Tuesday, 4/30, at 6 p.m. to discuss the first half of ELEANOR & PARK!  Just follow the hashtag #eandpdglm on Twitter.

March 27, 2013   Miriam   bestsellers, controversy, distribution, Miriam, selling, YA  
4

Categorizing

Shy, but spunky wallflower meets hot, broody guy.  Sparks fly, complications arise, but true love triumphs in the end.  This could take place in any high school, college, or corporate setting.  And love is love at any age, right?

So, why is there such a flap over bookstore placement of Young Adult vs. New Adult titles?  It all comes down to sex, of course.  The older the protagonists the more sexually explicit the books has always been the rule of thumb.  But, is that still true?  Was the New Adult category created so that everyone involved was of legal age but still playing varsity, emotionally speaking?  Or is there more to this in-between genre that makes it deserving of its own place on store shelves?

I get not putting sexually explicit material next to middle grade or picture book offerings.  But what’s so hard about sliding over a couple of bookcases and hanging a sign saying “New Adult”?  If the problem is that you don’t want kids exposed to inappropriate content, then clear labeling is a tried and true way of dealing with the issue.  Clearly this is a category that is extremely popular for both older teens and adults but one that is having a hard time finding its way into the hands of print consumers because of what seems to me like simple orneriness on the part of booksellers.

Am I missing something here?  What do you all think?

January 23, 2013   Stacey   advice, awards, children's books, fiction, fun, mentors, middle grade, Stacey, writing, YA  
0

What happens after you win a Newbery or Caldecott?

The Newbery and Caldecott award nominees are being announced on Monday, January 28th. Each year I look forward to seeing who is chosen for these prestigious awards. Children’s literature has exploded over the last decade and the quality of material being published in this category is outstanding. When I create my reading lists for pleasure, there are always at least a few middle grade or young adult novels on there. Recent additions include  the much-hyped bestselling FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green and CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth E. Wein, which I recall receiving starred reviews when it was released from all of the major trade publications.

So I loved coming across this piece in Publisher’s Weekly recently which interviews previous recipients of this award to ask about how winning has impacted their lives and careers. The answers vary considerably, but it’s always interesting and can be insightful to learn about how writers respond to this type of rare positive attention to their work. Most seem to agree the media outreach and public speaking present a new and unexpected challenge. It’s like becoming a literary celebrity overnight!

I’d love to know if you find any helpful advice for your own work in these interviews, and also if there are books you think or hope will be nominated next week. Please let us know.

August 22, 2012   Stacey   bestsellers, opinion, our clients, queries, Stacey, YA  
10

Where are all the guys in YA?

Following up on Miriam’s recent post about writers’ groups being comprised of mostly women, I came upon this piece in The Atlantic about female authors dominating the YA market. It discusses how NPR Books this summer had fans choose the 100 Best-Ever Teen Books and of the 235 books being considered for the list, 147 (63%) were written by women.

Certainly there are many bestselling male authors across all categories, but I think it’s fair to say that the YA market is dominated by female authors. We all know that many of the biggest books and series of the past decade were written by women, including, as the piece points out: Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and the Twilight books. Each of these series went on to attract a large fan base that included boys and girls, and women and men, one of the reasons they were able to achieve such huge success. The movies didn’t hurt either.

In our own DGLM stable, we have a handful of male YA authors, including the bestselling James Dashner, Geoff Herbach, Andrew Smith, Danny Marks, and Shandy Lawson, but collectively the majority of our other YA authors are women (all of mine are), which confirms the theory based at least on our small sampling. And when I think about the queries I receive for YA, they are usually from women.

So I’m curious why this is. Is it that women read more YA fiction? Is there, as some suggest, the element of nostalgia for women remembering their teen years? Would you like to see more YA fiction from men? Or does it not make a difference who’s writing the books you read? Share your thoughts, and I’d love to start seeing more YA queries from men! (ps-this is my last post until after Labor Day, so enjoy the last few days of summer!)

August 16, 2012   Michael   children's books, Michael, pet peeves, questions, YA  
6

Just read the @&$%#*! book

I represent a lot of children’s and young adult authors, which puts me into contact with more children and young adults than I have in my real life. I don’t know much about children. I understand that they start out as cute, sweet-smelling bundles of joy that never let you sleep, morph into walking, talking time bombs, then get cute again for a few years, then get an influx of hormones and only communicate via text message. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I set Google alerts for my clients so that I can keep up with what the internet is saying about them, which is like a great, free news clipping service (if anyone remembers those). But the internet doesn’t just have news, and I get a lot of junk links, too. But my favorite links are the ones that pop up at least weekly on Yahoo! Answers, that go about like this: “What is the theme of X novel? Who are the main characters and what are their motivations in Y? I need to write a book report; what happens at the end of Z?” This is Cliff’s Notes for the 21st Century. Sadly, it gets worse. Sometimes these same poor souls email the authors directly, begging for help on a paper. They really can’t figure out the central conflict of the book, but you can surely help, author! Amazingly, I have even gotten such emails from students, imploring me for help getting the answer from my author. I’ll give this to teenagers: they’re ballsy!

So, I was tickled today to find this link (via PW Daily) about author D.C. Pierson’s answer to a similar question about his book. I’ve been dying to find the appropriate response (please see title for what I’m tempted to say) for students who ask me such questions, and now I have an answer I can point them to. It won’t be the one they’re looking for, but it just might be the one they need.

What do you think was the theme of this post? Can you identify the central conflict? Let me know if the comments, or just find out on Yahoo! Answers.

January 03, 2012   John   children's books, fiction, John, lists, nonfiction, opinion, what we're looking for, YA  
3

A new year, a new wish list

Happy 2012, everyone! I trust you all enjoyed the holidays and had memorable New Years Eves—and if you can’t remember them, so much the better…

Well, now it’s back to work. As promised in my last blog post, here’s my wish list for 2012. Dedicated readers of the DGLM blog might recall I posted similar lists at the end of 2010, but now with a full year of agenting under my belt I’ve tweaked the list a bit to reflect the areas I’ve found myself focusing on, as well as the areas where I’ve had the most success:

ADULT NARRATIVE NON-FICTION: This is definitely the most exciting category to me right now. If there’s an amazing book-length true story out there, I want to hear it. History, memoir, sports, music, immersion journalism, popular science, health, animals—whatever the subject, if you’ve got the credentials to write about it, send it my way.

ADULT MEN’S FICTION: I’m certainly still in the market for good, original thrillers and mysteries. However, after falling in love with THE ART OF FIELDING and enviously witnessing its success, I’d love to expand a bit into more literary territory. I’d love to find a Tom Perrotta, a Nick Hornby, a Chuck Palaniuk, a Don Winslow—in other words, a great storyteller with writing chops. And if it’s genuinely funny, so much the better.

MIDDLE-GRADE FICTION: I’m still looking for that great middle-grade adventure to take the place of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson—who’s going to step up in 2012 and deliver?

REALISTIC YOUNG ADULT FICTION: Looking at the YA clients I’ve signed this year, I’m realizing that while I certainly enjoy a well-done YA fantasy, more often I’ve been drawn to realistic teen fiction. Now, that doesn’t mean they can’t be high-concept or have a fantasy/sci-fi element—think Pete Hautman, Libba Bray, David Klass, M.T. Anderson—and historical fiction is certainly viable if the era hasn’t already been done to death. Basically, what I’m really looking for are those teen characters, perspectives, and issues that feel true to an actual teen’s experience, as opposed to the more escapist words of paranormal/dystopian fiction.

PICTURE BOOKS: Nothing really has changed here: I’m still pretty much only interested in professional illustrators who can write. It’s about time someone created the next great children’s book character or a high-concept project like Bob Staake’s LOOK! A BOOK! One new thought: if anyone’s got a good nonfiction project, I’d love to see it, too.

Being that it’s the first day back in the office, preceded by two nights of staying up late to watch the Giants and Rangers (bless you, DVR!), I’m still a little foggy and probably forgetting some key areas. But hopefully that’s enough to open up the floodgates, and I’ll probably revisit as the year goes on. After all, to me that’s one of the most enjoyable things about agenting—as the market shifts, so can your areas of interest.

Best wishes for 2012, and let’s see what you’ve got!

December 08, 2011   Jessica   genre, Jessica, YA  
9

Fantasy as a Reading Rite of Passage

Adam Gopnik’s review of the newest addition to the Eragon series in last week’s New Yorker caught my eye (not because I’ve read these books, though as my sons gets older, I look forward to reading them together) but because Gopnik writes about the always-interesting relationship between kids and fantasy.  He writes “Of all the unexpected things in contemporary literature, this is among the oddest: that kids have an inordinate appetite for very long, very tricky, very strange books about places that don’t exist, fights that never happened, all set against a medieval background.” I’m not sure it’s so odd, and indeed, I remember a time in my own reading life when I had an insatiable taste for magical books, almost to the exclusion of all else. That I outgrew it, or that my tastes broadened, or that I found less fantastical settings equally appealing might argue for my emergent Muggledom. Or perhaps, like Susan in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, I became interested in nothing “except nylons and lipstick and invitations” though as a girl, I hated this aspect of the final book, and could think of no worse fate.  In any case, Gopnik’s point is that it is not the otherworldliness that draws young readers. “Kids go to fantasy not for escape but for organization, and a little elevation, ” that it offers “familiar experience in intensified form.” He describes the Twilight books as representative “not so much the life that a teenage girl would wish to have, but the one she already has, rearranged with heightened symbols.”

What do you think? Did you go through a fantasy phase? What drew you to it then? Do you read it still?

November 15, 2011   John   critiques, John, middle grade, opinion, SCBWI, writing, YA  
18

What grabs you?

I just spent a great weekend in Gettysburg, PA, at an SCBWI conference—incredibly well organized, plus delightful, inspiring keynote addresses by Patricia MacLachlan and E.B. Lewis. My only regret is that I wish I could have sat in on the break-out workshops and speeches, but I was booked solid with one-on-one manuscript critiques all day Saturday and Sunday morning. For each critique, I was sent the first 10 pages of a YA or MG novel, plus a one-page synopsis, in advance of a 15-minute session with the author. Which leads me to the question at hand…

Whenever I have a lot of critiques in a row (fifteen, in this case), as the day goes on I usually end up identifying one or two key issues that come up in multiple manuscripts. This time out, it seemed like a lot of the openings were rushed—to me, it almost felt like authors were consciously trying to smush all the key ingredients of characterization, setting, conflict, symbolism, voice, etc., into those precious ten pages for my review. However, when I asked if any had tailored their samples specifically for the critique, the answer was a resounding “no.”

Hence, I’m wondering: What’s the main thing you look for in a story? Do you want to meet the main character? Find out the central issue of the book? Dive right into the plot? Or do you want it all? I will say, in several of these critiques I found myself advocating for the author to slow down and let us get to know the main character before diving headfirst into the plot. But maybe that’s just me—which element gets you turning the pages?

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