• Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother, wrote an awesome article here about being a YA writer, about the importance of YA, and other general goodness that I support.
• Rachel Vail, who if you’ve been paying any attention at all you’ll know wrote Lucky, will be reading from said book Thursday, July 10 at 5 p.m. Books of Wonder, y’all. 18 W. 18th Street.
• In the next few days, I’ll be re-vamping my links section. Any authors who have blogs will have their blogs linked rather than their main pages. Any authors who don’t have blogs will be shot. In case you are afraid for authors’ lives, please be aware that the last statement there was in jest, and that I have no intentions of ever harming any author in any way. Right. So I’ll be re-organizing the sidebar. E-mail me or leave a comment if you want to be added or to have your link changed, yeah?
I saw on another blog — alas, I forget which — that some folks felt angry about Cory’s article. I think I understand this; the automatic reaction to anyone saying YA is marginalized is a negative one. Because it’s a negative thing to say. But the truth is, YA writers are constantly being marginalized by the mainstream media (how often are YA books reviewed in major pubs that are not specifically devoted to kid lit?), and whether it’s a real marginalization or an imagined one, it exists.
So, I think that what Cory wrote is really pretty much on the mark. Yes, he comes from a sci fi background, which is also in a “sci fi ghetto,” but that’s a very different kind of place from the supposed “YA ghetto.” I guess I’m just saying, it’s fair for him to talk about the differences between the ghetto he’s accustomed to and the one he has recently entered.