Hello, People of America. If you’ve been on the internet at all in the last year, you’ve probably read multiple mentions of Downton Abbey, ITV’s WWI-era costume drama which has captured the fascination of people on both sides of the pond. Masterpiece Theatre on PBS is set to air the second season of the award-winning show beginning this Sunday, and for those of you who don’t resort to nefarious means to procure your foreign television like most of us here do and are therefore watching Season Two for the first time . . . well, get ready, children.  You’re in for a bumpy ride.

But maybe you haven’t watched Downton Abbey before and are wondering if you can dive right in! Maybe you just forgot what happened last season, since it aired almost a year ago! Maybe you’ve killed your brain cells with alcohol and can’t remember your own name. Don’t worry. We’re here to help.  (Obviously there will be Season One spoilers under the cut.)

Everything you need to know about Downton Abbey but were too lazy to ask:

1)  The Inheritance Is In Question

Man, what is up with land and titles only being entailed on the male line, am I right?  Though I shouldn’t complain: that plot point forms the impetus for fully 60% of my favorite books.

In this case, the title of Lord Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and the house and land of Downton Abbey, sustained by his American wife, Lady Cora’s (Elizabeth McGovern), money can only be passed down to men.  They, of course, only have daughters.

The plan was to pass the land to Lord Crawley’s cousin, but unfortunately he drowns in the Titanic, presumably after dining with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.  This throws the house in upheaval, and the Crawleys must search for a suitable male heir.  They find this dude:

2)  Matthew Crawley Is Your Future Fictional Boyfriend

Matthew (Dan Stevens), third cousin to Lord Crawley and, of all things, a lawyer, has no idea how to be a Gentleman.  He’s unintentionally rude to his new valet.  He thinks that running a village is something he can do on the weekends (prompting the hilarious Maggie Smith’s flustered reply of “what is a weekend?”).  He has yet to punch his godawful mother in the face, despite having lived with her for twenty-plus years. 

However, he is swoony and charming, and totally besotted with this lady:

3)  Lady Mary Crawley, Eldest Daughter, Has the Most Powerful Vagina in All The Land

Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is rude, impestuous and spoiled.  She can be cruel or kind to her family and her servants on a moment’s whim.  She never does what she’s told, toys with the affections of Matthew until she realizes that she’s in love with him, and the only person who actually likes her is the butler.

She also fucks a Turk to death.  Seriously.  The very power of her blow job skills and maybe also the strong muscles in her vagina cause the death of a young, healthy Turkish diplomat named Mr Pamuk.  If you did not watch Season One, you will think that this random occurance is a bit of low-brow humor in order to appeal to the Hollyoaks crowd and that it will not be mentioned again.  You would be wrong.  This storyline crops up like a stubborn rash for which a medicinal cream has yet to be invented.  It will not go away.  Apparently, fucking a Turk to death was a big deal in the early 1900s.

Lady Mary has two younger sisters.  They are:

4) Lady Edith Is My Hero And I Will Hear Nothing Against Her.

Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael, left) is a classic middle child with classic middle-child syndrome.  She’s needy and ignored and will throw herself at the first person who pays any amount of attention to her.  I adore her.  This is not sarcasm.  If you talk smack about Lady Edith to me, I WILL CUT YOU.

At the end of the season, Lady Edith is proposed to by a very nice, if sort of middle-aged, gentleman on a neighboring section of land.  Lady Mary ruins this proposal out of spite (because Lady Edith tattled to the Turkish Ambassador that his attache was the unfortunate victim of Lady Mary’s killer labia), because Lady Mary is the WORST.

Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay, center) is the youngest of the family.  She is interested in politics, feminism, Making A Difference and really awful pants.  Were this show set fifty years in the future, Lady Sybil would have a plotline about experimenting with lesbianism in high school and I would volunteer to be her best friend who comes over for sleepovers, cause Sybil is HOT.

Lady Sybil is the only Crawley who gives a toss about anyone below her station: she helps one of the housemaids, Gwen, get a job as a secretary, and she engages in honest political debate with the Crawley’s chauffeur, Branson the Irish Socialist.  Branson is, of course, completely in love with Sybil, but she doesn’t see it because she’s too busy thinking about how in fifty years, we’re going to make out.

But the coolest member of the family is:

5) Maggie Smith Is The Greatest Grandmother You’ll Never Have

Biting, acerbic and brutally frank, every scene is elevated when Maggie Smith is around.  As Robert Crawley’s mother, she spends most of her days sailing in unannounced, clashing with Matthew’s awful mother Isobel, and telling Mary not to be such a stupid fuckhead all of the time.  Her comedic timing is perfect.

The Dowager Countess isn’t always right, though.  For instance, she’s suspicious about:

6) Mr Bates Wants To Sacrifice Himself For You.  In Bed.

Mr Bates (Brendan Coyle) is the new valet.  Wounded in a war that he fought alongside Lord Crawley, he walks with a limp and his valet skills are constantly called into question.  

Anna (Joanne Froggatt), the girls’ ladymaid, is totally butt-crazy in love with Bates (and who isn’t!  He is HOT.), but their relationship is complicated by the fact that he feels that he’s too old for her.  And the fact that he was in jail for larceny.  And the fact that the reason he was in jail for larceny was because he took the fall of the awful, scheming, alcoholic, just-die-already Mrs. Bates.  Who is his wife.

Much of the staff mistrusts Mr Bates, none moreso than these two hideous creatures:

7)  Thomas, the Smarmy Thief, and Mrs O’Brien, One Of Those Ladies Who Falls For Gay Men

Thomas (Rob James-Collier) is the head footman in the house and really wanted the Valet position before being passed over for Mr Bates.  This makes Thomas angry, and you wouldn’t like Thomas when he’s angry.  You wouldn’t like him when he’s happy, either, because Thomas is THE VERY WORST.  When he isn’t scamming on his lovers or hitting on the soon-to-be-fucked-to-death Pamuk, he’s stealing from Lord Robert and planting the evidence on Bates.  He is detestable in every sense of the word, and what he can’t accomplish, he goads Mrs O’Brien into doing.

Mrs O’Brien (Siobhan Finneran) likes to spend time telling everyone how important she is, being Her Ladyship’s personal maid.  She spends the rest of the time bitching that Her Ladyship treats her, you know, like a servant.

NO ONE likes Thomas, except for Mrs O’Brien and this girl:

8)  Daisy Is So Stupid, I Just Can’t Even

Daisy (Sophie McShera) is the chambermaid in the house, supervised by the awesome (and secretly poor-sighted) Mrs Pattmore.  She has very big ears and very bad hair.  She insists on entertaining a crush on THE VERY OBVIOUSLY GAY Thomas and ignores sweet William, the second footman.  Daisy is an idiot.

This whole motley crew is supervised by:

9) Mr Carson and Mrs Hughes Should Come Run My Household

Mr Carson (Jim Carter) is the Butler of Downton Abbey and Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan) is the Head Housekeeper.  Nothing escapes their notice, except for all the things that escape their notice.

Mr Carson is particularly concerned with maintaining propriety at all times, and refuses to allow anything to besmirch the dignity of Downton Abbey.  Yet for some reason he hasn’t drowned Lady Mary in a pond.  For reasons which escape me, he seems to like her best of all.

All that’s good, of course, but where did we leave off?

10) Soap is Slick; Everyone Dies

In the last episode of Season One, we learn that Lady Cora has become pregnant!   Unlike modern society where everyone is all, “I don’t care what we have, as long as it’s healthy” blah blah blah bullshit, everyone in the family is actively hoping for a boy so that they can keep their land and money.   Lady Mary, who had been proposed to by Matthew and was going to give him an answer “after the Season” (aka, “just so I can make sure nothing better comes along”) is counseled by her awful Aunt Rosalind to make Matthew wait until the baby is born.  That way Mary can break the engagement if it’s a boy!  This makes Mary conflicted, because she’s pretty sure she For Richer loves Matthew, but isn’t quite sure she For Poorer loves Matthew.

Of course, Matthew is not about to be led around like a plaything when he has more important places to be (like my bedroom), and so dumps Lady Mary.  HA!  TAKE THAT, MARY!

But it all gets very sad, actually, because O’Brien, spurred by jealousy in thinking that Lady Cora means to fire her (when in actuality Cora is just trying to help Maggie Smith find a new lady’s maid, and if O’Brien would just ASK QUESTIONS WITH HER BRAIN instead of being A SUPER BITCH, she would know this!) , places a bar of soap on the ground next to Lady Cora’s bathtub and then Cora slips and falls and miscarries the baby, and I cry and cry and scream at the tv and call O’Brien a CHILD MURDERING TWATBOX, even though I don’t actually think that fetuses are children, but whatever.  Such is the power of Downton Abbey.

And!  Then this Archduke named Ferdinand that no one’s ever heard of gets taken out and people get angry and England decides to solve it all by entering into WWI, thinking they’ll have this thing dusted up in a month or two.  I wonder how that will shake out!

YOU CAN FIND OUT IN JUST A FEW DAYS!

Meanwhile!

We here at FYA adore Downton Abbey, and we have planned a variety of LadyNerd posts designed to help you become a true Downton Abbey LadyNerd!  So in the next few weeks, you’ll learn how to make a traditional turn-of-the-century alcoholic beverage, how to brew a proper cup of tea (thanks to our resident British Ambassador), how to paint your own teacups and make your own hair fascinators, and much more!  Our LadyNerd series will begin next week and run for four weeks, and we hope that you enjoy it!

Also!  Join me and Badass Digest’s Meredith for weekly “TV Talk” recaps of Downton Abbey over at out brother site, Badass Digest!  I’ve already seen Season Two and she’ll be watching it for the first time, so I plan to lord my knowledge of how it all ends over her for the next few weeks!  Plus bore her with talk about machine gun technology!  So please join us every week for those recaps!

Related posts:

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2. Dear Diary, the 1st season of Vampire Diaries was so cray!!!!
3. Top Ten British Shows You Could Be Watching

Welcome back to our feature “Letters to the FYAditor”, where we show you, gentle readers, the contents of our email inbox. Today we have some fabulous examples of YAngelism taking place in library displays. First, reader Carrie shows us an awesome display she set up of YA Gateway books.

Hey Ladies,

Just wanted to let you know I took the good fight to the streets. In Oct I made a display that featured YA books for adults at the Lower Macungie Library. First my display was compact, but then someone spread it out as I’m sure you’ll notice in the pictures.

Books that went out-
Jellicoe Road
Please Ignore Vera Dietz
Looking for Alaska
Tender Morsels
Copper Sun
Beauty Queens
Codetalkers
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
The Truth About Forever
Jane
Beauty Queens
The Pride of Baghdad
Sold
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing

Books that did not go out despite my best efforts
The Knife of Never Letting Go!!!!!!! (I blame the cover)
The Monstrumologist
Ship Breaker
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
The House of the Scorpion

I didn’t read all of the books I displayed, or even all the books that were checked out so I couldn’t be personally offended for some of them like Finnikin of the Rock or Going Bovine, but I was personally offended by the five I listed that were not checked out.

Keep up the good work! Your website helps to get me through the work day.

Carrie

And reader qooze sent us the following email and photo:

Not sure where it’s from, saw this on a friends Facebook wall. I think you can tell why’d think of FYA.

[Edit: photo from Orca Books via Sarah Enni]

Thanks Carrie and qooze! So, what say you friends? Have you see any good examples of YAngelism at your local library? Are you deeply offended when books you love aren’t checked out? Is your library encouraging to adults who want YA? Or is your library like mine, which has a sign barring the teen section from anyone outside the ages of 12-19. I can still pass for 19, right?

Related posts:

1. Letters to the FYAditor: Homeschool YAngelism
2. Letters to the FYAditor: My Little Katniss & Alex Pettyfer
3. From the Front Lines of the War for YAngelism

Ok, so you know how I said that this year’s Texas Book Festival might be the best one yet? Well, not that you were disagreeing with me or anything, but I TOLD YOU SO. Seriously, you guys, it pretty much melted our faces with awesome. From the fancy pants parties to the flagrant YAngelism to the panel with Libba Bray and Sarah Dessen (!), the 2011 festival will go down in history as one of FYA’s greatest swimfan moments. Join me as I recap the living shizz out of it!

Friday night, Jenny and I were honored to attend a party for Children’s & YA authors at someone’s super nice house in Austin. Bonus: there was queso! We didn’t take any pictures, because we were trying to play it cool (keyword: trying), but we got to chat with the fabulous Libba Bray and meet James Dashner (who is super nice!!!) and E. Lockhart, who WE DID NOT REALIZE WAS E. LOCKHART. Look, ok, it was dark! (We were outside.) And she said her name was Emily! So Jenny and I are just chatting away with her, totally oblivious to the fact that we were talking with THE WOMAN WHO CREATED FRANKIE BANKS. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT. Fortunately, we saw her again later so we could properly get our swimfan on. P.S. She’s totally cool and really nice!

On Saturday, I woke up bright and early to attend one of the morning panels. PSYCHE. I *meant* to wake up early to attend one of the morning panels, but… yeah. That didn’t work out. The point is, I eventually made it to the festival! Because I am a capable adult!

All of the panels and sessions actually take place inside of the Texas capitol, as well as in surrounding buildings and a few tents pitched on Congress Avenue (which is closed to cars, obvs). Some of the tents are filled with books, like this one:

And the best part is that if you purchase a book, the proceeds benefit public libraries in Texas! In other words, this festival is a huge enabler for book addiction. HUGE.

I met up with my friends Leslie and Erica for the Literary Death Match, which is held each year in the gorgeous, historic Paramount Theater. Just being in this place makes me wish I owned a pair of opera glasses.

I took some video of the event, but it didn’t really come out well, so I’ll just share the highlights and send you over to look at photos on the official page. The basic structure of the event goes like this: four authors each have seven minutes to read an excerpt of their work. Three judges, also writers, evaluate them on literary merit, performance and intangibles. The judges then select two finalists to compete in the second round, which changes with each show. Last year, it involved musical chairs. This year, the hosts brought up 17 people from the audience to hold up photos of famous authors who wrote books with a number in the title. The two finalists then went back and forth, choosing pictures (not always being able to identify the author) and gaining a score based on the sum of the numbers in the titles. And the thing to keep in mind, if it’s not already obvious, is that this whole thing is the opposite of serious.

Libba Bray was a contestant, and she totally rocked it! However, she ultimately lost out to Martha Foose Hall, who, in all fairness, is incredibly Southern and adorbs, PLUS she gave the judges fudge. And not even the Supreme Court can be impartial when homemade fudge is involved. Thankfully, these judges were way more entertaining than the third branch of our government: Adam Mansbach (totally rad), Chuck Palahniuk (totally a dick) and Lisa Loeb. Yep, you read that right, LISA LOEB WAS THERE. Because she wrote a children’s book. And because also, as it turns out, she’s really cute and funny!

Next up on le schedule was a panel with Libba Bray and Sarah Dessen, aka GREATEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE THUS FAR. I was serving as the moderator, which meant that I tried to stay out of the way so the audience could soak up as much Sarah & Libba awesomeness as possible. It also meant that I got to hang out with Libba and Sarah for a bit before the session began, and in the least shocking internet reveal ever, I can tell you that they are both incredibly charming and super duper nice. We even took a picture together! WHICH I WILL FRAME AND KEEP FOREVER.

The panel was basically Sarah and Libba talking to each other, so obvs it was the most entertaining panel of the entire festival. This video won’t really do it justice, but here’s a few of the highlights:

Seriously, HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE THEM? SO MUCH.

Afterwards, I offered to give Sarah, a fellow Friday Night Lights fan, a tour of some of the Dillon landmarks around Austin, and she got really excited… until she realized she had no free time before her early morning flight. So now I’ve got a rain check for a date with Sarah Dessen at the Alamo Freeze! WHAT! To quote David After the Dentist: IS THIS REAL LIFE?

Once I’d finally stopped sweating profusely with nervousness, Erin and I attended an author cocktail party in someone’s uber posh house downtown. Check this place out:

Oh, and that’s James Dashner on the stairs! Hi James!

This party was so swankeroo, waiters would come up to you and refill yr wine glass BEFORE IT WAS EVEN EMPTY. That’s my kind of social etiquette.

Speaking of etiquette, Erin took a picture of the bathroom in this house because it was AMAZING (a walk in shower… that leads to a hot tub… that’s on a balcony) but I won’t post it here, because I’d like to be invited back next year. Needless to say, Posh Deluxe has DISCOVERED HER ROOTS.

That night, we headed to the Texas State Cemetery for a spooktacular event with all of the YA authors at the festival. Erin and I came prepared, of course. Cos that’s how LadyNerds roll.

Ok, maybe a LadyNerd would’ve remembered to bring her flask, which looks classier than ginger ale bottles half-filled with whiskey, but whatever. It was night time at a cemetery! We were kicking it high school!

After making our way through the graves, we scored a spot on a blanket with Jenny and fellow Austin book clubbers Erica and Holly. Thanks for adding another layer of separation between us and the coffins underground, ladies!

It was certainly one of the most atmospheric book events I’ve ever attended, complete with the authors playing rounds of Hideous Corpse.

See if you can spot any of yr fave authors in this (incredibly dark) video:

Once the event ended, the authors scattered throughout the cemetery so fans could hang out and talk with them before heading home. A graveyard hasn’t been this exciting since Spike performed Rest In Peace!

Jenny, Erin and I held our own after-party at a bar down the street, where we toasted to the amazingness that is the YA community. We’re incredibly lucky to be a part of it, and we can’t wait to see how next year’s festival will manage to top this one. In fact, the only way I think that’s possible is if one of us actually moves into that fancy pants house and then invites all of our fave authors for a slumber party where there’s endless supplies of queso and waiters to refill our wine glasses. Yeah, let’s make THAT happen.

Related posts:

1. Texas Book Festival 2011: Get yr planner pants on!
2. how the tx book festival unleashed my inner swimfan
3. official schedule for the SXYA music festival!

Y’all! The Texas Book Festival is a week away! And we’re pretty much spazzing out here at FYA HQ, because this festival is full of opportunities to swimfan meet fantastic YA authors and booze it up with our fellow book nerds. Two years ago, Posh met Sara Zarr, and then last year, we got to have fancy pants brunch with Meg Cabot, so this year has a lot to live up to. But there’s a good chance that this festival could be the best one yet, because LIBBA BRAY and SARAH DESSEN and LIT CRAWL and YA AUTHORS IN A CEMETERY?!!!! WHAT.

Since there’s so much awesome shizz happening, we thought it might be a good idea to create a round-up of our top picks. And if you’re attending the festival, hopefully you can meet up with us! Stalkers, this does not apply to you. Unless you come bearing cupcakes and champ cans. Then feel free to STALK. US. UP.

After combing through the official schedule, I’ve determined that the festival organizers are huge Harry Potter fans, because they seem to believe that Hermione’s Time-Turner exists in real life. Why else would they have all of these great panels overlap or, even worse, occur at the same time? Don’t they realize that certain people are really bad at making decisions? And that said people might get really stressed out because they’re being FORCED to choose between two or three or five authors they really love? I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN YOU GUYS.

Well, Erin and Jenny and I might have to whip up one of those paper fortune tellers to help us decide which of these amazing panels to attend. But no matter what we choose, we will WIN. Check out our YA roundup!

SATURDAY

The Secrets Girls Keep
with Jill Alexander, Rosemary Clement-Moore, and Jennifer Ziegler

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 10:30 – 11:30
Location: Capitol Extension Room E2.014

All adolescent girls keep secrets from the people in their lives. But the secrets these girls keep are too huge – and potentially disastrous -  to stay hidden for long. In Paradise, new author Jill Alexander introduces Paisley Tiller, a girl with a secret dream of becoming a musician and escaping her rural life. Rosemary Clement-Moore, whose book The Splendor Falls was featured in the 2009 Festival, discusses secret-witch Amy Goodnight and her not-so-secret crush on the boy next door in her new book Texas Gothic. And Jennifer Ziegler, the author of How Not To Be Popular, brings double the secrets with a pair of sisters in Sass & Serendipity.

Playing with Your Fiction
with Louis Sachar and Meg Wolitzer

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 11:15 – 12:15
Location: Family Life Center (1300 Lavaca)

Do you have a hobby that you love enough to share with the world? Meg Wolitzer declares her passion for scrabble in her gradeschool book The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, in which three unique kids come together at a Youth Scrabble Tournament. And in his book The Cardturner, Sachar displays his flare for bridge with a heartwarming story about a lonely boy and his bridge-playing uncle. Listen to the authors discuss their favorite hobbies and you might just leave with a new hobby of your own.

Literary Death Match
it’s like American Idol for writers, without the meanness
Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 1:00 – 2:00
Location: Paramount Theatre

A genre-busting performative event that features four writers, three all-star judges, and a non-literary harebrained finale to decide the final winner, Opium magazine’s Literary Death Match invites audiences and authors to talk about literature, with hilarious and profound results. The Literary Death Match writers (Martha Hall Foose, Karen Russell, Charles Yu and Libba Bray, among others) perform their most electric work (in 7 minutes or less) before an audience and a panel of three judges (Adam Mansbach, Chuck Palahniuk, and Lisa Loeb). After the writers perform, the judges take turns spouting affectionate, off-the-wall commentary about each story, each focusing on one of the three categories: literary merit, performance, and intangibles. They then select their favorite of the two writers to advance to the finals. And for the finale, we trade in the show’s literary sensibility for an absurdly comical climax to decide who takes home the Literary Death Match crown (which is invisible). It may sound like a circus — that’s the point.

*I attended this event (with different authors) last year, and it was a blast! It’s also where I found out about the wonderfulness known as Dinosaur Vs. The Potty. And yes, I bought a copy. And yes, I already know how to use the potty.

Ernest Cline & Daniel H. Wilson in Conversation
Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 1:00 – 2:00
Location: Senate Chamber

Ernest Cline and Daniel H. Wilson will join forces to discuss their featured works and versions of a future Earth. Set in a dystopian 2044, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One takes place on a not-so-far-fetched Earth. From undead magicians and simulated realties to Sixteen Candles references and underdog hero stories, Ernest Cline’s novel is imaginative and ambitious managing to feel groundbreaking and wonderfully familiar all at once.

Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
talk about Beautiful Chaos, from their Beautiful Creatures series

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 1:00 – 1:45
Location: Capitol Extension Room E2.028

In Beautiful Chaos, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s third installment of their romantic, supernatural Beautiful Creatures series, Ethan Wate and Lena Duchanness might actually find themselves way in over their heads. Swarms of locusts, record-breaking heat, and devastating storms ravage Gatlin as Ethan and Lena struggle to understand the impact of Lena’s Claiming. Stohl was inspired to write this novel on a dare from her teenage daughter.

To Ban or Not to Ban: What Is the Question?
with Jessica Lee Anderson, Jay Asher, Ellen Hopkins, and David Levithan, presented with the Association of American Publishers

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 1:45 – 2:45
Location: The Sanctuary at First United Methodist Church (1201 Lavaca, enter from Lavaca St.)

Are controversial books dangerous to young adult audiences or necessary to broaden their perspectives? What do banned books offer? In a session co-sponsored by the Association of American Publishers, Jessica Lee Anderson, who won the Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature for her novel Trudy, discusses her new novel Calli, which features lesbian parents and homophobic bullying. Jay Asher brings his best-selling debut Thirteen Reasons Why, which struck a cord with young audiences with its themes of teen suicide and adolescent cruelty. Ellen Hopkins, a best-selling author and a frequent presence on banned-books lists, reveals the tragic lengths adolescents will go to achieve perfection in her new novel Perfect. And David Levithan, the recipient of a 2003 Lambda Literary Award and the author of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, discusses his newest book, Every You, Every Me, a haunting, psychological tale of mental illness and betrayal.

Sarah Dessen & Libba Bray in Conversation
Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 3:30 – 4:30
Location: Family Life Center (1300 Lavaca)

Two of the most beloved contemporary young adult authors, Libba Bray and Sarah Dessen, have been asked to join in conversation to discuss their new novels.

In Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens the plane carrying the 50 contestants of the Miss Teen Dream pageant crashes into a deserted, Lost-esque island with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. With evening gowns and a body count, Beauty Queens satirizes consumer culture while exploring issues of beauty and identity. Bray is the hilarious New York Times bestselling author of the 2010 Michael L. Pritnz Award-winning novel Going Bovine, and the acclaimed Gemma Doyle trilogy.

With What Happened to Goodbye, Sarah Dessen combines graceful writing, vibrant characters, and compelling storytelling for a moving tale of one girl’s journey to self-discovery. Keenly observed, Dessen’s latest is an irresistible read. Her other books include Someone Like You and Keeping the Moon, both ALA Quick Picks and School Library Journal Best Books of the Year.

*And guess who gets to moderate this panel? YRS TRULY! AND I AM FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW. But obvs I will totally be a professional on stage. I mean, you know, just hanging with two superstar YA authors. Asking them questions. NO BIG DEAL.

How to Booze: Exquisite Cocktails and Unsound Advice
with Jordan Kaye

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 4:00 – 5:00
Location: Cooking Tent

How to Booze: Exquisite Cocktails and Unsound Advice by Jordan Kaye and his co-author Marshall Altier pairs the perfect cocktail with unfailingly entertaining advice for all of life’s most alcohol-inducing moments. As the introduction states a “good drink, when it’s put together right and is suited to the occasion, transforms you into a better version of yourself.” Kaye is a writer and attorney residing in Brooklyn, New York.

*One word: DUH.

SATURDAY NIGHT

Lit Crawl is a collaboration between the Texas Book Festival, American Short Fiction, and Austin’s East Side. Inspired by San Francisco’s long-running Lit Crawl (and produced with their participation), Austin’s Lit Crawl will feature some of America’s most groundbreaking and beloved writers onstage at various East Austin venues talking about their latest books and ideas. Lit Crawl is a one-of-a-kind jolt to Texas’ readers and arts community.

Moonlight Tour of the Texas State Cemetery
with Cemetery historians Will Erwin and Jason Walker

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 8:00 – 8:45
Location: Lit Crawl: Texas State Cemetery

During this session, open and free to the public, take a moonlight tour of the majestic Texas State Cemetery, led by the Cemetery’s historians, Jason Walker and Will Erwin, the authors of the beautiful coffeetable book Texas State Cemetery. Those who fought great battles, negotiated historic treaties, and wrote the laws that brought Texas into being lie at rest in the Texas State Cemetery. So do a host of writers, educators, astronauts, athletes, Texas Rangers, and elected officials. Even some rogues and scoundrels have a resting place at the State Cemetery. Texas is the only state with a cemetery dedicated to its heroes and public officials, and all of the State Cemetery’s honored dead helped make Texas what it is today. Texas State Cemetery tells the stories of many noteworthy Texans who are buried in this memorial ground’s peaceful lawns and hillsides.

A Convergence of Souls
a collaboration with Austin Bat Cave featuring the Festival’s young adult writers

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 9:00 – 9:45
Location: Lit Crawl: Texas State Cemetery

What’s spookier than a slew of the nation’s finest young adult authors all gathered together in one place? Well, a lot actually – that sounds downright pleasant. But did we mention they’re gathering in the Texas State Cemetery, where the hallowed graves of countless former statesmen (and sometime ghosts) pass their grim vigil? OK, so it might be more than a little spooky, but terror aside, this collection of sheer talent should make for a rather fun evening. You’ll get to meet the writers (listed below), hear them talk about their newest books, and maybe even watch them compete for literary glory. And don’t worry, we promise to keep the prospect of your looming mortality to, you know, a minimum. Bring a blanket and flashlight!

Authors:
Jennifer Ziegler
Margaret Stohl
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Joe Schreiber
Alex Sanchez
Louis Sachar
David Rice
Kathy Reichs
Kenneth Oppel
Shelia P. Moses
Barry Lyga
David Levithan
Joe R. Lansdale
Ellen Hopkins
Kami Garcia
Sarah Dessen
James Dashner
Rosemary Clement-Moore
Libba Bray
Chris Barton
Jay Asher
Jessica Lee Anderson
Jill S. Alexander

*I KNOW, RIGHT?!!!

Adam Mansbach
wants you to Go the F*** to Sleep

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 9:00 – 9:45
Location: Lit Crawl: Scoot Inn

Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, Go the F**k to Sleep captures the familiar – and unspoken – tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. Adam Mansbach’s novels include The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book Award, and the best-selling Angry Black White Boy, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005.

*This is at the same time as the YA event, which makes me v. sad. Festival schedulers, go the f*** to the real world and understand that I CAN’T SPLIT MYSELF IN HALF.

SUNDAY

Don’t Let the _____ Get You Down
Date: Sunday, October 23, 2011
Time: 3:00 – 4:00
Location: Capitol Extension Room E2.026

More young adult novels than we can name are coming-of-age novels. But what if a teenager has to confront circumstances that would wither most adults? In his first young adult book All the Earth, Thrown to Sky, Joe R. Lansdale tells the story of Jack Catcher, a newly orphaned youth traveling in Depression-era America. Shelia Moses, a National Book Award Finalist, explores drug addiction and redemption in the harrowing Joseph’s Grace. And David Rice, the author of Crazy Loco, demonstrates the trials facing Hispanic youth in his collection of short stories Heart-Shaped Cookies. Although it’s infused with a pulsating sense of adventure – and is a lot of fun to read – Joe Schreiber’s buzzed-about Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick definitely has its dark, overwhelming moments for Perry, who’s at the heart of Schreiber’s novel.

So yeah. Like I said, this year’s festival is probably gonna blow our pants off. AND WE CAN’T WAIT TO BE PANTSLESS!

If you’re planning on attending, let us know in the comments! And you best believe we’ll have a recap on the site for those of you who don’t get to come play with us. (We’ll try not to make you *too* jealous.)

Related posts:

1. how the tx book festival unleashed my inner swimfan
2. Leila and Rebecca take on book signings!
3. official schedule for the SXYA music festival!

Friends, readers, we come together today to sing out in praise of the great gospel of YA! We are young and a little less young, black, white and brown, woman and at least two men (hi brian and Antony!), but we are all brothers and sisters in YA.

How many of us remember the dark days before finding YA? Raise those hands high! Some of you might never have left the fold, but most of us remember striking out on our own, full of doubts and pride, turning to the likes of Jonathan Franzen and Gary Shteyngart, or Dostoevsky or Ibsen. But today, we have seen the light! And we’re not ashamed to let everyone know WE HAVE BEEN SAVED! So join us in singing the YAngelist anthem as we come down to the front to share our testimonies. And because the rewards in the church of YA are here on earth, bear your testimony in the comments, and we’ll pick one or two for a really awesome secret prize. Can I get a “Hallelujah!!”?

From Sister Erin:

Oh, praise Cabot, I am saved! Saved from an all-adult lit future, that is. I was saved in the way many people are saved: a televangelist with shiny hair took my money. That televangelist was Meg Cabot and, okay, she didn’t, like, physically take my money, but I offered up tithings to hear the good word. And that word was that even when you are a nobody with triangle shaped hair and a flat chest, inside you are a kickass princess, devoted to spreading justice and drawing magical skills from your Queen Amidala panties. Even though my hair is more rhombus-shaped and my chest is demonstrably not flat (my contract with FYA prevents me from discussing my panties at length), I learned that I, too, could recapture that time when the world was at my feet. The power of YA compels me!

From Sister Posh D:

Before I became saved by YA, my life was a dreary haze of depressing heroines, un-swoonworthy boys and hopeless story lines. When I hung out with my friends, we didn’t have exciting plot twists and strong characters to analyze, so instead, we were forced to talk about our boring lives. And the worst part is that we didn’t even realize there was a better, more fulfilling way to live! It wasn’t until I picked up my first Sarah Dessen that I discovered the hope and excitement and tingling romance that now completes my literary life. I have been born again, and I urge you to accept the gospel of YA into your heart so that you, too, can experience this supreme joy!

From Sister Jenny:

Before I met YA as my personal savior, I was lost in a sea of ‘adult’ literature, where characters were full of regrets, bitterness and misery.  I was despondent, and without realizing it, had almost given up hope in reading.  Then was encouraged to give Suzanne Collins and Sara Zarr a try, and now YA lives in my heart!  My faith in reading is restored, and now I look forward to new books with a zealous fervor! Hallelujah!

From our h-less sister Megan:

It was my senior year of college and I was having a bad case of the thesis blues.  To perk myself up, I took a walk over to the local public library and checked myself out a stack of middle-grade.  I was so happy to be reminded that reading was fun, that it was something I loved it to.  Once I graduated, it was all books, all the time (because who wants to look for a job?)  Eventually I started learning more and more about YA.  It had all the heart of the middle-grade I was reading, with the meat of my adult lit.  Once I read Hunger Games (which was like a baptism, first communion and confirmation all rolled into one) my YA conversion was complete and I haven’t looked back since, only forward.  My friends, do you have a personal relationship with Suzanne Collins?

From Sister Meghan:

I remember the dark days of hiding my interest in books about princesses and cute boys behind my job. I had to read them — I’m a librarian! I’d insist I read other, more erudite tomes in my spare time. But I came to realize the high price of trying to look cool, and I realized nothing is as cool as loving YA and being proud of it. So now, instead of being low on elliptical, stream-of-consciousness zeitgeists about depressing adult problems, I’m high on first crushes, and I have dedicated my life to helping others come to accept the true faith.

Amen, sisters! Come on down and share your stories of trial and tribulation, leading to the peace we all find in YA.

Related posts:

1. CYOA: You don’t have to put on the red light
2. I’m a-going to dance with my princess, by the light of the magical moon…
3. TVD: By the Light of the Moon Recap

In this weekly installment from the craytopia of our mailbox, frequent commenter & smarty pants Katie Coops asks for your feedback. Check out her letter and help a girl out!

Hello ladies!

So I finally quit my heinous teaching job where I was forced to teach to the state’s standardized test and had no authority in the classroom! Yay!

Serendipitously, I had an interview the day after my last day of teaching and I got the job. I will be holding classes for mostly home-schooled kids on any topic I want, whenever I want. So, for example, I could say I want to teach a novel study on Anne of Green Gables for students ages 11 to 13 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:00 to 2:00 for 5 weeks.

I have all kinds of freedom and I am super excited, to say the least. The only catch is I’ll be working for a “God-honoring” (their words) couple who are organizing the whole thing. I don’t have anything against that – in fact, I grew up a missionary kid and was home-schooled myself for a few years – but it limits me on some of the books I can use for novel studies. They can have a few controversial issues, but probably no sex stuff: they specifically mentioned Forever as one I shouldn’t do (or super violent. The Hunger Games, as awesome as that would be, is out).

Of course, I would love to do Anne of Green Gables but I can’t choose just one gender and I doubt boys of any age would be interested in reading it, even though it would be awesome if they did. I can do any book, contemporary or in the young adult canon, but I should have a good reason for choosing that book. I can choose the age but I would like to have ages 12 and older.

What books would you recommend? Is there any way you could pose this question on the website so I could get lots of people’s ideas? (I’m greedy, I know.) Thank you so much for your awesome site and I am so glad to be a part of this community!

Thank you,
Katie (katiecoops)

Related posts:

1. Letters to the FYAditor: My Little Katniss & Alex Pettyfer
2. From the Front Lines of the War for YAngelism
3. In passing, isn’t ‘dusk’ a lovely word?

a couple of weeks ago, while we were at the sundance film festival*, we noticed something crazy — celeb-types reading YA books! and not just the books for the movies they starred in for library READ posters**! it turns out the publicity firm media muscle has launched a good books/good cause campaign, putting their books in all the gift baskets***, right there with the caviar and champagne, AND made a donation to help at-risk kids.

and we have to admit it’s a brilliant piece of YAngelism. sure, sure, it’s meant to drum up support for literacy in general, and i suppose that’s a good cause. i mean, you can’t read YA if you don’t know how to read at all, right? but take just a minute to think about the potential of this idea. the right books in the right famous hands … it could change the world!

i’ve come up with a few possible future targets for good books/good cause, and invite you to share yours in the comments. we’ll pick our favorite (based on a highly scientific formula of beer-snort-worthiness, fist-pump-to-hells-yeah ratio and possibly a random number drawing) and the lucky winner will receive SIGNED copies of willow by julia hoban and iron queen by julie kagawa, two of the books included in the sundance gift baskets.

ps. you can also just leave a comment saying how awesome we are. we take compliments anytime.

he might not like will grayson, or other will grayson, but even pat robertson can’t resist the magic of tiny cooper. i’ll bet he’d even have “tiny dancer” performed live on the 700 club! look, here he is saying, “this book changed my mind about those homosexuals! my life! everything! I AM WILL GRAYSON!”

kim jong il and the north koreans just walked away from peace talks with south korea. What the south koreans need is a copy of jellicoe road. after reading it, kim jong il will have learned that territory wars are all fun and games until someone gets hurt, and then they’re all secrets and guilt and shame. besides, he’ll totally sign ANYTHING (like a peace treaty and his own abdication order) while suffering from TEABS.

israeli intelligence snapped this photo of egyptian dictator president hosni mubarak. Following is a transcript of his phone conversation with vice president omar suleiman:
mubarak: no, omar, i’m sorry. i really have to step down.
suleiman: but sir, are you sure? you’ve had power for so long and now you’re just going to give it up?
mubarak: i’m afraid so. you see, i just discovered this amazing book about a girl who finds out she’s a princess and doesn’t want to be, but she eventually accepts her role as leader for the good of her people, and it made me realize although i want to be princess, er president, but i really can’t anymore because the good of my people is more important. besides, i can’t be bothered with running a country until i know what happens with michael and mia!

hey, it couldn’t hurt, right?

now it’s your turn! tell us what you’ve got, and make sure to leave yr email address in the space on the comment form (not in the comment itself) and/or subscribe to the comments to see if you’ve won!

*haha, right, like we were actually lucky enough to be at sundance. we just know someone who knows someone who was.

**i firmly believe you can tell a lot about a celebrity by the book they choose to pose with in those posters.

***those are the real celebs with the real books in the header!

Related posts:

1. banned books week!!
2. YA Books: Prescriptive or Descriptive?
3. Sneaky Gripes of Best-Loved Books

We recently received the following email from Amber, a witness to a terrible attack upon the cause of YAngelism. We decided to share her horrifying story with the world in the hopes that increasing awareness will prevent this travesty from happening in the future. May this testimony inspire you, dear believers, to keep fighting the good fight!

Oh, and even though the first paragraph has nothing to do with the rest of her account, we decided to leave it in, because WE LOVE COMPLIMENTS.

Dear Lovely Ladies at FYA,

I just want to start out by saying that the second most exciting part of my day happens at around 5:15 in the afternoon because by that point I have decided that I have worked enough and can spend the next 15 minutes goofing off at the FYA website. This keeps me happily occupied until I can begin the most enjoyable part of the day, getting ready to close so I can go the hell home. I hope that you will understand your second place status, cause nothing beats going home. But I would like to point out that you do beat out my lunch break for second place.

With my love for you all (hopefully) expressed, I would like to continue on to the point of my little letter here, which is to expose a fiendish attack on our glorious YA literature which has come to my attention this very day, December 15^th in the year of our Lord (Tiny Cooper that is) 2010.

To put my story into context, I’d like say that I am a librarian at a small public library in Texas. While I may not be a YA librarian per se, YA collection and programming is one of my many library duties and really my favorite part of the job. As the defacto YA Librarian, patrons often come to me for reading suggestions. Once such person, a fun Cool Mom who enjoys some YA readin’ herself, asked for book suggestions for her 15ish daughter for Christmas. Of course on the top of my list was the Hunger Games (I luv u Cinna!!!). So today (a day that shall live in infamy) Cool Mom walks in the library, chats with me for a minute and then mentions that her mother (Grandma) went a certain Big Chain Bookstore the other day to get the Hunger Games for Cool Mom’s daughter and the person and Big Chain Bookstore (BCB) was horrified by this request. The BCB employee told Grandma that it was an awful book about kids killing kids and that it had a horrible ending.

What the hell!!

Needless to say Grandma didn’t get the book. Now Cool Mom, being cool, wasn’t mad at me for giving her the suggestion or anything and after a quick conversation about what the Hunger Games is really about, I feel pretty certain that it is back on the Christmas list. But I am so pissed!!!! WTF is a BCB employee doing telling someone this shizz about the Hunger Games! First and foremost, aren’t you there to be sellin books, BCB employee?? Yeah, I thought so! So keep your damn comments to yourself! Second, if you are working in the YA section you need to reassess your career choices and get the hell out there before the teens and YAvangelists, such as myself, tie you naked to a book rack, scrawl “Seneca Crane” across your chest and use you for target practice ala Katniss!

In order to keep myself from doing anything drastic (see Operation Avenge Katniss above) I though I would email you ladies to thank you for your awesome YAvangelism and remind us all that we must be constantly vigilant as to the nefarious YA hatin’ that happens all around us. Oh and also to let you know that the BCB in question was in Austin, so if any of you go to one anytime soon, please test the employees as I would like to locate said YA hatin employee and have my revenge (see Operation Avenge Katniss).

May the blessings (e.g. awesome musical theater) of Tiny Cooper be upon you this festive season.

Much love,
AmberAmber

When she’s not out librarianing, Amber likes to study Latin and drink strawberry daiquiris. She also used to volunteer at a coroner’s office, although she swears she just did paperwork and never touched any dead bodies.

Related posts:

1. make words, not war
2. our highly official totes legit BBAW entry
3. Hunger Games 3: The Hungriest Game Yet

Earlier this week, we received the following email:

Dear FYA,

Today, I was extremely bored doing my grown-up job, so I decided to take a break and write a YAvangelist anthem. Please feel free to sing it loudly to non-believers. Enjoy. Consider this a thank you for providing me with countless hours of entertainment.

Spreading the YA gospel,
Alison
Brooklyn, NY

We then proceeded to read (Ok, we sang out loud. Possibly in terrible British accents) the following anthem, which was SO fabulous, we had to share it with all of y’all. We hope you find it as hilarious and inspiring as we did. May it fan the flames of yr YAngelism and give you strength to fight the good fight!

The YAngelist Anthem (with apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein)
to be sung to the tune of “My Favorite Things”

Awkward adult sex and cubicle drama,
Caring for senile, arthritic old mamma,
Menopause, hopelessness, hair that’s gone gray,
If you hate themes like these, stick with YA.

Booker Prize, Pulitzer, they’re so prestigious,
Some people worship them like they’re religious.
Many fear young adult’s lacking in class,
But Katsa and Katniss could kick Franzen’s ass!

Hunger Games, Peeps, Chaos Walking, Will Grayson,
Make your heart flutter and set your mind racin’.
Graceling and Sweethearts, and sad If I Stay,
You’re missing out if you sneer at YA.

When your job sucks.
When your rent’s late.
Yes, you might feel sad,
But I’ll make a wager that as a teenager,
Your problems seemed twiiiiice as baaaaaad!

(Repeat ad nauseam)

In addition to writing passionate anthems about YA, Alison photographs operas for a living (WHAT! i know!) and can do the entire Thriller dance, which she hopes will help her blend in during the zombie apocalypse. Her favorite cocktails are fruity brunch drinks like mimosas and bellinis.

Related posts:

1. Hunger Games 3: The Hungriest Game Yet
2. find your “hunger games” name!
3. our highly official totes legit BBAW entry

Give it up for today’s Smarty Pants/Super Yangelist, Rachel K! Rachel became a librarian in order to feed her book habit. She happily reads at least one YA novel a week, though does try to read Adult Literary Fiction on occasion, which never ends well. She and her friend Jo have a website where they talk about books. A lot. Her favorite cocktail is anything with gin.

I’m going to say something controversial.  It might anger some people, but I have to stand by convictions:  YA fiction is better than adult fiction.

Whew, I said it.  That was actually kind of hard.

Right at this moment, all the hipsters are getting their panties in a twist because Jonathan Franzen just wrote another book about people who can’t connect with their families or whatever, and how it, like, totally mirrors the perils of modern existence and our own inability to find meaning in a world gone mad!  Because I’ve never read a book like that before, in every English I’ve ever had since Middle School.

Y’all know what happens in Adult Literary Fiction:  Protagonist has an existential crisis-perhaps because he (and it’s pretty much always a he, even when the author is a lady, because Adult Literary Fiction still bows to a male hegemony) is an alcoholic, or a parent just died, or his meaningless affair with a young nymphet (because boys are allowed to be sexually active) has gone sour, and he spends the rest of the book trying to find meaning in the world.  In other words, plots GO NOWHERE and characters are mean drunks with tragic pasts and are COMPLETELY UNINTERESTING.  Any ounce of interesting a plot or a character might have is lost because it is then repeated six hundred million times over 900 pages.  Christ, I read 100 years of Solitude and thought it should have been called Gabriel Garcia Marquez Makes Incest Boring. I mean, Flowers in the Attic is terrible, but at least it’s, like, trashy fun. Like a drag queen version of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (Dear Hollywood:  You can have that one, and you’re welcome.)

Here are the plots of two books, and you tell me which you’d rather read:

Every person in a town systematically loses their sight, except for one woman, who lies about being blind in order to stay with her husband.  In the process, the entire town is quarantined inside an abandoned mental hospital.  Two groups emerge and one group takes control of the food, leading to unimaginable horrors. The society devolves into madness, people dying in the street, going hungry, and being filthy, and the entire process is witnessed by one woman.

TC and Augie have been playing brothers since they were six, despite the fact that Augie has both his parents.  They’re still playing brothers the first day of high school, when the beautiful Alejandra, a diplomat’s daughter, joins their class.  The year becomes one of first loves, new talents, family additions, baseball and a very special appearance by Julie Andrews.

Seriously, is it even a contest?

Important Literary Journals and Established Intellectual News Sources say I should be ashamed of my reading habits.  I’m the reason the publishing world is in such a state, me and my crummy stupid YA books, and it has nothing to do with shitty, self-important authors who are working out their issues in their “plots” rather than with a therapist, because the book isn’t actually a book- it’s the author dealing with the fact that he (and Important Adult Literary authors are almost always men) didn’t win the box car derby when he was nine, and that pain has haunted him for his entire life! The book isn’t bad.  I just don’t get the metaphor or understand the author’s pain.  PAIN!!!!!1

To which I say, pay the money for the therapy, hack, and write a book  where someone actually does something other than bemoan the fact that he (see above note re: male protagonists) never connected with his mother/father before said parents’ untimely death of cancer or consumption.  Also, get over your man pain, pussy.

Now, I’m not saying that nothing ridiculous ever happens in YA books.  In fact, YA books are full of the improbable, whether it’s slightly unlikely (Will Grayson, Will Grayson) or no fucking way (Twilight.  (Sorry, TwiMoms, Edward will never manifest)), but at the end of the day, they’re about emotion and journey.  Even Twilight, which I hate (HHHHAAAAAATTTTEEEE) has Bella changing from book to book.  Maybe not in ways that I like, but the character goes from one emotional place to another, which is way more than fucking happens in Confederacy of Dunces.  That book made me want to stab myself just to break up the narrative monotony.  I thought, “Maybe if I’m bleeding and in pain, the book will be funny?”  (Note:  I did not stab myself, because I hit 50 pages, and Nancy Pearl told me I could stop at 50 pages.  Thanks, Nancy!).

I have never read a YA book where a character is in the same emotional place at the end as she (because YA books can have lady protagonists) or he was at the beginning.  And, Jesus, isn’t that the point of literature?  To take us on a journey, using the written word, to convey universal truth?  What the fuck is a good sentence worth if it doesn’t actually move the reader?

I’m proud to read YA novels with cringe worthy covers.  It’s like a secret:  The person next to me on the train is reading terrible snake oil book, full of un-ironic poetry inspired by garbage cans, and he’s thinking “I am so much more intellectual than that frivolous young woman reading a book with a cow carrying a gnome on the cover.”  He thinks I’m reading something that must taste like bubble gum and Am Not Improving Myself.  What he doesn’t know is that my bubble gum book is secretly brussels sprouts and NOT ONLY is it as nutritious as a Summer Solstice day, full of literary merit and wonderful word play but it is also entertaining as fuck.

YA authors are storytellers and that is a sacred thing.  Story tellers were and are revered amongst all cultures.  Think of the people in your life that you want to be around:  Do they lecture, or do they tell stories?  We are taught when we are young that story is important. Is your first narrative memory of long, metaphor laden sentences?  No.  It’s of your mom, or dad, or a grandparent or some other family member sitting you on their lap and saying “Once upon a time, in a far away land, an amazing thing happened.” That’s what YA authors remember-that story is supposed to be transporting.  Everything else is just noise.

So go forth, brothers and sisters of the YA revolution!  Be an evangelical force for Story, and lead the readers from barren wilderness of Literary Fiction to the glowing hearth of YA!

And may the Blessing of John Green be upon you.  Amen.

Related posts:

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2. “we revel in our idiosyncrasies as adult readers, so kids should have… the same freedom.”
3. Get your drink on… with literary characters!