Teen Writers Bloc

Hello Teen Writers Bloc readers! I’ve plugged it at every opportunity, to the point where you are probably thinking, yes, Mary, we know about the stupid book. But for realz, y’all, it’s almost here!

To celebrate the release of Wuftoom on May 8, I’m having a public book release party at the fantastic McNally Jackson Books, here in Manhattan. Please come and bring your friends, family, children, and any random people you meet. Subterranean monsters are also welcome, though if they stink up the place, we’ll charge a special cleaning fee.

• What: Wuftoom Book Release Party
• Where: McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St. New York, NY
• When: Sunday, May 13, 2012, 4:00 p.m.
• Details: I will be reading from the book and having a conversation with The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands author (and friend of Teen Writers Bloc!) Kate Milford. Then we will be eating fun and gross worm-themed desserts, drinking wine/soda, and generally having a good time.

If that’s not enough for you, I’m also reading THIS SUNDAY, MAY 6 at Books of Wonder along with several fantastic teen sci-fi/fantasy authors.

• What: Teen Sci Fi/Fantasy/Dystopian/Supernatural Event with me, Paolo Bacigalupi, David MacInnis Gill, Alethea Kontis, Galaxy Craze, Kate Klimo, and Elizabeth Norris
• Where: Books of Wonder, 18 W 18th St., New York, NY
• When: Sunday, May 6, 2012, 1:00 p.m.
• Details: Come meet some fabulous teen sci-fi and fantasy authors, including Hugo and Nebula award winner and National Book Award finalist Paolo Bacigalupi.

Finally, I’m running a giveaway on Goodreads from now until May 15^th. Enter to win a signed copy of Wuftoom!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Enter to win

Cover Image courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Popularity: 10%

I grew up reading Barbara Park, Louis Sachar, Baby-Sitters Club, S. E. Hinton, Paula Danzinger, Beverly Cleary, the American Girls series, and Lois Lowry. Some of my favorite books from childhood are The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, Just as Long as We’re Together and Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great by Judy Blume, the Anne of Green Gables series, Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, and Betsy Byers’s The Summer of the Swans. So I had a pretty eclectic taste in books, but one thing never varied: pretty much all of the books and authors I liked focused solely on white characters. If there was a non-white character, s/he was usually around to teach the white kids a lesson on race or tolerance or just a peripheral character who happened to be ethnic, but usually not the main character. (Some of the authors/books/series mentioned above did feature non-white characters, but that was pretty rare and even rarer for the main character to be non-white.)

So I know I should be lamenting the lack of diversity in the books I read as a kid and how it made me think less of myself, but honestly, it didn’t bother me or affect my self-image growing up. I never read books looking for characters that were just like me because I didn’t want to read about me, a poor, biracial girl living with an abusive white mother in an economically-depressed and uneducated black neighborhood who was made fun of for attending mostly-white private schools. I knew that story inside and out and didn’t want to read about it while I was still living it. Books were my escape, my chance to see how normal people lived because my life was very abnormal.

I grew up seeing myself as neither black nor white, but as a mixture of both, and so it didn’t matter what race the characters were so long as they took me away from the problems of real life. But now, as an adult, I realize those books did have an impact on me. As a writer, it’s so easy for me to fall into the default white trap. Creating racially diverse characters is a conscious effort and I have to actively work to make sure that my stories represent people of all skin colors.

When I come up with a new idea, I generally don’t think about race. As I start writing and getting to know my characters, sometimes a light bulb goes off and I think, hey, wouldn’t it be cool if everyone was black or mixed-race like me? But why do I think writing a book about non-whites is a novelty? It all comes back to the books I read growing up. Even though I wasn’t bothered by the lack of diversity as a child, it subconsciously left an impression on me and made me prewired to assume my own characters are white, which is troubling since I’m not even fully-white myself.

In my own writing, I sometimes get a bit heavy-handed with my character descriptions. I feel like I have to shove it in the reader’s face that these characters are not white because if it isn’t explicitly stated, then people will just assume everyone’s white. And, frankly, I’m tired of reading stories exclusively about white people as if people of color don’t exist. We do, and our stories need to be told, too. I now recognize the importance of including a racially diverse cast of characters. Nowadays, I get excited when I find a book with a biracial main character and if the character is female, it’s even better. It feels good to be represented in literature.

Guest blogger Jean-Paul Bass recently decided to quit her job to focus on writing full-time and she swears she doesn’t miss having a regular paycheck at all. She is currently working on her MFA in fiction at The New School and writing a memoir about growing up in Cleveland, Ohio.   

Photo Credit: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Scholastic, HarperCollins, Viking, Dell Yearling, and Puffin

Popularity: 11%

Our good friend Lisa Amowitz, graphic artist who created our wonderful banner, has big news today. Her book Breaking Glass has a cover and a book trailer.

Check it out the synopsis:

“On the night seventeen-year-old Jeremy Glass winds up in the hospital with a broken leg and a blood alcohol level well above the legal limit, his secret crush, Susannah, disappears. When he begins receiving messages from her from beyond the grave, he’s not sure whether they’re real or if he’s losing his grip on reality. Clue by clue, he gets closer to unraveling the mystery, and soon realizes he must discover the truth or he become the next victim himself.”

Head over to her blog for a snippet of the forthcoming book. This book layers of intrigue and mystery, and you’ll be on the edge of your seat, turning the pages to find out what comes next.

Also, take a peek at her awesome book trailer!

Popularity: 10%

My good friend Kate Milford is embarking up a fascinating journey — using self-publishing to accompany her traditionally-published novels, The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands (Clarion, September 2012). She is one of the most talented writers I know, and I love all the things she writes. Plus, she’s always up to something. Most recently she has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her latest book (which is wonderful and imaginative and everything I love in a good book).

We caught up with her about her latest endeavor.

Here’s the big idea in her own words describing what she’s up to:

I’m publishing a novella companion to release this fall with my second book, The Broken Lands (Clarion, September 2012). I want to experiment with self-publishing as a way to promote and enhance traditional releases by providing extra content to readers in the form of complete, related tales. I also want to use resources that support independent bookstores. It’s my hope to release a self-published novella alongside as many of my forthcoming hardcover releases as possible in an ongoing effort called the Arcana Project, which is why it has the optimistic subtitle.

The novella is called The Kairos Mechanism (Arcana #1), and it’s a story about characters from my first book, The Boneshaker (Clarion, 2010). It’s also related to the events of The Broken Lands. 

Synopsis: 

September, 1913. The crossroads town of Arcane, Missouri, is a place where strange things happen, and lately those strange things have a habit of happening to thirteen year-old Natalie Minks. It’s Natalie who first encounters the two boys who arrive in town seemingly out of nowhere, carrying a dead man between them. Odder still, a few of her older neighbors immediately recognize the dead man as a fellow citizen who’s been missing for fifty years–and who doesn’t appear to have aged in all that time. When another newcomer, a peddler called Trigemine, arrives in town, Natalie learns why the two boys and the peddler have really come to Arcane. And, of course, she realizes she has to stop them.

Like The Boneshakerand The Broken Lands, The Kairos Mechanism is a moderately frightening folklore-based fantasy. If you have read The Boneshaker, you’ll find the novella full of clues as to what’s coming and bits of history about characters you’ve already met. If you haven’t read it, don’t worry. You’ll fall in love with Natalie and Arcane right away.

I caught up with her to ask a few more questions about her project and how she creates as a writer.

1. How did you come up with the whole idea for having this novella? Are companion novels and novellas something you’ve always wanted to create as a writer?

I guess it started with the Nagspeake Board of Tourism and Culture website. I love cities and towns, and I love the idea of exploring a fictional city the way you’d explore a real one, by poking your nose into different streets and alleys and shops at random to see where your wandering takes you. So I started building a fictional city, Nagspeake, online. I’ve sort of always been interested in the ephemera that are hidden around a place or a story, just waiting to be discovered.

Ultimately this is why I started thinking about writing some companion pieces to my books. It was an idea I’ve been kicking around since the year after The Boneshaker sold. At that point, I had the idea for the project that would become The Broken Lands—it was just the tiniest bit of an idea, but I was thinking about what Jack the Drifter might’ve been up to before he wandered through Arcane. At the same time, I was beginning to think about a bigger story, something that would pit Natalie Minks against Jack. I thought it would make for a neat bit of backstory, something that might tide readers over until I began the big Natalie/Jack series. Fortunately, my publisher thought The Broken Lands would make a better full-length novel, and she was right. But I never stopped thinking about what I could do with all the extra little ideas I had floating around, and how I could use them to provide extra content for readers to explore the world of The Boneshaker.

Also I had about a year where I wasn’t sure what my next contract was going to be, and a girl’s gotta stay busy. At least, I do. Otherwise I go a bit crazy, and my husband likes it when I’m not crazy.

2. When you created the world of The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands, did you know you had several more stories within the world to tell? Did you always plan for this? Give us a little insight into your world-building.

Originally, I had envisioned The Boneshaker as a stand-alone novel, but once I added Jack, I started thinking about it differently, and by the time I was done, I knew I wanted to bring Jack back to Arcane. And I started wondering about what he might’ve been up to. Jack is an extraordinarily powerful creature looking for a place to make his own, and for this purpose he needs a place with a powerful crossroads. It occurred to me that before he settled on a small crossroads town like Arcane, he might’ve tried for someplace big first. From there, I started tracing his efforts backward, so now I know of several places he turned up before Arcane.

What happens with me is once I get really immersed in a place or time, I keep getting ideas. I fall in love with my characters (even—maybe especially—the villains), and I know where they all come from and where they all were at different times. And since the world of The Boneshaker is populated by a number of ancient wanderers and a number of powerful crossroads, I started thinking about those, and about their histories and about how the roamers might’ve crossed paths and where, and when…and things evolve from there. Plus, I’m an obsessive researcher, so as I get to know an era better and better, I start thinking things like, you know, Liao (a character in The Broken Lands) would’ve been a boy right about then. What might he have been up to? And Jake Limberleg (the villain of The Boneshaker) would’ve been youngish then, too…I wonder under what circumstances they might have crossed paths? This is where most of the ideas I have stockpiled away for the Arcana came from. It’s also where most of the ideas for the full-length projects I’m working on right now come from, to

I did seed certain things into The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands that I knew I wanted to come back to. Two characters in The Broken Lands spring to mind, for instance: there is a nameless woman with a violin, and a girl with silver eyes. They are not physically present in the book the way the protagonists are, but they are mentioned in a crucial story that one of the characters tells, and they’re characters in future books. But that’s often as far as my planning goes. I know I’m coming back to them, and why, and I usually have a vague (but sometimes only the vaguest) idea as to what their untold backstories are. But I don’t always know the specifics.

3. Without spoiling the wonderful plot of The Kairos Mechanism, can tell us how this book is a bridge between The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands? Or how do you intend it to function?

The Boneshaker takes place in Arcane, Missouri, in 1913, and it’s about a girl named Natalie Minks. The Broken Lands takes place in New York City in 1877, and although two characters from The Boneshaker turn up, the cast is otherwise entirely different. It’s a bit of a prequel, in that the events that take place in The Broken Lands relate to The Boneshaker, but it’s basically a stand-alone story. So The Kairos Mechanism is meant to do two things. Firstly, it’s a Natalie story, to tide me (and any Natalie-fans who are out there) over until I get to come back to her and to Arcane. Secondly, it provides some extra clues as to how the two books are related, some clues to what’s coming for Natalie, and some history for readers who, like me, want to know more about the world and the characters. And it’s a self-contained story in its own right.

Like I mentioned, I really love when, as a reader, I get to explore a world in more depth and really get to know it. But I want to be able to explore it while I’m reading the story it relates to, and I particularly love when I find extra content that isn’t just extra content, but something that actually changes the way I read the story. Obviously this is a fine line—if it’s not in the book, it almost can’t be critical to the story (unless that’s the point, I guess). And the extra content can’t be spoilery—for instance, I don’t know in what order people are going to read The Kairos Mechanism and The Broken Lands, and there are probably going to be people who read one of those two before they even read The Boneshaker. So I’m having to be very careful about what’s fair game to include, or refer to, or reveal. It’s very tricky.

4. If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, which we know it will be, what are your plans for the rest of the Arcana? Can you give us a little insider information? Or a sneak peek of your vision for them?

My pie-in-the-sky dream is to release an Arcanum novella alongside every hardcover release. I have a list of projects I’m saving up for them—basically for every full-length proposal I’ve written in the last year, I have a plan for a novella to accompany it. And one of the coolest things I’ve planned for the project (if I do say so myself) is that each one will be available in a digital version illustrated by young artists, one artist per chapter. The group that’s assembling right now is so diverse in terms of styles, I think it’s going to make for an amazing collection of illustrations. (And for what it’s worth, as of 1pm EST on Wednesday, I am still in need of one or two more artists.)

The Kairos Mechanism Kickstarter campaign’s off to a great start, but it still needs backers in a big way. Plus, if we exceed our goal, I’ll be able to bump up the artists’ compensation. Plus plus, if we REALLY exceed our goal—and it can happen, there’s still time—I may be able to finance the second Arcanum on this campaign. That would be amazing. I’d like the project ultimately not to require crowd-sourcing the funds, but that’s a long-term goal, obviously. It won’t happen on the first few installments.

Popularity: 11%

Nevadan author Heidi Ayarbe, who lives in Columbia and is mom to two sweet girls, has another gritty and heartbreaking YA novel Wanted coming out on May 1st.

In the mood to explore the gritty underbelly of a Nevadan town? To place a bet?

The plot line from our friends at Barnes and Noble and Amazon:

Sanctuary.

A one-word text message: That’s all Michal “Mike” Garcia needs to gather a crowd. Mike is a seventeen-year-old bookie, and Sanctuary is where she takes bets for anyone at Carson City High with enough cash. Her only rule: Never participate, never place a bet for herself.

Then Josh Ellison moves to town. He pushes Mike to live her life, to feel a rush of something — play the game, he urges, stop being a spectator.

So Mike breaks her one rule. She places a bet, feels the rush.

And loses.

In an act of desperation, she and Josh — who has a sordid past of his own —concoct a plan: The pair will steal from Carson City’s elite to pay back Mike’s debt. Then they’ll give the rest of their haul to those who need it most. How can burglary be wrong if they are making things right?

Wanted will thrust readers into the gritty underbelly of Carson City, where worth is determined by a score, power is derived from threat, and the greatest feat is surviving it all.

Check out the trailer:

GIVEAWAY! Want to win your own signed or unsigned copy (choose your own adventure here)?

Enter to win!

To enter: Click on the link below and enter to win!

Popularity: 11%

Announcement! Announcement! My good friend Neesha Meminger has a new book out and it’s magical. The last time we caught up with Neesha, it was to discuss her other book Jazz in Love. Fans of that book will definitely dig her latest one, even though it’s a departure from contemporary fiction. Neesha wades into fantasy waters and does it well. Plus, the main character, Pammi, is a secondary character from her last novel. We caught up with Neesha to discuss the new project.

What inspired you to write a fantasy novel? Was it challenging to incorporate fantastical elements?

I loved magic and fantasy as a child. I don’t think I’ve met a child yet who doesn’t! It engages the imagination and makes the seemingly impossible, possible. All fairytales are full of magic — fairy godmothers and wolves who talk and mirrors that tell tales and lands where no one grows old… And the stories I grew up with at home were deeply rooted in Indian myths and legends. The lines between the fantastic and the real were always blurry and my mother never made the distinction between the two. I wrote many short stories and poems, prior to having my first book published, that had elements of the speculative. They had a thread of magic or a hint of the fantastic woven throughout. In fact, the very first novel I ever shopped around to agents – an epic tale of trans-global migration – had a grandmother ghost in it. But the first novel to get published was a contemporary realistic one. It was distilled from the longer, epic novel I’d written, sans the grandmother ghost. But I’d always wanted to write stories that broke open the world we live in, so that we could glimpse other Possibles, and grow bigger than we think we can. Into The Wise Dark had been brewing in my mind for a while and when I finally began to write it, I felt like I was coming home in a way.

How did you transition between writing two different genres — contemporary for Shine, Coconut Moon and Jazz in Love – and now, fantasy with Into the Wise Dark? Did you have to switch “hats” or sensibilities so to speak?

I read a lot of both, so it wasn’t super hard for me to make the transition. The challenges I faced were the same challenges I face with all my other writing. I have weak areas and blind spots and strengths and some things that I do really well. All of those came into play in the same way. I still look at issues of race and gender and sexuality and collective action over individual glory, and my key protagonists are all women and/or women of color. This is true for all my work. It will always be true of my work. I often get asked if I will “branch out” and write characters who are not South Asian. My answer to that is usually, “Yes. I will stop writing strong South Asian female protagonists when the shelves at major bookstores are lined with novels about strong South Asian female protagonists. Until then, this is what I shall focus on.”

The other thing we hear a lot about when it comes to fantasy and speculative fiction is “world-building.” At first, this term intimidated me, but then, when I thought about it, I realized I’d been “world-building” all my life. Every time I translated the western culture we lived in to my non-English-speaking parents at home, I was world-building. Every time I tried to explain the strange and foreign traditions and customs of my family to the outside world, I was world-building. And in both my contemporary novels, I still had to build worlds. I needed to build an “inside” world of South Asian culture and traditions that could feel real to readers who might not be familiar with those. If readers couldn’t step inside and become a part of the world I’d created, they wouldn’t experience the story as it was meant to be experienced. So, when I thought of it in those terms, the process was less intimidating and felt more doable.

What’s next for you? A sequel to Into the Wise Dark? Another contemporary tale? Both?

At this point, I’m not sure which direction my career will take. Writing will always be an important part of my life and connecting with my readers is a necessity for me. It shapes me and helps me evolve. But the path has been unpredictable and bumpy and, many times, not at all what I expected. Now, with the way the world is in flux and all the (very rapid!) changes taking place, I’m having a bit of a breather so I can gain some perspective. But rest assured I will be putting *something* out in the not-so-distant future .

Photo Credit: Ignite Books

Popularity: 15%

Major YA publisher Scholastic has just announced that it has acquired the rights to a new YA novel by Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, of Jersey Shore fame. The novel, My Soulful Sigh, will revolve around Torrence, an African-American soul singer who “must endure the hardships of petty small-town racism and the heartbreak of unrequited love while following the twisted, painful path toward stardom.” Here’s a direct quote from today’s press release:

“Scholastic is thrilled to have secured the rights to Mr. Sorrentino’s novel. My Soulful Sigh is truly a masterpiece of literary art. It’s safe to say that no one who knows Mr. Sorrentino solely from Jersey Shore expected this kind of writing to come from him, but we have verified Mr. Sorrentino’s authorship, and we couldn’t have been more excited to learn that underneath the entertaining (and buff) exterior lies an intellectualism that rivals Beckett or Hemingway. And he’s made it all accessible to a teen audience. My Soulful Sigh will hit bookstores in Fall 2013.”

Ever since the news hit, reactions from all over the world have been pouring in, most of them negative. “My Soulful Sigh?” scoffed Sorrentino’s Jersey Shore castmate Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi. “Yeah, you want a reaction?” Ms. Polizzi then farted loudly into the microphone. Internet commentators have been, if possible, even less welcoming. Comments underneath the LA Times report have ranged from “Situeeten a crzy ho!” to “Looser [redacted] mouse turd [redacted] pickle juice [redacted anti-homosexual slur].”

Here at TeenWritersBloc.com, we have to admit that we’re surprised that The Situation has supposedly personally written anything, much less a serious literary novel. We had a hard enough time when we learned that Snooki had “written” a bestseller. BUT it’s totally unfair to pass judgment on something we haven’t read. We know lots of people at Scholastic, and they’re no dummies! So we promise to read the book with an open mind.

How about you? What do you think?

Photo courtesy MTV

Popularity: 20%

Universal Studios has announced that it will begin work on a theme park that will let fans live the experience of Katniss Everdeen, star of the popular Hunger Games movie and book series. Thanks to an agreement between Universal, the film’s producers, and the country’s most cash-strapped states, the park will feature actual live tributes, whose families will be paid $1,000 for each day their tribute survives after beginning his or her shift.

“It’s a win-win for everyone,” says Universal president Barney Rhodes. “The states get lump sum payments that will really help with their budget deficits, plus they’ll save the cash they would have spent on welfare and Medicaid. The families replace their mouths to feed with crisp green dollars. And Hunger Games fans get to live out their dream of killing other people for no reason. People love these books because of the senseless murder. We’re giving them what they want and making it even more fun!”

Author Suzanne Collins was less excited about the plan. “They’re doing thirteen states,” she said. “But in my books, only twelve districts send tributes. Unless they fix this inaccuracy, I might have to sue for breach of contract.” But Universal was sanguine about the threat. “She sold her rights to us fair and square,” said a spokesperson. “Plus, Mississipi needed the money. It’s a win-win.”

Teen Writers Bloc also spoke to some fans. “Omigod, I can’t wait!” said self-described “superfan” Angela Burbank, 18, whom we spoke to outside a midnight showing of the Hunger Games movie. “I hope we get to do some of the killing ourselves. It would suck if it was just, like, behind some glass or something.”

“I don’t know,” said 12-year-old Alyssa. “If the tributes are getting paid, it’s not really the same. If they start doing a lottery thing, I’ll think about it.”

We followed up with Universal to see if becoming a tribute would, in fact, be voluntary. “It’s up to the parent,” said the spokesperson. “We br … I mean convinced state legislators to change the laws to make children property of the parents until they turn eighteen. Republicans know our way is better than birth control. So the parents can sell them to us or not. But I can tell you, we’ve already got more offers than we can handle! One father even offered his son for free. He said the kid was a sissy for reading a ‘girl’ book like The Hunger Games and this would teach him.”

We then asked if Universal had any plans for a similar theme park centering around 1990s Japanese bestseller Battle Royale, which also features teenagers senselessly murdering each other at the behest of an evil government. “What? Never heard of it. Hunger Games is totally original,” said the spokesperson, who hung up on us.

Look for “The Hunger Games: Isn’t Senseless Slaughter Fun?” to open at Universal Studios Florida in summer 2015!

Photo courtesy Lionsgate 

Popularity: 30%

The Hunger Games made a dynamic showing this past weekend and most fans seem to be generally pleased with the adaptation of the book to the big screen. They’ve praised the director and those involved with the film for its adherence to many pivotal elements of the book. But in the midst of excitement and great press for YA books, a nasty cloud looms.

A friend sent me an article from Jezebel about all of the racist posts and tweets about the characters of Rue and Thresh from District 11 (Read about these idiot racists more here). The tweets aren’t for the faint of heart and sound like they are snippets taken from some backwoods, Jim Crow bar before a Klan rally. I am horrified and disgusted and, frankly, PISSED!

These particular fans claim that neither Rue nor Thresh were written as black characters. They hated the movie because of it. They don’t believe black actors and actresses should have these dynamic, pivotal, and heart-breaking roles (especially Rue). Maybe they can use this argument with the character of Cinna, who isn’t completely racialized by Collins. But if these fans paid attention to Suzanne Collins’ text, they would discover that she did, indeed, write them as black characters. She was even quoted as saying that Rue and Thresh were African-American.

But I have to admit that even some of my like-minded, YA-savvy friends emailed me after the casting for The Hunger Games came out and said, “Was Rue really BLACK?” And then I had to re-think the plot and characters and remember this fact. I, myself, had forgotten. This is a huge problem that I will return to.

In my copy of the book, Rue is first mentioned when Katniss is watching recaps of The Reapings in other Districts. Rue is described as, “… a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor” (45). And the other tribute is described as “the boy from District 11, Thresh, has the same dark skin as Rue, but the resemblance stops there. He’s one of the giants, probably six and a half feet tall …” (126).

Perhaps this line is missing from the racists’ books. Perhaps I am wrong and can’t read very well. Perhaps the millions of fans who’ve come to defense of Rue and Thresh and the actor and actress who play them are somehow delusional.

I was so happy that Suzanne Collins created characters that looked like me with hair just like mine. I was so happy that Suzanne Collins populated her world with all types of human beings so that each teen reader could find their “future” self on the page. She could’ve made them all-white and no one would’ve blinked.

But I can’t help thinking: Did Suzanne Collins drop the ball with her minority characters by not reminding readers that they were minorities or non-white?

Should writers remind readers of what characters look like, even if it’s not pertinent to the narrative?

Crazy questions, right?

Rue doesn’t really come back “on-stage” in the narrative until page 184, when she saves Katniss while she’s in the tree by pointing the the nasty wasp nest. She isn’t described physically anymore for the entire book. We are supposed to remember the sweet, little brown girl who was mentioned as looking similar to Prim during The Reaping. We are supposed to remember that she is brown. Even when Rue chomps on leaves to make a paste for Katniss’s knee and they help each other survive for a little while, there isn’t another mention of her color. Not even when she died.

Did Suzanne Collins stumble?

Should she have continued to remind us through slight-of-hand ways that Rue was a little brown kid? Would these reminders have kept Rue as an “outsider”?

Did Katniss’ relationship with Rue progress as most human relationships do — beyond race?

Did we forget Rue was brown because Katniss forgot and it became irrelevant?

Did Rue’s race become obsolete as they were both trying to survive?

After subjecting myself to reading through the racist tweets and vile rhetoric lodged at the two characters, I found myself wondering more deeply why do “we” (people living in a Eurocentric culture) assume that if a character is not described in detail and/or racialized as an “other” that he or she is white? Last year, Teen Writers Bloc surveyed a smorgasbord of black writers about this very question. But I still can’t figure it out.

I have no answers.

I just know that I don’t want anyone to forget the color of my characters. I don’t want their color to be overlooked. I just want their particular color to not be held against them.

As a writer, this whole uproar scares me about the potential of non-white YA characters to soar on the big screen or on the page in a big, splashy way. Can brown and yellow and red and black kids go to outer space or through the wardrobe or to a magical school or any other cool place and bring in money to the box office like The Hunger Games and Harry Potter? Or move books off the shelves in such quantities?

Do my characters stand a chance? Or will there always be racial epitaphs lodged at them?

What do you think? Did Suzanne Collins drop the ball? Should she address the controversy?

Get educated on the characters of the Hunger Games. Check out this article!

Photo Credit: Lionsgate

Popularity: 37%

A few of us at Teen Writers Bloc stayed up late to grapple with lines and crowds just to see The Hunger Games at midnight. At the Court Street Theatre in Brooklyn, the line wasn’t too bad when we arrived at 10:00 p.m., but soon thereafter it exploded and wrapped around the block. The crowd was thick with people of all ages and nationalities and racial groups. I didn’t see anyone dressed as characters from the trilogy, but some jackass showed up as a wizard from Harry Potter, complete with a wand!

At 11:10 they let us crowd into the theatre and made us travel all the way up to the 9th floor by escalator. Once at the top, we waited a little more until 11:35 and then they let us pile into the theatre. Everyone (including me) proceeded to run for seats.

In the theatre, every seat was taken and everyone was on their best behavior. I was nervous that there would be talking during the film or general debauchery, but these were dire-hard fans who wanted to see every frame and hear every word. Although my nerves were fried, I was able to settle in and enjoy the film. I thought the world of Panem was captured wonderfully: the crazy costumed people in The Capitol, District 12, the wilderness of the game site, the other tributes (especially Rue). I’m not sure there was a dry eye in the theatre when poor Rue was killed.

I don’t have much to say about the actual film. I was super-impressed and liked the way they let the story unfold. If I had to find a note of criticism, it would be that Gale was a more attractive than Peeta and, thus, it was distracting. I kept thinking, When are we going to see Gale again? I loved Peeta in the books, but he just didn’t look as lovely as Gale on the big screen.

Go see the film. Our New School Lit professor David Levithan was the editor on this series and it’s just a treat. I may never go to a midnight showing again because I have barely recovered from being out until 3:30 a.m., but it was quite the experience!

Photo Credit: Corey Ann Haydu’s wonderful friend Meghan bought her the Katniss ring, which is featured in the picture above.

Popularity: 22%