Last night I went to see three authors talk about and read from their newest books. Not only was it a fun group of young, cool, women writers, it was also nice to see an audience that was really diverse in race, gender and age.
While I was listening to the writers field questions, I noticed there was a group of teenage boys in attendance. Sitting towards the back (of course) they were being slightly... bratty. I'm not going to say they were being rude because they weren't, but something told me they weren't young adult enthusiasts. They were making me uncomfortable and frankly their behavior was a little distracting. But then I thought to myself, "Shame on me!" I don't know they aren't readers or YA fans. I don't know if they came to the reading in earnest or not. I was mentally hitting myself on the head 'I-couldda-had-a-V8-style' and thinking, "Oh yeah, teenagers.Young adults. I guess these books do sort of belong to them?" I'll admit, sometimes I forget.
It got me thinking: The YA audience is becoming heavily adult and I wonder how much of the material is written for us grown-ups? I wonder what our influence is? It's an interesting issue. We used to be more clearly the observers, the outsiders. We used to be the librarians, parents and teachers of tweens and teens. Now adults who read young adult literature run the gamut and are genuine fans often independent of their relationships with teens. I'm not sure what role we play, but our place in the YA community is one to examine as the genre matures.
The authors were great, and I really enjoyed hearing them talk about their writing process (loud music vs. absolute silence, for example) and what inspired each of them to write their books. The highlight of the evening though, was learning the term "stofer" (stoner + surfer) from Jody Gehrman. Can't wait to use it.
Here's some more on the authors and their respective books:
Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by Jody Gehrman (Look for an interview in May!)
Posted by alli
Book Publishing
