things around and about Fourth Street
Jun. 22nd, 2009 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aamcnamara1. I would totally read Tom Bombadil fanfic.
2.
I have been to several cons now. At those cons, I have attended many panels about YA fiction. This is partially because I like YA fiction and partially because I feel more confident at YA panels; I've more often read more of the books being discussed, and as a teen I get the impression that my Opinions get more respect on YA panels, because I am a Real Live Teen. (Which is not to say that I haven't said things at other panels, but I get uncertain of myself in non-YA panels, because I know that everyone else has probably read much more of what's being discussed than I have.)
Panels like the one we had at Fourth Street this year are good in some ways and fail in others. The panel description asked why the bestsellers are nominally YA, why adults read YA. Which are valid questions, if not the questions that I think are interesting about YA. The thing is that at conventions, where 99.9% of those attending are adults, if the room is not full of people who read YA these days, the conversation does not go directly to "why do these things happen", it looks at it from a standpoint of "the last time I read YA or YA-type books was when I was a kid/teenager, what has changed since then to make these things happen?"
And, okay, there is merit in looking at the history of any genre. YA, though, strikes me as being one of the ones in which the history of the genre is largely orthogonal to talking about the genre as it is today. There are important books, sure; there are books that changed the way the genre looked, sure; but those books are not the ones that many teens read today. When talking about the way that SFF is today, we talk about the history of the genre--"The Last 20 Years in Fantasy" was another panel at Fourth Street--and when we talk about the great books of SFF, we start with Heinlein and Tolkien and work our way up.
There are probably people who, for example, consider S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders completely necessary for their development as a person, and who go back to reread it (just as there are people who feel that way about Heinlein). But while these people may exist, they are largely not teens any more. Same with Catcher in the Rye, or any other classic YA book.
And this voice is largely unimportant in the genre. YA is about the here and now. However you define it--"books that teens read", "a marketing category"--YA is about what teens are reading, present tense.
This may be changing. There are a lot of adults now who read YA books. (This is what the panel was about, yes, but from a different angle.) These adults, who perhaps read YA as a teen and have kept reading it, are the thing in YA that is most like the community around SFF. There are also communities of YA writers that have begun to spring up, on the Internet and offline. Maybe as these communities grow, we'll see books in dialogue with each other in YA the same way that books are in dialogue in SFF.
I am entirely uncertain if that is a good or a bad thing.
(Going back to conventions, panels like the one we had at Wiscon this year about gender roles in YA SFF tend to go better for me. There were book recommendations, discussion of how gender roles are being subverted in YA SFF these days and how they're being reinforced, and almost all of the books mentioned were recent books. It wasn't a picture of how the genre was; it was a picture of how the genre is.)
I would be interested to hear opinions on this one. From people of any age, who have any range of interest in YA.
3. I need to start reading a lot more nonfiction.
4. Today is my official Day to Relax and Not See People. And, you know, keep working on the novel. (And slush.)
5.
2.
I have been to several cons now. At those cons, I have attended many panels about YA fiction. This is partially because I like YA fiction and partially because I feel more confident at YA panels; I've more often read more of the books being discussed, and as a teen I get the impression that my Opinions get more respect on YA panels, because I am a Real Live Teen. (Which is not to say that I haven't said things at other panels, but I get uncertain of myself in non-YA panels, because I know that everyone else has probably read much more of what's being discussed than I have.)
Panels like the one we had at Fourth Street this year are good in some ways and fail in others. The panel description asked why the bestsellers are nominally YA, why adults read YA. Which are valid questions, if not the questions that I think are interesting about YA. The thing is that at conventions, where 99.9% of those attending are adults, if the room is not full of people who read YA these days, the conversation does not go directly to "why do these things happen", it looks at it from a standpoint of "the last time I read YA or YA-type books was when I was a kid/teenager, what has changed since then to make these things happen?"
And, okay, there is merit in looking at the history of any genre. YA, though, strikes me as being one of the ones in which the history of the genre is largely orthogonal to talking about the genre as it is today. There are important books, sure; there are books that changed the way the genre looked, sure; but those books are not the ones that many teens read today. When talking about the way that SFF is today, we talk about the history of the genre--"The Last 20 Years in Fantasy" was another panel at Fourth Street--and when we talk about the great books of SFF, we start with Heinlein and Tolkien and work our way up.
There are probably people who, for example, consider S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders completely necessary for their development as a person, and who go back to reread it (just as there are people who feel that way about Heinlein). But while these people may exist, they are largely not teens any more. Same with Catcher in the Rye, or any other classic YA book.
And this voice is largely unimportant in the genre. YA is about the here and now. However you define it--"books that teens read", "a marketing category"--YA is about what teens are reading, present tense.
This may be changing. There are a lot of adults now who read YA books. (This is what the panel was about, yes, but from a different angle.) These adults, who perhaps read YA as a teen and have kept reading it, are the thing in YA that is most like the community around SFF. There are also communities of YA writers that have begun to spring up, on the Internet and offline. Maybe as these communities grow, we'll see books in dialogue with each other in YA the same way that books are in dialogue in SFF.
I am entirely uncertain if that is a good or a bad thing.
(Going back to conventions, panels like the one we had at Wiscon this year about gender roles in YA SFF tend to go better for me. There were book recommendations, discussion of how gender roles are being subverted in YA SFF these days and how they're being reinforced, and almost all of the books mentioned were recent books. It wasn't a picture of how the genre was; it was a picture of how the genre is.)
I would be interested to hear opinions on this one. From people of any age, who have any range of interest in YA.
3. I need to start reading a lot more nonfiction.
4. Today is my official Day to Relax and Not See People. And, you know, keep working on the novel. (And slush.)
5.
37759 / 80000
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 04:14 am (UTC)... I want to be at the YA panels you go to. In that sense, definitely the history is relevant.
Your experience fascinates me, because it is clearly so different from mine. The panelists, the audience, and the setting are all different--probably they are all factors, but I wonder which affect how the panel goes the most. Clearly I need to find an excuse to go to things like library conventions now.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 11:35 pm (UTC)But they are all connected. The moderators choose what to ask, the panelists are chosen, and the panelists decide what to say all knowing who will be in the audience in a general sense, after all.
Also, I've been at a panel or two where a good - or ok - panel went bad because the audience had bad questions, but I think this tends to happen when the panel is too basic. The best example that comes to mind was a panel on manga where the moderator and panelists felt the need to spend a decent amount of time explaining what it was and the history of it. The audience that had questions were not terribly respectful towards the panelists. Which was bad of them, no matter what. At the same time, the teens and young adults that asked the questions (and it was mostly teens and younger adults being disrespectful) probably didn't think much of the panelists expertise after having spent a half hour or so being told stuff they've known for years. The only reason I think it mattered that the question askers were younger is because I think they are more likely to have gotten used to brushing it off when people brush THEM off, and so were less likely to respond favorably to cues from the moderator and panelists.
At the same time, I've been to a few really good panels were the best questions being asked were ones asked by the audience - and teens at that. Whoever asked Laurie Halse Anderson about the fantasy and imagery in Wintergirls has my undying gratitude. Not only was it a fantastic question that prompted a great response, the whole exchange is what convinced me to shell out the money for the hardcover right then and there - and I very much didn't regret the decision.
This was also one of the best moderated panels I've been to, and I don't think that's a coincidence either. Partly because the quality of the audience and the moderators are both related to popularity, but also because better questions from the moderators prompts better questions from the audience.
"... I want to be at the YA panels you go to. In that sense, definitely the history is relevant."
er, well, it's never really discussed in depth - THAT's the panel I want to go to - but it's been mentioned in passing at lot of the one's I've been to.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 12:01 am (UTC)Definitely the moderator is a big part of it. (And the panelists, and the audience, and...) It's sort of a closed system--panelists, audience, moderator--if you affect one part, the effects ripple through all of them.
This is a little rambly, but... another factor is expectations, I think. Because the panels you're talking about seem to be "talks with awesome pretty famous YA writers"--so the writers are expected to talk about their books and maybe go off that a little if people ask things. Whereas at Fourth Street and other cons I've been to it was more "let's talk about YA in general", and people who go "well, in MY book..." are assumed to be egotistical.
(I really am enjoying your anecdotes of panels you've seen. Hearing authors talk about their work can really be affecting. It's also great when there's a writer on the panel you haven't heard of and over the course of the panel you decide you have to find their work.)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 12:13 am (UTC)Yes. That's a really good point. I think that's what makes the difference at the Festival, it was conceived more as an ode to books and authors and people who love books than a fan gathering of a genre.
"This is a little rambly"
oh please. i think i've written more in the comments of this post of yours that you wrote in the post. :)
" It's also great when there's a writer on the panel you haven't heard of and over the course of the panel you decide you have to find their work."
Yes, I've this happen a couple of times. Which reminds me, I really need to finish Skeleton Creek.....
no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 01:59 am (UTC)Hey, I like big long thinky discussions about awesome things! (It was threatening to become long and confusing, but then I thought of a more concise way to say it.)
The Internet is a powerful force for book-finding, but it can be easy to only stay within one's direct community for book recommendations, and panels at cons are good ways to get outside of that, or to the books that no one talks about because everyone assumes everyone's read them, I've found.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 03:28 am (UTC)Yeah, I didn't phrase that well, did I? Well, I hadn't really thought it through. :)
I was more thinking (and this is pure speculation, having never been to a genre con) that part of the difference in our experiences may be that the people putting the panels together at your cons consider YA lit to be on the periphery of what fits in that particular con, while the cons I've been to have been about books (and other information holding stuff) in general, and so YA lit isn't really considered as non-mainstream.
The Festival has an entire stage for cooking demonstrations done by TV cooks that have published recipe books, fer crissakes. What idiot is going to question if YA lit is really worthy of discussion after putting that together?
Also, the YA librarians are the kewl kidz on teh block, if that idea can even be applied to librarians, so no self-respecting library con is going to diss YA lit. Noisy teens themselves, maybe. Gaming, sadly yes. But teen lit? no way.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 04:16 am (UTC)For another thing, if it's a genre con, it's always awkwardly "... in YA SF/F", instead of just "in YA". And some of the interesting things about the YA genre only emerge when you look at it as a complete genre, not just the SF and fantasy parts of it.
... admittedly, usually it ends up being about all YA, but the speciality of most of the panelists is usually SF or fantasy, so the all-YA part suffers.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 12:28 am (UTC)(Unfortunately, I think the concerns of the YA track are not at the forefront of many SFF con planners' minds. But they should still think about those things.)