This Week in YA — Issue #63
Welcome to the Voyage newsletter!
It’s another new week and another installment of this newsletter for you this week, my fellow YA enthusiasts. Happy spring! I hope we can all start to enjoy warmer weather soon, along with everything that comes along with the tail end of March—including new books of course! This week we’ve got another interview with a fabulous YA author as well as plenty of news from the bookish world.
News and Resources
In case you hadn’t heard, Author Leigh Bardugo reaches blockbuster deal with publisher. So impressive!
In award news, Congratulations to the 2023 Lammy Finalists! The YA finalists are particularly spectacular this year.
Tirzah at Book Riot recently shared The Best New March 2023 YA Releases, including some picks that had not made it onto my radar yet.
Laura lists 9 Feminist Books That All Teen Readers Can Enjoy over on Kirkus. Fantastic titles!
For a bit of a longer list, the New York Public Library shared Essential Reads on Feminism for Teens.
Finally, check out this refreshing list of 13 YA Reads Trending on BookTok by Laurie on ReadBrightly.
The 5 Questions Interview Series
Each week, this newsletter will include interviews with industry professionals sharing insight about the who, what, where, when, why in YA today.
Today we’ve got an interview with artist and author Rebecca Mahoney, whose sophomore YA novel, The Memory Eater, just published last week! For any of you who aren’t lucky enough to know Rebecca and her work, I’ll tell you it’s a mystery to me how such a lovely person is drawn to write such creepy things. But if the spooky appeals to you, look no further!
5 Questions Interview with Rebecca Mahoney, YA author
ABOUT THE MEMORY EATER
A teenage girl must save her town from a memory-devouring monster in this piercing exploration of grief, trauma, and memory, from the author of The Valley and the Flood.
For generations, a monster called the Memory Eater has lived in the caves of Whistler Beach, Maine, surviving off the unhappy memories of those who want to forget. And for generations, the Harlows have been in charge of keeping her locked up—and keeping her fed.
After her grandmother dies, seventeen-year-old Alana Harlow inherits the family business. But there’s something Alana doesn’t know: the strange gaps in her memory aren’t from an accident. Her memories have been taken—eaten. And with them, she’s lost the knowledge of how to keep the monster contained.
Now the Memory Eater is loose. Alana’s mistake could cost Whistler Beach everything—unless she can figure out how to retrieve her memories and recapture the monster. But as Alana delves deeper into her family’s magic and the history of her town, she discovers a shocking secret at the center of the Harlow family business and learns that tampering with memories always comes at a price.
ABOUT REBECCA MAHONEY
Rebecca Mahoney is a young adult and middle grade writer, and the co-creator of audio drama serial The Bridge Podcast. She’s a strong believer in the cathartic power of all things fantastical and creepy in children’s literature—and she knows firsthand that ghosts, monsters, and the unknown can give you the language you need to understand yourself. She was raised in Windham, New Hampshire, currently resides in Massachusetts, and spends her spare time watching horror movies, collecting cloche hats, and cursing sailors at sea. She can be found on Twitter @cafecliche.
1. Who: Who are your instabuy, go-to YA authors? And which new talent have you discovered recently?
This is such a hard question because I feel like we’re living in a golden age of instabuy authors! I always have to name my personal power trio, Nova Ren Suma, Emily X.R Pan, and Anna-Marie McLemore: I adore their voices, their gorgeous word tapestries, and the unique way each of them shapes the world they write. Courtney Gould quickly became an instabuy author with her debut The Dead and the Dark, which I devoured in one bite, and I was fortunate enough to read her upcoming Where Echoes Die, which is an eerie, wistful masterpiece.
In terms of new talent, like many of us, I pounced on Trang Thanh Tran’s instant-bestselling debut She is a Haunting, which was just as chilling and electric as its incredible pitch. I’m so excited to watch Trang kill it for years to come.
2. What: What was the most joyful moment in preparing to bring The Memory Eater into the world?
As someone who loves revising, the moment where the story finally clicks is what I live for. The story’s not perfect yet at that point, but enough of the moving parts have shifted into place that I can see where the story is going, and finally have confidence that I’m going to get it there. It’s a little silly, but every time I’m writing a new story I always worry that I’ll never finish it. Pushing past that uncertainty and getting there anyway is the best feeling – especially because The Memory Eater was the very first book I wrote on deadline, so that worry was several magnitudes stronger this time around!
3. Where: Where is the state of YA right now, from where you sit? Where do you hope to see it go next?
Oh, this is such a good question. And I so wish that the first thing I thought of when I read it was all the exciting things my fellow authors are doing right now, but unfortunately when I think of the state of YA now, it’s hard not to think of the coordinated wave of bigotry and suppression we’ve faced in the past few years. It’s particularly heartbreaking for me to watch as someone who went to a performing arts high school in Florida – I got to spend my teenage years surrounded by smart, funny, curious classmates, and teachers who gave us the freedom to explore the kind of literature and art that sparked our interest. To see Florida hit so hard by these book bannings and challenges, and to see students from my old high school in the news because they’re being denied the freedom my classmates and I used to have, is so painful to see.
It’s tricky to say where to go from here and how to push back against such an overwhelming wave, but I’d love to see more initiatives from the larger publishing world to protect and advocate for authors as they connect with the kids who need them most. There’s truly incredible YA being written right now, and those authors are committed to supporting each other and supporting their readers. I want to see the industry have those authors’ backs so that they can keep doing what they do.
4. When: Looking ahead to next year (or beyond), what exciting things are next on the horizon for you?
Everything is Top Secret for now, but I’m really excited about some of the new directions I’m getting to explore in my work – especially since thinking of all my new projects, they’re all leaning a little harder in the horror direction than The Valley and the Flood and The Memory Eater did. As a lifelong horror fan, I am really, really looking forward to scaring people!
5. Why: Why YA? What draws you to writing for this age group?
I think the thing that’s so resonant in YA is that people never have just one coming of age journey in their own lives. We’re always unlearning, or making room for new ideas, or finally resolving hurts we forgot we were carrying. And one of the things about YA that I love is that it digs into those earliest self-discovery catalysts, those moments where you start to wrap your head around who you are, where you stand, and where you want to go from here. I love writing for the teenagers on the precipice of those moments, and I love writing for the adults who need to revisit those moments from time to time.
Writing Inspiration from Kip
I always love learning the instabuy authors of the authors we interview, and Rebecca’s picks were no exception. Anna-Marie McLemore is definitely one of my instabuy authors too! And when it comes to creepy writing, Nova Ren Suma is an author who takes me to my very limits—like one notch creepier and I’d be putting those books down, not gonna lie. I also have to say I wasn’t surprised to see Trang Thanh Tran on Rebecca’s list. The cover alone of She Is a Haunting was enough to terrify me. Anyway, I find it so fun to discover authors’ favorites—like they’re letting us in to browse their bookshelves.
I also really enjoy finding out what people think about the state of YA. No matter what, I hope it continues going strong, and seeing news of Leigh Bardugo’s massive multi-book deal this past week seems to confirm that. I’m not personally a huge fantasy fan myself, but I know most people are and this was very welcome news. Though she will be writing across age categories, surely some of the books will be YA, and surely all of them will have the kind of wide appeal that will allow Macmillan to publish many other authors from all kinds of backgrounds. Win-win!
Thank you for joining me on this voyage!