This Week in YA — Issue #68
Welcome to the Voyage newsletter!
It’s another new week and another installment of this newsletter for you this week, my fellow YA enthusiasts. I am out in sunny Los Angeles for the L.A. Times Festival of Books as I write this, and wow, but there is nothing like an in-person event, especially one with as much star power as this one. Before I get to the news, a huge shout-out to Lyn Miller-Lachmann, whose YA novel Torch won the book prize for young adult literature last night!
News and Resources
Did you know that Tirzah and Erica from BookRiot host the Hey YA podcast? For National Poetry Month, they recorded I Want that on my Headstone: YA Novels in Verse, so I had to give it a listen. Very cool!
I really loved this list on Black Girl Nerds: 5 Black YA Authors Whose Stories Celebrate the Strength of Young Women. You’re definitely going to want to check out this website if you haven’t already.
In the context of the recent edits to Roald Dahl’s work, The Guardian covers Sensitivity readers: what publishing’s most polarising role is really about.
Want to inform yourself about Moms for Liberty and how they’re trying to ban books including The Diary of Anne Frank? How groups like Moms for Liberty are turning school libraries on their heads offers a helpful overview.
As a huge Lamar Giles fan, I was thrilled to see Don Cheadle’s This Radicle Act & Sony Pictures Television Developing Lamar Giles YA Book ‘The Getaway’ For TV. Exciting!
Finally, you’ll want to get this free online panel run by PEN America on your radar. Writing Truthfully for Kids about Today’s Issues is scheduled for 5/13/2023 and features fabulous, beloved authors.
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 author, speaker, and educator Jennifer De Leon, whose sophomore YA novel, Borderless, releases today! I had the pleasure of appearing on a panel with Jennifer last year, and she is definitely a talent to watch. Her books reflect her background and her passions, so if you ever get the chance to hear her speak, I highly recommend attending. And in the meantime, be sure to add Borderless to your TBR!
5 Questions Interview with Jennifer De Leon, YA author
ABOUT BORDERLESS
Caught in the cross hairs of gang violence, a teen girl and her mother set off on a perilous journey from Guatemala City to the US border ...
For seventeen-year-old Maya, trashion is her passion, and her talent for making clothing out of unusual objects landed her a scholarship to Guatemala City’s most prestigious art school and a finalist spot in the school’s fashion show. Mamá is her biggest supporter, taking on extra jobs to pay for what the scholarship doesn’t cover, and she might be even more excited than Maya about what the fashion show could do for her future career.
So when Mamá doesn’t come to the show, Maya doesn’t know what to think. But the truth is worse than she could have imagined. The gang threats in their neighborhood have walked in their front door—with a boy Maya considered a friend, or maybe more, among them. After barely making their escape, Maya and her mom have no choice but to continue their desperate flight all the way through Guatemala and Mexico in hopes of crossing the US border.
They have to cross. They must cross! Can they?
ABOUT JENNIFER DE LEON
Born in the Boston area to Guatemalan parents, Jennifer De Leon is the author of the novel Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From (published by Simon & Schuster/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books in 2020) and the essay collection White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, and Writing (winner of the Juniper Prize and published by UMass Press in 2021). She is also the editor of the anthology, Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education (winner of the International Latino Book Award and published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2014). De Leon is a winner of the 2016 Walter Dean Myers Grant, awarded by We Need Diverse Books, and named a 2020 Latinx Trailblazer by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
1. Who: Who are your instabuy, go-to YA authors? And which new talent have you discovered recently?
Nicola Yoon, An Na, Francisco Stork…How much room do I have here? J A new voice in YA is Patricia Park, author of Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim. It’s an amazing novel where the main character, Alejandra, tries to get through each day without feeling like an imposter at her posh school and at home in Queens, New York. I couldn’t put it down.
2. What: What was the most joyful moment in preparing to bring Borderless into the world?
When my editor, the amazing Caitlyn Dlouhy, emailed me a copy of the final cover and I saw that a quetzal was in the top left corner. It is the national bird in Guatemala, where the novel is set. I have never ever seen a book with a quetzal on the cover. For me, this symbolizes so much. I hope it allows other Guatemalan people to feel seen.
3. Where: Where is the state of YA right now, from where you sit? Where do you hope to see it go next?
YA is always exciting to me. Lately, I am seeing stories with dual time lines, set in different parts of history, or one timeline in history and another one set in contemporary times, and that is exciting. I am also seeing a real love for historical YA in general, which is really great because we can learn so much from the past. I would love to see more YA novels set in other countries and ones where characters are grappling with themes of social justice, love, family, and friendship, but in international settings.
4. When: Looking ahead to next year (or beyond), what exciting things are next on the horizon for you?
I am working on a historical YA novel set in 1960s, told from the perspective of a collective group of young women who fought in the civil war in Guatemala. I also have a picture book coming out (hopefully soon!) about two cousins named Sammy and Samuel (one lives in Massachusetts and the other lives in Guatemala) who visit a mercado (market) in Guatemala and search for the perfect gift for one another.
5. Why: Why YA? What draws you to writing for this age group?
I love YA. As a former public school teacher (middle school and high school English Language Arts), I feel inspired to write stories for my former students, for my younger self, and for young people who long to see parts of themselves reflected in books. I didn’t read a book by a Latina author until I was almost nineteen years old (The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros). I also feel that my spirit age is thirteen, maybe fourteen years old. I guess no matter how old I get, a part of me will always write for her.
Writing Inspiration from Kip
As mentioned above, I'm in Los Angeles for the Festival of Books and awards ceremony last night, and I have to say, it was such an honor being one of the finalists. Just to be listed alongside these fabulous authors! And the whole event felt like the Oscars–from the plushy seats to the introductions of each book to the opening of the folders to announce each winner. Plus, getting to mingle with my fellow YA authors along with a plethora of adult authors was something I hadn't experienced before.
Today I'm off to the festival itself and I'm really looking forward to it too! There's just something so energizing about getting together with fellow writers and creators. Whether it's at a book festival, a writing workshop, SCBWI or other conference, or a personal writing retreat, talking with others on the same path in person is a great way to break out of a rut.
Hope this spring brings all of you the chance to connect with your fellow creatives too!
Thank you for joining me on this voyage!