This Week in YA — Issue #70
Welcome to the Voyage newsletter!
It’s another new week and another installment of this newsletter for you this week, my fellow YA enthusiasts. The landscape of publishing and book news reporting continues to shift these days, with BuzzFeed now all but finished and other outlets trickling off. There are still places to find information of course—it’s just that it sometimes takes a bit more sleuthing. But as always, we have some great resources for you, as well as another interview with a fabulous author, so read on for all the details!
News and Resources
Leila at BookBub recently shared How Successful Authors Use Social Media: 29 Content Ideas. Great stuff here!
If you’re trying to figure out how to manage your current or future finances in a career as an author, Spilling the Tea: Author Katherine Locke on Author Finances is definitely a must-read.
I totally found myself nodding while reading Stop Acting Like YA Writers Aren't Real Authors by Kara over on CrimeReads.
Joanne at Publishers Weekly put the Spotlight on YA Thrillers last week. With books like those listed here, it’s no wonder this genre remains popular.
Tirzah at BookRiot shared three fabulous 90s Timeslip YA Novels. Loved these and would love to see more!
Finally I’ve been a fan of the graphic novel, Banned Book Club, since it came out in 2020, so I was glad to see ‘Banned Book Club’ Authors Speak Out After Their Work Is Temporarily Banned in Florida.
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 Irish author Sheena Wilkinson, whose YA novel, Hope Against Hope, is out in the US today! Just like I love novels in translation, I really love novels that come to us from other countries. It really gives us in the US a glimpse into what life’s really like elsewhere—whether in the present day or in the past.
5 Questions Interview with Sheena Wilkinson, YA and adult author
ABOUT HOPE AGAINST HOPE
Ireland is at war, communities torn apart by bitter hatred—and now a hard border. But brave young women stand up for hope.
The year is 1921. Ireland has been at war for two years. Communities are torn apart by bitter hatred—and now a hard border splits the island. In Belfast, Helen's Hope hostel is a progressive space where young women live and work together—a haven of tolerance and diversity in a fractured city. But some people hate Helen's Hope and its values. Another pitch-perfect historical novel from the prize-winning author of Star by Star.
ABOUT SHEENA WILKINSON
Described in The Irish Times as ‘one of our foremost writers for young people,’ Sheena Wilkinson is the author of eight acclaimed YA novels. She has won many awards for these, and for her short fiction. Her first adult novel, Mrs. Hart’s Marriage Bureau, a historical romantic comedy, is published by HarperCollins Ireland.
1. Who: Who are your instabuy, go-to Irish authors? And which new talent have you discovered recently?
There are so many great Irish writers, especially women. I love Maggie O’Farrell—every novel is different, but they’re all so beautifully written and take you somewhere surprising. It’s a really boom time for Irish writers: fiction, memoir, non-fiction, YA and children’s; every season there are more and more exciting new voices. I don’t read much contemporary YA these days, as I prefer historical, but some really good contemporary YA authors from Northern Ireland, which is where I’m from, are Shirley McMillan, Kelly McCaughrain, Sue Divin and Jenny Ireland, who’s just released her debut The First Move (Penguin). I wish they’d been publishing a decade ago when I started—I’d love to have had a group of YA Northern Irish buddies!
2. What: What was the most joyful moment in preparing to bring Hope Against Hope into the world? (both for the original publication in Ireland and here in the US)
Hope against Hope was the book after Star by Star, which is my most successful so far—though it didn’t (yet!) make it to the US. Star by Star, set in 1918 and published to commemorate the centenary of women’s suffrage in Ireland and the UK, was an easy book to write, partly because the subject was so immediately appealing and my main character, Stella (who’s also an important character in Hope against Hope) was very engaging and fun to write. Hope was much more challenging; the background of the partition of Ireland wasn’t as obviously attractive and—I’ll be really honest with your readers here, because I think it’s important—the first version I submitted to my Irish publisher, Little Island, didn’t exactly wow them. In fact I had to do a major rewrite, the most extreme edit I’ve ever done, involving a complete change of main character. It was pretty tough, but as soon as I discovered my new main heroine, Polly, the new book flowed and felt right. And my reward—the most joyful moment if you like—was when my editor, Siobhán Parkinson, said simply, It’s perfect. Because she’d been so brutally honest about that earlier draft I knew that this time I really had created something to be proud of. It was also a very joyful moment when I was told the book was being published in the United States.
3. Where: Where is the state of publishing right now, from where you sit? Where do you hope to see it go next?
Publishing is rightly starting to take its responsibilities seriously regarding more diversity and inclusion, but there’s a very long way to go. I’d like to see fewer celebrity ‘authors’ and a more genuine concern for really good storytelling. I’d like to see more celebration of the ‘quiet’ book—not everything has to be high concept.
4. When: Looking ahead to next year (or beyond), what exciting things are next on the horizon for you?
My first adult novel, Mrs. Hart’s Marriage Bureau, has just been published by HarperCollins Ireland. It’s an uplifting feminist romance set in 1934. It’s the book that got me through lockdown and a massive change in my personal life so it’s very special to me and I hope it does well. I’m working on the sequel now. The characters are about the age Polly and her friends would be in 1934; essentially my grandmother’s generation. I could write about this generation of women forever, I think! So much of the improvement we take for granted was pioneered by them.
5. Why: Why YA? What drew you to writing this book for this age group?
I write for different ages, from middle grade to adult. What appeals about YA is the chance to explore characters coming of age. In Hope against Hope Polly and her friends are in their mid to late teens but they are all out at work, living quite challenging and ‘grown-up’ lives compared to teenagers today, even though they are naïve in many ways. As young women they have proper, adult-sized problems to deal with but lack the experience and wisdom to make good choices about those problems. A story where the characters made sensible choices wouldn’t be very exciting, after all! I also enjoyed the challenge, with my three historical novels for teens, of foregrounding some complex historical events and presenting them in an accessible way. I’ve always been a history geek. The hostel at the heart of the book is a progressive feminist space in a hostile and reactionary city, and at a time of increased misogyny and backlash against women’s rights, I hope it says something to my readers not only about the 1920s but about the 2020s.
Writing Inspiration from Kip
I always admire it when authors can manage to write in different age categories—and that goes for every category, from books for young children to books for adults. Probably the most likely categories for YA authors to cross over are the adjacent ones—adult and middle grade. So it was especially interesting to me to see that this week’s interviewee writes for both of those categories as well as YA.
Recent reports that YA is “slowing down” as a category might have other authors looking at either middle grade or adult as alternatives for their work, but of course the voice and characters and subject matter have to fit the category they’re meant for, so it’s not like most books about the teen experience can be written for children or adults. Hopefully there will always be a market for and many new books about all kinds of teen experiences! Luckily, these things tend to be cyclical anyway—like how certain genres become tired and then spring to life again. So here’s hoping that YA remains steady before picking up again with a big wave!
Thank you for joining me on this voyage!