This Week in YA — Issue #71
Welcome to the Voyage newsletter!
It’s another new week and another installment of this newsletter for you this week, my fellow YA enthusiasts. As we continue to barrel through 2023, I for one am ready to clear the decks for my summer reading. While I’m determined to make it through my TBR pile of verse and historical novels, I picked up a new graphic novel yesterday, and I can’t help peeking at other lists to find more books to add. So we have a few more of those lists for you this week, along with of course a new interview with another fabulous YA author. Enjoy!
News and Resources
Elise at The Nerd Daily recently shared May 2023 YA Book Releases. Still a couple of weeks of new May releases to get on the radar!
The staff at the Whatcom County Library system has a great list of teen books for Jewish American Heritage Month.
Chris at BookRiot gathered up 12 Stellar Found Family Young Adult Books in Space. Who doesn’t love stories about found family?
Mother’s Day can be difficult for many people for many reasons, but In My Daughter's Eyes: Four YA Authors on Writing Complex Mother-Daughter Dynamics on Publishers Weekly was really enlightening.
Award-winning author Kyle Lukoff is on Harper’s Bazaar with Trans Kids Deserve to See Themselves in Children’s Books. So insightful, and well worth a read.
Finally, Amanda at Teen Librarian Toolbox wrote up a Book Review: I Have Something to Tell You–For Young Adults: A Memoir by Chasten Buttigieg. I think today’s teens will really love Chasten’s story.
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 YA author Kyrie McCauley, whose latest YA novel, All the Dead Lie Down, is out today! If Kyrie’s name sounds familiar, that might be because her book, If These Wings Could Fly, won the 2021 Morris Award. I’m really looking forward to reading this new one, and hope you are too!
5 Questions Interview with Kyrie McCauley, award-winning YA author
ABOUT ALL THE DEAD LIE DOWN
Days after a tragedy leaves Marin Blythe alone in the world, she receives a surprising invitation from Alice Lovelace—an acclaimed horror writer and childhood friend of Marin’s mother. Alice offers her a nanny position at Lovelace House, the family’s coastal Maine estate.
Marin accepts and soon finds herself minding Alice’s peculiar girls. Thea buries her dolls one by one, hosting a series of funerals, while Wren does everything in her power to drive Marin away. Then Alice’s eldest daughter returns home unexpectedly. Evie Hallowell is every bit as strange as her younger sisters, and yet Marin is drawn in by Evie’s compelling behavior and ethereal grace.
But even as Marin settles in, she can’t escape the anxiety that follows her like a shadow. Dead birds appear in Marin’s room. The children’s innocent pranks escalate. Something dangerous lurks in the woods, leaving mutilated animals in its wake. All is not well at Lovelace House, and Marin must unravel its secrets before they consume her.
ABOUT KYRIE MCCAULEY
Kyrie McCauley spent her childhood climbing trees in dresses and reading books during class. She is the author of If These Wings Could Fly, recipient of the 2021 William C. Morris Award.
Kyrie holds a Master of Science in Social Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and has worked in advocacy and development for non-profit organizations. She lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her family, three cats, and a dog that eats books and is never sorry.
1. Who: Who are your instabuy, go-to YA authors? And which new talent have you discovered recently?
Some of my “go-to” YA authors are: Erica Waters, Tiffany Jackson, Victoria Lee, Justin Reynolds, Katherine Locke, Kim Johnson, Nina LaCour, Marie Rutkoski, Laini Taylor. I particularly love heartfelt contemporaries, sweeping fabulism, gothic lit, and character-driven fantasy. As far as new talent, I highly recommend Jen St. Jude and Jas Hammonds. I was so lucky to read If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come a few years ago before it sold, and I still think about it all the time. It’s a story about hope at the literal end of the world, and Jen’s writing is stunning and clear and honest. There’s a kind of vulnerability in that story that I think is rare. Jas Hammonds’ debut We Deserve Monuments was simply exceptional, so sincere and the narrative voice was just so well done. I devoured their debuts and absolutely cannot wait to read more work from them.
2. What: What was the most joyful moment in preparing to bring All the Dead Lie Down into the world?
All the Dead Lie Down was so deeply fun to write—I loved exploring this setting and these characters and living with them for a while. It’s a Gothic romance so some of the themes and scenes are quite dark (I’m looking at you, zombie dog), but overall I got to infuse a lot of levity into the book through the younger children’s antics and the older girls’ romance, so it never felt heavy. More like cozy macabre. I had the best time titling chapters, too, and I’m so in love with the cover. In summary, there’s been no end to the joy this book is bringing me, and I can’t wait for it to find its readers.
3. Where: Where is the state of YA right now, from where you sit? Where do you hope to see it go next?
I think it’s an incredible time to be writing for young adults socially, and a terrifying time politically. We’ve had this really amazing rise in young adult literature that is celebrating diversity, which is just beautiful to see and makes all of our reading experiences richer. On the other hand, the book bans that we are currently seeing, which seem to be gaining traction instead of losing it, are so insidious. It’s important that we push back against these bans at the local level to keep books in schools and accessible to readers. I’m not sure what the next few months will mean, but I’d really love to see some legislation that protects books, libraries, librarians, authors, and teachers, from these dangerous book bans.
4. When: Looking ahead to next year (or beyond), what exciting things are next on the horizon for you?
My first book published in March 2020, and my second in September 2021—the dangers of Covid made it really hard to launch and celebrate a book release, so I’m particularly excited for All the Dead Lie Down. I’m hoping to attend more in-person events, and I’m having my first ever book launch party. As far as “beyond”—I’m currently revising my next book, another YA with horror elements about a group of girls stranded on an island in the Pacific Northwest with a monster. It’s sort of like if Yellowjackets met Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
5. Why: Why YA? What drew you to writing this book for this age group?
It’s a privilege to write for teens, and I mean that so earnestly. Today’s young adults are so engaged—they don’t really have the choice not to be, with so much information being thrown at them all the time. When I’m writing, I assume my readers know as much about a given subject, if not more than me, so my job is never to educate, only to offer context or meaning. Sometimes my job is to provide an escape from all of those things, too. It reminds me of that phrase “the young are at the gates” – they’re right here, ready to take on the extraordinary challenges they will face in today’s world. Our job as authors is to provide some mirrors for their lived experiences, and new lenses to see that world through. Again, this is such a privilege.
Writing Inspiration from Kip
It was particularly exciting for me to interview Kyrie this week—a Morris Award winner! The Morris is awarded every year at ALA’s Youth Media Awards to the author of a debut YA novel, and I’ve long found the winners and finalists of this award to be some of the best books of the year. It’s of course also a great way to catch any debuts you might have missed earlier in the year.
Kyrie’s latest definitely sounds spooky, so I’m sure it’ll be a favorite summer read for many. I’m also happy to see that the young adult version of Chasten Buttigieg’s memoir is out for summer reading. As mentioned above, I picked up a new graphic novel yesterday (Pardalita by Joana Estrela, translated from the Portuguese by Lyn Miller-Lachmann), and I couldn’t help taking a spin through the first few pages last night. I’m already hooked!
Finally, I’m gearing up for Pride month, and Kyle Lukoff’s piece linked above really shows the importance of representation for trans kids. Too Bright to See has been flying of the shelf at my elementary school library, and I hope we continue to see many more fabulous books by trans authors in all age categories.
Thank you for joining me on this voyage!