This Week in YA — Issue #75
Welcome to the Voyage newsletter!
It’s another new week and another installment of this newsletter for you this week, my fellow YA enthusiasts. This week we’ve found some interesting trends and advice, along with a plethora of fabulous lists of books to beef up your TBR piles for summer reading. Plus, we’ve got an interview with a YA author whose book I absolutely loved—and I think you will too!
News and Resources
Everyone should probably read Trends in the Children’s Book Market about some of the topics of discussion at Children’s Institute this year.
Summer’s clearly here, so if you’re ready for it, Laura at Kirkus has 10 Summer Page-Turners for Teen Readers.
Tirzah at Book Riot likewise has 10 Great New YA Books to Read in June 2023.
For some Pride reads, Rory’s list of 19 Fun Queer Books with Kissing on BookBub includes some great YA titles.
For even more queer books, Jen at Pop! Goes the Reader recently shared 110 Young Adult Books Featuring 2SLGBTQ+ Representation: January-June 2023.
Finally, in an evergreen reminder for authors to let reviewers do their jobs without interference, Publisher Drops Author After TikTok Backlash and GoodReads Review Bombing.
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 Amelia Brunskill, whose sophomore YA novel, Wolfpack, is out today! Full disclosure, I read an early version of this verse novel—and loved it so much I blurbed it. I’m sure you’re all going to love this story of these incredible girls too. Read on to find out more about it!
5 Questions Interview with Amelia Brunskill, YA author
ABOUT WOLFPACK
This shocking, suspenseful novel about a group of teenage girls living in a cult shows the terrifying paranoia and suspicion that emerges when one of them goes missing—perfect for fans of We Were Liars.
Nine girls bound together
in beautiful, virtuous Havenwood,
a refuge from an unsafe world.
Then there are eight,
one of them gone —
departed with no warning.
Did this member of their pack
stray willingly,
or did something more sinister occur?
The girls seek answers
not knowing if they should be angry
or frightened
or perhaps,
they should be both.
ABOUT AMELIA BRUNSKILL
Amelia Brunskill is a writer and a librarian. Her first novel, The Window, was a young adult mystery that was nominated for the Chicago Review of Books Award for fiction, Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, and the NYSRA’s Charlotte Award. Her second novel, Wolfpack, is a young adult mystery written in verse that will be coming out in 2023 from Little, Brown. Her short fiction has appeared in Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, and Arts & Letters, and has been awarded an Illinois Arts Council Agency Literary Award. She was born under sunny Australian skies, but now lives in Illinois, which has its own charms.
1. Who: Who are your instabuy, go-to YA authors? And which new talent have you discovered recently?
I feel such terrible guilt over this, but I have to admit I'm really behind on reading even my instabuys! Having said that, A.S. King’s work is so gorgeously strange that I really want to get to all of it, and also Stephanie Kuehn is an incredible writer so I'm really hoping to work through all of her work as well. In terms of new talent, I am very excited to read Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury—I love ghosts, old mansions, and documentary film-making, and the cover is so glorious that I really want a print copy of my own!
2. What: What was the most joyful moment in preparing to bring Wolfpack into the world?
Probably getting the call from my agent about my editor wanting the book. I happened to be in this really bucolic setting at the time, looking out at a snow-covered meadow, and it felt like, yes, this is exactly where and how I should get this fantastic news.
3. Where: Where is the state of YA right now, from where you sit? Where do you hope to see it go next?
I feel like there are so many incredible books coming out, so in that way it is an amazing time for YA readers! However, I think that since the pandemic began it has been particularly challenging for people who are trying to get published for the first time, because many people in publishing got burnt out and a number of people left the field entirely. Also, the book banning campaigns are horrifying—it’s a really chilling situation and a clear backlash against the progress that had begun to occur in publishing. My hope is that libraries can support, and be supported in, getting books to the readers that need them, and that the authors of banned books will be valued and protected.
4. When: Looking ahead to next year (or beyond), what exciting things are next on the horizon for you?
I was an art major back in college and I've started drawing again more recently, so I love the idea of someday both writing and illustrating a work. However, that may be pretty far down the line!
5. Why: Why YA? What drew you to writing this book for this age group?
I’m drawn to it in part because I feel like the teenage years are a really fascinating set of conflicts—you can be so smart and make such terrible decisions, and you can be so itching for independence and still very vulnerable. There is also this delicious intensity to this time, with all of these firsts, and all of this discovering how deeply flawed the world can be. I also like living in the heads of people who care deeply and sincerely, and towards whom I can feel this mix of tenderness and frustration when they stumble—adults can be very jaded, and sometimes it feels really good to escape that mindset!
Writing Inspiration from Kip
Blurbs are funny things. Do they really make a difference to a reader in a bookstore or library looking at the back cover in deciding whether or not to take a book home? I’ll admit that as a reader I don’t much look at them. For me it’s more the book’s pitch and description (and I hate to admit it, but … the cover) that are more often the deciding factors.
Still, opinions from other authors I admire certainly do matter! If I happen to scan the blurbs either on the book itself or online and see a name I recognize, I will definitely take note. And if a favorite author shares a book or event they’ve done with a new-to-me author, all the better!
I’ve been really lucky in getting blurb requests for the sorts of books I love to read—above all novels in verse and/or historical fiction. It means a lot to me for an author to trust me with their book, and I take the responsibility quite seriously. This means not only reading it fairly quickly (publishers generally have a pretty short window to gather blurbs) but also providing an endorsement that will help not only the author, but also the book’s potential readers—you know, just in case they happen to read those quotes on the back!
Thank you for joining me on this voyage!