Welcome to YA Got Mail!, our weekly link round-up. Time to take a look at other interesting blog posts, Tweets, and articles that have hit the web this past week. What else is happening in the YA world?
Tweet of the Week:
Remember that there are teenagers in this space and being in their world is a privilege, not a right. Use that privilege with care.
— veronikelly mars (@veronikellymars) November 15, 2015
List Fulfillment:
Tor.com took a look at robots in fiction, including characters from Marissa Meyer’s Cinder. They also took a look at stories where girls disguise themselves as boys and featured both Newt’s Emerald and Alanna.
Buzzfeed listed 21 quotes from YA heroines that will make you feel ready to conquer the world. io9 did a round-up of pop culture characters that had been turned into Little Golden Books, including The Hunger Games‘ Katniss Everdeen.
HuffPo listed 8 books that don’t sugarcoat teen sexuality.
Are you a Gryffindor? Buzzfeed has a list of books for you to read.
Sara Goodwin at The Mary Sue shared a list of ten amazing lady characters written before Hermione – and ten amazing lady characters written post-Hermione.
Barnes & Noble’s Teen blog listed five military-themed YA novels for Veteran’s day. They also named 8 YA books that would make great web series.
The Independent named their top ten fantasy books of the year, including Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows.
Author Affairs:
Jessie Potts chatted with Gail Carriger about Manners & Mutiny over at Happily Ever After. Lauren James visited the Hive blog to talk about how she overcomes writer’s block.
Leigh Bardugo revealed the title to the Six of Crows sequel with . Bardugo also took to Instagram to talk about .
At Barnes & Noble’s Teen blog, 9 YA authors shared personal stories about themselves alla ‘Humans of New York.’ Devon Corneal at Brightly looked at 8 YA authors who also rock middle grade.
Jesse Rosen shared seven reasons you should write a YA novel.
Kate Hart talked to author Marieke Nijkamp as part of her Badass Ladies You Should Know column.
Author E. Katherine Kottaras talked about what inspires writers to write. Author E. K. Johnston looked at the panic that can come with writing and editing and why she doesn’t have it.
Marissa Meyer said goodbye to the Lunar Chronicles – well, kinda – on the Barnes & Noble Teen blog.
Valynne Maetani joined a panel of authors to talk about complications of writing YA. Leigh Bardugo talked about .
Scott Westerfeld asks: is adulthood dead?
The Examiner interviewed Kate Brauning about why she wrote a YA that featured kissing cousins. Charlotte Huang talked about pushing herself to finish For the Record.
BookPage interviewed Robin Talley on her newest novel What We Left Behind, and went behind the scenes on Charlotte Huang’s debut For the Record.
Kelly Jensen announced more contributors to her upcoming essay collection Feminism for the Real World, which now includes Laverne Cox and Mindy Kaling. Yeah. It’s badass.
Authors shared who they would have as their southern date at YALLFest.
Adam Silvera shared his .
Fandom Fun:
Play Lunar Chronicles MASH on Book Addict’s Guide! Epic Reads wants to know what your favorite Selection dress says about you.
What fantasy would should you live in? Book Addict’s Guide has the quiz for you!
Book Riot listed the Myers-Briggs types for 101 famous authors.
Adaptations & Lots Of Frowning:
The team behind the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ movie responded to criticisms about the lack of inclusive casting and, surprise: apparently people of color aren’t “organically” lead roles. We don’t recommend reading the comments.
The ‘Fantastic Beasts’ team released the first (very white) photos on the set of the film and revealed that Americans have a different term for Muggle: No-Maj. Because, you know, why not.
Did the original Harry Potter films get the robes wrong? Daily Dot talked about a fan’s theory on how the robes should really have looked. Stephen Colbert called out Rowling on her revealing of secrets about the series, including the apparent mispronunciation of Voldemort’s name.
Eoin Colfer talked about the Artemis Fowl film adaptations and how he has to move on from the series, but not before mentioning that he would love to see Lily James play Captain Holly Short. Forgetting, of course, that Holly Short is described as having “nut-brown skin.”
Who wants a horrible idea? Here, have a Hunger Games theme park. Hypable wrote an entire post on why it’s awful though, really, it’s rather obvious.
Den of Geek looked at how BBC can succeed in adapting Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials to the silver screen.
Suzanne Collins thanked the team behind The Hunger Games film adaptations for their work. The New York Times asked: what does it take to save a Mockingjay? Buzzfeed concocted a list of 23 things they learned from films.
Representation in YA:
Ave Jae put together a badass list of other lists, highlighting all the lists of various marginalized representations that have been posted on the web. Including, we’re proud to note, many YA Interrobang lists!
Daniel José Older asked: do black children’s lives matter if nobody writes about them? Older was also one of many authors who participated in a roundtable discussion about representation in children’s literature.
And because Older is killin’ it lately, he also spoke at a panel – and took to Tumblr about the decision to speak up at the panel.
Kavita Das wrote about why the literary world shouldn’t romanticize rejection and the ties of rejection to inclusive literature.
Kelly Jensen created a list of YA novels that feature black leading ladies. Buzzfeed posted a list of books to diversify your YA shelves.
Sofia Quintero took to HuffPo to talk about how Walter Dean Myers inspired her to stop writing white.
The team at #WeNeedDiverseBooks hosted a Twitter chat to talk about romance in YA; they posted a summary of it to Storify.
Kaye M. shared a summary of her thoughts on faith in YA literature via Storify.
Is Alaska from Looking for Alaska actually the worst? Nakeisha Campbell at Gurl thinks so.
Erin Lindsey called for a more nuanced discussion of women and gender in speculative fiction over at Tor.com.
Vee at GayYA explained the problematic ‘acceptance’ narrative in trans YA books. Also on GayYA, Cheryl Morgan talked about how superhero narratives saved her life.
Zoe Marriott wrote about .
YA Community:
SLJ took a look at how YA appeals to the mass market – but have we lost the core teen audience? James Dawson wrote about how YouTube may have killed the publishing star.
Meryl Jaffe at CBLDF wrote about using Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s This One Summer in classrooms.
Publisher’s Weekly looked at two different YA marketing campaigns: the Wicked Reads campaign and the ‘Winter is coming’ or ‘Join the resistance’ Lunar chronicles campaign.
A panel hosted by the Women’s Media Group talked about recent YA trends – contemporary with a twist is in – and noted that “adults aren’t a stealth target audience or main readership for YA books.”
Buzzfeed wonders what YA books would look like with honest titles. And what are the most romantic lines from YA novels?
Celebrate Harry Potter Book Night – whose theme was just announced as “A Night of Spells” – on February 6!
YA Got Mail! round-ups done by Tara Hackley and Nicole Brinkley.
