The Bravery of Youth

Over the weekend I gave an address at the Cleveland Public Library for the winners and finalists of the Letters About Literature competition, which is a reading and writing contest for students in grades 4-12. Students are asked to read a book, poem or speech and write to the author (living or dead) about how the book affected them personally. Letters are judged on state and national levels.

I was both a judge and a presenter for the state of Ohio, and the letters I read were impressive, indeed. Children and teens wrote of personal struggles, daily sacrifices, life-altering tragedies, and how a book had helped them cope. Reading them was at times difficult, and judging them even more so.

This weekend I met these children and young adults face to face, many of them drawing upon deep wells of bravery in order to stand on a stage, and read those letters aloud. One of the youngest letter writers was so small, she stood on her tiptoes during her entire reading in order to reach the mic.

Another cried openly. Some struggled with the pressure of speaking publicly. Some chose not to read - a decision I respect. The letters were deeply personal, relating stories that took great courage to even put to paper, let alone voice in a crowded theatre.

These young men and women spoke passionately about something I too have great feeling for - books.

So many of the elements of the experience were personally moving for me. I heard fellow readers sharing their love of books. I learned - again - how as an author the impact my words can have. I heard new voices, some of whom will certainly become a new generation of writers.

It's easy to be overwhelmed by our adult lives, easy to wonder if anything we do or say actually matters. This weekend reminded me that our words have power - and that younger ears are listening.

I'm Interviewed About 10 Years of Querying Before Finding Success

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3 Things Real Teens Want, 7 Things They Hate, And How They Find Their Next Book

This past weekend I attended YA FEST PA, a book festival featuring YA authors in Easton, PA. I've been to a lot of festivals, and sat on many panels. But this time they did something different.

It was called a Teen Reverse Panel. The organizers asked the teens from the audience to switch places with the authors, putting us in the crowd and the teens in the spotlight. Then... we got to ask them questions.

It was fantastic.

I learned a lot, and I wanted to share a few of the things I picked up.

What They HATE

1) Limitless free time. "I'm in dance twelve hours a week," one panelist said. "I've got homework. I don't have time to just go to the beach and hang out, let alone take a road trip."

2) Absent parents. Real teens have to ask permission to go do stuff. Most of them can't just run out the door or disappear whenever they feel like it. Not without getting grounded, anyway.

3) Text speak. Smart phones have changed the way teens text, and adults need to catch up. "I text in full sentences," one teen said. "When I see something like when r u going 2 b here? I just roll my eyes."

4) Romance. It's true. Throwing in a romance is really starting to piss them off. "There's an area of the bookstore for that," one teen said. "I don't go there." There was a lot of head-nodding on the panel -which, I'd like to point out - was predominantly female.

5) Repackaging. This isn't in control of the author, but publishers take note. Teens like to read series, and they want their covers to match. These are savvy kids - they said they don't like paperbacks that don't match hardcovers, and they want to have the whole series in matching covers.

6) Stylized Fonts. Something else that is out of your control if you're traditionally published, but self-pubs, listen up. A pretty title might look cool, but more than one panelist agreed that an overly stylized font for cover design can make the title hard to decipher, and quite a few of them will pass over that for something more straightforward.

7) Partying. Not all teens are doing it. Noted.

What They WANT

1) Honest Representation. A PoC panelist noted that she thinks white authors are capable of writing PoC characters, but that we must do research and above all - listen.

2) Boys. No, not romance (see above). They want more books written from a male POV.

3) Horror. Yep. While there were plenty of Potterheads up there, at least one said Stephen King was her favorite author, and heads nodded.

How They Find Books

In publishing this is called visibility or discoverability, and it was the question I put to the panel: "How do you find what you're going to read next?"

Guess what? It's not social media.

Nope. They all shook their heads when I mentioned it. Not Twitter. Not Tumblr. Not Instagram. Definitely not Facebook. All those tweets and posts and pics and we've been pumping out into the universe have been finding readers... just not necessarily our target audience.

All of the teens emphatically agreed that they find what they're going to read next through word of mouth. Here's the rundown.

1) Friends. Teens talk. Readers talk. Teen readers talk to each other, and are unapologetically enthusiastic about things that they like.

2) Librarians & Teachers. These are the adults that are suggesting books to kids. And they're listening.

3) Bookstores. It's true. Teens browse shelves. Some are scanning for author names they already know and like, some are targeting genre sections they prefer, and some are just looking for whatever grabs their eye.

Know what doesn't weigh into their decisions?

Reviews.

So stop worrying about those :)