Marie Lu is the best-selling author of the Legend series.
I love this interview because it touches on what her life was like as a 5 year-old Chinese girl who had moved to the US. She also talks about her teenage years, her favorite words, and her love of drawing.
If you don’t have a favorite song or a favorite band, I’m not sure you’re human. Music plays a huge role in my writing (and it does for other authors, too!) and this awesome video from EpicReads is full of quotes about music from ten great YA titles:
Written by Grant Goodman, 5/14/2015
For many of us, writing comes from frustration and disappointment. We don’t like what our world has to offer. We are haunted by past decisions. We look back at our ever-growing pile of mistakes and wish that somehow we could make them into something better.
I think that many YA authors still remember those scars and, with the perspective that comes with adulthood, they recognize how universal those growing pains are. I really, really wish that more people were like our YA authors. I think that far too often adults overlook the importance of empathy. Yes, it is easy to look at the problems that teens face and outright dismiss them. But that totally misses the point.
This is why good YA lit is absolutely vital. We need stories out there that offer a window into teenage life that teens themselves can recognize as authentic. One of the biggest crises of my youth was thinking that no one else understood what I was going through, not even my friends.
I found friends in fiction, Holden Caulfield, Ender Wiggins and Harry Potter standing at the lead of the pack.
I didn’t have a rich YA landscape, though. I had already jumped into Dragonlance and Stephen King which mostly featured adults.
I’m curious: who are the YA characters you have found yourself identifying with?
If you haven’t seen Crash Course, you are missing out. John Green–you know, the guy who wrote The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, and Looking For Alaska–dishes out some great talks about the greatest literature in human history.
I’ve been teaching Shakespeare in school, so his talk on Romeo and Juliet really hit the spot:
Kiera Cass’s newest novel is THE HEIR and it’s the fourth in her series, called THE SELECTION.
She sat down with the team at EpicReads and told them all about the Things You Don’t Know about her.
Hello, readers!
My very first novel, AGENT DARCY AND NINJA STEVE IN…TIGER TROUBLE! is now available on Amazon! It’s available in paperback and on Kindle.
It’s a story about secret agents, ninjas, robots, and ghosts. So if you understand that spin kicks, spy tech, and ghosts are awesome, then this is the book for you, no matter how old you are!
November Notebook: A YA Lit Blog 