Short takes from teen book fest plus quarantine updates

(Post updated to reflect cancellation of Writefest Houston)

Diversity comes to the big (and biggish) screens

Stories for (but not limited to) young adult readers have long been fodder for movie and TV adaptations. Nothing against Little Women, but the recent North Texas Teen Book Festival hosted a range of more recent – and sometimes harder-edged – books taking their places on the big – and small – screens.

Angie Thomas (l) & Julie Murphy

Panelists Becky Albertalli (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda), Max Brallier (Last Kids on Earth TV series), David Levithan (Every Day), Sarah Mlynoski (Upside Down Magic), Julie Murphy (Dumplin’), and Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give) joined moderator/podcaster Sara Roberts to talk about what it’s like to see their books come to life in a different medium – and whether they’ve brought new readers with them.

Responses ranged from Mlynoski (whose movie adaption is due this summer): “I don’t know yet but I learn people get a lot more into it.”

To Albertalli: “I’m not sure people knew it was a book,” of the Love, Simon, movie adaptation of her coming of age story, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. (Which didn’t keep festival teens from finding, and sporting copies of the original.)

To Murphy: “People tell me, ‘my dad’s seen your movie.’” (Dumplin’, based on the book of the same name). “Dad may not have turned into a reader,” Murphy said, “but I’m glad he’s getting the story.”

However, writers acknowledged that Hollywood can be slower to pounce on themes of diversity than publishers. Having movies about “a black girl (The Hate U Give), a gay boy (Love, Simon), and a fat girl (Dumplin’)” as Thomas noted, necessarily mean more traction for characters whose diversity mirrors that of increasing numbers of young readers.

“You have to ask the film people to make sure the world (on film) around your characters is just as diverse,” Murphy said.

When the session turned to Q&A, one young fan said, “I write, but about serious things and the problems of the world. But when I tell people, they say, you’re a kid, you should be writing about happy things, like ponies. What do you say to that?”

Authors bluntly favored the questioner, although not all responses were suitable for print. “I look forward to you signing a book for me one day.”

***

Rick Riordan as patron saint of mythic adaptations

l-r, Marsick, Chokshi, Hernandez, Mbalia

It’s no secret that adaptations of classical myths are hot properties in literature for kids and teens. Middle-grade author Rick Riordan first primed the pump with his wildly irreverent takes on Greek divinities, but his Rick Riordan Presents imprint within Disney Publishing has expanded to feature a multitude of other cultural myths adapted to modern life. 

The Rick Riordan Presents! panel at the North Texas Teen Book Festival drew on books by Indian American writer Roshani Chokshi (Gilded Wolves series), Cuban Carlos Hernandez (Sal and Gabi Break the Universe) and African Kwame Mbalia (Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky). 

Rebecca Marsick opened the discussion with the observation, “All of your books involve other dimensions.”

“Every book is a thought experiment – what if this happens?” Hernandez said. The alternate dimension is this other possibility.”

“Portal fantasy and alternate dimensions are just cool ways to explain magic,” Mbalia said. “Things just are, and you’re free to explore the stories. We don’t have a lot of time to explain in books. We have to get to the meat.”

What, Marsick asked, did the writers’ personal cultures bring to their stories?

Or perhaps, Hernandez said, it was a matter of what they didn’t bring – the blanks he felt necessary to fill in. “One of the things I wasn’t seeing in the (Latinx) literature was the joy. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t happy. Things feel wild and magical all the time, even when we struggle.”

Chokshi also noted that a writer’s experience with myths may vary, citing differences between the stories she and her husband, from another part of the country, learned. “India is a big place (and) I’m not trying to represent an entire country in a book. What we have to do is celebrate these stories. Try to get the general strokes of the mythology and then let it live.”

***

I still feel well nearly ten days after that North Texas Teen Book Festival, but the world of in-person literary events is narrowing as the CORV-19 pandemic spreads. Still, writers are resilient. North Texas WORDfest’s
“all-you-can-meet” festival of creative connection, originally scheduled for this Saturday, March 21, has morphed into a virtual festival from 7 p.m. Friday, March 20, through 4 p.m. Sunday, March 22. As of this writing (March 16), the only place I find to register for the limited number of online sites is at the WORD – Writing Organizations ‘Round Dallas Facebook page, which promised an updated schedule to come.

Sorry to report that Writefest Houston, originally scheduled for May 4-10, has been cancelled dur to the COVID-19 pandemic. Look for it to return in 2021. As of this writing, summer events are still scheduled – the June 13-14 DFW Writers Conference in Hurst, Texas, and the June 26-28 Agents & Editors Conference of the Writers League of Texas in Austin. I will post here as updated information is available.

Countdown to readers’ favs of 2019 – Happy 2020!

Here’s the finale – the most read posts of 2019 – beginning with the runner-up, first published March 26, 2019:

Where the boys are – oh, those elusive young male readers

My mission the North Texas Teen Book Festival last weekend was to find books my adolescent grandsons would read. From tots who demanded nightly story readings and elementary schoolers who insisted on taking their chapter books to bed with them, they had grown into preteens (now early teenagers) who preferred to spend their spare time watching Youtube and playing video games.

Were they doomed to join the demographic of males who seldom (maybe never!) crack open a book outside of academic required reading? Where were the books aimed at teen boys that I remembered from my own and my daughter’s growing up years?

With that in mind – and temporarily ignoring that many women have written books for boys – I underlined every discussion that included male authors in my copy of the Teen Book Festival’s program and set out for the Irving Convention Center on a rainy Saturday morning.

image: Pixabay

Top of the list was the “New Kids on the Block” panel, where four out of the five debut writers were guys. I also came prepared with extensive knowledge of my boys’ favorite topics. They’re avid drawers who create their own comic books (and loved meeting personal idol Dav Pilkey) at last year’s festival. The boys had also loved the magical school stories of the Harry Potter and Rick Riordan’s demigods series. Relationships with girls, however, were still iffy – they’d been aghast that one of their male classmates had gone on a (gasp!) date. With a girl.

I crossed anything resembling romances off the festival’s offerings but added its “Getting Schooled,” “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Read Them,” and “Getting Graphic,” all with multiple male authors – to my list of must-sees.

I was a little surprised – but shouldn’t have been – when teacher (and debut author) Alicia D. Williams of the “New Kids on the Block” panel mentioned that even boys enjoyed reading her girl-coming-of-age story Genesis Begins Again. After all, girls have a long history of reading stories written for boys, even stories written by women. It was the Black Stallion series for me, The Outsiders (by female author S.E. Hinton) for my daughter. And of course, for my grandkids’ generation, the Harry Potter books written by Joanne, (now better known as J.K.) Rowling. 

Still more surprisingly, Williams and the other debut authors (Ben Guterson, Matt Mendez, Ben Philippe, and Justin A. Reynolds) didn’t recommend specific books. Rather, they said, I should to take my grandsons to a library or bookstore, let them browse the shelves for themselves, and ask librarians and store employees what books kids with their interests actually read. 

(Probably not surprisingly, librarians and audience members at the panel had some suggestions for 13-year-old boys: Shannon Messenger’s Keepers of the Lost Cities series, Ghost Boy, and Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet (“or really, anything by Paulsen”). (Check for these at Richardson & Dallas libraries.)

The “Getting Schooled” panel introduced me to the likes of Max Brallier, Jen Calonita, Jerry Craft, Stuart Gibbs, Sarah Mlynowski, and Raina Tegemeier, with plenty of possibilities for readers negotiating the tricky halls of junior high schools. (Brallier, Craft, and Tegemeier, along with Terri Libenson, also appeared on the “Getting Graphic” panel of writers and illustrators of graphic novels.)

And the “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Read Them” panelists – David Bowles, Alexandra Bracken, Adam Gidwitz, Yoon Ha Lee, Lisa McMann, and Christina Soontornvat – made me recall my grandsons’ fascination with the phenomenon of “cryptids” and monsters.

Given that I didn’t hit the festival’s bookstore until after the last panel ended, some of the books I sought had already sold out. Still, my take-home bookbag included A Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe; Winterhouse by Ben Guterson; The Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier; New Kid by Jerry Craft; The Chupacabras of the Rio Grande by David Bowles and Adam Gidwitz; and Spy School by Stuart Gibbs. I hesitated before adding Justin A. Reynolds’ Opposite of Always (which he described as a rom-com with time travel) to the bag, promising to read it for myself. Or maybe I’ll let the boys see it when they’re old enough not to be appalled by the idea of dating. . . .

***

And finally, the winner, the most-read post of 2019, one of my few reviews for the year. This post was first published January 11, 2019, for a book I find still eerily relevant for 2020:

When only Hitler could kill Hitler

Review of: The Plots Against Hitler

Author: Danny Orbach

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Grade: A

Source: Dallas Public Library

Considering that, according to Wikipedia, at least 42 assassination plots against Adolf Hitler have been documented – and who knows how many remain undocumented – why didn’t any of them succeed? Historian Danny Orbach attempts to answer that question – and debunk myths surrounding the most famous attempt, Operation Valkyrie, with his well-researched 2016 volume, The Plots Against Hitler. 

With a single notable exception, Orbach’s narrative concentrates on the resistance effort of the German military toward Hitler, and examines three key timelines of that resistance, from 1938 to 1944. He also asks – and attempts to answer – what motives persuaded these conspirators to overcome their own cultural and moral qualms about the killing of a leader to whom many of them had sworn personal allegiance.

Some of their motives, such as a hope of securing favorable peace terms with the Allies, no longer strike modern readers as morally acceptable, Orbach notes. Were patriotism and morality synonymous? More to the point for 21^st century readers, can the two motives still be equated? And how are we to make moral judgments today about conspirators as flawed as those Orbach details – sometimes womanizers, anti-Semites, at best “antidemocratic reactionaries” in the words of another writer, at worst, active participants in mass murder? What kind of morality would enable even such a vehement anti-Nazi as theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example, to join Germany’s military intelligence organization? Should even those who attempted to stop Hitler tarred with the same guilt as their target?

“(T)he story of the German resistance has a crucial moral component. After all, the Nazi era is still viewed around the world, and most of all in Germany itself, through the lens of collective guilt, historical responsibility, and the burden of National Socialist crimes. . . (but) gradually, I came to believe that one must transcend the current moralistic debate, redraw its terms, and reframe it altogether,” Orbach states.

Lest readers fear being overwhelmed by moralistic arguments, the book, even knowing how the story ends, reads like a thriller, with such elements as nocturnal meetings in frozen fields; the elaborate drama of military conspiracies; bombs hidden in briefcases and liqueur bottles; and the dramatic day of July 20, 1944, with its abortive assassination and final, desperate attempt at a coup d’état.

And often it reads like a tragi-comedy of errors. A bomb hidden in a bottle smuggled aboard Hitler’s plane inexplicably fails to explode. Hitler’s penchant for altering his schedule without notice foils still other plots. And all too often, it seems that the sheer multitude of conspiring assassins and their conflicting motives and agendas collide. 

One of the most nearly successful assassination attempts was the simplest – the lone-wolf effort of barely-educated carpenter turned watchmaker Georg Elser, whose 1939 bomb in a Munich beer hall missed Hitler but killed eight others. (Captured soon afterward and ultimately executed, Elser was reportedly devastated by the death of the innocent bystanders.)

So, what was the point of all the conspiratorial misfires, most of them resulting in little more than the gruesome deaths of the conspirators? Yes, some of their attempts saved hundreds of Jews from death in Nazi concentration camps, and may have limited the numbers of Poles, Soviets, and other Eastern Europeans massacred. But ultimately, millions more died. World War II was not shortened, hundreds of thousands of Germans, both soldiers and civilians, died. In the end, following Hitler’s own suicide, Germany as the conspirators knew it, disappeared. Were the conspirators heroes or the ultimate failures?

“Terms like heroes and heroism tend to make contemporary historians suspicious,” Orbach writes. “(But) once we have understood that (heroes’) armor is not shining but rather tarnished and scratched, we can see ‘heroes’ for what they are in the real world: people able, perhaps only briefly, to transcend ideology and selfishness and even existential dangers for the sake of a greater good.” 

And what would we do if we found ourselves in similar circumstances, Orbach asks. “If these questions make you ponder, then I have done the job I set out to do.”

***

Still to come: I sink my teeth into 2020 with a calendar full of winter-into-spring literary events – and writing contests!

Where the boys are -- oh, those elusive young male readers

My mission at the North Texas Teen Book Festival last weekend was to find books my adolescent grandsons would read. From tots who demanded nightly story readings and elementary schoolers who insisted on taking their chapter books to bed with them, they had grown into preteens (now early teenagers) who preferred to spend their spare time watching YouTube and playing video games.

Were they doomed to join the demographic of males who seldom (maybe never!) crack open a book outside of academic required reading? Where were the books aimed at teen boys that I remembered from my own and my daughter’s growing up years? In those days, girls who wanted action and adventure on the page had to read boy books. Now we have an abundance of kick-butt heroines in girls’ books, but have they shoved boy books off the shelves?

With that in mind – and temporarily ignoring that many women have written books for boys – I underlined every discussion that included male authors in my copy of the Teen Book Festival’s program and set out for the Irving Convention Center on a rainy Saturday morning.

image: StockSnap by Pixabay

Top of the list was the “New Kids on the Block” panel, where four out of the five debut writers were guys. I also came prepared with extensive knowledge of my boys’ favorite topics. They’re avid drawers who create their own comic books (and loved meeting personal idol Dav Pilkey) at last year’s festival. The boys had also loved the magical school stories of the Harry Potter and Rick Riordan’s demigods series. Relationships with girls, however, were still iffy – they’d been aghast that one of their male classmates had gone on a (gasp!) date. With a girl.

I crossed anything resembling romances off the festival’s offerings but added its “Getting Schooled,” “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Read Them,” and “Getting Graphic,” all with multiple male authors – to my list of must-sees.

I was a little surprised – but shouldn’t have been – when teacher (and debut author) Alicia D. Williams of the “New Kids on the Block” panel mentioned that even boys enjoyed reading her girl-coming-of-age story Genesis Begins Again. After all, girls have a long history of reading stories written for boys, even stories written by women. It was the Black Stallion series for me, The Outsiders (by female author S.E. Hinton) for my daughter. And of course, for my grandkids’ generation, the Harry Potter books written by Joanne (now better known as J.K.) Rowling. 

Still more surprisingly, Williams and the other debut authors (Ben Guterson, Matt Mendez, Ben Philippe, and Justin A. Reynolds) didn’t recommend specific books. Rather, they said, I should to take my grandsons to a library or bookstore, let them browse the shelves for themselves, and ask librarians and store employees what books kids with their interests actually read. 

Probably not surprisingly, librarians and audience members at the panel had some suggestions for 13-year-old boys: Shannon Messenger’s Keeper of the Lost Cities series, and Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet (“or really, anything by Paulsen”). 

The “Getting Schooled” panel introduced me to the likes of Max Brallier, Jen Calonita, Jerry Craft, Stuart Gibbs, Sarah Mlynowski, and Raina Tegemeier, with plenty of possibilities for readers negotiating the tricky halls of junior high schools. (Brallier, Craft, and Tegemeier, along with Terri Libenson, also appeared on the “Getting Graphic” panel of writers and illustrators of graphic novels.)

And the “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Read Them” panelists – David Bowles, Alexandra Bracken, Adam Gidwitz, Yoon Ha Lee, Lisa McMann, and Christina Soontornvat – made me recall my grandsons’ fascination with the phenomenon of “cryptids” and monsters.

Given that I didn’t hit the festival’s bookstore until after the last panel ended, some of the books I sought had already sold out. Still, my take-home bookbag included A Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe; Winterhouse by Ben Guterson; The Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier; New Kid by Jerry Craft; The Chupacabras of the Rio Grande by David Bowles and Adam Gidwitz; and Spy School by Stuart Gibbs. I hesitated before adding Justin A. Reynolds’ Opposite of Always (which he described as a rom-com with time travel) to the bag, promising to read it for myself. Or maybe I’ll let the boys see it when they’re old enough not to be appalled by the idea of dating. . . .

Get hopping: nothing hare-brained about April lit events

I’ve been writing about North Texas spring literary events at this blog since – February! What a sprig it’s been. It’s one of my favorite seasons, and the happenings (hoppenings?) just keep coming. Here’s the latest:

April 1: After the hallelujahs and chocolate bunnies, buckle down and polish your best 500 words for the last chance to enter WRiTE CLUB’s 2018 contest! It’s free, the prizes are great, but perhaps best is the chance to get immediate feedback from real live readers. See the site for details.

April 7: Dallas Book Festival, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., at the Dallas Library’s Central Branch, 1515 Young St., Dallas. It features more than 100 local, regional and national authors, including bestselling Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), Hillary Jordan (Mudbound), Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours), and lots, lots more. 

Additional events at the festival include writing workshops, children’s activities, and music and dance performances. Free, but of course there will be books for sale! 

The book festival is again being held in conjunction with the Dallas Festival of Ideas. This year’s theme is “The Connected City.” It’s also free, but with limited space, so please register for either morning or afternoon sessions. Can’t make it in person? Tune in to Facebook to watch the main events live.

image: pixabay

April 7: North Texas Book Festival is a chance to hang out with, and sample books by favorite Texas authors, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Patterson-Appleton Art Center, 400 E. Hickory St., in Denton, Texas. Or stretch the fun with an 8 a.m. chuck wagon breakfast with North Texas children’s book author/illustrator duo Janet Sever Hull and Vicki Killion Guess. See the site for details and registration.

April 15: The deadline for discounted registration for Writers in the Field, a hands-on research experience for writers this coming October 13-14, featuring 13 acres of demonstrations, exhibits and displays in Mansfield, Texas. See the Writers in the Field site for prices and details. Use code “WORDfestBFF” by April 15 and save 10 percent. (You say you’ll be too busy doing income tax to register for this deal? Good news – when Tax Day falls on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday – like this year – you have until the next business day to file!)

April 20-21: North Texas Teen Book Festival, Irving Convention Center, 500 W. Las Colinas Blvd., Irving, Texas. Wait – did I miswrite that date? Isn’t the convention only a single day? No! The all-day (and free!) blast is April 21. But this year, teens can also opt for lunch with four favorite YA authors on April 20.

The lunch event is $50, which includes meal, Q&A session and book signings. Then hang on for the 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday, April 21, event. As always, books available for sale and signing, lunch concessions on site – or bring your own to eat outside. See the site  for details. 

April 28: The Writers Guild of Texas spring workshop features Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Annie Neugebauer to walk us through using our query pitches to troubleshoot problems in our novels. At the Richardson Civic Center, 411 W. Arapaho Rd., Richardson, Texas.

I blogged last summer about Neugebauer’s query pitch genius at last year’s DFW Writer’s Conference. Here’s another chance to spend a whole morning with her. See the WGT site for registration and additional details. Cost is $25 for members, $35 for nonmembers registering by April 25. The cost goes up $5 for registration at the door – if seating is available.

April 30-May 6: This year, the Houston Writers’ Guild joins Writespace for its Writefest mega literary festival. OK, so Houston isn’t exactly a northerly outpost. But with a week’s worth of writing workshops, agent meet-and-greets (and more than 20 agents and publishers to pitch to), and more – it’s worth the trek south.

Get the full week, including lunch with keynote speaker Justin Cronin (The Passage trilogy) for $525 through April 29 ($595 at the door), a three-day weekend pass for $250 through May 3 ($375 at the door), or single-day Friday or Saturday sessions (May 4-5). Pitch sessions available at all options for additional $50. See the Writefest site for details and registration.

Wordcraft -- Author, author! 2015’s literary fests

What do I love most about the new year’s round of literary festivals in Texas? A chance to see favorite authors? Hear them read their own works? Write like them? Or find your own voice? It’s all possible at this winter through spring schedule of 2015’s literary best bets.

January 28 - June 15: Dallas Museum of Arts Arts & Letters Live This week: cartoonist Roz Chast discusses her National Book Award-finalist memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? And then there’s foodie god and goddess Marcus Samelsson and Ina Garten, Dennis Lehane, Billy Collins, Gail Sheehy, and more. Ticket prices from free to $35. At the DMA, 1717 N. Harwood, Dallas, unless otherwise indicated. See www.dallasmuseumofart.org/.

February 10 - June 3: Authors LIVE! Continues with Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Richard Rhodes, James McPherson and (lest this seem too heavy) humorist Dave Barry (and more). At Highland Park United Methodist Church, 3300 Mockingbird Lane, Dallas. Author readings are free, or for $30, meet the authors at pre-event receptions and score a book to boot. Additional books are available for purchase and signing. For complete schedule and/or reception reservations, search “Authors LIVE!” at www.hpumc.org/events/.

February 13-15: ConDFW XIV, a science fiction and fantasy convention with programming about writing/publishing, science programming and, of course, more, including a sc-fi spelling bee. At Hilton Dallas Lincoln Centre, 5410 LBJ Freeway (southeast corner of 635 and the Dallas Tollway). Hang out with dozens of Texas writers. Pre-event ticket prices (through January 31) $40 for all three days for adults, $20 for children (ages 6-12); $45 at the door for adults, $20 for children. One-day passes for both adults and children also available. See www.condfw.org for tickets and additional information.

February 26: Highland Park Literary Festival hosts Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, 7 p.m. at Highland Park High School, 4220 Emerson, Dallas. Walls’ talk is free, books for sale starting at 6:30 p.m. and after her address. See www.hplitfest.com/.

March 21: Writers Workshop sponsored by The Writers’ Guild of Texas, at the Richardson Civic Center, 411 W. Arapaho, Richardson. Author Brian W. Smith shares his insights on writing, publishing, and selling novels. $25 for WGT members, $35 for nonmembers. See http://writersguildoftexas.org/.

April 1-30: Dallas Reads One Book, and this year it’s Charles Portis’ True Grit. For There’s a full month of activities centering around this Western classic. See http://bigdreads.org for a complete schedule (and some great recipes for grits).

April 11: North Texas Book Festival, 9 a.m. -4 p.m., Patterson-Appleton Center for the Visual Arts, 400 E. Hickory St., Denton. Dozens of Texas authors eager to connect with readers. Free (except for all the books you’ll want to buy and get signed). See www.ntbf.org/.

June 26 - 28: Writers League of Texas agents and editors conference, Hyatt Regency
Austin, 208 Barton Springs Road, Austin. Panels and discussions on writing craft and publishing, agent consultations, and access to top industry professionals. Registration is $349 for members/$389 for nonmembers through April 5. See
www.writersleague.org/ for additional ticket information and list of agents.

(Is something missing? Did I leave out the DFW Writers Conference? No, it’s moved to a new time and place, coming to Dallas in July. I’ll have more information later about summer-fall literary events. In the meantime, see http://dfwcon.org/.)