Founder and organizer of the NYC Teen Author Festival, David Levithan, is at it again. The 2019 edition of the annual festival he created occurred during the last week in March at bookstores, the New York Public Library, and other locations. The festival originated in March 2008, coincidentally, during the very week that I started with the Library!

The Teen Author Festival provides a great opportunity to hear authors speak about their craft. I love literature and the creativity that comes with weaving stories onto the printed page. Several events were held at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, "the library with the lions," at NYPL. Caitlyn Colman-McGraw, manager of teen programming, introduced the event.
 

Teen Author Festival 2019 Summary

March 27, 2019

The Past Eleven Years, The Next Eleven Years

(Panel: Gayle Forman, Kody Keplinger, David Levithan, E. Lockhart, Mark Oshiro, Scott Westerfield, Ashley Woodfolk, moderator: Justine Larbalestier)

Justine Larbalestier began the conversation by asking the panel what was happening in teen lit a decade ago versus what is happening now.

Oshiro started a blog in 2008 called Mark Reads. Woodfolk was graduating college in 2008; she was writing at the time, and had an appreciation for published authors, but never dreamed she would become one. Keplinger was in high school, working on her first published novel. Levithan was working on Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and was an editor at Scholastic; he is still at the company as an editorial director. In 2008, Levithan also created and launched the first NYC Teen Author Festival, as mentioned above.  

Westerfield was creating the Leviathan series a decade ago, and Forman was writing If I Stay, her first popular book. E. Lockhart was penning The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Forman said she feels fortunate to have had the advantages of contact with a burgeoning writing community during these years. 

Larbalestier mentioned the social movements of Own Voices and We Need Diverse Books having led to an increase in the diversity of teen lit.

Keplinger shared that she took great pains to cover up her disability in the past. She would hide her cane and, for author talks, memorize pages of text to read. She was not writing disabled characters into her books and did not want to focus on her disability. Instead, she wanted people to recognize the strength of her writing and substantive work. By contrast, she is now open about her disability, has a guide dog, and writes about blind girls. She wants to advocate for people who are disabled and gay, during a period in which there are are more lesbian stories than in the past. 

Woodfolk recently realized she is bisexual, and happy that more conversations about diversity and inclusiveness are happening today. She would like to see stories about black girls simply living their lives, not perpetuating stereotypes as in some books that only portray black kids who live in the projects. Lockhart opined that publisher support for diverse books is vital for getting them published. More diversity in publishing houses helps.

Westerfield is getting fewer questions now than a decade ago about why he is writing female protagonists into his novels. Oshiro was previously told it was not believable to have a male Mexican character in books. We now see characters with PTSD, representative of neurodiversity, and Levithan mentioned that the We Need Diverse Books movement emanated from a panel at Book Expo America. The stars of the kid lit world on that panel were all white males, inspiring people to band together and proclaim the need for diverse representation is needed. Levithan shared that social movements are necessary to effectuate change, and he considers the Twilight period as the last homogeneous book era.

Woodfolk mentioned that most publishers are still white women. Larbalestier agreed, stating the field is still overwhelmingly white. There were some upticks in diversity in the 1960s and 1970s; however, both of those movements eventually died down. Levithan mentioned the Rochester Teen Book Fest existed before the NYC Teen Author Festival.

March 29, 2019

Tinkering With Tropes

(panel: Molly Booth, Erin Cashman, Jennifer Donnelly, Sarah Henning, Laura Sebastian, Addie Thorley & Peternelle Van Arsdale, moderator: Aimee Friedman)

The featured authors read from their fairytale-inspired work. One book was based on Cinderella, and another sprang from Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. Another tale involved poisoning a king. There was a book about the Irish legend of the Island of Hy-Brasil, which is shrouded in mist, and Van Arsdale wrote a work regarding the myth of Medusa. 

Moderator Aimee Friedman asked which perspective the authors wrote from, and why they wanted to alter the fairy tales and myths. 

Thorley likes to combine the new with the familiar. Donnelly loves and identifies with villains, and sees her teenage daughter growing up with so much pressure regarding her appearance. She shared that, last year, a boy told her daughter she was a "seven out of ten" because she has light eyebrows. Van Arsdale mentioned that misogyny is passed from males to males but also from females to females. 

Friedman asked about the research the authors undertook for their books. Cashman did much exploration at the Boston Public Library, finding maps that confirm the island she would write about existed from the mid-13th to the mid-18th century. She also read about other Irish myths. Van Arsdale prefers to make up her own materials; luckily for her, fantasy does not require as much research.

Thorley, who lives in Princeton, New Jersey, feels the need to know history if she is going to change it into a fictionalized version. As a result of her research, she now has knowledge of the effects of different poisons. Henning read the original Sea Witch tale many times. Donnelly revisited many Grimm fairy tales; knowing the stepsisters of Cinderella were not born mean, she was curious how they got that way. 

YA Admiration Society: Perfect Paragraphs

(Gayle Forman, Emmy Laybourne, Sarah Darer-Littman, Lauren Spieller & Will Walton, moderator: David Levithan)

Levithan explained that the idea for this panel originated with Laybourne, and he asked the participants to read their favorite paragraphs and explain their strengths.

Forman chose a poem from The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. Littman explained that it is important to find the right book at the right time in your life. Levithan said that his favorite opening line in a book is "We turned out for the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck." The sentence is almost flipped on itself, like a verbal riddle. (I want to point out that the sentence is really saying that they ("we") wanted the moon to have fun. The object of having fun is the moon, not the people.) 

The Thrill of It All

(panel: Tara Altebrando, Stewart Lewis, Derek Milman, Lydia Day Penaflor, moderator: Sara Holland)

The authors read from their thrillers, and Holland mentioned that all their books included elements from other genres. Many of the panelists said they do not consider themselves to be thriller writers. 

Lewis explained that Look Closer, his latest book, is about a girl who sees people on their last day of their lives, with seven people nearing their last hours on earth. It has both thriller and mystery elements. Altebrando wrote a book that was set on a cruise ship; the protagonist is celebrating her 16th birthday with friends, and develops a love interest on the ship, which leads to an altercation. Lewis and Altebrand agree that constraints and structure facilitate writing, at times. Lewis once took a class about films and novels, and how to incorporate cinematic elements onto the printed page. He is also a songwriter, and sees music, film, and stories all informing each other.

Penaflor's work, All of This is True, has an audio version with 13 narrators. The work is also translated into different languages in the 13 nations in which it is published.

It's Complicated

(panel: Kheryn Callender, Katie Cicatelli-Kuc, Sarah Enni, Lauren Gibaldi, Abby Sher, Andrew Simonet & Jenn Marie Thorne, moderator: Ashley Woodfolk)

Woodfolk commented that YA fiction is sometimes pigeonholed into only consisting of romance works, and wondered how the authors represent platonic teen friendship in an authentic way. 

A panelist said she likes to explore the idea of "instalove" and see if it can become real. Callender prefers to discuss how we sabotage ourselves in multitudinous ways. One of Enni's characters engages in a path of self-discovery. Woodfolk mentioned that when we have a feeling about another person we've never had before, we can get confused and believe that is love.

Woodfolk asked the panelists how expectations affect relationships in novels. One author opined that people often have unrealistic expectations of those with whom they are enamored.

Woodfolk asked the panelists about unlikely friendships. One stated that all friendships can be unlikely. In one story that was mentioned, two characters, Jules and Ruby, are from different sides of the track: Ruby lives in a townhouse in Harlem, and Jules lives in a rent-controlled apartment, working multiple jobs to help support her family.

Woodfolk offered that teenagers are beginning to realize they are in control of who their friends are, and said she writes one book per issue that she has. Gibaldi said teens have a tendency to believe that everyone else perceives them the same way they do; however, relatively, no one thinks about them much at all. Callender said her books tend to reflect the experiences she has lived. 

Great YA Bake-Off

(Rhoda Belleza, Corey Ann Haydu, Katie Henry, JJ Howard, Michael Northrup, Shani Petroff, Sarvenaz Tash & KM Walton)

Levithan has a panel like this every year, during which he asks authors to write on a particular theme specifically for the conference. For 2019, he asked the panelists to name their most recent books and write a recipe into the literature. As usual, people let their imaginations run away with them during this exercise. 
 

Teen Author Festival Wrap-Up

There are always new ideas and topics of conversation about the field of teen lit at the Teen Author Festival, and the 2019 festival was excellent. Each year, the panels are well-constructed, and the panel topics are new and unique, and they keep me in touch with the world of teen lit. I love listening to authors discuss their creative process, and I learn about new fantastic teen authors every time I attend the event. I recommend this conference to anyone interested in teen lit, especially teenagers. Teens do attend the event, and some authors were teens when they penned their first books (S. E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders as a teen).

In terms of diversity, a broader representation of all ethnic groups on the panels would always be much appreciated, as a variety of voices and perspectives benefits us all. It's worth mentioning that there was a solid representation of gay authors and women, and a disabled author who'd appeared in previous festivals provided illuminating insights. 

Including authors of nonfiction teen lit, either on their own panel or interspersed with fiction authors, would be unique. Nonfiction tends to get neglected when people attempt to encourage kids to read; however, some kids are intrigued by nonfiction and their intellects would be satisfied with such information. Especially with Common Core education in New York State public schools, kids would benefit by being exposed to explorations of history, science, mathematics, and other studies.

I hope more people will be able to attend subsequent iterations of this wonderful festival. Just plan on the last week of March each year, at "the library with the lions." Until then, have a great year!