Uncreated Conscience

Lately I’ve been mulling over a question that seems to crop up in a lot of what I read for both work and pleasure, namely whether or not a definition of YA exists. Of course YA exists, but what it is seems to be a fluid idea, shaped by many different considerations: age of protagonist, marketing concerns, and the most controversial of all–reading level.

This morning on Twitter I posed the question of whether YA was a genre, a reading level, or a marketing category and the responses I got were great. People had varying opinions, of course, but what struck me was that in this roiling, frothing discussion, general a consensus was rising to the top:

YA is not a reading level; it is a specific perspective and aesthetic sensibility.

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Dear me, I have been lax with updating you all about the goings-on in the office! We have been extremely busy since the new year, having acquired three new authors for our New Adult endeavor, bringing our stable of authors up to seven! The stats and projects are as follows:

Nonfiction

WORKING GIRL: How To Have A Fabulous Life on 30 Grand by Laurel House
Lifestyle and fitness guru Laurel House writes a how-to guide for post-collegiate and young professional women, including ways of making your dollar stretch to your best advantage without having to sacrifice the things you want. I have to say that as a poor publishing professional, her tips were quite useful!

THE ROARING TWENTIES: Adulthood Redefined by Hannah Seligson
Hannah is a wonderful young writer and journalist, and she examines what it means to be an “adult” in today’s society, focusing on the milestones between the ages of 18 and 30. A comprehensive look at most walks of life, it is part memoir, a large part research, part anecdotal, and entirely awesome.

DATING IN THE NUDE by Harlan Cohen
Harlan is best known for his college survival guide THE NAKED ROOMMATE, which was an extensive look at the emotional and practical aspects of going away to school. Having spoken at length with many “new adults”, he now parlays the insight he gained from talking to young people into a dating/relationship advice book.

DEAL OF THE CENTURY by Frank Sennett
Y’all know of Groupon? Y’all know how awesome it is? Wanna know about how the company got started, why they didn’t sell out to Google, and what its social media oriented business is about? This is the book for you!

Fiction

SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal.
Ever wonder what Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield were like as adults in their twenties? Francine Pascal reveals all in this long-awaited novel. Released March 29, 2011.

UNION STREET by Gemma Burgess
The first in a series about six young women living together in a Brooklyn brownstone, figuring out life, love, and adulthood together. The first book features Pia, a Swiss-Indian third culture kid and a recent college graduate. (Can I just say here: HAPAS FOR THE WIN!)

THE PFEFFERNOOSE CHRONICLES by Nora Zelevansky
A young college undergraduate from a quirky, Royal Tenebaums-esque Upper West Side family gets a gig writing a blog for dazzling (and possibly magical) socialite Veruca Pfeffernoose–getting swept in Veruca’s whirlwind and glitzy life.

I won’t lie when I say fiction has been much more difficult than nonfiction to acquire. Many of the things we’ve seen have been too young without crossover potential. Thus far we’ve only acquired contemporary, but we would love to find some more genre here, myself in particular. I love me some fantasy and historical. Send me stuff!

So this blogging more initiative. It’s not being very successful at the moment, due to the fact that I simply have not had the time. La Redactora is busy enough for ten editors, not to mention things have been moving along with Cap’n Sweet Valley.

News! Cap’n Sweet Valley has acquired two more titles, this time in the nonfiction category.

1. WORKING GIRL: The Fabulous life on Thirty Grand by Laurel House
   A comprehensive guide for young women in their twenties and how to live on a very terrible salary. I found this incredibly useful. Publishing might be my dream job, but it, uh, doesn’t exactly pay millions. Included are tips on how to keep healthy, exercise, diet, what to do if you realise you need to break up with your college significant other, dating etc.
2. THE WOMEN’S PILL BOOK
   Um, this doesn’t exactly fall into the category of fiction and nonfiction for twentysomethings, but pills and pharmaceutical industries are kind of Cap’n Sweet Valley’s pet/personal interests. A reference guide to drugs on the market, specifically tailored for women: from everyday colds to hormonal therapy.

Anyway, the biggest news of all: The website is live for SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL!

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You know what I’ve discovered? Blogging is hard! I never thought blogging was hard before, but that might have had to do with the fact that I spent most of 2009 unemployed and my previous jobs were so dull I blogged about everything else instead.

The end of this series means the end of my childhood. Quite literally.

I’m in a bit of a nostalgic mood. Another teaser trailer for the final Harry Potter movie was released yesterday and I found myself tearing up. (Why yes, I am a sentimental fool.) Not only is the series coming to an end, I feel a little bit as though my entire childhood is ending as well.

Now, of course, in the eyes of the law, I haven’t been a child for years, but HARRY POTTER was such an integral part of my formative years. While the book series ended when I was 22, the movie franchise allowed me to extend that feeling of adolescence into my mid-twenties. Counting the movies, HARRY POTTER would have been part of over half my life: from 12 to 25. That’s 13 years.

There is much to love about HARRY POTTER and there’s something to be said for a series of books that captured the interest of everyone, and I quite literally mean everyone. Having worked in publishing for a while now, the concept of an “all-ages, all genders” book is like the mythical unicorn. Nice, but doesn’t seem to exist. We all publish to shelf these days.

But what is it about HARRY POTTER that made it transcend all the limiting boundaries we place on our books?

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So. Reviews. I did say I would write them. I seriously haven’t had time to eat, let alone blog in the past few weeks. But if you’re curious about what I’m reading outside of work, you should probably check me out on Goodreads.

The hardcover of TENDER MORSELS by Margo Lanagan

There’s not much I can really say about TENDER MORSELS that’s coherent. This novel slayed me. I closed the pages feeling absolutely gutted and wrung out, wondering if the world would ever be okay again and knowing it will.

TENDER MORSELS is a retelling of the fairytale Snow White and Rose Red (Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot), which is about two sisters, roses, a bear prince, an ungrateful dwarf, and stolen treasure.

I’m rather fond of fairytale retellings, as is evidenced by my love of Robin McKinley’s BEAUTY, Elizabeth C. Bunce’s A CURSE AS DARK AS GOLD, Malinda Lo’s ASH, and countless others. I love them as literal or as figurative as they come. I think I love fairytale retellings because the story mechanics are already in place so the author is free to take the characters and world in any which direction s/he pleases. Similarly, fairytales being so sketchy and vague themselves allow for wonderful interpretations of the source material.

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Pardón, estaba incomunicada la última semana porque estaba muy ocupada por mi trabajo. He ayudado una otra redactora a St. Martin’s Press con sus autores y no tuve tiempo para escribir en mi…blog? (¿Cómo se dice “blog” en español?)

Sorry, I have the habit of reverting to high school Spanish when I get a wee bit stressed. (Of note, I love that “editor” in Spanish is redactor(a). Henceforth I wish to be known as a redactor.) I’m a little rusty.

So, JJ, you might ask, what have you been up to? Oh nothing much, I might say, just running around the Flatiron Building like a chicken with its head cut off. I have been assisting another editor here with her list while her assistant is on maternity leave. Said editor is a genius, with multiple bestsellers on her list who need a lot of maintenance. I’m still working primarily with Cap’n Sweet Valley, but now I’m on another floor (but in an office!). Now that SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL is about to go into production, I’m getting my exercise running up and down two flights of stairs at least 12 times a day.

Because I myself haven’t contributed much to the publishing blogosphere lately, might I direct you to this awesome series of posts on LGBTQ stereotypes in YA fiction by Malinda Lo? Today she blogs about gender perceptions, expression, and performance and how gender identity and sexuality do not have a 1:1 correlation.

Anyway, while I’ve been buried up to my eyeballs with work, I’ve also been reading my face off, so expect to be seeing reviews of the following soon:

1. TENDER MORSELS by Margo Lanagan
2. THE ART OF SEDUCTION by Robert Greene
3. A CONSPIRACY OF KINGS by Megan Whalen Turner
4. ILLYRIA by Elizabeth Hand
5. MATCHED by Ally Condie
6. DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver
7. ASCENDANT by Diana Peterfreund
8. THE REPLACEMENT by Brenna Yovanoff

But I do intend to talk more about craft and writing, especially now that I’m learning from Redactor Genius. So here’s my question, oh blogosphere: What writing topics would you like me to cover? Publishing business you can read about elswhere; I’m mostly here to talk editorial (redactorial?) stuff. So shoot. Leave suggestions in the comments!

In previous posts about New Adult, I realized that I tried to articulate the category with broad generalizations (target audience, voice, etc.), but never got down to the specifics of personal taste. Personal taste is pretty important in this industry; it’s important to read broadly, but to also have opinions about what you read.

White-Harp acts as a neck pillow while I work. She's not exactly pleased by this arrangement.

Bear once asked me if I would ever turn down something I knew would sell and I said, “Yes, if I didn’t like it,” to which he just shook his head and said it was a stupid business practice. I couldn’t come up with a rational argument at the time, but the honest truth is, publishing isn’t a rational business–it’s a business of taste.

I put it this way: I can’t sell something I don’t like. Meaning, if I don’t like something, I can’t bring it to an editorial meeting and say, “Let’s buy this book! I hate it!” It’s the same when you recommend books to friends; it’s hard to walk up to a friend with a book you didn’t like and say, “Read this! I hated it!” So today I will enlighten you all to Cap’n Sweet Valley and my personal tastes (noting that, of course, this falls under the general umbrella of “fiction and nonfiction for twentysomethings”).

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The Ur-Chick Lit Novel

A while back, I mentioned on Twitter that I did not like chick lit. This is causing me a wee bit of stress as a large portion of the submissions we receive can fall into the realm of “chick lit”, meaning I am more reluctant to read them in favor of other submissions.

One of the great things about Cap’n Sweet Valley and me as a team is that we tend to balance each other out in terms of taste. Cap’n Sweet Valley tends to like more pop and/or commercial fiction where I like more “upmarket” literary-ish, quirky things, as well as genre and historical. (I am a big advocate of genre, especially fantasy and science fiction.)

Where we cannot see eye-to-eye, however, is this niche of fiction called “chick lit”. I try to be open-minded, I really do, and I especially try not to be pejorative or contemptuous of those who like it because I know what it’s like to wholeheartedly love a genre (fantasy) that literary snobs tend to look down on. Also, as Emily Giffin (a St. Martin’s Press author) and Sophie Kinsella would attest, it sells pretty well, and we’re in the business of selling a lot of books.

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