Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: thoughtful
  • Music: The Decemberists, "We Both Go Down Together."

Okay, one more post about the Hugos: the proposal for a YA Hugo has been put forth again.

Amy McNally has revived the proposal for a "Best Young Readers" Hugo (defining the category as "YA, Middle Grade, and Children's Books"), and has a beautiful, thoughtful deconstruction of many of the arguments against.

Go. Read. And remember...

We complain about younger people not getting into the community. About seeing teenagers pack up their toys and go home at a certain point. About wanting more people to become lifelong readers, and lifelong members of our social hyperspace. But we also tend to write off YA as "juvenile" (as if that were an insult; as if Heinlein and Norton and Gaiman didn't write for young adults), and all too often, shame the people who read it. We scoff at covers that cater to teen sensibilities, instead of adult aesthetics. We don't listen.

There is amazing stuff happening in YA. Concepts and stories are being built and explored there in ways that are difficult to impossible in adult fiction. From the big blockbusters like The Hunger Games to the sneakier stories like Unspoken, it's a medium that's bursting with potential, and bringing our younger voters in by recognizing what many of them are reading, while also bringing more adult readers to this amazing work...I just can't see that as a bad thing. At all.

This is Amy's ballgame, so while you're welcome to comment here, I am declaring comment amnesty, and will only answer if I feel like it. Although I will moderate if folks get snappy. Remember, we're all in this together.
Tags: amy, awards and stuff
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  • 15 comments

beccastareyes

August 13 2013, 17:52:40 UTC 3 years ago

I see the post addresses my concern about making sure YA books don't lose out by having people nominate them for one or the other of 'Best Youth Novel' and 'Best Novel' and ending up with neither. Because that would be awful. (And, frankly, I figure YA is usually of the same quality as adult SF*** and plus getting younger folks involved in this part of SF fandom** is good for the future.)

That and I notice that a lot of my nominations are helped by authors' "This is what I have that's eligible for the Hugos (and what category)", since I imagine authors being paid by the word for short stories tend to know when they cross the line into novelettes better than I do*. So authors noting that 'Books X & Y are probably not YA but Book Z is marketed to YA and Book W is middle grade' would help me in nominations.

* That and it reminds me of things I've read over the year, since 'that one story by Seanan with the selkies' is not very helpful when filling out ballots (and that's a good day for me, since I remember the author so could conceivably find the title on my own).

** Maybe combined with a youth discount or 'scholarship' memberships to account for teens for which $50 is a lot of money, if that doesn't run into problems mentioned in the previous post regarding Supporting Memberships.

*** Read: 'some of it is crap or not to my tastes or involves me wanting the antagonists to set everyone on fire, but much of it is decent, and some is very good'. And it's not like something not to my tastes has ever been nominated for a Hugo before...

wendyzski

August 13 2013, 19:14:28 UTC 3 years ago

I very much like when authors post when their stuff is eligible for and what categories - because I simply can't remember any distinctions finer than "novel" and "shorter than a novel"!