A Quote by Robin Wasserman

As someone who writes and teaches YA fiction, I spend a lot of time trying to define its character and readership, and I don't think I'm alone - genres are all about boundary drawing, and the YA genre is, in a lot of ways, about carving out boundaries around adolescence, a space for teenagers to do teenage things.
The only thing that makes a book YA is that it is about teenagers, and it is written in a very conventional, non-artsy, non-pretentious way. YA is not the place for the oblique or the cryptic. If it is in any way experimental in form, it is not YA.
When I see ya baby girl, I miss feelin on ya. I miss everything that's real about ya and that's everything about ya, that's just how I feel about ya
It's only five rappers out of Atlanta who bussin and I'm one of 'em; the other four you know who you are; but if you gotta think twice (well) shawty ya ain't nice; regardless of ya publishin' deal ya can't write
Teen fiction should be about teenagers - no matter how many arguments there are about what YA lit should be, this seems like the one thing we can all agree on.
I think that's what distinguishes YA from adult fiction - it's not just the age of the characters, but it's the sense of hope. Because I don't think I've ever read a YA book that feels completely hopeless at the end.
I don't really have time or interest in doing a lot of the crazy things that some of my teenage peers do, mostly because I have such a hectic life that I don't need to add to that chaos by creating my own teenage drama like a lot of teenagers do.
I'm now much more excited about genre distinctions. What I still see breaking down are more the hierarchical arrangements of genres. That is, "There is literary fiction, and then there are lesser genres." I'm much more clear on the idea that literary fiction is itself a genre. It is not above other genres. It is down there in the muck with all the other genres, and it's doing the wonderful things that it does, but to give it a Y-axis, to make it high and low, just seems absurd. I stand by that.
As a matter of fact it wasn't until after BIG passed and stupid rumors went around that I had something to do with it, and it's like I'm not a killer man , I'm a musician, I'm a DJ we got like a different heart. Ya know back then when rappin' was fun, and we could immolate being gangstas; ya know Dr. Dre made the hardest gangsta rap records in the world, that didn't necessarily make him a gangsta. It was all like ya know : character, we were all in character.
When I was growing up, there actually wasn't a lot of YA literature as it exists today. Most of the YA that I read was from the '60s and '70s, older than me.
I think the paparazzi is a necessary evil...and if ya don't like it, and ya don't want to do this, go to Iowa and do some community theatre. It's all about self-promotion and it's not always the fun part of it.
You got a man? That's somethin we will talk about. He's smart enough to have ya, but dumb enough to let ya out.
If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.
Honestly, when you start talking about genres, you're talking as much about the business side of writing as anything else. Certainly there are elements of reader expectation that play into various genres, and those are important, but it also becomes about packaging, placement, audience....In the end, I'm not a fan of labels. I think the best fiction blurs the boundaries between genres, stretches and breaks them.
One of the things that defines YA is a really strong narrative. Adults love YA because, at the end of the day, they're good stories and page-turners. The other element is emotion. The teen years are a very emotional and intense time, and I think it's a time we that we can all relate to and remember.
Do what ya have to do to pay off yer debt with Heaven,’ he said, his concern for proper speech abandoned. ‘But ya do not die on me, ya understand? I can’t live without ya. Yer all I got, woman.’ Her breath caught in her lungs. ‘I don’t want to be here if you’re not.
I think that Chad Gray is one of the most honest, emotional, real vocalists there is; he really takes a lot of pride in writing the lyrics, takes a lot of time with them. He writes and re-writes more than just about anybody I've ever been around.
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