I'm in Ravenclaw House Myself...

Congrats to my best friend for a gajillion years Claudia White, flute-player extraordinaire, who landed an awesome gig tonight playing for a whole host of celebrities and guests as part of an orchestra at the grand opening of the new Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios in Orlando. I understand author J.K. Rowling will be there along with the stars of the Harry Potter films, and the orchestra Claudia is playing in will be conducted by none other than John Williams! Woo!

The degree of separation between me and John Williams has now been reduced to one. This is exciting! I was a John Williams fan before anyone knew who he was. Seriously, do you know anyone who actually owned (I may still have it somewhere) the original soundtrack recording of The Towering Inferno? On LP?!? I credit Williams’ lush scores with introducing me to the world of great orchestral music, laying the groundwork for my later interest in classical music. A favorite JW score? Too many to mention, and he has had his ups and downs. But who of my generation can forget that day when we first sat down to watch some brand new space adventure flick called Star Wars, and Williams’ iconic theme tore out of the speakers and into our ears for the first time? You knew in two seconds this was going to be the best adventure of you life ‘til then. Currently, I’d have to rank JW’s score to Catch Me If You Can as one of his finest, mostly because the jazzy riffs were totally unexpected. One of my most enduring favorites by him has to be his score to Empire of the Sun, a very underrated classic from Steven Spielberg that introduced us to some kid named Christian Bale – wonder whatever became of him?

And J.K. Rowling herself? Don’t get me started. This is the woman who took fantastic tales that most people regard as children’s stories and made them respectable for everyone to read. Outside of the pleasures of the Harry Potter series itself, would we have Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book or China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun without HP’s success? The best writers have long known that if you want to write inventive stories with memorable characters, you write for young people – or the young-at-heart.

Anyway, congratulations once again to Claudia White, who has put up with more of my insanity than any reasonable person should. I toast thee with Maker's Mark!

Incidentally, there's a live web feed available here tonight and Friday morning.

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Young adult lit comes of age

A great article in the LA Times about the popularity of YA fiction amongst adults.

"YA authors are able to take themselves less seriously. They're able to have a little more fun, and they're less confined by this idea of themselves as Very Important Artists. That paradoxically leads them to create far better work than people who are trying to win awards."

I’ve written a lot of stories and novels with young people as central characters, although I wouldn’t classify any of them as YA – I like to reserve the right to use appropriate levels of sexuality, violence, and vocabulary in my work where needed. (You can understand why I so love Spike Jonze’s description of his film Where the Wild Things Are as a movie about childhood, and not necessarily for children.) And I have known for years that if you want a ripping good yarn with memorable characters and, very often, trenchant observations about life, you should give YAs a try. I felt quite vindicated when Harry Potter became a success. (I read them all, and loved them.) Expect more of this from my writing – the world caught up to me once, maybe it will do so again.



The article doesn’t mention one of the most popular adult writers who has crossed over more or less full-time (at present) into YA and children’s books, and that is the inimitable Neil Gaiman. Pictured at the top of the post is one of my favorite YAs, China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun, about an alternate world existing parallel/underneath the real London. Miéville cited as one point of inspiration for this book Gaiman’s Neverwhere, another book I love. Compare the two sometime.

Young adult lit comes of age (LA Times)

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