Escapism of the Highest Order

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by dtkrippene in Musing, On Writing

Tags

Allentown Morning Call, iThink, National Libray Week, Reading, Refuge in Books, Young Adult Literature

From Pinterest – kimmie-bee

Every once in a while I catch an article written by a young adult that is both enlightening and heartwarming. High School freshman, Eva Johnson shared her thoughts with the Allentown Morning Call about how Reading Books Gives a Chance to Escape to Unknown Places. She begins with a story of how her younger brother said “the most earth-shattering, heart-breaking thing” to her.

“Reading Sucks”.

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Need a Few Good Men in YA Fiction

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by dtkrippene in On Writing

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

teen female protagonists, teen male protagonists, teen readership, YA authors, YA Fiction, Young Adult, Young Adult Literature

Avgustino – DepositPhoto.com

Where teen guys have drifted to sports and gaming, teen girls still like to curl up with a good book. It’s all in the numbers. The stats claim females make up over 80% of YA readership, most of which is penned by female authors. Did you think the popularity of the romance novel was a fluke? Does it surprise anyone that the majority of YA fiction has female protags and heavily lilted with romantic nuances? I almost titled this article, Have Romance Writers taken over YA Fiction, but I didn’t want to alienate my good friends who write romance, yet took the time to nurture my fledgling writing career. Besides, you can’t argue with reality. It’s a marketing thing. That said, we need to up the stats for male protags written by authors who have a Y chromosome.

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Our Love Affair with All Things Dystopian

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by dtkrippene in Dystopian Subjects, Writing Dystopian Themes

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Apocalyptic Themes, Dystopian Literature, Young Adult Literature

Tolokonov -DepositPhoto.com

Judging by the number of dystopian and apocalyptic movies hitting theaters, interest in the genre continues to hit new highs. I’ve been a fan of the genre for many years, starting with the incomparable H.G. Wells, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. Stephen King’s, The Stand, is one of my top ten of all time. It got me to wondering what’s fueling this trend, especially with YA books. A quick search of articles that weighed in on the subject yielded a plethora of opinion and commentary, thanks in part to the movie, Hunger Games, based on Suzanne Collin’s YA story. I thought I’d reference a few that caught my eye, and worth revisiting.

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Non-Fiction. Really?

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by dtkrippene in Musing

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Books, Boredom, Education, High School, Humor, NonFiction, Young Adult Literature

I tweeted a recent magazine article by Joel Stein, Time Magazine’s humor columnist, who had an interesting take on some High Schools pushing nonfiction over fiction literature (How I Replaced Shakespeare ti.me/QOonQ4 via @TIME). It had me revisiting a blog I wrote last year at the muse, http://blameitonthemuse.com/non-fiction-and-other-necessary-evils/, which in my own unique brand of humor, agreed.

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Maslow and the Apocalypse

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by dtkrippene in Writing Dystopian Themes

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Apocalypse, Dystopian, Environment, Global Stage, Maslow, Science Fiction plots, Writing Science Fiction, Young Adult Literature

From: wikipedia.com

An author friend, Hope Ramsey, asked an interesting question last week on her blog post: What Happened to My Modern World. She wanted to know if the younger generation’s interest in dark, scary, post-apocalyptic fiction was a rebellion against us Baby Boomers who have over-consumed our way into climate change. Well … given my writer’s interest in the genre, I felt compelled to put some thought into it.

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