Vox YA

There’s a profile of me and Justine in the Village Voice this week! Here’s the photo from it:

cooper.jpg
photo by Tina Zimmer

After some slightly red-face-making descriptions of our “haute-bohemian” lifestyle, the article makes some lovely points about why it’s so great to write YA these days:

The nicest surprise amid all this careerist socializing is that the YA vanguard refuses to segregate themselves by subject matter. Authors of dark fantasy or science fiction mingle happily with those who chronicle private-school clique wars or gay romance. In contemporary young-adult lit, realism has no caste privilege over the fantastic. Teen consumers reject the thematic hierarchies that bedevil every other media market, unwittingly creating a utopia for iconoclasts like Scott and Justine, who write teen fiction because it frees their best ideas from the deadly limitations of any adult genre ghetto.

True dat. But the only reason we writers don’t make that distinction is because so many of our readers don’t.

Here’s the whole article.

241 thoughts on “Vox YA

  1. Yeah. Tobey Maguire emoness is hilarious.

    Pete Wentz emoness is just scary. I like Fall Out Boy and all, but Pete Wentz is just…um…well, I know he tried to commit suicide. 7 minutes in heaven.

    ~*~Lizzy-wa2~*~

  2. I love Fall Out Boy, but Patrick Stump is wayyyyyy better than Pete. I don’t care if Patty’s a fatty, his voice is like heaven on a stick!

    At least, it would be if his voice were on a stick

  3. Best parts of Winter Break:

    Sleeping in
    Eating whatever I want (I had m+m cookies for breakfast one day)
    No school
    Reading time
    Presents
    No school
    Listening to music
    Talking to my friends
    No school
    Getting a $50 gift card to Barns & Noble (I WILL get Blue Noon now, mwahahahaha!)
    Did I mention no school?
    Oh wait more specific- NO LANGUAGE ARTS CLASS! (I love to write but I *hate* essays, they bore me so much…and reading dumb short stories to go along with that doesn’t help either….)

  4. i have this huge social studies project due soon, and i havent started. the topic is cool because you get to pick your own… but i hate projects. my topic is the history of coca-cola.

    in a couple of months (or sooner) i have to take a writing test. the essay has to be pursuasive or explanitory. that means you cant write just a story. if the topic is the best book ever, i cant say “I went to the school book fair. There were a lot of books there. I decided to get Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.” not allowed! I would have to do something like “The best book ever is Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. That book is the best because of the plot, the characters, and the specials.”

  5. I have a science project and an essay to do. The essay is soo boring. Expeicially since I have to write it on a specific topic that is soo boring!!!!!!!!

  6. i’m so lucky, i actually have NO HOMEWORK for winter break!!!!! because the superintendent said you weren’t allowed to assign any over break.
    except i do have an english project due soon. but…and this is hte awesome part…it’s a short story!!!! and there’s NO TOPIC!!!!! or length or any of that crap!!!!! i can write about anything that the school doesn’t object to!!!!!! now i truly stick it to my moron english teacher.
    my story will so be about werewolves.

  7. i despise my english teacher shes evil. before we do any essay we have to fill out a umbrella chart because the only essays we do r 3.5’s which really r crap bcause u have 2 have 3 subjects on ur main topic built into 5 paraghaphs. i h8 essays. and shes makin us read a mystery novel and i got stuck w/ nancy drew and the mystery of the moss covered mansion b/c i couldnt find a good one in like a day. i despise her. she had us reading summer of the swans and its like a 4th grade book.im in tag and she loads on the work when were gone for it. why cant we read good books for school i managed a good book for the first book report which was a free pick. i did specials cause extras wasnt out yet. i could go on and on but i wont.

  8. Be careful about that, Serafina. My brother wrote about a terrorist invasion once and he had to have counseling because they thought he was mentally distressed. yeah.

    You know what movie rocks? National Treasure 2. I just went to go see it today. It was really good. Except the loud crazy woman sitting behind me kind of ruined some parts. Like right before they find the treasure and they’re on the little square thing that dips under their weight and it started to break, she screamed. She’s just that kind of person.

    ~*~Lizzy-wa2~*~

  9. yeah i know. which is why i’ll probably write a boring story.
    i mean, not *boring* but not the stuff i usually write.
    all my short stories come out really f***ed up for some reason. like, not bad, but seriously messed-up. like alcoholism and drug use and murder.
    the story i want to write for the project, but that isn’t flowing, is really supposed to end with one of the protaganists getting hit by a train. so i’m guessing that one’s out.
    and the other really pretty sci-fi dystopia one i have has demons and drug use. i mean, the drug use is portrayed as bad, but the main character watches her cousin shoot up. with wierd demon drugs that turn your eyes gold.
    and then i have my favorite short story, which i can’t even consider. i mean, first scene. 16 year old protaganist is totally wasted. passes out. wakes up. first line of dialouge “f*** it. f*** it. f*** it.” ect. you get the point. and yet, it’s also a great story. oh, and it has murder. :mrgreen:
    my subconcious is messed-up.
    i’m surprised i didn’t get called down to Guidance last year, i was so bored i wrote stories about werewolves fighting vampires and demon houses in Copenhagen.

    i want to see that movie.

  10. I’m reading the Alex Rider Adventures and its good, it’s not like can’t put it down good but good. Does anyone know if the 7th book snakehead is out in the U.S. yet cuz online it said it was but one of my friends swore it doesnt come out for another 6 months and i dont want to go to the bookstore if its not even going to be there.

  11. Snakehead is out. It’s been out since like November. ALEX RIDER ROCKS!!! I remember I went to a kid’s birthday party in 5th grade and instead of cut little goodie bags we all got Stormbreaker. I didn’t read it for like a year. I read it last year in like October and then I had to to get the rest of the series, which is what my Books a Million gift card from last year’s Christmas went to. I remember reading them on my mom’s birthday (27th December) after doing community service for the Beta club. Stupid Beta club. XP

    ~*~Lizzy-wa2~*~

  12. Oops. I meant “cute” not “cut” that changed the whole meaning of that sentence just had to clear it up. Sorry for the double posting.

    I just made an account on the Spanish Wikipedia. So…many…unfamiliar words. I can read minimal Spanish, pretty much just guessing based on Latin stems and vague memory from 4th grade Spanish class.

    Riley Poole is fawesome. just have to say that.

    ~*~Lizzy-wa2~*~

  13. OMG!! Serafina Zane—Co-President of the Chasing Midnight Werewolves Club – I’m SOO jealous of you!! Your superintendent forbid school work over break?!?!?! Gah, I wish I was that lucky!! I have to read 3 chapters out of my history textbook, answer 25 questions (in paragraph form) on the reading, and be ready for a test on the material the day we get back. Plus I have a six page essay due for english, and two art projects due. Yeah………..I should probably start some of that work, seeing as we only have like 5 days left of break…….

  14. My short stories tend to come out weird too. Actually, pretty much anything I write ends up sounding really strange. Like I’ll have what I think is a really good idea for a story, and I’ll be good way through writing it when suddenly I realize that someone just got stabbed with a butcher knife or something reeking of random violence, and then I’ll immediately want to print out the story, tear it to shreds, and jump up an down on it repeatedly to extinguish its suckishness. I was recently inspired to write a story about cannibals.
    Cannibals! What the…?! I don’t even know how my mind dredged that up!

    I just saw I Am Legend. That movie scared the CRAP out of me! I was shaking when I left the theater, and my mom kept laughing at me. Hmph. I wasn’t the only one who jumped with rabid people things jumped OUT OF FREAKING NOWHERE at the main character! I mean, Jesus! That was some scary s*** right there!
    That movie just really freaked me out. Normally I’m fine. Scary movies don’t bother me all that much, but this one…I have a feeling I’m going to have nightmares tonight.
    Looking forward to it. -_-

  15. I bet you are! Besides, Nightmares are the very best inspiration for something. . . I myself had a nightmare last night about manatees, cannibals (I’ve been reading Hannibal again), and Hilary Clinton!

  16. i have to write a report for p.e. it’s really gay too cuz if u miss a day of p.e. you have to write a 2 pg report about the current sport that we learn about. and just my luck it is basketball, my worst sport, anything else would have been fine. my p.e. teacher didn’t explain what we were suppose to do either. very suckish.

    we finished Great Expectations before break started….it was okay, i thought. not anything amazing. i hate thesis papers….bleh. so very evil. like we had to do this whole note card process where we had to write it all down on the note card and stuff….i seriously thought i was gonna go crazy. other than that i love my honors english class. i have this fawesome teacher…she never gives us busy work….everything has a purpose. and this great class with like a bunch of my friends and people that are just plain foolio. sadly though i only have like 5 more days of that class. new quarter…:( which means i have to take math….yuck.

    i wrote this really fawesome nightmare for english. it was about the brown recluse spider crawling in my mouth while im sleeping and going into my sinus cavities and like i wake up with this awful pressure in my forehead and nose and i grab my face and the flesh just falls right off and its all bloody and stuff…very bone-chilling.

  17. Hi guys, I left for a couple hours and you guys like posted a whole bunch. Winter break is kinda a snore. At least no school!!!

    And Bran-la your right it is weird when people stare over your shoulder while your talking well typing to people on an authors blog.

    Expecially if she doesn’t like to read isn’t that horrible!!!! I have suggested scott westerfleds and stephenie meyers and a whole bunch of good authors books!!!

    Help me!!! What should I do with her!!!

  18. Don’t ya just hate school, we should go have Tally-wa and the rest of the Cutters go blow up all the schools!!!!

  19. 1. slap her for being so ignorant when it comes to good reading habits! (Kidding) But Reading Hygene is JUST as good as Bathing. You must pick good literature (Sometimes, however, this does not mean Stephanie Meyer . . . DON’T HIT ME!) 2. Attempt to reason with the mentally insane person. 3. If these 2 do not work, leave her be. Lost cause. . . . .-mourns the loss of another possible book lover-

  20. Not a very good idea considering that they DO teach proper literature, writing, and so forth. Besides, we wouldn’t want our favorite little eco-terrorists to get involved, would we?

  21. Lena-la, I won’t hit you about that Stephenie Meyer comment, but only because I can’t becuase we are over the computer.

    But, How can you not like Stephenie Meyer!!!!!

    I mean like seriously, but I have slapped her a lot.

    Kids these days

  22. Oh My Gosh!!! She is laughing at us and saying I quote Oh Please, give me a break! Can you believe her.

    Help me, this is serious!!!

  23. I LOVE STEPHANIE! I just don’t think she has very believable characters, or character development. . . Her plots are great. But if her books were 150 pages, they wouldn’t be so darned popular!

  24. thats……………..true, Lenna-wa. (only about the 150 pages) she has believable characters to me!!!

  25. i’m on here cuz i’m bored, but i can’t think of anything to say. so i’m just going to say something random, like

    “does anyone here collect beanie kids?”

  26. FINALLY! My computer is working!

    Guess what!?!?!?! I finished New Moon and i just now started Eclipse.
    Ok, this is so stupid, it says. “Bella is forced to choose between her loved one, Edward, or her best friend, Jacob. Lets see. If i loved someone, who would i choose? My best friend or the person i never wanted to leave? I mean, gosh, is it really that hard Bella! i dont no about the rest of the world, but i would seem resonable to pick Edward, loved one. Anyways hes better, doesnt have/had long hair, is beautiful, smells good (thats a bonus for a guy), and is the sweetest thing possible! Eeeep!

  27. ok EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

    GO AND POST A COMMENT ON MY BLOG!!!!!!!! PRETTY PLZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    thank you. i posted the rest of chapter 1 of my darkling midnighter story!!!!!!!!!!!

    ****************SPOLIERS******ALERT********SPOLIERS*
    on the story if not read all midnighters books do not procede
    i need to no if it is good???????????????

    thanx

    SoPhIe-La
    WoRd 😉

  28. Bran-la- I totally get it wat ur saying but my friends r some of the most important things to me. Edward is so amazing and I would probably ulitmatly pick him but i would have a really hard time letting go of Jacob just like Bella. Btw at my school lots of guys smell amazing 😉

  29. lol, well i dont no what school you go to, but it must be a real pleasure. Unlike me, who has to practicly invest in nose plugs.

    WHAT!!!! Im going insane. They said they think the 4 book will be in Jacobs point of view and the 5 in Edwards!!! Thats makes no since!!! AHHHH! What if she chooses Jacob. If she did, oooooo, man do i have some words for her! I will start a riot (spirited debate?). the things books do to me!

  30. Haha the guys may smell good at my school but if u can find 1 with any kind of morals u struck gold

    Haha WOOOOOOO! any more Stephenie Meyer books is good news (same with more scott books!)

  31. Me 2. I want it to be Bella’s pov. I want her to all, vampalicious and what not. They need to get married already i mean hey, if he asked me, i would say yes in a heart beat.

  32. I like bella’s for the narration. But on stephenie’s website u can read the first chapter of midnight sun (from edward’s pov) and it’s kinda cool 2 c how he thinks

  33. ok, listen to this and tell me if it makes since.

    ‘When I had finished placing the cones beside the evidence, I took some pictures. I shot pictures of all that had been marked and some places that seemed to me as if it should have it picture taken, just for the fun of it. Although it may seem like fun, that was the last thing this job ever was, fun. Unless, of course, you considered fun long hours of work and never any rest time and very little times to blink. This fun would also have to be a verb, because that’s what I did to a since, I ‘verbed’. ‘

    Does the verb part make since?

  34. I havent read the twilight books. Some people are sooo obsesed they started a club at my school. But other people hate it. its about a vampire who DOESNT want to eat people, sorry but that sounds so lame!!!

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