The story of a Twitter hashtag: #YAsaves (in defence of young adult literature)

So yesterday I'm pootling through my Twitter stream, as you do, and read this:

Just now reading this @wsj piece on YA books. Awful. http://t.co/w485J0I Glad @neilhimself has joined the rebuttal.

(note: for the sake of brevity I've edited the tweets quoted here so they're just the tweet without the tweeter or time/date stamp; you can find the original tweets on Twitter, all but one at #YAsaves).  Tweets are in red. (there are a LOT of links in this post, and I was having trouble with the html on one (couldn't work out which one among so many). I 've reformatted this blog post so for now you'll have to cut and paste the links within the tweets rather than clicking through. Figured I'd rather have this published and readable and useful than have it saved as a draft while I finetoothcomb the html, which I ain't got time to do right now! You have got the article and hashtag link hyperlinked.)


What? I wonder. WSJ is the Wall St Journal (in which I've read a bunch of interesting articles before). @neilhimself is the Twitter username of author Neil Gaiman, who you might remember weighed in on the side of the angels in the recent interrogations of teacher librarians in Los Angeles. If he's rebutting this article... and there's a link to follow, so I follow it.

The article is "Darkness Too Visible : Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?" by Meghan Cox Gurdon. Here is an extract:

How dark is contemporary fiction for teens? Darker than when you were a child, my dear: So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18.


Pathologies that went undescribed in print 40 years ago, that were still only sparingly outlined a generation ago, are now spelled out in stomach-clenching detail. Profanity that would get a song or movie branded with a parental warning is, in young-adult novels, so commonplace that most reviewers do not even remark upon it.

If books show us the world, teen fiction can be like a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is. There are of course exceptions, but a careless young reader—or one who seeks out depravity—will find himself surrounded by images not of joy or beauty but of damage, brutality and losses of the most horrendous kinds.

Now, whether you care if adolescents spend their time immersed in ugliness probably depends on your philosophical outlook. Reading about homicide doesn't turn a man into a murderer; reading about cheating on exams won't make a kid break the honor code. But the calculus that many parents make is less crude than that: It has to do with a child's happiness, moral development and tenderness of heart. Entertainment does not merely gratify taste, after all, but creates it.



If you think it matters what is inside a young person's mind, surely it is of consequence what he reads. This is an old dialectic—purity vs. despoliation, virtue vs. smut—but for families with teenagers, it is also everlastingly new. Adolescence is brief; it comes to each of us only once, so whether the debate has raged for eons doesn't, on a personal level, really signify.

It didn't take long for this discussion to take off on Twitter, and the hashtag which emerged to tag tweets about this was #YAsaves. If you're a teacher librarian reading this (or a librarian), then you'll know what a subject heading is. If you're a library user, you've used them. On Twitter, hashtags help you follow conversations and discussions and topics. Some examples: #austl for tweets of interest to Australian teacher librarians; #YAlit for young adult literature; #tlchat for teacher librarian topics generally, and also scheduled teacher librarian chat sessions on Twitter. And so on. Anyone can invent a hashtag, and sometimes people use them for fun (#sorightnowihavehadenuf).


OK, back to our controversial article. Within minutes, this was in my Twitter stream:

follow #YAsaves for some amazing stories about how books change kids' lives, in response to a negative @wsj article about teen fiction.

There's the hashtag, to facilitate the discussion. @YAsaves.

The tweets started coming thick and fast (and while every tweet tagged with #YAsaves would be findable with that tag, remember that all I get in my Twitter stream are tweets from people I follow and tweets they have retweeted, which are signified by RT or via).

As the discussion matured, it travelled from initial reaction to analysis:

RT @NovelNovice: Staffer Steph responds to @WSJ attack on YA: RT @Steph_Lawton: A dissection of the latest att… (cont) http://deck.ly/~YS59J

And the Wall St Journal was paying attention, as any business using social media should; interactive, dynamic communication is what it's about. I was dipping in and out of Twitter during the day, so while I do follow @WSJ, I find out about their response from a RT (their tweet was retweeted by someone else I follow):

RT @WSJ: We hear your tweets about this YA review: http://on.wsj.com/mD7f7Y Comments welcome on Facebook, too: http://fb.me/wsj cc

A lot of tweets were individuals commenting on how important particular YA books were to them, how important it was/is to them to have books of all sorts and topics and themes to read. The discussion was a blend of personal stories, perspectives on censorship and more. Authors were weighing in to the discussion:

If you haven't seen them all together, here are @libbabray's (awesome) tweets defending YA fiction: http://bit.ly/krRKfG

How big was this discussion getting? From another tweet:

Guess what? #YAsaves is now the third highest trending topic in the US. That took all of about 20 minutes. Get it, @wsj? Book banners?

That tweet was twelve minutes after the very first tweet I quoted at the start of this blog entry. Shows how fast the impact of a topic can be on Twitter, and also how many people are passionate about young adult literature.

Author Holly Black wrote this:

Honestly, @wsj, do you think we just make this stuff up? The darkest parts of many of my books came directly from my teenage life. #yasaves

From author Scott Westerfeld:

You guys on #YAsaves are all so awesome. Seriously, I can't imagine a better bunch of people to work for.

and from author Justine Larbalestier:

#yasaves is trending world wide. @libbabray; @maureenjohnson started something incredible @wsj claims 2 be listening. Wow.

The Wall St Journal was indeed still paying attention - this is a mere 64 minutes after that first tweet I quoted:

What young-adult fiction means to you: a selection of touching #YAsaves tweets http://bit.ly/myZFgt (Scroll with arrow keys.)

This opinion made me chuckle. I know kids who'd agree!

And sometimes teens just need a freakin' awesome vampire/demon/werewolf/fallen angel/ghost/love story/dystopian. OKAY??? #YAsaves @wsj

And here's a quote I'll have to save for future use in other situations...(as well as another link to follow related to this #YAsaves discussion):

"Books are, at their heart, dangerous." by @wsj (featuring @libbabray) http://t.co/AVoxOtZ

The discussion goes on: I had lots of other things to do yesterday, so was only dipping into Twitter from time to time.

If you go to look at the #YAsaves discussion on Twitter, be aware that the downside of a trending (popular) topic is that the bots and spammers and rubbishfolk get onto it. If some of the tweets listed under this hashtag look like gobbledegook, ignore them - they are rubbish - and scroll down through the list to the relevant ones.

I'm sure this discussion isn't over. It will flow on into blog entries (for example, like the one you're reading now, and I'm sure many many more) and other commentary. The tweets I've used here were written over less than two hours, and demonstrate the dynamic and exciting possibilities of microblogging (140 characters max per tweet? Plenty!) and its immediacy. I didn't contribute to the discussion (then: guess I am now!), just watched and read and followed links and considered the issues, all relevant and important to teacher librarians.

Cheers

Ruth

Have I persuaded you yet of the educational value of Twitter for teachers' professional development? Yes? No? Stay tuned....

Later this tweet came through:

Excellent slideshow compilation of #YAsaves tweets. Powerful. http://t.co/RLZvVBG

and these:

I should be reading. Instead, I just blogged my response to the @wsj article http://goo.gl/J5Gpf #YAsaves


Persnickety Snark: YA Saves: WSJ thoughts... http://t.co/FaAqrG8 - - - so I dusted off the blog...


RT @maureenjohnson: The @wsj has about 20 comments. Here are our 15,000+. http://dft.ba/ /-yasavestweets #YAsaves


RT @melissa_marr: RT @lbschool: "And here is an awesome response to the @WSJ article. Preach it! http://fb.me/CnxI0XGW " oh, YES #YASaves!


The beauty of YA is that it’s filled with books & authors who are not afraid to tell the truth to teens #YAsaves - http://wp.me/pIc5A-5lr

http://on.wsj.com/kctOKS Here is a link wherein you can see the comments to the @wsj article. Thanks, @ColleenLindsay! #YASaves

Death. Loss. Pain. Anguish. Joy. Love. Sex. Freedom. Growth. Wonder. Sorrow. Bliss... disguised as "kids' stuff." #YAsaves

(To find the originals, go to the #YAsaves hashtag on Twitter).

Film/Movie news: The Hunger Games

Tintin may be out at the end of 2011, but you'll have to wait till the end of 2012 for the film being made of Suzanne Collins' very successful book, The Hunger Games.  I have five copies of this in the library (and two or three of the sequels, Catching Fire and Mockingjay) and they are constantly either out or on reserev - it would be one of the most popular books in the library at present (five copies tells you that, doesn't it?).  Some of the kids are already starting to talk about the film.

Here's a glimpse of Jennifer Lawrence, who has been cast as Katniss:

Source is http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20493206,00.html.  She got great reviews in Winter's Bone.

There are several people on Twitter who are avidly following (and tweeting about) the film - casting, locations and more.  @HungerGamesExam is one of them.  She also has a website here with regular updates.  Filming has started, but I'm guessing any trailer is a fair way off.  But it will come...

Cheers

Ruth

What does a writer do? (great sources on Twitter)

Photo:This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License LINK

I have been a storyteller since the beginning of my life, rearranging facts in order to make them more significant.

JOHN CHEEVER

Found this excellent quote via @AdviceToWriters on Twitter.  For the teacher librarian, as having a place full of written stuff (in print and digital form) and English teachers (who teach creative writing), there are some useful people to follow on Twitter for information/ideas/inspiration about writing.  Microblogging (such as Twitter) = short snapshots of information, quick to read and investigate and use or skip over, depending on what interests you.

Some other folk who tweet about writing:

@elizabethscraig: check her stream of tweets for all sorts of useful links about writing eg.:
Elizabeth S Craig @elizabethscraig
5 ways to avoid an info dump: http://bit.ly/kvLUMo #amwriting


SydneyWritersCentre @SydneyWriters
26/05/11 4:43 PM
10 ways to completely screw up your novel: http://bit.ly/lm5fi7  #amwriting

This is not the only writers' centre (in Australia or overseas) with a Twitter presence.  Some post more about their centre's events, but others include writing advice tweets to, that you can use in teaching English.  Hunt for them on Twitter, or by googling their sites and checking to see if they are on Twitter.

OZ SF+F Writers Assc @awritingjourney
26/05/11 4:19 PM
The ASFFWA Daily is out! http://bit.ly/fzVIKj  ▸ Top stories today via @bloomsburysyd @harpernz @bothersomewords @shearersbooks

The Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Assoc regularly tweets useful stuff.  This tweet is one about their "Daily".  Some folk on Twitter use a site such as paper.li to collate tweets from their twitter stream (ie. tweets from people they follow and are interested in) into a digital newspaper.  So if you follow the ASFFWA Daily link in this tweet, you are getting pre-sifted/curated content focused on topics that tweeter is interested in; so if you're interested in what they are, you're getting the benefit of their twitter stream.

And of course many authors are on Twitter: their Twitter streams can be extremely various: as varied indeed as the writers themselves.  Best idea is to follow ones that might interest you, and if you're not finding their tweets useful/engaging, then unfollow them.  Some writers will tweet everything from what they had for breakfast (that Twitter stereotype) to stuff about their writing process.  Some will be more focused on writing.  Stephen Fry's tweets (he's one of the most followed people on Twitter and tweets often) cover an extensive range of topics, daily life, thoughts, ideas.  You can't make a writer write what they want, in books or anywhere else; on Twitter, if you follow them, you have to accept that they write what they do.  Neil Gaiman @neilhimself has a lot of followers and tweets on a range of topics: he was one writer tweeting about the interrogation of teacher librarians in LA.

There are writers whose books I adore and whose blogs I find unreadable; and writers whose output, in whatever form, I generally find interesting.  Nowt as varied as folk.

But am I finding good information about writing via my education/professional/teaching Twitter stream that I can use with students and share with English teaching colleagues?  Yup.  You can, too.

(OK, I'll admit it: this blog entry about useful info on writing is in fact a sneak evangelical moment for the educational possibilities of Twitter).

Cheers

Ruth

@ruth_skerricks on Twitter
I'm also on Yammer, but will only be found there if you work for the same employer as I do, because that is how Yammer works.