I’m on this week’s Coode Street Podcast along with editor Jonathan Strahan (who’s curated my stories in Swords and Dark Magic and a couple of best of year anthologies) and critic Gary Wolfe, discussing Half a King, what changes and what stays the same in writing for a young adult audience, humour, grimdark, awards, and much more…
4 comments so far
This was my first podcast, that I decided to listen to since I’m a fan and I had an hour-long arts and crafts project. The fact I could predict the answers to your questions means I might need to stop following your blog so closely. Also, I did not think you’d sound like that.
Good stuff though. I’m very excited for HaK.
I enjoyed the interview and your comments on YA. As a long-time reader of yours and long time-time reader of YA, I’m particularly excited about Half a King. I recently re-read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising and Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthea, and I loved them even more as an adult reader. In the end, they aren’t YA, they’re just wonderful stories that teach a lesson in the way only a story can.
I’m curious if as a storyteller, especially one venturing into YA, you feel a duty to “instruct” as well as entertain. It seems to me that you were moving in that direction with the themes in The Heroes and Red Country. Is this something you are doing with some deliberation, or is it just a natural outcome of your growth as a storyteller?
Perhaps you are too humble to follow up on your Hugo entry by gloating on your Locus nomination for “Some Desperado”. I suspect you’ve just been busy.
But congrats on the nomination. I thought it was by far the best short story of 2013 and your best piece of writing to date. It was densely
Thanks for doing that chat, Joe. Very interesting discussion I enjoyed on my jog. Made me think about how to ensure that my dialogue sounds genuine.
Do you read debut authors? Any ones you’d recommend in this genre? (Not saying people shouldn’t read your stuff, just like to promote new authors.)