Anthony Eaton's Blog: Musings from an Outer-Spiral-Arm - Posts Tagged "snarky-wench"
23rd June, 2009: The Muddied Waters of ‘Young Adult Literature'
Warning: This one’s long, and kinda heavy in places…
I’ve been buried completely in marking, for the last couple of weeks, and have more or less been ignoring the blogosphere, but I’ve surfaced (briefly) and have been a little taken by surprise to find myself at the centre of a (very thought provoking and polite) discussion going on at the moment on the nature of “Young Adult Fiction”, particularly with reference to ‘Into White Silence’. (The first post I found on the subject was at Adele's blog Persnickity Snark though it looks as though the whole discussion started here at the CMIS Fiction Focus Blog
I’m going to go out on a limb, and offer my thoughts on the subject.
Firstly – as pretty much everyone involved in the debate has acknowledged – it’s a vexed question. A very, very, very vexed question. The nature of writing for children and teenagers is that there are an awful lot of people with vested interests in what literature our young people are exposed to – readers, writers, publishers, parents, librarians, religions, politicians, book councils etc etc etc…
The result of this is that there are a lot of people with similar, but often slightly differing ideas about almost every aspect of the children’s and young adult book industry. Including the thorny question of defining young adult literature.
So, for what it’s worth, here’s my 0.02c…
I suspect that, at the moment, my view of what constitutes ‘young adult’ is going to be somewhat at odds with the majority of opinion. And that’s fine. To be quite honest, I’m not a hundred percent certain that my take on the subject actually has any merit.
Some background: I’ve been interested in this topic for a while now, actually. A few years ago I had a discussion with my editor, Leonie Tyle, about this very subject. This was a year or so after Zusak’s The Messenger had been awarded the CBCA Book of the Year for older readers. His protagonist, Ed Kennedy, was 19 and living in a world well beyond school and teenage concerns. In his own words, Kennedy was “decidedly crap at sex and doing my taxes.”
In that same year (2003), Ian Bone’s Song of an Innocent Bystander, featuring 19-year-old Freda Opperman as protagonist, was also short-listed. The following year Dave Metzenthen’s Boys of Blood and Bone – with two 18 year old, above-school-age protagonists – made the list, as an honour book and the year after that, my own Fireshadow – with both protagonists out of school, one of them fighting WW2 and the other 18 years old – was similarly honoured.
It wasn’t just the age of the protagonists, though, that got me thinking. That was more of an indicator – a symptom, if you prefer. What got to me was the fact that, for all intents and purposes, as far as I could see each of these books functioned equally as well as adult novels as they did as ‘teenage’ novels.
In our discussion, I proposed the notion to Leonie that the very idea of ‘young adult fiction’ was one currently in a state of flux – that within both the Australian and worldwide contexts, the very meaning of the term itself is shifting to encompass a new readership – or at least, a different readership – which extended further up into the more traditional realm of adulthood.
The conversation got to me, and so I did my PhD dissertation on the subject, looking at the blurring of adolescence and adulthood in Australian ‘Young Adult Fiction.’ In it I studied in great detail the works of Zusak, Hartnett and Metzenthen – trying to find some sort of shift in the context of ‘Young Adult’ fiction. The PhD was submitted and passed, and I’ve spent the 18 months since trying to refine the rather heavy-handed argument within it. It’s still (like so many PhD’s) a work in process. I suspect it’ll take me the rest of my life. I’m not even going to try to explain it all here, but I’ll shoot for a potted summary:
My current take on ‘Young Adult Fiction’ originates from a paper by Nadia Wheatley, written back in 1994 and published in the book The Written World – Youth and Literature (edited by Agnes Nieuwenhuizen). The title of Wheatley’s paper was The Terms They Are a’ Changin’ and in it she considered the notion that the term ‘Young Adult Fiction’ was currently undergoing a high degree of re-conception. She concluded her argument thus:
“What the hell…” I thought “…it’s been a decade since Wheatley pronounced us ‘too close to measure’ the change. I’ll do it myself!” I’ve been trying to do it ever since.
The part that interests – and influences – me is the notion that the shift in our concept of ‘Young Adult Literature’ is the result of social and economic change. To some extent, I think that Wheatley’s thesis has been bourn out by looking at those ‘young adult’ novels and writers which have come in for critical acclaim in the intervening years:
Taking the CBCA ‘Older Readers’ shortlists as an example, an increasing number of selected works deal with readers above school age, living in adult worlds and dealing with adult concerns.(A couple of examples in addition to those already mentioned would include Caswell’s Double Exposure, McDonald’s Love Like Water, and a couple that really skate the line, like Bill Condon’s No Worries.)
My current area of investigation on this is to do with Wheatley’s observation that the sociology of adolescence is changing. Bearing in mind that the genre under discussion here is not ‘Teenage Fiction’ but rather ‘Young Adult’ Fiction, I’ve been wrestling with the notion that, in fact, the shift in complexity, thematic approach and narrative structure of much of our recent ‘young adult’ fiction is more to do with a shift in our understanding of what, precisely, constitutes a ‘young adult’ to encompass something separate from our traditional concepts of the field.
Sociologists Johanna Wyn and Dan Woodman, in their 2006 paper Generation, Youth and Social Change in Australia, critique what they consider to be the key flaws in the ‘transitional’ conception of adolescence and youth – (ie: that ‘youth’ is and should be regarded as a time of transition between the two more concrete ‘ages’ of childhood and ‘adulthood’, and one which is primarily shaped by bio-developmental and psychological norms which remain more-or-less constant from one age-based-generation to the next). They argue instead in favour of an approach which considers the notion of youth, against the socio-cultural and political forces that have shaped it during a particular time period – a ‘generational’ approach;
In a similar manner to Wheatley, they make the argument that notions of youth are shaped by both societal forces, as well as by the ‘youth’ themselves – citing a broad range of supportive sociological research in favour of this argument;
Their case for a ‘generational’ approach to our conception of ‘youth’ rests upon the notion that changes in social, economic and political circumstances over the course of the last thirty years has led to a reshaping in the ‘meaning of youth’ – a similar idea to that argued in the literary context by Wheatley – and that a key aspect of this reshaping is a new conception and understanding of the meaning of adulthood itself;
They support this case with a particularly interesting statistical analysis of some of these ‘key markers of adulthood’, comparing key sociological trends for Australians in their late 20’s in 1976, and those in 2001. They point to increases in the proportion of people in their 20’s holding some form of tertiary qualification, (especially so in the case of women, whose proportion increased from 24% to 45%, to the marked increase in the average age of women at their first births (10% of ‘Baby Boomer’ women had their first child in their 30’s, compared to 48% of women in the post 1970 Generation) and changes in the status of marriage and the living arrangements of people in their 20’s;
A similar, statistical assessment of the changing nature of ‘youth’ from an economic point of view is proposed by sociologist Kitty te Riele in her essay Youth Transition in Australia: Challenging Assumptions of Linearity and Choice;
The conception of ‘youth’ as a distinct period marked not by age-specific ‘markers’ but by consideration of the broader social context within which various generations of ‘youth’ exist is both a useful one - in that it provides some support for the suggestion by Wheatley that ‘an extraordinary shift in both the biology and sociology of adolescence is happening’ - and a troubling one, in that it has, some argue, also led to a degree of critical difficulty when considering the role and place of ‘young adult’ literature. Australian academic Heather Scutter, in her 1999 text Displaced Fictions suggested that;
It appears to me that there are compelling arguments for, and evidence of, an ongoing ‘re-conception’ of our ideas of ‘youth’ and ‘young adulthood’, both in the Australian context, and in the industrialized world more generally. And as with any re-imagining of a particular demographic or readership, it can be suggested that the literature ‘for’ this group – in this case that which we commonly refer to as ‘young adult fiction’ - might in some way demonstrate and reflect these changes. I wonder if what I can see as the increasing acceptance of novels such as Into White Silence in awards such as the CBCA is perhaps an indicator of this shift. Of course, I’m also certain there’s a ‘chicken and the egg’ argument to be dealt with here somewhere, too.
But, as I said earlier, I’m really not sure. To be quite honest, I’m not sure I should even be putting all this out there, but given the debate at the moment, it seemed like the intellectually responsible thing to do.
I can say this: When I wrote Into White Silence, I never for a moment doubted that it would be published as ‘young adult fiction.’ This belief was, in part, because of the realities of the publishing world and the joys of having a profile as a ‘young adult’ author, but also, to a large degree, because it was the sort of story I’d have connected with at 15 or 16 years of age. I didn’t write it for teenagers, though. Nor did I write it for adults. I wrote it for myself, purely and simply.
Since it’s been published, the book has been reviewed in various media under both ‘adult literature’ and ‘young adult literature’ headings. It was entered (spectacularly unsuccessfully) in the Miles Franklin Award, which doesn’t accept ‘YA’ fiction and also, (with far more success) in the CBCA awards.
When it was shortlisted, I’ll admit I was surprised. Not because I didn’t think it suitable for the awards, but because I really thought it wasn’t the type of book which would get up there. (But then, I think that about everything I’ve written.) I’m gratified that it was, though.
Where does all this leave us?
Well, for my part, the further I dig into this, the more convinced I am that Wheatley was right: the very concept of ‘young adult’ is shifting. A multitude of factors are at play here, and even now, more than a decade and a half on, I think she was also right in her assertion that we’re still too close to measure it. All I can do as a writer is write my books – as honestly and well as I can – and let the wider forces at play decide where they fit.
I hope this hasn’t come across as defensive – it’s certainly not intended to be. It’s an area of debate and discussion that fascinates me, both as a practitioner and academic, and it’s great to see it being talked about.
Okay. Enough of me babbling. Back to my marking pile…
I’ve been buried completely in marking, for the last couple of weeks, and have more or less been ignoring the blogosphere, but I’ve surfaced (briefly) and have been a little taken by surprise to find myself at the centre of a (very thought provoking and polite) discussion going on at the moment on the nature of “Young Adult Fiction”, particularly with reference to ‘Into White Silence’. (The first post I found on the subject was at Adele's blog Persnickity Snark though it looks as though the whole discussion started here at the CMIS Fiction Focus Blog
I’m going to go out on a limb, and offer my thoughts on the subject.
Firstly – as pretty much everyone involved in the debate has acknowledged – it’s a vexed question. A very, very, very vexed question. The nature of writing for children and teenagers is that there are an awful lot of people with vested interests in what literature our young people are exposed to – readers, writers, publishers, parents, librarians, religions, politicians, book councils etc etc etc…
The result of this is that there are a lot of people with similar, but often slightly differing ideas about almost every aspect of the children’s and young adult book industry. Including the thorny question of defining young adult literature.
So, for what it’s worth, here’s my 0.02c…
I suspect that, at the moment, my view of what constitutes ‘young adult’ is going to be somewhat at odds with the majority of opinion. And that’s fine. To be quite honest, I’m not a hundred percent certain that my take on the subject actually has any merit.
Some background: I’ve been interested in this topic for a while now, actually. A few years ago I had a discussion with my editor, Leonie Tyle, about this very subject. This was a year or so after Zusak’s The Messenger had been awarded the CBCA Book of the Year for older readers. His protagonist, Ed Kennedy, was 19 and living in a world well beyond school and teenage concerns. In his own words, Kennedy was “decidedly crap at sex and doing my taxes.”
In that same year (2003), Ian Bone’s Song of an Innocent Bystander, featuring 19-year-old Freda Opperman as protagonist, was also short-listed. The following year Dave Metzenthen’s Boys of Blood and Bone – with two 18 year old, above-school-age protagonists – made the list, as an honour book and the year after that, my own Fireshadow – with both protagonists out of school, one of them fighting WW2 and the other 18 years old – was similarly honoured.
It wasn’t just the age of the protagonists, though, that got me thinking. That was more of an indicator – a symptom, if you prefer. What got to me was the fact that, for all intents and purposes, as far as I could see each of these books functioned equally as well as adult novels as they did as ‘teenage’ novels.
In our discussion, I proposed the notion to Leonie that the very idea of ‘young adult fiction’ was one currently in a state of flux – that within both the Australian and worldwide contexts, the very meaning of the term itself is shifting to encompass a new readership – or at least, a different readership – which extended further up into the more traditional realm of adulthood.
The conversation got to me, and so I did my PhD dissertation on the subject, looking at the blurring of adolescence and adulthood in Australian ‘Young Adult Fiction.’ In it I studied in great detail the works of Zusak, Hartnett and Metzenthen – trying to find some sort of shift in the context of ‘Young Adult’ fiction. The PhD was submitted and passed, and I’ve spent the 18 months since trying to refine the rather heavy-handed argument within it. It’s still (like so many PhD’s) a work in process. I suspect it’ll take me the rest of my life. I’m not even going to try to explain it all here, but I’ll shoot for a potted summary:
My current take on ‘Young Adult Fiction’ originates from a paper by Nadia Wheatley, written back in 1994 and published in the book The Written World – Youth and Literature (edited by Agnes Nieuwenhuizen). The title of Wheatley’s paper was The Terms They Are a’ Changin’ and in it she considered the notion that the term ‘Young Adult Fiction’ was currently undergoing a high degree of re-conception. She concluded her argument thus:
“An extraordinary shift in both the biology and the sociology of adolescence is currently happening; we are still too close to measure this, let alone fully understand it. It is out of this social and economic change that the YA novel is developing – just as the novel itself developed out of the social and economic changes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” (Wheatley, cited in Nieuwenhuizen [ed:], (1994) p.13)
“What the hell…” I thought “…it’s been a decade since Wheatley pronounced us ‘too close to measure’ the change. I’ll do it myself!” I’ve been trying to do it ever since.
The part that interests – and influences – me is the notion that the shift in our concept of ‘Young Adult Literature’ is the result of social and economic change. To some extent, I think that Wheatley’s thesis has been bourn out by looking at those ‘young adult’ novels and writers which have come in for critical acclaim in the intervening years:
Taking the CBCA ‘Older Readers’ shortlists as an example, an increasing number of selected works deal with readers above school age, living in adult worlds and dealing with adult concerns.(A couple of examples in addition to those already mentioned would include Caswell’s Double Exposure, McDonald’s Love Like Water, and a couple that really skate the line, like Bill Condon’s No Worries.)
My current area of investigation on this is to do with Wheatley’s observation that the sociology of adolescence is changing. Bearing in mind that the genre under discussion here is not ‘Teenage Fiction’ but rather ‘Young Adult’ Fiction, I’ve been wrestling with the notion that, in fact, the shift in complexity, thematic approach and narrative structure of much of our recent ‘young adult’ fiction is more to do with a shift in our understanding of what, precisely, constitutes a ‘young adult’ to encompass something separate from our traditional concepts of the field.
Sociologists Johanna Wyn and Dan Woodman, in their 2006 paper Generation, Youth and Social Change in Australia, critique what they consider to be the key flaws in the ‘transitional’ conception of adolescence and youth – (ie: that ‘youth’ is and should be regarded as a time of transition between the two more concrete ‘ages’ of childhood and ‘adulthood’, and one which is primarily shaped by bio-developmental and psychological norms which remain more-or-less constant from one age-based-generation to the next). They argue instead in favour of an approach which considers the notion of youth, against the socio-cultural and political forces that have shaped it during a particular time period – a ‘generational’ approach;
A sociological framework for conceptualising youth starts with the recognition that the experience of age is shaped by social conditions, including the operation of the state (among other facets such as civil society and globalising processes), and that both individuals and the state actively contribute to its meaning.
(Wyn and Woodman, 2006, p.497)
In a similar manner to Wheatley, they make the argument that notions of youth are shaped by both societal forces, as well as by the ‘youth’ themselves – citing a broad range of supportive sociological research in favour of this argument;
…it is also important to understand the role that young people themselves play in constituting distinctive features of their generation. For most young people today, the state operates invisibly and often incoherently (White & Wyn 2004). Young people are left to negotiate new economies (Ball et. Al. 2000) and to make their own decisions – often against the grain of the knowledge that their parents have gained through their own experiences.
(Ibid, p.500)
Their case for a ‘generational’ approach to our conception of ‘youth’ rests upon the notion that changes in social, economic and political circumstances over the course of the last thirty years has led to a reshaping in the ‘meaning of youth’ – a similar idea to that argued in the literary context by Wheatley – and that a key aspect of this reshaping is a new conception and understanding of the meaning of adulthood itself;
Changes in labour markets, in the relationship between education and employment and in workplace relations, and in the actions of the state, have altered the significance of the traditional ‘markers’ of adult status in industrialised countries.
(2006, p.500)
They support this case with a particularly interesting statistical analysis of some of these ‘key markers of adulthood’, comparing key sociological trends for Australians in their late 20’s in 1976, and those in 2001. They point to increases in the proportion of people in their 20’s holding some form of tertiary qualification, (especially so in the case of women, whose proportion increased from 24% to 45%, to the marked increase in the average age of women at their first births (10% of ‘Baby Boomer’ women had their first child in their 30’s, compared to 48% of women in the post 1970 Generation) and changes in the status of marriage and the living arrangements of people in their 20’s;
Both men and women are marrying later and living in their parent’s home for longer. In 1976, 40 percent of 20-somethings were living as couples with children – the most common living arrangement for their age group – and only 21 percent were living with their parents. But in 2001, only 16 percent of 20-29 year olds were living as couples with children, while 30 percent were living with their parents... In 2001, nearly all 20 Year olds had never been married (97 percent) compared to 76 percent in 1976. This is partly because young people in 2001 were more likely to be studying and not financially able to get married, but also because of the trend towards de facto relationships.
(Ibid, p.503)
A similar, statistical assessment of the changing nature of ‘youth’ from an economic point of view is proposed by sociologist Kitty te Riele in her essay Youth Transition in Australia: Challenging Assumptions of Linearity and Choice;
“Young people now find themselves in a situation of ambiguous dependency (Ahler and Moore, 1999). The changing youth labour market and policy emphasis on gaining further educational qualifications have contributed to a prolonged dependency of young people on education and on their parents. For example, the age with which more than one-half of Australian young people are in full time employment rather than in full time education has risen from 18 years in 1981, to 22 years in 1997 (Wooden, 1998).”
(2004, p.244)
The conception of ‘youth’ as a distinct period marked not by age-specific ‘markers’ but by consideration of the broader social context within which various generations of ‘youth’ exist is both a useful one - in that it provides some support for the suggestion by Wheatley that ‘an extraordinary shift in both the biology and sociology of adolescence is happening’ - and a troubling one, in that it has, some argue, also led to a degree of critical difficulty when considering the role and place of ‘young adult’ literature. Australian academic Heather Scutter, in her 1999 text Displaced Fictions suggested that;
“…this confusion in the use of the buzz term ‘young adult’ – sometimes a synonym for teenage, sometimes implying a subset somewhere between the senior teenage and the junior adult, and sometimes referring to a new kind of financially dependent adult infantilized by economic rationalism – leads to much critical confusion.”
(Scutter, 1999, P. 280)
It appears to me that there are compelling arguments for, and evidence of, an ongoing ‘re-conception’ of our ideas of ‘youth’ and ‘young adulthood’, both in the Australian context, and in the industrialized world more generally. And as with any re-imagining of a particular demographic or readership, it can be suggested that the literature ‘for’ this group – in this case that which we commonly refer to as ‘young adult fiction’ - might in some way demonstrate and reflect these changes. I wonder if what I can see as the increasing acceptance of novels such as Into White Silence in awards such as the CBCA is perhaps an indicator of this shift. Of course, I’m also certain there’s a ‘chicken and the egg’ argument to be dealt with here somewhere, too.
But, as I said earlier, I’m really not sure. To be quite honest, I’m not sure I should even be putting all this out there, but given the debate at the moment, it seemed like the intellectually responsible thing to do.
I can say this: When I wrote Into White Silence, I never for a moment doubted that it would be published as ‘young adult fiction.’ This belief was, in part, because of the realities of the publishing world and the joys of having a profile as a ‘young adult’ author, but also, to a large degree, because it was the sort of story I’d have connected with at 15 or 16 years of age. I didn’t write it for teenagers, though. Nor did I write it for adults. I wrote it for myself, purely and simply.
Since it’s been published, the book has been reviewed in various media under both ‘adult literature’ and ‘young adult literature’ headings. It was entered (spectacularly unsuccessfully) in the Miles Franklin Award, which doesn’t accept ‘YA’ fiction and also, (with far more success) in the CBCA awards.
When it was shortlisted, I’ll admit I was surprised. Not because I didn’t think it suitable for the awards, but because I really thought it wasn’t the type of book which would get up there. (But then, I think that about everything I’ve written.) I’m gratified that it was, though.
Where does all this leave us?
Well, for my part, the further I dig into this, the more convinced I am that Wheatley was right: the very concept of ‘young adult’ is shifting. A multitude of factors are at play here, and even now, more than a decade and a half on, I think she was also right in her assertion that we’re still too close to measure it. All I can do as a writer is write my books – as honestly and well as I can – and let the wider forces at play decide where they fit.
I hope this hasn’t come across as defensive – it’s certainly not intended to be. It’s an area of debate and discussion that fascinates me, both as a practitioner and academic, and it’s great to see it being talked about.
Okay. Enough of me babbling. Back to my marking pile…
3 July, 2009: We (by which I mean ‘I’) Never Talk, Anymore…
Some blogger I turn out to be. Not so big on the regular updates. And when I do, they’re about 9 pages long and full of academic quotes. Apologies to anyone who cares enough to check regularly…
In all honesty, I’m finding the whole blogging thing something of an interesting (read: challenging) experience. Mainly because I’ve never been a big believer in putting stuff out there unless I’ve actually got something to say, and more often than not I don’t feel like I’ve got much to say at all, so better to say nothing.
But then, of course, what’s the point of blogging? Is it just to ‘say something’ or is there more to it than that? My friend Adele, in her blog Persnickity Snark has just put up a really thought provoking piece on the topic of Young Adult Author blogs, and why they do / don’t work, and it’s got me thinking.
I really like her point about accessibility. That’s the only reason I started this blog in the first place, to be honest. As a general rule, I’m not the sort of person who’s naturally at the cutting edge of things like web 2.0. I avoid Facebook like the plague. I don’t have an iPhone. When I hear the word ‘profile’ I still automatically picture someone’s face viewed from side-on. I have no idea how to post pictures to twitter. I had to get my wife to build my (insert shameless plug here) new website.
But, at the same time, I really want to be available so that people who invest their time and energy in reading my books have the opportunity to get in touch if they want to. Or to find out a little more about where I’m coming from. That’s why I took the ‘twitter’ plunge, and also why I set up ‘Musings…’
I’m also hoping that if I post updates here on how the final ‘Darklands’ book is coming along, that people will stop pestering me about it :) (This, of course, is just a joke. Please feel free to pester away…)
(actually, btw - I'm expecting the reader's reports on the final book to arrive sometime today. Depending on what they say, there might even be another post coming. Alternatively I might be throwing myself off a high ledge, somewhere. But that's beside the point...)
The cool thing from my point of view, is that even though I’m not proving to be the world’s most regular blogger, and even though I’m very aware that I’m still finding my voice and style – I’m actually enjoying the experience far more than I ever expected to. It’s been great having the opportunity to get involved in a couple of really important public discussions of my chosen field of work, it’s kept me in touch with a whole pile of people I haven’t spoken to for ages, and put me in touch with a whole lot more. It’s much more than just ‘being accessible’, it’s also actually fun. This has come as something of a shock to a cynic like me.
I’m also having a lot of fun doing #twitlit.
So, the point of all this? I guess what I’m saying is that, if you’re one of those who has read my rather convoluted ramblings and random musings to date, then thanks. Many and grateful thanks. For your patience, if nothing else.
In all honesty, I’m finding the whole blogging thing something of an interesting (read: challenging) experience. Mainly because I’ve never been a big believer in putting stuff out there unless I’ve actually got something to say, and more often than not I don’t feel like I’ve got much to say at all, so better to say nothing.
But then, of course, what’s the point of blogging? Is it just to ‘say something’ or is there more to it than that? My friend Adele, in her blog Persnickity Snark has just put up a really thought provoking piece on the topic of Young Adult Author blogs, and why they do / don’t work, and it’s got me thinking.
I really like her point about accessibility. That’s the only reason I started this blog in the first place, to be honest. As a general rule, I’m not the sort of person who’s naturally at the cutting edge of things like web 2.0. I avoid Facebook like the plague. I don’t have an iPhone. When I hear the word ‘profile’ I still automatically picture someone’s face viewed from side-on. I have no idea how to post pictures to twitter. I had to get my wife to build my (insert shameless plug here) new website.
But, at the same time, I really want to be available so that people who invest their time and energy in reading my books have the opportunity to get in touch if they want to. Or to find out a little more about where I’m coming from. That’s why I took the ‘twitter’ plunge, and also why I set up ‘Musings…’
I’m also hoping that if I post updates here on how the final ‘Darklands’ book is coming along, that people will stop pestering me about it :) (This, of course, is just a joke. Please feel free to pester away…)
(actually, btw - I'm expecting the reader's reports on the final book to arrive sometime today. Depending on what they say, there might even be another post coming. Alternatively I might be throwing myself off a high ledge, somewhere. But that's beside the point...)
The cool thing from my point of view, is that even though I’m not proving to be the world’s most regular blogger, and even though I’m very aware that I’m still finding my voice and style – I’m actually enjoying the experience far more than I ever expected to. It’s been great having the opportunity to get involved in a couple of really important public discussions of my chosen field of work, it’s kept me in touch with a whole pile of people I haven’t spoken to for ages, and put me in touch with a whole lot more. It’s much more than just ‘being accessible’, it’s also actually fun. This has come as something of a shock to a cynic like me.
I’m also having a lot of fun doing #twitlit.
So, the point of all this? I guess what I’m saying is that, if you’re one of those who has read my rather convoluted ramblings and random musings to date, then thanks. Many and grateful thanks. For your patience, if nothing else.
Musings from an Outer-Spiral-Arm
Just some random, probably very sporadic musings on my life in the world of books, academia, and nappies.
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