Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome and not at all well-written. Need your YA industry news? Never fear, Kat Kennedy and Kate Copseleey are here to give it to you straight.
In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: Authors and readers clash on twitter, the real cost of Hogwarts Tuition, Film Adaptation of Stargirl on the way and a Third Harper Lee book on the way!
Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly news post bringing you all the best information about the book and blogging world, particularly for the venn diagram of people who overlap between the two. For new releases and cover reveals of all the best Young Adult fiction, check out our Tuesday post: Hot New Titles.
Book News
Film Adaption of Stargirl
Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl, first published in 2000 by Random House, is getting an adaptation sixteen years later.
The story, about a homeschooled girl who breezes into the lives of a high school Sophomore class, and starts dating on of the boys, Leo Borlock. Leo who loves her unique ways until he doesn’t, and asks her to change.
Catherine Hardwicke, director of Twilight, has signed on to direct the project. while Producer, Kristin Hahn has adapted the project for the screen.
“This is one of those stories and characters that stir your imagination and steal your heart and just stick with you forever. I am thrilled to have the chance to adapt this beloved novel and I can’t imagine anyone more uniquely equipped to bring this story to life than Catherine Hardwicke, a Stargirl in her own right,” Hahn said.
There Will Be A Legend Of Korra Comic Book
Man, Dark Horse Comics is on a roll these days. Kicking butt, taking names, making awesome comic book series about amazing ladies. Looks like Korra is up next!
The series comes from Michael Dante DiMartino, who co-created Korra and its predecessor Avatar: The Last Airbender. No other details have been announced yet, but the promo art used by Dark Horse at the panel suggests that the comic will pick up where the show left off.
Now this is exciting! More of Korrasami to come, eh?
The art features the show’s female leads Korra and Asami, whose relationship progressed beyond friendship toward the end of the TV series, which concluded in December. Now, fans will get to see what’s next for two of the most awe-inspiring women in animation as the comic series explores their romance.
This isn’t the first comic based on the Avatar world, which marked its 10th anniversary this February; Dark Horse has previously published three Avatar: The Last Airbender comics that bridge gaps between the two shows, but this Korra series will be the first written by one of the show’s original creators.
Awesome! Can’t wait to get a peek at this one!
Joss Whedon To Write Comic Book Series
Not content with breaking our hearts in television AND on film, Joss Whedon has set his sights on killing us with comic books.
Twist, to be published by Dark Horse Comics, sounds quintessentially Whedonesque.
“It’s a Victorian thriller about a meek chambermaid who is fed to a dark horror — but instead of dying, she returns, with knowledge, power, and rage she can neither deny nor control,” Whedon told EW in a statement via Dark Horse. Expect a strong steampunk aesthetic, some dark knight thematics, and Whedon’s typically imaginative, provocative approach to political, social, and feminist concerns.
Seems like typical Whedon fare to me. Which means I will read all of them.
Third Harper Lee Book??
Because the controversy apparently never ends over this story, there is more potential news in Harper Lee Land.
Harper Lee’s lawyer Tonja Carter, the woman at the centre of the mysteries surrounding Go Set a Watchman’s publication this week, has broken her silence. In a lengthy piece in the Wall Street Journal, she intimates that there may be a third novel by Lee residing in a safe-deposit box in her home town of Monroeville, Alabama.
Wow, does anyone else get a seriously skeevy vibe from this lawyer who waits till just after the death of Lee’s sister and former protector before releasing all of these hidden treasures?
Looking again at the pages in the safe-deposit box, she found Go Set a Watchman.
“I immediately went to Nelle,” she writes. “I said, ‘Nelle, when I was in the safe-deposit box, I found something’. She said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘It’s a manuscript of a novel called Go Set the Watchman.’ She said, ‘It’s ‘Go Set aWatchman.’ ”
“I asked, ‘Is it finished?’ Nelle replied, ‘I guess it’s finished, it’s the parent of Mockingbird.’” Carter adds that she asked for, and received, permission to read it.
Carter reveals at the end of her piece that she returned last week to the safe-deposit box to see if there were any “other things hiding in plain sight”.
If there was a soundtrack for this story, it would be ominous, I tell you.
Well, my colleague very carefully removed its contents, which were about 300 pages of typed manuscript. It was clear to us that what was in the package had not been removed since it was first mailed.”
The pages, she said, appear to be the original manuscript of Mockingbird. And Watchman itself, she writes, was sitting “underneath a stack of a significant number of pages of another typed text”.
“Was it an earlier draft of ‘Watchman’, or of ‘Mockingbird’, or even, as early correspondence indicates it might be, a third book bridging the two? I don’t know,” said Carter.
I’m sure we’ll find out when it hit shelves in like a year, right?
Reader News
US School Libraries Get A Funding Boost
Thanks, James Patterson! I’m telling you guys, every time I get to report on this guy and what he does for the book community, it totally makes my day. This is someone who literally puts his money where his mouth is.
James Patterson — the Daddy Warbucks of American publishing — made good on his pledge to help school libraries today. The bestselling writer of thrillers announced $500,000 in grants to 127 schools across the country. This is just the first installment of a $1.75 million program to help libraries buy books, fund literary programs and make repairs.
In March, Patterson invited librarians, teachers and principals to apply for $1,000 to $10,000 grants. Scholastic Reading Club, a division of children’s publisher Scholastic, pledged to match each grant with bonus points that can be used for books and classroom materials.
More than 28,000 applications came pouring in.
Wow! I wonder where all are tax dollars are going? I’d like to divert mine to public schools, please!
Carolyn Jo Starkey, a librarian at the Shades Valley High School in Irondale, Ala., told Patterson: “It has been about three-quarters of a decade since the school libraries in Alabama have received state funding to support our work and facilities. Like many other school libraries across our country, our collections and equipment have grown dated in content and fallen into general physical disrepair.”
Patterson was so moved by the applicants’ stories that he increased the size of his initial program from $1.25 million to $1.5 million and then to $1.75 million.
I have no words. This is just amazing. Don’t mind me, I’ll be over here wiping the dust from my eyes.
The Cost of Becoming a Wizard
When a news site published the cost of attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they probably didn’t anticipate the reception they’d receive to the piece.
According to MATH, that tricky and devilish thing, you could expect to fork out 43,301 USD per year to be taught at the prestigious Wizarding school. Bad luck for the Weasley’s, aye?
Using a quote from Rowling that a Galleon converted approximately 5 pounds, Mic was able to build on logical groundwork laid by the Harry Potter Fan wiki to come to their conclusions. Keeping in mind that one year at Harvard is approximately 45,278 USD.
Yet, Mic made one serious flaw.
The hardest thing to figure out is tuition. Some insist tuition at Hogwarts is free, though the books are unclear either way. For the sake of this exercise, we’ll say that tuition must cost something. Multiple figures place the price around $42,000; we’ll take that number at face value.
They didn’t bank on how awesome JK Rowling is.
.@jk_rowling Guess us Muggles need to get it together.
*waves wand over school loans*
— Mic (@mic) July 17, 2015
Damn right, Mic!
“The Ministry of Magic covers the cost of all magical education!” she said. That makes us wonder: What are the taxes in the Wizarding World like? How much are the childless citizens paying for others’ education?
Regardless, we are happily correcting our original number of $43,031 to just $1,031, the cost of supplies. We’ve sent our apologies to Rowling.
Publishing News
Amazon Might Be In Deep DooDoo
Looks like Amazon.com is in the hot seat this time over claims of underhanded deals.
The American Booksellers Association, the Authors Guild of America, and two other groups together representing thousands of authors, agents, and indie booksellers, are asking that the U.S. Dept. of Justice examine Amazon’s practices for antitrust violations.
David Streitfeld writing in the New York Times reports that the Authors Guild, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of Authors’ Representatives, and Authors United wrote in letters sent this week to the Justice Department that “Amazon has used its dominance in ways that we believe harm the interests of America’s readers, impoverish the book industry as a whole, damage the careers of (and generate fear among) many authors, and impede the free flow of ideas in our society.”
Unlike the case brought against publishers, which outlined collusion over book price fixing, so far there does not seem to be any concrete and fact-based claims. Time will tell, however, how far the online megastore has gone to make itself the biggest bookseller in US history.
Controversies
Author Katie M. Stout Leaves Twitter Over Racism Claims
based on some of the quotes from Katie M Stout’s new book, Hello, I Love You, it would seem some of the content is problematic. The book is set in South Korea where North American girl, Grace, has decided to attend boarding school. Its Kirkus review goes so far as to call it “clueless cultural appropriation“.
Readers of the book took to twitter to chastise the author for the content of the book.
https://twitter.com/solcelo/status/622879944327217153
https://twitter.com/alyssakeiko/status/622888362303692800
@pointfivekorean @katiemstout These quotes would be silly if replaced with a anglo country, but it's ok if the ppl don't look like you???
— Xib (They/Them) 🏳️🌈 (@Xibuna) July 20, 2015
Stout left twitter today after the incident and there has been no comment from her since.
Maggie Stiefvater Twitter Clash
Maggie Stiefvater fended off twitter users this week who sought to discuss, what they saw as, the problematic characterisation of Bulgarian character, Kavinsky, in Stiefvater’s highly popular Raven Cycle series.
Twitter user @edmundcorcoran approached Stiefvater over the claims and others joined in to say their displeasure at the way the character was portrayed. As much of the twitter conversation as we could find is below.
I'm gonna need @mstiefvater to justify the gross classism and xenophobia she shoved in Kavinsky's portrayal, forreal pic.twitter.com/IgckWzicdX
— t$erriednich for emperor (@nvrcissvs) July 19, 2015
http://twitter.com/edmundcorcoran/status/622829213456986112/photo/1
https://twitter.com/mstiefvater/status/622911042541219841
https://twitter.com/fairychesters/status/622909539269111808
https://twitter.com/mstiefvater/status/622916466980061184
Interesting Links
9 Timeless Quotes From To Kill A Mockingbird
Natalie M.
THERE’S GOING TO BE A LEGEND OF KORRA SEQUEL COMIC? Excuse me while I hyperventilate in a bag.
P.S. If Korra and Asami don’t kiss, we riot
Kate Copeseeley
AGREED! There must be smooching!
Kat C
Ugh, as a POC I totally understand the frustrations and even anger people feel over terrible or lack of representation but sometimes I feel like it gets taken too far and it the author can’t “take it” and leave social media people see it as justice. I feel like you lose a lot of chances to create a dialogue.
That said, I wanted to read Hello, I Love You because I have never seen a Kirkus review that harsh, but it wasn’t available at any of the 4 county systems near me. It turns out that in the entire state of Virginia only one library is carrying it, so maybe librarians found it problematic too.
Kate Copeseeley
I read quite a bit of that book, and it seemed to me that the American looked bad, not the Koreans. But I didn’t finish it, so I guess I will reserve judgment to those who have.
I agree, though. The best way to have a dialogue with some is to talk to them, not chase them away from you.
Melissa Robles
I’m sorry but I think people are exaggerating with the whole Hello I Love You thing. Heck, I’m pretty sure most are judging the book without having read it, just relying on what some people have said. Most bad reviews look terribly alike and it amazes me how almost everyone thinks the exact same thing. Hard to believe, really.
I get the book is not for everyone. I have disliked popular books that everyone else has loved, so why can’t this book be treated the same way? It should be treated like just another book meant to entertain and offer a sweet story that some people will like/love and other’s will not. And calling Katie a racist? Please. If I had a penny for every single time I read something that got Mexicans culture wrong I’d be so rich I could afford all the books I want. And I don’t get mad when I read that. I don’t take it personal. Because it’s A BOOK. Move on, peeps.
Anyway, sorry for the long ramble, but this sure ticks me off.
Oh, and Katie did make a post about it in her blog.
Kate Copeseeley
It’s so hard to have a good convo on twitter. such a short space to talk. I think either authors will have to come out and say, “I won’t discuss book specifics on Twitter, please email me.” Or else leave social media altogether. How many authors are going to leave until we realize this isn’t the way to have discussions? Whether you agree with the reviewers or not, trying to have an in depth discussion about it on Twitter is too hard.
Vane J.
Ah, yeah, forget about Twitter last week, which was lovely. Ugh. I read Hello, I Love You, and it is indeed awful, but I think there are better ways to handle that than to throw all the hate like that.
Kate Copeseeley
See, I told you! haha Don’t worry, I still have some good Twitter stuff for this week. 🙂
MJ
I read Hello, I Love You and I found the main character offensive. I thought the Korean characters and culture were marginalized, but I mostly put this on the main character (her POV was very narrow). After doing some sleuthing, post read, I found out the book was originally set in China before revisions. I think that’s one of the reasons why the setting wasn’t utilized as much as it should’ve been. Problems with the book aside, I hate that someone directly tagged Stout on Twitter like that. I’m all about people liking, disliking, hating, or not really caring for what they’re reading, but there’s no reason to rub someone’s nose in it. It’s just asking for a conflict, which is something this community doesn’t need more of. Author reader relations are tense enough as it. However, I read some comments on Twitter that that was what they were trying for, a confrontation and it really kind of made me sad.
Kate Copeseeley
The disconnect from the culture she was living in was one of the reasons I found it hard to empathize with the main character.
And confront away, but do it where both parties get full say like via email. Twitter is the worst sort of place for serious, lengthy conversation.
Briana @ Pages Unbound
Honestly, I’d have to read Hello, I Love You before making any strong judgments. From the screenshots, I definitely understand that people are finding some of the statements in the book offensive. However, my questions are 1) does the main character ever change? and 2) is the book actually endorsing these attitudes or just portraying them? I’ve definitely met people who have made statements very similar to the ones I’ve seen in the screenshots. That may not mean those statements are right…but it does mean that they’re realistic, and I think there may be a place for realism in books, even if it doesn’t always rub us the right way as readers.
However, if the book really is that offensive, I think people should also be asking questions about the publisher. The author didn’t do this alone. Theoretically, this book got through a literary agent, an editor, and a publisher at least–and maybe even more people–before hitting shelves. Why did none of them foresee the book might be a problem?
Kate Copeseeley
Aren’t we supposed be encouraging authors to try and have diverse characters? Have a discussion about it, sure. Send her an email. I’ve had great discussions with readers via email. Twitter is a poor place to do it and attacking instead of informing doesn’t seem like the best way to go about it.
And I agree with you about the publisher. It’s not like this was a self-pub. An author doesn’t publish a book in a vacuum. They want and look for feedback from their editing time about things like this. There is definitely blame to be placed on the publishers for not seeing that there might be issues.
Aly
Tuition at Hogwarts probably IS free, considering it’s in the UK, and in the UK tuition is free until you go to University. I doubt Hogwarts would go crazy and charge 😛
Also I always say that Twitter arguments are silly, especially if they involve book quotes. It’s easy to make ANY book look bad if you take a sentence out of context and post it. Just like with TRC and Maggie Stiefvater — those quotes look bad because they’re taken out of context. I don’t think Kavinsky was portrayed as anything but a complex character that many, many people adored and his relationship with Ronan was amazingly done. They’re both raw, complex, aggressive characters and I felt like Kavinsky almost mirrored Ronan.
I can’t believe Stargirl is going to be a movie! I remember reading it YEARS ago (I think it was one of the first books I read in English when I moved to England) and I think I liked it. As I said, it was the first book I read in English so I can’t be 100% sure that my feelings would still be the same if I were to read it again. ^.^
Kate Copeseeley
I haven’t read Stargirl yet, but I’m definitely intrigued. 🙂
Kyra
I’ve had Stargirl on my TBR for around 3-4 years and I can’t believe it’s being made into a movie! I’ve heard such good things about it and I suppose I ought to read it soon! 🙂
Kate Copeseeley
I think I want to try it out, too. I hadn’t even heard about it until now. 🙂
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[…] Buzz Worthy News: Twitter Fight Edition 21st July 2015 […]
Beth W
I’m as confused as Maggie. Making all the white people good and all the non-white people bad, that’s racist. Making as many characters as possible be nuanced and multi-faceted? That’s good writing. Admittedly, I haven’t read her novel (yet!), but considering I can count on one hand the number of times an American author has included a Bulgarian character in their novel….I’m thinking those Twitter users are choosing to start a shitstorm instead of trying to have an honest dialogue. Which undermines any validity in their arguments.
And also: MOAR JOSS WHEDON!
Kate Copeseeley
Always with the more of Joss. Always. 🙂
Carina Olsen
Yay for bunch of interesting news 😀 Love reading it all. <3 Lots I hadn't seen. And ack. Legend of Korra.. I have yet to watch it. I own season 1. Shall see it one day, I think 😀 Seems like an awesome show. Gorgeous post, girls. <3 Thank you for sharing 🙂
Kate Copeseeley
Thanks for reading!
Lyn Kaye
Holy crap A STARGIRL MOVIE!! IMMA WET MY PANTS.
“Catherine Hardwicke, director of Twilight, has signed on to direct the project.”
….oh. Oh.
Kate Copeseeley
bwhahahahaha good point!
Brenda
About Maggie…
I haven’t read the book so I can’t really say if her representation was off or not. But wow, she handled the whole thing so childishly I’m Team No One here. Even if she was within her rights to respond, as an author you should try to respond with a bit of class and not act so passive aggressive. The whole ‘saluting’ thing made me cringe and I’m a fan.
Kate Copeseeley
I think Maggie’s point (childish though it might have been) was that there really is no good response. Also, even though she hasn’t been one of my fave authors, I sympathize because I’ve done stupid/said stupid things when nervous or unsure what to do. We look up to authors so much that we tend to think of them as shining beings who always have something clever or insightful to say.
I’m sure she’s taken some knowledge away from this encounter.