AUSSIE YA MONTH: Guest Post - Kirsty Eagar

You know, I originally had the idea for Aussie YA Month when I was drunk.  Because sober Carla really can't make plans for shit.  In fact, this is porbably the most organised I have ever been.  Even when I travelled half way across the world, I didn't know the name of my hotels or even really what time my flights left.  And you know what triggered this for me?........the way I felt after reading Raw Blue.  As soon as I turned the last page I was like, this, this is what I pick up books hoping to find.  This crazy awesome feeling of having just read something really special. And I know that makes me sound like a sappy girl, but it is what it is.  So, when I contacted Kirsty about Aussie YA Month and she KNEW WHO I WAS AND WANTED TO SEND ME A SIGNED COPY OF RAW BLUE.  Well I died and went to book fangirl heaven.  I can't even begin to explain how ecstatic and excited I am to pass the reins of this blog to one of my favourite authors, Kirsty Eagar.

Firstly, thanks Carla for inviting me to your Aussie YA party!

My invite was wonderfully open ended – Carla said I could do this post on anything I wanted to – so of course I drew a complete blank. I’ve decided to go with: Stuff I’ve Been Thinking About. Don’t worry, though, I have filtered it down to stuff that relates to the themes of ‘Aussie’, ‘YA’, or ‘Aussie YA’. Please feel free to disagree, or agree, or just throw your own thoughts out there in response!

• At a YA festival this year, I got asked the question: Where is the line between Young Adult and Adult fiction? At the time I mumbled something about looking for answers, and I might have mentioned the word ‘hope’. I can’t remember really. It wasn’t a great answer, and it’s been bugging me ever since. Now, I wish I’d said: ‘Voice’. I think that’s the main difference, but even then the lines are smudgy.

• I’m not even sure anymore that you have to leave the reader with hope. I probably always will, simply because that’s how I see it, but that doesn’t mean I think you have to. Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War didn’t leave me with much hope, but I felt like the book made me stronger all the same. It’s a punch-in-the-guts example of how the world can work, in a story that has nothing but respect for its reader’s intelligence.

• I don’t think there are any rules. I think people can write about anything they want to, and I’ll read it, as long as it’s well written. Reading doesn’t have to be a comfortable experience. A side effect of books is that they sometimes stretch minds. And the genre is called Young Adult, not Older Children.

• But … I also think that stories offering an escape from everyday life, the ones that promise nothing more than a really great ride, are equally valid. I don’t understand why people get snobby over genre. Or think that contemporary literary fiction is the only ‘real’ writing. The themes writers explore cross all classifications. To me, genre is just another decision the writer has made (consciously or subconsciously) in deciding how to explore the theme. If it’s good writing, who cares where it gets shelved?

• At the moment I’m reading George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice fantasy series. I’m up to book number four. I’ve been doing a lot of travelling and they’re big books to cart around. As a result, I’m seriously considering going electronic.
• My favourite Australian author is Honey Brown. I think that’s her real name. 

 • ‘Place’ plays a big part in the stories I want to write. I think it fascinates me because in a way I’ve always belonged everywhere and nowhere. I’d like to know if that’s common in kids with divorced parents. My childhood was split between my mum in the country, my dad in the city, and a hell of a lot of time spent at the beach. I left home early and moved around a lot, ending up overseas. Perversely, I then became obsessed with Australia, and returned to spend a couple of years travelling around my own country.

• Because of surfing, the beach has featured a lot in my writing to date. Maybe that’s why people say my stuff is Very Australian. Most of the population clings to the coastline.

• The Aussie YA authors I’ve met are incredible. Really lovely people. Likewise, the generosity of the blogging community astounds me.

• I’ve just come back from a trip to Coonabarabran (a small town in country New South Wales) with another Aussie YA author – J.C. Burke. She is absolute gold. Hardworking and funny. She’s someone who really gives to her audience, whether they are students or adults. I learned a lot from her.

• I’m looking forward to reading Julia Lawrinson’s Losing It. On her blog, she says, ‘Part of the reason I wrote the novel is because it's perfectly fine for young female characters to fall in love, but God forbid they actually might want to have sex. Sex and romance get horribly tangled, and girls get a raw deal.’ I am so there with her on that.

So that’s the round up. My head feels much tidier now. Thanks for reading :)

You can learn more about Kirsty at her website right HERE and read my review for her amazing book Raw Blue here