article
francesca lia block article
this is from the new york times;
February 23, 2005
Writing Frankly, Young-Adult Author Pushes Limits
By DINITIA SMITH
ULVER CITY, Calif.- Francesca Lia Block's Los Angeles is a glittering dream world of "stained-glass Marilyn Monroes shining in the trees, leopard-spotted cars, gardens full of pink poison oleander," where the pollution makes for extra-beautiful sunsets. It is also the home of Weetzie Bat, the heroine of Ms. Block's highly successful books for young adults.
Weetzie Bat wears vintage clothes decorated with sparkles. She has a boyfriend she calls "My Secret Agent Lover Man." They live with Dirk, Weetzie's gay best friend, his lover, Duck, and Weetzie's daughter, Cherokee, possibly conceived during group sex with Dirk and Duck. There is also Witch Baby, Lover Man's child with a witch. The family works in the movie business. And they become involved with seamier elements of Los Angeles: rough sex, pimps and drugs.
This may not seem like a conventional young-adult book or something to be promoted by your local library. But in January, the Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association announced that Ms. Block was being given the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement, sponsored by School Library Journal. The award's web site (www.ala.org) says it "recognizes an author's work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role" in society.
"Hers is a voice so unique that nobody will ever be able to imitate it," said Cindy Dobrez, a public school librarian and chairwoman of the award committee.
Not everyone has been happy with Ms. Block's explicit subject matter, however. In 2003, for instance, Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, a group in Fairfax County, Va., tried to have several of Ms. Block's books removed from school libraries, because of what it called "profanity and descriptions of drug-abuse, sexually explicit conduct and torture."
Ms. Block, 42, writes in a style that she says is influenced by Greek myth, the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez and the modernist poetry of T. S. Eliot and H. D. Her stories abound with sudden transformations, fairies, genies and ghosts.
Describing the death of Weetzie's father from a drug overdose, she writes: "Charlie was dreaming of a city where everyone was always young and lit up like a movie, palm trees turned into tropical birds, Marilyn-blonde angels flew through the spotlight rays, the cars were the color of candied mints and filled with lovers making love as they drove down the streets paved with stars that had fallen from the sky."
Ms. Block's award comes as sales of young-adult fiction are increasing, while sales of adult fiction are flat. She has been credited with helping to bring about the renaissance in Y.A., as the genre is known. When she published her first "Weetzie Bat" book, in 1989, sales of young-adult books were declining. Libraries and schools, prime buyers of such books, were losing financing. Most young-adult books were "didactic exercises with flimsy characters," said Michael Cart, a columnist for Booklist.
But teenagers were demanding franker fare. Books like S. E. Hinton's "Outsiders," about teen violence, and Robert Lipsyte's "Contender," about a Harlem boxer, both from 1967, and Judy Blume's 1975 book, "Forever," one of the first to depict teenagers having sex without penalty, broke the ice. Publishers seeking fiction that would appeal to teenagers found it in writers like Ms. Block. "She took up subjects like homosexuality and out-of-wedlock sex and presented them in a nonjudgmental way," Ms. Dobrez said.
Ms. Block helped pave the way for the explicit young-adult books of today, including Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak," about date rape, and Melvin Burgess's "Smack," about London street kids using heroin. This spring, Simon & Schuster is bringing out "Rainbow Party," by Paul Ruditis, a young-adult novel about oral sex. "She's definitely on the edge still," said Joe Monti, a children's book buyer at Barnes & Noble of Ms. Block, "but she's not alone anymore."
Not only are young-adult books more explicit, but the readership is also growing. And "the definition of young adult keeps expanding," Mr. Cart said, noting that more young people are living with their parents after college and still leading an adolescent lifestyle.
"Young adult used to mean 12 to 18," he said. "Now it's for readers as old as 25."
Ms. Block grew up in the land whereof she writes, Los Angeles. Her father, Irving, was co-author of the story on which "Forbidden Planet," a space movie with a plot derived from Shakespeare's "Tempest," was based. He was also a painter. Her parents encouraged her artistic inclinations. When she was 16, she published her first book of poetry, "Moon Harvest," illustrated by her father.
She attended North Hollywood High School. One day, she said, "I was driving on the freeway and I saw a pink Pinto." She continued: "There was a girl with funny glasses and bleached blond hair. The license plate said 'Weetzie.' "
She started writing stories about the character. "It was my little private thing, a love song to L.A.," she said. Weetzie utters expressions like "lanky-lizards!" A cool, languid person is "a slinkster." The language gives the feeling of entering a private world, separate from adults.
When Ms. Block was 17, her father was found to have cancer. He died six years later. She was devastated and became anorexic. She said that her 2001 novel, "Echo," is her most autobiographical work. In the book, Echo is the anorexic daughter of a terminally ill artist.
After completing her studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Ms. Block worked in an art gallery. A family friend gave her Weetzie stories to Charlotte Zolotow, a children's book author who was an editor at HarperCollins, and Joanna Cotler, also an editor there. The first sentence of the first book they published, "Weetzie Bat," was a direct appeal to lonely teenage girls: "The reason Weetzie Bat hated high school was because no one understood."
Other Weetzie books followed, including "Witch Baby," "Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys" and "Missing Angel Juan." Ms. Block branched out, writing two novels about incest, in 1994, "The Hanged Man," about a father and daughter, and in 2003, "Wasteland," about a brother and sister. She has also published a collection of erotic stories, "Nymph," with Circlet Press.
Ms. Cotler said that at HarperCollins alone Ms. Block has sold 750,000 books.
In 2003, Ms. Block published a nonfiction book, "Guarding the Moon," about raising her daughter Jasmine, who is now 4. She also has a son, Sammy, 2.
She is living apart from her husband, Chris Schuette, an actor she married in 1998. This summer she will publish "Necklace of Kisses," another Weetzie novel, but this time for adults, about a troubled marriage. Now, Weetzie is in her 40's and her children are in college. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, her relationship with her boyfriend is troubled. Weetzie goes to a magical pink hotel where she encounters a mermaid who kisses her and starts her on the way to healing.
Ms. Block recently moved to a small stucco-and-brick house in Culver City. It is furnished as Weetzie's house might be, with sparkling lace spread on the couch and silk pillows with beads. Jasmine grows in the garden, spilling its fragrance into the air. Her father's paintings are waiting to be hung. Many of them are of flowers. "They grew paler as he grew sicker," Ms. Block said.
She has at least two more young-adult books on the way, she said, and two more for adults. She is also writing a book with a healer called Morningstar, whom she credits with curing a cut on her breast when she was nursing.
"How can I tell you this without sounding too crazy, too West Coast?" she asked, with a laugh. "I believe life is infused with magic. I believe in creativity and art as experiences of magic. I do."
this is from the new york times;
February 23, 2005
Writing Frankly, Young-Adult Author Pushes Limits
By DINITIA SMITH
ULVER CITY, Calif.- Francesca Lia Block's Los Angeles is a glittering dream world of "stained-glass Marilyn Monroes shining in the trees, leopard-spotted cars, gardens full of pink poison oleander," where the pollution makes for extra-beautiful sunsets. It is also the home of Weetzie Bat, the heroine of Ms. Block's highly successful books for young adults.
Weetzie Bat wears vintage clothes decorated with sparkles. She has a boyfriend she calls "My Secret Agent Lover Man." They live with Dirk, Weetzie's gay best friend, his lover, Duck, and Weetzie's daughter, Cherokee, possibly conceived during group sex with Dirk and Duck. There is also Witch Baby, Lover Man's child with a witch. The family works in the movie business. And they become involved with seamier elements of Los Angeles: rough sex, pimps and drugs.
This may not seem like a conventional young-adult book or something to be promoted by your local library. But in January, the Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association announced that Ms. Block was being given the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement, sponsored by School Library Journal. The award's web site (www.ala.org) says it "recognizes an author's work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role" in society.
"Hers is a voice so unique that nobody will ever be able to imitate it," said Cindy Dobrez, a public school librarian and chairwoman of the award committee.
Not everyone has been happy with Ms. Block's explicit subject matter, however. In 2003, for instance, Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, a group in Fairfax County, Va., tried to have several of Ms. Block's books removed from school libraries, because of what it called "profanity and descriptions of drug-abuse, sexually explicit conduct and torture."
Ms. Block, 42, writes in a style that she says is influenced by Greek myth, the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez and the modernist poetry of T. S. Eliot and H. D. Her stories abound with sudden transformations, fairies, genies and ghosts.
Describing the death of Weetzie's father from a drug overdose, she writes: "Charlie was dreaming of a city where everyone was always young and lit up like a movie, palm trees turned into tropical birds, Marilyn-blonde angels flew through the spotlight rays, the cars were the color of candied mints and filled with lovers making love as they drove down the streets paved with stars that had fallen from the sky."
Ms. Block's award comes as sales of young-adult fiction are increasing, while sales of adult fiction are flat. She has been credited with helping to bring about the renaissance in Y.A., as the genre is known. When she published her first "Weetzie Bat" book, in 1989, sales of young-adult books were declining. Libraries and schools, prime buyers of such books, were losing financing. Most young-adult books were "didactic exercises with flimsy characters," said Michael Cart, a columnist for Booklist.
But teenagers were demanding franker fare. Books like S. E. Hinton's "Outsiders," about teen violence, and Robert Lipsyte's "Contender," about a Harlem boxer, both from 1967, and Judy Blume's 1975 book, "Forever," one of the first to depict teenagers having sex without penalty, broke the ice. Publishers seeking fiction that would appeal to teenagers found it in writers like Ms. Block. "She took up subjects like homosexuality and out-of-wedlock sex and presented them in a nonjudgmental way," Ms. Dobrez said.
Ms. Block helped pave the way for the explicit young-adult books of today, including Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak," about date rape, and Melvin Burgess's "Smack," about London street kids using heroin. This spring, Simon & Schuster is bringing out "Rainbow Party," by Paul Ruditis, a young-adult novel about oral sex. "She's definitely on the edge still," said Joe Monti, a children's book buyer at Barnes & Noble of Ms. Block, "but she's not alone anymore."
Not only are young-adult books more explicit, but the readership is also growing. And "the definition of young adult keeps expanding," Mr. Cart said, noting that more young people are living with their parents after college and still leading an adolescent lifestyle.
"Young adult used to mean 12 to 18," he said. "Now it's for readers as old as 25."
Ms. Block grew up in the land whereof she writes, Los Angeles. Her father, Irving, was co-author of the story on which "Forbidden Planet," a space movie with a plot derived from Shakespeare's "Tempest," was based. He was also a painter. Her parents encouraged her artistic inclinations. When she was 16, she published her first book of poetry, "Moon Harvest," illustrated by her father.
She attended North Hollywood High School. One day, she said, "I was driving on the freeway and I saw a pink Pinto." She continued: "There was a girl with funny glasses and bleached blond hair. The license plate said 'Weetzie.' "
She started writing stories about the character. "It was my little private thing, a love song to L.A.," she said. Weetzie utters expressions like "lanky-lizards!" A cool, languid person is "a slinkster." The language gives the feeling of entering a private world, separate from adults.
When Ms. Block was 17, her father was found to have cancer. He died six years later. She was devastated and became anorexic. She said that her 2001 novel, "Echo," is her most autobiographical work. In the book, Echo is the anorexic daughter of a terminally ill artist.
After completing her studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Ms. Block worked in an art gallery. A family friend gave her Weetzie stories to Charlotte Zolotow, a children's book author who was an editor at HarperCollins, and Joanna Cotler, also an editor there. The first sentence of the first book they published, "Weetzie Bat," was a direct appeal to lonely teenage girls: "The reason Weetzie Bat hated high school was because no one understood."
Other Weetzie books followed, including "Witch Baby," "Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys" and "Missing Angel Juan." Ms. Block branched out, writing two novels about incest, in 1994, "The Hanged Man," about a father and daughter, and in 2003, "Wasteland," about a brother and sister. She has also published a collection of erotic stories, "Nymph," with Circlet Press.
Ms. Cotler said that at HarperCollins alone Ms. Block has sold 750,000 books.
In 2003, Ms. Block published a nonfiction book, "Guarding the Moon," about raising her daughter Jasmine, who is now 4. She also has a son, Sammy, 2.
She is living apart from her husband, Chris Schuette, an actor she married in 1998. This summer she will publish "Necklace of Kisses," another Weetzie novel, but this time for adults, about a troubled marriage. Now, Weetzie is in her 40's and her children are in college. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, her relationship with her boyfriend is troubled. Weetzie goes to a magical pink hotel where she encounters a mermaid who kisses her and starts her on the way to healing.
Ms. Block recently moved to a small stucco-and-brick house in Culver City. It is furnished as Weetzie's house might be, with sparkling lace spread on the couch and silk pillows with beads. Jasmine grows in the garden, spilling its fragrance into the air. Her father's paintings are waiting to be hung. Many of them are of flowers. "They grew paler as he grew sicker," Ms. Block said.
She has at least two more young-adult books on the way, she said, and two more for adults. She is also writing a book with a healer called Morningstar, whom she credits with curing a cut on her breast when she was nursing.
"How can I tell you this without sounding too crazy, too West Coast?" she asked, with a laugh. "I believe life is infused with magic. I believe in creativity and art as experiences of magic. I do."