Extras

      They're walking down the street, the four of them, extras in a movie that isn't theirs. Their conversation is inaudible, footsteps muffled, laughter barely distinguishable from the other night sounds.

      The real drama, the reason the movie is playing, the reason the street and the night and the people exist at all, that's happening within the indistinct circle of light around the streetlamp. There, the man and the woman look at each other, silent. Her blond hair and his gray coat are faded in the orange light. The camera pans in, from a street sign to the back of his head, her eyes. She's frozen in place, trying to recall her next line, waiting for the act to resume.

      The four extras pass out of shot into the darkness. 

~Maya

(Inspired by this blog).

Death is a Welcome Guest: Part I by Becca Halaney

Our friend Becca wrote an amazing story and we're going to share it in short installments every Monday for the next few weeks to keep everyone inspired during NaNoWriMo!

Without further ado, here it is.

So, I opened my mouth, inhaling quickly, and, with a slight pause, fought the words out. “Hey, Angie, look. I’m sorry—”

Out of nowhere, something like five men jumped out of the bushes behind us with guns in their hands. I shot up, and the little Angie kid did too, but not before it all was over in a flash. “THERE HE IS!”

“RUN, KID.”

“ALEX, LOOK OUT—” Before I even knew what happened, I saw a flash of blue and other bright colors run forward. Then there was a high pitched scream, and she—

            No, I shouldn’t think about that now…

 Part One

…The rain was incredibly heavy that night. I don’t think I’ll be able to ever forget it because it was the night that changed my life—when all my trouble started. The thunder and lightning was pounding outside, and the rain was so thick that you couldn’t see two inches past your own nose. Luckily, I was inside, peaceful, content, and (most importantly) alone.Not really happy, but it was as close to that as I’d get.

Anyway.                                     

I was lounging around in the back of my cave, finishing off the last bits of my dinner, when, out of nowhere, this small, wet little thing threw herself in and landed flat on the ground. She lay on the stone for a little longer, gasping, before sitting up and getting her wet hair out of her face. I tensed—human. I hated humans. And don’t come after me with the whole “But you were a human once too” talk; believe me, I’ve heard it enough. The little human girl was soaked to the bone…she was getting my nicely-cleaned floor wet. Even worse, she started wringing her hair and clothes out too. Great. First rain, now an unwelcome guest. She dropped her purse onto the ground and lay down again, stretching her teeny limbs out spread-eagled.

…It would be so easy for me to just break those off. It would certainly be fun, even if she didn’t taste very good.These pleasant thoughts often came to me. No. Not tonight. Too much trouble. I’ll just scare her off. So I licked the blood off my jaws, stood up to my full height of eight and a half feet, began a growl in the back of my throat, and walked toward her. My claws made clicking noises on the stone floor, and I felt my fur bristle with pride…I look awesome. It took the stupid little thing a few moments to notice me, but when she did, she sat up…and smiled.

“Oh, hello there! Am I intruding?”

For a moment, I was caught off guard. I shook myself. “…Go away, little girl. You don’t belong here.”

“Well I don’t really belong anywhere. And I’m not a little girl.”

A sigh rippled down my spine; she just wasn’t getting it. She really didn’t get it. “Oh really.”

“Yup! I’m twenty-four, which makes me an adult.”

“Uh-huh.”

She nodded, her curly, dyed hair bouncing.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“…Aren’t you—uh—afraid I’m gonna eat you, or something? Look, little girl—”

“I’m not little.” She repeated.

“Well—whatever! My point is, I could crush you. Grind your bones up easily. Pull your limbs apart and eat them in front of you. Doesn’t that scare you?!”

She thought about this for a few minutes, casting faraway eyes to the ceiling. “…Well sure it does. But you’re not, are you? I mean, that’s kinda rude.”

There was another silence. I found that my jaw was hanging slack. Then, out of nowhere, she giggled; it was high and sort of bell-like—incredibly annoying.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Now I was just speechless.

“I’m—I’m sorry, you just have this hilarious expression right now…” She didn’t stop laughing. No, even though I threatened her, she just rolled on her back on the stone floor and laughed in my face. It was infuriating to be outsmarted by a stupid, little, human girl.

“…So the fact that I could rip you to shreds any minute now doesn’t bother you.”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“Because death is a welcome guest! Why be afraid of dying if it’s gonna happen to you someday anyway? Besides, there’s only one thing I want right now anyway, and if I don’t get it, then that’s okay. I’ll live—I mean—” She broke off into obnoxious giggles again.

“And what would that be?” My voice was beginning to snarl, and I felt the corners of my mouth drawing back into a sneer. If looks could kill, she would have been dead a long time ago.

“Oh, I want to see the fairies dance!” This caught me off guard; I stopped and looked at her, my jaw going slightly slack.

She smiled. When I didn’t say anything else, she took out a thin, worn out blanket from her purse and laid down on the floor, shutting her eyes. Good. She’ll at least be quiet, now—maybe I can carry her outside and put her in the forest or something so she’ll get lost and not come back…Just then, they snapped back open, and came to look at me again.

“By the way, my name’s Angelica Richards, but most people just call me Angie. I mean, most people just call me ‘girl’ or ‘stupid’ or ‘scram’, but all my friends call me Angie….Do you want to be my friend?”

“No.” I spat at her and turned to walk haughtily back to my food.

“…That’s what everyone says.”

I paused again. “Then why don’t you go back to your friends, where you’re wanted.”

“Because I’m not wanted. That’s why I left—‘cause I’m just a burden to people.” I started to comment on how much of a burden she was being to me, but I forced myself to be silent. “My dad disowned me, too, so I don’t have a home anymore. I started just being homeless and being okay with it, but then I found out about the fairies, so I left! And now I’m here, and life’s great, so it’s all okay.”

“Wait…” I slowly turned to face her again, my eyes narrowing. “How long’ve you been out on this…this…” I fought for the word. “trip?”

“Oh, I don’t know, a few months.” She broke off yawning, and snuggled deeper in the blanket that barely covered her; two pale, little feet poked out. The thought of breaking them was still rather appealing.

I was arguing with myself. “…My name’s Alexander.”

Her face instantly light up, along with her eyes. It sort of seemed like they turned a brighter shade of blue, but I quickly ignored that as a trick of the mind. “Alex?! That’s such a cute name!”

“DON’T call me that.” I cut her off hurriedly. What am I getting myself into?!

“So…so you’re my friend, now?”

“No, duh. I’m just…”

What am I doing?

“Yeah?” She looked excited, and waited impatiently for what I was going to say next.

That horrible twisting, lurching feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when I was battling with myself sprung up again, worse this time, along with a small migraine. My fur fluffed up a bit. Finally, I grasped an answer that I was sure to regret— “I’m just saying I’ll take you to see the fairies dance.”

I did regret it. The little girl gave this loud squeal that pierced my ears and made my head pound harder. “THANK YOU! THANK YOU, THANK YOU!”

“Alright, alright, I get it!” With that, I stormed off to the back of my cave again, my whole body bristling, and flopped back onto the ground in front of my meal again. I had started today with a good feeling, and it ended with the gods sending a demon after me as my eternal punishment. What was worse, the cow I had gone to so much trouble to kill was now cold.

Make sure to check in again next Monday for the next part!

Guilty Pleasures

Spotify is, without a doubt, the greatest way to listen to music ever. Until I signed up, I had been listening to crappy lyric videos on YouTube, but now I can discover and share music to my heart's content. The only problem is the ads - in fact, it has been determined in a recent poll (aka: me and my friends complaining) that these ads are literally the most obnoxious things on the planet. As soon as you get really into an album or a song, they pop up, talking loudly and annoyingly and ruining your entire day (if not life). Usually they're either generic (mmm try this Coca-Cola), or random (Do you like this song? Then you need to buy car insurance!), but the other day I heard one that really made me think. Basically, it was promoting making playlists and sharing them with friends, and it ended by saying "What better way to define yourself than through your music?"

This seems like a strange way of looking at sharing your musical tastes, almost implying that you choose the music you do because of how it will affect your image (rather than because you genuinely like it). This really shows the division that has sprung up between the idea of liking something just because you like it, and the concept of creating an image. 

Spotify obviously knows how music tastes can change when it seems like they're on display, because they've made it possible to listen to music in a private session. I'll admit, I've used this setting before (I didn't think the world needed to know I had listened to "Applause" 37 times in a row) but I've been wondering why I feel the need to hide the fact that I've listened to "that kind of music." I don't pretend to know much (okay, anything) about music and what's good or bad, but I do know that I feel a lot more comfortable admitting I like Nirvana than, say, Carly Rae Jepson.

Sometimes, though, when I'm studying, or getting ready to go out, or driving in the car, or doing chores, or going on a walk (or basically anything), I'll want to listen to "trashy" music. Usually I attempt to write this off as a guilty pleasure, or, worse, as an "ironic appreciation." Yeah, I listened to "Kiss You" for three hours - but it's okay, because I did it ironically.

Then I read this amazing article, which completely changed my point of view. Dylan writes, "[My love of pop music] is not an ironic love, which is stupid, and also, what does that even mean? It’s not like I’m snickering in the corner when I loop “Call Me Maybe” in the morning. I loop “Call Me Maybe” because it’s the jam."

This shouldn't be a thing.

A few days later, I saw this quote from Dave Grohl:

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you [freaking] like something, like it. That’s what’s wrong with our generation: that residual punk rock guilt, like, “You’re not supposed to like that. That’s not [freaking] cool.” Don’t [freaking] think it’s not cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” It is cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic”! Why the [freak] not? [Freak] you! That’s who I am, [gosh darn] it! That whole guilty pleasure thing is full of [freaking] [poop].* 

*Obviously, the only thing cooler than liking "Toxic" is substituting [freaking] for a naughty no-no word.

As Dylan concludes, "The coolest people I know are the ones who couldn’t care less about their personal cultural boundaries and just enjoy life and do whatever they want. They’re not too cool for anything, they’re cool enough for everything. That’s a much more exciting way to be."

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to Mass Text. For three hours. Just because I can.

~Maya

Dear Nate Clark

Dear Nate Clark,

A couple of days ago, I saw Joey Graceffa's video about his car getting towed. Apparently he had been sitting a little bit across somebody's driveway. He mentioned he was afraid that he had left important information out in his car. I was bothered by the way that he said it, describing the car in the driveway as "fatass" and calling the owner a "slut", which even when it's not applicable and is a joke, is never acceptable.  However, I didn't think too much of it, especially since he makes videos discussing his life every day. Either way, your response to the incident was totally, completely inappropriate.

First off, I get it. Joey completely exaggerated what happened, and a few hundred thousand people heard it and assumed that it was true. I think the first four points you make in your video are fair, but you turning around and refuting everything he said publicly may not have been the way to handle it. A good old-fashioned phone call or facebook message may have done the trick, without you having to broadcast your private issues for the internet to see. And yes, I get it - that may not be fair to you, as Joey was the one that first discussed it in his video. But I watch him pretty often and like I said, he makes videos discussing his personal life every single day, and this incident was pretty insignificant and would have been quickly buried if you had not brought it to the public eye.

Besides, if you're going to spend three minutes discussing how much you disliked him insulting you, you might consider not turning around and doing the exact same thing. Insulting the way he makes his videos "just talk for five more minutes about nothing...but who wants to listen to that?" is putting yourself on the same level. No matter the circumstances, calling someone out on how much money they earn and how much they owe on the internet is so completely unacceptable!

Either way, I think both of you made mistakes, but I believe the way you handled this and the things that you said were totally inappropriate. It has brought lots of hatred over to Joey's channel, with far more dislikes than usual on his most recent video and a near endless stream of mean comments. I don't know if you didn't realize or understand the effect your words would have, or if you didn't care, but either way I think your response was pretty despicable.

Pretty Ugly

A while back, there was a trend going around Youtube.  Teenage girls would make a video of themselves asking anyone who watched it to comment, saying whether they are ugly or pretty, and to rate them on a scale of 1-10. The comments ranged from flat-out mean, to creepy, to some earnestly offering advice.






Louise Orwin first saw this trend when she was on Tumblr and found the "thinspiration" tag. In this tag were thousands of pictures of slim women, ranging from naturally slim to practically emaciated, that are shared as inspiration for teenage girls trying to lose weight. "I got obsessed with the way these teenage girls were using Tumblr. I felt like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole." She thought it was strange, saying "when I was a teenager, I was writing in a diary. Today teenagers are posting onto Tumblr." During this course of research she saw one of the "pretty or ugly" videos pop up. " I saw a really young girl pouting and posing in front of the camera. Her language was something that struck me. It was really teenage language; she was talking about how boys at school were picking on her but there was one guy who fancied her and she didn't know why boys didn't like her," Orwin explained. "I was horrified by it. Then you look at the comments below, they were horrific...I couldn't imagine myself posting a video like that, because I would have thought that she was opening herself up to a huge amount of criticism."

So as an experiment, Orwin created three teenage alter-egos: Becky, an emo girl, Amanda, a nerdy girl, and Baby, your average conventionally attractive popular girl, and posted a video as each of them. Immediately, she received floods of responses. "I got torrents of abuse. People were telling me to fuck of and die." Becky especially was targeted, with 200 comments in a week, nearly all of which were vicious. "I woke up and read all of this abuse and I really felt it in my stomach. I had to remind myself that it's not me, it's the character. Meanwhile, for her character Baby, she received hundreds of private messages, most of which from men, asking her to post more videos of herself or contact them directly despite the fact that Baby was supposed to be only 15 years old. Upon noticing this, she sat down and analyzed the comments and messages she received on her videos, finding that 70 percent of the feedback was from men, and most of the commenters were under 18.

One commenter that stood out in Orwin's mind was a user named RookhKshatriya, who wrote "you're a 4, and without glasses you are a 5". Upon looking at his channel, she discovered that he is actually a London-based academic who works in education and labels himself an "anti-feminist", making videos stating that the "Anglo-American brand of feminism that emerged in the 60s is has an ulterior misandrist agenda'. (View his hideous blog, Anglobitch, here.) "He takes himself very seriously, but he's going on Youtube and rating 15-year-old girls," says Orwin. 

Another thing that was intriguing to Orwin was the fact that these videos were sometimes as much about being on top of a trend as asking the question. "Part of the reason that a lot of them post the videos is yes, they want to know whether they are pretty, but they also see the trend going round and it's just another subject to make a video on. Which is strange."

Orwin now runs a show, Pretty Ugly, following the trail of her research, studying the relationships Becky, Amanda, and Baby have with the commenters and the people that messaged them. "Conversations with trolls, friendships...it also covers all the creepy side of it."

Interestingly, the show begins with her asking the audience the central question: do they think she is pretty or ugly. "I need to show how irrelevant that question should be.  Would you go up to a person on the street and ask them that? I am trying to make this world into a live, face-to-face world." She is struck by the way digital media is changing the way we perceive ourselves and each other, wondering what it will mean for feminism in the future.  She says she remembers coming to a certain age when we people were starting to talk about the pressure of media, and how it represents beauty. "Nw if you look on Tumblr, Youtube, Twitter, it's not the media, but the teenage girls themselves perpetuating this myth. They're resharing these images, reblogging. There's always going to be peer pressure, but I think social media makes these issues worse." But the issue isn't about removing the social media entirely. "It's about changing attitudes toward things and teaching girls to take responsibility for themselves online."

Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to go unfollow all of the beauty boards I have been following on Pinterest.

If Modern-Day Harry Potter Had Instagram

I saw Buzzfeed post about this today and basically died.

Can I just say how much I love that ron is roonilwazlib?

Dear Random Person In Line Behind Me At H-E-B...

Dear Random Person In Line Behind Me At H-E-B (or whatever),
I know.  When you hear I'm homeschooled, it's pretty intriguing. It's out of the ordinary and I know you've got to be pretty interested in what I do and how that all works.  But you know what? There's kind of a standard set of questions that are asked of high school homeschoolers, and over the years, and I've gotten a little tired of answering them.  So here - I'm going to put those answers out there right now.  Just for you.

Do you go to a one day academy or something?
Yes, I take a few classes, and I go to a book group and AP study group.

So...your mom teaches you?
Not really. She still teaches my brothers, but since I'm older she mostly just assigns me what I need to do before the year starts and I work through it on my own. 

Do you like it?
Yeah, I like it a lot. 

How do you make any friends?
*internal groan* There are lots of homeschoolers in Austin and we do meet ups and clubs and co-ops and things like that.  (But here, you're really thinking: you sit silently in a classroom next to people eight hours a day, and I do homework for five hours and hang out with friends for the rest of the day, and you're assuming that I'm the one that doesn't have a social life?)

So...do you take tests? 
*Tugging on your mom's arm in an attempt to leave* Yeah, I sometimes take standardized tests just to assure myself that I'm at grade level and I know how to take tests. Usually someone just has a bunch of us just come and take it at once as practice.  

How's college going to work out?
*Puppy-dog eyes* *silently begging your mom to answer the question for you* *giving in to the fact that she's pretending not to be there*  It'll work the same way that anyone else's application for college will work. I'll keep taking classes and making a transcript and I'll take the SAT test. I think all colleges accept homeschooler - in fact, some look for them.

What's wrong with public schools?  -OR- Do you learn more at a public school or as a homeschooler?
*prayers for sudden death so I don't have to answer* I personally just homeschool so that I can work at my own pace, going faster through some subjects and being a grade level in other things.

Hope that helps!

Thanks,



P.S. The answers are true to most people I know, but they will really differ person to person. A big part of homeschooling is having the freedom to decide what classes you will take, how many, and where you will take them.  

Learning English by writing short stories inspired by pictures

A few days ago, I saw a post on Buzzfeed about a Japanese girl, nicknamed "A",  who is learning to speak English by writing short stories based off of pictures from her Skype teacher, "Pony".  I looked through the Tumblr account that they have together and picked out the ones that were just too adorable not to share.

Have’t you done it yet? I’m tired of being the Hello Kitty. I realy want you to finish it because it’s a dark chapter of my life. However, if you draw me I look bad, I won’t forget you.

I’m a very shy model and I can’t look straight at cameras. I had a talk about it to my boss and she brought this wig. It was a good idea because people didn’t recognize when I looked down as I was walking in the runway.

She was eating cotton candy, and the cloud got close to her. The cloud said, “If you give me cotton candy, I will fall candy instead of rain.” She gave it to the cloud, but she didn’t believe him. However, now a lot of candy is falling from the sky, he kept his promise to her.

This is the newest Olympic game which is called Olympic husband hammer. The rule is very simple, you just throw your hasband as far as possible with screaming. You can get rid of stress, and get a fame and a shame.

Hey, I’m floating and this condition is out of my control. I can see a flying object in front of me. Is that a UFO by any chance? Will I be a victim? There isn’t any good thing if you will kidnap me.

My dog is like the reincarnation of Beethoven because he plays the piano all alone. I haven’t taught how to play the piano before, but he knows it for some reason. What’s more, his music is partly similar to Beethoven’s music. He’s the apple of my eye, but he’s a genuine genius.

I said, “Your dog looks so smart and cute as always. I want to have like your dog.” Of course, it was a flattery. I didn’t think so at heart what I thought was that my pet of a snake is the smartest and cutest!

Trashes are washed up on the beach. We collect then and made this boat which is used for collecting trashes. We have been planning to move to another city when it will be clean by the boat.

International Day of the Girl: Spotlight on Malala Yousafzai

Today is International Day of the Girl and the theme is innovating girls' education, so it seems only fitting to spotlight the brilliant Malala Yousafzai and all that she has done.

Malala Yousafzai is a 16-year-old Pakistani girl who survived a gunshot to the head after being targeted by the Taliban for supporting girls' education. She has been giving TV interviews on the issue since she was 11, and the assassination attempt has drawn worldwide attention to the struggle for women's rights in Pakistan.  Even now, Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid told the Associate Press in an interview that "we will feel proud upon her death.".  But Malala has kept fighting. The assassination attempt has led to the creation of the Malala Fund, a campaign for girl's education worldwide.  President of the EU legislature, Matin Schulz, said "Malala  bravely stands for the right of all children to be granted a fair education. This right for girls is too commonly neglected."  She currently lives in Birmingham, England and was a contender for this year's  Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest person ever to have been considered. She won Europe's top human rights award, the $65,000 Sakharov Award, is expected to meet with Queen Elizabeth II later this month, and was in New York on Thursday, discussing her experiences and promoting her memoir "I am Malala" in television media interviews.  

Amazing interview with her on the Daily Show:

So, James Franco is an artist, too.

I guess it was the only thing left he hadn't done yet, since he already has a pilot's license, a degree in creative writing from UCLA, went to Columbia University's writing program, NYU's art school for filmmaking, Brooklyn College for fiction writing, Yale's Ph.D program in English, and Rhode Island School of Design's digital-media master's program, wrote and published a collection of short stories, directed two short films, and....

Saturday at ACL

Day two of ACL did not disappoint!

Dan Croll

We kicked off the day with this guy's concert. Though we'd never heard of him before, he put on a really good show with some relaxed indie rock music.  He was very humble, charismatic, and adorably British, even saying that this was the biggest crowd he'd ever played for. I'll definitely be looking into his music.

Haim

Despite the horrifically unforgiving heat, these girls totally blew us away. We'd heard a little bit of their music before and thought it would be fun to just pop in and see how they were. Little did we know what a good show that we were in for. From their stage presence, to their great playing, to their unique music, to their style and "take it or leave it" personalities that shone through, we would definitely go see them again and have already listened to their brand new album, Days are Gone, twice.

Portugal: The Man

Ok, we only half watched this one - we were eating lunch and nearly dozing off towards the back at the same time. But from what we could tell, they were pretty good.  Their songs all sounded exactly the same, but it was nice to relax to and have as background music.

Kings of Leon

Amazing. Like Muse, you have to go see them yourself to really understand. But they were fantastic players and performers. Their music was really fun to dance to and there were a lot of hardcore fans shouting along to every song.  All in all, it was a great way to end our weekend.

ACL's recap:

~Simone, Maya, and Adair

Friday at ACL

Yesterday we went to the first day of ACL, and here are the bands we saw:

Courtyard Hounds 

This was a fun transition into the day. They were pretty laid back and relaxed and overall seemed to be having a good time. Their songs did start to sound the same after a while, but at this point in the day, we were just so excited to be there that it didn't matter all that much to us.

Fun.

As you may know from our post a few weeks ago about how much we wanted to see Fun., we are pretty big fans.  So when they came out on the stage, there may have been a few tears shed. After we recovered from that, they were one of the best live bands we have ever seen. At the beginning of the concert they announced that they have always wanted to come play at ACL, and both the band and the audience never stopped grinning the whole time.  Singer Nate Ruess (in his very blue eyed, tank top wearing glory) really commanded the stage and everyone was dancing and singing along. My favorite part about them really was how much fun they seemed to be having. The great chemistry between the bandmates is really what makes them stand out, from the way they were messing with each other, trying to shove and distract each other to the general attitude they seemed to have as a whole.

Vampire Weekend 

The happy hoppy hippies and hardcore fans really characterized this show.Overall their songs sounded very similar, but even so they had a great stage presence and were very charismatic. 

Arctic Monkeys 

Even without ever listening to their music before, this show was still really enjoyable. They also had a really great stage presence and brought the audience on their feet (plus...they are super British). Love their Black Keys-ish sound. We will definitely be checking these guys out.

Muse 

Where do we even begin. From the virtuosic solos, to the crazy stage pyrotechnics, to the performance in its entirety, everything about Muse screams legendary. Despite two incidents involving a blown out generator, this was probably the best show we have ever been to.  Go see them yourself to really understand!

ACL's recap of Friday:


-Simone and Maya

ACL 2013!

Hey guys! I just wanted to post a short little excuse about why I don't have a real post for today.  Well, you see, it's because I'm going to have something much better!  Friday and Saturday this week, I'm going to be posting about the

AUSTIN CITY LIMITS MUSIC FESTIVAL!

That's right, everyone - at the very last second (yesterday afternoon, to be precise) Maya and I finally got tickets!  This weekend we're off to see some of our favorite bands at this festival.  At the end of each day we will try to post a short little blurb about each band we saw and the cool things going on at the festival!

Can't wait!

Austin Teen Book Festival 2013

Just a few decades ago, the young adult genre of literature didn't exist; basically, you could read The Bobbsey Twins or Stephen King, there was no middle ground. After S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders was published, with the teenage demographic specifically in mind, the publishing industry began to shift; now Young Adult is not only a genre, but entire sections of the bookstore are designated just for Teen Paranormal Romance Novels. Also, many literary events are being created for teens, like the Young Adult Book Fest and the Austin Teen Book Festival. I've been to dozens of events for young adult books, with amazing authors like David Levithan, John Flanagan, Rick Riordan, and Christopher Paolini.

This is the second year of the Austin Teen Book Festival, and though I only recognized a few of the authors on the roster, I was excited to hear what they had to say.

I went to the lunch speaking event, with Rob Thomas (creator of Veronica Mars!) and Sarah Dessen, and to two panels: Tales of Tomorrow and Truth and Consequences.

 

Although this panel was interesting, I hadn't read any of the books so it was slightly less thrilling than it could have been. Still, the authors were very inspiring and I'm definitely excited to check out some of these books. It's fascinating to see how books located in settings very different from our own can still have problems that are eerily similar to ours, and how they provide an excellent way to showcase some of the flaws in our own society.
 

I generally prefer realistic fiction to dystopian novels (though The Hunger Games is an exception, of course), so I was excited for this panel. I read Openly Straight and Dear Teen Me a few months ago and loved them both.

One of the highlights of the panel was when Sean Beaudoin (author of Wise Young Fool) played a clip of a song from his high school band, titled "Demonic Lust of the Immortal," which was just as fabulous as you might imagine.

Living with Jackie Chan, by Jo Knowles, has been banned, and most of the other books also tackle controversial subjects. The authors talked about how they didn't necessarily set out to write an "issues book," it just kind of happened - they wrote about what was important to them, which happened to be a sensitive topic. Young adult fiction often focuses on dark, gritty topics, which results in many of the books being banned. Though Banned Books Week just ended, it's never too late to read some good old controversial literature.

After seeing this panel, I bought Out of the Pocket (by Bill Konigsberg) and Rats Saw God (by Rob Thomas), and I plan to read the rest of the books discussed too. I'll definitely be going back to the Book Festival next year, and I suggest you do too!

~Maya

p.s. You can see Markus Zusak (author of The Book Thief, which I reviewed) reading from The Outsiders for Banned Book Week here.