Report from Hollins: Kids' SF?
I am deeply in love with my Hollins MFA students - a 2nd year Seminar of 6 wonderful women! Watching them learn & write together is miraculous - like watching leaves unfurl from seeds in those time-lapse photography films . . . And about as quickly, since an entire semester is crammed into 6 weeks! This week (#4) was notable for being the first time I felt I could tease any of them, secure in the sense that everyone felt safe & supported together, and all laugh without risk! Wonderful, for me - and, I hope, for them.
Today I had 3 back-to-back one-on-one conferences, during which we did everything from discuss whether starting a new novel is harder than revising a broken one, to playing "The People Game" (asking direct questions to a character until we both felt we knew her well).
Yeah, I'm missing REadercon - but I'm basically getting the same high: Talking About Writing all day! (This will continue this weekend, when we go up into the mountains visit Tiffany Trent - with the added bonus of getting to see her chickens! You don't get that at Readercon, baby!)
So here's my question for YOU:
One of my students is writing a middle-grade SF novel about Earth kids who visit another planet (kind of a work-study program, only Top Secret). I love her work, but was surprised that the SF elements feel very retro - kind of 1950s-style - since she's so young. I finally found out from her today that while she LOVES SF film & TV, she has read virtually no actual SF novels. We're going to fix that.
I realized that, in order not to reinvent the wheel - and to catch up to current publishing standards - she needs a crash course in YA/MG "interplanetary" SF!
Which I am sadly deficient in.
On the spot, I remembered (and recommended) John Christopher's TRIPODS trilogy (OK, it's not Interplanetary, but I remember its being very powerful), and some William Sleator. I'd already recommended Panshin's RITE OF PASSAGE, which is thematically along the lines of what she's doing (she's interested in Colonialism - and also in Morality: What makes a good human being?) . . . . And then . . . I kinda fell off the map.
Can you help?
I'm looking for work that starts with contemporary(-ish) Earth kids, who then encounter either Space Travel or Aliens - either classics or recent much appreciated. Suggestions?
**Andre Norton's great, but did she ever start with that premise? And here's where I blush to said I never read a Heinlein juvenile - which is the right one, if any? Is anyone still writing this sort of thing....?
Today I had 3 back-to-back one-on-one conferences, during which we did everything from discuss whether starting a new novel is harder than revising a broken one, to playing "The People Game" (asking direct questions to a character until we both felt we knew her well).
Yeah, I'm missing REadercon - but I'm basically getting the same high: Talking About Writing all day! (This will continue this weekend, when we go up into the mountains visit Tiffany Trent - with the added bonus of getting to see her chickens! You don't get that at Readercon, baby!)
So here's my question for YOU:
One of my students is writing a middle-grade SF novel about Earth kids who visit another planet (kind of a work-study program, only Top Secret). I love her work, but was surprised that the SF elements feel very retro - kind of 1950s-style - since she's so young. I finally found out from her today that while she LOVES SF film & TV, she has read virtually no actual SF novels. We're going to fix that.
I realized that, in order not to reinvent the wheel - and to catch up to current publishing standards - she needs a crash course in YA/MG "interplanetary" SF!
Which I am sadly deficient in.
On the spot, I remembered (and recommended) John Christopher's TRIPODS trilogy (OK, it's not Interplanetary, but I remember its being very powerful), and some William Sleator. I'd already recommended Panshin's RITE OF PASSAGE, which is thematically along the lines of what she's doing (she's interested in Colonialism - and also in Morality: What makes a good human being?) . . . . And then . . . I kinda fell off the map.
Can you help?
I'm looking for work that starts with contemporary(-ish) Earth kids, who then encounter either Space Travel or Aliens - either classics or recent much appreciated. Suggestions?
**Andre Norton's great, but did she ever start with that premise? And here's where I blush to said I never read a Heinlein juvenile - which is the right one, if any? Is anyone still writing this sort of thing....?