Friday, June 5, 2015
Sometimes when I'm on Twitter, I think, "People sure do love books!"
And then I remember that 2/3 of my follow list works in publishing.
— Rainbow Rowell (@rainbowrowell) June 4, 2015
Those of us who are part of the YA blogosphere tend to live in a bubble. Our Twitter streams, Facebook feeds, and blog readers are filled with books books books! Most of the time, that's a wonderful thing. We have made so many friends through YA literature, and it is nourishing to be part of a community that shares interests and places value on the same things that we do.
But it can also be insular at times. An echo chamber of opinions, ideas, and concerns. Every week, it seems, there is some new incident that takes over the discussion. We'll see one message that we don't quite understand, click to follow the trail, and suddenly there are all these angry voices riling us up. Or we'll hear about a new book coming out, how amazing it is and how desperately everyone wants to read it. Even if it doesn't sound like our kind of story, we might find ourselves itching to get our hands on it too.
Being part of a group is great, but sometimes it can overshadow being an individual. The key is to find a healthy balance between the two.
We find that it's good to step away from the blogosphere from time to time. To step outside it, and see what non-like-minded folks are thinking about, talking about, worrying about, and getting excited about. Doing so allows us to see the bigger picture. We can better understand the role and scope of YA literature by putting it into a larger context. This perspective also helps to keep us from getting too worked up (in either a good way or a bad way), and to separate our own thoughts and feelings from the exciting energy of everyone else's.
The YA blogosphere is an awesome place. We wouldn't want to live anywhere else. But we also appreciate that most of our family and friends have no idea who John Green is, have never read fanfic, and have no desire to win a Printz. Even family and friends who love books as much as we do.
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about us
Stephanie, Ingrid, Sarah & Kristan — we read, write, discuss and celebrate Young Adult lit.
on the shelf
ya diversity book club
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2 comments:
I definitely agree. I think it has become even clearer for me since I have two Twitter accounts -- the blog one, and a personal one. My personal twitter account is a really eclectic mix of people I know from real life, sports stuff, politics stuff, fun stuff, and random celebrities I enjoy following. It's weird sometimes to check the blog Twitter and see the entire community talking about something, and then check my personal twitter and see so many different things happening. I think that's what keeps me away from a lot of the blogosphere drama. I am a blogger and do consider myself a part of the book world, but I don't engage it in primarily as much as maybe I should, and so a lot of the spats are kinda like *shrugs shoulders and moves on*. Even so, I love the excitement of the YA world and I love the overwhelming positivity.
-P.E.
Great post! I think it's always good to have people in your life with different interests. Even those that like to read don't always know everything I do about reading/publishing/etc. and that's great. I like to stay aware of the world outside of books, and even following non-book blogs is a nice way to do that. :)
By the way, I found your blog through tweets about Dangerous Ladies in Cincy. I was there too!! Great event - I should have a mini recap up soon-ish. ha
-Lauren
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