Author Archives: Megan Sexton

Diverse Books and Censorship: Please Offer Your Commentary

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This excerpt from an article on David Levithan and his work captures a key struggle occurring in regard to the censorship of books for young adults featuring LGBT characters, themes, and situations:

‘Levithan talks about similar negative reactions to Boy Meets Boy in the tenth anniversary edition, saying, “we have to be vigilant about preemptive challenges. That is to say – we know to fight for the freedom to read when a book is pulled from the shelf, but we also have to fight for the freedom to read when someone refuses to put the book on the shelf in the first place.” Levithan sees the acceptance he writes becoming reality. “Why? Because, at the most basic level, what LGBT people are being asked (absurdly) is to prove that we are as much human beings as anyone else. We know this is true. And slowly but surely, other people are realizing it’s true. By getting to know us. By talking to us. By hearing or reading our stories.”‘

Read the full story here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/17/1307392/-LGBT-Literature-David-Levithan

For your quiz assignment, please offer your comments on this issue by Monday, Nov. 16 at 12:00pm (so we can discuss further in class then).

Lois Lowry On Dystopian Fiction

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A reporter from Variety magazine talked with Lois Lowry about the influence of “The Giver” (in a brief interview last year):

I could be wrong, but it seems like this genre of dystopian young adult fiction didn’t really exist 20 years ago.

LOWRY: No. People in the know say “The Giver” was the first young adult dystopian novel. I majored in English in college so I read the classic dystopian novels like “1984” and “Brave New World.” But apparently it hadn’t been done for kids before “The Giver.” So I’m not sure what happened between “The Giver” and maybe 15 years later when these others suddenly burst forth. Nobody copied “The Giver.” Those ideas are out there and emerge. But I’m glad it happened. Although there’s too many of them now. But I think that trend is ending. We’ll go on to the next trend and we all wish we knew what that was so we could go out and write it. Dystopian fiction is passé now.

For your commentary: Alas. . .trends eventually fade, but classics remain— The Giver has proven to be a classic.  What are some of your favorite Distopian novels for YA and/or adult readers?

ANDRE DUBUS III reads from his work on Thursday, Oct. 15 at 2:30pm

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 Five Points and the Georgia State University Creative Writing Program Present a Reading by Andre Dubus III.

Andre Dubus III is the author of six books: The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, Bluesman, and the New York Times bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, a finalist for the National Book Award, a #1 New York Times Bestseller (and also an Academy Award-nominated film), The Garden of Last Days (a soon-be-released major motion picture), Townie, and his new book, Dirty Love.

When: October 15th (Thursday) at 2:30pm.

Where: Troy Moore Library, 25 Park Place, 23rd Floor.

This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Image Credit: Kevin Harkins

Poet Barbara Ras Reads on Oct. 6 (Tues.) at 2:30pm

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Barbara RasWe are pleased to announce that we will be hosting Barbara Ras at GSU on Monday, October 6th. She will read from her poetry and be available afterward to sign books. The reading will take place at 2:30pm in the Troy Moore Library, located on the 23rd floor of the Sun Trust Building, 25 Park Place.

Barbara Ras is the author of three poetry collections: Bite Every Sorrow, which won the Walt Whitman Award and was also awarded the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; One Hidden Stuff; and The Last Skin, winner of the Award for Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. Ras has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Tin House, Granta, Five Points, American Scholar, Massachusetts Review, and Orion, as well as in many other magazines and anthologies. She is the editor of a collection of short fiction in translation, Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion. Ras lives in San Antonio, where she directs Trinity University Press.