Justine Larbalestier – Carol Cooper

Living large in Y.A.

Teen-fiction authors Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier are living the dream. Major industry talents from Holly Black (author of Valiant) to David Levithan (Boy Meets Boy) routinely drink and schmooze in their spacious East Village digs. They cultivate fans and colleagues on their heavily trafficked blogs, enjoy upscale working vacations in Mexico, and migrate yearly between New York and Sydney. They rack up frequent-flier miles visiting libraries and book conventions to promote their latest literary efforts. And, most importantly, they finance this haute-bohemian lifestyle by writing speculative and fantastic adventures for smart adolescents. Continue reading “Meet the East Village “It” Couple of Young-Adult Lit”

The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction
By Justine Larbalestier
Wesleyan, 295 pp., $19.95 paperBetter to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril
By Judith Merril and Emily Pohl-Weary
Between the Lines, 282 pp., $29.95 paper

As inspirational as reading science fiction can be, the genre’s primary texts won’t tell you all you need to know about the “literature of possibility.” That’s because no other genre generates as much creative input or feedback from its fandom. Yeoman editor David Hartwell of TOR books, an SF tastemaker since the late ’60s, likes to recall that a few decades ago America’s SF production was so small that every fan could read every book and story published within a year, and potentially respond to every idea introduced into the field’s mind stream. Continue reading “Spaceballs”