Jane Yolen is an award winning author who has written more than three hundred books. Open Road Media are currently re-releasing several of her books as e-books. Including The Bagpiper’s Ghost, Boots and the Seven Leaguers, The Pictish Child, Among Angels, Tales of Wonder, Wizard’s Hall, Prince Across the Water and The Rogues. We’ve had the pleasure of talking to Jane Yolen.
During the last few years you have had several older books released as e-books, how has the response been and do you have any particular personal favourites among them?
Publishing is full of small deaths, especially if one is a prolific (I hate that word!) writer, so it’s always wonderful to have a second coming of a book I sweated over and loved. I think the one I am particularly delighted with is CARDS OF GRIEF because it was my first adult book, and was begun right after my father’s death. He’d lived with us the last four years of his life.
How comfortable are you generally with seeing the re-appearance of older work?
I don’t let everything be reprinted because some books simply haven’t worn well. I began book publication at 22, and was still learning my craft, not to mention the slower learning curve of my art! So not everything is worth bringing back. I think long and hard when an offer comes in. Some revenants should not be encouraged to walk or they will come back and haunt me.
How are you finding the e-book revolution? Personally, are you happy with an e-reader these days, or do you still prefer ‘tree-books’?
Honest answer? I don’t own an e-reader. I love the feel, heft, smell of a book. And honestly, I love autographing books. Can’t say that works well on an e-reader!!!
You have been a victim of censorship, particularly with Briar Rose. You have stated that Briar Rose was intended as an adult book, but it has been brought into the classroom by others. How did the censorship make you feel? How do you feel about a book that you intended for one audience making its way to another?
BRIAR ROSE, a Holocaust, has not only be censored (gay content), it was burned on the steps of the KC Board of Education. And I hope that the irony of a right-wing group burning a Holocaust book is not lost on my readers! Some censorship makes me laugh at the idiocy of the burners. But some is truly scary. Think about what Salman Rushdie has gone–and is still going through. Thinks of the two (I think) translators who were killed because of that book.
As for a book making its way into two (or more) audiences, I say hurrah. Harry Potteris still read by people 5-95. Briar Rose is taught in high school and college classes but was originally published for adults. Robin McKinley’s Beauty was written for adults but published for teens and has found both audiences. My Owl Moon picture book, is adored by children and grownups. What’s not to love about that!
With the rise of digital publishing and the internet, how do you think this has affected censorship?
I haven’t given that much thought but I expect it’s something digital publishers think about a lot.
You write both for children and adults, which do you find most challenging?
Writing for children because children will let you get away with nothing, but adults will often let a lot of stuff slide–if they are enjoying a book. Children will reread a favorite book ten times in a row, or more. Wowser! The book better live up to such repeated readings! Also because writing books for children is life giving and (sometimes) life saving, whereas writing for adults is mostly seen as entertainment.
Religion plays a large role in a lot of your work. What is it about religion that draws you, as an author? And, how do you go about translating these ideas for children?
Well, not any actual functioning real live human religion. (Though for me ritual is endlessly fascinating.) But I find the sacred in nature and science. So that’s what you see in my books. I am Jewish but raised without much ritual and no religiosity. Minored in religion in college because it was a passion of mine, without making me choose any particular religion. I became a Quaker for 15 years, partly because it was the Vietnam War years, and I was anti-war, partly because I had three small children and I loved that hour of silence once a week, and partly because I am an old-fashioned do-gooder that some political parties these days despise!
Why children’s and young adult literature? What drew you down that path? And, what do you think are important themes in literature aimed at a younger audience?
I began my writing career as a journalist and a poet, journalism for my pocketbook, poetry for my soul. But I quickly transitioned into book publishing as an assistant editor (Gold Medal Books, then Ridge Press/Rutledge Books–packager–then assistant editor for Knopf Children’s Books. Sold my first two books, both for children–one nonfiction (see, journalism) and one a rhymed picture book (see poetry!) both came out the same year, 1963. I never looked back. Didn’t write an adult book till about fifteen years later–though wrote adult short stories and poetry, essays, reviews–all during that time.
As for themes, they change every few years. Right now nature and science are riding high, books to teach all sorts of things (didactic while trying not to be) are also big. But there’s always a ground swell for a while for anything that smells nice and new, and then we head right back to good old-fashioned storytelling.
In his paper, Transmitted Holocaust Trauma: A Matter of Myth and Fairy Tales? Published in European Judaism, Philippe Codde discusses secondary traumatization, or transgenerational trauma relayed in fairy tales by children and grand-children of holocaust survivors. This trauma can be passed down through stories of the survivors and/or through their children dealing with their parents’ post traumatic symptoms. Has this affected your writing, and subject choices?
I write fiction when a character taps me on the shoulder and says “Tell my story.” I don’t think about such things as the Codde thesis with my forebrain. But I read a lot and that sort of thing hangs around in the lizard brain/subconscious. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. The shadow knows!!!
You also write shorter fiction. How different do you find writing short stories and shorter fiction rather than novels? Do you have a preference?
I am basically a short form writer–poetry, short stories, picture books, verse novels. (Which is not to say I haven’t done more than my share of novels for middle grades, young adults, and adults–more than 60 so far!) but my preference is for the short form. I love the brevity, compression, meditative sense of a short piece. Novels end up hurting my fingers and my brain!
Your work has been analysed, cited, quoted and referenced in many published academic papers. How does this make you feel?
Sometimes overfull of myself. Sometimes exhausted by the attention. Sometimes astonished at which of my stories or poems or books people feel necessary to cite. When my husband was alive, he made sure my feet were firmly on the floor. Now that he’s gone, I have to rely on my children and friends to remind me to laugh. The one that really gets me, though, as a folklorist manque is when I am described as alegend. No folks, I neither breathe fire nor go about in an invisible cloak or leap tall buildings in a single bound, unless you mean that metaphorically! Metaphors be with you! as the Poetry Alive folks like to say.
What kind of books do you read, any favourite authors?
I love historical novels, fantasy novels, mysteries, biographies, and poetry. I read pretty broadly.
Why science fiction and fantasy? What drew you to the genre?
It was the next logical step after fairy tales and Arthuriana, my two biggest reading influences as a child.
What’s next? What other projects are you working on at the moment?
A number of picture books with titles like The Dancing Trolls, A Celebration of Bees(poetry), Paw/Whisker/Claw (poetry) Emily Writes (picture book about the childhood of Emily Dickinson) none of which have sold yet. Recent picture books sales to come out in the next few years include three new How Do Dinosaurs. . . books, On Bird Hill, Prayer for the Birds, Monster Academy, Kite for Moon, The Alligator’s Smile. Finishing up a trilogy of noir mystery graphic novels with son Adam Stemple set in Edinburgh in the 1930s called The Stone Man Mysteries, and am at the same time writing a YA Holocaust novel based on Hansel and Gretel called House of Candy. But I also have about a dozen other mss. making the rounds. And about 25 books under contract, all but four of them written. I write a poem a day for 360+ subscribers. I teach writing workshops, give lectures at major conferences, write short stories when I get a chance. That sort of life!!!
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Interview by Victoria Rogers and Dag Rambraut – SFFWorld.com © 2015
Thank you Jane, for such an interesting article. I have long been a fan of yours hence I am curious about how you became interested in writing, what you enjoy writing etc and, your passions etc. I have read many of your books but I still I have Briar Rose and Merlin’s Booke in my library. They have been sitting in my book shelves for years.
‘Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
The answere is, of course, both.
And so it is.
Thank you once again for an enjoyable article, I wish for you the muse to be forever at your size.
Well, my “size” is considerably smaller these days but I know you meant “side” Carole, and thank you for your good wishes! Jane