Present Writers: Jane Yolen

[mrissa]

It's still August for a few hours, so I can fit in my August Present Writers post. Whew! For the first one and an explanation of the series, see Marta Randall, with posts on Dorothy Heydt and Barbara Hambly following.

Jane Yolen is so incredibly prolific that this year she has passed the milestone where she can celebrate one book she's written for every day of the year. While she was preparing for that celebration, more of her books came out, leaving the 365 mark in the dust. She has written science fiction, fantasy, mimetic fiction, nonfiction, poetry; she has written for adults and tiny children and every age in between. She has won the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award and SFWA's Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. Jane is a pretty big deal, honestly. Once upon a time a reviewer called her "the Hans Christian Andersen of America," and every time I read that quote, I hear her son Adam Stemple's voice in my head amending cheerfully, "More like the Hans Jewish Andersen!" Jane's work on Jewish themes is staggeringly great, even for a Gentile like me, but she also has written on British themes, Greek themes, future themes. She's collaborated with her kids. She's collaborated with someone else's kids. She's done work of staggering originality, collected other people's folklore, returned to her own successes to help children through the processes of growing up into reasonably functional people with delight and whimsy.

Are you getting the picture yet? Jane can do it all.

Recently I was on a trans-Atlantic flight and finished the paper book I was reading. I was exhausted, coming west, where the advice is "stay up late" rather than "sleep on the plane." I poked my Kindle for something that would keep me awake and engaged, and I turned up Jane's Tales of Wonder. Half the stories in it were things I'd read before, the other half new to me, but every word kept me captivated. It spoke to death and family and loyalty and a dozen other things.

I've had the privilege of being on panels with Jane (including one with Adam too, and my best advice there is to sit back and let the mother-son comedy hour happen; enjoy it). She's as insightful as her novels, as intrepid as Commander Toad, as thoughtfully lovely as Owl Moon. She is a treasure and a joy, and we are so lucky to have Jane for one of our present writers.

Comments

[violsva]

I have read a few of her books, and I'm so glad you posted this now, when I have been reading a lot and thinking vaguely of authors I've always been meaning to read more of, and can go, "Oh, of course! Jane Yolen."

[mrissa]

That's just what I want this series to do! Yay!

[rushthatspeaks]

Have you seen that fascinating recent New Yorker article on how she invented the genre of Holocaust novel that explains the Holocaust to children? I hadn't known The Devil's Arithmetic was the first of its kind, but it was. A great deal of good and a great deal of harm has come out of that genre, but overall much more good than harm-- certainly I know I'd be very different if I'd never read any of the kids' books set during various historical atrocities that I read.

[jesse_the_k]

Hmm, hadn't thought about how most folks learned this tragic history.

(I remember asking my folks to explain the pictures of large concrete "shower rooms" in LIFE magazine. Early 1960s)

/runs to read article

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/23/how-should-childrens-books-deal-with-the-holocaust

[mrissa]

I hadn't yet, but how fascinating.

[nocowardsoul]

The first novel of hers that I read was The Gift of Sarah Barker, which is set in a Shaker community around 1850. It's excellent.

[pameladean]

It was so lovely to read this great appreciation of Jane. (I've liked all the posts in this series very much, mind you, but Jane is special to me.) She's also very generous with advice and help to less-established authors. This includes me, as recently as last Minicon.

P.

[mrissa]

I have been trying to be careful not to let the series skew entirely toward people I've had good personal experience with, but I also don't want it to skew away from those people. So...a balance, ideally.

[pameladean]

Yes, of course. That kind of thing is so often tricky.

P.

[larryhammer]

Janni very much considers Jane a mentor.