Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We'll need writers who can remember freedom - poets, visionaries - realists of a larger reality.
Ursula K. Le Guin in her acceptance speech for the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014
A growing number of states, cities, and districts are now requiring schools to teach phonics. In other words, to teach kids how to read. That's welcome news for a country that's suffered from dismal reading outcomes for decades and now also contends with persistent COVID-19-wrought learning losses.
What happens when a well-known children's book author switches genres after decades of writing fantasy and historical fiction for middle grade and young adult readers? Kathryn Lasky the award-winning children's book author is doing just that. As the author of Guardian of Ga'Hoole the New York Times bestselling series that was turned into a Warner Brothers film The Legend of The Guardians directed by Zack Snyder, she is now writing an adult mystery Light on Bone (Woodhall Press). The story is set in New Mexico and features Georgia O'Keeffe as an amateur sleuth.
Alex Aster grips a tall Starbucks hot chocolate in her right hand as she guides me through the second floor of the world's largest Barnes & Noble bookstore.
"I come here several times a week," she says, pointing to a corner of the Young Adult section that often acts as a background for her many viral TikToks. "I usually stack two or three books to create a sort of stand."
She demonstrates her typical filming strategy, which is a test of both physics and balance, and points out the spot where her anticipated YA novel, "Lightlark," will sit on the shelves; it's just above best-selling authors Victoria Aveyard and Leigh Bardugo.
Why do some murder mysteries sell more copies than others? There are countless possible explanations. I'd like to focus on one: the impossibility of the murder. Perhaps the most recognizable example of an impossible murder is the locked-room mystery. But there are infinite possibilities. At the heart is a murder that, based on what the reader knows coming into the novel and at least in the early pages, seems utterly impossible based on the known laws of science and first impressions of the characters. So why do impossible murders sell? I have a few theories.
