Librarilly Blonde

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What's a librarian to do with no job, no job prospects, and years of experience in librarianship?

Change professions.

This summer, I'm very excited (and very scared) to be taking the Columbia Publishing Course, formerly the Radcliffe Publishing Course, which includes one of my heroes, Arthur A. Levine, among its alumni. Since I've had some questions as to what the CPC is, I'll explain as best I can.

The CPC is publishing industry boot camp. They cram a year's worth of information on book, magazine, and new media publishing into six weeks. It's not the only publishing graduate course in the country; similar programs are offered at NYU and the University of Denver (see more on those here). They accept 100 people per year, most of whom are recent college graduates. Lecturers include current industry professionals; the opening day lecturer is David Young, Chairman of Hachette Book Group. There are also two hands-on workshops for book and magazine publishing. Part of me is absolutely dying to do the magazine workshop at Lucky but alas, I am only stylish when it comes to beauty products and jewelry. (Also I'm short and curvy, two more strikes against working at a fashion magazine.) Anyway, this is more than just "how to edit," it's "how to edit, agent, market, promote, distribute, and generally survive." In preparation for this course I've been reading a lot of industry blogs and completing the advance assignments, which cover marketing and acquisitions.

All of this means I'll be on hiatus, save for possibly blogging about the CPC, for the rest of June and all of July. If I'm lucky enough to have spare time to read, I'll be reading books for Kirkus and re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And also The Ask and the Answer, which I was beyond thrilled to receive last week.

Will I come back to libraries? I don't know. I'm certainly not opposed to it, but right now I'm going to pursue this publishing thing and see how it turns out. Right now I'm most interested in agenting, but perhaps Columbia will show me that I have a talent for an aspect of publishing I never even considered. Stay tuned for future revelations.

I'm going, even if it's just to lurk: Teen librarians, YALSA, and the economy chat on June 9 (Tuesday) at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

This interests me from a grownup more than a teen perspective. With all this talk about serving teens in a bad economy and what YALSA can do for you, I am most interested to learn if there's anyone else out there who has actually lost a full-time, professional, YA librarian position. All the grants and conference support are no good if we don't have jobs to professionally develop. I know that personally, I'm facing a career change because of my job loss. I wonder if anyone else, especially anyone who's been in this profession more than five years, is having some of the same thoughts.

Today's publishing lesson: If it isn't yours and it's still under copyright, don't sell it.

Seems obvious to you and me, but the latest debacle in the industry goes something like this: An author calling himself J.D. California wants to publish a book called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, about Holden Caulfield as a man in his mid-70s. J.D. Salinger is suing.

-CNN: Lawsuit targets "rip-off" of "Catcher in the Rye"
-BBC news: Salinger sues over Rye "sequel"
-New York Times: Planned ‘Rye’ Sequel Draws Salinger Suit
-Huffington Post: Right Or Wrong: J.D. Salinger Wants Holden To Stay "Forever Young" (Warning: If you've ever written fanfiction of any kind at any point in your life, this one will make you roll your eyes.)

Parody is protected by fair use laws, but this looks like a continuation (or where I come from, fanfiction), rather than a parody. Sigh. Some people never learn.

Back from Book Expo, over the cold, and counting down the panicked days until my job ends and the Columbia Publishing Course begins. And did I mention I have HOMEWORK? I haven't had homework since library school! More on the Columbia course later. On to today's question/rant/musings.

Sometimes I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer was both the best and worst thing that ever happened to YA literature. Yes, I know it was a TV show and not a book, save for the Season 8 comics that Dark Horse is printing.

Please don't think that I think Buffy was a bad show, or that it wasn't influential in teen pop culture. I quite enjoyed the seasons I watched (1-4) and do have plans to finish watching to the end of the series via DVD. Eventually. Teens with superpowers were a very hot trend during the run of Buffy. I love Joss Whedon's wit and wisdom and do quote it from time to time. Buffy holds a place in the Great Teen TV Shows Hall of Fame, no doubt, but all of us who work with teens know that their perception of popularity, of hot shows, of important shows, changes every week. Every day, even.

Here's the sad fact we have to face, and if you're a Buffy fan who's my age, meaning you were an older teen or younger adult during the show's run and a fan of the series, one we must accept:

Buffy has been off the air for six years. It ran from 1997-2003. Today's fifteen-year-olds were born in 1994. That means, as far as they're concerned, the show barely existed. Sure, there are teens that are fans of the show, but either I'm oversensitive or they're showing up a lot more in teen literature than they do in real life. (Anyone studied this? I am totally using unscientific anecdata here.) Buffy is no longer the be-all end-all of teen shows, but sometimes I think that the teen literature world is slow to catch on to this fact. I know books are often a year behind pop culture, but this is much more than a year. I'm sure there's at least one book coming down the pipeline somewhere with devoted Gilmore Girls fans as the characters. (I know I've read one which mentioned a group of girls who were fans of Jensen Ackles, but I don't think the writer did her research because the group always got together on Thursday nights to watch DVDs...during Supernatural.)

Hey, I didn't say I LIKED acknowledging that fact. But it is a fact. Every generation has the shows that shape it, but every generation's shows can and do come to an end. Buffy has come to an end, and in five years no teens will have memory of its first run. It might not even show in reruns anymore and have to live solely on DVD. And those of us who serve teens and try to provide the latest and greatest in reading and pop culture for them must move on, though Buffy will always have a special place in our hearts.