Mike Jung's Blog, page 20

Diversity Group Announces Walter Dean Myers Award and Grants

Diversity Group Announces Walter Dean Myers Award and Grants:

weneeddiversebooks:

We are thrilled to announce that we are launching a new award/grant initiative named after the late, great Walter Dean Myers:

The Walter Dean Myers Award, which WNDB representatives have already nicknamed The Walter, will recognize published authors from diverse backgrounds who celebrate diversity in their writing and “[allow] children to see themselves reflected back” in those works

Read more about the initiative...

DiversifYA: Mike Jung –

DiversifYA: Mike Jung –:

Today, we have the stupendous Mike Jung at DiversifYA! YAY! If you don’t know (and Twitter-follow) Mike, I worry about your choices, to be honest. After all, he is not only the author of GEEKS, GIRLS & SECRET IDENTITIES, a WNDB team member, and a ukelele player, he will also… #koreanamerican

Ten years

My teens and twenties were not eventful or active in terms of life experience, a fact that has often pushed me into a place of regret, and sometimes into a place of genuine despair. There’s nothing I can do to change that; those years remain mostly empty, and will always remain so. It’s a difficult thing to live with, but all I can do is try to move forward. Thankfully I’ve managed to do so. The past ten years, in fact, can honestly be described as the most engaged, meaningf...

On Poisoned Apples, the "Great YA Debate," and the Death of the Patriarchy

On Poisoned Apples, the "Great YA Debate," and the Death of the Patriarchy:

anneursu:

My friend Christine Heppermann’s book POISONED APPLES: POEMS FOR YOU MY PRETTY released this week. This collection is an unabashedly feminist look at girls, body image, and eating disorders told through the lens of fairy tales, designed for young adults.

The book is arriving at an interesting…

45

Birthday parties were a mystery to me for a very long time. I was rarely invited to them, so in a way I was simply low on experience, but I have a degree of incomprehension with regard to social dynamics in general, and I think that was the bigger issue. Who plans these parties? Are birthday parties always surprise parties? Isn’t that complicated? If someone doesn’t plan one for you, do you plan one yourself? Wait, really, people just throw birthday parties for themselves? How do...

Trust

I’ve struggled with the experience of friendship throughout my life. I don’t understand all of the reasons for it - lately I’ve been considering the possibility of undiagnosed neurological conditions - but whatever the reasons might be, finding a circle of friends who I love, trust, and feel a true sense of belonging with has always been difficult and painful for me.

I’ve had something like that experience a couple of times, but it’s been much more common for me t...

Doing the right thing

I went to the gym during my lunch hour, and as I was rummaging around in my workout bag I found a wallet in the back of the locker I was using. My first ethically questionable slip was opening it up and looking inside - I think I semi-consciously justified in terms of looking for the identity of the person who owns it, but I suspect it was really just a desire to see the contents. There was no driver’s license in obvious sight, and I was immediately distracted by what was clearly a subs...

WNDB welcomes Don Tate to our team!

WNDB welcomes Don Tate to our team!:

weneeddiversebooks:

Please join us in welcoming our new member Don Tate! He is the author of IT JES’ HAPPENED (Lee & Low Books, 2102), an Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Honor winner, and POET: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF GEORGE MOSES HORTON OF CHAPEL HILL (Peachtree, 2015).

In addition to being an award-winning…

"Sibling rivalry" isn't quite right

I spent the weekend with my brother and his family, which (as always) got me thinking about our different life trajectories. Both of my brothers and I are pursuing creative lives to some extent; my older brother, who was the most creatively disciplined of us all in our youth, has yet to break into any of the creative profession fields; my younger brother, who initially didn’t seem to have any plan at all, is a wealthy Hollywood screenwriter, and is clearly the most accomplished of the t...

Q: I really didn’t like your recommended BOOK X because __________.

Q: I really didn’t like your recommended BOOK X because __________.:

weneeddiversebooks:

Recently, we’ve received some criticism over a couple of the choices made for our Summer Reading Series. There are people who believe that we should never recommend a problematic book. Others even ask that we draw up lists of books that are poor representations of diversity. However, we do not…