Joe Scieszka, author of the Time Warp Trio book series, has been named America’s first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by Librarian of Congress James Billington. (We stole the idea from the Brits, but that’s okay — that’s where the language comes from anyway.)
Although time travel in his books is just a vehicle for getting at history and cultures, Scieszka’s naming highlights the importance of fun in promoting literacy nationwide; the utility of sf, fantasy and other speculative fictions in that effort; and also the way that such books increasingly meld into new digital media opportunities — see the Time Warp Trio tv series website as one example.
The New York Times has a nice piece on Scieszka; and Newsweek’s got an interview with him discussing the importance of humor in writing. This is, after all, the author of The Stinky Cheese Man.
Welcome to the Clarion blog at blog.ucsd.edu/clarion. This is NOT a chronicle of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop that occurs every summer (since 2007) here on the UCSD campus. This is rather a place to chat about ways that Clarion can build out to the larger community of sf and fantasy readers and writers, and to start a dialogue around Clarionish stuff. Things like:
- Clarion and the Cons. What’s the best way to participate in and with the Cons to the benefit of Clarion, its students and alumni, and the fan base?
- Clarion, sf and fantasy, and K-12 education. For many young readers, sf and fantasy are the fields that provide their ‘first contact’ with literature. For many techies and scientists, sf was the field that kindled their interest in science or math. How does Clarion play a role in both those fields?
- Clarion and the YA market: the young adult fiction market is booming, but Clarion isn’t a name in that arena. Should we be? How?
- Clarion, UCSD’s Literature Department and UC overall. The Clarion Workshop is a significant opportunity for UCSD’s Literature Department; and UCSD and UC’s resources in this area — the Eaton Science Fiction Collection at UC Riverside, Darkstar at UCSD — are strong, but how to leverage them? Should we leverage them?