Happy Banned Books Week!

      It's Banned Books Week so let's all take a moment to celebrate all the books that took a risk and called society out. To all the authors who realized that innocence isn't protected by ignoring evil, but by standing up to it. And a special shout out to all the people that protected these books and people's, especially children and teenagers, right to love them (I'm looking at you librarians.)

Here's a list of my favorite banned books:

1. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
Commonly challenged for descriptions of rape and use of racial slurs. "Well, duh," said every literary professor  ever.

2. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Banned for descriptions of drug use and sex. You think that might be the point?

3. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Can we all just acknowledge how ridiculous it is that a book about protecting childhood innocence is banned to protect children's innocence?

4. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The irony here does not need stating.

5. Looking For Alaska by John Green
I'll let John Green himself explain this one in possibly the most majestically titled Youtube video ever: I Am Not A Pornographer

Happy Endings?

                Obligatory "Sorry I haven't done a proper post in forever" explanation ahead. Long, boring story short: school and work are the greedy friends who monopolize my time and refuse to share me with anyone else. So don't blame me, blame them. Unsurprisingly, most of what I think about revolves around my classes. We just finished Oedipus Rex in AP Literature and as if I didn't have enough homework and lack of sleep to brighten my day, the play's resolution is heartbreaking. Another long story short: there is one less pair of eyes by the end of the play.

                This got me thinking; I've never read a Young Adult novel with a tragic ending. I didn't find the Hunger Games trilogy ending all that happy and The Fault in Our Stars wasn't full of kittens and rainbows, but did they give me the same rip-out-my-heart-so-I-can-just-die-already feeling that Oedipus Rex or the Great Gatsby did. If Young Adult novels are bitter at all, they are bitter sweet. So my question is, would a completely tragic ending in a book written for teenagers work?

                A lot of YA deals in escapism, allowing teenagers to forget about the stress of the real world for a few chapters. The stories may have fear, pain, and danger, but they don't launch the reader into a world more hopeless than their own. That's not to make YA literature sound shallow. It deals with unbelievably hard topics, from eating disorders to death and suicide. Only the characters are meant to serve as inspiration, to show that these problems can be overcome. But would a book with no light at the end of the tunnel still be a good read? Would it sell? I don't know the answer, but if anyone has any examples of this, feel free to comment.

P.S. I'm now on Twitter @EmmaSchmidtke

It's Here!

After several uploads, two days, and one tearful meltdown, my novel has been posted to Amazon through Kindle Direct Publishing. It costs $2.99 and can be purchased here.