Space for YA fic?

SO, the Cooler Lumpur Festival (#Word) is happening on June 21-23 (see story about it on page 13). It’s exciting to have a book fest in KL (our cool capital city that doesn’t, in my opinion, need a cringe-worthy punny re-naming), but I’m disappointed that there is, yet again, not much on the programme for (adult) readers and writers of children’s and young adult (YA) books.

Well, perhaps more events will be confirmed over the next week and we can look forward to sessions with children’s and YA authors. It bothered me that the Georgetown Literary Festival has not so far featured any and I did mention it, casually, to its curator, Malaysian author and poet Bernice Chauly.

Chauly responded by suggesting I organise a festival dedicated to children’s literature. However, I don’t have the time, energy or desire to do so: Organising events is not what I do and I doubt I’d be very good at it. Anyway, I don’t think children’s lit needs to have a festival of its own. It would be great if there were the funds for it to happen, but book fests in Malaysia are so few and far between that it makes sense to me that as many literary genres as possible should feature in each of the rare events that do take place.

Why not? Adults read children’s and YA fiction. Adults also write children’s and YA fiction. There would definitely be an audience for author talks, panel discussions and workshops.

Actually, I see that there is one workshop for writing YA fiction, conducted by author Nicola Morgan. Otherwise, nothing yet children’s/YA lit-related, and I’m not counting the events for children: #Word Junior, organised by Borders Malaysia.

When I talk about children’s lit events I tend to mean those either organised for adults who read and write children’s stories or else events that have crossover appeal.

Children require different kinds of activities planned for them. In the context of a book festival, while there should be those sort of interactive, lively, kid-friendly events planned, there should also be more thoughtful, intellectually engaging sessions for adults.

At the Edinburgh International Book Festival (Aug 10-26) the featured authors include YA/children’s authors Margo Lanagan, Garth Nix, Michael Morpurgo, David Almond, Julia Donaldson, Marcus Sedgwick and Jenny Valentine. These authors would appeal to the young readers they write for – but they would also be a draw to the adult readers and writers who enjoy and are creatively inspired by their work.

Anyway, as I write this, it’s about two weeks to the festival so I shall check back for more events closer to the date. If you’re interested in attending the Cooler Lumpur Festival, check out the site at coolerlumpur. com/word.

Daphne Lee is a writer, editor, book reviewer and teacher. She runs a Facebook group, called The Places You Will Go, for lovers of all kinds of literature. Write to her at star2@thestar.com. my.