New Voices in Short Stories

It occured to me, after musing away on short stories the other day, to wonder why there aren't more anthologies and prizes celebrating the best in emergent YA writers... the answer, I guess, might be because there aren't loads of schools and literary programs aimed specifically at us, so we're not as well funded, or as well read. The bottom line is, the only folks interested in YA writing seem to be directly related to the American Library Association. We get the Michael Printz for YA lit, the Newbery Award given out by librarians for all of children's lit, and The Golden Kite for children's, picture books and YA lit from SCBWI, and that's pretty much it. It's not 'nothing,' by any means, but not nearly the number of prizes are awarded for YA shorts. Hmm.

Putting that aside,I was pleased to go out and check out the Best New American Voices, which came out this month, and includes a story by a friend. It's not YA lit, but maybe someday one of us will get included in there. In the meantime, the party's at Seren's! You go girl!