Authors Withdraw from Teen Lit Festival

[Nonno]

"Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook have been abuzz in the last 24 hours with news that four YA authors have pulled out of the annual Teen Lit Fest in Humble, Tex., a Houston suburb. The authors withdrew in support of writer Ellen Hopkins, who announced in a blog post last week that she had been disinvited from the festival, which is organized by the Humble Independent School District, and is scheduled for January 2011.

In the post, entitled “Censorship Bites,” Hopkins announced that her invitation had been revoked after a middle-school librarian and parents approached a superintendent and the school board about her participation.

Hopkins’s novels in verse deal with gritty subject matter: her Crank series, which concludes next month with Fallout, centers on meth addiction, while her 2009 novel, Tricks, was about teen prostitution. “We all feel badly that we’re making this stand,” Hopkins told School Library Journal. “We don’t want our readers to feel like we’re punishing them. But this is about having the right to read our books, and these people don’t have the right to say you can’t.”

More at: Authors Withdraw from Teen Lit Festival « PWxyz

 

[Bean Machine]

". The authors withdrew in support of writer Ellen Hopkins, who announced in a blog post last week that she had been disinvited from the festival, which is organized by the Humble Independent School District, and is scheduled for January 2011. [/url]

Don't let the door hit you in the azz on your way out...

 

[JoeRider]

Oh those poor babies....I feel sooooo sorry for them.

Must be a huge injustice to Nonothing who can relate to crack headed teen prostitution. I expect those middle schools will have trouble getting up tomorrow knowing this. It is the end of the world as we know it.........ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

 

[Gilligan]

Don't let the door hit you in the azz on your way out...

 

[vraiblonde]

But this is about having the right to read our books, and these people don’t have the right to say you can’t.

Oh horsecrap. Nobody is banning any books. If the subject material is inappropriate for middle-schoolers, the book shouldn't be found in the library nor should the author be celebrated at an event geared toward that age group.

There are still public libraries and Amazon.com and nobody has taken away anyone else's right to read a particular book. This stupid crap makes me want to punch these idiot authors right in the head.

 

[Larry Gude]

"Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook have been abuzz in the last 24 hours with news...

In the post, entitled “Censorship Bites,” Hopkins announced that her invitation had been revoked after a middle-school librarian and parents approached a superintendent and the school board about her participation.

...“We all feel badly that we’re making this stand,” Hopkins told School Library Journal. “We don’t want our readers to feel like we’re punishing them. But this is about having the right to read our books, and these people don’t have the right to say you can’t.”

Gosh. Those poor kids. Just think of the isolation, the closed world they live in, the inability to find information and read what they want and explore and challenge their minds. Isn't there someway, somehow we can reach them, that they can get out and find stuff? Anyone? Isn't there something we can do? Maybe a chain e mail to them telling them we care and are thinking about their plight? A mass text? This is terrible...

 

[BOP]

One of the posters replies in response to the article:

Wow. Talk about another Shirley Sherrod moment! I live in Houston, so I was terribly dismayed when I began to read the reports about this a few days ago. At first I was as fired up about this as most of the people responding to this article. Censorship should not be tolerated. However, subsequently it was revealed that the”facts” here are not what they have been represented. Apparently, Ms. Hopkins had NOT been formally invited to attend but had been contacted by a librarian who really did not have the authority to do so. No contracts or formal invitations had been sent, and nothing signed. Ms. Hopkins was one of many authors who were not ‘uninvited” but were for one reason or another, never invited at all. But Ms. Hopkins was under the impression that she had been invited. When she wrote to protest, unfortunately, the school board official who responded failed to choose his words better and inadvertently insulted her. Next thing you know there is a cascade of people jumping to the conclusion that censorship was at force here, including the authors who have withdrawn without checking their facts first. This is another example of the dangerous side effect of instantaneous communication today. Its too easy for people to hear only PART of a story and then get all fired up and spread rumors without checking their facts.
And, please, Texas bashing? Just because W is from here and the oil companies are mostly based here, does NOT mean we are all conservative Palin, Beck, Fox News supporters

 

[vraiblonde]

Its too easy for people to hear only PART of a story and then get all fired up and spread rumors without checking their facts.

What? Really?

 

[Nonno]

Ms Hopkins replies.....

Ellen Hopkins says:
August 19, 2010 at 6:07 pm

Mr. [Bruce] Foster seems to be the one who is uninformed. The poor librarian who INVITED me via email no doubt thought she had the authority to do that. I hope her job is safe. She seems to be the scapegoat. The chronology is like this: I was INVITED to be on the 2009 roster, and was. Unfortunately, a family issue made me withdraw. To make up for that, I offered to do a couple of Humble ISD high school visits at a very discounted rate. I did them, they went well, and I was INVITED to appear in 2011. I agreed, and had it on my calendar. There was, in fact, a follow up email, making sure I planned to be there. Because of that, I turned down other invitations. So, semantics aside, I was scheduled to appear at the 2011 TeenLitFest. In the email I received telling me I was no longer to appear, the language was “our superintendent told us to REMOVE you from our festival.” Seems clear to me that I was INVITED to appear.