About me: The LAYAs are a group of L.A.-based YA authors (either that, or the plural form of the Spanish word for "beach," without the "p" in front) who write books, graphic novels, scripts, cryptic notes to each other, and occasionally break bread and decant bottles together.
They concoct gameshows which are performed live at various gatherings of the literary industrial complex, which is rarely showered with the same amounts of money as certain other "industrial complexes."
They are good and decent people, and there's a chance your grandma might not mind them at all.
And should grandma want specifics, the LAYAs are:
Sally Nemeth is an award winning playwright and screenwriter, and the author of "The Heights, the Depths and Everything in Between," (Knopf), a novel for young adults. Her plays have been produced by theaters throughout the English speaking world. Published plays include "Holy Days," "Mill Fire," "Water Play," and "Sally's Shorts." Since beginning her television career writing for the hit NBC TV show "Law & Order," she has written for every major television network, and her screenplay, "Ibeji", is currently under option. A documentary she produced, "Long Story Short", is now screening at film festivals nationwide. You can visit her and read her blog at www.sallynemeth.com
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Michael Reisman is the author of SIMON BLOOM, THE
GRAVITY KEEPER and the upcoming 2009 sequel, SIMON
BLOOM - THE OCTOPUS EFFECT. He's semi-competent at juggling and is really, really good at napping.
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Mark London Williams is the author of the "Danger Boy" time travel series, has a cold war essay in the upcoming anthology "Our White House: Looking Out, Looking In," and hopes for merrier times in that particular building. He's a dad, a journalist, a sometimes writer of scripty things, lives with far too many snowdrifts of paper, and wonders if the line about not needing a weatherman to know which way the wind blows has new climatic resonance.
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Amy Goldman Koss has written a whole bunch of mid-grade and YA books, including THE GIRLS, THE CHEAT, SIDE EFFECTS, POISON IVY and GOSSIP TIMES THREE. And she wrote them all right here in LA.
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Lisa Yee was the Thurber House Children's Author in Residence and the recipient of the first Sid Fleischman Humor Award. Her novels have been been on many Best Book lists and her blog is famous for its typoos.
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Carol M. Tanzman's YA novel, The Shadow Place, was chosen for ALA's Quick Pick List of Recommended Books for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, the National Council of Teachers of English ALAN Best Books, and the California Collection. She was awarded a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators/Judy Blume Work-in-Progress-Grant for The Shadow Place.
Carol was honored by the Bravo Awards for Outstanding Arts Educator for her work with the Los Angeles Unified School District's innovative Arts Prototype Program, for which she co-wrote the drama curriculum. She has taught drama to students of all ages, and was an Artist-In-Residence for the New York State Council of Arts.
She spent many years directing adult and children's plays in regional and Off-Broadway theaters, specializing in new plays. She has worked on innovative, multi-arts productions that incorporate dance, music, and multi-media, as well as contemporary, realistic drama for companies such as Circle Rep, the Women's Project and The Fulton Theatre in Pennsylvania.
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Kerry Maddenis the author of six books. Her debut children's novel, "Gentle's Holler," (Viking, 2005) was released as a Penguin Puffin in 2007. It received starred reviews in both Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly, was a New York and Chicago Public Library Pick, and is on numerous State Reading Lists including the Indian's Young Hoosiers, Missouri's Mark Twain, and North Carolina's "Battle of the Books." It was also the featured children's book of North Carolina at the National Book Festival in 2008. (The 2008 issue of the NORTH CAROLINA LITERARY REVIEW includes an author interview with Kerry Madden and her Maggie Valley Trilogy.)
"Louisiana's Song" (SCIBA, CYBILS, and SIBA Award Finalist) was published in 2007 and has been selected for the California Readers Collection and was a Bank Street College Book of the Year. "Jessie's Mountain" is the newest book in the Maggie Valley Trilogy. Kerry’s YA biography of Harper Lee will be published by Viking's UpClose Series in 2009. She is also the author of a football novel, "Offsides," a New York Library Pick for the Teenage in 1997 and of "Writing Smarts" (American Girl). She has written for the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Five Points: A Journal of Art & Literature, Sierra Club Magazine, LA Weekly, Tennessee Alumnus Magazine, Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators Magazine, Chicago Review Press, and others. She is the mother of three children and her husband has been a teacher with LAUSD for twenty years.
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Sonya Sones has written four novels-in-verse.
Her first book, Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy (HarperCollins 1999), received a Christopher Award, the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry, the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award, a Gradiva Award, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Her second book, What My Mother Doesn't Know(Simon and Schuster 2001), was chosen a Best Book for Young Adults and a Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers by the American Library Association. But the coolest honor that book received was when the ALA included it on their list of the Top Ten Most Challenged Books in 2004, and then again in 2005. (To find out why, please see page 46.)
Other books include, One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies (Simon and Schuster 2004), chosen as a Best Book and a Quick Pick, and What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know (Simon and Schuster 2007),chosen a Top Ten Teen Romance by Booklist.
Several of Sonya’s novels have nearly been turned into movies, and have been translated into French, German, Korean, Indonesian, Danish, Dutch and Pig Latin (ust-j, idding-k). You can find out way more than you ever wanted to know about her at www.sonyasones.com, or friend her at Myspace or Facebook.
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Paula Yoo is the author of the YA novel GOOD ENOUGH, published by HarperCollins (2008). She is also the author of the IRA Notable non- fiction children's picture book, SIXTEEN YEARS IN SIXTEEN SECONDS: THE SAMMY LEE STORY (Lee & Low Books 2005). Her latest book, SHINING STAR: THE ANNA MAY WONG STORY, will be published by Lee & Low Books in May 2009. When she's not writing books, Paula is a TV drama writer (her credits include NBC's "The West Wing" and LIFETIME's "Side Order of Life").
Like her main character Patti Yoon in GOOD ENOUGH, Paula is a classically trained violinist who moonlights with many rock bands in the LA area, having performed and recorded with such acts as Arthur Lee of Love, Spiritualized, The Dilettantes, and Dillon Campbell
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Cecil Castellucci's first young adult novel, "Boy Proof" came out spring 2005 from Candlewick Press. It was named a Booksense 76 Children’s Pick, BBYA 2006 and a Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers by the American Library Association (ALA). In 2005 she was also named a Flying Start by Publisher’s Weekly. She also received an Honorable Mention in PW’s annual cuffie awards as Most Promising New Author.
Her second novel "The Queen of Cool" came out in February 2006 and will be followed in May 2007 by her third novel "Beige", both also on Candlewick Press. Her first Graphic Novel "The Plain Janes" came out in May 2007 from the DC Comics Minx imprint, and its sequel, "Janes in Love," was released in the fall of 2008.
She has also previously published stories in the Los Angeles Times Kids Reading Room and is an active Read Aloud volunteer at Mayberry Elementary School in Echo Park.
Who I'd like to meet: Readers, writers, 'rithmatickers. Groovy bookstore and library folk. Joaquin Murieta. Nathanael West. John Fante. Ida Lupino.
And perhaps you. Specifically.
Great to see all the LAYAS this weekend at the LA Times book festival! Check out my website www. paulayoo. com for blog and picture gallery of the event with many incriminating LAYAS photos.... MMWAHAHAHAHAA... :) cheers, Paula
Ah, but there's great dignity in being FOURTH. Yay hey LAYAs! Will see some of you at LATFOB Awards and then....LAYAPALOOZA. And Mark ROCKS for setting page this up. Let's buy him a drink!
And I'm now taking 3rd place! So I am First and Third! Yay for me! Yay for Los Layas! (PS. Is saying "Los Layas" as repetitive as saying "with au jus"? LOL!) xoxo Paula
YES!!!!! I AM THE FIRST COMMENT!!!! I WIN!!!! WHOOO HOOO! YAY FOR ME!!!!!! I TRULY AM "GOOD ENOUGH"!!!! :) hee! Thanks for setting up our Los Layas site! Looks great! Can't wait to see everyone at the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend! xoxo Paula
