The Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement, sponsored by School Library Journal

[lsanderson]

Writing Frankly, Young-Adult Author Pushes Limits
By DINITIA SMITH

Published: February 23, 2005


"CULVER CITY, Calif.- Francesca Lia Block's Los Angeles is a glittering dream world of "stained-glass Marilyn Monroes shining in the trees, leopard-spotted cars, gardens full of pink poison oleander," where the pollution makes for extra-beautiful sunsets. It is also the home of Weetzie Bat, the heroine of Ms. Block's highly successful books for young adults. "

Comments

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

She's good, but not unique.
Her work reminds me of Jerome Charyn's stuff.

He was the Democrats' darling, Isaac Sidel, mayor of New York and ex-police commissioner, about to be picked as the Party's vice-presidential candidate. He was going to run with J. Michael Storm, the baseball czar, who'd defeated senators and billionaires in the primaries. J. Michael had settled the worst strike in the history of baseball. He was a ferocious candidate . . . and a former student radical, whom Isaac himself had kept out of jail. The country had fallen in love with them. They were their own kind of comedy team: Laurel and Hardy had come back to life as a pair of mischievous commandoes. But Isaac didn't have time for comedy. The town was swollen with Democrats, and Isaac was the babysitter and sheriff of the Democratic Convention.

The Party had captured Madison Square Garden in the middle of a heat wave; Isaac had to worry about mad bombers, demonstrators, and air-conditioning ducts. He also had to sit with the New York delegation, act like a pol, shake the hands of Democrats who wanted to feel the future vice-president. He'd been on the cover of Time magazine with J. Michael. He'd sat with journalists from India, Hong Kong, Spain . . . he had ten or twenty interviews each hour. Reporters couldn't stop pestering him.

Isaac had his own Secret Service man, who would officially belong to him once J. Michael received the nomination and declared his running mate to the whole convention. Isaac couldn't get rid of his federal shadow, Martin Boyle, a thirty-two-year-old marksman from Oklahoma City who liked to talk guns and horses and girls with Sidel. Boyle was six foot two and had been trained to step in front of a bullet, give his own life for whatever candidate he had to protect.