> AMERICAN CACOPHONY: LANGUAGES, LITERATURES, AND CENSORSHIP

Jayme K. Barkdoll and Lisa Scherff “Literature Is Not a Cold, Dead Place”: An Interview with John Green

Preservice teacher Jayme K. Barkdoll interviews John Green, author of the Michael L. Printz Award–winning young adult novel . Green recalls his experience as a young adult and shares his ideas about reading and writing young adult literature.

s a preservice teacher, I (Jayme) find into the lives of teenagers struggling to make sense daunting the thought of being of themselves and the world around them. Green, responsible for increasing the an Alabama alum himself, proves A amount of reading that students his undeniable talents by providing us with a book complete. I have already heard the common excuses that reads like reality and will challenge the that students recite when asked about their thoughts of every reader. Green’s characters are real (non)reading habits: “it’s boring,” “it’s stupid,” or teens who learn, grow, think, and change in the “I just don’t get it,” with “it” referring to any num- authentic atmosphere of a vice-filled boarding ber of individual titles. These reasons for not read- school that lends itself to underage drinking, pre- ing make their low literacy levels that much more marital sex, and many forms of traditional teenage disturbing. mischief. Looking for Alaska has its fair share of Teachers face the struggle of finding literature challengeable content. However, unabashed realism that will connect with students’ interests, encour- is what propels Green’s works, particularly Looking age critical reading, and provide opportunities for for Alaska, far past those of many of his contempo- literary investigation. This struggle is, at times, raries as well as many of the classics being taught more difficult than expected, but with an awareness today. of students’ backgrounds and interests, the right This type of realism can only come from an authors and novels, the appropriate classroom activ- author who understands that being accessible and ities and discussions, and even a little “controver- “being real” does not have to come at the sacrifice of sial” text, the world of literature may indeed literary excellence. And this fact is proven not only become a lively, interesting learning place for many through Green’s novels but also through the other more adolescent readers and their teachers, too. windows by which readers are allowed into the Enter John Green and his 2006 Michael L. author’s life, such as his hilarious video blog ses- Printz Award–winning young adult novel Looking sions and his equally comical Web site (http://www for Alaska, a gloriously modern coming-of-age story .sparksflyup.com/). This multifaceted accessibility, about Miles Halter, a teenage boy trying to find his along with his uncanny ability to write realistically identity and his path in life through attending an about the teenage experience, is why I chose to Alabama boarding school. With each page Green interview him and write this article for the final builds more than simply a surface-level coming-of- project in my adolescent literature class. age novel; he envelops his readers with a vivid col- The interview that follows was completed via lection of magnetic characters, beautiful settings, email in April 2007 while Green was wrapping up intriguing facts, and powerful dilemmas that pro- work on his upcoming novel (and managing to vide readers with an authentic and unique window acquire a nasty case of pinkeye). Authentic, lively,

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fun, and provocative—this is the John Green that started thinking about the book that became many readers will, I hope, come to know through Alaska. But it wasn’t until I moved to and the author’s contributions both inside and outside started working at that I really started of the literary community. thinking of the YA novel as a feasible way to tell the story. Once I’d read a bunch of contemporary YA novels, I realized that it was exactly the kind of The Interview book I wanted to write, and from the time I seri- ously started Alaska, I thought of it as a YA novel. Jayme Barkdoll: What were you like as a young I like writing for teenagers because I care adult? about the audience. It allows you to participate in John Green: To my parents and teachers, I was the process of values-formation. You can be with pretty unbearable. I wasn’t a poor student, but I readers as they make the transition to critical read- still managed to be kind of pretentious. I thought I ing, which I find fascinating. Also, and this is just a knew most of what needed to be known, and I had gut-feeling thing, writing for teens makes me feel a strong desire to break the rules. Whatever the less useless. rules were. If there had been a rule against eating JB: Thus far, has it been as rewarding as you might Lucky Charms, I would have had boxes of Lucky have initially thought it would be? Charms stored in false walls in my dorm room. With my peers, I was the class clown. I JG: Oh, gosh, much more rewarding. I worked at worked hard to be funny and to be well-liked (I was Booklist for five years before Alaska was published. marginally successful). I was nerdy, definitely, but In that time, I saw so many excellent novels come by the end of high school, I socialized primarily and go. I would write a starred review and then look with “popular” people. As for girls: I did OK. Not it up on Amazon two years later and find that it was great, not terrible. I was awkward as hell. . . . In out of print. I was aware of how quickly books come that sense I was like Pudge in Alaska. and go, so I didn’t have the high expectations that some first-time authors have. The first time I met JB: What books did you most enjoy reading as a with my editor, she asked, “What are your expecta- young adult? tions for this book?” I said, “I’d like to see it make it JG: Well, it depends on how you define “young to paperback.” She said, “Well, I’d like it to see the adult.” When I was traditional YA reading age Printz Award.” I was like, “Yeah, whatever.” But in (12–13), my favorite books were Hatchet and The the end, what is rewarding is the response from Island. As a high school student, I liked the kind of actual people, and I never anticipated that. Letters teen-friendly fiction that was published for adults: from teenagers saying that Alaska said something The Virgin Suicides was the first contemporary novel important to them about why life is worth living, or I read in hardcover and toted around. I also liked emails from teachers talking about sharing the book The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Prayer for Owen Meany, with students in the classroom. I never thought and Song of Solomon. I was big on Vonnegut and the about any of that when I was writing. Beat writers. I liked E. E. Cummings a lot. When I JB: In a letter you wrote to teachers, you mention was a freshman in college, I read Infinite Jest. That that nothing in your professional life has ever was revelatory for me. Infinite Jest and ’s meant more than the realization that Looking for Might Magazine made me feel like literature was Alaska is beginning to be taught in classrooms. not a cold, dead place. When you were writing Alaska, did you ever feel JB: When did you first realize that you wanted to that taking this novel into the classroom was write young adult literature for a living? What impossible or at least highly improbable? If so, inspired you to make this choice? why? JG: Writing it for a living never crossed my mind. JG: Yeah, definitely. I thought it was highly I just wanted to get published. I knew I wanted to improbable for a couple reasons: (1) I didn’t (and to write from the time I was in high school (I was some extent still don’t) think it was good enough to greatly encouraged by my teachers and by fellow be taught in the classroom; (2) I know a lot of young writers). I decided I wanted to write for schools have trouble teaching teenagers after college, when I was working as a because it contains the word bastard. Alaska con- chaplain at a children’s hospital . . . it’s where I tains the word bastard—and some others.

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I went to a high school where we read the play hard job of getting them to think critically about Angels in America and then drove to Atlanta and saw literature—to read the story and not just the words this play where naked men simulate gay sex on . . . we have to compete. Books have to compete stage. So I know the power of having a teacher who against MySpace, the Wii, television, and movies. stands up and teaches what he or she feels will do We can’t moan about how hard it is—we just have the best job of getting kids thinking critically to make a product that’s good enough to compete. I about literature. So it should have occurred to me think that there are books out there that can com- that Alaska could be taught in classrooms. Mostly, I pete—get those books to teenagers and find a way just didn’t think it was good enough. to hook them into reading critically. Once you get students to read critically, once JB: What are the most powerful tools a writer can they realize that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is use to reach a teenage audience (i.e., what do you do about a raft trip AND about slavery, then the stu- in your works that you feel has made you a success- dent has a much higher chance of reading books for ful young adult writer)? fun. In the long run, books JG: I think the basic tools a writer uses are the same that stand up to critical analy- If you can get someone to no matter the audience. For instance, I take very lit- sis compete much better read a book that bears up tle stock in knowing contemporary slang or having against TV than books that to some critical thought, a sense of which brands teenagers like. I think that’s emulate TV (e.g., I don’t that works on more than basically worthless (and possibly harmful) to a think parents or teachers writer. Markus Zusak lives in Australia. He doesn’t should give teenagers Gossip one level, that book does know the slang of contemporary American kids, or Girls books. I don’t think Gos- something that TV cannot whether Juicy Couture is cool. All he knows is how sip Girls give you anything, as do. That’s how you to create characters we care about and tell their sto- a reader, that you can’t get compete. ries in a way that transforms us. Those, ultimately, from a television show*). If are the tools: dialogue, description, structure, char- you can get someone to read a book that bears up to acter, conflict, and so on. (I don’t know if I’m a suc- some critical thought, that works on more than one cessful YA writer, but those are my tools, I think.) level, that book does something that TV cannot do. That’s how you compete. JB: What qualifies a YA writer as successful? *I know those books sell extremely well, but JG: Depends on your perspective. For me, at least, I the reason is that they provide a way of “reading” just want to have an audience and to write books that is engrossing in the same basically passive way that the audience can respond to with thoughtful- that watching TV is engrossing. Although it’s prof- ness and depth. itable in the short term, emulating TV is a very bad long-term strategy in terms of getting people to JB: What do you feel are the greatest challenges read books and keeping books relevant. that stand in the way of increasing readership among young adults? How do you feel that every- JB: Looking for Alaska is rather unabashed in its one in the educational community (writers, teach- attempts to bring up many subjects that are still ers, parents, and so forth) can encourage young considered taboo in most classrooms. Is bringing adults to read nowadays? issues such as underage drinking, drug use, premar- ital sex, and peer death to the forefront in literature JG: Actually, I think that many teens read a lot. something that could benefit today’s young adult More than we did ten years ago. They read instant readers? messages, emails, and information on Web sites. Literacy, as a concept, has become even more JG: Peer death isn’t that taboo, is it? There’s a long appealing than it was ten years ago thanks to the history of books being read in the classroom that Internet. You can’t negotiate the Web without a feature peer death (A Separate Peace, Lord of the Flies, fairly high reading level. (I know people will argue and others). The real problem is drinking, drugs, that reading pidgin IMs with u and 2 doesn’t count and sex. Mostly sex, actually. People get upset as reading, but I would strongly disagree. You’re about sex. I think that sexuality is an important getting language skills, just not spelling skills.) facet of ethics. But too often sexual ethics become a The problem is that teens don’t read as much criti- stand-in for a comprehensive system of ethics. It is cally. That’s really the key to English education— fine and good to say that you won’t (or will) have once you get students literate, you have the equally sex before you get married, but that’s not the most

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important question you’re going to have to answer more travel, and a lot more involvement in the in life. There are much more important, and more business of publishing, and that kind of stuff. But interesting, questions: What is the purpose of your the core of the experience hasn’t really changed for being alive, if there is one? What matters more me. It is still scary and frustrating and exhilarating, than your life? For what would you sacrifice the and I still feel like I can’t do it, and someone is well-being of your family? What is the role of suf- going to realize that I’m a total fraud and I’ll be out fering in the world? How do you respond to the of work. As for how I’d like to grow and change as a radical injustice inherent to the human experience? writer: It’s hard to put a finger on it precisely, but I Telling a story that includes drinking, drug want to get better. I want to write books that are use, and sexuality can be a platform for discussion, more ambitious, but that find ways not to leave the but I really hope that the most interesting ques- teen reader behind. tions in my book are not, “Should you get drunk JB: With today’s classrooms becoming more and and let your friend drive drunk to her death?” (Of more diverse, do you have any plans to steer your course you shouldn’t.) To me, the significance of the novels toward being more accessible to the varying drinking and the drugs is that these kids are experi- cultures that might be introduced to them in the encing self-destructive impulses (as so many future? teenagers do) and are trying to find ways to respond to those impulses. This weird desire that a lot of us JG: No. I strongly, strongly disagree with the have as teenagers—to hurt ourselves without notion that poor, Hispanic kids should be reading killing ourselves—is one of the ways I think we books about poor, Hispanic kids. Or that rich, cope with the unfairness of suffering. That’s what I prep-school kids should read Alaska because it is find interesting as a discussion topic, not sex and about rich, prep-school kids. I don’t think drinking in and of themselves. teenagers reading literature need to see a world they know; I think they need to see a world they JB: Though Looking for Alaska is ultimately fiction, know isn’t bullshit. it seems that your life did play a big part in the When I was a teenager, my favorite book was makeup of the book. When writing fiction, how Song of Solomon. I was a white Southern kid reading hard is it to separate yourself and your life from the about a black guy in Michigan who got breastfed action you are penning? Do you feel that infusing way too long. I couldn’t identify with anyone in your works with autobiographical characteristics that book. And I didn’t need to. Because I saw that helps break down the barrier between author and it wasn’t bullshit, and because I could identify with reader? the book thematically. It raised questions I found JG: It is definitely hard to separate yourself from interesting and addressed those questions in ways the book if you are writing a partly true story. that meant something to me. I’m not saying that When writing the first draft of Alaska, for instance, literature is infinitely accessible or that all work I used real people’s names. But my saving grace is crosses all cultural boundaries. But I do think it’s a that lying has never really bothered me. I am more mistake to give white kids “white kid books” or than happy to tell you a story about a real person Latino kids “Latino kid books.” If anything, read- that is not entirely true. I try not to privilege the ing across cultures is vital because reading critically facts. Autobiographical facts can break down the is an act of empathy and not an act of identification. barrier between an author and a reader, but there You do not read Huck Finn and think, Jim is just are also a lot of other ways to do it: Vonnegut, for like me. You read Huck Finn and realize what it instance, feels very close to the reader, and he wrote would feel like to be Jim, the stark choices that Jim about cancer-curing aliens and used-car salesmen. faces. And maybe that funnels back into you. But I think the empathy is the central thing, not the JB: Since your beginning as a writer, how do you identification. feel you have grown both as a person and as an That doesn’t mean I want to spend my career author? What characteristics of your writing do writing only about rich white people. I’m just say- you hope to build on and explore more in the ing that I don’t think you should write about non- future? white people in an attempt to reach an ethnically JG: There’s an inevitable adjustment when writing diverse audience. There’s a Latino kid in Mississippi stops being something you do at night and on the who wrote me recently to tell me that his nickname weekends and starts being your job. It means a lot at school is the Colonel, that his best friend is

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Pudge, and that his best friend’s girlfriend is important to tell stories, to tell them aloud to your Alaska. So I think my books have the potential to friends and to see which stories work and which reach that audience regardless. don’t. And then finally you must write. And you must rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite. JB: What is your advice for a young adult who You have to kill all kinds of things you love wants to become a professional writer one day? Is it when you rewrite, because if you are writing a book the responsibility of today’s authors to inspire and that you’d like to see pub- encourage the authors of tomorrow? lished, you are not writing for If anything, reading JG: I’m reminded of something Flannery O’Connor yourself alone. You are also across cultures is vital once said. When asked if she felt universities dis- writing for other people, and because reading critically couraged too many young writers, she replied, the question is not what you is an act of empathy and “I don’t think they discourage enough of them.” will love but what they will When you are as talented as she was, I guess you can love. not an act of say such things. I’m not that talented, so I can’t. When I was a kid we identification. You do not I think we ought to be encouraging (and hopefully had this fish camp in the read Huck Finn and think, inspiring) the authors of tomorrow. It’s important to Ocala National Forest and Jim is just like me. You me to be somewhat accessible to my teen readers when you turned the water on because I want them to know that books are things in the bathtub it would run read Huck Finn and made by real people who are marginally normal and brown for about five minutes. realize what it would feel live regular lives and make stupid video blogs and So if you wanted to take a like to be Jim, the stark aren’t without their faults. It’s so easy when you are shower you’d turn the water choices that Jim faces. young to feel as if books are created by people who on and then go do something you can’t be like. That’s, of course, not true. So I do and come back after a while and see if the water was want to encourage writers. Whether I can inspire running clear. them, I don’t know. Who knows if they will want to Writing is like that sometimes. You have to write books like we write them, or if they will want write so much, because there is a lot of crap that has to to write books against the way we write them. I’ll be come out of you before anything good can come out. interested to find out. My advice is to read. Reading is the only Work Cited apprenticeship that we have. I also think it is Green, John. Looking for Alaska. New York: Dutton, 2005.

Jayme K. Barkdoll is a preservice language arts teacher in his senior year at the University of Alabama. His preferred areas of study include creative writing and young adult literature in the secondary English classroom. email: [email protected]. Lisa Scherff is proud to support Jayme in the writing of this article. Lisa, assistant professor of English education at the Uni- versity of Alabama and co-editor of English Leadership Quarterly, continues to work with Jayme as he begins his student teaching assignment this month. They plan on writing together again in the future. email: [email protected].

READWRITETHINK CONNECTION Lisa Storm Fink, RWT The author of Looking for Alaska, John Green, comments on how difficult it is to compete with the other literacies teens encounter. In “Defining Literacy in a Digital World” students generate an inventory of personal texts—print, visual, and sound. With this start, they form a working definition of literacy that they refine and explore as they continue their investigation of the texts they interact with at home, at school, and in other settings. http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=915

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