Pop Culture Reference in YA Fiction- My Take on It

A few months ago, some YA writers in South Africa on LitNet were discussing this topic should they include lots of pop culture references in their stories to make them more relevant. The editor asked if I would like to be part of the debate and I gladly jumped in.

Here's an excerpt:

It reminded me of a session I attended at the Cape Town Book Fair, where British YA writer Kevin Brooks was asked about getting the lingo right in his books, asked if he did extensive research, since he was clearly no longer a teenager. He said no, because he saw no interest in getting the lingo right. As Partridge has stated and Kevin Brooks has concurred, what is in and what is out moves at lightning speed. The rate of the publishing world is more snail-paced, so logistics alone say you’ll get it wrong. And as Kevin Brooks said that day in Cape Town, when you try to be hip and you get it wrong, it’s not nice. Really not nice.

Read the rest HERE.