In that exercise, I have them think of a song that speaks to them the way songs like "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" by Sleater-Kinney and "Bastards of Young" by the Replacements-the songs that inspired IWBYJR and BALLADS, respectively-spoke to me and write the story it gives them to see, fictional or personal and real like my characters' ballads. I've been invited to several high schools-some were alternative programs, but others were the kind of mainstream suburban schools that I figured would ban my books-and talked about writing as well as lead workshops for students on writing their own ballads. Of course, I thought that was a shame I wrote these books, especially BALLADS because they were the books I needed in high school.įortunately, as it turns out there are some pretty cool gatekeepers out there. Like my fellow MTV Books author Jenny O'Connell, I thought that with Emily losing her virginity in chapter one of IWBYJR and the back cover copy of BALLADS making reference Kara's heroin overdose, there was no way these books would ever make it past the gatekeepers. I must admit, I figured that the only way either of my books, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE or BALLADS OF SUBURBIA, would end up in a classroom was if someone hid one of them in a textbook and sneakily read during a boring lecture.
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