The Austin Teen Book Festival, taking place on October 1st, 2011 10am – 5pm at the Palmer Events Center, is a FREE festival with the mission of connecting teens with authors of books for teens. Panels of authors will discuss a wide variety of topics, sign their books, and celebrate all things teen fiction.
To give you a taste of what to expect at the ATBF, we’ve invited some of the panelists to write about their panel here on the BP blog. This week’s guest blogger is Rosemary Clement-Moore, who will moderate the Alternaworlds panel.
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By Rosemary Clement-Moore
When I was teaching theater, we had this game called “What if…?”
What if… The airport lost your luggage? What if… You were a movie star with terrible stage fright? What if… You were on a quest for a lost treasure in the jungle?
Every scene and story and book starts with this question. What would happen if…
Alternate Worlds, like those written by the panelists on the Alternaworlds panel at ATBF, take “What if…?” to the ultimate, fantastical level. Speculative fiction (which includes science fiction, fantasy, horror and any story that has elements that can’t really happen…yet) has a great appeal because there are no limits to the question, or how you answer it.
What if aliens took over your planet in less time than it takes to brush your teeth? Brian Yansky asks this question in Alien Invasion & Other Inconveniences. What would you do if you were one of the few humans who survived, only to be put to work as a slave by the all powerful invaders?
What if the dead rose from their graves, and you grew up in a small human outpost in a zombie-filled wasteland? In Rot and Ruin, Jonathan Maberry asks that and more. What if the undead aren’t the most dangerous thing around? Can the monsters make us think about what it means to be human?
What if the murders of the legendary Jack the Ripper began to happen again… And you were the only one who could see the suspect? Maureen Johnson’s new book The Name of the Star starts with this question and then ramps it up: What if the murderer was coming after you next?
What if the twentieth century began with a great war between Germany’s steam and diesel driven walking war machines, and Great Britain’s fleet of bio-engineered air force? Scott Westerfeld’s Steampunk series throws two young people into the heart of a battle between nations, and eventually their paths collide to raise the question, What if your enemy became your ally?
And the best question of all? (No, it’s not “Will I run out of question marks by the end of this blog.”)
What would happen if you put all these amazing authors together in one room at the same time? Find out when you join us at the Austin Teen Book Festival on October 1st. Come hear what they have to say, and ask a few questions of your own!
Rosemary Clement-Moore is the author of the spooky, funny, romantic, mysterious and awesome books The Splendor Falls, Texas Gothic, and the Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil series. She lives in Texas.
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