It’s still August for a few hours, so I can fit in my August Present Writers post. Whew! For the first one and an explanation of the series, see Marta Randall, with posts on Dorothy Heydt and Barbara Hambly following.
Jane Yolen is so incredibly prolific that this year she has passed the milestone where she can celebrate one book she’s written for every day of the year. While she was preparing for that celebration, more of her books came out, leaving the 365 mark in the dust. She has written science fiction, fantasy, mimetic fiction, nonfiction, poetry; she has written for adults and tiny children and every age in between. She has won the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award and SFWA’s Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. Jane is a pretty big deal, honestly. Once upon a time a reviewer called her “the Hans Christian Andersen of America,” and every time I read that quote, I hear her son Adam Stemple’s voice in my head amending cheerfully, “More like the Hans Jewish Andersen!” Jane’s work on Jewish themes is staggeringly great, even for a Gentile like me, but she also has written on British themes, Greek themes, future themes. She’s collaborated with her kids. She’s collaborated with someone else’s kids. She’s done work of staggering originality, collected other people’s folklore, returned to her own successes to help children through the processes of growing up into reasonably functional people with delight and whimsy.
Are you getting the picture yet? Jane can do it all.
Recently I was on a trans-Atlantic flight and finished the paper book I was reading. I was exhausted, coming west, where the advice is “stay up late” rather than “sleep on the plane.” I poked my Kindle for something that would keep me awake and engaged, and I turned up Jane’s Tales of Wonder. Half the stories in it were things I’d read before, the other half new to me, but every word kept me captivated. It spoke to death and family and loyalty and a dozen other things.
I’ve had the privilege of being on panels with Jane (including one with Adam too, and my best advice there is to sit back and let the mother-son comedy hour happen; enjoy it). She’s as insightful as her novels, as intrepid as Commander Toad, as thoughtfully lovely as Owl Moon. She is a treasure and a joy, and we are so lucky to have Jane for one of our present writers.