Introducing Jon McGoran

5/17/2019

A little over a year and a half ago, I meet Jon McGoran at the KidLitCon 2017 in Hersey Pennsylvania. I can't believe it has been that long. i enjoyed meeting Jon and I loved hearing him talk about his book, Spliced. i knew that I had many students while I was teaching that would have loved this book. I have been meaning to feature Jon during one of my special author editions of Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. Well, here it is at last. Thanks, Jon for waiting.

If you love books. I hope you get a chance to attend a KidLitCon event. They are fantastic. I meet several fantastic authors. A couple more will be featured on this blog eventually. Please be patient. I also meet Phil Bildner, who has connected me to even more authors and he will be one of the featured authors at the 2019 Summit on Teaching YA Literature at UNLV. See the link at the bottom of the page.

Jon is one of the guys who writes in a variety genres. Jon also has a series of ecological thrillers written for the mainstream adult market. If you are true fan of the thriller, you should check out his website. You find descriptions of the rest of his books and short fiction as well.

Jon is relative new to the YA classification. As I mentioned I know students who will love Spliced and the good news for them is that the sequel, Splintered, is officially out this week (May 15, 2019).

Science and YA literature provide an opportunity for those students interested in science, experiments, and general exploration to find something books that explore the things they are interested in fiction. Too often we seem to force them to read within genres that don't match their interests.

To capture their interests, you might have your students explore Jon's Splice Yourself Page. There they can explore mixing species. They might even find an example of what they might look like mixed with their favorite animal.

Interview Questions from John McGoran

Check out the details of the 2019 Summit on Teaching YA Literature
(click image below)

Register Here!

Until next time.

Dr. Steve Bickmore
Creator and Curator

Dr. Bickmore is a Professor of English Education at UNLV. He is a scholar of Young Adult Literature and past editor of The ALAN Review and a past president of ALAN. He is a available for speaking engagements at schools, conferences, book festivals, and parent organizations. More information can be found on the Contact page and the About page.

Dr. Gretchen Rumohr
Co-Curator

Gretchen Rumohr is a professor of English and writing program administrator at Aquinas College, where she teaches writing and language arts methods. She is also a Co-Director of the UNLV Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature. She lives with her four girls and a five-pound Yorkshire Terrier in west Michigan.

Bickmore's
Co-Edited Books

Meet
Evangile Dufitumukiza!

Evangile is a native of Kigali, Rwanda. He is a college student that Steve meet while working in Rwanda as a missionary. In fact, Evangile was one of the first people who translated his English into Kinyarwanda.

Steve recruited him to help promote Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media while Steve is doing his mission work.

He helps Dr. Bickmore promote his academic books and sometimes send out emails in his behalf.

You will notice that while he speaks fluent English, it often does look like an "American" version of English. That is because it isn't. His English is heavily influence by British English and different versions of Eastern and Central African English that is prominent in his home country of Rwanda.

Welcome Evangile into the YA Wednesday community as he learns about Young Adult Literature and all of the wild slang of American English vs the slang and language of the English he has mastered in his beautiful country of Rwanda.

While in Rwanda, Steve has learned that it is a poor English speaker who can only master one dialect and/or set of idioms in this complicated language.

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