The Catcher

Cathryn Perazzo | This story began with a couple of different ideas that I rubbed together to see what would happen. These included: my daughter thinking it unfair to animals that we eat them and asking “how would you like it?”; and a separate question I’d thought of, “What would it be like if I…

She Was a Beauty in a Cage

Rebecca Johnston | She Was a Beauty in a Cage responds to the prompt of ‘gender issues in science fiction for children and young adults’. I wrote it in response to a real life experience that gave me cause to reflect on pervasive gender issues in our society which also exist in the media we consume…

Invitation to the Feed: The Body and the Environment in a Selection of Dystopian YA Science Fictions

Rebecca Hutton, Alyson Miller, Elizabeth Braithwaite | Technology, the environment, and the young adult figure often exist in an uneasy yet inextricable relationship in many young adult fictions dealing with dystopian futures. Nature and the artificial are frequently constructed as binaries that the young person must negotiate or resist in order to survive and preserve…

Dystopian States of Mind: Identity, Mental Health, and the Private-Public Sphere in The Hunger Games and Chaos Walking

Roslyn Weaver |  Although science fiction is maligned in some quarters as escapism, two recent, popular young adult dystopian series offer themes that parallel realities of contemporary teenage life, primarily around identity in a world where internet and social media have dissolved the boundaries between private and public spheres. The following discussion focuses on these…