Inquiring Minds Want To Know

I love asking questions on Twitter (where I tend to focus on "professional" subjects) and Facebook (seems better suited for the personal stuff). Here are a few I've posed lately, in case you want to weigh in:

• Booksellers, tell me the truth. How tough is it to sell a YA novel with a nonwhite protagonist? If your answer is "quite," any exceptions?
  
  
• Why do sci-fi or fantasy authors import our society's current mores about sex and romance into their imagined worlds lock, stock, and barrel?
  
  
• What can Google Wave offer our Kid/YA book community?
  
  
• I'm compiling a list of great father-son children's and YA books. Recommendations?
  
  
• When they meet me in person, my virtual friends inevitably exclaim, "Oh, you're actually tall!" Does this happen to anybody else?

Social media provides a great venue to get input on many subjects. As in real life, though, whether or not we get a straight answer depends on how we ask the question. Sometimes I get no response. A few questions lead to more in-depth thought and discussion. The last one above, for example, which at first I thought was frivolous, prompted several people to weigh in about physical stereotypes and race.

Through trial and error, I'm getting better at virtual conversations, and hoping that stimulating discussion, both online and in person, helps the gray matter survive.