I'm not a reader of young adult fiction for the simple reason that these novelists are writing for adolescents, so they are not writing for me.
The YA author community is generally pretty friendly, and they care.
I feel like I am walking in some amazing footsteps of writers who have come before me, like S.E. Hinton, Walter Dean Myers, Christopher Paul Curtis, Richard Peck and Kate DiCamillo, who I love.
My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.
I was kind of reading you know Judy Blume and stuff like that. But yeah, but I've since educated myself.
If you're ever invited, fellow YA authors, go. It's the first YA con I've been to that was overwhelming populated by teens. Wonderful!
A lot of young-adult authors, great ones, have tried their hands at literary fiction, and not a lot of them have succeeded. Not even Roald Dahl could switch-hit, and not for lack of trying.
Teen authors love to flirt with taboo, to grapple - sensitively - with dark and frightening issues, and there is nothing darker and more frightening than cancer.
