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2018 Why Young Adult Fiction: From 1960s to Today Eleanor Cleveland

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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

WHY YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE: FROM 1960s TO TODAY

By

ELEANOR CLEVELAND

A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major

Degree Awarded: Spring, 2018

1

The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Eleanor Cleveland defended on April 19, 2018.

Professor Ned Stuckey-French Thesis Director

Dr. Melissa Gross Outside Committee Member

Dr. Leigh Edwards Committee Member

2 INTRODUCTION

Young adult literature is a genre or category of books that are written for teenagers and feature a teenage protagonist. This genre has created confusion, however, with its meaning, intended audience and what should qualify. As Michael Cart notes, the term is “…inherently amorphous, for its constituent terms ‘young adult’ and ‘literature’ are dynamic, changing as culture and society – which provide their context – change” (“The Value of Young Adult

Literature”). This makes the term have different meanings to each generation, and it forces the question of what can, or should, qualify for teenagers and young adults to read. These debates started with the first novel published as young adult, S.E. Hinton’s 1966 debut, The Outsiders, which wasn’t what adults wanted their teenagers to be reading, though it depicted the reality they were living. Young adult literature didn’t exist until the late 1960s, with this publication, and though there were a few novels before then that were very early “adolescent” novels, they were always published as adult books. Since then, the genre has expanded throughout the 1970s and

1980s and exploded in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Today, young adult literature is prolific and respected, but that is a recent development, due to the success of the Harry Potter series,

John Green, and others.

The public libraries were crucial in the forming of young adult literature and understanding of teenagers’ needs as different from children and adults. They are still an access point for young adult literature and all young adults, regardless of socioeconomic status. The

Young Adult Library Services Association has helped to create awards that honor literary young adult novels, and mark the critically acclaimed novels, while offering services and materials for young adults. I have grown up reading this genre for as long as I can remember, and it, and the work of Sarah Dessen in particular, has guided me to where I am today. Young adult literature is

3 crucial for the psychological and moral development of youth, as it offers readers a place to learn and explore the physical and emotional changes of adolescence, and a place for in depth connection with characters unlike the readers, which creates and fosters empathy. Young adult literature also creates a place of belonging by creating stories with characters like the reader, too.

This thesis explores the beginnings of young adult literature, its growth, and why young adult literature matters – personally and psychologically. I begin with the defining of the term, the history of the library’s defining role, and the start of it all. I explore the decades that helped define and shape young adult literature before the Harry Potter series, and then I explore the effect of the Harry Potter series, convergence culture, and transmedia in the book publishing industry. I also include author interviews that offer an understanding of young adult literature by those who create it. Since I am someone who wants to write young adult novels one day, these interviews were crucial and fascinating to understanding the author’s perspective of the value of young adult literature. I also include personal and psychological reasons why young adult literature is a valuable and critical piece of culture, entertainment, and moral education for adolescents, and how young adult literature can change and shape someone’s life, as it did mine.

4 PART ONE: Young Adult Definition, Explanations, and Early History

In the late 1800s, Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott both published “adolescent reform novels,” with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Little Women, respectively. Both books, though published seventeen years apart, deal with the growth of the adolescent as a reflection of social commentary and moral reform. As Huck Finn grapples with race and Jo March grapples with gender and limiting female roles, both Twain and Alcott “…base their social criticism in an adolescent’s ironic self-perception that he or she is inferior because of his or her non- conformity” (Trites 34). Huck Finn is perhaps the first western novel of adolescence to deal with the search for identity, which is today a standard of young adult novels (Hilton and Nikolajeva

4). These novels communicate that adolescents are capable of making social change, and became a basis for future young adult novels.

Twain established the American pattern of the bildungsroman as a picaresque: follow a

boy on a trip, and you’ll follow him as he grows. These narrative elements – the ironic,

vernacular, first-person narrator who is on a journey – are apparent in the adolescent

novels that are most often compared to Huckleberry Finn (Trites 144).

Harper Lee does the same thing in To Kill a Mockingbird, as does S.E. Hinton in The Outsiders, and J.D. Salinger in Catcher in the Rye.

Similarly, “much of the so-called chick lit currently being published has evolved from the same strand of romanticism that inspired Alcott’s domestic dramas” (Ibid 160). Novels like The

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashers, Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar, and

Judy Blume novels explore the problems adolescents must overcome to mature, while validating female friendships, but do not go further into social commentary. Regardless, the goal of young adult literature to “help teenagers think about, and hopefully transcend, the rigid and

5 dysfunctional structures of popular culture, stereotyping, oppression, and injustice,” is reflected in these very early novels (Hilton and Nikolajeva 15).

Today, young adult literature is understood as books written with an adolescent protagonist, therefore written “for” adolescents, or people ages thirteen to twenty. Often these books “touch the sensitive areas of adolescent life – sex, authority, schools, drugs, relationship to parents, relationship to adult society…” from the perspective of the teenager (Holland 65). Chris

Crowe states that young adult literature “restricts itself to literature intended for teenagers,” emphasizing the marketing aspect of defining the genre (Crowe 121). Regardless, the term is ambiguous for each person, as is the audience and genre itself.

The term “adolescent” did not appear until 1904, when G. Stanley Hall published

Adolescence: Its Psychology, officially sanctioning the existence of this separate state of the time in between childhood and adulthood as adolescence (From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of

Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature 4-5). The Great Depression pushed young people out of the workplace and into the classroom, creating for the first time a youth culture, as youth were in each other’s company every day (Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism 5).

The marketing to this youth culture and teenagers flourished in the 1940s, and reached an early peak during post-World War II prosperity, cementing young adult literature as a “staunchly

American tradition” (Garcia 5). Psychologists Robert James Havighurst and Erik Erikson’s works in 1950 defined stages of human development, defining two stages called “adolescence” and “young adulthood” as “thirteen through eighteen and nineteen through thirty (Havighurst) and twelve through eighteen and nineteen through forty (Erikson)” (Ibid 7). These works and definitions influenced educators and therapists, but also, libraries and, eventually, chain bookstores.

6 Librarians are cited with coming up with the term “young adult” and the need for a separate category for people who weren’t children, but not yet adults, in the library space. The

New York Public Library hired Mabel Williams in 1914, a young librarian from Massachusetts, to continue her job of being reference librarian but also work with high school libraries on a bigger scale in New York City. She found other librarians to collaborate with, and they strived to create a distinctive space for these young adults in libraries (Rouyer). “Public libraries and young adult services are both built on a foundation with three pillars: reading, information and education, and community” (Walter x). These guiding principles were the core of what early young adult librarians were working to achieve, in creating spaces for young adults in libraries.

In 1929, the New York Public Library published the “NYPL Books for Young People” list, now known as the “Best Books for Teens,” that was created annually and sent out to schools and libraries (Rouyer).

Margaret Scoggin, one of the librarians Williams hired, wrote a column called “Books for

Older Boys and Girls” in the Library Journal, but she then changed the name to “Books for

Young Adults” in 1944, beginning the phrase of ‘young adult literature’ (Ibid). The American

Library Association created a Young Adult Division in 1957. This division grew from a small, one-office, part-time job department into the Young Adult Library Services Association

(YALSA) in 1972 (“YALSA History”). Regardless of the name, this department organized, published, researched, and offered different materials for young adults, as well as people who work with young adults, or wrote and published for young adults. While YALSA defines its service range as users from age twelve to eighteen, the focus is mostly on the “second decade” from ten to twenty (Walter 38).

7 Today, YALSA offers awards for writers, libraries, and educators, and implements programs to keep young adults reading. Since its inception, this Young Adult Division released lists of top books for Young Adults, like the Best Books for Young Adults List, yet even that only had adult titles until 1973, with the “golden age” of young adult literature, with authors like

Robert Cormier and Judy Blume (Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism, 34). They release publications to aid librarians and libraries in reaching the teen audience, supporting “teen learning and enrichment to foster healthy communities” (“About YALSA”). YALSA’s mission is not only to get teens to read, but to facilitate librarians in “alleviating the challenges teens face

– especially those with the greatest need – on the path to successful and fulfilling lives” (Ibid).

Public libraries implement young adult services and offer separate spaces for young adults, places for homework, and as time went on, magazines and music as well.

Public libraries are still at the core of access to young adult literature for teenagers, though not in the same way as in the 1920s, 40s, and 50s. Libraries are currently one of the few places that people can be and hang out without the expectation of having to buy anything. Since public libraries had a huge effect on the beginning of young adult literature, and my own access of reading, I thought it would be crucial to discover and understand the role of the public library in Leon County, and what services they offer to teens.

My summers growing up were spent going to the Leon County library with my family, checking out as many books as I could hold, and coming back the next week for more. This access made it easy for me to read as many books I wanted as fast as I could. Sally Mason, the young adult librarian for the LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library, was kind enough to offer her time and responses to my questions through email. Similar to what the early librarians

8 of Margaret Scoggin, Margaret Edwards, and current researchers in the field like Virginia

Walter, Mason understands the importance of a separate space for teenagers:

My mission as a YA librarian is to create a welcoming, safe environment for a diverse

group of young adults. The books, physical space, programs, and services should reflect

their needs and desires… We [The Teen Advisory Board] are currently meeting to talk

about some chairs and tables we can add to the teen space to make it more welcoming

(Mason).

Mason’s statement here coincides with the psychology of teenagers needing a space to feel welcome and belong as they figure out who they are and are considered, by some, to be a nuisance, especially in a library environment. The idea that libraries are where you need to be quiet or the “old” librarian will shush you is still a prevalent understanding of life in a library, which excludes teenagers, who would want to talk. In terms of adolescent developmental needs, the public library services and spaces need to meet the core needs: independence, excitement, identity, diversity, and acceptance (Gorman and Suellentrop 17). These needs can be found in the books, movies, comic books, and music that is offered, but also needs to be prevalent in the library itself, through library cards, separate spaces, exciting programming, and other services that the Leon Country library has been offering.

In terms of services, the Leon County library offers volunteer programs with

VolunteerLeon, weekly teen programs in the summer, a Graphic Novel book club one

Wednesday a month, and the Teen Advisory Board. The Teen Advisory Board, which Mason started in fall 2017, allows her to talk with teens about the use of the library, but also requires them to meet twice a month, suggest teen programs, and volunteer at one of these per semester.

There are 10-12 active members, and Mason herself acknowledges that it is difficult to get teens

9 to come to programs regularly, and that they are a hard group to target, even in the summer. The

VolunteerLeon program is the most successful, since volunteer hours are required for school and the Bright Futures scholarship. The materials that are available to check out are driven by

“popularity and demand,” especially for young adult books, but also chosen are the ones with

“starred reviews, books by popular or local authors, and sequels” (Mason).

Regardless, for Mason, like the many librarians who came before her, the most satisfying and rewarding part of her job is the teens she gets to interact with, even the ones who say they don’t like to read: “Whether they are teens who love to read and talk to me about all their favorite books, or teens that have no interest in reading and I get to point them in the direction of a book that ties into their interests, I have so much fun and learn new things from them”

(Mason). The Teen Advisory Board allows her to see teens from different schools and worlds interact, all of whom support each other and have worthwhile ideas. First hand, Mason, like the librarians before her, get to see and recognize teenagers as smart, compassionate, and curious individuals, and not people who should be shushed and kicked out of the library.

10 PART TWO: Young Adult Literature History and Growth

In terms of literature, most books that became popular with adolescents before the 1960s were not published for them, but just had a young or teenage protagonist, like Seventeenth

Summer by Maureen Daly from 1942. Seventeenth Summer featured a seventeen-year old protagonist, was a story told in first person of a first love, and was sold and marketed as an

“adult” book, yet was successful among young adults. In fact, Margaret Edwards said, “‘it was in

1942 that the new field of writing for teen-agers became established’” (From Romance to

Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature 16). Seventeenth Summer featured the first-person narration that became a hallmark of young adult literature, making it an important novel to launch the genre. This novel was the first indicator to publishers that teenagers existed as a successful market, and the romance genre flourished from its success.

In 1966, S.E. Hinton published The Outsiders, which changed everything. Though

Seventeenth Summer was successful among young adults, it was still published as an adult book, and the publication of The Outsiders launched the publication of young adult literature as a genre. The Outsiders “…epitomized the social mood of this turbulent decade… for the nascent genre soon to be called ‘young adult literature,’” causing it to be considered the first young adult novel in the genre that we know today (Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism 27).

The Outsiders, written by an actual teenager, focuses on two rival gangs and teenage American life. Hinton was angry about the lack of reality in novels for teenagers during the sixties, which encouraged her to write her own. With Hinton’s publication of The Outsiders, she rejected “the established literature for young adults… consistent with the universal rejection of the status quo that was such a hallmark of the iconoclastic sixties, a decade that belonged to the young” (Ibid

11 29). This rebellion marks the beginning of young adult literature that challenges, depicts reality, and does not become a cookie cutter representation of what adults want teenagers to be.

The exploration and understanding of young adults as a separate group between childhood and adulthood gave way for a deeper understanding of what young adults need, in all fields, but particularly in literature. As the libraries developed a whole department for young adults, giving them permanence and respect, new books were published that challenged preconceived notions of what was acceptable for middle and high school students to read.

Beginning in the sixties, after the publication of The Outsiders, young adult literature transitioned “from being a literature that traditionally offered a head-in-the-sand approach to one that offered a more clear-eyed and unflinching look at the often-unpleasant realities of American adolescent life” (Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism 32).

In the 1970s, however, Robert Cormier released The Chocolate War in 1974, his first young adult novel, and the most important one of that decade. This novel had “unprecedented thematic weight and substance for young adults” and “dared to disturb the comfortable universe of both adolescents and the adults who continued to protect their tender sensibilities” (Ibid 33).

The 1970s also featured the release of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume in

1970, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson in 1978, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by

Mildred C. Taylor in 1976 (Bachelder 86-87). Each of these dealt with issues of growth during adolescence and the loss of innocence, focused on either puberty, death and friendship, or racism and prejudice. These novels and themes were indicative of the changing times of young adult literature by the time the eighties rolled around.

The 1980s brought the birth of romance novels, paperback series, and companies seeing teenagers as a marketable audience. Romance paperback novels were flying off the shelves, and

12 teenagers were the targeted consumers. For the first time, a young adult novel hit The New York

Times paperback best-seller list in 1985 with a Sweet Valley High Super Edition called Perfect

Summer (From Romance to Realism 104-105). The incredible success of formula-driven romance paperback series inspired other genres to follow suit, as the horror genre did, with series like Goosebumps. This new type of book – the paperback original – dominated the young adult market throughout the nineties, with the success of The Sweet Valley High series, The

Babysitter’s Club, and new Nancy Drew books.

“By 1986, 93 percent of high-school students in one national survey worked for pay,” and this, combined with the “omnipresence of malls” led to the chain bookstore (Young Adult

Literature: From Romance to Realism 44). Shopping malls were a staple of youth culture, as they would hang out there on Fridays and Saturdays. This was an era where teenagers became

“America’s arch-consumers,” and chain bookstores “demystified the traditional bookstore,” as teenagers were able to buy what they wanted without being harassed, and were treated as an equal because they had money. These mass bookstores ushered in book buying for the masses:

The B. Daltons and Waldenbooks that proliferated in malls made buying books easy,

affordable, and something that was visible and accepted…. Barnes and Noble and

Borders helped redefine the shopping space even further. Instead of merely wandering,

these spaces encouraged lounging and engaging in these spaces (Garcia 6).

With the creation of big bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders in the 1980s, the

1990s saw a decrease of young adult books with high-school aged protagonists and an increase in young adult books with middle-school aged protagonists, because Barnes & Noble shelved everything labeled young adult in the children’s department (Young Adult Literature: From

Romance to Realism 58). In 1996, YALSA held a program titled “How Adult is Young Adult,”

13 to grapple with these issues, and the falling numbers of sales and publications (Ibid 65). Since

Young Adult novels are simply defined by the age of the protagonist, this means that if a book has a protagonist at age twelve instead of seventeen, there could be a huge gap in the material between those two novels, which blurs the defining of the genre. Publishing companies rely on boxes to work, which means that “one has to be clear on whether the publishing strategy for a title is adult or YA. A book’s primary support, in terms of advertising and the review media must be defined” (Ibid 66).

The decision to then publish books specifically for the older market of teenagers helped save young adult literature from disappearing in the late 1990s. Additionally, the “renaissance of youth culture” of the mid to late 1990s, boosted the American marketplace, as these teenagers had “tremendous buying power” (Ibid 68-69). The nineties also saw birth to teen-oriented television shows like Saved By the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210, and a whole teen-oriented channel, the WB, with shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, Felicity, and, for one acclaimed season, Freaks and Geeks (Ibid 70). This push of youth culture into mainstream pop culture only emphasized what book publishers already knew, and they worked to publish older young adult literature, and the new culture embraced young adults as old as thirty.

The success of the Harry Potter series, from 1997-2007, changed young adult literature, the cultural perception of it and reading, which I will discuss in the next section. Before then, and concurrently with that success, young adult literature grew and diversified, offering different materials for youth who weren’t just white, straight, and middle-upper class across all genres.

Additionally, the subject matter, across genres, followed the lead of Judy Blume, Robert

Cormier, and S.E. Hinton by pushing past what adults thought was appropriate for teenagers, and instead continuing to present reality, even as reality became harsher. In part thanks to John

14 Green, author of Looking for Alaska, which won the Printz award in 2005, and the more recent and critically acclaimed The Fault in Our Stars (2012), (which had a movie adaptation in 2014), young adult literature ushered in a return to realism.

The Wall Street Journal praised Green for exactly this, for “‘ushering in a new golden era for contemporary, realistic, literary teen fiction, following more than a decade of dominance by books about young wizards, sparkly vampires, and dystopia (Badavi 2014)’” (Young Adult

Literature: From Romance to Realism 128). While Green’s novels and cult-like Internet following are an impressive feat, and have no doubt affected young adult literature, it is unfair and too narrow to credit John Green for this all on his own. Green, along with a few other contemporary young adult authors like Sarah Dessen, Rainbow Rowell, and Gayle Forman, ushered in the refreshing popularity of contemporary young adult novels. These authors moved away from the paranormal and supernatural books that would be turned into movies, making young adult realistic fiction books that people outside of regular young adult fiction readers would know.

In 1999, YALSA created the Michael L. Printz award, which honored the “best” young adult book of literary merit, published in the United States, explicitly for the young adult audience, and young adult was defined as persons from age twelve to eighteen. Literary merit is defined in this case as each novel having a “richness of character” that more popular fiction can lack, because it tends to focus more on plot. These books are often distinguished by diversity of characters through race, mental status, and socioeconomic class, helping to redefine young adult literature (Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism 85). Michael Cart, who helped start this award, said that it “serves notice on the reading, publishing, and bookselling communities that young adult literature has come of age” (Walter 20). The first award was given

15 out in 2000 to Walter Dean Myers for Monster, a book focused on an African American boy on trial for his own life, written in screenplay and novel form, while Ellen Wittlinger’s Hard Love,

Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, and David Almond’s Skellig were the honor titles (Young Adult

Literature: From Romance to Realism 81-82). The most recent winner was March by John

Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, a graphic novel conclusion of Congressman John

Lewis’s experiences during the Civil Rights Movement (“Printz Award”). This award, along with others, led to the discussion that young adult literature actually has literary merit, quality, and value outside of commercial success.

In 1988, the Young Adult Library Services Association created the Margaret A. Edwards

Award, named after the pioneer in young adult services in libraries, who aided the defining of the term, and valued young adults. This award honors a young adult author and his or her specific body of work for “significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature” (“Edwards

Award”). The inaugural winner was S.E. Hinton in 1988. Past winners include Laurie Halse

Anderson, David Levithan, Marcus Zusak, Judy Blume, Robert Cormier, Lois Lowry, and

Walter Dean Myers. The 2017 winner was Sarah Dessen, who won for novels Dreamland,

Keeping the Moon, Just Listen, The Truth About Forever, Along for the Ride, What Happened to

Goodbye, and This Lullaby.

Dessen has given teens a safe haven highlighting the many complexities teens face

today. Her voice is authentic and assumes the reader is as intelligent and multi-faceted as

her characters. Notably, each of the honored selections is engaging and accessible while

displaying high literary quality. From abandonment to domestic violence, Sarah Dessen’s

work shows that family takes many forms and self-acceptance is the first step toward love

(“Edwards Award 2017”).

16 The Edwards committee chair said, “‘…Dessen’s voice brings comfort, acceptance, and love.

Her stories lead to answers without condescension. Readers are empowered and learn that they have the ability to overcome their challenges’” (“Edwards Award 2017”). The current recipient is Angela Johnson, for her novels Heaven, Looking for Red, The First Part Last, Sweet,

Hereafter, Bird, and Toning the Sweep, because “with lyrical and understated prose, exquisitely crafted characters, and universally relevant themes, Angela Johnson creates stories that show teen readers that every dark cloud has a silver lining” (“Edwards Award”).

YALSA also offers other specific awards to celebrate young adult literature like the

Morris Award, which began in 2009 and awards a first-time author writing for teens and creating impressive new voices in young adult literature (“Morris Award”). The most recent winner is

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, which follows an African-American sixteen-year-old named

Starr who witnesses the police shooting of her unarmed friend, Khalil. She attends the white private school, and lives in the poor, black neighborhood, and her dual identity comes to a national crisis, as she has to fight for what is right. The Alex Awards, which YALSA started in

1998, selects the ten best adult books that appeal to young adults, ages twelve through eighteen.

They are also named after Margaret Edwards who was called Alex by her friends. They started this award as a part of the “…Adult Books for Young Adults Project, which explored the role of adult books in the reading lives of teenagers and was funded by the Margaret Alexander Edwards

Trust” (“Alex Award Committee Policy and Procedures”). These books blur the lines of young adult and adult, and further explore the idea that people read whatever appeals to them, regardless of how it was published or the age of the protagonist. Examples from over the years include All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer (2015), All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick

17 Bragg (1998), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (2004), and

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2004) (“Alex Awards List”).

18 PART THREE: Popular Culture and Young Adult Literature

Economic value has always been a leader of the reasons young adult literature is published as a separate category. Today, however, the idea of convergence culture, participatory culture, and transmedia are crucial to publishing a novel, spurring from the success of Harry

Potter, Gossip Girl, Twilight, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Cecily von Ziegesar’s

Gossip Girl series, published from 2002-2011, became the epitome of the “mean girl” books, as it focused on the wealthy upper-class girls of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In 2007, this book series became a television show on The CW network, which ran until 2012, becoming one of the most successful shows on that network. Alloy Entertainment, the book packager that is responsible for Gossip Girl’s publisher Little, Brown, also published The Clique, Pretty Little

Liars, Privilege, Luxe, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, all of which grew off of the “mean girl” idea, and offered success in multiple media fields (Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism, 114).

The goal in this still-burgeoning field is to create an instantly recognizable brand or

franchise… that can be spun off into a variety of economic opportunities – books,

television series, movies, products – and then promoted through interactive websites,

contests, and, increasingly, social networks (Ibid, 114).

This goal is indicative of Henry Jenkins definition of media convergence, participatory culture and transmedia. As products are marketed now, the success lies in how the story can be taken from books, to films, to websites, and how the consumer can interact, creating his or her own material (Jenkins). A key component of convergence is the ability for fans to participate, interact and make it their own. With these series in particular, fanfiction is written about Nate and Serena from Gossip Girl and blogs and Tumblr are used by fans to post fanfiction, gif sets,

19 and to discuss the plots and characters, prime examples of participatory culture. The cast of

Pretty Little Liars, which was adapted from Sara Shepard’s novel series that continued as the show was broadcasted on ABC Family, would live Tweet the show along with fans, spurring fan engagement, and using multiple media sources and mediums to connect.

In 1997, an unknown author, J.K. Rowling, released Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s

Stone in the U.K., a story about a young boy who discovers he is a wizard. A year later, the same book was published in the United States under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

This series changed publishing for young readers, the media’s perception of reading, and pop culture forever. The seven-book series, the last of which, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published in 2007, smashed records. The fourth book was ordered with a first printing of 3.8 million, the largest ever for any book at the time, and the last book had a 12 million first printing and sold 8.3 million copies in the first twenty-four hours of publication (Young Adult Literature:

From Romance to Realism, 116, 130). Each book was released with fanfare and a midnight release event at Barnes & Noble and Borders. The media, oddly, reported on this book hysteria with fervor, and it only increased when the movies began to be made and released, beginning in

2001. Fan fiction emerged, as did Internet sites devoted to fans, and fan events called Leaky-

Con, a Harry Potter Comic-Con.

The Harry Potter series made being nerdy cool: people not only read the books, they wanted to talk about it with their friends, and find friends who loved it like they did. With the concept of “Web 2.0” an increasingly interactive internet presence, fan forums, fan fiction, and fan art appeared, and the idea of not just reading a story that you love, but interacting with it in different and new ways, “to write about it and in it, to make music and art about it, and to make a business around it” launched the first fandom from young adult literature, making consumers a

20 part of popular culture (Grady and Romano). While the first two books could be categorized as children’s literature, due to Harry’s young age at eleven, the later books are clearly young adult novels, as the series follows Harry’s life from age eleven to seventeen, and they deal with darker themes. This transitional nature turned

…young adult literature into something that even adults openly embrace… The mixture

of narratives that were being written for an aging, teen audience and a budding film

franchise helped Potter become a beacon for young adult literature being accepted by a

mainstream and adult audience. (Garcia 16)

Harry Potter propelled young adult culture into general adult culture. These books sparked families (including mine) to engage in multigenerational reading. They also depicted that there was a large male young adult audience, and that boys, if given something they “actually wanted to read,” might read as enthusiastically as girls, and even read the same books. (Young Adult

Literature: From Romance to Realism, 119).

Later on, going to the movie premieres, often dressed up, with family and friends was what everyone did – it was a cultural event, not just a movie and way to waste an afternoon. This mixture of young adult culture into mainstream culture became a double-edged sword: young adults were finally considered valid and viable, young adult literature was considered literary and important, yet now the wide-spread adult audience was buying young adult books, forcing the question of how marketers might change their strategy. “Teenagers cease to be the sole clientele to please in a post-Potter marketplace,” taking away part of the genre that was built for them and appeasing toward capitalism instead (Garcia 17).

The last Harry Potter book was split into two movies, and the last movie was released in

2011, fourteen years after J.K Rowling published the first book. In 2010, Universal Studios

21 Theme Park in Orlando opened Harry Potter World, a theme park with Hogsmeade, Diagon

Alley, and Hogwarts, making the fictional world a reality. The Harry Potter series, with its books, movies, websites, and theme parks, is the perfect example of transmedia in pop culture and young adult literature, as the story spans across all these different mediums. Additionally, this worldwide success and phenomenon put young adult literature on the map, not only for readers, but primarily for publishers, movie and TV producers, marketers, and bookstores: “At the heart of YA prominence is the central role of capitalism in guiding sales and profit” (Garcia

14). Young adult and children’s books also became longer due to the success of Harry Potter, which debunked the myth that children couldn’t read longer books. My generation grew up with

Harry, and the international success which sparked young adult literature into a global phenomenon and a new interest in fantasy for children and young adults, pales in comparison to the personal effect it had on my cohorts and I (Young Adult Literature: Romance and Realism

118).

I grew up reading the novels, and seeing the movies. Harry Potter battles good and evil, the dark and the light, and presents teenagers solving problems adults can’t by themselves, through community, friendship, and bravery. All of these values are ones we learned reading, watching, and experiencing Harry Potter. Besides the literal magic of the series, the characters, the interrelationships, and the basic values helped launch this phenomenon into the media and homes of people who wouldn’t normally read children’s, young adult, or fantasy literature. I re- read Harry Potter for the magic, not just of the witches and wizards, but of J.K. Rowling’s story- weaving ability and narrative deft; for the friendships between Harry, Ron, and Hermione; for

Sirius Black; for the powerful lessons of community, respect, tolerance, and love. I visited the

Warner Brothers Studio in London, where everything from the movie is still there for people to

22 come see and experience real Hogwarts, where it was actually filmed. I walked through the Great

Hall, saw the Triwizard Tournament cup, practiced my wand technique, and cried when I entered the room where the entire Hogwarts castle was. Visiting this is the ultimate culmination of

Jenkins’ convergence culture: the book and movie world that I had loved, that helped shape who

I am, what I believe in, and what I read, literally came to life and I was standing in it.

Beyond the comfort of being able to experience a world I loved, the lessons and values that readers get from reading Harry Potter have formed our ideology and beliefs about the world: a study, done by Diana C. Mutz at the University of Pennsylvania, connected that people who read Harry Potter were less likely to like, or vote for, Donald Trump, the Presidential candidate at the time. She likened this to three values set forth in Harry Potter novels: “the value of tolerance and respect for difference; opposition to violence and punitiveness; and the dangers of authoritarianism,” and the clear parallels between the villain of the series, Voldemort, and

Trump, both of which are elitist, proponents of violence, and obsessed with power (Mutz). In controlling for variables such as party affiliation, gender, ideology, sexual orientation, and religion, the results were still that Trump’s rhetoric about Muslims, Mexicans, violence, and narcissistic obsession with power were all too similar to Voldemort and that those who read the books, more than those who just saw the movies, were more likely to find him distasteful, a direct example of popular culture and fiction affecting reality.

As a result of Harry Potter’s success, more young adult fantasy series were published, as publishing companies began to look for the next Harry Potter. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, a series which focused on a young girl, Bella, who falls in love with a vampire, was oddly it - the next young adult phenomenon that changed pop culture. Twilight was published in 2005, the same year that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published, and sold 1.5 million

23 copies over the next three years. Meyer’s next three books of the series got longer and more popular as they were released. Breaking Dawn, the last book, totaled 768 pages, and sold 1.3 million copies in the first twenty-four hours of publication (Young Adult Literature: From

Romance to Realism, 119-120). While the Harry Potter numbers are clearly much larger than these, nothing else compared in how fast Twilight rose as a pop culture phenomenon. Fans called themselves “Twihards” or “Twilighters,” dressed up, held conventions, had countless Internet sites devoted to Twilight, fan fiction, and even Twilight-themed rock bands (Ibid, 120). The media created a rivalry between these two series, because of these similarities. Twilight and

Stephanie Meyer, however, already had a built-in fan base, as she was a romance writer, and vampire romance stories were already popular. J.K. Rowling’s writing was more sophisticated, stylistic, and serious, while Harry Potter dealt with themes of good versus evil. Twilight was purely a romance of the paranormal and didn’t deal with larger themes, and was instead a series of escapism.

The Twilight books were also turned into movies, beginning with Twilight in 2008, and ending with Breaking Dawn: Part 2 in 2012. Meyer’s problematic romance was also so successful that Barnes and Noble separated the young adult paranormal romance genre out of regular young adult and formed a stand-alone section for it (Ibid, 121). Twilight created a sudden surge of interest in the paranormal, allowing for shows like The Vampire Diaries to get green-lit, and for books like Vampire Academy to get published (and eventually its own movie) (Valby).

Previously published supernatural novels found new life, and, perhaps most oddly, author E.L.

James created her own fan-fiction from Edward and Bella’s tortured and abusive romance, Fifty

Shades of Grey, which became a wildly successful book and movie trilogy. Both series, due to elementary writing, problematic and abusive portrayals of romance, and an instilled belief that

24 women need an older man to come and save them out of their awkward clumsiness, were flanked by critics, but successful in media and sales. Unlike Harry Potter, which was not without its own critiques, there was no thought that Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey were quality literature – but they were, no doubt, entertaining, plot-driven and scandalous.

The next young adult literature trend that swept pop culture was The Hunger Games by

Suzanne Collins, published from 2008 to 2012, and Divergent by Veronica Roth, published

2011-2013. Both trilogies had successful movie adaptations, and ushered in a new trend of dystopian fiction, with teenage girls at the head, leading a revolution against crippling, abusive government. At this point, turning successful young adult novels into movies was considered a natural step in progress and success. The book market is such, due to these successes, that some publishers won’t publish a book unless they think there’s a chance it will become a movie, which makes the goal of publishing a novel seem more like a stepping stone than a huge accomplishment, and degrades the book writing and publishing industry.

In 2011, prolific young adult author Ally Carter, author of Gallagher Girl series, The

Heist Society series, and the more recent Embassy Row series, posted a blog post titled “How movies happen.” In this blog post, she debunks the idea that authors have any control over if their books are turned into movies, while also bemoaning the question she always gets, “is there going to be a movie?” (Carter). She mentions that she has had multiple books lead to talks with film companies, but then had nothing come of it. She discusses the difficulty of getting a movie made, and the low possibility that an author, with the exception of J.K. Rowling, Suzanne

Collins, or Nicholas Sparks, will get to make any executive decisions about casting, the script, or production. Ultimately, she makes it clear that the movie-writing business, and the book-writing

25 business are two very different businesses, but that authors still try to have their books turned into movies because it is “a 2-hour commercial for the book” (Carter).

The popularity of such young adult novels and movie adaptations gave young adult literature a wider audience, forcing the question of who it is for. According to Jim Milliot of

Publishers Weekly in 2014:

Readers 18 and older accounted for 79 percent of young adult unit purchases in the

December 2012 through November 2013 period, according to Nielson. The single largest

demographic group buying young adult titles in the period was the 18-to 29-year-old age

bracket (Milliot 2014).

This statistic is indicative of, not only the changing literary and perceived value of young adult literature, but also the blurring of defining literature for people based on their ages. The 2012

Bowker report also found similar results, that the largest number of people buying young adult books were eighteen or older. These results are clarified: “Though some of this demographic may be purchasing YA titles for friends, siblings, and children, the report clarifies that 78 percent of this demographic are typically buying these books for their own reading” (Garcia 16).

The maturing of the temporal and frontal lobe, which controls impulse control, regulation of emotions, and moral reasoning, is the last aspect of the brain to develop, not until ages eighteen to mid-twenties. Because of this, along with a recent economic strain that sent college graduates back to living with their parents, “30 is the new 20 and most Americans now believe a person isn’t an adult until age 26” (Marana 2007). While this study is eleven years old, the new defining of “emergent adulthood” and “prolonged adolescence,” which detail this new stage of life between adolescence and adulthood, indicates that people do not feel like adults until later in life than originally projected, as in 1904 when Stanley Hall defined adolescence.

26 The most solid definition of young adult literature is based on the age of the protagonist, not the person who enjoys reading them. The Catcher in the Rye, though published as an adult book under an adult publisher and read by adults and young adults alike, is defined as a young adult book because Holden Caulfield is a teenager, and the novel deals with his life in high school and emotional angst. Since young adult literature satisfies all three of T.S. Eliot’s permanent reasons for reading: (1) the acquisition of wisdom; (2) the enjoyment of art; and (3) the pleasure of entertainment, it is not surprising that these often-shorter novels find their way into older than twenty-one-year-old hands (Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism

149). Additionally, every adult has been a teenager, which makes them able to understand in a different way than certain teenagers reading books with adult protagonists. This blur of who young adult literature is really for is not only apparent in bookstores and sales of Harry Potter, but also in public libraries, and the LeRoy Collins Leon County library:

Young Adult literature is such an interesting collection because it appeals to so many

more people than just 12-18 year olds. I would say that a lot of this has to do with the

publishers realizing that there was this untapped age group they could market to, but the

authors and readers have really helped define the genre. I talk with teens, college

students, moms, and even retired people, and they are all looking for something fun,

exciting, and readable (Mason).

Even as young adult literature finds itself more successful, the lack of diversity has been an issue. White, straight, middle-class characters are often at the forefront of the novels, creating a lack of representation. “Young adult book culture is one that hinges on privilege. It requires skill, interest, access, and resources to participate as a passionate and avid book consumer,”

Antero Garcia notes in his book Critical Foundations in Young Adult Literature: Challenging

27 Genres (Garcia 27). This privilege is not only built from how the books are marketed, but also is evident in what material the books contain:

Prominently displayed in bookstores, regularly consumed by teens, serialized popular

television shows, Gossip Girl has become an entire industry. This industry operates

around selling not just copies and merchandise related to those books but in delineating

the strict in and out rules of mainstream white culture (Garcia 64).

In the past fifteen years or so, more and more books have been published representing parts of America that had been previously neglected in young adult literature, helping to aid another key value of young adult literature:

…its capacity for fostering understanding, empathy, and compassion by offering vividly

realized portraits of the lives – exterior and interior – of individuals who are un like the

reader. In this way, young adult literature invites its readership to embrace the humanity

it shares with those who – if not for the encounter in reading – might forever remain

strangers or – worse — irredeemably ‘other’ (“The Value of Young Adult Literature”).

For me, this aspect is clear when I read books that feature protagonists that aren’t white, straight, or middle-class, which is, unfortunately, rare. However, with the We Need Diverse Books movement and the increasing social awareness, more books like these have been published. For example, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, as mentioned before, which won the Morris

Award. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this novel was nominated for the National

Book Award, won the Odyssey Award, and is, naturally, in the works to becoming a movie.

Another novel featuring a “minority” protagonist is I am Not Your Perfect Mexican

Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez. It focuses on Julia, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Illinois, dealing with the death of her “perfect” sister, and working hard to become a writer, separate from

28 what her immigrant parents want for her. It was a National Book Award finalist in 2017. When

Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon is a novel that features an Indian-American girl who pushes against her parents’ traditional values, especially the ones that involve finding her a perfect Indian husband. Rishi, the guy, values and enjoys the traditional aspects, and here the story begins. It offers a tale of immigrants, tradition for Indians, and a point of view character that is rare.

Finally, Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios is not a novel from the perspective or story of immigrants or African-Americans, but the intimate detailing of a young girl caught up in an abusive relationship, how she got there, and how she got out. This novel is exemplative of young adult literature touching on harder themes and issues, and unfortunately, represents a lot of what women can go through. It also offers hope for getting out. The author herself discusses her own abusive high school relationship which inspired the story. I find that one of the best parts of young adult literature is its ability to break down these supposed barriers and make every single protagonist seem like me, relatable, or at least understandable. This magic of depicting the ultimate connection of humanity is a core of the importance of young adult literature. These examples also exemplify John Green’s thoughts on the subject:

…through escaping the prison of the self and being able to live inside fictional characters,

we learn to imagine others more complexly. Through story, we can understand that others

feel their own grief and joy and longing as intensely as we feel ours. And I think that’s

probably true, but I also think it’s just nice to be outside yourself at times, so that you can

pay attention to the world outside of you, which in the end is even more vast than the

world inside of you (Green 16).

29 PART FOUR: Interviews

I thought a different and specific aspect that I could bring to my thesis would be interviews with current young adult authors, especially because my ultimate career goal is to become a young adult author. I emailed fourteen authors, and heard back from several of them, some of whom responded that they couldn’t answer the questions for time or legal reasons.

Regardless, the authors who did respond offered insightful and generous answers to the questions

I asked, which I think will add depth to this thesis. The authors who responded with answers are

Lauren Gibaldi, Terra Elan McVoy, Kathryn Holmes, Jenn Marie Thorne, and Lauren Morrill.

I asked each author that I interviewed eight questions: (1) Why do you write young adult fiction?; (2) What do you think is the importance or significance of literature written specifically with young adults in mind or with a young adult protagonist?; (3) Do you deal with any negative connotations of writing for young adults instead of adults, what is your response if you do?; (4)

What is your favorite part about writing young adult novels (and writing in general)?; (5) What is your favorite young adult novel you’ve read?; (6) What book, if any, inspired you to become a young adult author or author in general?; (7) What do you think of when you hear ‘young adult fiction’?; and (8) What books did you read as a teenager, in middle or high school?

I picked these questions because they grasped at what I really wanted to understand about young adult literature from an author’s perspective: I know about young adult literature from a reader’s perspective, and am learning about the critical perspective, yet to hear from the ones who write it seemed crucial to understanding it. These authors create literature that has a profound impact on readers, shaping their lives, beliefs, and, if any of them are like me, career paths.

30 With my first question, I wasn’t sure what to expect, in terms of answers. The answers I received were varied, but shared similarities. A prevalent theme was the draw of the teenager and adolescent time – that “in-between time, of where you’re learning about what’s important to you, and who you want to become – and trying to get there” (Gibaldi). The adolescent life is one that varies from person to person, is full of change, and in which everything is heightened: “Teens are making huge decisions… The emotional stakes are big” (Holmes). Teens are “wrestling with some major issues around identity, morality, relationships, and the kind of adult [they] want to start being,” and this allows for “terrific character study” (McVoy). These directly coincide with the psychological needs of teenagers – their brains and bodies are changing, and they start to develop the aspect of their brain which allows for critical thinking, and begin to step out of their parents’ shadow and beliefs. As teenagers live and grow, dealing with these complications and contradictions, young adult books offer stories and characters who are also dealing with the same things. Young adult novels present protagonists “deciding who they want to become and then jumping in, full force, rather than wondering endlessly whether they even can” (Thorne). These young adult protagonists who face difficult and over-whelming aspects of adolescence, as

Thorne notes, offer inspiration, comfort, and possible aspiration for teen readers. These authors’ answers here and in their novels comply with the psychological needs and wants of teenagers, and reflects young adult authors understanding of this aspect.

My second question goes a lot into part of needing diverse books, in terms of character representations and issues that are faced, and books that offer different portrayals of teenagers than they used to. Young adult fiction was launched with The Outsiders, a book about gangs and violence that didn’t shy away from the harsh realities of teenage life. Since then, young adult books continue to portray “real” life, even within those stories that are fantasy. Teenagers need

31 to see themselves in books; they need to see that they’re not alone, that there are people like them, and that they can overcome their problems (Gibaldi). These narratives “help teens examine and decide who they want to become and give them a roadmap for taking charge of their own destinies” (Thorne). These are some of the core values of young adult literature, as noted earlier.

Identification with characters is also crucial, as “reading about teenagers living different lives and in different situations than you while you are a teenager” expands the ability to be empathetic, which is a key component of young adult literature (McVoy). Young adult literature

“validates what teens are going through, whether that’s a tough situation like racism/sexual assault/homophobia/mental illness/ etc. or something seemingly less earth-shattering, like a breakup or college anxiety or family squabbles” (Holmes).

Holmes notes The Hate U Give; History is All You Left Me; Love, Hate and Other Filters; and The Belles as necessary books that allow teenagers to see themselves in the media they consume. (All of these books focus on normally discriminated and ill-represented characters: a black girl, a gay boy, a Muslim girl, and black girls of royalty in Orleans). Holmes goes on, noting that books can ignite social activism, and seeing fictional characters dream big and work to make those dreams happen is inspirational (Holmes). This can be true with The Hunger

Games and Harry Potter, both of which teenagers read and saw the teenaged characters fighting for what they believe in against a corrupt system of government and adults and win. However,

Lauren Morrill provided a different view and belief: “I think entertaining people can get short shrift in our culture, but I love the idea of someone choosing to spend their time with my words and my characters. And to me, teens are some of the most discerning readers when it comes to what they’ll give their time to” (Morrill). In a world where the real world is often stressful and polarizing, there is value in reading for pure entertainment, and Morrill hits on that here. While

32 diverse, different, and “Important” books are valuable and crucial, reading is also a time of entertainment and enjoyment and any “fluffy” books, like what Morrill herself notes that people might call her own books, still offer lessons of empathy, and give teens a chance to see themselves there, too.

As an aspiring writer, I wanted to know what these authors liked best about writing young adult fiction and why they were drawn into writing, originally. Each of their answers was different and I thought that spoke to the writing process as a whole. “I love the immediacy and stakes of YA, where everything is urgent and important and big-hearted and real… I also love that YA has to have plot. You can’t get away with meandering around; something has to happen” (Holmes). This was such an interesting observation to me because I connect more with characters than plot, but most of what I read is young adult fiction. I can’t often remember the plots of all the books I’ve read, but I can remember the characters. However, I realize Holmes has a point – young adult fiction doesn’t exist in a world where characters sit around and think about doing things; they just do things. Thorne also made a similar point in her answer to the first question. Thorne notes: “I love fleshing out a simple ‘what if?’ concept into something that breathes, and that first wave of coming up with a new book feels like falling in love” (Thorne).

Morrill finds the “firsts” of high school exhilarating to write about:

I love writing about firsts: first friends, first loves, first job, first kiss, first rejection. All

that new horizon stuff that happens in high school is so interesting, and the best part is

it’s universal. Whether it happens here or in space or in the wizarding world on the other

side of the world, we all experience those firsts. They transcend race and religion and

geography and reality (Morrill).

33 McVoy comments: “My favorite part about writing…is working on how to articulate a certain feeling or experience so that someone who isn’t even in the same room, or city, as me can feel the same thing” (McVoy). She describes this as being like magic. Gibaldi notes: “Discovering the story and the characters is always something I enjoy. I love seeing where the story goes because I’m not much of a planner when I write” (Gibaldi). These five different answers from young adult authors clearly suggest that while writing a book is something they all do, they all do it differently and find value in different aspects of the process, which is why each and every author and each and every book is important and valuable.

There is an idea that young adult fiction isn’t as literary or valuable or important as adult fiction. This bias against young adult fiction is something that I’ve been pushing back against throughout this thesis, and it is something these authors push back against every day. Gibaldi noted: “These books, in my opinion, are just as important as adult fiction, and just as hard to write. Just because you don’t write adult fiction doesn’t mean you’re a lesser writer. There are plenty of amazing young adult literary novels” (Gibaldi). When I asked them what they thought of when they heard the term ‘young adult fiction,’ their diverse answers were reflective of the very genre itself. Gibaldi said, “Books about teens, geared toward teens” (Gibaldi). McVoy said,

“Edgy. Interesting. Compelling. Vital and vigorous. Possibility” (McVoy). Thorne said, “A wide, diverse, inventive shelf for young and unpretentious readers” (Thorne). All of these definitions are true, and that is why I think young adult literature becomes a tricky genre to define, especially in a world where clear, precise definitions are wanted and expected. We like to pretend we live in a world of black and white, but we exist in gray. Notice that none of these definitions include restrictions on age limits for those who read them: Gibaldi’s comes the closest, but even she does not rule out having adult readers. Young adult books are geared for

34 teens and about teens, but that doesn’t restrict any adult from reading them, just like adult books geared toward adults and about adults are read by, and often assigned to, teenagers. Morrill echoes this point: “…the category conjures an enormous reading list filled with diverse voices and titles. YA is definitely a category that has something for everyone” (Morrill). She also points out that young adult fiction is the category that includes with all of her favorite books, making her a living example of an adult who reads young adult fiction.

The growth of the genre is clear in their answers regarding what they read in high school, what made them want to write, and their favorite young adult books. They all note how there wasn’t much of a young adult category when they were in high school, and so they read different

“adult” books or children’s books. Mysteries, like Agatha Christie, or horror like Christopher

Pike, paranormal, plays, Stephen King and Dean Koontz. The Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley

High, and Carolyn B. Cooney’s novels were Morrill’s favorites in middle school, but she moved on to adult books in high school, from Oprah’s Book Club and chick lit, like Sophie Kinsella and

The Devil Wears Prada (Morrill).

Gibaldi read The Perks of Being a Wallflower her freshman year of college, and has read it about seven times now: “Honestly, that’s the book that started it all for me.” For McVoy,

Fridays by Patricia Lee Gauch was her favorite: “I think I checked that book out thirteen times!”

She notes that it made a huge impression on her and has influenced the work she does. In addition, her literature classes were also her favorite because she “got to read really powerful, smart books like All the King’s Men and As I Lay Dying, and those fueled me as a serious writer, too” (McVoy). Thorne notes that I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, though not published as young adult fiction originally, would be considered young adult today and is currently her

“favorite book of all time” (Thorne). She also notes contemporary young adult novels Conviction

35 by Kelly Loy Gilbert and Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo as two novels that were

“astonishing” and “satisfying” (Thorne). For Thorne, reading The Hunger Games inspired her: it was the first time she thought “Wow. You could do anything you want in this category” and started to brainstorm ideas of her own (Thorne). For Morrill, Judy Blume’s Just As Long As

We’re Together was the book:

It was the first book I remember reading when I was young (probably 4th or 5th grade)

that was about a girl just like me… She’s really riding the cusp of young adulthood, and

that felt so real to me. It was the first time I realized that I could write about someone like

me, and people would be interested. It’s why I write contemporary YA now (Morrill).

This story sounds a lot like my experience, and it meant a lot to see an author I love having a story similar to my own.

36 PART FIVE: The Personal and Psychological – Me and Sarah Dessen

As mentioned earlier, the defining of the term adolescent aided the creation of young adult literature. Adolescence has three primary stages of development: early adolescence (ages eleven through thirteen), middle adolescence (ages fourteen through sixteen), and late adolescence (ages seventeen through eighteen) (Gorman and Suellentrop 15). Each of these stages has milestones with it. Early adolescence includes an increased understanding of appearance, the beginning of searching for independence from family, and searching for own relationships. Middle adolescence features becoming less self-absorbed, developing a sense of morality, taking risks, increasing intellectual awareness, and making lasting relationships. Late adolescence features the stabilization of relationships, viewing the world idealistically, setting goals, seeing adults as equals and seeking to firmly establish independence (Gorman and

Suellentrop 15). Reading during adolescence, about teenagers going through the same changes in particular, helps expand on these understandings and increase empathy.

Adolescents live in a constant time of change, through growing up and building new understandings of the world. Reading creates empathy, as readers connect with the characters, and are offered a place in someone else’s shoes, which teaches them about the real world.

Reading allows adolescents to draw his or her own conclusions about the world, and therefore aims to create empathetic and smart people.

Adolescents find value in these [young adult literature] texts, as they can see pieces of

themselves within the pages… young adult novels are relevant and portray life as it is,

which is at times uncomfortable, troubling, and unfair. These texts ask readers to see

themselves in characters that are quite different than they are themselves, whether that is

with regard to gender, skin color, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation (Cook 19).

37 As I’ve touched on, reading Harry Potter offered me the opportunity to open myself up to this: I followed Harry, Hermione, and Ron, and I learned about my own world and myself. In late elementary school and early middle school, I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, and The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake. These books taught me to think about other people’s lives, feelings, and how they are different than mine.

I grew up in a reading household: my mom has a master’s and PhD in English; my father has a bachelor’s and master’s in Social Work. As a family, we read the Harry Potter series, and I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t reading a book. However, in middle school, as I was reading

The Clique series, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and sneaking books from my older sister’s bookshelf, I picked up The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen. This book changed my life, and made me realize that I wanted to write books like it. I had never felt so connected to a character, a storyline, and a writing style. I’ve re-read The Truth About Forever almost every year since seventh grade, and have read every single book Dessen has published. Reading her work and other young adult novels has led me to a college major, a possible career path, and through many challenges and journeys with the characters.

The Truth About Forever follows Macy, a sixteen-year-old girl whose father died a year ago, whose boyfriend is going to Brain Camp for the summer, and she is left at home to work at the library and study for her SATs. She is obsessed and focused on being perfect, inspired by her boyfriend, Jason, who helped her focus on perfection instead of her grief:

He was the all-state math champ, head of the debate team, holder of the highest GPA in

history of our high school…but it wasn’t just about academics. Jason was also a vegan

and had spent the past summer building houses for Habitat for Humanity. He practiced

yoga, visited his grandmother in her rest home every other Sunday, and had a pen pal

38 from Nigeria he’d been corresponding with since he was eight years old. Anything he

did, he did well. A lot of people might find this annoying, even loathsome. But not me.

He was just what I needed (The Truth About Forever 2).

To Macy, Jason is the definition of perfect, and what she is working to be. He brought her this goal to focus on right after her father died, and throwing herself into the search of perfection in academia, appearance, and service all comes from Jason.

This story begins after Jason has left for Brain Camp, and Macy is helping at her mom’s open house event, helping the caterers, which brings a cast of characters so lively, so chaotic, so different than what she’s known that Macy’s life begins to change, as she begins to open up and accept and enjoy the chaos. I, though on a lesser scale than Macy, have always wanted to succeed and do well, I knew striving for perfection was impossible, even as a seventh grader.

Regardless, Macy’s quiet determination to work hard, succeed, and be “perfect” resonated with me then and still does now. Though Macy’s determination is rooted in stubborn grief, and I couldn’t relate to that at twelve years old with the grief over the death of a parent, I found how

Dessen crafted this story of grief, growing up, and letting go of reservations inspiring. I wasn’t shy, but I was quiet, constantly observing people, constantly figuring out how to act to fit in, which sometimes wasn’t always nice or good. I still am quiet, but as I grew up, with the help of

Dessen’s novels, and The Truth About Forever in particular, I learned the importance of letting go.

At her mother’s open house for her townhouses, Macy is corralled into working with the short-handed caterers of Wish Catering and brought into their chaos. Earlier in the chapter

Dessen mentions Macy’s job at the library that she has this summer, filling in for Jason:

39 They loved him for all the reasons I did: he had all the answers. He also had a cult

following, particularly among his co-workers, who were both girls and both brilliant.

They’d never taken kindly to me as Jason’s girlfriend, seeing as how, in their eyes, I

wasn’t even close to their intellectual level, much less his. I’d had a feeling that their

acceptance of me as a sudden co-worker wouldn’t be much warmer, and I was right.

During my training, they snickered as he taught me the intricate ins and outs of the

library search system, rolled their eyes in tandem when I asked a question about the card

catalog. Jason had hardly noticed, and when I pointed it out to him, he got impatient, as if

I was wasting his time. That’s not what you should be worrying about, he said. Not

knowing how to reference the tri-county library database quickly in the event of a system

crash: now that would be a problem. He was right, of course. He was always right. But I

still wasn’t looking forward to it (The Truth About Forever 21-22).

Macy is clearly reluctant here to have this job, to fill in for Jason, to work in a place where she knows she is not liked and will feel not qualified enough to do the job, even if she is. The chaos of working at Wish Catering is an immediate contrast to this job: Delia, the boss, is pregnant, shouting instructions; Bert is running in and out, shouting; Monica keeps spilling food on guests; the meatballs have been poured on the floor by Delia’s daughter Lucy, and the crab cakes still aren’t in the oven.

This setting contrasts the calm, collected, somewhat boring life Macy has described beforehand and the work she knows she’ll have in the library. Macy quickly figures out a rhythm, and ends up enjoying working and talking with Delia, where Delia offers her a job, and tells her: “‘Catering is an insane job, though,’ Delia said. ‘I don’t know why you’d want to do it, when you have a peaceful, normal job. But if for some reason you’re craving chaos, call me.

40 Okay?’” (The Truth About Forever 34). Macy says okay, and this becomes what she needs later on.

After a week of working in the silence and uncomfortable environment of the library, when her mother is out of town on a business trip, Macy receives Jason’s cold breakup email.

Jason breaks up with her over email because she said, “I love you” in the last one:

…since I’ve been gone I’ve been thinking hard about our respective needs and whether

our relationship is capable of filling them. I care about you, but your increasing

dependency on me – made evident from the closing of your last email – has forced me to

really think about what level of commitment I can make to our relationship. I care about

you very much, but this upcoming senior year is crucial in terms of my ideological and

academic goals, and I cannot take on a more serious commitment (The Truth About

Forever 57).

Jason then proposes a break, but Macy knows what that means: “Regardless of the language, it was most likely I was out, all for saying I love you. I’d thought we’d said as much to each other in the last few months, even if we never said it aloud. Clearly I’d been wrong” (The Truth About

Forever 58). Macy needs to get out of her house, so she gets in her car and drives, sees the

Wishbone van of the caterer and follows them, even though she’s “not a spontaneous person”

(Ibid 59). Jason is clearly the villain here, who is so focused on his academic goals, he can’t let anyone really in. Dessen doesn’t expand past this here, because it’s not Jason’s story, and Jason’s cold and immature response to affection only pushes Macy towards finding out what it is like to really be loved and cared for, and to not just be an accessory to someone else’s “perfect” goals, especially when she all of a sudden doesn’t match up.

41 Macy rarely deviates from her plan, and always has a schedule. The world of catering and

Delia caused her to throw some of that to the wind. When Delia calls one Monday night, Macy notes what her normal night would look like: “It was 7:05, the time when I usually went upstairs to check my email, then brushed and flossed my teeth before reviewing a few pages of my SAT word book so that I wouldn’t feel too guilty about camping out in front of the TV until I was tired enough to try sleeping” (The Truth About Forever 86). As she agrees to go in and help

Delia, she notes “a sudden pang of worry thinking about this deviation from my routine. But this was just one night, one chance to vary and see where it took me,” so she goes (The Truth About

Forever 87). I also like plans and schedules, and I rarely take risks or make spontaneous decisions, yet as Macy continues to do so, opening herself up, making new friends, and finding a better boyfriend, I began to see that taking risks, big and small, is sometimes a good thing.

A key component of this novel is the community that helps Macy grieve, come out of her shell, and be more self-confident. Wes, who lost his own mother a few years back, knows what

Macy is going through, and helps her deal with her guilt and grief over her father’s death, mostly through their game of Truth. Macy finds herself comfortable with him: “…I didn’t have to be perfect, or even try for perfect. He already knew my secrets, the things I’d kept hidden from everyone else, so I could just be myself. Which shouldn’t have been such a big deal. But it was”

(The Truth About Forever 187). This comfort leads her to discussing her father and the gaps he left in her life like never before: Macy and Wes both reminisce on the weirdness of what you remember after someone is gone, and how the good memories come back slower and later, when you are ready. This close relationship eventually becomes romantic, and Wes’s emotional maturity is a stark parallel to Jason and what Macy had before. Kristy, the confident, loud,

42 straight-shooter fashionista, with the scarred face, helps Macy learn that loving herself and having fun and choosing something besides “perfection,” duty and academic success is okay.

Delia, who has dealt with her own grief in a completely opposite way than Macy and her own mother, helps Macy the most. Delia believes in chaos, the holes in life, and runs the catering company alone, after her sister (Wes and Bert’s mother) died from cancer. Her example teaches

Macy about grieving, accepting sadness, and that the happiness of life can be found in the pieces:

“‘It’s not that I believe everything happens for a reason. It’s just that…I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It’s the universe’s way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It’s how life is’’ (The Truth About Forever

93). Macy notes early on why she likes the catering, the group of people, her nights where she became someone else, someone better:

And I learned that I could always count on Wes for a raised eyebrow, an under-the-breath

sarcastic remark, or just a sympathetic look when I found myself in a bind: no matter

where I was in the room, or what was happening, I could look over at the bar and feel that

someone, at least, was on my side. It was the total opposite of how I felt at the library, or

how I felt anywhere else, for that matter. Which was probably why I liked it (The Truth

About Forever 103-104).

Caroline, Macy’s sister, comes home and forces Macy and her mother to deal with their father’s death by forcing them to deal with the beach house he owned and loved. Dessen portrays grief in all its different forms throughout The Truth About Forever with each character: Caroline feels everything – she cried at the funeral, sobbed, and now she is moving on, picking up the pieces; Macy and her mother threw themselves into work, shutting themselves off, acting as if everything was fine. After Caroline confronts Macy and her mother about the need to do

43 something with the rotting beach house, Macy is late to returning to her job at the library, the lunch having gone over, and she has a realization:

Then, about a year and a half too late, it hit me. I was never going to be perfect. And what

had all my efforts gotten me, really, in the end? A boyfriend who pushed me away the

minute I cracked, making the mistake of being human. Great grades that would still never

be enough for girls who Knew Everything. A quiet, still life, free of any risks, and so

many secrets my sister had empowered herself by telling. This life was fleeting, and I

was still searching for the way I wanted to spend it that would make me happy, full, okay

again. I didn’t know what it was, not yet. But something told me I wouldn’t find it here

(The Truth About Forever 112-113).

The following weekend, she agrees to go out after a catering job with Kristy and Monica, living her life for herself. At this party, a drunk girl reveals Macy’s secret about her dad dying and her witnessing it, and Macy is terrified of what Kristy, Monica, Bert, and Wes will do.

So I lifted my head, and looked at Kristy; seeing Bert watching me, Wes and Monica’s

faces in my peripheral vision. Then I took a breath, to say what, I didn’t know. But before

I could, Kristy had walked over and sat down beside me. ‘That girl,’ she said, wrapping

her hand around mine, ‘is as dumb as a bag of hammers’ (The Truth About Forever 128).

Kristy comments how Bert had to explain the concept of odd numbers twice to the girl who spoke, and that, still, she liked her halter top. And then they all just sit there for a moment, Wes’s face holding no pity or sadness: nothing had changed for them. These friends know exactly what to do. Through these friendships, Macy learns about moving on, forever, and being okay with the brokenness. As she puts it: “In so many ways, I was realizing, the info desk was a lot like my life

44 had been before Wish and Kristy and Wes. Something to be endured, never enjoyed” (The Truth

About Forever 198).

Macy and Wes begin to get closer as their car runs out of gas and they walk to a gas station, playing a game called Truth to pass the time, a game simply where the one rule is that they have to tell the truth, but the questions are often diabolical and serious or embarrassing. Wes is an artist. After his parents divorced, he broke into a house and got arrested, getting sent to reform school. After his mother was diagnosed with cancer, he became family-focused, protective of his brother and focused on his art to grieve. This Truth game allows Macy and Wes to get to know each other, ask questions they want to know the answers to, but wouldn’t or couldn’t normally ask. It’s an incredibly organic way for Dessen to help characterize both Wes and Macy, while also bringing them together and building their relationship. Macy asks about reform school, Wes asks about the “sort-of boyfriend,” Macy asks about Wes’s last girlfriend, and he reveals his current one, an incarcerated girl named Becky, and they both discover they are

“on a break.”

At a party, Macy brings up the number of girls who keep looking over at Wes and her talking, and asks him the question directly, continuing their game of Truth: “What’s it like to always have girls swooning over you?” (The Truth About Forever 192). Wes tries to delay and avoid this question, but finally answers that he doesn’t care about those girls: “‘Just because someone’s pretty doesn’t mean she’s decent. Or vice versa. I’m not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting’” (The Truth About Forever 192). Macy, someone who’s been obsessed with perfection for a while now, is shocked by this answer but also more impressed by it, enthralled. Wes asks Macy why she cares about being perfect and what that means. Macy explains that it’s more about being in control: “‘When my dad died, it was like

45 everything felt really shaky, you know? And trying to be the best I could be, it gave me something to focus on. If I could just do everything right, then I was safe’” (The Truth About

Forever 194). Macy, for the first time, says out loud what the readers already know. She is finally dealing with how she reacted to her father’s death, with the help of Wes, and how he is open and understanding.

Her mother confronts her about all the changes, demeaning Macy’s new friends, and tells her that she can’t hang out with them outside of work, her fear of Macy changing into someone she won’t like. Macy is aware of the changes, noting how Kristy and Wes had helped her change, helped her “to see there was more to the world than just the things that scared” her (The Truth

About Forever 268). Macy, an ordinary teenager, is able to see her friends differently than her mother does and through these friendships finds the strength to stand up to her mother and the old expectations her mother had for her, and that Macy had for herself.

Macy’s biggest test comes the night after an unusually unchaotic night with Wish

Catering, that she found boring: “Once, this sort of night had been all I aspired to, everything going like clockwork, just perfect. But now it was a little eerie. Not to mention, well, boring”

(The Truth About Forever 286). The ending of the night is anything but boring as Delia’s water breaks and Macy rides with her to the hospital. It’s another ride, another car rushing to the hospital, urgent, for Macy, yet, this time the outcome will be life instead of death. Dessen sets up this perfect parallel out of the blue, where it doesn’t seem cliché or too obvious. Instead, it’s natural for Macy, with her new-found friendship with Delia and the Wish crew, to hop in and go along, because she cares about them.

She is also supposed to be at the Commons to help her mother in fifteen minutes, but finds herself thinking back to when she rode with her father and comparing the two rides. His

46 hand limp, Delia’s squeezing hard. As Macy waits at the hospital for Delia to have the baby, memories of her last visit haunt her, until she looks into the new baby’s eyes: “As she looked at me, I wondered what it was like for the world to be so new, everything a first. Today I hadn’t had that luxury: each thing that happened since the moment we pulled up was an echo of something else” (The Truth About Forever 294). She thinks of her mom, and the message she left earlier apologizing for not being at the Commons, explaining the situation, and saying she’d be at the open house event as soon as she could. She thinks of all she has lost, and finally lets herself sob and grieve:

I let Wes pull me against him, pressing my head against his chest, where I could feel his

heart beating, steady and true. I felt someone pass by, looking at us, but to them I was just

another person crying in a hospital… Delia was right: it was fine, okay, expected. This

was what you were supposed to do. And it happened all the time (The Truth About

Forever 296).

The Truth About Forever ends with Macy’s mother grounding her for not showing up at the Fourth of July event and quitting the library job, forbidding her from seeing any of her Wish friends. The second half of the summer, for Macy, is much like the beginning of the one she had planned, but this time, she hates it and knows what she’s missing. Caroline, Macy, and their mother finally have a discussion of their grief, and their mother agrees to see the beach house.

Jason comes home and wants Macy back, but Macy doesn’t. She finally makes choices for herself and no one else, choosing Wes and Wish and Kristy and her own happiness, not choosing to live in grief like she had been before, hiding behind the search of perfection, Jason, and school.

47 For me, as a thirteen-year-old to now, this book has provided a map for how to let go and take risks. As I read it now, it feels like coming home. I am comforted by Dessen’s words, by

Macy’s journey, and reminded that I, too, can change my life when I want to, letting go of what is hard and accepting what I can’t change. One value of young adult literature is the ability for young adults to see themselves in the pages of a book, which gives “reassurance that one is not alone after all, not other, not alien, but, instead, a viable part of a larger community of beings who share a common humanity” (“The Value of Young Adult Literature”). This is what I felt reading The Truth About Forever, and this is what I want to be able to do: to make other people feel that way, through my own novel one day. Mary Hilton and Maria Nikolajeva note,

Adolescent readers see repeat reading differently. They see it as a means of creating

close-up and personal relationships. They see their repeat readings as comforting,

building their expertise as readers digging deeply into meanings, memorizing certain

passages, knowing character traits and idiosyncrasies (Hilton and Nikolajeva 151).

This describes what I have got out of re-reading The Truth About Forever every year since I was thirteen. It makes me a better reader, a better writer, and a better person, my observations, empathy, and understanding changing and growing with every reading.

As I re-read Dessen’s book for this thesis, during a time in my life where my own father is sick with a terminal brain tumor, I was prepared for it to be hard, harder than it had been, yet instead it felt comforting. I knew every word, every step, and I was comforted in knowing the ending: that Macy will be okay, and so, eventually, I will, too. Even though my current life is different than Macy’s – my father is alive and well, and I am not yet caught up in the “what-if” –

I still found comfort like I had before. I wasn’t reading to fall in love with characters, it wasn’t like the first time I read it, and I wasn’t reading to explore Dessen’s writing techniques. I was

48 reading to discuss all of these things under why this book changed my life, and I found that, with these new circumstances, it gave me more hope than ever before.

This Lullaby, published in 2002 (2004 in paperback), is another significant Sarah Dessen book for me. This Lullaby is an “ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an Original Voices

Selection for the Borders Group, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and a Los

Angeles Times Book Prize finalist” (Glenn 95). Dessen describes This Lullaby as “lighter, but that still had something to say,” in comparison to her last novel before this, Dreamland, which featured an abusive relationship. It is her first, and only, novel where the romance and dealing with love is at the core of the story. Remy is a recent high school graduate whose mother is about to enter into her fifth (or fourth, depending on who you ask) marriage. Abandoned by a father who left before she was born, leaving only a cheesy song called “This Lullaby,” Remy was raised by this mother, watching as her mother fell in love, got married, and then got divorced.

Remy knows it so well, she knows the exact science behind how long each marriage will last.

She’s cynical and bitter in the ideals of love, and is determined to spend her last summer before she flees to Stanford for college having one final fling and leaving with no entanglements. She didn’t count on Dexter, the messy, lanky, big-hearted guy who is determined to see who Remy really is, behind all her walls.

Remy is also surrounded by a cast of characters who are romantics, and her voices differ from those of the narrators in Dessen’s previous works (up until this point, which were That

Summer, Someone Like You, Keeping the Moon, and Dreamland). As one of Dessen’s friends pointed out, the protagonists in those books (Casey, Halley, Colie, and Caitlin) are the “serious, thoughtful girls with dynamic, wild friends” and suggested writing a book from the perspective

49 of the dynamic friend (Glenn 96). Dessen, shocked by this idea, having never been that dynamic friend, gave it a shot, and Remy and This Lullaby came out of it:

Just a little germ of an idea, but it was more than I’d been able to come up with in a

while. So, I sat down, tossed up one of those Oh Well looks that always precedes a novel,

and out came Remy. Just like that, I could see her. Hear her. She was kind of bitchy, kind

of cold, and was sure she had everything figured out. I couldn’t wait to see her proved

wrong (“This Lullaby”).

I am also not the dynamic friend, yet reading This Lullaby made me want to be more like Remy, as she fought to find a balance in her natural cynical tendency and all she was hiding in her heart.

As a writer, it is also an incredible novel of writing from the perspective of someone completely different from yourself, which made me think I could do that, too.

Sarah Dessen’s novels have given me a space to grow and explore. With each of her novels, I learn about myself, learn about others, learn about writing and know what kinds of books I want to write someday. Without Sarah Dessen’s books, particularly The Truth About

Forever, I’m not sure I would be on the same life path that I am today: it inspired a larger passion in me I didn’t know I had for reading and writing beyond entertainment. My love for story and storytelling started with the Harry Potter series, but it became something I thought I could do and something I felt the need to do with Dessen and The Truth About Forever. Albus

Dumbledore notes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, “Words are, in my not-so- humble opinion, our most inexhaustible form of magic” (Yates). Though this quote is, unfortunately, only in the movie, I find that it speaks to how I feel about both the Harry Potter books and Dessen’s books, and to be a general philosophy of mine. I find magic in Dessen’s and

Rowling’s words, magic in how we tell stories, and I truly believe that words are our everyday

50 magic, and like Terra Elan McVoy noted, creating a story where someone across the world can feel what the character is feeling is true magic.

Young adult literature exists to encourage reading, telling stories and enlightening teenagers about themselves, the world, and their friends. It exists to help teenagers grow and learn from non-condescending adults who are also just trying to figure out the world. Young adult literature has given me a home, a calling, and a space to explore all the parts of who I am, noting what makes me different or similar to Macy or Remy and others. It also gives me the opportunity to learn what it’s like to be black in America from actual black authors and characters, like Angie Thomas and Starr in The Hate U Give. Young adult literature has also granted me to ability to pretend that I’m a wizard in England, fighting evil and realizing that love and community are the crucial and powerful keys to solving problems, big and small. Young adult literature gives teens, like me, a space to learn, grow up, become intelligent and empathetic citizens as they connect what they’re reading with the real world around them, which in turn, creates involved, sympathetic, and engaged citizens, ready to change the world.

51 Appendix: Interview Transcripts

Lauren Gibaldi was the first author who responded. She lives in Orlando, Florida and is a children’s and youth librarian there. She graduated from Florida State University with a degree in English Literature in 2005. Her novels include The Night We Said Yes, published in 2015;

Autofocus, published in 2016, and This Tiny Perfect World, published February 2018.

1. Why do you write young adult fiction? I started writing young adult fiction because I work with teens as a public librarian. I see a lot of what they're going through, what's important to them, and find it interesting that, though times change, a lot of the basic teenage feelings don't. It's a weird time where everything feels important and revolutionary--and it is! Though I didn't have a cell phone when I was in high school, I can still relate to a lot of what they're going through--both the big issues and the small. I like writing about that in-between time, of where you're learning about what's important to you, and who you want to become--and trying to get there. Essentially, I wanted to write for these teens, and make them proud. 2. What do you think the importance or significance of literature written specifically with young adults in mind or with a young adult protagonist is? I think it's important to portray teens in literature! They need to see themselves in books. They need to see that they're not alone, that there are people like them going through similar situations. They need to see that they can overcome problems they may have, or, you know, even save the world. 3. Do you deal with any negative connotations of writing for young adults instead of adults? What is your response if you do? I sometimes get the question "oh, when are you going to start writing for adults?" A lot of people think writing for young adults means the writing process is easier, or your books are simplistic, but that's not the case. These books, in my opinion, are just as important as adult fiction, and just as hard to write. Just because you don't write adult literature doesn't mean you're a lesser writer. There are plenty of amazing young adult literary novels. So, when people do ask this, I usually just tell them I love writing for teens and plan to continue, leaving it at that. 4. What is your favorite part about writing young adult novels (and writing in general)? The writing process itself, though hard of course, is a lot of fun. Discovering the story and the characters is always something I enjoy. I love seeing where the story goes because I'm not much of a planner when I write. As for specifically young adult novels, I love meeting and speaking with high school students. I enjoy hearing what they think (even if it's not always positive!) and generally writing for them. 5. What is your favorite young adult novel you’ve read? There are so many amazing ones, it's hard to narrow it down to one! 6. What book, if any, inspired you to become a young adult author or author? I always wanted to write. I started writing as a child, first in a diary, and later in a notebook. In 5th grade I wrote a great (okay, terrible) story about a vampire. I majored in literature at FSU, and took some writing classes. I did a lot of freelance after that, and eventually tried

52 to write a book, but I kept giving up on it. Eventually, I finished my first novel, THE NIGHT WE SAID YES, as part of National Novel Writing Month, where you're challenged to write a novel in 30 days. The deadline forced [me] to write with abandon, and not judge. And I finished! Obviously, I took much longer to edit it, because it was horrible, but that led me to believe that I actually could finish something. As for young adult, honestly, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Speak both got me into the category and after that I just kept reading. 7. What do you think of when you hear “young adult fiction?” Books about teens, geared toward teens. 8. What books did you read as a teenager? In middle or high school? There wasn't much of a young adult fiction category when I was a teen. In middle school, I read a lot of Christopher Pike, despite being terrified of all things horror related. In high school, I read a lot of plays because I was in the theatre department. I still read a lot of plays, honestly. After my first year of college, I discovered a new release that I really took to and have since read about 7 times--The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Honestly, that's the book that's started it all for me.

The second author I interviewed was Terra Elan McVoy, who received her Master’s in

Creative Writing from Florida State University. She is a fellow Tallahassee native, but currently lives in Decatur, Georgia, where she manages an independent bookstore, Little Shop of Stories.

She is the author of six young adult novels, including The Summer of Firsts and Lasts (2011),

Pure (2009), and Criminal (2013).

1. Why do you write young adult fiction? I think I write YA because I find teenagers such interesting and complex people. There's so much going on at that stage of your life, and you're really wrestling with some major issues around identity, morality, relationships, and the kind of adult you want to start being. It makes for terrific character study and development, which is my favorite part of writing. So much can happen in one day, too, which can lay the groundwork for very intense and dramatic storytelling. 2. What do you think the importance or significance of literature written specifically with young adults in mind or with a young adult protagonist is? I think literature written for young adults and about young adult topics are really important because they can serve as a guide or at least a point of connection for readers going through similar things. You can read a story about how someone handles a certain situation, and it can maybe advise you on how to handle something similar, or at least make you think about how you would. Those stories can also help you feel less alone. Reading about teenagers living different lives and in different situations than you while you are a teenager also expands your ability to be empathetic, so literature for young adults that accomplishes that is also important.

53 3. Do you deal with any negative connotations of writing for young adults instead of adults? What is your response if you do? There has been a stigma in the past, I think, about writing for young adults, but the genre has really increased in popularity and quality, so I think there's a lot more respect for it out there now. When I'm questioned about why I write for young adults, I give the same answer I gave in your first question--that teenagers are really interesting, complex people. And, believe it or not, you can write about the same kinds of things (relationships, family drama, and sometimes very serious matters like mental illness or traumatic experiences) just like you can for adults, because young people are certainly going through all those things too. 4. What is your favorite part about writing young adult novels (and writing in general)? My favorite part about writing in general is working on how to articulate a certain feeling or experience so that someone who isn't even in the same room, or city, as me can feel the same thing. It's hard to do, but it's absolute magic! So, my favorite part about writing young adult novels is figuring out how to do that, just from a teen perspective. 5. What is your favorite young adult novel you’ve read? I read a LOT, so I have a lot of favorites. Some of the books that have made the biggest impressions on me in terms of what young adult novels can do and accomplish are Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray; Tiger Lily, by Jodi Lynn Anderson; The Walls Around Us, by Nova Ren Suma; and Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson. 6. What book, if any, inspired you to become a young adult author or author? The book that most inspired me to pursue writing fiction with grave seriousness was The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy. I remember reading the opening chapter in my high school library and just having this intense feeling of "I want to learn how to do this." 7. What do you think of when you hear “young adult fiction?” Edgy. Interesting. Compelling. Vital and vigorous. Possibility. 8. What books did you read as a teenager? In middle or high school? I read so much when I was in middle and high school--just constantly. One book that was a favorite was Fridays by Patricia Lee Gauch. I think I checked that book out thirteen times! And it certainly made a big impression and has influenced the work I do now. Like many teens, I was also into Stephen King and Dean Koontz. But my literature classes were my favorite because there I got to read really powerful, smart books like All the King's Men and As I Lay Dying, and those fueled me as a serious writer, too.

The third author is Kathryn Holmes. She grew up in Maryville, Tennessee and graduated from The New School’s MFA Creative Writing program. She currently lives in Brooklyn. She is the author of How It Feels to Fly (2016) and The Distance Between Lost and Found (2015). She only had time to respond to three questions.

1. Why do you write young adult fiction?

54 I kind of fell into YA (and kid lit in general) sideways! As a teen, I didn't really read teen literature. Granted, the selection wasn't nearly as broad or amazing as it is now, but I also was just really into books that were far outside my own experiences. For instance, I binge-read adult murder mystery series. In college, all of my writing efforts fell into the category of adult literary fiction. (I also wrote X-Files fanfiction as a teen and college student. So... adult sci-fi, I suppose!) But my first job out of college was as an editor at a group of dance magazines, and after a year and a half working at Dance Teacher, aimed at (you guessed it) dance teachers, I was transferred to a sister publication, Dance Spirit, which is aimed at preteens and teens. Dance Spirit was the first time I ever wrote/edited anything for teenagers, and I discovered a couple things: 1) my voice was a natural fit for that audience, and 2) I loved how passionate our readers were about what we were giving them. By the time I was ready to look into graduate writing programs, I was considering making writing for kids/teens my focus. So, I applied to The New School's MFA in Creative Writing, with a concentration in Writing for Children. I thought immersing myself in that world would help me determine whether it was indeed the right path for me to pursue. At the very least, I'd become a better writer overall! Long story short, I fell in love with YA (and later, middle-grade). It helped that one of my teachers at The New School was David Levithan, who introduced me to some of the best YA books available as of 2008-2009. What I love about writing (and reading) YA is that it's all about deciding who you're going to be. Teens are making huge decisions. They're experiencing a lot of life events for the first time. Adolescence is a time of change and personal growth, and even seemingly small things feel life-changing. That makes it really satisfying to craft a narrative about a teen character. The emotional stakes are big. I love that. 2. What do you think the importance or significance of literature written specifically with young adults in mind or with a young adult protagonist is? Well, for a start, I think it's absolutely vital for kids and teens to see themselves and their experiences reflected in the media they consume. Books like THE HATE U GIVE and HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME and LOVE, HATE AND OTHER FILTERS and THE BELLES are so necessary, especially in today's world. YA literature can validate what teens are going through, whether that's a tough situation like racism/sexual assault/homophobia/mental illness/etc. or something seemingly less earth-shattering, like a breakup or college anxiety or family squabbles. Books can show teens that what they're feeling is normal. Particularly now, books can ignite much-needed sparks of social activism. Seeing fictional characters dream big and work to make those dreams happen can inspire teens to do the same. And of course, books are also an excellent escape from the stresses and frustrations of the real world. 3. What is your favorite part of writing young adult novels (or writing in general?) This may be a combination of the previous two answers, but... I love the immediacy and stakes of YA, where everything is urgent and important and big-hearted and real. Those emotions are sometimes presented at a remove in adult fiction, or glossed over in favor of "literary" prose. (That said, some of the most beautiful prose out there is happening in YA right now! Jandy Nelson, Anna-Marie McLemore, Nova Ren Suma...) I also love that YA has to have a plot. You can't get away with meandering around; something has to happen. One thing I often struggle with in my early drafts is giving my protagonist

55 enough agency. Sometimes I fall prey to having them react, rather than act. But when I figure out the right plot arc that includes my character taking control of her own narrative in some way, it's so satisfying. For writing in general, I love the early drafting phase, when you're playing around in the world and starting to figure out what the story might become. And then, I love the moment in revisions when things start to click—when what's on the page starts to bear some vague resemblance to what's in my brain. Some days, I enjoy the work in between, and some days it's more of a struggle, but I cling to those reliably good points in the process.

Jenn Marie Thorne, the next author, graduated from NYU-Tisch with a degree in drama, but discovered she liked writing more than performing. She lived in Florida until a recent move to the UK. She is the author of The Wrong Side of Right (2015) and The Inside of Out (2016).

1. Why do you write young adult fiction? There are a number of reasons I gravitate to YA fiction, mainly tied into what I most enjoy writing. YA tends to center female protagonists, and I like writing from the perspective of women and girls without being unnecessarily labeled "women's fiction." I'm not a huge fan of genre restrictions in general, so YA also offers writers the chance to hop between shelves, often within the same book. It's also a space where writers are able to take a lot of chances and play with form. Still--despite the huge variety of books on YA shelves, I would say one unifying element is that YA books have a strong emphasis on plot and story, rather than slow-burn characterizations. In adult fiction, you often find protagonists who are in some ways stuck, and the books explore that predicament. YA heroes allow for stories that are more immediate. YA is about protagonists deciding who they want to be come and then jumping in, full force, rather than wondering endlessly whether they even can. That's liberating for a writer and for a reader. The second reason I write YA is that it gives me a chance to visit schools and interact with readers and aspiring writers, which is my absolute favorite thing to do. 2. What do you think the importance or significance of literature written specifically with young adults in mind or with a young adult protagonist is? When I was a teen, YA was not as expansive a category as it is now, but I read a lot of genre fiction with young protagonists at their center, books that might have been published as YA today. The stories I loved most were about young women finding their power and becoming the people they were meant to be. Narratives like that are crucial for young readers. They help teens examine and decide who they want to become and give them a roadmap for taking charge of their own destinies. 3. Do you deal with any negative connotations of writing for young adults instead of adults? What is your response if you do? I've gotten, "Oh, do you write about vampires?" as if time stopped after Twilight, and "Do teens even read anymore? Aren't they all on Snapchat?" I've only gotten, "Have you tried to get a real book published?" once, thank God. I never take it personally. Usually

56 the person acting condescending has no idea what they're talking about and looks much more foolish than I do, so I just quietly pity them. 4. What is your favorite part about writing young adult novels (and writing in general)? My favorite part of writing is not actually the writing. I love the prep phase best, putting my story together from the spark of an idea to a full outline, rich setting, cast of characters, drawing out themes and relationships. I love fleshing out a simple "what if?" concept into something that breathes, and that first wave of coming up with a new book feels like falling in love. 5. What is your favorite young adult novel you’ve read? I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith was not published as YA, but it's completely YA by today's standards and is currently my favorite book of all time. In terms of contemporary YA, Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert is absolutely astonishing and resonated with me long after I finished reading it. And for pure joy of reading, I consider Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo a perfectly plotted, completely satisfying, delicious book. 6. What book, if any, inspired you to become a young adult author or author? Reading The Hunger Games was the first time I thought, "Wow. You could do anything you want in this category" and started to brainstorm ideas of my own. 7. What do you think of when you hear “young adult fiction?” A wide, diverse, inventive shelf for young and unpretentious readers. 8. What books did you read as a teenager? In middle or high school? I used to go through exhaustive, exclusive genre kicks. In middle school, I loved mysteries. I started with YA and then devoured Agatha Christie before switching to paranormal. Paranormal led me to secret societies and time travel which led me to historical fantasy and that's pretty much still where I live, despite the fact that I write mainly realistic fiction. Some favorites were Remember Me by Christopher Pike, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and The Eight by Katherine Neville.

Lauren Morrill grew up in Maryville, Tennessee, attended Indiana University, graduated with a degree in history, and now lives in Macon, Georgia. She is the author of Meant to Be (2012),

Being Sloane Jacobs (2014), The Trouble with Destiny (2015), My Unscripted Life (2016) and the upcoming Better Than the Best Plan (2019).

1. Why do you write young adult fiction? I write YA because, for better or for worse, that’s the voice that comes out on the page. I’ve tried to write “adult” a few times, and it never seems to really translate that well (despite the fact that, at 35, I am definitely an adult!). 2. What do you think the importance or significance of literature written specifically with young adults in mind or with a young adult protagonist is? I know it’s really trendy now for YA novels to be Important (with a capital I), but I tend to write books that a lot of people would call “fluffy.” I think entertaining people can get

57 short shrift in our culture, but I love the idea of someone choosing to spend their time with my words and my characters. And to me, teens are some of the most discerning readers when it comes to what they’ll give their time to. 3. Do you deal with any negative connotations of writing for young adults instead of adults? What is your response if you do? Honestly, I don’t really experience it very much. I get a lot more eye rolls over writing romance for teens than I do about writing for teens. The YA boom has been good for all of us, so I get a lot of “oh, like John Green?” And when people see that my covers feature kissing couples, people tend to automatically take them less seriously. But I mostly ignore it. I think about how much I loved those stories as a kid, and I focus on someone out there loving my stories just as much. 4. What is your favorite part about writing young adult novels (and writing in general)? I love writing about firsts: first friends, first loves, first job, first kiss, first rejection. All that new horizon stuff that happens in high school is so interesting, and the best part is its universal. Whether it happens here or in space or in the wizarding world on the other side of the world, we all experience those firsts. They transcend race and religion and geography and reality. 5. What is your favorite young adult novel you’ve read? This is an insanely hard question! I’d have to go with the Jessica Darling books by Megan McCafferty, starting with Sloppy Firsts. The voice on those is incredible. 6. What book, if any, inspired you to become a young adult author or author? Judy Blume’s Just As Long As We’re Together. It was the first book I remember reading when I was young (probably 4th or 5th grade) that was about a girl just like me. Stephanie’s parents are divorced, she’s got a younger brother, and she desperately wants to be a teenager. She’s interested in boys but has no idea what to do with that. She’s really riding the cusp of young adulthood, and that felt so real to me. It was the first time I realized that I could write about someone like me, and people would be interested. It’s why I write contemporary YA now. 7. What do you think of when you hear “young adult fiction?” All my favorite books! I’m a ravenous YA reader, so to me the category conjures an enormous reading list filled with diverse voices and titles. YA is definitely a category that has something for everyone. 8. What books did you read as a teenager? In middle or high school? YA wasn’t really a category when I was in middle school. I read all the Babysitter’s Club books and Sweet Valley High. I loved Carolyn B. Cooney books (the Face on the Milk Carton was a favorite). But by high school, I was on to adult novels, usually the stuff of Oprah’s Book Club (The Poisonwood Bible) or chick lit (in the heyday of Sophie Kinsella and The Devil Wears Prada).

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