20-somethings in YA fiction.

The four of us are all 20-somethings who write YA fiction. That makes us representatives from the first generation of YA authors born around the same time as the genre itself. Authors like Robert Cormier, Judy Blume, Paula Danziger, Lois Duncan, M.E. Kerr, Lois Lowry, and Paul Zindel--to name a few--were the true pioneers of YA literature and established the genre as we know it today. But over the past decade or so, newer voices have emerged to challenge the conventions of adolescent literature, among them Laurie Halse Anderson, Francesca Lia Block, E. R. Frank, Chris Lynch, Rob Thomas, and Ellen Wittlinger. Inspired by their words, we searched for our own unique voices. Like every new generation of writers--no matter the genre--we strive to tell stories that will ultimately enrich the cannon of YA fiction. Below, we each talk more about our individual experiences that led us to write specifically for a teen audience.

LAURIE FARIA STOLARZ 

I wasn't too much into being a teen when I actually was one. Six years of spitball fear and praying at night for slimmer thighs; showing my face after an incident at a cheerleading competition involving a trailing wad of toilet paper, a three-tiered pyramid, and urine sprinkling on my head in front of a thousand spectators, all left me aching for teenhood to end.

But somewhere in my early twenties, I found myself drawn back to those years. Maybe it's because, as a teen, I had closed my eyes to all the excitement this age has to offer. Or maybe it's because these years in between slimmer thighs and visible laugh lines have provided a safe distance to look back and fully appreciate both the excitement and the angst.

I always knew I wanted to write. I've been creating stories since before I could even hold a pen. When I was a teen, I was writing about people in their twenties, and then when I got to my twenties, I started writing about teens. While it may be a simple bout of the "grass-is-greener" syndrome, the truth is, for now, I can't think about writing for any other audience. I love YA--the genre, the culture, the literature, films, TV shows (go WB!), listening to teens talk, the whole bit.

When I started at Emerson College in 1997, I knew I wanted to write teen characters, but I wasn't that familiar with the YA market. I soon found my niche in a YA literature class taught by writer/illustrator Lisa Jahn-Clough. I started reading YA authors--Robert Cormier, Francesca Lia Block, and Laurie Halse Anderson to name just a few--and knew right away I was in the right place--a place where teens get a voice, where real YA issues are spliced open and explored.

In an adolescent novel workshop, with the support and guidance of Lisa and my classmates, I started and finished a mystery/suspense novel, Blue is for Nightmares. It tells the story of Stacey Brown, a 16-year-old practicing Wiccan who has been experiencing recurring nightmares that Drea, her boarding school roommate, is going to be killed in four days' time.

This novel brought me back to a genre I absolutely loved as a YA--suspense. I remember tearing through books by Lois Duncan, Stephen King, and V.C. Andrews. It thrills me that my own work can contribute to a genre that I found, and still find, so exciting and rewarding. I plan to work this novel into a series, hopefully a trilogy. I would also like to test the YA perimeters by experimenting with honest, edgy fiction for older YAs. I'm currently finishing a project that fits very nicely into that niche.

With the support and encouragement of my writer's group (a group which stemmed from the YA writing and literature classes I took at Emerson)--Lara Zeises, Tea Benduhn, Steven Goldman, and Kim Ablon--I hope to keep working in the YA genre for a long time.

Laurie Faria Stolarz is the author of Blue is for Nightmares (Llewellyn Worldwide), a mystery-suspense YA novel slated for publication in the fall of 2003

LARA M. ZEISES

Like Laurie, I was introduced to the YA genre through the MFA program at Emerson College. In fact, Laurie and I first met in the adolescent novel workshop we took in the fall of '98. But it wasn't until the following spring, when I took Lisa Jahn-Clough's adolescent literature class, that I began to fully grasp what the genre had to offer.

I started reading at a young age, so by the time I was a teenager, I'd already by-passed YA fiction and moved straight on to "big people" books. Sure, I'd made a few pit stops on the way--Judy Blume, Paula Danziger, Ellen Conford. But, I didn't read The Outsiders until that first YA lit class--and by then, I was two years past the legal drinking age.

What amazed me about the books I read in Lisa's class--Paul Zindel's The Pigman, Lois Lowry's The Giver, and Chris Lynch's Gypsy Davey, to name a few--was how raw and honest they were. I'd torn through literally thousands of books since my Goodnight Moon days, but not a single one made me cry--until The Pigman. ("Why did the Pigman have to die?" I scrawled in my journal. "WHY?") Even though Zindel tells us on page one that this will be the Pigman's fate, his deft prose, infused with equal amounts of humor, pathos, and pity, created a vivid world in which I, too, became a part. So much so that the final paragraphs left me sobbing as if the Pigman had been someone I'd actually known, and was truly devastated to lose.

You could argue that this is the goal of any skilled piece of writing. While I'd agree, I do feel that YA authors have a way of cutting through pretense and delivering universal stories in the purest of forms. Think about it: the main themes of YA lit deal with questions of identity, sexuality, complex relationships, and searching for one's place in the world. These are not issues left behind once one turns 20--these are issues we deal with throughout our entire lives.

I never intended to write for teenagers. But as I became more fully immersed in the genre, and learned that there are far fewer boundaries in writing for children than one may imagine, I realized that the stories I wanted to tell were the ones I wished I had found when I was a teenager myself. I often joke that I'm in a state of arrested adolescence. And maybe that will change when I one day become a wife and a mother, but then again, maybe it won't. Maybe I'll still be trying to figure out who I am and where I belong. I know that right now, at 26, these are questions I ask myself every day. I look for answers in the words of Sarah Dessen, Rob Thomas, Jerry Spinelli, Ellen Wittlinger: authors who, in their unique and profound voices, help me figure out not only who I once was and who I am now, but also who I one day hope to be.

Lara M. Zeises is the author of Bringing Up the Bones, which was named the Honor Book in the 2001 Delacorte Press Prize for a First YA Novel. (Bringing Up the Bones is reviewed in this issue of KLIATT.)

TEA BENDUHN

Like Lara, I first became interested in YA literature when I was an adult To be fair, I was a college student at the time, visiting my parents' home in Atlanta during spring break. I was wandering through the bookstore and spied a copy of Nancy Garden's Annie on My Mind. I picked it up, and found it both delightful and hilarious; I didn't know you could do that. At the time I really didn't know anyone was allowed to write books about gay teens in love. I was also a little bit shattered because I wanted to write the first one, and figured if anyone ever did it again, that would be inauthentic. I tamped down my feelings of doubt and decided this book could open some doors, then put it on the back burner of my mind. As an education major, one of my classes required that we read books for kids. I leapt into Beverly Cleary's Dear Mister Henshaw, and discovered whole new layers and depths to the book that I remembered from childhood in a different way. I suddenly began visiting the children's section of used bookstores and informed all of my friends at college that I was going to write a book for young people. They smiled and laughed and said, "Sure," going along with my joke. Time went by, and I decided that since life is short, I should go to graduate school, and was drawn to the MFA program at Emerson College for their offerings in children's literature. After reading two YA novels a week for one semester, I started writing Gravel Queen the next.

During my snarfing down of teen novels, I was touched by a few writers in particular. Francesca Lia Block's Dangerous Angels served to open my eyes as Garden previously had. Where Garden showed me a world of subject matter, Block opened a door into language. Until then, I had been trying to write stuffy, pretentious literary fiction, which didn't suit my mold. And so I shook off that loose skin and started dancing in my own words. I found the voice of Gravel Queen's Aurin tapping against my forehead, and finally sat down and let her out, putting her words on my paper. And I allowed myself to write my own story of two teenage girls discovering each other and falling in love. Yes. It suddenly all made sense; I could write something entertaining that would also sustain my interest. Above all else, my main draw to YA literature is this: it is fun. Pure, unabashed, shameless fun. And heck if I wasn't going to enjoy it. So open up the doors, Laurie Halse Anderson, fling them open, Jane Lee Carey. Sure, the subject matter can be heavy and melodramatic at times. But within that weight, there is also a complex psychology involved in writing for younger people. And there is almost always raw youth and energy breathing through those enormously enjoyable pages, and that is what I love: books that are exuberant and exhilarating, celebrating life. Tea Benduhn is the author of Gravel Queen (Simon & Schuster, March 2003).