BEA 2012: The Ongoing Evolution of YA Fiction Panel
**please don’t mind the picture quality. I mixed up where the panel would be SILLY ME! and had to hang out on the side for most it. Hence, they could be better.***
“I didn’t set out to write YA. My characters just so happen to be in high school.”-Tonya Hurley
Out of every genre in the industry today the one with the most growth and potential is Young Adult. The YA craze has come in waves, sometimes it’s there and sometimes it isn’t but as of late it’s proved that its here to stay. With the success of books such as The Hunger Games and Twilight, YA has found the traction that it needs in order to build a cute little home in both the world of literature and pop culture. As it was said during the panel, when Steven King reviews The Hunger Games, you know there needs to be more coverage of it. The panel was a great insite into what some bestselling authors in the genre thought about it as a whole, fame over seas, and the very important topic that we all love, what about the adults?
The panelists were all ladies, and the girl power atmosphere was empowering for any female writers out there who have any doubt that they could be successful in the field. As the editor of an all girl blog I found this really great that there are so many women out there getting it done.
Panelists included:
- Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian. Han is the best selling author of The Summer Series and Vivian is the writer of such books as The List and Not That Kind of Girl together the two college buddies, have a new trilogy coming out called Burn for Burn. Might I mention they are adorable? Vivian said that Han was her biggest fan and vice versa. They Skype chat and edit each others work through google docs. It’s a literary girlmance. But what makes them the most interesting is that they are the only two authors in the panel that don’t write paranormal or dystopian YA, instead they stick to the more realistic tones of adolescence and the theme of coming of age.
- Bethany Griffin, the author who would do Edgar Allen Poe proud with her re-imagining of the his short story The Masque of The Red Death. She takes a story that screams “required reading” to any high school student and turns it into something relatable, it’s the perfect essence of the young adult genre, it teaches kids without making it obvious that it is.
- Melissa Marr a New York Times Bestselling writer of The Wicked Lovely series, and her new book Carnival of Souls which takes place in two dimensions (human and demon) and contains themes of love, family and violence. She has one of my favorite sound bites from the whole panel: “It’s a story about love, families and also fighting to the death because that’s just good fun!”
- Elizabeth Norris is the author of Unraveling, which is a science fiction novel. At the time she was writing it the number of Scifi YA books were slim, although now the times have changed and the shelves are cluttered with them. Norris had a friend tell her “No one will buy science fiction, that’s just for nerds!” to which she responded “But there’s such good potential!” As a fan of science fiction I only have one thing to say to that and it’s “you go girl!"
- Tonya Hurley who is the best selling author of the Ghost Girl series and her new series due out later this year called The Blessed, which once again uses paranormal elements but also utilizes a character I’m personally excited about and that’s my hometown of Brooklyn! "Brooklyn is just as much of a character as the three martyrs.” I’ve lived in Brooklyn my whole life so I will just quote my notes here where I say YESSS!! to that statement. Glad to have a story that takes place in Brooklyn that will utilize it as an asset to the arc rather than just a passing mention.
All together the panel had some great discussion on the genre and it’s ever changing trends and topics. One question that was posed was whether or not the panelists set out to write YA and the general consensus seemed the same, that it’s not about writing to the genre it’s about writing for the story, and if it just so happens to be about young kids than so be it. The great thing about YA is that it takes adult themes and turns them into something relatable, the panelists all do that with their books; you can connect to the characters like you know them. One would think it’d be hard when a character is paranormal, but it’s not. Teens learn and heed advice from the characters created. Which begs the other question asked, what about the adults that read YA?
There was some mixed responses to this. Yes the ladies are aware that adults read their books but are they going to change the way they write their stories to satisfy them? Probably not. Han stated that yes sometimes they read reviews and reviewers try to nit pick how chaste certain things are, but Marr made a good point that YA writers make sure it’s not too much because they are still writing for teens, not their parents. But Hurley also made a good point to the contrary that young adult readers are sophisticated and could handle the themes. Essentially it’s finding that mix that keeps both the adults enthralled in the series and teens that it’s written for.
Another hot topic was “white washing” certain characters. Almost all of the authors on the panel said that they try to steer clear from defining race because when readers dont have set description it’s easier and also a lot more fun. That way they can see the characters the way they want to and create fan art. Jenny Han said that as a woman of color she does read everyone as being white, it’s just an assumption that she makes, which is why it was so important for her to have an Asian character in her books. It’s kind of this double edged sword, the genre sets out to help teenagers connect but it’s hard for girls of color to connect to characters they assume to automatically be white. Hopefully more multi-racial characters are put into books so that those that are unspoken for have characters to champion for them.
You know YA is a success when a lot of these authors have escorts when they visit other countries to promote their books internationally, it’s a true sign of the ever growing popularity of the genre globally. You can never see a best seller list without at least one Young Adult book being on there. It’s popularity is a great thing for young people who can finally see that reading is something cool rather than just for us nerds.
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