Debut Author Interviews

Why write for children and teens?

• Marlane Kennedy on...Why Kids?
• G. Neri on...Why Kids?
• Joni Sensel on...Why Kids?
• Kelly Bingham on...Why Kids?
• Paula Chase on...Why Kids?
• Judy Gregerson on...Why Kids?
• A.C.E. Bauer on...Why Kids?
• Carrie Jones on...Why Kids?
• Jeannine Garsee on...Why Kids?
• S.A. Harazin on...Why Kids?
• Laura Bowers on...Why Kids?
• Ruth McNally Barshaw on...Why Kids?
• Karen Day on...Why Kids?
• Jay Asher on...Why Kids?
• Melissa Marr on...Why Kids?
• Sarah Beth Durst on...Why Kids?
• Stephanie Hale on...Why Kids?
• Eric Luper on...Why Kids?
• Suzanne Selfors on...Why Kids?

Why write for children and teens?

I never outgrew children’s books. Instead of making the jump to reading adult books, I kept on heading for the middle grade/young adult section of the library. My twenties and thirties have passed and reading books for kids is still a passion of mine. For years I wondered what the librarians in my town thought of me—what a relief it was when my book sold and I could tell them why I had been hanging around the kids’ book shelves. It gave me a legitimate excuse! Anyway, since I enjoy reading stories for kids, it naturally follows that what spills out of me are stories for kids.

Why write for children and teens?

I write for teens because YA is all about first times: it’s everything you could possibly write about in adult fiction, with the added bonus that the main characters are experiencing everything for the first time. Its all about flying blindly and figuring out life on the run. First love, first break-up, first jobs, first driver license, first crash, first times dealing with death, divorce, hatred, first glimmer of being an adult. Everything is alive and scary, including your body. It makes writing so much more interesting and visceral. Plus, you can give the reader a glimpse into their future by showing how your characters deal with certain issues. It may give the reader some food for thought when dealing with their own crisis. Plus you don’t have to use all them high falutin’ words…you can just say it as it is.

Why write for children and teens?

I don’t know that I meant to… but I enjoy writing about young protagonists, in part because I’m cynical about adults’ ability to actually change (and thus have a credible character arc). I have trouble as a reader with a lot of novels for adults for this reason — in my experience, even HUGE life events and dramas don’t often truly cause adults to change at all. Kids and teens are still flexible, still discovering themselves and the world, still creating themselves, and I think that’s fascinating.

Why write for children and teens?

I’d really like to copy Marlane and G.Neri on this one—what perfect answers—so very true!

I write both for both adults and kids—but my YA and children’s books are the only ones I have ever tried to sell. They feel the most truthful to me. I guess I’m still stuck in those teen years—remembering all too well the agony and angst, the highs and lows, the emotional “Stuff” that comes with the territory of slowly leaving childhood behind. That’s the stuff I most want to write about and share.

Why write for children and teens?

Honestly, I still feel like a 16-year-old at heart. So writing YA was a natural for me.

My own high school years were among the best times in my life - those times when drama, literally, is your life. When every high seems 50,000 feet in the air and every low feels like the depths of your worst hell. I’m still very drawn to reality TV shows like Two-A-Days because the experiences they portray- not getting asked out by the guy you adore, or having your boyfriend creep on you with someone else - those things are so life or death to a teenager. It’s fascinating to watch. On one hand you want to scream, Hey if you think this is tough wait until you’re an adult. But on the other, you can feel the extreme angst and joy they’re experiencing and it anchors you - helps put life in perspective sometimes.

My books are like that, telling the story about how things, that to an adult is so easily solved or at least easily shrugged off, just aren’t when the word “teen” is after your age. I also write the type of books I liked as a young reader. So writing for kids was less a choice as it was an outlet for my fascination with that time in my life.

Why write for children and teens?

Seventeen was a very magical year for me. It was the year that I realized that I wasn’t a kid anymore. It’s the year I realized that I had a dream for my life. And it was the year that I first felt fully human and free.

When I write anything serious, I always find myself writing about an almost seventeen-year-old girl who is about to embark on that journey of discovering herself. No matter how I try, I can’t escape this age and I am brought back to it again and again.

I’m stuck at seventeen and I don’t know that I’ll ever get past it!

Why write for children and teens?

One of the reasons I write for kids and teens is because of the audience. Kids and teenagers are honest. They’ll zone out if they’re bored—and won’t hide it. They won’t finish a book if it doesn’t interest them. I have to make a story the very best it can be if I want to entertain them. It’s a challenge I love.

One of my greatest highs came the day an 11-year old asked me if I had any other books out, because he wanted to go out and read them. I can’t disappoint him now, can I?

Why write for children and teens?

When we write books we can write them according to accepted forms, kind of like a Playmobile castle, following all the directions. People know what they get that way. And it can be really good, really comforting and empowering.

Or when we write books we can freestyle a bit more, mixing up Playmobiles with Legos. We can design our own thing and in doing that come at the truth in a slightly different way, a way that might make us question our world view.

What does this have to do with why I write for kids/teens?

As a writer, I want to write things that are crazy Playmobile/Lego mixes. A little Chick-lit with a some literary with some T.S. Eliot theory thrown in.

I write for teens because I want to empower them. I want to create a world they recognize and legitimize their world by presenting it as truth, but I also want teens to question that world a little bit, shake up that world view, question it. It’s only by searching and exploring that we can figure our way back to the truth that is our own.

I think kids/teens are really good explorers, and truth-seekers. I like that. So I write for that.

Why write for children and teens?

Secretly I’m very envious of teens: they have their whole lives ahead of them, with so many possibilities. There will never be another time when the decisions they make will affect their whole future, and this “power” they hold, often unknowingly, is mind-boggling to me. They have amazing, sometimes seemingly unreachable dreams, and often find little encouragement from their families and peers. If I can write something that’ll help them take their own dreams more seriously, then maybe what I write will make a difference in their lives—and, hopefully, in their future.

Why write for children and teens?

I write for teens because I feel like I know them better than I know adults. I have three teens, and they have friends over all the time. They ask me questions like, “Are you still revising that same book?” And sometimes (not my teens) they ask to read what I’m writing and give me ideas. I find teens interesting. They make me smile, but sometimes they make me worry a lot. I love it when they give me advice. I feel like I’m stuck between fourteen and nineteen years old.

Why write for children and teens?

Whenever someone asks me this question, I’m reminded of a writer’s workshop I took about five years ago. For it, you pre-submitted your work, and during class had to sit quietly while other writers critiqued it. Speaking was strictly forbidden!

One week, I submitted a first chapter that showed a very funny (and very true) childhood event that involved my brother, a pirate map, my pony, blood and a very rocky hill. I know, sounds cool, right? (And don’t worry — the pony was not harmed!)

So anyway, there I sat, pen in hand, ready to hear their laughter. Instead, one woman started the discussion by saying how dark the story is.

Wha— huh? Dark?

The others agreed. Dark and a grim example of complex sibling relationships. Another woman commented about how the mother was irresponsible because she was inside the house, oblivious to what was going on. Someone else agreed, and went on to discuss the obvious show of favoritism expressed to the older brother, leading back to the ‘darkness’ of the story.

Again … Huh?

I was stunned. Oh my gosh, didn’t they remember what it was like being young? Didn’t any of them have an older brother or sister? Come on, it was funny! A little painful, yes, and I still have a three inch scar below my knee, but it was funny! And no, my mom wasn’t irresponsible. We were farm kids and besides, children shouldn’t have a parent breathing down their backs 24/7 anyway!

After that workshop, it came to me why I enjoy writing for kids so much. Because I can look at that story and laugh from a child’s perspective, not just an adult’s.

Why write for children and teens?

I write for kids instead of for adults because
- it’s more challenging
- it’s more interesting to me
- my best stories are about kids
- I have 4 kids and want to entertain them and their friends
- it’s a noble business that I understand and appreciate

Why write for children and teens?

I have to break this question into two answers. First, why do I write? For me, every since I was young, writing was the best way I knew to calm and make sense of the chaos and anxiety and questions I felt inside. Often I couldn’t explain myself. But when I wrote something, whether in a journal or short story or later in a book, I felt some peace and sense and order. I write for kids because I still feel that I’m a kid myself. A 12-year-old on the verge of discovering my place in the world. A 16-year-old trying to make sense of badly behaving adults. An 18-year-old trying to hang on to my sense of self.

Why write for children and teens?

Why write for kids or teens? Take a look at the option! I’ve been to a number of multi-genre writing workshops and discovered that too much time writing books for adults has a horrible, long lasting, effect on authors — it makes them dull! I’d much rather hang out with the writers you’ll find here, in the Class of 2k7.

Also, teenage characters offer amazing benefits to writers. Every experience at that age is much more intense than at any other point in life. Why? Two reasons:

1. For the first time in our lives, we’re viewed as ultimately responsible for our actions (which means we’re also responsible for the consequences).

2. Raging hormones.

Combine both of those elements and the story writes itself…almost.

Why write for children and teens?

I don’t know that I “write for teens.” This one was for specific teens & specific reasons. Others may be for other ages or groups or whatever. It all depends on Ms. Muse’s moods. I wrote this for teens for two primary reasons.

Reason #1—My daughter & I started reading YA together a couple of years ago, and she found too many fantasy books with girls who weren’t active enough or MCs who were all boys. I remember that feeling far too well. We found others with characters she liked, but she wanted more. I wanted more. So, I wrote a book.

Reason #2— I wanted to write a book for the teens I knew then & now. I see all of these “alt teen” wanting to be like the “cool kids” (*laughs*) or needing “saved” or being “trouble.” It infuriates me. Piercings? Leather? Black? “Weird” taste? Most of the interesting people I’ve known dance to the sound of a different instrument, not just a different beat. This is a point worth praising, imo. So, I wrote a book.

Why write for children and teens?

You know that Cartoon Network show “The Adventures of Juniper Lee”? Best show on TV. If you don’t know it, it’s basically “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” but in cartoon form and without the whining. Anyway, June has this little brother Ray-Ray Lee who thinks it’s AWESOME that his sister is a secret super-hero who kicks monster butt.

If I were a cartoon character, I’d be Ray-Ray Lee. And that, in a nutshell, is why I write for kids/teens. I want to capture the “this is AWESOME!” feeling I get when I read so many kids books.

So I guess that means I fall in the “I don’t write for kids; I write for me” camp. I happen to think kids books are AWESOME so that’s what I write.

Why write for children and teens?

I write YA because I’m selfish. It is so great to be able to transport yourself back into a time in your life when the biggest worry you had was if a certain guy liked you. No mortgages, electric bills, or dirty diapers, just cool clothes, formal dances, and first kisses. Plus, I can make my characters make either better or worse choices that I made and see how it all turns out. It’s kind of like a real-life choose your own adventure novel.

Why write for children and teens?

Teen fiction is among the fastest-paced, highest emotion writing out there. Teen fiction is raw passion. I love to just dive right in and make the story happen. It’s just plain exciting.

I find that much adult fiction is bogged down with backstory, flashback and other literary devices that, to me, make for a “draggy” sort of read. I think back to my 4 years in high school and quite frankly I cringed whenever we had to read the likes of Moby Dick or one of those other heavy reads.

Sometimes people look at me funny when I tell them I write teen fiction. I make it a point to get those people a list of great teen reads and challenge them to read any one of them. Modern teen fiction jumps off the page, grabs the reader by both ears, and whisks him or her through the story. It’s just plain exciting.

Why write for children and teens?

While I write for adults too, I adore the process of writing for middle grade readers. Why? Because they are still willing to believe that all sorts of crazy things are possible. They don’t have all those hormones getting in the way. They don’t yet need romance. They just want great adventure.
When asked what my favorite books are, I always return to the ones I read at that age - especially those by Roald Dahl. And when I go into a bookstore these days, the kids section continually provides me with excellent reading. My favorites recently were City of Ember, House of the Scorpion, and The Golden Compass.