YAs are bustin out all over; Blog Views

Ed here-with so many genre writers turning to writing Young Adult novels, I thought this might interest those of you who (like me) sometimes get confused as to what's appropriate for YA and what's not. From the NY Times:


I'm YA and I'm OK

By MARGO RABB
Published: July 20, 2008
When my agent called to tell me that my novel, “Cures for Heartbreak,” had sold to a publisher, she said, “I have good news and bad news.” The good news: an editor at Random House had read it overnight and made an offer at 7:30 a.m. The bad news: the editor worked at Random House Children’s Books.

My agent recounted the story of my novel’s sale, its rejections and close calls, and its particularly close call with editors at two Random House adult imprints. Both had wanted to buy it until the editor in chief decided the novel would be “better served” by the young adult division.

My literary novel about death and grief, which I’d worked on for eight years, was a young adult book?

for the rest go here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/books/review/Rabb-t.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin

-----BLOG VIEWS

I was in a supermarket the other day when a man came up and introduced himself as regular reader of this blog. He said he enjoyed it but he gets the sense that I prefer the writers of the past to the writers of today. I said that that was the case sometimes but that in the last few months I've praised a lot of contemporary authors as well.

The thing is that most writers today promote themselves on line. And many of the same writers, the prominent ones, get muy space in print and on web. So I like to remind writers where they came from by talking about memorable writers of the past.

But as I look back over the past months I see I've recommended, among others, Allan Guthrie, Megan Abbott, Duane Swierczynski , Ken Bruen, Dave Zeltserman, Tom Piccirilli, Christa Faust. And I'd add to that list John McFetridge whose novel Dirty Sweet I finished today. He's one cunning, gifted writer. A major new talent.