Charlene Moncrief's Blog

2015 was a great year for a million reasons, and it was kind of a bummer year for one big reason:

YA Paranormal Literature Was Dead.

At least, that’s what agents and publishers kept telling me over and over again this past year. According to the powers that be, the market is saturated, and no one wants to read (or more importantly – buy) paranormal stories anymore.

Add to that the fact that I was shopping around a Paranormal ROMANCE novel, and the proverbial publishing door was slammed even harder in my face. The gatekeepers had spoken and the ugly verdict was handed down:

YA Paranormal Literature Is Most Definitely Dead.

But I didn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. And so, with eyes closed tight, teeth clenched in absolute fear, I reluctantly put FLIGHT out there anyway, hoping that those gatekeepers were wrong.

And you know what? Not only were they wrong, they were SO wrong!

There is an audience for YA Paranormal Lit and it’s alive and well, thank you very much. And not only is it alive, it’s thriving and as big as ever! I have had the good fortune of meeting so many fans of this great genre, who are just as vested, and just as loyal as they were at the height of the Twilight phenomenon. This market isn’t dead at all, and there are legions of fans still out there to prove that fact right.

I kind of new this to be true all along, but it wasn’t till this holiday break that I realized it even more clearly. This holiday season I found my newest obsession, the Paranormal Sci-Fi series, “Supernatural.” I’m way late to the game (it’s currently in it’s 11th season and is the longest running Sci Fi show in history), and I’m only on Season 6, but I am totally in love with this series. TNT runs 4 hours of back to back episodes every day, and my family has now accepted that mommy is going to make random disappearances to go catch up on the latest episode. The story centers around two brothers who hunt demons, and all the crazy adventures that they get into as they hunt. There are angels and archangels and demons and vampires and every sort of wonderful paranormal creature you could imagine making guest appearances. (Plus the two actors who play the brothers are lovely eye candy, so that’s always a bonus.)

The fan base that this show has is enormous and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, and that’s fantastic. This series, and all the other wonderful paranormal stories out there, prove that genres don’t die nor do they become less marketable if they’re done WELL. “Supernatural” is one of the smartest, funniest and well-written shows I’ve seen in a long time. If something is done right, it will succeed and be accepted no matter what the genre is.

So, take that literary gatekeepers. Paranormal stories are alive and well and I’m so proud to be a small part in it.

I’m going to stop blogging now so I can go watch yet another episode of “Supernatural.” Only got 5 more seasons before I’m totally caught up ☺

Disclaimer: It’s been a rough day and I’m feeling a little broken, so this is going to be a doozy of a blog. It’s going to be long, deeply personal and emotional. In short, it’s gonna get ugly.

You have been warned.

Sara Bareilles recently released her memoir, Sounds Like Me - My Life (So Far) In Song. I wouldn’t be the true, rabid fan of hers that I am, if I didn’t rush out to go buy both the hardcover book and the audio book. I’ve never bought an audio book before, and the audio version has her narrating the story, as well as singing some of the songs that she’s written, in support of the stories she tells in the book. BONUS!

So I sat down this morning at my home office, audio book fully downloaded, and got to work on my day job in animation looking at pretty drawings. I hit ‘play’ on my iPhone, ready to get lost in Sara’s stories and in her voice.

Bad idea to do this while I was actually trying to get work done. Horrible idea.

Worst. Idea. EVER.

I should have known better. I should have known that this woman would turn me into a blubbering, hot mess, crying all over said pretty drawings. Her songs have been responsible for my undoing on more than one occasion, why wouldn’t her written word do the same? Keep in mind I made it HALF WAY through Chapter 1 before I couldn’t listen anymore and just had to give in and start bawling, frantically searching for some sort of semblance of a Kleenex before settling on my arm to wipe my face off. I’ve been broken ever since.

Why, you ask? Oh, SO MANY reasons.

In Chapter 1, Sara jumps into it right away and gets personal, talking about her family dynamics, and how in the 3rd grade, she was labeled ‘The Fat Girl’ by her classmates, and it’s been a stigma she’s carried ever since. She then goes on to say that to this day, she sort of grossly relishes telling this story to people, because she likes hearing people’s reactions of ‘No way! Fat?? I don’t see you as that girl.’ It’s a weird way of getting some sort of validation that she’s not fat, and that people don’t still view her as that, even if at the end of the day, when she looks in the mirror, Sara still sees herself as “The Fat Girl.”

When I was in the 7th grade, a girl named Adrienne came up to me with her friends and said, “Charlene, you are so ugly.” Nothing prompted this. She just walked up to me, said it with a horrid snide look on her face, and then walked away with her little friends.

I didn’t have any friends in middle school – no exaggeration – I had NO friends. But I was ok with that. I kind of embraced the fact that I was a loner and that was just going to be how it was going to be. (Thank you, books!) I went to a small Catholic school, and it was easy to get pigeon holed into whatever everyone else deemed you to be. I was the loner girl, and that’s how I would be to all these people, always. I got that part and was ok with it. But after Adrienne said that vile comment to me, I then became ‘The Loner UGLY Girl,’ and the stigma stuck.

I was ugly, truth be told. I swam every day, so I was unnaturally dark, almost purple, which is no good when you go to school with kids who for the most part were blonde and milky skinned. I had horrible buck teeth, with an overbite so bad I couldn’t close my mouth properly and could almost stick my whole thumb under my two front teeth. I was gangly, never quite making it past the 87 pound mark, and had ginormous size 8 feet that didn’t compute with my 4’10” frame.

I never felt like I fit in, but I never felt ugly. Not until Adrienne said it to me.

Hearing Sara’s story of her own trauma as a child brought all of my own trauma right to the surface again, hence the beginning of the downward spiral.

And during this downward spiral, I realized that I can’t remember ANY of my classmates last names from the 7th and 8th grade. I initially blamed it on mommy hood sucking my ability to remember anything past yesterday, but then I realized it wasn’t mommy hood at all. It was because every single person in my class had power over me – much like Madonna, or Cher or Prince. These celebrities only need one name for you to understand who they were and be overwhelmed by their awesomeness.

My classmates only needed the one name for me to get the message, and I heard and embraced Adrienne’s message loud and clear: I was ugly.

As I listened to Sara’s words, I realized that I fell into the same hole that she had: I LOVE telling people my story of the hateful little girl who called me ugly. I’ve told it a million times, and I secretly relished telling it. I didn’t realize why till Sara shared her reason: like Sara, I needed to hear someone tell me I was wrong, that I wasn’t ugly anymore. That there was no way you could look at me now and reconcile that with me being ugly, ever. When I tell this story, I’m not fishing for compliments - I’m fishing for validation. I’m fishing for someone, anyone, to tell the little girl in me that Adrienne was wrong.

It’s sort of a false form of validation, because just like Sara, these validations really don’t change things. At the end of the day, I can still look in the mirror and see the ugly girl peering from around the corner, the same way that Sara still sees that fat girl.

But that revelation wasn’t my total undoing.

No, my undoing was when Sara went into the trials and tribulations of writing her book. She said, “Who was I to think that I should be writing a book?” It’s a question I ask myself every damned day. Who the hell do I think I am, writing a book?? Now add to it that the only thing Sara wanted during this awful time, the only thing I ever wanted during that time, was to DISAPPEAR. Not to be skinny or pretty, necessarily - but to not be noticed. To just fade into the background so no one noticed my imperfections, so I could JUST BE. Writing a book is the equivalent of me standing in the middle of a crowded mall and yelling at the top of my lungs, “I have a story to tell! So pay attention to me, dammit, and NOTICE ME!”

Who wants to be noticed when you’re ugly?

All my insecurities and fears about writing, being myself in my writing, and hoping that people accept my truths and want to hear the stories I have to tell, all came to the surface listening to Sara’s audio book.

So, yes, I was a hot mess. Still am. And I’m sure that I’ll continue to be a hot mess, the further I dive into Sara’s book, because that’s just the kind of relationship she and I have. Her words and melodies break me, and then rebuild me back up again so that I’m more whole than I was before. It’s totally F’d up, and something I wouldn’t change for the world.

So damn you, Sara Bareilles, for ripping open an old, painful wound, but THANK YOU for helping me to understand a little bit more of what makes me, me. As always, you rock.

Throughout my writing journey, Sara helped me sound like me, and for that I will be forever grateful.

I have to add this though: I do consider myself a pretty well balanced, confident individual. As horrible as that comment was, I think it actually made me a better person. It made me invest in things that mattered, like my writing, my reading, my becoming a better, empathetic person. Someone who would never want to hurt another individual as much as Adrienne hurt me. In time, I realized that as in literature, beauty is in the eye in the beholder. And most days, when I look in the mirror, I’m pretty pleased with what I see looking back at me, both inside and out.

On that note, I will leave you with the lyrics to one of her songs that I listened to over and over again this morning, accompanied by sloppy tears in my eyes and hiccups from being too emotional. These lyrics pretty much nail on the head all of the hurt and pain I was going through during that awful time. Despite all the cruelties that my classmates heaped on me, I managed to make a brand new ground for myself and at the end of it all, I ended up feeling more than enough.

I want to darken in the skies
Open the floodgates up
I want to change my mind
I want to be enough
I want the water in my eyes
I want to cry until the end of time
I want to let the rain come down
Make a brand new ground
Let the rain come down.

So bring it on, Sara. With Kleenex now firmly in hand, I think I’m ready to move on to Chapter 2.

Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song

I was in my local Target the other day, when my 11 year old picked up a grey, trucker style baseball cap that had a multicolored, rainbow heart on it, with the word ‘pride’ right above it. She asked me if she could get it, and as I did my best to contain my enthusiasm and glee over her choice (because we all know that the worst thing you can ever do with a pre-teen child is show enthusiasm about anything – it’s a sure fire way to get them to do the total opposite of whatever it was that just brought you joy), I very calmly said, ‘Sure. Throw it in the cart.’ Meanwhile, my inner self was doing a happy dance and a victory lap around the store, so proud of Target for displaying their own message of love by carrying this merchandise, and even prouder of my 11 year old for wanting to be a part of it.

Which then got me thinking about my daughters, and what their reality is, and how that relates to the literature they read. As you can probably already tell, we are a pretty open, liberal family, who also happens to be interracial. Being loving and welcoming to every color of person, and whomever they may choose to love, was never anything my husband and I actively taught to our kids: it just simply was the way it was. I am not naïve in knowing that that is a luxury of living in a major metropolitan city like Los Angeles, and a lot of kids aren’t exposed to the diversity my kids are.

So this is what my kids’ reality is, but the literature they read doesn’t always reflect that.

I know that we’ve made great strides and the world at large is a far more open, tolerant place than it was even 10 years ago, but in literature, particularly in young adult literature, I still feel as though there are milestones to be made. The cardinal rule of writing for writers is to write what you know. I am a proud parent of interracial kids, and I am in an interracial marriage. That is what I know, so that is what I write, and it was really crucial for me to make sure that I kept with that. When my daughters grow up and truly start reading about these heroes and heroines in young adult literature, they’re going to be met with largely Caucasian characters, in a largely Caucasian universe. That’s not what they know to be their reality, and I think that a large part of America would agree. We are deemed a melting pot for a reason. Our country is unique because the fabric that makes us what we are is as diverse as it comes. I would love to see authors start to step up and really embrace this diversity as they create their own imaginary worlds.

Wouldn’t it be the coolest thing if a global phenomenon like Twilight featured an interracial couple? Or a gay couple? Or an interracial gay couple??

I may be getting ahead of myself here, and maybe the world isn’t completely ready to embrace the vision of our future in literature that I see, but still, it’s nice to dream. And maybe someday, for my daughters’ generation of future writers, that dream can be a true reality.

Ok, I know. I’m a total loser and haven’t blogged in far too long. I absolutely blame my crazy life for it. You stink crazy life.

I wanted to write about a phrase that I’m just hearing about now, that has been used several times in reviews for my novel, Flight: “insta-love.” I thought I was a pretty cool, happening, hip chick who knew most of the modern day phrases, but I guess I was wrong because I had never heard of this before till it was used to describe the relationship between Xavier and Camille (and not in the nicest of ways – thank you very much.)

So I’ve been spending the last few days mulling this phrase over in my head. At first, my naïve self actually took the phrase as a compliment. I mean, if you’re going to find your soul mate, why not do it instantly, right? And then I read on after that phrase was used, and realized that it wasn’t used as a compliment, but as a slam. And then my lip started to quiver and the confusion left, and I got sad, and then I got depressed, and then I wanted to crawl under the covers with my dog and hide.

And then I really started to think about it, and then I got defensive.

What’s wrong with insta-love???

What’s wrong with seeing someone and immediately feeling that pull, that zing, that inexplicable burst that happens from a place in your soul you didn’t know existed until that person came into your life? That’s exactly how I felt when I met my husband. There was this instant chemistry/attraction/pull that I literally couldn’t turn away from, and neither could he. I’m so grateful I gave into that wonderful, crazy feeling because now I have a beautiful family to show for it.

Now, there’s lots of other stuff I don’t get, nor do I support. I don’t believe in compromising your belief system, just to please someone else. I don’t believe you should ever feel less than with the person you love. I don’t believe in giving up yourself and what makes you uniquely you, just to make the other person happy.

Nope, don’t buy any of the above.

But insta-love, I absolutely 100% believe in and wish for every man/woman in the universe to experience at least once in their life. And more importantly, if you are fortunate to have insta-love fall square in your lap, then by all means, embrace it, cherish is, believe in it.

I realize now that I am a shameless believer in the magic of insta-love, both in the stories I write and in the life I lead.

So there. Dammit.

Today’s not so great a day. Nothing in particular is necessarily going wrong, per say, it’s just not such a great day and I’m not feeling so great about myself. The demons of self-doubt are looming, waiting to strike. I can feel it.

So I go about my business, take kids to school, head to work, pop in some ear buds and prepare to get lost in pretty drawings to preoccupy myself and keep the demons away. My music comes on, and slowly, ever so slowly… the demons ebb and the darkness lifts. I may be the only freak that this happens to (please let that not be the case – please let there be other freaks like me out there), but that’s how quickly music can change my whole being. Today’s inspiration was Sara Bareilles’ “Inside Out.” If you don’t know who she is, stop what you’re doing right this minute and go on YouTube or iTunes and listen to one of her songs. Now. I’ll wait.

I love that music can do that. I love that music can have the power to uplift, expel, inspire and motivate. It really is a miracle. I hope that when you’re having a yucky day like I started to have, you can find your muse that can lift you out of it, and I hope it’s a rad song that does the trick.

I still have absolutely nothing to blog about, so I thought I would change it up and throw in an excerpt from my novel, Flight, that never made it into the final edit. Please see below my Prologue, that, for a million reasons, ended up not working for the finished product, but was still a personal favorite of mine nonetheless.

Enjoy ☺

PROLOGUE


It was an odd thing, dying.

I had to admit; I’d never given much thought to it. But then again, what 18-year-old girl ever would. Especially someone like me; someone who had the whole world on a silver platter constantly at her fingertips. I was born into a dynasty of wealth and opulence. Surely that would guarantee long life and happiness.

It certainly shouldn’t have led to my early death.

And yet, here I was. I could feel the life draining from me as the constriction on my throat grew tighter and tighter. The hands continued to squeeze the life out of me. It was amazing that hands that were once so loving and so dear, could equally be as evil and sinister. Never in my life would I have imagined these hands being the cause of my death, and certainly not in this way. The act of being killed was bearable. I avoided the eyes that went with those hands. Having to stare into those eyes; that was the painful part. They were empty and soulless. I couldn’t stare into them because it was a reminder of the person I had lost.

The person responsible for taking my life was the one person I would have given my life for.

From the corner of my eye, I saw him hurrying towards me, racing to try and save me. I saw the pain and panic in his eyes as he rushed in vain to try and get to me in time. I knew in my heart that he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. My heart had already been broken a million times that night and my soul had already been killed. Having my physical body actually die was just a technicality. The deed was already done.

I savored the last moment I could of him. I could see the passionate effort in his face to try and save my life. Maybe to hold me one last time, as I would have given anything to do right now. But I knew his efforts would be futile.

He was so lovely, so beautiful. It was amazing how, even in his horror stricken face, I still managed to find solace and peace. That was the look I wanted to remember. I shut my eyes and tried my best to erase the pain in my love’s face, and instead replace it with the tranquil expression that I had fallen so deeply in love with. That would be my last memory of him; I was determined in that.

Some people say that at the moment of your death, your life races before your eyes. All of your past memories and all of your past loves come flitting into your brain, flooding it with the saga that was your life.

Well, those people are wrong.

At the moment of your death, you’re only thinking of one thing. It’s the only thing and the most important thing of all. I know because I’m dying right now and only one thought is being filtered into my brain, repeating itself like a mantra that won’t stop no matter how hard I may try:

What’s going to happen to me now?

I haven’t blogged in a few days, and really, it’s cuz I’ve got nothing critical to say.

Life has been crazy, I’m certainly busier than I’ve ever been… but I’ve got nothing super profound to share. I dug deep and tried to make the hamsters in my brain spin their little wheels and come up with something – ANYTHING – to blog about.

But I couldn’t come up with anything, which was becoming really depressing.

But then I realized, that’s ok. I don’t always have to have some words of wisdom or interesting tidbit to share with the universe. (‘Interesting’ being a subjective word, of course. I may find the faces my dog makes fascinating, but it doesn’t mean the rest of the world finds that to be the case.)

It’s ok to sometimes just BE. To be busy and doing stuff and go through life, and maybe, inadvertently taking interesting stuff in instead of always putting interesting stuff out.

Anyway, that’s what I’m sticking to until I can find something else to blog about.

If you are friends with a writer, then you may have been approached at some point to read that friend’s work, and give your advice/opinion. This blog is for you. And if you haven’t had the opportunity to do this for a friend yet, but have this opportunity in the future, this is for you too. Print it out. Save it. Keep it somewhere safe. I promise your writer friend will love you for all time for it.

Dear Beta Reader,

Congratulations! You have been chosen to be part of something very special. Because of your intellect, good sense, good taste and loving heart, you have been selected to be a part of a very exclusive club: the Beta Reader club. Please know that you were hand picked to be a part of this very special group, and not everybody gets to be a member. Membership has its’ privileges (maybe a personalized thank you in that writer’s future novel), but it also has its’ responsibilities. Should you choose to continue on and decide to be an active member of this club, please follow the 4 simple rules below:

1. If you are given something to read, do it and do it soon. PRETTY PLEASE? There’s nothing more frightening and anxiety inducing for a writer than having their work in someone’s hands, and having to wait to get feedback. Silence is excruciating. Know that you have their baby in your hands and the writer is waiting with bated breath to know whether you think their baby is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, or if it’s some hideous beast that needs another few months to incubate. If you can’t read their work in a timely and immediate manner, and give them notes promptly, politely pass on reading it at all and cite time constraints as the reason why. Believe me, the writer will thank you for it and your friendship can remain intact.

2. Try to be as specific as possible. Overall notes like “It’s good” can be just as damaging as “It sucks.” Remember that your good taste is what got you chosen in this coveted role to begin with, so the writer wants your opinions – specifically. Tell them exactly what spoke to you and what didn’t speak to you because that’s what the writer is looking for.

3. Be constructive about your notes. A note like “Your main character should be killed” really doesn’t help, and it’s not because it’s a negative note. This is a bad note because it doesn’t tell your reader WHY your character should be killed. Is it because they’re too vain? Too sad? Too pretty? Again, specifics are what help, whether they’re good or bad.

4. And if you can’t remember to do rules 2 or 3, just do rule number 1. Really. I can’t stress that rule enough.

I promise that if you follow the above rules, not only will you be doing a tremendous amount of good for your friend’s writing, but you’ll also be doing wonders for your friendship with them. Remember that your friend obviously has an enormous amount of respect for you to have chosen you to be a part of this very special journey. Do it kindly and do it with the above rules in mind. Please ☺

I was wading through the masses of emails that have been coming to me regarding Comicon this year, trying to make sense of their whole registration process and whether or not I was going to be able to get my professional badge in time, when my mind drifted back to a kinder time. A gentler time. When I could simply just fill out an actual paper form and within a few weeks, get my shiny, plastic encased Comicon badge, and be able to wander the San Diego Convention Center in relative peace and with plenty of elbow room. Obviously, this was a very, VERY long time ago and things have certainly changed. For those of you who haven’t experienced Comicon within the last 5 years, let me try and paint the picture for you: imagine masses of people, most of whom are dressed in some elaborate costume, most of whom have spent hours if not multiple nights waiting in line to catch a glimpse of some Hollywood wunderkind, and it’s absolute, wall to wall, nerd-dom. Expect to be stabbed by at least one rolled up free poster as it’s owner smashes past you, and bring coffee beans or smelling salts to try and rid yourself of the smell that thousands of people in hot sweaty costumes brings.

Which then got me thinking about sex.

More specifically, this new wave of sex in literature. Hot sex. Overly graphic sex. The ‘thank God this is on my Kindle so no one actually knows what I’m really reading’ kind of sex. And even more specifically, the fans that swallow this kind of literature up (yes, the pun was totally intended.)

Both the diehard Comicon attendee and the 50 Shades fan share one thing: absolute obsession over their respective passions. These two groups of fans are singularly responsible for turning their passions into global phenomenon that have made those industries billions of dollars.

And yet, the Comicon geek can proudly wear their home made Sailor Moon outfit in public, while the reader of the latest Sylvia Day novel has to sit in a dark corner and pretend she’s reading Jane Austin.

Why is that? At the end of the day, these celebrated heroes all have the same exact story: Superman/Anastasia Steele think they’re just ordinary people, with ordinary lives. Until one day, they learn they’re not. They’re special. Superman learns he’s the son of Kal-El, Anastasia learns that the unattainable Christian Grey has fallen in love with her. It’s really the same exact story of the ordinary person being elevated to extraordinary status, but the way it’s told is different. Men secretly want to have superhuman strength and save mankind from unimaginable evil; women secretly want the bad boy that nobody could have, to want them and then give them the best orgasm of their life.

But why is one form of storytelling branded as right of passage Americana, but the other is branded as mommy porn?

Because it involves sex and the women who read it.

Honestly, that’s the only reason I can think of, and it’s totally unfair. It saddens me that in 2015, we still can’t talk about sex in literature without brushing it off as trash or not worth seriously considering. And for you 50 Shades haters out there, don’t go down the path of it being bad writing and that’s why it’s not taken seriously. I don’t remember the movie “Daredevil” bringing down the superhero institution. Superhero stories can go on, despite a bad movie or story. The same can’t be said for erotica in literature, and I’m really hoping that changes. While Comicon will get Hollywood going there in throngs, ready to promote their latest high profile movie, a romance novel convention might be met with a roll of an eye when told it’s happening.

I do have hope though. Many, many, MANY years ago when I attended my first Comicon and it only filled half the Convention Center, I remember the same rolling of the eyes whenever I told anyone outside of my industry that I was going. What was once seen as something only comic book dorks and D&D players attended, is now the hottest ticket in town. Maybe, if we can get over the fact that, yes, people do have sex, and YES, it can be hot and YES, people may want to read about it, AND THAT’S OK – maybe then we can celebrate this genre the way it deserves to be celebrated: as a relevant art form that resonates with millions of people who get a tremendous amount of joy from reading it.

So this is my first blog posting. Ever. Clearly, I’m just slightly behind the times, but it’s never too late to start.

For today’s blog, I wanted to give a shout out to the genre that brought me to this blessed space in the first place: Young Adult, or YA as it’s most commonly referred to. I was in my local Barnes and Noble with my 11 year old the other day, and as she was methodically looking over every YA book on the shelf, trying to figure out what her next literary conquest was going to be, it struck me how times have changed. Here I was, trailing right behind her, picking up the same books she was looking over, reading the descriptions on the back, deciding if this was going to be the next universe I was going to dive into myself … and it hit me. I would have NEVER had this experience with my own mother when I was this age. Back then, YA consisted of new volumes of "Sweet Valley High" and other 100 page paperbacks about failed proms and surviving nerd-dom. These novels were sweet, short, and clearly only meant for the 12-16 year old girl who might pick it up and read it. While my mother read biographies about JFK, I was lost in the latest struggle between twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and the dilemmas that being identical twins struggling to find their own identities brings. Not exactly "War And Peace," but engaging all the same.

But today, we have epic sagas like "The Hunger Games," where boys and girls alike can get lost in Katniss’ fight to literally save the world. We have intense stories of devastating illnesses and how they give a new face to true love, like in "The Fault In Our Stars." And of course, the most YA of all YA stories, we have the "Twilight" universe, where both mother and daughter can get lost in the bliss of Team Edward and Team Jacob.

And what’s craziest, is that this is all mainstream literature. Not something that’s only found in Scholastic book fairs at local junior high schools, or specifically on the shelf of the young adult section at your local library (which were the only places I could go to if I ever wanted to find a new YA book to read.) These new YA books are in airport novelty shops, the tiny section of books at your local grocery store, and taking over entire sections at every person’s Barnes and Noble. Young Adult is simply everywhere, and every kind of person of every kind of age is reading them. This genre has clearly evolved into something much more, and changed the face of literature and the definitions of who reads it.

I think that’s f’ing fantastic.

YA isn’t niche, and it isn’t light. It tackles all the big, ugly, devastating, delightful, uplifting and inspiring topics that traditional fiction broaches, and it does so beautifully.

I am so proud to play a small part in this genre, and so for my first official written blog entry, I tip my hat to you, YA… you simply kick ass.