Last year my first novel hit the bookstores, a story about a boy in his final year of high school dealing with small town life, his crazy parents, and a painful crush on his homophobic best friend. I thought there might be a few wrinkles involved in marketing it, but I assumed it would be the gay content that would cause the confusion. I was so wrong. Nobody seemed to care if my main character was gay or straight. The problem was that he was young. 'Is this really general fiction?' people would ask me. 'Isn't it YA?'

'No way!' I'd answer, and my reasons for this were fairly simple.