I've always wanted to be a part of that experience of writing to an audience that is just starting to fall in love with books. When I felt that my writing for adults had become cemented, I decided to write a YA series.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Becoming a YA author was actually a very lucky accident. When I wrote the 'Queen of Everything,' I thought it was a book for adults.
One of my biggest goals, especially with writing YA novels, is just to have people enjoy reading.
As someone who writes and teaches YA fiction, I spend a lot of time trying to define its character and readership, and I don't think I'm alone - genres are all about boundary drawing, and the YA genre is, in a lot of ways, about carving out boundaries around adolescence, a space for teenagers to do teenage things.
I pretty much always wanted to write a series, because I love reading them.
All of my books, which are supposedly, I mean they're called YA novels, my hope is that adults would find no reason not to read them if they read them.
I love writing for young adults because they are such a wonderful audience, they are good readers, and they care about the books they read.
I've always been drawn to writing for young readers. The books that I read growing up remain in my mind very strongly.
I've written some standalone novels, but a book series allows fans in. There's much more intense involvement.
I want to say that I really appreciate that readers are willing to work with my tendency to write in several different genres and for different age groups.
I don't ever write with a particular audience in mind. I just write books that please me.