FollowA guest post by Jennifer Marcellus
The genre people enjoy shouldn’t determine whether or not others consider them intelligent. I always try to keep an open mind when people tell me they like a book or genre I don’t. Adults, especially academics, often struggle to withhold judgment when anyone mentions young adult literature. As someone who reads YA, I never understood what they find wrong with these books. Obviously, there are books like Gossip Girl and Sweet Valley High to put a bad taste in anyone’s mouth but I also realize these books are not all young adult literature offers its readers. James Frey, author of I am Number Four, started a company to churn out poorly written and predictable, assembly-line YA novels, perhaps for the sole purpose of proving my last statement wrong, but I haven’t given up hope. How can I when so many of my favorite novels live in the YA section?
Many books included in young adult fiction address serious social and personal issues like gang violence, coping with loss, sexual assault, depression, and physical abuse. However, young adult literature doesn’t just preach on social issues. They also teach youth how to handle certain situations and problems they face. Readers identify with these books because they connect more fully with the story and see they aren’t the only ones who might have to deal with certain issues.
To me, though, the role models YA offers readers—typically girls—are the most important aspect of the genre. I’m certain I’m not the only one hoping the owl with my Hogwarts letter got lost and will show up nearly ten years late. Many readers like me become so invested in these books that they gain not only an escape from their own life, but also find characters to admire. We become friends with Hermione from Harry Potter; Deryn in Leviathanteaches us how to live on an airship; we fight with Katniss and Peeta in The Hunger Games. And then, when these books end, we search for more books like them. Readers become dedicated to literature by discovering other similar books, both in and outside YA.
The lines between genres are blurred to begin with though. Bookstores and publishers change what section consumers find books based on the reactions of readers. When I went looking for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I found it in general fiction instead of YA despite being set in high school and the numerous awards it received in the teen genre. The fact of the matter is critics overlook what YA offers when they make the blanket statement that adults shouldn’t read YA. These books spark serious discussions regardless of the audience’s age. When adult fiction is too artsy to bear, it’s nice to dive into YA where plot is the pilot and characters are emotionally realistic. Scholars need to revise their attitude against YA to exclude only poorly written books in the genre. They do this with every other genre, so why not YA?
Jennifer Marcellus majors in Professional Writing at Southern Oregon University and reads young adult novels between writing papers and reading classics.
Lisa Brackmann’s debut novel, Rock Paper Tiger, (Soho, 2010) sets an ex-military expat on the margins of the Chinese art world. 
LB: Ideas are always kind of mysterious, but in this case, a big chunk of it was a blatant commercial consideration. I’d written a ton of stuff before tackling Rock Paper Tiger, but virtually none of it with the idea that I would write something that actually might have a shot at selling—I always pretty much wrote what I felt like writing without thinking of market realities ahead of time. So I examined what I knew about that might interest people, and I came up with “China,” specifically, modern China, for a setting. I hadn’t seen today’s China written about much in fiction by Western authors. I’d had some friends who were active in the art world there, and I’ve hung out on the periphery of the art scene in Los Angeles for years, so I thought that would be an interesting element as well, particularly when you look at the frequently political nature of contemporary Chinese art.
Want to spend an enjoyable week? Pick up Tim Wohlforth’s new book The Pink Tarantula. It’s a series of nine connected short stories about an unlikely pair of detectives. 
Reading Midge Raymond’s Forgetting English in the context of The Language Archive helped me to see the stories as about our limited vocabulary not just as travelers but as individuals—siblings, spouses, lovers, friends, and colleagues. Forgetting English is a collection of poignant stories with realistically drawn characters and detailed, exotic scenes: Melanie is in Tonga after losing her advertising job, Dan and Julie are in Tokyo after losing a baby, Deb in Antarctica fails to save a suicidal tourist, Sue learns about her husband’s affair on an anniversary trip to Hawaii, Karey, a nanny, nearly losed a child to the Pacific riptides, Lise lets her dissolute brother find his own way in Australia, and in the title story Paige in Tapei reclaims her life after a suicide attempt. Characters face adversity—death, defeat, displacement—and they gain insight from ephemera of life a misplaced ring, a standby ticket, a jade pendant, or someone else’s phone message. 
Carola Dunn was born in London and grew up in the village of Jordans, (where William Penn is buried), and attended Friend’s School, Saffron Walden. She graduated from Manchester University, moved to Southern California–by way of Fiji–and has lived in Eugene, Oregon, since 1992. She began writing books in 1979 and has been at it ever since. 
EB: I know that you take great effort to accurately portray the time period you write about in the Daisy Dalrymple series. How much of your work time is devoted to research versus writing?
EB: You’ve recently added a new character in a second series—Eleanor Trewynn, a widow who’s retired from international charity work to a village in Cornwall. What prompted you to start a new series?