I'm Y.A. and I'm O.K.
Jul. 21st, 2008 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brdgt
Essay: I’m Y.A., and I’m O.K.
By MARGO RABB, The New York Times, 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?
Apparently, I had unintentionally slipped across an increasingly porous border, one patrolled by an unlikely guard. “The line between Y.A. and adult has become almost transparent,” said Michael Cart, a former president of the Young Adult Library Services Association and a columnist for Booklist. “These days, what makes a book Y.A. is not so much what makes it as who makes it — and the ‘who’ is the marketing department.”
I soon learned that I wasn’t the only writer who’d written a book with adults in mind only to have an agent or a publisher decide to market it as Y.A. Peter Cameron, A. M. Homes, Francesca Lia Block, Meg Rosoff, Stephenie Meyer, Linda Sue Park and many others have found themselves in the same situation.
“I assumed I was writing a book about a young person for adults,” Peter Cameron told me about his most recent novel, “Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You,” which was published as Y.A. last year by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Lorrie Moore proclaimed in The New York Review of Books that it was “possibly Cameron’s best book” and in fact not Y.A. literature at all. “The line has completely blurred,” Cameron said. “I don’t understand why this decision is made one way or another.”
Editors sometimes disagree as to whether a book would be best suited to a teenage or an adult audience. When Curtis Sittenfeld’s agent submitted her novel “Prep” to publishers, 14 editors rejected it, “and at least half of them said no because they thought it was Y.A.,” Sittenfeld said in a telephone interview. Random House published “Prep” as an adult book, and it became a best seller. “I think ‘Prep’ probably straddles the line” between adult and Y.A., Sittenfeld said. “You write the book you want to write, and then publishing has its way with it.”
For me, the thrill of my book’s having been sold outlasted my confusion over its classification. Then, as the publication date approached, I received a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. One morning in the dining room, another writer asked who was publishing my book; I told her that it was Random House, and that it was being published as young adult.
“Oh, God,” she said. “That’s such a shame.”
I couldn’t get her words out of my head. I spent a lot of time worrying about whether my book would be taken seriously. I noticed the averted gazes and unabashed disinterest of literary acquaintances whenever I mentioned my novel was young adult.
Again, I wasn’t alone. “There’s an enormous level of condescension towards Y.A. writing in the literary world,” said Martha Southgate, whose first novel, “Another Way to Dance,” was Y.A. She followed it with two adult novels. “My first book often gets literally left off my bio,” she said in a telephone interview.
Mark Haddon, who wrote numerous novels for children before “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” said in an e-mail message that he recalled “a number of people looking down their noses at me when I explained what I did for a living, as if I painted watercolors of cats or performed as a clown at parties.”
Many adults don’t realize how much the Y.A. genre has changed since their days of reading teenage romances and formulaic novels. “A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. is the Garden of Eden of literature,” said Sherman Alexie, whose first Y.A. novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” won the National Book Award for young people’s literature last year. Even the prestige of that award didn’t make him impervious to the stigma. “Some acquaintances felt I was dumbing down,” Alexie said in a phone interview. “One person asked me, ‘Wouldn’t you have rather won the National Book Award for an adult, serious work?’ I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian — that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A.”
I hoped that my book might find adult readers as well. My editor agreed that it was a “crossover book,” and I was assured it would have a “crossover cover.” But crossing over — at least in the Y.A.-to-adult direction — is hard. Cameron’s Y.A. novel was cross-listed in the adult catalog, but he found that most booksellers would shelve it only in the Y.A. section. (When the book comes out in paperback in 2009, it will be an adult title, by Cameron’s request.)
“Young people will find an adult book, but it doesn’t work the other way,” said A. M. Homes, whose first novel, “Jack,” was originally published as Y.A. (It was later released in paperback for adults.)
Meg Rosoff, an American-born author who lives in London, said, “There isn’t an adult who’s going to trot into the children’s section to look for adult literature.” All three of Rosoff’s novels have been published in both adult and Y.A. editions, and her first novel, “How I Live Now,” was nominated for prizes in both categories. In Britain, she says, where dual Y.A. and adult editions are more common, there’s less of a stigma against young adult literature.
“They’re smarter over there — in this country we tend to pigeonhole things,” said James Patterson, whose Y.A. series “Maximum Ride” was originally shelved only in the Y.A. section of Barnes & Noble. After sales fell short of Patterson’s adult titles, the fourth book in the series was released in hardcover for adults, and the chain began selling the series only in the adult section. Sales have since increased, a company representative said.
Cart, of Booklist, proposes that stores create an “All Ages” section for crossover titles, which might also help attract older teenagers. Megan Tingley, the senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, thinks this is a great idea. “We need to rethink how we’re merchandising books for teenagers,” she said.
Some adult authors find greater success when they publish a Y.A. book. “I obviously should’ve been writing Y.A. all along,” Alexie said in his National Book Award acceptance speech. He later told me, “This book sold like crazy in a way my books never have before, and I’ve had a great career.” There are other rewards as well. “At every reading I gave on tour, two or three other Y.A. authors would show up. That doesn’t happen in adult lit. The adult world is made up of cannibals who’d eat every part of your body. In the Y.A. world, they’d merely eat a toe or two.”
And then there are the readers. Soon after my book was published, I received this letter:
As it turns out, having my book published as Y.A. wasn’t such a shame after all.
Margo Rabb’s novel, “Cures for Heartbreak,” will be published in paperback in August. She is at work on two new novels, one for young adults.
By MARGO RABB, The New York Times, 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?
Apparently, I had unintentionally slipped across an increasingly porous border, one patrolled by an unlikely guard. “The line between Y.A. and adult has become almost transparent,” said Michael Cart, a former president of the Young Adult Library Services Association and a columnist for Booklist. “These days, what makes a book Y.A. is not so much what makes it as who makes it — and the ‘who’ is the marketing department.”
I soon learned that I wasn’t the only writer who’d written a book with adults in mind only to have an agent or a publisher decide to market it as Y.A. Peter Cameron, A. M. Homes, Francesca Lia Block, Meg Rosoff, Stephenie Meyer, Linda Sue Park and many others have found themselves in the same situation.
“I assumed I was writing a book about a young person for adults,” Peter Cameron told me about his most recent novel, “Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You,” which was published as Y.A. last year by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Lorrie Moore proclaimed in The New York Review of Books that it was “possibly Cameron’s best book” and in fact not Y.A. literature at all. “The line has completely blurred,” Cameron said. “I don’t understand why this decision is made one way or another.”
Editors sometimes disagree as to whether a book would be best suited to a teenage or an adult audience. When Curtis Sittenfeld’s agent submitted her novel “Prep” to publishers, 14 editors rejected it, “and at least half of them said no because they thought it was Y.A.,” Sittenfeld said in a telephone interview. Random House published “Prep” as an adult book, and it became a best seller. “I think ‘Prep’ probably straddles the line” between adult and Y.A., Sittenfeld said. “You write the book you want to write, and then publishing has its way with it.”
For me, the thrill of my book’s having been sold outlasted my confusion over its classification. Then, as the publication date approached, I received a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. One morning in the dining room, another writer asked who was publishing my book; I told her that it was Random House, and that it was being published as young adult.
“Oh, God,” she said. “That’s such a shame.”
I couldn’t get her words out of my head. I spent a lot of time worrying about whether my book would be taken seriously. I noticed the averted gazes and unabashed disinterest of literary acquaintances whenever I mentioned my novel was young adult.
Again, I wasn’t alone. “There’s an enormous level of condescension towards Y.A. writing in the literary world,” said Martha Southgate, whose first novel, “Another Way to Dance,” was Y.A. She followed it with two adult novels. “My first book often gets literally left off my bio,” she said in a telephone interview.
Mark Haddon, who wrote numerous novels for children before “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” said in an e-mail message that he recalled “a number of people looking down their noses at me when I explained what I did for a living, as if I painted watercolors of cats or performed as a clown at parties.”
Many adults don’t realize how much the Y.A. genre has changed since their days of reading teenage romances and formulaic novels. “A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. is the Garden of Eden of literature,” said Sherman Alexie, whose first Y.A. novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” won the National Book Award for young people’s literature last year. Even the prestige of that award didn’t make him impervious to the stigma. “Some acquaintances felt I was dumbing down,” Alexie said in a phone interview. “One person asked me, ‘Wouldn’t you have rather won the National Book Award for an adult, serious work?’ I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian — that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A.”
I hoped that my book might find adult readers as well. My editor agreed that it was a “crossover book,” and I was assured it would have a “crossover cover.” But crossing over — at least in the Y.A.-to-adult direction — is hard. Cameron’s Y.A. novel was cross-listed in the adult catalog, but he found that most booksellers would shelve it only in the Y.A. section. (When the book comes out in paperback in 2009, it will be an adult title, by Cameron’s request.)
“Young people will find an adult book, but it doesn’t work the other way,” said A. M. Homes, whose first novel, “Jack,” was originally published as Y.A. (It was later released in paperback for adults.)
Meg Rosoff, an American-born author who lives in London, said, “There isn’t an adult who’s going to trot into the children’s section to look for adult literature.” All three of Rosoff’s novels have been published in both adult and Y.A. editions, and her first novel, “How I Live Now,” was nominated for prizes in both categories. In Britain, she says, where dual Y.A. and adult editions are more common, there’s less of a stigma against young adult literature.
“They’re smarter over there — in this country we tend to pigeonhole things,” said James Patterson, whose Y.A. series “Maximum Ride” was originally shelved only in the Y.A. section of Barnes & Noble. After sales fell short of Patterson’s adult titles, the fourth book in the series was released in hardcover for adults, and the chain began selling the series only in the adult section. Sales have since increased, a company representative said.
Cart, of Booklist, proposes that stores create an “All Ages” section for crossover titles, which might also help attract older teenagers. Megan Tingley, the senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, thinks this is a great idea. “We need to rethink how we’re merchandising books for teenagers,” she said.
Some adult authors find greater success when they publish a Y.A. book. “I obviously should’ve been writing Y.A. all along,” Alexie said in his National Book Award acceptance speech. He later told me, “This book sold like crazy in a way my books never have before, and I’ve had a great career.” There are other rewards as well. “At every reading I gave on tour, two or three other Y.A. authors would show up. That doesn’t happen in adult lit. The adult world is made up of cannibals who’d eat every part of your body. In the Y.A. world, they’d merely eat a toe or two.”
And then there are the readers. Soon after my book was published, I received this letter:
My name is Lyndsey, and I’m 15 years old. My mom has cancer, too. We found out on Christmas Eve; she has a tumor in her lung and nine lesions that metastasized to her brain. My dad also has cancer and we’ve been dealing with it for so long, but my mom was always the healthy one. She’s suddenly very sick and I’m afraid that I won’t have her for very much longer. I was at the bookstore the other day with my best friend and she picked up your book and handed it to me. I’m reading it now, and I understand everything that Mia feels. ... I love my mom so very much and we’re so close, but I’ve realized that no matter what, at least I had her. I want my mom to get better and watch me grow up. Your story is so painful yet so wonderful. Thank you for writing and sharing it.
As it turns out, having my book published as Y.A. wasn’t such a shame after all.
Margo Rabb’s novel, “Cures for Heartbreak,” will be published in paperback in August. She is at work on two new novels, one for young adults.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 05:07 pm (UTC)Um, yes there is! *raises hand*
A lot of adults read Harry Potter, of course, and I think that opened the door in some ways. I love the YA section, and I feel it's a much better section now than when I was a teenager-- bookstores around me didn't have a YA section when I was 12!
That said, I like the idea of an "all ages" section. Why discriminate?
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 05:40 pm (UTC)So now I peruse the YA section from time-to-time. I mean, why not? It's not a situation where I'm incapable of understanding adult novels. I just happen to like what I've found there and don't see any (valid) reason not to return.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 07:49 pm (UTC)I also feel that the books I read when I was 12 were the books that turned me into a lifetime reader. That impressionable age thing! So YA has a dear place in my heart.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 09:37 pm (UTC)As a kid who viewed the YA section with disdain when she actually WAS in the YA group, I have a lot to catch up on!
Also, I still like Animorphs, for fuck's sake.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 09:55 pm (UTC)I know this author. she's been a YA author for years--in fact we published a YA mystery series from her like 6 years ago. Considering her attitude then toward the YA genere, and how damned determined she was to get into adult, I find this article verrry interesting.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 02:48 am (UTC)My local library had a children's section, but no books specifically targeted at teens.
The "classics" taught in my middle and high school—Hamilton's Mythology; White's Once & Future King; Dickens's Great Expectations; Kaufman's You Can't Take it With You; Wilder's Our Town—were written for adult audiences.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 04:09 pm (UTC)Having a hard time finding YA books was probably, partly, what led me to SF.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 03:53 am (UTC)It's not so much a question of marketing to teens, as it is PUBLISHING to teens. Really, it starts with the writing and acquistion, and not the marketing. Some books may be pitched as crossovers (Twilight, Harry Potter--which is actually middle grade do NOT get me started on this), but generally not until they've made themselves known as hits. Adults venture into YA sections, yes, but it's not until a YA title gets huge that you pick up the crossover audience. The exception here, is fantasy and sci-fi.
But in terms of publishing YA, they're pubbed generally by the children's divisions now. And that in the 60s alone was a novelty, considering how new a "children's division" was.
In terms of what we look for when acquiring YA, it's a question of what the focus and the voice of the novel is--is it an adult looking back on their teen years? or a contemporary teen voice talking about what's going on rightthisverysecond. Too reflective, and too kind of self-judgemental and self analytical tends to feel more adult than true YA.
Books like Prep wasn't pubbed as a YA because it's really NOT a YA. The voice is too old, and too self reflective--it's not a true YA voice. And as such, it works better in adult, where granted, a lot of young adults and teens will totally find it. But really, it was pubbed in adult and that's a very different thing than pubbing in childrens.
Also, what's taught in high school and middle school generally has very little overlap with YA publishing. In fact it's kind of a big issue within the YA world. You look at summer reading lists for higher grades, and see tons and tons of classics, but absolutely nothing published remotely recently--and so you often breed readers who are bored and go to adult for contemporary fiction. It makes a certain amount of sense to list classics, as reading lists are tied directly into curriculum, and the english currciuclm tends to be linked to history, etc. But ask a childrens or teen librarian about this, and watch their head explode. They tend to have a much better grasp of the current YA trends and publishing than high school teachers.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 08:58 pm (UTC)