I made the switch to Young Adult fiction before it was popular to do so. Before YA was seen as the last great frontier for fiction authors. The gold rush had not yet begun.
The most common question I was asked: “Why?” In a rather incredulous tone, as if I had just given myself a demotion. Just a couple of years later a tactless acquaintance asked if I was writing YA because my agent had told me to. It had already become that popular for authors to switch. But that’s not why I did.
I was looking for something that a woman in a bookstore once labeled, “The freedom to be sincere.” It was part of a search for where my writing truly belongs…which leads me to look more deeply into how much I know about where my writing belongs. That’s not a negative statement. It’s an acknowledgment of the simple fact that readers will determine who my readers will be. It’s not really my call.
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Internationally bestselling novelist Catherine Ryan Hyde (author of Pay It Forward) at http://writingteennovels.com/2013/01/26/why-i-made-the-switch-to-writing-young-adult-novels-by-catherine-ryan-hyde-guest-article
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