Coming Out of the YA Closet: Part One

With all the shenanigans surrounding the Slate article that majorly dissed YA lit and YA readers (no, I’m not linking to it), I decided it was time to come out of the YA closet. This is the first of two posts about things we in the YA community either don’t talk about or feel like we can’t talk about and why I feel like this hurts us as a community and in the eyes of the larger reading world.



First: I LOVE THE YA COMMUNITY. I love my readers, my fellow writers, the bloggers, and everyone who works tirelessly to spread the love of YA, whether they’re passionate editors or the stars of #TeaTime. But as I get closer to officially receiving my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults in just a few short weeks, I’ve decided it’s time to reflect, to wax philosophical. Who am I kidding? I’ve decided to get on my soapbox.



Today I’m talking about Twilight.



You see, I’m always going on and on about how no one talks about all the great YA lit out there—Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy, Jandy Nelson’s The Sky Is Everywhere, and dozens of other gorgeous titles that are deserving of articles upon articles written about them. There is excellent YA lit out there. Lots of it. I won’t pretend to like all of it—there are some shitty books out there. But there are some shitty adult books too, and you don’t…