Why I write YA

[Kim]

I've been a high school teacher for over ten years and I love words and teenagers - so I write YA. My book is the young adult novel, Songs for a Teenage Nomad. It was named the winner of the 2007 London Book Festival in the Teenage Category. AzTeen Magazine chose it as a Jan/Feb "Book Club" selection. "What is the soundtrack of your life?" After living in twelve places in eight years with her drifting mother, fourteen year old Calle Smith finds herself in Andreas Bay, California, at the start of ninth grade. Fearful of putting down roots anywhere, but armed with her song journal, she moves to her own soundtrack through a world that bounces her between the school drama crowd, a mysterious loner, and an unlikely boy who will become her first love. But it's the troubling truth Calle uncovers about the father she thought abandoned her that forces Calle to face the toughest choice of her young life. www.kimculbertson.com