I started this blog two years ago because I love contemporary YA fiction and I was a little worried that it was going to fade off into the sunset, except for a few authors who had already made names for themselves. Instead, I'm happy to report, it's going strong. Every month for the past year, the monthly release calendar I put together for this blog had anywhere from 15 to 30 new releases, and many of those were by debut authors. In addition, this past year, we've seen many contemporary titles selling extremely well. This makes my contemporary-loving heart SO happy!!
And so, because time is precious and authors are busy, busy people, it's this blog that is now going to fade off into the sunset.
Photo Credit: Lisa Schroeder
We'll keep the site up for the next year, in case people want to search the archives. And we'll still tweet from time to time, so if you're on twitter, do follow us: www.twitter.com/YAContemps
Thank you to those of you who have followed along and thank you to those who have bought books and supported contemporary YA. The best thing we can do to keep contemporary YA going strong is to vote with our dollars. When editors see that YA contemporary novels are selling, they buy more!
I can't wait to see what the next year brings. In case you can't either, here's a sneak peek...
One of the things I’m most thankful for this year comes in a body bag:
I’ve received a few different versions of my debut novel in the mail lately: A month ago, it was the shiny new paperback and, on Tuesday, it was the second printing of the hardcover. I haven’t been this excited about a New Edition since Robby, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike were doing their thing:
Uh, I was very young at the time…
A second printing in books is like beating the point spread in sports. For debut novels, expectations are generally pretty low—somewhere between the Lions, who are playing today at 12:30, and the Bills, who aren’t scheduled to lose again until Sunday—so I sort of feel like my book just pulled off the upset.
And that brings me to something that I am even more thankful for: the readers. Specifically, readers of contemporary YA, an army of absolute rock stars willing to, for example, check out a little black book that literally looks like death—and in which not a single character sparkles—written by someone they’d never heard of.
Fans of contemporary YA don’t shy away from the dark corners, and they definitely don’t scare easily. They are willing to look at modern life the way it is and consider not only the good and the bad but also the gray areas in between. And because they are, writers who want to explore the complex, turbulent terrain of high school life can do so without pulling punches or making the whole thing an elaborate allegory involving unicorns.
I’m not sure what the pilgrims would think of all this, but then, have you seen the way they dressed?
So goth, right? And I hear they were big fans of The Smiths (John Smith, in particular).
I know what I think, though. So before the first forkful of turkey (is added directly to my waistline), I wanted to give a sincere Thanksgiving thank you to all the readers of contemporary YA. You (Plymouth) rock!
We're the Contemps and we are passionate about realistic fiction because these are the books that remind us we're not alone in this real world. Our mission is simple - to spotlight contemporary fiction for young adults. We'll spotlight a new or fairly recent contemporary title every Tuesday and Wednesday. Thanks for stopping by and we hope you'll spread the word and come back again and again. We'd love to be THE resource on the web for contemporary young adult fiction.
