This Week in YA — Issue #53
Welcome to the Voyage newsletter!
It’s another new week (and new month! and new year!) and another installment of this newsletter for you this week, my fellow YA enthusiasts. We’ve also transitioned to a new newsletter service and we thank you for coming along with us. It’s great to be back at you with all kinds of YA news, including some fresh lists (and even a database) of upcoming books in 2023. As if that’s not enough, we’ve also got an interview with a fabulous YA author whose latest book is out today!
News and Resources
Leah at Seventeen has Your Complete Guide to the Most Anticipated Young Adult Books of 2023. What a great list!
Shavantay at SheReads likewise recently shared another wonderful list of Most Anticipated YA of 2023.
If you want to find literally All The Books, though, your best bet is to check out teen librarian Rachel Strolle’s 2023 YA database.
I also work in a library, so I really appreciated the details in American Library Association President: Librarians Are Facing Harassment on Teen Vogue.
Although New Adult as an age category never (yet) fully took off, it’s still important to understand where the difference lies between work for an older audience vs. work for teens. The Difference Between YA and NA, a former teen now new adult reader perspective on Teen Librarian Toolbox is super helpful!
Finally, a last reminder that you can still submit your entry to our Voyage 2022 Novel Excerpt Contest! The deadline is January 15, 2023.
The 5 Questions Interview Series
Each week, this newsletter will include interviews with industry professionals sharing insight about the who, what, where, when, why in YA today.
Today we’ve got an interview with Camryn Garrett, author of several YA novels, including Friday I’m in Love, out today! Camryn’s first two novels received rave reviews, and if you judge a book by its cover, people are going to be swooning over this one as much or more (seriously, have you seen the cover?). I for one cannot wait to get my copy and dig in!
5 Questions Interview with Camryn Garrett, YA author
ABOUT FRIDAY I’M IN LOVE
It's too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if Mahalia had a coming-out party? A love letter to romantic comedies, sweet sixteen blowouts, Black joy, and queer pride.
Mahalia Harris wants.
She wants a big Sweet Sixteen like her best friend, Naomi.
She wants the super-cute new girl Siobhan to like her back.
She wants a break from worrying—about money, snide remarks from white classmates, pitying looks from church ladies . . . all of it.
Then inspiration strikes: It’s too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if she had a coming-out party? A singing, dancing, rainbow-cake-eating celebration of queerness on her own terms.
The idea lights a fire beneath her, and soon Mahalia is scrimping and saving, taking on extra hours at her afterschool job, trying on dresses, and awkwardly flirting with Siobhan, all in preparation for the coming out of her dreams. But it’s not long before she’s buried in a mountain of bills, unfinished schoolwork, and enough drama to make her English lit teacher blush. With all the responsibility on her shoulders, will Mahalia’s party be over before it’s even begun?
A novel about finding yourself, falling in love, and celebrating what makes you you.
ABOUT CAMRYN GARRETT
Camryn Garrett was born and raised in New York. In 2019, she was named one of Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 and a Glamour College Woman of the Year. Her first novel, Full Disclosure, received rave reviews from outlets such as Entertainment Weekly, the Today Show, and The Guardian, which called a “warm, funny and thoughtfully sex-positive, an impressive debut from a writer still in her teens.” Her second novel, Off the Record, received three starred reviews. Her third novel, Friday I’m in Love, will be released in January 2023. Camryn is also interested in film and recently graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. You can find her on Twitter @dancingofpens, tweeting from a laptop named Stevie.
1. Who: Who are your instabuy, go-to YA authors? And which new talent have you discovered recently?
Ah! I’ll always buy Rachel Lynn Solomon, Kelly Quindlen, Brandy Colbert, Emma Mills, Stacey Lee, Mary H.K. Choi, and Katie Cotungo. As for new talent, I’m really excited for Joelle Wellington, Christina Li, and Jake Maia Arlow’s YA books!
2. What: What was the most joyful moment in preparing to bring Friday I’m in Love into the world?
I really, really loved making the playlists in the book. I worked on a lot of this book during quarantine, and finding love songs and figuring out how Mahalia and Siobhan would communicate with music was one of the brightest spots.
3. Where: Where is the state of YA right now, from where you sit? Where do you hope to see it go next?
Ah, this is a big question! I feel like I’ve noticed a lot of YA authors branching out and writing in another age category. I can’t tell if this says something about YA in general or if it’s just because of the way advances split up and is more of an economic choice.
A lot of the books I’m really interested in—contemporary books—don’t sell the same way fantasy or thriller do, which kind of sucks for me. I’d love to see some of those books be bigger again. I came of age around like 2015 when there were so many popular YA contemporary books by authors like John Green, Stephanie Perkins, Morgan Matson, etc. I really liked them all! But now that there is a more diverse group of authors writing those books, it feels like the attention shifted. It’s hard!
I also feel like it’s harder for books to capture attention the way they used to. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like I’m constantly talking to other YA authors about TikTok and other ways to share books, and it just seems like everyone is struggling to stand out. It’s probably always been that way to some degree, but it feels a little bleaker right now, between Twitter dying, seeing how the publishers treat their workers (Harper Strike, etc) and the whole Penguin Random House trying to buy Simon.
Sorry, that was a lot!
4. When: Looking ahead to next year (or beyond), what exciting things are next on the horizon for you?
I have my new book, Friday I’m in Love, coming out January 10th! Besides that, I’m working on a middle grade book, and some screenplays I really enjoy.
5. Why: Why YA? What draws you to writing for this age group?
I read so much YA in high school and I felt like it was the best sort of escape. I write it now because it’s still that escape, and I’m so used to it that it feels like a literary home. I loved when a bunch of my classmates were reading the same book in high school, and I love sharing YA books with people now, especially working as a bookseller.
Writing Inspiration from Kip
I’m one of those people who truly enjoy the blank slate of a new year, whether in January on a new calendar or in September in a new school year planner. I just love all the possibility a new calendar page brings.
However, I’m personally not one for making resolutions or coming up with a word to define my year—although I have nothing but respect for people who do those things! But for me, just as I love the possibilities of a new year, I hate to commit to something that in my case would likely end up in failure.
What works better for me is to brainstorm various lists. One example I worked on over the new year holiday was a list of potential projects I want to work on over the next several (!) years. Now, I know that the likelihood is strong that most of these projects might not be published. But again, I love the idea of possibility, and to see them all listed in my little spreadsheet was a fun way for me to do a couple of things. First off, instead of vague ideas floating around my head, I now have on paper at the very least a subject, age category, and genre for each project. Second, it helped me prioritize what I want to work on first. So even if you’ve never done something like this before, I highly recommend giving it a try.
Thank you for joining me on this voyage!