This Week in YA — Issue #54
Welcome to the Voyage newsletter!
It’s another new week and another installment of this newsletter for you this week, my fellow YA enthusiasts. I hope many of you had the chance to submit your chapters to our latest contest before it closed on Sunday! And whether you’re mid-stream writing something or still making your 2023 writing plans, we’ve got plenty of news and links with more suggestions for your TBR pile, including the debut novel by this week’s interviewee.
News and Resources
Awards season is definitely already underway! The 2023 Walter Awards were just announced, including some fabulous YA titles.
Over on BuzzFeed, Rachel recently shared 2023 Is Going To Be A Great Year For YA Novels: Here Are 40 That We Cannot Wait For You To Read.
Jen at Pop! Goes the Reader has 50 Most-Anticipated Young Adult Books: January-March 2023.
Kelly at BookRiot likewise shared Your Guide to Winter 2023 YA Books: January-March.
For something a bit more specific, check out January 2023 YA Fantasy Releases for Your TBR on The Booked Shelf (a new resource to me!).
Finally, I enjoyed this Rolling Stone piece on How Will BookTok Change Publishing in 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 Ellen O’Clover, debut YA author of Seven Percent of Ro Devereaux, out today! Ellen and I did an IG Live together last night to celebrate Release Eve of both of our books, since I also have a new book out today, but in case you missed that, I have to tell you, Ro Devereaux is a joy to read. I highly recommend picking up a copy!
5 Questions Interview with Ellen O’Clover, YA author
ABOUT SEVEN PERCENT OF RO DEVEREAUX
Ro Devereux can predict your future.
At least, the app she built for her senior project can. Inspired by the game MASH that she played as a kid, Ro’s app can predict details about your life with ninety-three percent accuracy, like where you’ll live and what your career will be. It can even match you with your soulmate.
When MASH goes viral, an app developer swoops in to partner with Ro. It’s her dream come true—until she’s matched with Miller, her ex-best friend and the person who hates her most in the world. Ro knows the code works. After all, she wrote it herself. But she and Miller haven’t spoken in three years, so how can he be her match?
Ro will do anything for MASH to succeed, including fake-dating Miller, no matter what it costs them. But as MASH takes on a life of its own, Ro realizes it’s affecting people more than she ever expected. If she can’t regain control, MASH might take her—and everything she believes in—down with it.
With a masterful slow-burn romance at its core, this gorgeous and emotional debut novel explores the true cost of chasing your dreams.
ABOUT ELLEN O’CLOVER
Ellen O’Clover writes stories about finding your people, falling in love, and figuring it all out (or trying to, anyway). She grew up in Ohio and studied creative writing at the Johns Hopkins University before moving west to Colorado. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her reading fiction about big feelings, trying new recipes with mixed results, or hiking in the Rockies. She lives in Denver with her rocket scientist husband and two perfect bulldogs.
1. Who: Who are your instabuy, go-to YA authors? And which new talent have you discovered recently?
Oh, so many! It’s hard to pick just a few to name, but off the top of my head, some of my instabuys are Rachel Lynn Solomon (See You Yesterday), Tahereh Mafi (An Emotion of Great Delight), and Julia Drake (The Last True Poets of the Sea). Recent books I’ve loved by debut authors include Harper Glenn’s Monarch Rising and Samantha Markum’s This May End Badly.
2. What: What was the most joyful moment in preparing to bring Seven Percent of Ro Devereaux into the world?
I cried when I got my first edit letter for Ro Devereux—seeing how much thought and care my wonderful editor had put into honing my book was such a huge feeling. It kind of knocked me out, that someone I admire so tremendously was dedicating that kind of creative energy to my story. It was a lot of work, too! But work that I felt grateful and lucky to be doing. There have been a lot of joyful moments along the way, but that one really stands out.
3. Where: Where is the state of YA right now, from where you sit? Where do you hope to see it go next?
YA holds so much more today than it did when I was growing up: its authors and characters reflect more richly diverse perspectives, cultures, identities. And still, we need more of that! Every child and teen (and adult, too!) deserves to see themselves in the stories they love.
4. When: Looking ahead to next year (or beyond), what exciting things are next on the horizon for you?
Seven Percent of Ro Devereux publishes on January 17, 2023, so my year will be kicking off with a bang! Publishing is funny because you’re always kind of working on something secretive that the world at large doesn’t know about yet—so even though my first book hasn’t even hit shelves, I’m deep in edits for my second book and totally wrapped up in that world. I can’t wait to share more about book two!
5. Why: Why YA? What draws you to writing for this age group?
I love writing about identity—about the great mess of trying to figure out who you are. It’s a lifelong process, but it really begins when you’re a teenager, and it feels so intense at that age. You’re figuring out so many things for the very first time: what the world is, where your place is in it, who you want to be as you move through it. How to love other people, and how to love yourself.
I love the shape-shiftiness of this age group and its limitless potential, but I also really love the incredible big-heartedness. Our feelings are so acute when we’re young; the things we go through feel sharp and enormous. It creates room for a kind of earnestness and depth of emotion that I think is really unique to YA, and it’s one of my absolute favorite parts of writing for the YA market.
Writing Inspiration from Kip
There’s something extra special about launching a debut YA novel into the world, so it was fun for me to vicariously relive it through Ellen’s enthusiasm for her debut release. It’s as if all the years of starting new projects, writing, revising—not to mention all the rejection, rejection, rejection—fades away when those fantastic milestones happen. There’s nothing like any of them, and I remember each one distinctly. I hope all of you will get the chance to hold your debut novel someday if you haven’t already!
But for a dose of reality, the truth is that even before a book releases, most authors are already eyeballs deep in the next project. It can be hard to make the time to focus on one book when working on another. It’s of course a great problem to have! But it can honestly be a good way to deal with the writing cycle before getting published too. I remember when I was querying that it went much better for me mentally the times when I had another project in the works by the time I was sending off my emails to agents. There’s something about creating something new that keeps my outlook positive. I hope it works for you too!
Thank you for joining me on this voyage!