American author Lauren Mechling has a first-person piece on the CBC Arts site about her struggle for literary respectability. “When I tell people I write teen fiction,” she writes, “they tend to chuckle condescendingly, or perhaps even look a little embarrassed for me. Upon learning I had begun a second teen book, an editor at the newspaper where I work made the ‘cash money’ symbol by rubbing his thumb against his index and middle fingers.”

Still, she’s not planning on giving it up anytime soon, not least because she has a healthy respect for her readers. “Teens don’t get their due credit. They’re not unformed creatures, wobbling toward sentience; rather, they’re super-formed, super-sensitive, super-perceptive. They pay attention. They stay on their toes. They get it.”

Related links:
Click here for Lauren Mechling’s CBC Arts piece