Susanne Gervay is an award-winning Australian children's and young adult author. Widely published in literary journals, she is on the board of the NSW Writers Centre, co-head of the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators Australia and New Zealand (SCBWI) and the Sydney Children's Writers & Illustrators Network at The Hughenden. For more information, visit her website.

In the tradition of Lord of the Flies and Catcher in the Rye and more recently the works of authors as varied as Paul Zindel, Mark Haddon, David Almond, Aidan Chambers, Markus Zusak, Margo Lanagan, Ellen Hopkins as well as my own works and others, young adult (YA) literature is tackling youth issues cutting into new territories. YA books express the voice of youth on powerful questions including sexuality, leadership, peer group, courage, relationships, violence, religion, in a world that is increasingly volatile with terrorism, poverty, climate change.

YA readers are different than adult readers. If a book reaches them, they will read and re-read that book, testing, massaging and developing their values. Often when you ask someone what is their favourite book, it will be one read in YA years. Books like To Kill A Mockingbird which challenge concepts of racism, courage and leadership.

Our modern societies offer democracy and great freedoms. But they are also societies where male youth suicide is growing, where divorce rates are climbing, where children are faced with difficult family relationships, where drugs are a reality. Freedom and choice can be overwhelming. Powerful YA books offer story journeys that are real and can partner young people in the navigation of life's complex pathways.

Because of this, I believe it is a privilege to write for young adults. It is also a challenge, as young adults are harsh critics. They throw away authors who 'lie'. Yet there is huge pressure on YA authors to be liars, to tow the 'politically correct' and 'right' line. Some moral gatekeepers, do not trust youth to make their own choices. They want the politically correct rules and the cardboard images of 'correct' youth values, imposed on young people. However, for literature to be meaningful, the books have to be truthful and relevant, and the reader empowered to make their own decisions. YA adult books that will travel with their readers into adult years have to seriously engage youth, and to really matter.

When I wrote Butterflies about growing up with severe burns, it was confronting as an author and person. IBBY, the international youth book organisation, under the auspices of the United Nations, has included Butterflies in an international travelling exhibition of Outstanding Youth Books on Disabilities. As a YA author my challenge was to draw readers into this tough area. Today Butterflies is a best selling rite-of-passage book in Australia, although read primarily by girls. Boys are a tougher audience. Boys tend to read non-fiction and manuals, bypassing  fiction. Often fiction presented to YA male readers, tends to be more Pride and Prejudice rather than Catcher in The Rye, and not always engaging. I question if Catcher in The Rye, would find publication any easier today.

In my young adult novel, The Cave I decided to take up the challenge of writing for boys. It was rewarded with reviews like: "This is a novel which needed to be written and needs to be read.'; 'The sensational new book, The Cave is a... compelling, confronting and important book that examines what it means to be young and male in the 21st Century."  Yet The Cave faced the cutting swords of controversy by moral gatekeepers, because of its honesty about male youth culture.

I am a specialist in child growth and development, mother of two teens — my son Jamie and my daughter Tory —, and I am an author. My son is a young adult and my life is filled with adolescents. The Cave emerged from my son's experience on camp, when the school was making 'men out of our mice' by throwing them onto a rugged outdoors camp. A camp which was supposed to bond the boys and help them discover values.  Jamie did discover values, many of them politically incorrect. He told me that when he collapsed with asthma on the track up the mountain, he was all right, because he was forced up, by boys throwing rocks at him.  He was confronted with male capacity for violence in a peer group, but he also discovered his own courage and what real friendship means.

In December 2002, at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia a group of senior school boys trashed the beach terrorising the locals in a drunken, peer group inspired rampage. Yet the boys were basically good kids. The school is a caring one. So why was there so much violence? There are many stories in newspapers and in life, where boys behave destructively in a peer group. I was driven to find out what it was about.  I explored youth male culture from rave parties to body piercing, male humour, their communication or lack of it. I journeyed into uncensored territory to enter authentic story. Then I wrote The Cave.

YA literature takes you into cutting edge territory. My new YA book, That's Why I Wrote This Song, set against the rock music scene, is about sixteen year old girls connected through music, as they search for identity. It embraces other mediums and technology, in a collaborative work with my songwriter and musician daughter, Tory, who wrote the lyrics and rock music that are integral to the story, characters and theme. The story also has the dimension of film, as a young producer translated Tory's song 'Psycho Dad' into a film clip. The songs and video clip will be free to download from 1st August 2007, making YA literature multi-dimensional.

YA literature is a small genre, catering for a demanding readership, one that embraces technology while dealing with the demands of adolescence. YA books can be contentious, as some parents and teachers and society seek to constrain and direct young adults. It is also a risky area of publication, as young adults can and do read adult books. An author can spend a year, two, three, five years writing their book, and find that it has a shelf life of only a few weeks.

So why write for young adults? Because it is exciting, innovative, cutting edge. It demands courage from authors as they dive into this funny, sad, changing, important area. I love being a young adult author.

Posted July 2007