So, every time I tell someone that I sold my book, the first inevitable question is… “What kind of book is it?” Strangely, I find myself shuffling my feet and staring down at something incredibly fascinating on the sidewalk.

Now this awkwardness has nothing to do with writing for teens. I LOVE writing for teens. I love the fact that my books will be in the hands of people who are open to new ideas and new genres and are still exploring the world to find what works for them and what doesn’t.

No… I feel awkward because I know I’m about to utter the word ‘supernatural.’ Now don’t get me wrong. I love these kind of stories, or I wouldn’t be writing them. But I keep having the fear that, because this genre is so popular these days, my book might be dismissed as part of a fad. Cue the foot shuffling.

These feelings definitely came through in a note that I wrote to M.T. Anderson (Feed, Whales on Stilts) after meeting him at the SCBWI Summer Conference. And his response was so wonderful that I had to share it.

Firstly, he said that there was no reason to be ashamed of telling the kind of stories I wanted to tell. Then he shared this amazing quote by Yeats from THE CELTIC TWILIGHT.

“What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol
and incident? And are there not moods which need heaven, hell, purgatory,
and faeryland for their expression, no less than this dilapidated earth?
Nay, are there not moods which shall find no expression unless there be
men who dare to mix heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland together, or
even to set the heads of beasts to the bodies of men, or to thrust the
souls of men into the heart of rocks? Let us go forth, the tellers of
tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear.
Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust
under our feet.”

This rang so many bells for me, I felt like I was the Hunchback of Notre Dame. What a relief to think that Yeats was struggling with some of the same doubts that I have! But more importantly, while reading those words, I realized that I may be walking well-traveled paths, but there is a reason for that. Some stories, some ‘moods,’ need a fantasy or supernatural or sci-fi setting to be told. War, changing technologies, terrorism, sexuality, climatic change, to just mention a few, are often too controversial and frightening to deal with in the cold light of day. But as storytellers, we still want to understand how our world is changing, or is about to change. So writers and readers are turning to alternate realities to explore these subjects safely. Like holding a prism out into the sun and seeing how our world is reflected in it.

This feels important and necessary. As does contemporary fiction and historical fiction and nonfiction and every other genre out there. Yeats (and M.T.Anderson) is right. There are all kinds of stories and all kinds of ways to tell them. And all of them are the right way. So let us go forth, tellers of tales and lovers of books… let’s write and read the stories that speak to us.

P.S. Thank you M.T. Anderson for sharing such a stunning quote! If you haven’t read anything of his, do so immediately. He’s one of my favorite authors, both for his incredibly intelligent books and for his incredibly funny ones!