Young adult fiction (YA) is fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. The term YA was first used regularly in the 1960s in the United States. The YA category includes most of the genres found in adult fiction, with themes that include friendship, sexuality, drugs and alcohol, and sexual and gender identity. Stories that focus on the challenges of youth may be categorized as problem novels or coming-of-age novels. The boundary between children's and adult literature is flexible, subject to moral and political ideology, and in some cases meaningless.
Louise Perkins Fitzhugh was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Fitzhugh is best known for her 1964 novel Harriet the Spy, a fiction work about an adolescent girl's predisposition with a journal covering the foibles of her friends, her classmates, and the strangers she is captivated by. The novel was later adapted into a live action film in 1996. The sequel novel, The Long Secret, was published in 1965, and its follow-up book, Sport, was published posthumously in 1979. Fitzhugh also wrote Nobody's Family Is Going to Change, which was later adapted into a play.
Amelia Holt Atwater-Rhodes, known professionally as Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, is an American author of fantasy and young adult literature and a Language Arts/Literature teacher at Learning Prep School in West Newton, MA.
Alan Michael Gratz is the author of 19 novels for young adults including Prisoner B-3087, Code of Honor, Grenade, Something Rotten, Ground Zero and Refugee.
Lois Duncan Steinmetz, known as Lois Duncan, was an American writer, novelist, poet, and journalist. She is best known for her young-adult novels, and has been credited by historians as a pioneering figure in the development of young-adult fiction, particularly in the genres of horror, thriller, and suspense.
Joan Baehler Bauer is an American writer of young adult literature currently residing with her husband Evan Bauer in Brooklyn. Bauer was born in River Forest, Illinois. They are the parents of one daughter, Jean. Before becoming a famous author Joan spent years working for McGraw-Hill and the Chicago Tribune. She also did some work in advertising, marketing, and screenwriting.
Christopher Paul Curtis is an American children's book author. His first novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, was published in 1995 and brought him immediate national recognition, receiving the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award and the Newbery Honor Book Award in addition to numerous other awards. In 2000, he became the first person to win both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award—prizes received for his second novel Bud, Not Buddy—and the first African-American man to win the Newbery Medal. His novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 was made into a television film in 2013.
Martha Elizabeth "Libba" Bray is an American writer of young adult novels including the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, Going Bovine, and The Diviners.
The Silver Kiss is a young adult, romance and horror novel written by Annette Curtis Klause; it is printed in hardcover and paperback versions. The novel was Klause's first; it was published on September 1, 1990, and was re-issued in 2009 with two bonus short stories by Klause. The Silver Kiss was inspired by Klause's poems and her teenage fantasy about romancing with a vampire. It is set in a suburban area in Seattle, in the early 1990s and explores themes of belonging, death, and loss through the romance between a young woman—Zoë Sutcliff—and Simon, an English vampire who was turned since he was a nineteen-year-old youth. During the story, Zoë's mother is in hospital dying from cancer. Zoë and Simon come to terms with their own mortality and the loss of their loved ones through their growing relationship and their battle with an evil vampire named Christopher.
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018 to 2019. She won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light.
Kathryn Reiss is an American author of award-winning children's and young adult fiction.
Freaks: Alive on the Inside (2006) is a young adult novel by Annette Curtis Klause.
Alien Secrets is a children's science fiction novel by Annette Curtis Klause. It was first published in 1993. The book is in over 1400 libraries, according to WorldCat.
Emily Jenkins, who sometimes uses the pen name E. Lockhart, is an American writer of children's picture books, young-adult novels, and adult fiction. She is known best for the Ruby Oliver quartet, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and We Were Liars.
Martine Leavitt is a Canadian-American writer of young adult novels and a creative writing instructor.
Amanda McRaney Jenkins is an American writer of young adult fiction. Her novels have received considerable recognition, including the Delacorte Prize for Breaking Boxes, and a Printz Honor for Repossessed.
Kara Thomas, is an American author of novels for young adults and television writer best known for her 2018 novel The Cheerleaders.
Karen M. McManus is an American author of young adult fiction. She is most known for her first novel, One of Us Is Lying, which spent more than five years on the New York Times bestseller list. It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. One of Us Is Lying was optioned as a pilot by NBC and the television adaption premiered on Peacock in October 2021. Its sequel, One of Us Is Next, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. For Two Can Keep a Secret, which was McManus’ first standalone novel outside of the One of Us Is Lying trilogy, Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review and named it one of the best books of 2019.
Holly Jackson is a British author of young adult novels. She is best known for her Good Girl's Guide to Murder series.
