WHY YA?
John Boyne, Jane Higgins, Helen Lowe
YA – young adult – is a comparatively recent literary genre.
Once readers moved straight from children’s to adult novels but now there is a rich variety of fiction for teenagers. Is there a genuine and valid divide between juvenile and adult writing or is YA nothing more than a marketing phenomenon? Are there different types of YA fiction? What trends can be discerned in writing for this pivotal, impressionable and techno-savvy age group? These questions and more occupy the attention of three successful YA authors, John Boyne, Jane Higgins and Helen Lowe.
John Boyne is perhaps best known for his 2006 novel for younger readers, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which was shortlisted for or won a host of international awards, topped the New York Times Bestseller List, has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide and has been made into an award-winning film. Noah Barleywater Runs Away was published in 2010 and The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket has just been published.
Jane Higgins is a senior researcher at Lincoln University, where she specialises in working with young people in transition from school. The Bridge is her first novel and won the 2010 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing and an Honour Award for Young Adult Fiction in the 2012 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. She is currently working on a sequel.
Helen Lowe is a novelist, poet, interviewer and blogger, with three novels published internationally. She has won the Sir Julius Vogel Award three times and Thornspell (2008) was a Storylines Notable Book. The Heir of Night received a Single Titles Reviewer’s Choice Award in the United States in 2010 and won the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Debut in 2012. Her new novel is Gathering of the Lost.
Chair: James Norcliffe is a prize-winning poet, fiction writer and educator who has authored several books for young adults.
Book Now
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Date/Time
2 Sep 2012 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM
Cost:$16/14
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