Sarah Dessen in Horn Book

From Horn Book, via the YAYAYAs, an interview with Sarah Dessen. She talks about her deliberately non-specific settings (Dessenland!), her passionate fans, and her rep as a teen chick lit author.

Young adults are an amazing audience to be writing for because you’re catching people at their most enthusiastic about reading. . . . It’s such a passionate time, adolescence. I remember the feeling in high school, and even in middle school, of reading a book and really connecting with it on that elemental level of “somebody understands me.” It’s so powerful. It’s a great market to be writing for because you connect so strongly with your audience.

Now Dessen is the kind of author I didn't think I would like, because I have something of a bias against literary books, but she grew on me. For the record, I now consider her one of the Big Three Chick-Literary YA Writers, the other two being Elizabeth Scott and Deb Caletti. Seeing any one of these three authors in a teen's hands garners an instant blanket recommendation for the other two. I have sent many a teen fleeing. It's a gift.