2012 Review: Books, Libraries and Writing – A Year on The Edge

In the final blog post of 2012, Edge author Dave Cousins takes a look back over a few highlights from the last twelve months at the Edge.

The year started with a flurry of Edge books hitting the shelves: Sara Grant's Dark Parties, my own 15 Days Without a Head, plus Someone Else's Life and the first two titles from the Fairy Tale Twist series from Katie Dale. January also saw the first of two guest posts by Caroline Green.

As the year draws to a close, I'm sorry to have to write that our national library service is still in a perilous state. The current government seems either unaware or ambivalent to the vital role libraries play in society and has done little to stop closures and reductions in services across the country. To mark National Libraries Day in February, each of the authors at the Edge wrote a short piece in support of libraries.

March saw the publication of Illegal – the second book in Miriam Halahmy's trio of books set on Hayling Island. Author Mary Hoffman wrote: "Miriam Halahmy has pulled off a difficult trick - a second novel as good as her first."

During events we are often asked for writing tips, so in April the Edge scribes each offered a nugget of wisdom we hoped might be useful to fellow writers young and old.

Late Spring saw a trio of fine authors guesting at the Edge. We were delighted to welcome Nik Perring, Jane McLoughlin and Conrad Mason. If you missed their posts the first time around, here's a chance to catch them again.

Edge authors and the My Voice Libronauts in Warrington

The Edge Summer Tour kicked off with a trip to meet the My Voice Libronauts in Warrington. This was followed by events in Blackheath, Hounslow and Westminster. The final date saw Dave and Sara performing a double-act of live storytelling at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August.

We are keen to have a wide variety of voices at the Edge, and were pleased to invite a quartet of book bloggers to give their perspective of teen and young adult fiction. Read what Paula from PaulaSHx, Beth from Page-Turner, Cicely from Cicley Loves Books, and Jeremy from Book Engine had to say.

September saw the publication of Another Life – the eagerly anticipated third book in Keren David's trio of urban thrillers that started with the acclaimed When I was Joe. More good news followed, with the announcement that new Young Adult imprint Strange Chemistry will be publishing Bryony Pearce's The Weight of Souls in the UK and US in August 2013.

We rounded off the year with A Night on the Edge at Foyles bookshop in London, in association with Foyles and the Youth Libraries Group, plus an impressive line-up of  award-winning guest authors: Ruth Eastham, Celia Rees and Anne Cassidy.

Paula and Bryony at the Leeds Book Awards

We are delighted that a number of books by Edge authors have been recognised with award nominations in 2012. These include: SCBWI Crystal Kite (Dark Parties, winner); Cheshire Schools Book Award (Angel's Fury, shortlisted); Leeds Books Award (Angel's Fury, winner 14-16 category  and The Truth About Celia Frost, winner 11-14 category); Anobii First Book Award (15 Days Without a Head, Dark Parties, Someone Else's Life, all shortlisted); Sefton Super Reads Award 2012 (The Truth About Celia Frost, winner); Branford Boase (Angel's Fury, nominated); Carnegie Medal 2012 (Hidden and Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery, both nominated)

Finally, a huge thank you from everyone at the Edge for your support, for visiting the blog and leaving comments. We hope to see you again in 2013.

Happy New Year!

How Far Can You Go in Young Adult Fiction? by guest author Anne Cassidy

Another treat for you this week, as we welcome award-winning author, Anne Cassidy, as our guest at The Edge.

I’ve been writing young adult fiction for over twenty years. My first book was about a violent murder and it involved teen pregnancy/sex/pornography/love. It was called Big Girls’ Shoes (a line that was triggered by an Elvis Costello song, Big Sister’s Clothes). It didn’t sell many copies but it did lay down a kind of template for the books I was going to write.

Since then I’ve written about thirty young adult fiction novels. I’m best known for Looking For JJ, a story about a ten year old girl who killed her friend and was sent to a secure unit. She is released when she is seventeen and the story is about how her life is shaped by what she did when she was ten. This book has violence/pornography/love and lots of other things.

The question of how far you can go is, for me, a matter of taste rather than censorship. My books deal with dark things, adult things and I make no apology for writing them for a teenage audience. When I was a teenager I was desperate to get my hands on adult novels (the more risqué the better) to find out what was really going on in the adult world. I hated the way I was excluded from things in that world. I was expected to be grown up and sensible at school but when it came to knowing what was going on, about life as it was lived, then I was kept in the dark because of my age.

So I would cover just about any dark subject for a young adult audience. The way in which I would cover it would reflect the kind of books I like to read. For example I’ve read a range of serial killer/torture chamber/gore books and frankly I find them laughable. So if I’m writing about a murderer who kills young girls I will have a lot of the violence off camera so to speak. Not because I’m worried that librarians won’t buy my books but because I think it’s better to leave some stuff to the imagination. How scary the film Alien was for NOT seeing the creature. Also The Blair Witch Project. It’s the old saying LESS IS MORE and this works so perfectly for young adult fiction.

The same goes for sex. I like to have sex in my books. My memories of being a teen involved thinking about sex an awful lot (although not doing very much). So any account of teenage life has to have sex in it. However I don’t want readers cringing at sex scenes so I leave a lot of it unstated. I hint, I imply. The unclasping of a belt or the unbuttoning of a shirt might be enough. I think we all know what will happen next.

The main reason that I try to be honest in my storytelling is because I thinks young adults demand it in a way that no other group do. If you try to peddle some made up version of what teen life is like (or what some people wish it was like) you’ll get found out by your readers. They’re a sharp lot. It takes them a long time to pick up a book to read but only a second to put it down again.

Anne Cassidy’s new series THE MURDER NOTEBOOKS begins with Dead Time, which has been nominated for the 2013 Carnegie Medal. 

The second of the series Killing Rachel will be out in March 2013.

To find out more about Anne and her books visit www.annecassidy.com.

Finally, thanks to Anne for being this week's guest author at The Edge.