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YA may have blown up over the past decade, but it used to be a small section of the bookstore.  In the early nineties, it consisted mostly of "teen thrillers," which mostly featured dark mysteries and serial killers, although there was some supernatural fare as well.  The authors of those books were ahead of their time and built an audience in teenagers, and paved the way for the YA that is beloved by so many today. YA Pioneers Lael Littke was born on December 2, 1929, and worked secretarial jobs between 1952 and 1963.  She was Mormon, attending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Denver, Colorado, where she would meet her husband, before moving to New York, and finally to California to settle down with their daughter.  Littke began her education by diving into journalism, but changed her focus, majoring in English and taking every writing course available at Utah State University (and eventually City College of New York). While in New York, she...

YA Pioneers Richie Tankersley Cusick was a staple of the YA boom of the late 80's/early 90's.  A new book was constantly coming out from the author with eye-catching slasher titles that propelled several of her books to the bestseller lists.  According to her author site , Cusick grew up in the South and was inspired by the Gothic environment to write horror.  She worked for Hallmark until her first book was published, Evil on the Bayou , which was published in 1984 by Laurel Leaf, as book 21 in the Twilight: Where Darkness Begins series. Cusick really took off when she began publishing books for Scholastic's Point Horror line, a hugely popular YA line that is known for launching the career of R.L. Stine.  When Cusick published The Lifeguard as book #3 in the series in 1988, she unwittingly became one of the elite YA authors of the time.  She would go on to publish several more books under the Point Horror line over the next four years, including Trick...

YA may have blown up over the past decade, but it used to be a small section of bookstores.  In the early nineties, it consisted mostly of "teen thrillers," which featured dark mysteries and serial killers, although there was some supernatural fare as well.  The authors of those days were ahead of their time and built an audience in teenagers, and paved the way for the YA that is beloved by so many today. Diane Hoh is one of the big guns in my opinion.  She cranked out a lot of books, mostly slashers, and had one of the biggest YA series of the 90's that you could even pick up in the grocery store.  The Accident was one of the very first teen novels I ever read and changed my life forever. YA Pioneers  The earliest book that I can find written by Diane Hoh is Loving That O'Connor Boy in March of 1985, which was the 67th installment of a romance series featuring teenagers called Wildfire .  Hoh would go on to write another book in the series ...

YA may have blown up over the past decade, but it used to be a small section of bookstores.  In the early nineties, it consisted mostly of "teen thrillers," which mostly featured dark mysteries and serial killers, although there was some supernatural fare as well.  The authors of those days were ahead of their time and built an audience in teenagers, and paved the way for the YA that is beloved by so many today.  I devoured thousands of these books as a teenager, and I recall those early days fondly, when I fell in love with reading.  I wasn't the most popular kid growing up, and I turned to YA books and comic books for solace, to escape reality.  It has since shaped my life, as I have become a writer of YA and am still addicted to the medium. YA Pioneers  Carol Ellis is a pretty prolific author.  Before delving into the world of teen thrillers, she was already established, with several books under her belt for the Scholastic series Cheerleader...