Elizabeth Lim Author Essay

Before I started writing YA, I was resistant to the idea. I’m in my thirties and didn’t know if I could convincingly channel a seventeen-year-old’s concerns and sensibilities. But since I started writing books, which was eight years ago now, I’ve been told that my voice is “girlish” and “young”—sometimes a compliment, sometimes not. Probably all writers want to be taken seriously, and being told you should think about writing for teenagers is bound to agitate. There are serious and beautifully written YA books, but they’re not considered literary, usually. None of the four books I’ve written for adults are considered literary, either, but at least I could say they were read by people my age—as if age confers taste, or seriousness.

Then, after my fourth book came out, I felt disillusioned and uninspired by the idea of proceeding as usual. I was bored with all the latest, most-acclaimed novels I was reading, and struggling to find ones I liked enough to finish. I missed reading like a kid, when I spent the summers checking out six books at a time from the library, reading in bed for hours every morning and night. I tracked my summer reading on printouts from the library, filling in the illustrated clocks with Magic Markers and drawing extra, lopsided clocks on the sides when I ran out.