Ed. Note: In today's Youth Advisory Board post, Caroline reports back from a memorable author panel in New York featuring Cecily Von Ziegesar ("Gossip Girl"), Candace Bushnell (Sex and the City) and debut author J. Courtney Sullivan (Commencement). I'll let her fill us in on the details.

As always, to contact our Youth Advisory Board directly, just email them at youthadvisoryboard at ypulse.com…. or leave a comment below.

'Don't Call It Chick Lit' & Other Life Lessons From Cecily Von Ziegesar

When I visited New York this summer to tour college campuses and see family, I had already decided to fit in as many things as possible (concerts, museums, etc). Then I saw that Cecily Von Ziegesar was doing a book signing at Barnes & Noble and absolutely had to go. But since it’s New York, it wasn’t just Cecily Von Ziegesar, best-selling author of the hit series "Gossip Girl", it was also Candace Bushnell, the creator of Sex and The City and J. Courtney Sullivan, a new, hip author with a debut novel.

As a teen I've read books like "Gossip Girl" and "Sex and the City" pretty religiously. The characters are glamorous, beautiful and exciting and their elite lives take place in the greatest city in the world (I envy this living in a small, European town)! And yet, in the "Gossip Girl" books especially, the teens still act like teens. The characters are exaggerated and their lives are outrageous, but there’s also a relatable side. I was curious if I would feel the same way about the writers.

I arrived at Barnes & Noble around 5 p.m. for the panel that started at 7. A lot of chairs were full, but there seemed to be only a few people specifically there for the signing. I went to browse, but noticed more and more people, mostly teen girls and older women, coming in and by 7 there were quite a few holding one or two of the books the writers were promoting: Cum Laude by Ziegesar, The Carrie Diaries by Bushnell and Commencement by Sullivan. I had already bought the first two and was waiting to see what the new writer was all about.

At the beginning of the panel, the moderator said it would be a free-form discussion. She started things off though, asking why the three authors kept coming back to the same theme of coming of age (each of their new books takes place in either high school or college). The answer was unanimous: coming of age will always be important since we all experience it and might even still be going through the process. Von Ziegesar explained that even as an adult, you are still ‘coming of age’ –- you learn throughout your entire life what forms you and who you are.

Although I wasn’t expecting them to read books excerpts, I did wonder if they would talk about how their own high school experiences compared to their work. That didn't really happen. Instead, we heard a few more recent, personal stories (Bushnell shared stories from her twenties) and bits of writing advice (find a good editor, be patient and follow your passion) from each of the authors.

After hearing funny stories, empathetic advice and Von Ziegesar's strong opinions about people in general, the authors took questions and I was able to ask what they saw happening to the future of the so-called clique lit spin on chick lit. The answer was: don’t call it chick lit, because guys do read their books. While it’s true that some books might attract more female readers than male, some writers take chick lit as a derogatory term (though I didn’t mean it like that, of course!). They said that "dude lit" doesn’t exist, and that a writer writes for himself or herself, not necessarily only for the public.

I was actually wondering more about the future of books like ‘Gossip Girl’ that concern teenage mean girls and fashion (and a lot of other things) and if high school clique stories would always be in. Since I would love to write YA in the future, I plan to continue to follow high school stories and return to a few of my current favorites (these as well as Catcher in the Rye, the "Harry Potter" series and others.) But as far as the future of clique lit, I guess I'll just have to wait and find out.

About Caroline

Caroline is an American student in eleventh grade in Geneva, Switzerland and enjoys it a lot. This year will be her second year serving on the Youth Advisory Board, which she loves because she’s currently an international student and she likes keeping up with the numerous U.S. trends in various departments. Between YAB, sports, school (as well as traveling, trying to master several languages, spending a lot of time on the computer, writing long papers, music and watching American TV), she doesn’t have a lot of time on her hands, but always finds time for the two passions she’s always had: reading and writing.

Categorized under: Books & Print, Youth Advisory Board

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