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One of the great things about writing for younger readers is the sense of enthusiasm and fun that goes along with the children's and YA book business. I first experienced this among writers, editors, and agents at children's writing conferences and workshops. When Vidalia in Paris was released, though, I discovered an even more exciting world of YA, an online one that's created and controlled by readers. 

Book blogs have become a major feature of the YA landscape in recent years and, in many cases, teen readers are behind them. These teen bloggers write book reviews, interview authors, and engage with readers in lively comments sections. The bloggers are in touch with one another, too, bouncing links and references back and forth, posting to one another's blogs, and sharing customs like the Waiting on Wednesday post in which bloggers list the books they're looking forward to reading. (The WoW posts from Reviewer X are a good example of that trend.) All of this adds up to a culture of interactive reading and a community that sizzles with excitement over books. 

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Last week, I visited a college French class as a guest speaker. In French, I told the class about Vidalia in Paris, and, in French, they asked questions. Many of them were writers themselves, and they asked about writing and publication, but mostly they wanted to know about my connection to France. What had taken me there, and why had I chosen to write about it?

When I was four years old, my mother and I moved to Paris. She studied French at the Sorbonne and I went to school at the American Church with other expatriate children. The memories of that year have stayed with me. Holding a hot baguette as my mother led me through the streets, riding the carousel at the Jardins Luxembourg, sitting by the Seine, all if it was etched sharply into my memory.

As the years went by, Paris became more than a memory for me; it became the home of all my fantasies. Unhappy in middle school, I dreamt of going back there, living a life of romance and adventure. Paris became the place where my ideal self – sophisticated and glamorous, confident and free – awaited me. That self was, of course, the opposite of the real me at that time, a shy girl with her nose in a book.

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I love art. I love spending long days in museums, I love coming across odd sculptures in parks and on street corners, and I love looking at the funny, lovely paintings, photographs, and objects that my friends make.

Now, I'm not much of a visual artist myself, so it was especially enjoyable for me to turn my main character, Vidalia, into an artist. I decided to give her two big art projects, and to have each of these come out of a completely different school of thought about art-making.

Vidalia's Rabbit Houses are the first project, and they come out of what I call the "Art is fun!" school. Most of the artists I know are people who love to play with stuff. They'll see a piece of trash and turn it into something amazing, or they'll dream up some crazy idea and then make it real.

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As the release date of my first novel for teens approached last fall, what I looked forward to the most was meeting teenagers. I couldn’t wait to talk with them and hear their responses, not only to my book, but also to their lives.

Mainstream media has a strange relationship with teenagers, obsessing and freaking out over them in equal measure. If you believe what you read in magazines, you might well come to the conclusion that your average teenager is a prescription drug-addicted sexual deviant who’s never read a book in his/her life and who communicates exclusively via eccentrically spelled text messages.

Well, I’ve never been one to heed warnings about “kids these days”. After all, haven’t people been saying this kind of thing for as long as teenagers have been around? But, as I started writing for young people, I found myself a little more susceptible to the word on the street about teens and books. Before Vidalia in Paris came out, I was told that teenagers read fewer books, play more video games, care less about reading than “we” did as kids. I also heard that boys barely read at all, aren’t interested in writing, and definitely won’t care about a female character.

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Sasha Watson is one of our guest bloggers during the week of January 12th. If you have any questions for Sasha Watson, add a comment to any of her posts. Here is some more information about Vidalia in Paris.

When Vidalia wins a scholarship to study art abroad for the summer, she can’t believe her good fortune. Paris is filled with surprises, including Julien, the nice bookstore clerk Vidalia should like as more than a friend, and Marco, the mysterious art dealer she can’t stay away from. By the time she finds out the truth about the paintings Marco sells, she’s fallen for him too hard to really care. But when his crimes threaten to involve her directly, Vidalia has to separate reason from passion.