Sex in Teen Lit Month II - Interview with Non Pratt

Today, I am super excited to have the wonderful author of Trouble, Non Pratt on the blog to discuss her debut novel and teenage pregnancy and teenage girls' sexuality for Sex in Teen Lit Month II.

What inspired you to write Trouble?

I don’t really think any one thing inspired me... more a culmination of things. Since I started writing at fourteen, I’ve written stories about the kinds of teens I wanted to read about – people who hang out in the park, drink, get (un)lucky with the people they have a crush on, argue and maybe even fight. Because I wanted to read about teens who had sex, that’s what my characters do, but I am aware that this isn’t without its problems: including judgement from society and from their peers. This judgement is often intensified if a teenager falls pregnant. I wanted to write a character who both lived up to – and subverted – the expectation of ‘the kind of girl’ who does this.

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Guest Post: Non Pratt of Catnip Publishing on the Lack of LGBTQ YA in the UK

As I was doing my research for LGBTQ YA Month, I realised how few LGBTQ YA is actually published in the UK. I was originally going to write a post that was a discussion-come-rant moaning about 1) How  few LGBTQ YA novels there are written by UK authors and 2) How most of the LGBTQ YA novels by US authors I have been looking into for the Month aren't published in the UK; they don't seem to have been picked up, yet most big YA readers will have at least heard of David Levithan, for example. Why is this? But I thought it wasn't really fair; how can I just moan? Would it not be better to have someone else explain why this is? So I put it out on Twitter, asking if anyone working in publishing would like to answer these questions, and Non Pratt, Commissioning Editor at Catnip Publishing came back to me hugely eager to write something. So I'm so grateful to have Non stopping by today to answer these questions, along with Liz Bankes, Catnip's Editorial Assistant.

Many people checking in on Jo's LGBTQ month will be wondering the same things:

How come so few of these great US books are yet to be published in the UK? And where are all the UK-written ones?

It's easy to be led to the conclusion that UK publishers are perhaps scared, especially when stories of straight-washing hit the headlines (although the ones I've actually heard of happened in the US). There's also rumours of people advised against writing a gay protagonist because it would make selling the book harder.

The topic of diversity in publishing is HUGE and can't possibly be addressed in a single blog post, but I'll see what I can do…

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