About the Authors
Sue H. Cunningham writes young adult fiction with humour and a hint of magic. She has won a number of awards for writing, including SCBWI Undiscovered Voices 2022 and the Write Mentor Children’s Novel Award 2020. She has also had more than fifty short stories for adults published in the UK and worldwide. Sue lives in Manchester with her husband, two sons and a super clingy cockapoo. When she’s not writing, or tripping over electric guitar cables, she works for the NHS.
Frances Hardinge spent her childhood in a sequence of small, sinister English villages, then went on to study English at Oxford. While working as a technical author, she was persuaded by a good friend to submit her first children’s novel, FLY BY NIGHT, to Macmillan Children’s Books. She has now written nine books for children and young adults. CUCKOO SONG won the Robert Holdstock award at the British Fantasy Awards, THE LIE TREE was declared Costa Book of the Year 2015, and A SKINFUL OF SHADOWS won the Children of the Night award for Gothic fiction. Her most recent book, UNRAVELLER, won the Best Book for Younger Readers category of the British Science Fiction Awards. Frances is physically inseparable from her Fedora, and is addicted to volcanoes.
Tracy Darnton is the author of three YA psychological thrillers: READY OR NOT, THE RULES, and THE TRUTH ABOUT LIES. A former solicitor, she has an MA in Writing for Young People and enjoys teaching creative writing and mentoring. She loves board games and escape rooms. She lives in a quiet village near Bath where she dreams up unusual deaths and her killer endings.
About Their Books:
Title: TOTALLY DECEASED
Author: Sue H. Cunningham
Pitch: Seventeen-year-old Jess wakes from an emergency heart transplant to discover she’s being haunted by the disgruntled ghost of her donor – teenage socialite, Tilly.
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Title: ISLAND OF WHISPERS
Author: Frances Hardinge (Illustrated by Emily Gravett)
Pitch: Gothic fairy tale in which young hero must ferry dead souls across strange seas while pursued by dark magicians.
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Title: READY OR NOT
Author: Tracy Darnton
Pitch: Ready or not, you’ll discover what happened to Kat who goes missing during a game of hide-and-seek. Because people don’t just disappear, do they?
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What do you love most about writing for the YA audience?
Sue H. Cunningham: I love that young adults are so accepting and inclusive. I enjoy writing uplifting and humorous stories which I hope will appeal to this audience – reading for pleasure is known to have huge benefits for teens’ mental health and well being
Frances Hardinge: It’s very freeing. My readership are open-minded, so I can mix genres, experiment and try out the wild ideas that really appeal to me.
Tracy Darnton: So many things! Mainly that I can write challenging and complex characters and much more interesting timelines and structures for the reader to piece together. Best of all, there’s so much engagement with YA readers and writers.
How has writing YA changed your perspective on the world?
Sue H. Cunningham: Things that should matter to everyone (such as environmental issues) are especially impactful on the young people who will inherit the world we are creating now. Their opinions matter and they should have a voice.
Frances Hardinge: I think all writing can change one’s perspective on the world, to be honest. The themes and ideas I care about always creep into my books, and the writing process becomes an exploration of those ideas. It’s a journey of discovery for me as well as the reader.
Tracy Darnton: Definitely made me more empathetic, aware that everyone has a personal story that they are carrying with them; you just need to unlock that story.
What trends are you most excited about in UKYA at the moment and to come?
Sue H. Cunningham: I love that uplifting fiction is making a comeback but I enjoy reading widely – from humour to literary to verse novels. Horror is so popular right now but I’m a wuss so I have to read in broad daylight!
Frances Hardinge: There’s a continued push towards more diverse authorial voices, and that’s very exciting.
Tracy Darnton: Thrilling thrillers, of course! Absolutely spoilt for choice in UK based thrillers with fantastically twisty plots at the moment.
What do you think is special about UKYA? (Books and/or community)
Sue H. Cunningham: The UK YA community is so welcoming, accepting and inclusive and I love that YA can be read by both teens and adults.
Frances Hardinge: I love YA’s energy, enthusiasm and fearlessness! I think that applies to both both the books and the community.
Tracy Darnton: UKYA has a wealth of incredibly well-written and well-edited page-turning books in so many genres. And behind the scenes there’s a fantastically supportive community to keep us all going in good times and bad.
#UKYASpotlight 
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