#UKYASpotlight is a month-long event across social media to promote YA books by British and Irish authors (resident and national). For more information, click here.
About the Authors
Ann Sei Lin is a writer and librarian with a love for all things fantasy. Though London is now her home, she spent several years living and working in Chiba, Japan. When not writing, she is often studying, gaming, or trying to make that origami rabbit for the one hundredth time.
Kika Hatzopoulou writes stories for all ages, filled with lore and whimsy. She holds an MFA for writing for children from the New School, New York, and works in foreign publishing. She currently splits her time between London and her native Greece, where she enjoys urban quests and gastronomical adventures while narrating entire book and movie plots with her partner.
Laura Bates is a bestselling author and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project. Her YA books, which include The Burning, The Trial, Sisters of Sword and Shadow and Sisters of Fire and Fury, all draw in different ways on her feminist activism, highlighting themes such as consent, intimate image abuse, slut shaming and sexual violence. She works with thousands of young people in schools across the UK each year and her activism has helped to put consent on the national curriculum, change the British Transport police’s approach to harassment and assault, improve Facebook’s policy on sexual violence and reclassify extreme misogyny as a form of terrorism. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Honorary Fellow at St John’s College, Cambridge.
About Their Books:
Title: REBEL DAWN
Author: Ann Sei Lin
Pitch: The third book in the Rebel Skies trilogy. Kurara has found the key to granting her kind’s eternal freedom. However as civil war rocks the empire, she has to employ all her skill in paper magic in order to navigate a hostile land.
Find on Goodreads.
Title: HEARTS THAT CUT
Author: Kika Hatzopoulou
Pitch: The second heart-pounding Greek-myth-inspired romantasy from the author of Threads That Bind, perfect for fans of Alexandra Bracken’s Lore, Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows and Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights.
Find on Goodreads.
Title: SISTERS OF FIRE AND FURY
Author: Laura Bates
Pitch: A feminist retelling of Arthurian legends, it presents an alternative timeline where King Arthur has a secret twin sister, there is a round table of female knights and young women learn to joust, sword fight and take up their rightful place in history!
Find on Goodreads.
What do you think is special about UKYA?
Ann Sei Lin: The UKYA community is small but passionate. There’s a lot of talent and a lot of unique perspectives on life and the world that are a delight to read about.
Kika Hatzopoulou: A celebration of YA from the UK and Ireland, emphasizing authors from the areas and highlighting the YA books coming out!
Laura Bates: Warmth, inclusivity and supportiveness: both in terms of its passionate readers, its output of brilliant, important and impactful books and also the community of the kind and brilliant authors who are so great at building each other up and shouting about one another’s successes!
What distinguishes a YA book from middle grade or adult? Why do you think it’s so popular at the moment?
Ann Sei Lin: I think YA really speaks to the experience of being a young adult. It’s a lot more internal than MG, and very character focussed. I think that’s also why it’s so popular. We’re always trying to figure ourselves out.
Kika Hatzopoulou: Age, from a marketing perspective, but also the scope of the story and world, the themes discussed, the character relationships. Teens are such an essential part of the wide readership, and what we read in these formative years shapes up who we are in the future!
Laura Bates: YA caters to readers on the brink of adulthood and starting to explore the world in a new and exciting but also sometimes daunting phase of their lives. It allows more challenging and mature themes to be interrogated than middle grade fiction, but there is a joy and inhibition to the writing and sheer imagination of YA that often sets it apart from adult literature.
There has been a lot of talk about the adultification of YA and what that means for teen readers. What sort of balance do you think UKYA strikes between teens and older readers? Do you think this balance needs to shift in a particular direction and how?
Ann Sei Lin: I think it’s a shame that the adultification has eroded spaces for teen readers, and there should be a pivot back to catering to young teens. That doesn’t mean we can’t have older YA, just that we make sure we’re still catering to teens to. I think UKYA still has a fair amount of teen reads coming out, but I fear that will change as publishers chase whatever brings in the most money.
Kika Hatzopoulou: I think YA in the UK has maintained the teen-hood of YA much better than in other territories! I wouldn’t presume to know if there is an ideal direction for UK YA; I’m of the opinion that if there is demand for any particular type of book, these books should be offered in the market – the more people read, the better for the world at large!
Laura Bates: I think there is space for us to embrace the many keen and supportive crossover consumers of YA literature whilst also ensuring that the core audience of young people is well served and not squeezed out. For me it has been important to tell stories that have challenging and rewarding themes that are universally relevant, but with a spice level that keeps the books accessible to teenage readers as well as older fans.
How do you think UKYA will evolve in the coming five years?
Ann Sei Lin: I hope that UKYA will become more diverse and showcase the breadth of UK author’s imaginations in the years to come.
Kika Hatzopoulou: Keeping up with industry developments as well as readers’ preferences, as it always does, and hopefully well beyond that!
Laura Bates: I think one of the most exciting things about YA is its unpredictability! It’s impossible to predict what the trends will be in 5 years time and they will be led and shaped by the active community of YA readers, which is a brilliant thing! I hope we’ll continue to see an increase in diversity both in terms of the stories being told and the authors doing the telling, and I’d love to see more variety in terms of form such as verse novels and innovative retellings.
For more interviews, check here and don’t forget to check instagram (here) for book recommendations from these authors and more!
#UKYASpotlight 
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