Teen Authors
In recent years, there’s been a surge of young authors in the market. While many say that teen authors (or child authors) are a rather new fad, there’s quite a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Thomas Chatterton was an 18th century child prodigy. At age twelve, he had multiple poems, satirical works, and letters published locally.
Marjorie Fleming was hailed by such legends as Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain for her poems. The poems, written before the age of eight, became popular after her death. In fact, they were widely popular in Victorian England. Sadly, she died at eight years old.
Of course, there are tons of other young authors from the yonder years. Multiple others made it big in the publishing business well before their twentieth birthday.
But what about more modern teen authors? Well, right at the top of every list is…
Christopher Paolini, author of the mega-hit Eragon. He wrote his novel as a fifteen-year-old. He was even self-published at first. Only after his wild popularity began was his novel picked up by a major publisher. Eragon itself was adapted into a major Hollywood film, and sold over 200 million copies of the novel and counting. I’ve read Eragon and found it quite an entertaining read. While some claim it’s a bit derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings, I found the story-line and the characters to be pretty original.
S.E. Hinton is the author who penned The Outsiders. She was sixteen when she wrote the book and eighteen when it was published. She won numerous awards and achieved substantial popularity. A movie and a short-lived television series were adapted from her novel. While controversial, the book is often included in junior high and high school curriculum.
One of my personal favorites in the teen author circuit is Rachel Coker. Her historical Christian novels may not be as well known as Christopher Paolini’s dragon riding adventure, but are on the same level of quality. Rachel wrote her first book, Interrupted, when she was fourteen. It was published by Zondervan a year later. She has since published another book.
Christopher Beale, a six-year-old, published a children’s book. He even took the Guinness Book of World Record’s title as the youngest author in history.
What do you think these young authors had in common, if anything?
Some similarities can be drawn between some of the authors, but little can be found between the modern and historical authors. Chatterton and Fleming were both poets whose works gained popularity posthumously. A similarity between the modern authors was their ability to find a niche with young readers. They were young and their readers were young. Being their own target audience was an advantage older authors didn't have. Evidently, teens liked the idea of books being written by teens. Rachel Coker and Christopher Paolini were both home-schooled. A similarity between them all is the sheer unconventionality of their work. Young authors were not conventional in the past or present, and often they were not afraid of controversial content.
Well, I asked for it! Nice response.
I was figuring it might have to do with the time and tenacity to be consistent.
For the home-schooled authors (Coker and Paolini) it is certainly a possibility. Chatterton was said to have devoted nearly his entire life to reading and writing to the point of obsession.