
Lauren Bjorkman didn't plan to write a novel about LGBT teens.
My Invented Life (Henry Holt, 2009), her newly-published debut for young adults, just kind of happened that way.
It all started with a high school reunion.
"A few months before, someone started a pre-reunion forum online," Bjorkman tells. "A bunch of my classmates came out on it. I followed everyone’s stories with enthusiasm because I’m always interested in the lives of others – yes, I’m nosy – and no one was 'out' publicly during high school."
After speaking with her gay classmates before and during the reunion, their memories of their school-age experiences stayed with her. Says Bjorkman, "[They] wouldn’t leave me alone—like a haunting, really—until I realized I had to write a book with LGBT characters."
She also tossed in a high school production of Shakespeare's
As You Like It, a myriad of mistaken identities, and an hilariously unreliable narrator to create her fresh, fast-paced, and near-farcical tale.
Bjorkman shares how she pulled it off, her expectations of controversy surrounding her book, and much, much more in my
October children's market column at
Authorlink.com.
Be sure to stop by her
website and
blog too – did you know she grew up traveling the world on a sailboat? Too cool.