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April 23, 2004

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Young Upstarts

If you're feeling guilty about that unfinished manuscript in your desk drawer - well, you should. It seems like every time you turn around, another teenager is publishing a novel. Last fall 17-year-old Zoe Trope had success with Please Don't Kill the Freshmen, and now Paris-based Flavia Bujor is promoting the American release of Prophecy of the Stones, already a bestseller in Europe. Don't worry though - it wasn't an easy road. Even though Bujor started writing the book at 12, she didn't find a publisher until she was almost 15.

Are young novelists a new trend? As a youngster one of my very favorite books, She was Nice to Mice, was written by a precocious Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy, Age 12. Yes, before she was shooting up and having lesbian sex in High Art, or even eating popcorn sandwiches in detention, Ally Sheedy was writing was a tale of intrigue and betrayal in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Still not sold? It's also written from the perspective of a palace mouse.

What a thought for a Monday morning. I'm past my novelist prime, and considering the treatment that two mice in my own court received this weekend, no youngster will be writing about my love of animals anytime soon.

categories: Books
posted by Emily at 1:05 PM | #