I live in the middle of nowhere, the local bookshop isn't really local at all, and there are more elderly people here than teenagers, so it's no surprise that YA authors rarely come to visit.
Imagine my excitement when earlier this month I discovered that James Dawson and Sally Green were coming to Cambridge Literary Festival, not far from me, to do a talk called 'YA Literature - not for parents!'
I snapped up a couple of tickets immediately and soon enough it was April 18th and time for the event.
The festival was in the union, hidden away down a little path.
We made our way to the Blue Room where the talk was being held and, yes, the room was actually blue. The talk began, and here's a tip: don't make notes on a touchscreen phone if you're not actually looking at what you're typing most of the time. It'll take you ages afterwards to work out what you actually wrote.
The talk was chaired by Charlotte Eyre from The Bookseller (above) and I made sense of my own notes eventually. Here's a quick recap of what happened.
Where does their inspiration tend to come from?

James writes what he wanted to read as a fifteen-year-old. He wasn't interested in shows like
Grange Hill or
Byker Grove because that
was his life on a daily basis. Instead, he liked things like
Beverly Hills 90210 because of the escapism it offered.
Sally wrote
Half Bad whilst everyone, including some of her adult friends, were reading and enjoying
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, despite the YA label. That partly inspired
Half Bad, although she didn't want to write about vampires because she felt that side of things was being covered pretty well already.
Do they originally set out to send a certain message with their books?
Sally doesn't set out to give any specific messages through her books. The message has to be important to the characters, not necessarily to her.
James wrote
Under My Skin when Miley Cyrus was constantly in the news. He thought it was interesting that she's a millionaire but still had to resort to twerking and licking sledgehammers.
"
Why doesn't Ed Sheeran have to lick a sledgehammer?"
He was thinking about feminism a lot, and so it ended up filtering down into the book.
What do they think the difference is between UKYA and USYA fiction?
James thinks that both US and UK YA are phenomenally diverse. He doesn't think UKYA is grittier and he doesn't think USYA is more fantastical - both are great.
Sally agreed. She's a big fan of Andrew Smith and thinks he's writing "new, innovative stuff." She tends to enjoy books by American authors more, but that's not hugely important to her - if they're good books, she'll read them.
When it comes to the difference in markets, however...
James said that the US is able to put more money behind their books because there's more money in the market in the first place. Here in the UK, we always hear about books in the US, but they rarely hear about ours. I've been noticing this, too, but didn't know how to put it into words, so I'm glad that that topic came up.
They also talked about writing different characters...
Half Bad by Sally Green is narrated by a teenage boy called Nathan, but she finds writing as a teenager harder than writing as a boy.
James said it's fun to mix things up a bit like that - otherwise it's always the same person, just in different situations. "If you're not challenging yourself with everything you write, why bother?"
What were their journeys to publication like?
Half Bad was the first book Sally had ever written, and she didn't think it would ever be published. Her agent didn't think it was edgy enough, so she rewrote it completely and never knows whether to call it her first or second novel because it's set in the same world.
Hollow Pike was also James's first book. It was supposed to be a series, but just as James was about to start working on the second book, Orion changed their minds due to the fact that they were having trouble with a different trilogy at the time. Even though this meant he only had three months to write
Cruel Summer, it worked out for the best because he's had so much fun writing everything he's written since. If the series had gone ahead, he would still be writing that.
Now they're both published writers, what's changed?

Since publication, Sally's writing process has changed completely. With a first novel, you tend to have as long as you like to write it, and so she didn't plan
Half Bad - instead, she would write about 2K words a day and then work out what happened next. For the final book in the trilogy, she is going to plan and have more meetings with her editor.
Next year, James has a non-fiction title being published called
Mind Your Head. It's about teen mental health and I'm really looking forward to reading it. He didn't have long to write it, like he did with
Hollow Pike - it was written in ten days with the help of a psychologist to make sure it was factually correct. He came back to it about a fortnight ago and doesn't remember writing any of it - it's a blur.
A member of the audience asked what YA books they wish they had written...
Sally chose
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger because "it's a stunner of a book."
James picked
Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith,
Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman,
Forever by Judy Blume, and
Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill. He also chose
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness... but he said you should read his upcoming title
All of the Above first because they come out in the same week. Sorry, but
The Rest of Us Just Live Here is right next to me as I type this and I plan to read it next. ;)
What else?
Sally thinks the 'adult' in Young Adult should be emphasised.
She didn't think
Half Bad would be published, and was pleasantly surprised when it was.
James is glad more horror is being written in the YA genre. He said that if you think too much about what's popular, you'll go mad. Publishers are already a couple of years ahead of what's in Waterstones, so write what
you love and block everything else out.
He likes to use flow charts and sticky notes to plan his books. The easiest to plan was
Say Her Name because it takes place over five days.
He loves
Junk by Melvin Burgess and thinks it's one of the most powerful books in YA.
So, what's next for James Dawson and Sally Green?
Sally is being pressured to write another fantasy novel but she started writing something that isn't fantasy on the morning of the event. She's wondering if she can write both at the same time.
James has a new book coming out in September called
All of the Above and it's about gender fluidity.
After the event, I changed my clothes and took the photos I needed for
my previous blog post. Then we had a wander, got fish and chips and ate them next to Isaac Newton's apple tree. As you do.
It was a gorgeous day,
my anxiety wasn't too bad and the talk was really interesting. I'm so glad I went. Now I just need to keep 6-10th April 2016 free for the next Cambridge Literary Festival.
Bring on next year!