University Times

Visiting English lecturer Siobhan Vivian admits she still has a 16-year-old trapped inside her 32-year-old self. “My voice naturally goes to teens,” she said, feeling no obligation to someday write for an adult audience. “Realistic teen fiction is what I like to write,” she said, quipping that the adult world of office politics isn’t all that far removed from high school angst anyway and that the experiences of falling in love, meeting guys and making and losing friends don’t end at graduation.

Vivian’s third young-adult novel, “Not That Kind of Girl,” explores relationships, reputations and the politics of sex in a story that sprang from a conversation with a teenager. The girl related how some girls in her high school “were doing not-so-great things to get boys’ attention,” Vivian said. “I picked up on her fear of boys and of how people judge what you do. The story has been told hundreds of times before, but it’s still new.”

Inherent in the coming-of-age novel are elements of growth, making mistakes and learning from them, with an understated yet clear message about being smart about your choices. “But at the end of the day, I’m writing to entertain, not to teach anyone anything,” Vivian maintains.

Still, her protagonists — the sensible and serious Natalie, a high school senior concerned about her grades and her reputation, and her flirty freshman friend Spencer who’s not opposed to “accidentally” allowing boys a glimpse of her underwear in the school hallways or posing for a revealing photo that causes a schoolwide sexting scandal — leave plenty of room for discussion and dialogue on contemporary teen issues.

“I wanted to respect all girls,” Vivian said — the kind who are “putting it out there” as well as those who want to be virgins when they marry.

“I stayed in a gray area where you can see both sides of the equation,” she said.

The book has received wide acclaim, ranging from a star on the Kirkus Reviews’ list of 2010 Best Books for Teens to a place on Bitch magazine’s “100 Young Adult Books for the Feminist Reader” list. “It’s been really satisfying,” Vivian said.

Deflecting critics, she said her books arguably reflect a teenager’s life. “It might not be your teen’s life, but kids are very smart readers. You need to respect them. People don’t give this audience enough credit,” she said.

“It’s such a great age. You are making decisions that are going to affect the person you’re going to grow up to be.” The heightened passion and excitement of testing limits and making independent decisions make the teen years “the most ripe age to explore,” Vivian contends.

“With young adults there’s nothing you can’t write about. No taboos. You can turn over any stone you want to,” she said in defense of an expanding genre that she said sometimes is not given its due.

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Catering to an audience of teenage girls is time consuming but rewarding, Vivian said. “The girls who are finding the books are very passionate. They look you up on your web site right after they read the last page. It’s immediate gushing love. They want you to write a sequel. They want to share,” she said, adding that her popularity as an author relies on a lot of word-of-mouth from her readers.

“My Facebook account is crazy with high school girls,” Vivian said. “A lot of them want to be writers.” She’s kept up correspondence with a small circle of them “for years,” even to the point of writing college recommendations for some.

“It takes a lot of time, but to me it’s really worth it to cultivate those relationships,” she said.

Vivian has several more projects in progress. Her new novel, “The List,” follows for a week eight girls who find themselves named on an annual list of the prettiest and ugliest girls in the school. Loosely based on a true event, the story examines issues of beauty, self-identity and others’ views, along with the underlying mystery of who compiles the list.

Also in the works is “Burn for Burn,” the first book in a trilogy tinged with the paranormal, co-written with young-adult author and grad school friend, Jenny Han.

Both are scheduled for publication in 2012.

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Vivian, who was a screenwriter for Playhouse Disney and an editor at Alloy Entertainment in New York City before coming to Pitt, said her heart always has been in the area of children’s media.

“My goal was always to write,” said Vivian, who noted that kids’ television is skewed toward a younger audience while her voice gravitates naturally toward an older-teen audience.

Today, she balances her daily writing regimen with teaching. The loss of her New York apartment coupled with her fiance’s local family connections led her to Pittsburgh two years ago. Having found success with her first two young-adult novels, “A Little Friendly Advice” and “Same Difference,” she initially sought to speak on campus, but an inquiry to the director of Pitt’s children’s literature program led to a teaching offer. “It was hard to leave that tight community of writers in New York, but I fell back into one here,” she said, adding that she’s found a supportive environment in Pittsburgh.

“I lucked out,” she said.

Now teaching the English writing course “Writing Youth Literature” for the fourth time, she says: “I love it.” Her course draws creative writing majors as well as students from the children’s literature certificate program. “It’s a mix of both seasoned creative writers plus kids who’ve never really written creatively before,” she said. “These kids aren’t too far away from high school,” she said, adding that best friend and boyfriend-girlfriend issues remain fresh and real to them. “The work they produce is so great.”

Teaching one class each term allows time for her own writing — her goal is to write 1,000 words a day — and the opportunity to indulge her editorial nature. “I love to help other people make their stories better,” she said, adding that she provides her students detailed comments on their writing.

Often, the youth-oriented stories her experienced creative writing students present are ones they say they felt uncomfortable sharing amid other more highbrow literary efforts in their regular fiction classes, she said.

“People shouldn’t judge [young-adult literature] the way they do,” Vivian contends, adding that many adult books have a young protagonist and that adult readership of YA literature is growing. “It’s a marketing question, not a call of quality or merit,” she said, noting that novels targeted to teens in America often are marketed to adults overseas.

Vivian defends popular series such as Twilight and celebrity-authored books marketed to teens. While some people dismiss these as low-end cultural offerings, she maintains they can play a role in turning non-readers into readers.

“People want to be entertained and books are getting to be the last option,” she said. “Those books find their way into the hands of a girl who’d never pick up a book — one who would likely choose magazines or TV instead. Those girls will pick that up and remember they still love to read.”

—Kimberly K. Barlow