I think YA needs to have a big, huge sit down talk acknowledging the difference between featuring something problematic, promoting problematic things, and how those two concepts--which are very different--intersect with privilege.

I have said since the beginning of my writing career that I am not here to write morality tales for my teenagers. I'm not here to substitute in for a guardian or someone in a position of authority with those kids.



The onus of parenting kids is on their parents or guardians.

While I'm happy to be the piece of art that launches a dialogue about queerness or safe sex or violence or WHAT HAVE YOU, I am not interested in being, nor should I be positioned as, the authority over a kid's life when I don't know that kid.