In recent years, there’s been a surge of young authors in the market. While many say that teen authors (or child authors) are a rather new fad, there’s quite a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Thomas Chatterton was an 18th century child prodigy. At age twelve, he had multiple poems, satirical works, and letters published locally.
Marjorie Fleming was hailed by such legends as Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain for her poems. The poems, written before the age of eight, became popular after her death. In fact, they were widely popular in Victorian England. Sadly, she died at eight years old.
Of course, there are tons of other young authors from the yonder years. Multiple others made it big in the publishing business well before their twentieth birthday.
But what about more modern teen authors? Well, right at the top of every list is…
Christopher Paolini, author of the mega-hit Eragon. He wrote his novel as a fifteen-year-old. He was even self-published at first. Only after his wild popularity began was his novel picked up by a major publisher. Eragon itself was adapted into a major Hollywood film, and sold over 200 million copies of the novel and counting. I’ve read Eragon and found it quite an entertaining read. While some claim it’s a bit derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings, I found the story-line and the characters to be pretty original.
S.E. Hinton is the author who penned The Outsiders. She was sixteen when she wrote the book and eighteen when it was published. She won numerous awards and achieved substantial popularity. A movie and a short-lived television series were adapted from her novel. While controversial, the book is often included in junior high and high school curriculum.
One of my personal favorites in the teen author circuit is Rachel Coker. Her historical Christian novels may not be as well known as Christopher Paolini’s dragon riding adventure, but are on the same level of quality. Rachel wrote her first book, Interrupted, when she was fourteen. It was published by Zondervan a year later. She has since published another book.
Christopher Beale, a six-year-old, published a children’s book. He even took the Guinness Book of World Record’s title as the youngest author in history.