See the in-betweeners: the rise of New Adult fiction
Friday 25 October, 3:05 pm
The Capitol Theatre
Image by Mike Cox
College and courtship and keggers, oh my! Meet New Adult: a relatively novel readership caught somewhere between adolescence and adulthood.
As traditional milestones associated with adulthood slip beyond the reach of zillenials and zoomers (Home ownership? Marriage? In this economy?), readers are searching for a new type of story: one in which they see themselves. New Adult has risen to the challenge – and its writers are storming the charts.
From the tragi-romance of Colleen Hoover’s It ends with us to the spicy romantasy of Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros, New Adult fiction is everywhere – yet somehow missing from the table.
Is New Adult fiction a brave new world or a cynical marketing ploy? Is it YA playing dress-up? Is it a nuanced exploration of the quarter-life crisis years, or poorly written erotica? What lies behind New Adult’s weird growing pains?
Join literary agent Danielle Binks with Belinda McDonald, Issy Weiskopf and Tracy-Kate Simambo as they argue their cases for – and against – the merits of New Adult fiction.
Featuring
Danielle Binks
Danielle Binks is a writer and literary agent with Jacinta di Mase Management. She is the author of middle-grade books The Year the Maps Changed (Hachette, 2020) and Six Summers of Tash and Leopold (Hachette 2024) as well as the YA novel The Monster of Her Age (Hachette 2021). She teaches fiction and young adult writing in the Associate Degree of RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing.
Find Danielle at daniellebinks.com
Isabelle Weiskopf
Isabelle is a working actor and writer who completed her education at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and then at Federation University on a scholarship. She has starred in two feature films, Teenage Vertigo and Remnant, with a screenwriting credit on the latter. She has just completed her psychological horror novel, The Haunting of Gwendoline Jones (unpublished).
Find Isabelle @belle_weis
Tracy-Kate Simambo
Tracy-Kate Simambo is a writer and poet based in Naarm. She has been an editorial mentee with Djed Press in 2016, has reviewed for Books+Publishing and been published in The Age. She is studying professional writing and editing at RMIT.
Find Tracy-Kate @little_lit_corner
Belinda McDonald
Belinda McDonald is a YA fantasy author in her final year of RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing Associate Degree. Her short story, Giantsbane, was published in the anthology What You Become (Clover Press, 2023). She lives in Naarm with her partner, two dogs, and a cat; there’s never enough room for her on the couch.
Find Belinda @bellewritesbooks and TikTok @bellereadsbooks01