Home » Reading & Literature » Women Writers » The Queen of the Teenage Tear-Jerker

The Queen of the Teenage Tear-Jerker

© Megan Drummond

Everyone loves a good cry and no one delivers heart-wrenching stories better than Lurlene McDaniel.

McDaniel began writing these kinds of books when her then-three-year-old son Sean was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. "I saw firsthand how chronic illness affects every aspect of a person's life," she says. "I want kids to know that while people don't get to choose what life gives to them, they do get to choose how they respond."

Since most of her books deal with chronic illnesses such as cancer and cystic fibrosis, McDaniel does extensive research. She interviews health care professionals and works with the appropriate medical and hospice organizations. She also works with the Tennessee Organ Donor Services. McDaniel studies medicine and traditional grief therapy to give her books a sense of medical reality. She also studies The Bible to gather the values and ethics that give her books the human element.

Following is TheBook Report's interview with McDaniel.

**********

Poised and immaculately groomed, Bantam Doubleday Dell novelist Lurlene McDaniel emits a kind, almost regal aura as you stand face to face --- and no wonder. For more than a decade, she has been called the queen of inspirational novels for teens.

After more than 50 books, McDaniel is the undisputed leader when it comes to the wellcrafted "teenaged tearjerker" --- a term she herself uses with unmistakable affection. "The genre has been good to me," she says. "I like to write stories that leave a little catch in your throat and make you feel good. But it was never a goal."

A "born writer," McDaniel actually cut her teeth in advertising and public relations. "I got my degree in English, and knew I didn't want to teach, so I ended up at a television station writing promos and commercials," she says. "But I'm glad I started in that because it taught me to write short and sweet." That element, according to McDaniel, is key to writing accessible YA fiction.

Even so, her distinctive destiny was years away. "First I did what everyone did at the time," she says. "I got married and had kids."

Freelance advertising work kept her where she wanted to be --- at home with two energetic toddlers. But when her then 3-year-old son Sean was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, her direction shifted abruptly. "My whole life changed," she says. "The emphasis was on Sean, how to maintain his health, how to raise my boys. They were my focus."

The copyright of the article The Queen of the Teenage Tear-Jerker in Women Writers is owned by . Permission to republish The Queen of the Teenage Tear-Jerker in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.