Juno Dawson

Juno Dawson is a British author of young adult fiction and non-fiction.

Quotes

• The publishing world tends to focus more on the “young”, less on the “adult”. But I spend lots of time with teenagers and they’re truly the broadband generation. They’ve been online all their lives and seen things that would make milk curdle: beheadings, graphic violence, hardcore porn. Shielding them is never going to work. What makes this book YA is that it tackles issues in a non-judgmental way. We know these things exist, so let’s talk about them…
  • On why her young adult novel Clean contains drugs, sex and swearing in “Juno Dawson: ‘Teenagers have seen things that would make milk curdle’” in The Guardian (2018 Apr 1)

• …I was desperate to write a trans character for whom it wasn’t really an issue. After you come out, after the initial makeover and being on hormones for a few years, what happens next? That’s a story nobody tells…
  • On her novel Clean in “Juno Dawson: ‘Teenagers have seen things that would make milk curdle’” in The Guardian (2018 Apr 1)

• Brands have to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to diversity…Don’t hire a black woman or a trans woman or a disabled woman and then get cross if they have opinions about their colour or their gender or their disability. The danger is if you’re hired just to be pretty but then you start having opinions about abortion, then you’re gonna get dropped. And of course you should be able to do both.
  • On hiring and diversity in “Juno Dawson on the darker side of fashion in Meat Market and why 'people have a snippy vibe about Young Adult fiction'” in i Newsletter (2019 Aug 3)

• …Ever since my first novel, people have had quite a snippy vibe about YA, and it’s almost like: ‘Do you think one day you’ll write a real book?’…
  • On how young adult fiction is viewed in “Juno Dawson on the darker side of fashion in Meat Market and why 'people have a snippy vibe about Young Adult fiction'” in i Newsletter (2019 Aug 3)