Auseon says that it's important for children and young adult authors to write in the moment.
"I think that a lot of authors struggle with trying to connect to an audience that is constantly changing at a rate that's incredibly faster than any other demographic," he says. "Some authors fall into the trap of trying to specifically address the use of the moment. I think that is troublesome, unless you're writing a novel that's supposed to capture an exact moment in time.
"I think that it's always important to address the attitudes of young people, rather than the exact specifics of their daily lives now. It's important to focus on the general things that we all go through as adolescents — the feelings, the fears, and the anxieties."
The recent father of his first daughter also says that he is a strong advocate for getting childrens books into the hands of the people that need them most.
"High school teachers don't assign these books because they have to do classics because of curriculum," he says. "A lot of young people are missing great books that are written just for them to address the things that they are going through. David Copperfield, no matter how good it is, is not exactly what Frank in Wisconsin is going through with his parents at age 17."
Auseon says that he enjoys interacting with his young fans when they contact him through his Web site.
"I think technology has been a great thing for authors, because young readers use the Internet so much for their own socializing," he says. It's great talking to kids that have read your book and they're thrilled to hear from you, and you're thrilled to hear from them. It starts a nice connection."
As for the future, Auseon is currently working on two novels, one for Harcourt and the other for HarperCollins.
The Harcourt work is a realistic fiction novel set on a one-day long train ride from Washington D.C. and up into New England and Vermont. The mystery and suspense story follows a girl chasing down the man who stole her son.
"I'm pretty excited about it," says Auseon. "It's actually my graduate thesis and it's one of those books that I started back before any of this publishing stuff happened. It's requiring a lot of work, but I'm enjoying it too."
Auseon is also working on a trilogy.
"It's actually a hard one to describe, because even the people that approved it and are going to publish it don't even know how to describe it," he says of his work for HarperCollins. "I think that's one of the reasons they're excited about it."
Probably best characterized as fantasy, it's a love story set in Baltimore, but then continues into the afterlife when the main character is killed.
"I had decided to write this book about what it would be like to die and kind of take everyone's expectations and beliefs into what happens when you die and sort of create my own version of that."
Auseon says that he is hoping to finish both novels by the spring of 2007. In the meantime, he's at peace having found his true calling in life.
"I think that I always wanted to do something where I was seen as somebody that had something to say," he says, "even if I wasn't quite sure what it was.
"I feel like a lot of people are trying to write to win awards and get in The New Yorker. I've done that and I've tried to write like that, but I just feel like it's very uninspiring. I like to have fun when I write. If it's going to be as much hard work as it is, you want to enjoy it."
Be sure to visit the official Web site of Andrew Auseon - AndrewAuseon.com
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