Chick Lit: Bridging the Generation Gap?

Lately I've noticed quite a bit of crossover between chick lit and YA fiction for teen girls. Meg Cabot, best known for her Princess Diaries series, has also written several romances for adult readers, including The Queen of Babble and Size Twelve is Not Fat (one of my favorite titles).









Similarly, Ann Brashares, author of the bestselling Sisterhood of theTraveling Pants series, has recently published her first work of adult fiction, The Last Summer (of You and Me).











If the traffic only flowed one way, we might assume that YA authors like Cabot and Brashares are simply trying to retain their audience by adapting to the changing tastes of their maturing readers. As Brashares writes to her fans on Sisterhood Central:

The characters are a little bit older (in their early twenties) and the themes a
bit more sophisticated than ones I've written about before. So it's probably
not right for younger readers. But if you are a seasoned reader of the
Traveling Pants series--probably fifteen or older--I think this book would
be appropriate and (hopefully!) enjoyable for you.

However, authors are moving in the other direction, too. Sarah Mlynowski, author of several chick lit novels published by Red Dress Ink (a Harlequin imprint), has staked out YA territory with Bras & Broomsticks, a fantasy series about a high-school girl who covets her younger sister's newfound magical powers.

So is the distinction between YA and adult fiction simply a matter of packaging? Is there any real difference between books written for teenage girls and those written for women? Author and essayist Deanna Carlyle has no problem with calling YA books for girls "chick lit":

In the U.S. publishing industry, the line between chick lit, young adult fiction and women’s fiction is blurring.Some editors are calling the new developments “humorous women’s fiction,” “romantic comedy” or “tween lit.”
But don’t be fooled.
Chick lit by any other name is just as fun and just as fresh.

In an April 2005 interview with Carlyle, Sarah Mlynowski explains that she made the transition from adult to YA lit because she wanted to emulate her hero, Judy Blume, in reaching out to young readers and helping them fall in love with books:

Judy Blume is my inspiration. I grew up reading her novels. They were the first books I read that made me laugh out loud and want to become both a reader, and a writer. It was a compete revelation for me to see my experiences and pre-pubescent angst affectionately reflected in print.

People always call Helen Fielding the mother of chick lit, but I think it’s Judy Blume. She’s who we all (chick lit writers) grew up reading, and she’s the one who helped shaped our consciousness.