About a decade ago, I was on my first panel at a writers festival, enjoying a brief flush of literary success. A librarian in the audience dared to ask the forbidden question — why aren’t boys reading? Her actual question was more nuanced — did I, a male author, feel my work had been feminised, given the publishing industry was dominated by women? Of course not, I said. What a notion. Oh, how we scoffed. Then, obviously, the librarian was rapidly escorted to the door.
That question came up in a different form at every festival I attended thereafter. My debut novel, a young adult fantasy adventure, featured a feisty female protagonist — partly because they were in vogue, but mostly because those were the sort of girls and women I had grown up with. It hadn’t occurred to me that a strong female lead might put anyone off, but soon after the book came out, a publisher asked if I had ever thought about writing for boys. I thought I was.
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