Heard about your awesome group!

Welcome to AW.

I see you've already posted on the Newbie thread, so I'll mosey on over and welcome you there.

There's a 50 post requirement before you can post your work to discuss, but there are plenty of opportunities to chat, weigh in, and meet people on your way to 50 posts.

(I'm an artist, btw, not a YA writer, but I imagine they'll be along soon.)

Hey, Cher'rie! Welcome to AW and the YA forum!

I don't write romance myself, but a lot of people here do, and most YA have romance in them, if not falling into the genre.

We have people here from all stages of writing, some that are published, some that are trying hard to get published, and some that are writing just for themselves Good places to make friends are Teens Writing For Teens or Old People Writing for Teens. Good places to find out what everyone's reading and look for recs are What YA book are you Reading Right Now?, One Hundred Books, and Get Yer YA Recommendations here.

Some hot topics that have threads stickied at the top are about edgy YA (sex, drugs, swearing, violence, etc.), the difference between YA and MG, what constitutes a YA novel. There are also about a billion and one threads about these somewhere in the forum too, which is why we stickied those.

If you're looking to learn a lot, check out Share Your Work, where there's a YA section, a romance section, and a very helpful query letter section. While you can't post in there yet, you'll be amazed at how much you learn by reading other people's crits and critiquing others yourself.

Have fun, learn lots, feel free to ask and answer any questions