London Writers' Salon

#198: Mastering Young Adult Fiction — Krystal Sutherland (House of Hollow), Joanna Nadin (90+ Books for Kids & Teens), Moira Buffini (Songlight) on Finding Your Writing Home, Knowing Your Audience, Why Stories Matter to the Young | Compilation

Episode Summary

YA masters Krystal Sutherland (The Invocations), Joanna Nadin (author of 90+ books for children and adults) and Moira Buffini (Songlight) on hooking teen readers from the very first page, plotting methods that tame a whole novel, and why stories matter so much to young people.

Episode Notes

YA masters Krystal Sutherland (The Invocations), Joanna Nadin (author of 90+ books for children and adults) and Moira Buffini (Songlight) on hooking teen readers from the very first page, plotting methods that tame a whole novel, and why stories matter so much to young people.

You'll learn

• What sparks the magic system of a supernatural thriller.
• What it means to find your writing home, and how to know when you've arrived.
• Why readers decide within the first ten pages, and how visceral detail keeps them hooked.
• A pantser's case for careful plotting when you're juggling multiple points of view.
• The most common mistake adults make when writing for young readers.
• What screenwriters know about tight writing, and what teen TV can teach you about voice.
• Why treating writing as a job, not a calling, makes rejection survivable.
• Whether writers should think about their audience.
• How writing toward a feeling, not a plan, creates cliffhangers you don't see coming.

Episode Links

• #105: Krystal Sutherland
• #61: Joanna Nadin
• #179: Moira Buffini

About the Guests

Krystal Sutherland is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of House of Hollow, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares and Our Chemical Hearts, which was adapted into a film by Amazon Studios. Her books have been published in more than twenty countries and nominated for the Carnegie Medal and YA Book Prize, among others. Her latest YA novel, The Invocations — the centerpiece of this conversation — won the 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Award for young adult literature. Originally from Australia, she has lived on four continents and currently calls London home.

Joanna Nadin has written more than 90 books for children and adults, including the Rachel Riley series, the Penny Dreadful series, and the Sunday Times bestselling Worst Class in the World series. She holds a doctorate in adolescent identity and YA literature and is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol. Her books have garnered a number of prizes including the Fantastic Book Award and the Surrey Book Award, and she has been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Booktrust Best Book Award, the Telegraph Sports Book of the Year, the Hearst Big Book Awards, and Queen of Teen. She has been nominated six times for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, including for Everybody Hurts and for Joe All Alone, which was made into a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC drama series.

Moira Buffini is an Olivier Award–winning UK playwright and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter, writing many plays for the National Theatre and the West End. Films include Tamara Drewe, Jane Eyre, Byzantium, and The Dig. She cocreated and was showrunner of Hulu's Harlots. Her YA debut Songlight — the first in The Torch Trilogy — won the 2025 YA Book Prize, and its sequel Torchfire is out now. She lives in London.