Young Adult Authors Promise Paranormal 'Smackdown' at Diesel

Kami Garcia is on a Twitter mission.

It's a paranormal mission that can end only in scary situations, lively discussion and an early conclusion, since it's on a school night in Brentwood.

The  author is spreading the tweet about a panel discussion called YA Smackdown–Team Paranormal with fellow novelists at Diesel, A Bookstore on Thursday evening.

The works of Team Paranormal—Garcia, Gayle Forman, Ally Condie and Margaret Stohl—tell stories of star-crossed teenage couples (do you call high schoolers "lovers"?), teenage outcasts, near-death experiences and  dystopia, all the elements that have made the Twilight series mind candy for teens around the globe.

The stories aren’t exactly fairy tales that will put the kids to bed, but the authors promise a night of fun and inspiration, providing insights on the novel-writing process.

“Teenagers are grappling with choices about life and love as much as adults, so why shouldn’t their reading reflect that?” Forman said in an Amazon.com interview. Forman is the author of If I Stay, a novel about a teenage cellist who had it all before a fatal car accident forced her to examine her life.

Condie’s New York Times best-seller Matched, the first book of a new trilogy, explores life in a world where a computer dictates who marries whom.

Garcia and Stohl are co-authors of Beautiful Creatures, which one reviewer described as a "delicious southern Gothic." Beautiful Darkness and Beautiful Creatures, Garcia said, were written on a dare from teen readers.

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