Bringing Up the Bones, a young adult novel by Lara M. Zeises, AS '97, recently won the Delacorte Press Honor Book Award for a first young adult novel.

Winning awards for her writing is not new to Zeises. An English-journalism major and former Review reporter while at the University, she was named 1996 Reporter of the Year by the Association of Collegiate Press. Zeises, who moved back to Delaware last December, is currently an adjunct faculty member in UD's Department of English.

Published by Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, Bringing Up the Bones is the story of Bridget Edelstein who has put off college to recover from the recent death of Benji, her longtime best-friend-turned-reluctant-boyfriend. As she comes to terms with life without Benji and the truth about their relationship, Bridget learns that being able to love deeply and truly is essential, even if the one you love doesn't feel the same.

The book also is included on the Best Book list of the Young Adult (YA) Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, and reviews from mainstream publishing and teen web sites have been favorable.

Publishers Weekly, for example, says, "In her first novel, Zeises dishes out a heavy slice of realism, suggesting that happily-ever-after endings don't come easily and some questions can never be answered.... Girls suffering from broken hearts will relate to Bridget's changing perceptions and may even find themselves fortified in the process."

Kirkus Reviews writes, "[Bridget's] journey toward self-discovery is gradual and believably revealed. Initially, some of the others seem stonily invulnerable to the grief that is eating at Bridget, but in small telling incidents, the pain of others reveals itself as well. Without shifting the focus from Bridget, the author surrounds her with characters that enrich and authenticate her emotional journey. While similar to many angst-filled YA novels that deal with death and relationships, this honors a particular voice and a discovery that much of life must be lived without a significant other by our side. Broodingly honest."

Teen web sites that laud the book include Teenreads.com which recommends it for young readers who are "too old or too hip to go out on Halloween."

Reading Rants, a teen book list, includes the book in its tearjerkers list and gives it "one weepie" as a story that has "some sad parts, but ultimately a hopeful ending... you'll cry getting there."

?Zeises interned at The Baltimore Sun the summer after graduation from the University, then moved to Indiana to work as a features reporter for a mid-sized paper. "I lasted five months before realizing I didn't want to be a journalist," she says. "So, I moved back home and worked as a temp for eight months before moving to Boston to attend Emerson College."

While pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Emerson, she worked for Allyn & Bacon, a textbook publishing company, first as an editorial assistant and later as an associate development editor. Zeises moved back to Delaware to focus on her writing, and she started teaching at UD last spring.

The idea for Bringing Up the Bones came the summer after her graduation from UD, she says. "My friend's ex-boyfriend was killed in a car crash very similar to the one in the book. I attended his viewing with her for moral support, and it had a very profound effect on me. At the same time, I was still dealing with a very painful breakup that felt somewhat like a death. One day I just sat down and started writing. At the time, I didn't intend for it to be an adolescent novel. That came later.

"For the first year and a half, " she says, "I had only 30 pages, and I didn't work on it very seriously. In the spring semester of my first year at Emerson, I dove into it hardcore during a novel workshop taught by Andre Dubus III. I worked on the novel all summer.

"The following spring, I took another novel workshop with Myra McLarey and became obsessed with working on it. I didn't stop until I had a complete draft finished that August (2000), and I sent it off to the Delacorte competition in November.

"Delacorte (a division of Random House) bought the book in May of 2001. Chronologically, it took four years. But, I probably really worked on it for about two."

Currently, Zeises is putting the final touches on her second novel, Contents Under Pressure, which will be out in 2004. She describes it as "a more traditional young adult novel, as the protagonist is 14."

"Bones," she says, "is geared for older YAs. Both novels are set in Delaware, and some characters from Bones spill over into Contents."

She also is working on a third novel, tentatively titled Critter.

Zeises says she doesn't know if she chose the young adult market, or if it chose her. "I think YA appeals to me because it's so raw. There's no pretension in YA writing," she says. "And, the writing community is so supportive. We're like
a big happy family as opposed to the lit fiction community, which is cutthroat competitive. Also, I just really like the books.

"I never read YA as a kid. I was an early reader and was skipped into 'big people' books when I was 8 or 9. So, discovering it as a 23-year-old was amazing," she says.

At UD, Zeises is teaching a section of English 110. Over Winter Session, she'll be teaching a section of English 301 that looks at pop culture.

"I adore the students I have in my E110 classes. They're so bright and talented and multi-layered. They're what make teaching fun," she says.

--Beth Thomas