Melvin Burgess is used to being criticised for his hard-hitting teenage novels and could attract further scorn when the latest stage adaption is performed. He talks to Steve Pratt.

WRITING in the teenage fiction genre is, as author Melvin Burgess acknowledges, a tricky one. Not so much the actual putting pen to paper as the reaction from outraged adults.

They, rather than his younger readers, are the ones who mount their moral high horse to complain. Some sections of the media and youth organisations are less than kind about the award-winning writer of such novels as Junk, Bloodtide, An Angel For May, The Cry Of The Wolf and Doing It.

He's now crossing boundaries. Junk has already been a stage hit in this country and the US. Doing It is being turned into a US TV series with teen rebel Kelly Osbourne starring. Nearer home, Pilot Theatre premieres a stage adaptation of Bloodtide this month.

Burgess, who didn't enjoy success as a writer until his mid-30s, visited rehearsals for Bloodtide in York - just to watch, not comment. "The production is not my baby really," he says. "I don't have any problem with that. It's quite flattering when people want to adapt your work."

Less welcome are comments such as "the nastiest piece of children's literature I have ever read", used by Family and Youth Concern to describe Lady: My Life As A Bitch. Others have been kinder. Junk won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Carnegie Medal, as well as being short listed for the 1998 Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award.

The problem is that some adults feel he shouldn't be writing about topics like homelessness, disability, child abuse, witchcraft, drugs, violence and sex in books for younger readers. He admits the teenage market is "a bit of an odd one", partly because of the way children's books are categorised in bookshops.

"Some people do kick up a big fuss if you write about sex and drugs and rock'n'roll. Books seem to attract moralistic, anally retentive people. But people know kids have access to worst stuff," he says.

"I've always wanted to write, been doing it most of my life but didn't get anywhere until I was 35 when I thought, 'I must see if I can do this'. I wrote drama, short stories and children's stuff. Because my books were rather hard-hitting, they were classed as teenage fiction. The fact is nobody writes for people in high school or early university years."

London-born Burgess left school at 18, trained as a journalist but never actually worked at the evening paper that employed him. He had various jobs, mainly in the building industry, writing on and off for 15 years before his first book, The Cry Of The Wolf, was accepted for publication in 1990.

He's interested to find out what Pilot Theatre's adapter and director Marcus Romer does with Bloodtide, which is one of Burgess's favourite novels. He thinks it's probably his best work.

The company's use of film, video, live web cams and original soundtrack in productions was one of the reasons that convinced him to let Pilot have the rights. The story, set in a country torn apart by civil war, has rival clans vying for supremacy. A marriage, a treaty and a betrayal are key elements in this retelling of the ancient myths and legends of the Volsunga sagas, themselves the inspiration for stories from Lord Of The Rings to Bladerunner.

This is only the second time one of his books has been adapted for the stage. Junk, about teenage heroin use, was the first. Doing It, chronicling the sexual experiences of three teenage boys, is being made into a US TV series which relocates the action to Seattle. If the TV show, like the book, shocks some with its approach to youthful sex, Burgess can expect more complaints.

Approaches to adapt his work come in equal measure from screen and stage. "Television and film is a much greedier medium than theatre or books, so you are always getting people sniffing around. They take out an option, wander about like a dog with a bone, and then drop it," he says.

Oddly enough, he did the novelisation of hit film Billy Elliot, scripted by Newcastle writer Lee Hall. "Normally, the only ones you get offered are the 29th Dr Who book. This was interesting because it's a quality film. Good books get made into hopefully good films, but it doesn't happen the other way round, with good films made into good books," he says.

"What a film can't address is people's inner lives. I wrote it from the first person point of view and it did hold together. I was in touch with Lee Hall, who was in Hollywood then, through emails."

He has a ready-made test audience for his teenage novels at home in son Oliver and stepson Sam. He also has a daughter Pearl, who lives with her mother. "They read them and find them a bit weird," he says. "My son used to say I should be doing it like JK Rowling. With Doing It, I think they were just embarrassed by it."

* Bloodtide is at York Theatre Royal from Thursday to February 21. Tickets (01904) 623568