Author of the bestselling middle-grade Sisters Grimm and Nerds series, Michael Buckley enters the YA arena with Undertow (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May), the first in a planned trilogy about a teenage girl caught in a clash between civilizations. The opening scene of the novel may give timid summer beach readers pause: a society of undersea warriors marches out of the ocean into modern-day Coney Island, transforming the area into a military zone with humans on one side and the aquatic creatures on the other.

The novel’s premise sprang from several sources, says Buckley. “I had a dream about an army of people walking out of the water onto a beach where a boy was building a sand castle,” he recalls. “But I didn’t know what to do about it. Then soon after that, I read about a group of immigrants, including a number of children, who arrived by boat on U.S. shores, I think from South America. Officials didn’t know what to do with them, so they housed them in a prison indefinitely. And I began wondering if our country really is a melting pot, and if we really do take the idea of giving us ‘your huddled masses’ seriously? So, I put both those ideas together into a big, dystopian love story mixed with some societal messages.”

As Undertow took shape, Buckley realized that, though he initially “tried to wrestle it into a middle-grade novel,” the concepts and ideas “that demanded to be a part of the story” targeted it for young adults. He then had to face his creative fears: “I asked myself, ‘Can I actually write a YA novel—and can I write this one?’ How does a 45-year-old man convincingly write about the passions of a teenage girl? It was important for me to get it right and not be creepy.”

For advice, Buckley turned to two New York City friends and veteran YA authors, Adele Griffin and Rebecca Searle. “I couldn’t have written Undertow without their help and cheerleading,” he says. And he’s confident that making the leap into YA was a good move for him. “Middle grade is a place I’ve felt very safe this past decade, but I didn’t become a writer to play it safe,” he says. “I want to grow and challenge myself as an artist—or maybe I just have too many ideas and want to try many different things.”

Booksellers can catch up with Buckley—and pick up an Undertow tote bag—today, 11 a.m.–noon, at the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt booth (2541), where he signs copies of his new novel. 

This article appeared in the May 29, 2015 edition of PW BEA Show Daily.