The first time I got pregnant, I was a young girl - I was 17 years old. Although I knew right away that I wanted to keep my child, being a pregnant teen was an extremely scary experience for me. Luckily, my family and friends were very supportive and were there for me every step of the way.
I do a lot of teen shows and voice over work for animation, so when I got the part in 'The Number 23,' it was really cool because now I get to be in a movie with Jim Carrey. Acting in this movie was really a learning experience for me.
When I was in my teen years and in my 20s and even 60s, it was okay to drop everything and disappear and become a road warrior for all those months. But after a while you get... y'know, one likes to have some home life.
This generation has given up on growth. They're just hoping for survival.
I worked on congressional campaigns when I was a teenager. I did United Way fundraisers when I was a teen. We advocated; we spoke out. I protested the first Iraq War in college.
I think there's actually a benefit to working with teen actors: they've got such boundless energy, and everybody is willing to try different things.
People look down on teen moms and young mothers when they are the most gracious and significant women on this Earth. They sacrifice their freedom and their lives to give life.
It never hurts to tell your teen they matter more than their looks.
I just fell into the job as a fashion editor at a teen magazine. I was there for two years, and I left there as a senior fashion editor at the age of 25.
If you were an alien who came to our bookstores - or browsed our teen magazines - you'd think that only Earth girls who look like Mila Kunis ever got any action.
My first encounter with Cyborg was through the 'Teen Titans' cartoon.
I didn't know too much about his comic book history. I know that in 'Teen Titans,' he's much more the comedic relief. But after reading the comic book iteration of Cyborg in 'The New Teen Titans' from the 1980s that Marv Wolfman and George Perez had worked on, I saw that there was a lot of texture to the character.
One of the things that defines YA is a really strong narrative. Adults love YA because, at the end of the day, they're good stories and page-turners. The other element is emotion. The teen years are a very emotional and intense time, and I think it's a time we that we can all relate to and remember.
I was on a show called 'Teen Diva' which was being aired on MTV. I talked a lot on the show and the boss there thought I was good for VJ-ing since I spoke so much.
I started my career with 'Teen Diva,' and that helped me learn anchoring. Fortunately, I got work after the show ended.
Teen movies often have an unspoken underlying premise in which high school is seen as less serious than the adult world. But when your head is encased in that microcosm it's the most serious time of your life.
They were marketing me as a teen idol, when the stuff on the record was not what teen idols were doing at the time.
I was a happy kid up until I hit the teen years.
I didn't want to do music. I was very doubtful. I was like, 'Oh my God. No one wants to hear a teen mom rapper.'
Maybe that's the whole teen oeuvre, you know covering people in disgusting bodily fluids and whatnot.
Over the past few years, I've acted in movies such as 'Teen Kanya,' 'Charuulata 2011' and 'Muktodhara,' which have all been told from a woman's perspective.
I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.
I took high school very casually. There was Teen Town, chess, tennis, boxing, running. Lots of things going on.
For me, the teen years were all about searching for a place for myself, wondering why I seemed so different than everyone else, wondering especially why no one could look past the surface and figure out who I really was underneath.
Of course Stephen King doesn't believe in teen novels. I've started to suspect he doesn't even believe in teenagers.
Teen fiction should be about teenagers - no matter how many arguments there are about what YA lit should be, this seems like the one thing we can all agree on.
I love Deathstroke! I was 12 in 1980 when Deathstroke appeared in 'Teen Titans' #2.
I liked being a teenager, but I would not go back for all the tea in China.
When I started out as a music journalist, at the end of the 1980s, it was generally assumed that we were living through the lamest music era the world would ever see. But those were also the years when hip-hop exploded, beatbox disco soared, indie rock took off, and new wave invented a language of teen angst.
If a movie isn't a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy.
I was considered chubby as a teen.
When I was a teen, I would draw a really, really long line around my eyes with eyeliner, like Lola Flores.
'Teen Beach Movie' was a lot of fun because we were in Puerto Rico on an island - you can't even call it work!
I absolutely adore classic crime and read a huge amount as a teen - Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Sherlock Holmes, Josephine Tey, and many more.
Like me as a teen - and like many teenagers now - my characters are at a peculiar crossroads in their lives. They desperately seek freedom. But at the same time, they are constantly thwarted.
Yeah, I spent my teen years in West Virginia, and when I was a kid, in Louisiana. I definitely have that exposure to two different sorts of rural: the South and Appalachia.
Typically, middle-class educated parents' search for their children's schools takes on the feel, if not of teen girls trying on different outfits, of adolescents trying on various selves.
When I was a teen, I was never really into the captain of the football team or the student body president. The guys I liked were quirky and different: They listened to music I'd never heard of, never had lunch or gas money, and could always make you laugh.
I love writing about the summer between high school and college. It's the last gasp of really being a teen.
Teenagers are asking, 'Who am I?' and 'How do I fit in?' in every aspect of their lives, and the best YA romances appreciate that there is more to a teen's life than finding love.
Being a teen idol is what I've waited for my whole life.
I started a MySpace teen lit discussion group and invited people to join.
Like so many other bored teens, I was a bored teen with a hobby. The only difference was mine was obsessing about crime.
I wouldn't say I'm stuck in my adolescence, but I think, like a lot of people, I carry my teen years with me. I feel really in touch with those feelings, and how intense and complicated life seems in those years.
I remember as a teen being able to eat more than my father. I was growing so fast and my body couldn't keep up.
The average teen today spends about 35 hours a week in front of a screen of some kind: iPod, movie, TV, video. And a lot of it is good, but a lot of it's not. And so I think you've got that five hours a day of media coming into your kid's head that's creating a lot of havoc out there.
I played teen roles until high definition came out, and I could never understand it. I would go in for adult roles and be older than many of the people auditioning, but they'd cast the girl without a line on her face.
I could have been on a path that led to different, more traditional teen romance, and 'Nip/Tuck' shook me loose from any generalization I might have been forced into. It helped me understand I wanted to take on things that were edgier, more challenging and riskier.
I remember the first time I saw the 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' video. I will never forget that day. I just wanted to see Kurt Cobain's face. I had a feeling he was very cute. But, I couldn't see his face. When I finally did see him, he was even cuter than I imagined!
I'm excited to see a new age of rom-coms, and especially teen romantic comedies, because when I was younger, I was watching 'Harry Potter' and 'Hunger Games' and stuff like that. I loved those movies, but they are a little bit heavy. We didn't really get to have the lighthearted love stories.