Lehigh Valley author Bathsheba Monk, who gives a talk as part of Lehigh University's "Notations" series, 7 p.m. Oct. 22, Butz Lobby, Zoellner Arts Center, 420 E. Packer Avenue, Bethlehem, has embarked on a new quest: teen fiction.

Monk, the author of "Now You See It ... Stories from Cokesville, Pa," a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2006, and two novels, "Dead Wrong" and "Nude Walker," isn't taking a typical approach to the young adult genre.

"The very essence of being a teen is that you may be having a hard time now, but you are already a person and now is the time to start affecting your future by becoming the person you want to be. You have control over that. You just have to seize it," says Monk.

"Cokesville" and "Nude Walker' have their roots in Monk's hometown of Bethlehem. Monk is now writing a series of mysteries which have as their protagonist a blue-collar sleuth from Boston, Mass., where Monk, an Army veteran, lived and went to school.

To tell her stories in a different light, Monk masterfully ties serious themes to comical situations through real-life struggles.

The theme of Monk's "Notations' talk will be "you are the story you tell about yourself" and the joys and problems that arise when everyone in the digital has a megaphone to broadcast that story, i.e., YouTube, facebook, Twitter, blogs and on-line radio.

Monk has been active in the Lehigh Valley writing scene, and The Memoir Writing Conference, which she organized at ArtsQuest, SteelStacks, Bethlehem, in 2012, may be echoed in her talk at Lehigh. Conference attendees shared their memoirs in a collective presentation. In hearing the stories, Monk became enthralled by the originality of their voices, the content, and, most importantly, motivated to getting their stories heard.

With this in mind, Monk has launched a publishing company, PLMG Publishing, which specializes mystery and young adult series novels and memoirs. One memoir is "Last Call," by Paul Heller, a brutally honest journal of his caring for his mother who had Alzheimer's. Two more publications are expected by year's end. One is described as the recollections of an ex-Bethlehem Steel worker and the other about a woman starting over, only to face further crises.

That blue-collar sleuth is part of the new Swanson Herbinko Mystery Series, which displays a shift from literary fiction to genre fiction for Monk. The inspiration for the protagonist, Swanson Herbinko, came from her temp work as a legal secretary in big and small Boston law offices while attending Emerson College, where she received an MFA.

Monk collected her experiences from the integrity, humor and hard work of the women she encountered while at work. The first book in the series, "Dead Wrong," was published in September. A second book, "Dead Silence," is next.

Monk's second young adult novel is expected to be published by year's end.

Monk has written opinion pieces for The New York Times Sunday Magazine and the Los Angeles Times and book reviews for the Stars and Stripes newspaper.