YA Highway

In 2009, I challenged some of the Absolute Write YA forum members to read 100 books (or 50, if that was too lofty a goal). Some of us did it! Some of us didn't. But all of us read a ton.

Whether or not you took part in that challenge, now that the year's over, it's time to look back at all those piles of books. Which were the most memorable? Which were the funniest? The most disturbing? Which character do you want to run away with? What covers caught your eye?

I'm not just interested in my own answers to these questions – I want to know yours! The solution: Epic Book Survey, version 2009.

THE (casual) RULES: Fill out the survey on your own blog, then post the link in our comments section. Only include books you've read in the past year (to the best of your knowledge; I understand not everyone kept track on a handy Goodreads list). That doesn't necessarily mean books written in 2009 – just books you read in 2009.

If you can't figure out a book that fits, never fear -- just skip that question. And if you can't narrow an answer to one – no problem! We're flexible. I'm a crazy cheater myself. Repeats are fine. For an example, hop on over to my blog. As you'll see, we're keeping things positive; no book-bashing, please.

And! And!

On Friday, January 8th, a random survey participant will win a copy of Kristin Cashore's FIRE, her sort-of prequel to GRACELING. (Open only to the US and Canada this time, but we'd love our international readers to participate for fun!)

Here we go...

BOOKS

• Most imaginative:
• Funniest:
  
• Scariest:
• Edgiest contemporary:
• Creepiest SF/dystopia:
• Most evocative historical:
• Best love story:
  

SCENES

• Most hilarious:
• Scariest:
• Most disturbing:
• Steamiest:
• Most exciting:
• Biggest tear-jerker:
• Best plot twist/revelation (no spoilers!!) :

CHARACTERS

• Best couple:
• Who you'd want as your best friend:
• Who you fell in love with:
• Worst (best?) villain:
• Best character twist (who you loved, then hated, or vice versa):
• Best character names:
• Worst character names:
• Favorite all-around kickass female:
• Favorite all-around kickass male:

MISCELLANEOUS

• Best book cover:
• Best title:
• Most memorable voice
  
• Most memorable first line:
• Best setting:
  
• Most beautiful writing:

LAST BUT NOT LEAST...

• Will any of the books you've read in 2009 make your life list of Favorite Books?

Epic Book Survey 2009

To celebrate the holiday season, we're sharing our followers with some fantastic guest bloggers. Last in our New Voices series is Celise Downs, who's looking to the future.

A little about Celise:

Celise Downs is the author of Secrets and Kisses and Dance Jam Productions. She loves James Bond (Sean and Pierce ONLY), Linkin Park and Betty Boop. And she's seriously addicted to adult romance books. When she's not watching her favorite T.V. shows (and there are many), her WIP is a series she plans to podcast next year, Draven Atreides: Teenage Informant, about a 16-yr-old girl who's been recruited by the FBI as an informant. Check her out at www.celisedowns.com

When it comes to my writing, I do not plan.

I do not outline.

I do not have plot parties.

I am a complete and unabashed pantser when it comes to my writing life.

So when I saw the 5-Year Writing Plan blog post by Bria over at LUV YA, my first immediate thought was,

“My 5-year writing plan is to still be writing 5 yrs later. Duh.”

But after reading the post and the responses, it got me to thinking about where I wanted to take my writing. So, instead of a plan, I came up with a list:

1. Complete the DA series – Although I’m hoping it won’t take me 5 yrs to do so.

2. Get the DA series published…traditionally.

3. Write a collection of short stories and get them published…traditionally.

4. Write outside my genre – Preferably adult romance. Discussion of this addiction was discussed in Road Trip Wednesday #5

5. *Start another series?

6. **Create a DA spin-off series

Compared to the other comments at LUV YA’s house, my list seems pretty vague. But I know me and I know my writing style. Plans tend to fall apart, so I prefer to keep everything open-ended. Yet it still gives me something to work towards.

So here’s my question to all of you: Do you have a 5 Year Writing Plan/List?

~Celise Downs

*I have a couple of ideas in case I have a hard time writing standalones.

**The MC in my DA series is part of a special “program” that could be expanded

New Voices! Celise Downs: The 5 -Year Writing List

To celebrate the holiday season, we're sharing our followers with some fantastic guest bloggers. Next in our New Voices series is Marquita Hockaday, who knows real life can be even more frightening than the shadows of our imaginations.

A little about Marquita:

Marquita Hockaday is a saint. Well, really she's a full-time teacher for middle school students, but that's equivalent, right? As a writer, she loves the way her fictional worlds and characters take her away from the whining, coughing (doesn’t it always seem like someone has a cold at school?), complaining world she visits Monday to Friday from 7:00 until 3:00 p.m. She's working on her MFA with Fairleigh Dickinson University as she ventures into the wonderful world of YA.

When I first thought about YA novels, I pictured the Harry Potter & Twilight series. I had not read either, but I knew enough about them to know that I didn’t want to write like these authors. Not because J. K/ Rowling and Stephanie Meyer are poor writers, but because I knew I wanted to focus on things that are more real and tangible. Things that our youth truly go through.

Then, I heard that there was such a thing as “edgy YA.” Ever since I discovered this, I have been reading and researching various edgy YA books to add to my intellectual arsenal. The more books that I read, hear about and order, the more I realize this is going to be my area of expertise.

The following is a list of books with a few sentences about each, and various websites you can check out to further your own knowledge about edgy YA: the real-life horrors adolescents can experience.

Dawn by Kevin Brooks is the tale of a young girl grappling with the loss of her father. He just ups and disappears. Dawn spends the novel trying to figure out why God would take away the father who had been there for her... maybe there for her too much.

Liar by Justine Larbalestier is a novel that focuses on a Micah, a girl in high school who lies so much she spend the first part of her freshman year telling everyone she is in fact a boy. The story gets deeper when Micah’s boyfriend ("after school boyfriend", that is) mysteriously dies one afternoon.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott is a short novel about a girl who is kidnapped at ten years old and spends the next five years with her captor.

Speak by Lauris Halse Anderson is a novel about a girl in high school who decides it is better for her to not speak anymore. Why? It could be because everyone in school hates her, or it could be because if she speaks, she will have to face the very thing that made her fall silent.

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch is the story of a young man who often gets away with things in his life, like causing horrible physical harm to a player on an opposing sports team. But will he get away with rape?

Freaks and Revelations by Davida Willis Hurwin is based on real-life events and deals with racism, hate, and the issues and circumstances that result in a fateful incident.

There are plenty more! Check out the links below to find out more about edgy YA.

• Laurie Halse Anderson’s website (where she has a collection of edgy YA novels)

• An article about writing edgy YA

• An edgy YA conversation on Absolute Write

~Marquita Hockaday

New Voices! Marquita Hockaday: Real-Life Horror

From the back cover:

Book Review: Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder

Merry Christmas!

To celebrate the holiday season, (well, besides giving away tons of books) we're sharing our 100 244 (and counting!) followers with some fantastic guest bloggers. Next up in our New Voices series is John Rea-Hedrick, who's got some great things to say about finding your voice.

A little about John:

John Rea-Hedrick resides in Greenwood, Indiana with his wife and four children. He graduated from Indiana University in 1995 where he studied philosophy and creative writing. He’s spent the past ten years working as an Information Technology professional in Indianapolis and is currently working on his first novel. In addition to writing fiction, in his spare time John enjoys listening to university course lectures from the public library and reading and writing poetry. John’s blog: http://perspectives.rea-hedrick.com

How many times have you heard a song on the radio then found yourself humming it, or even singing it, long after the music has stopped? Plenty, right? Music just has a way of getting inside us; it can influence our mood, touch our emotions, and even change the way we think.

Good books can do the same thing.

Whenever I come away from an extended visit with a good book the music of the writing stays with me long after I’ve turned the page. Just read a chapter or two of Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights and see if you don’t find your speech a bit more formal (maybe even your posture!) at least for a little while. Even reading a few pages of Dr. Seuss is likely to leave you thinking and speaking in rhymes.

For readers, experiences like this can be quite enjoyable, but for writers, they can feel potentially disastrous. How many times have you come away from a great book, inspired to whip your own WIP into shape, only to find everything you write sounds JUST LIKE THE BOOK YOU WERE READING? The music of that book, lovely as it may be, is now playing in your head. So you suddenly you find yourself staring at a blank page with something akin to literary laryngitis, asking yourself ‘but what do I sound like?’

What to do?

Well, whenever I find myself in that position I stop and consider what it is about the writing that makes it stay with me. Deconstructing what another author has done helps remove me from the influence of their writing by letting me peek behind the curtain to see how they’ve done it, which ultimately brings me closer to doing the same thing in my own writing.

So what about you? When it comes to your writing, how do you go about finding your voice?

~John Rea-Hedrick

New Voices! John Rea-Hedrick: Finding Your Voice

When Publishing Isn't For You

It's been almost a year since I've stepped foot into a Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million. So when I walked into the book section of Globus (mass consumerism at its best), I was a little surprised to see what books were on display.

Are you ready for it?

Have you recovered from the shock yet? Because there's more. . . .





All sarcasm aside, the books featured in the YA section were very much similar to what I'd witnessed back in the states before leaving. There was a big emphasis on fantasy and plenty of dark, Gothic looking covers.




I can't say whether this is a true representation of the YA market in Germany, as it was only a book section in a big store, not a bookstore itself. But I have a feeling there wouldn't be very much of a difference on the shelves.

Books Around the World: Germany

To celebrate the holiday season, (well, besides giving away tons of books) we're sharing our 100 244 (and counting!) followers with some fantastic guest bloggers. Next up in our New Voices series is Amber Forbes, who embraces commercial and literary fiction with equally open arms.

A little about Amber:

Amber Forbes is a 19-year-old freshman at Augusta State University, majoring in English Rhetoric/Composition and minoring in Photography. She's also a slusher for The Oddville Press, with a short story titled "Dead Poet's Pendulum" published in their Issue V. You can read teasers of her WIP, Witch Tourniquet, every Tuesday, as well as her thoughts on the writing world, at skyejules.wordpress.com.

I used to think commercial was ‘fluff’ fiction, until I found out that a lot of my favorite books are commercial, or books that straddle the line of commercial and literary. Now I just think that whether or not something is commercial or literary is in the minds of the readers. But this isn’t about what’s commercial or literary. This is about standing up for commercial fiction, trying to get people to see that it can be just as deep as literary fiction.

When I was a senior in high school, I took AP Literature, and in that class I explored vast amounts of literature and wrote tons of in-class essays. I will never forget the month I had to carry around a fat book containing some great short stories and poems, with explanations on how to write each. It was a thrilling month because it was the first time I seriously dabbled in short stories and was actually able to write a good one. Despite this book being a great help, it also fell into the category of literary snobbery. I wish I could remember the name of the book, but I cannot.

During class, we had to read various definitions, and one of the definitions included commercial fiction. The book basically described commercial fiction as containing cliché or flat characters, an underdeveloped plot, and fiction that often contains clumsy writing. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy at all with this book’s callous, close-minded definition. I also believe this book hasn’t been updated in decades, because I can believe that commercial fiction was like this in my parents’ days, but not nowadays.

There are a lot of misconceptions about commercial fiction. I could list several websites with writing forums where tons of writers have marked off commercial fiction as being basic trash, but I won’t. First off, let me break down the definition of commercial fiction by defining commercial and fiction. Commercial means that a product is suitable for a wide, popular market. Think Twilight or most bestsellers. Fiction is something invented or imagined. So by combining these definitions, commercial fiction contains invented or imagined stories that appeal to a broad market. With this definition, where on earth do people get the idea that commercial fiction is somehow inferior to literary fiction?

Commercial fiction just simply appeals to the tastes of the majority. Just because something is commercial does not mean it lacks depth. In fact, depth is in the eye of the beholder.

Some people claim commercial fiction is all about the plot, all about keeping people in their seats by strangling them with seatbelts. To a certain extent this is true, but I’ve read tons of commercial books where the focus seems to be more on the characters than the plots, although the plots are very gripping. My favorite series of all time, The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray, contains a character who reminds me of myself: Gemma Doyle. I read this series not for its plot, but for Gemma and her friends. The plot was amazing and gripping, and very, very deep, but if the characters hadn’t been as loveable as they were, I probably wouldn’t have finished the series. I think this is true for a lot of readers, especially readers of young adult fiction. Most readers want characters they can fall in love with, because by loving the characters, the plot becomes more insightful.

To be frank, I’m not sure what kind of writer I am. I know for certain my short stories are literary because “Dead Poet’s Pendulum” was published in The Oddville Press, an e-zine that looks for literary works. But as for my current WIP, Witch Tourniquet, I don’t know what I’d classify it as. I don’t mind being a commercial writer. I don’t mind being a literary writer. I love both literary and commercial books.

What I do mind is how much of an audience I can reach and how many people I can touch with what I’ve written. I want to be able to leave at least some sort of impact within the minds of my readers. Whether they love my plot, my characters, or the way I write words, I don’t care. I just want them to love something.

Whether or not you choose to write commercial or literary, you should strive to write the best story possible. In the end, that’s all that really seems to matter.

~Amber Forbes

New Voices! Amber Forbes: Commercial Does Not Mean Inferior

We Have Winners!

Today is a really big day on the YA Highway, and so I'll only take up a bit of your time while the votes are being tallied. Remember Agent Appreciation Day? Well, today is...

But once you land that book deal, your editor steps into the spotlight with hammer and chisel. Though the work is hard, you always remember that he/she fought for your book, just like your agent. You have not one advocate, but two.

Anyway, editors totally deserve appreciation as much as agents. Gretchen McNeil is gathering the links this time, so keep an eye out for more and more editor love manifestos as the day rolls on. And of course, keep an eye out for the results of our Holiday Giveaway!!

Editor Appreciation Day! (Not Contest Results, Yet...)

Our Holiday Giveaway has Ended!

To celebrate the holiday season, (well, besides giving away tons of books) we're sharing our 100 239 (and counting!) followers with some fantastic guest bloggers. Next up in our New Voices series is Emilia Plater, who believes writing and music are kindred arts.

A little about Emilia:

emiliajoyce.blogspot.com

Also, she's sixteen. (16!!)



Recently, I drove home from New York City late at night with my parents. I had some new music on my player begging to be heard, so I lounged across the back seat for a couple hours and just felt it - felt every beat, riff, and lyric washing over me. It was pure nirvana.

As I thought about what made these songs so great, I realized that a lot of those elements could apply to great books, too.

So how can a book, full of paper and noiseless words, reach musical nirvana?

It's gotta have...


1. The addictive riff.

AKA: The hook.
Listen to the opening of Supermassive Black Hole by Muse. After hearing that first riff, or short musical phrase, how impossible is it to shut the song off? Pretty impossible. In a book, the hook can be anything - the premise, the first chapter, the first sentence - but it must be instantly addicting. If I shuffle to a book with no hook, there's a high probability I'm going to hit Skip. And unlike with a song, which I can listen to over and over until I do love it, a book needs to be catchy the first time.


2. The pounding drums.

AKA: The plot.
The beating of drums drives a song and serves as a cradle for everything else. In O Saya ft. MIA from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, the drums are exciting, intricate, wild and varied. They speed up during high-energy areas and keep your heart racing the whole way through. In YA, a book either has a similarly great plot, or it's out. A fast pace, though not totally necessary, helps keep the excitement going.


3. The unforgettable lyrics.

AKA: The theme.
The theme of a book can be defined as an idea that flows through it and states something about life. The lyrics of a song serve as a plain authority on what the song's all about. Just listen to the lyrics of Electric Feel by MGMT: "All along the eastern shore/ put your circuits in the sea/ This is what the world is for/ making electricity." Not only are they inspiring, but they make me think about the world and how I could change my life for the better. By taking advantage of teenage open-mindedness - we might act pessimistic, but we're still kids at heart - a great YA book does the thing.


4. The emotive vocals.

AKA: The voice.
At 0:42 in No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand, singer Alex Kaprano sings without any background noise for one line: "I'd love to get to know you." To me, Alex's voice is so distinctive and irresistible - he makes every song he sings, and I'd never mistake a Franz Ferdinand song for a song by anyone else. Voice is one of the most important elements of a song - and of a novel. If I don't like a singer's voice, or if there's nothing special about it, I probably won't get into a song. The same goes for books.


5. The electrifying chorus.

AKA: The climax.
The chorus usually appears three or four times in a song. In the same way, a book should have defined areas of high-pressure greatness: a shocking revelation, a car chase. But it's the last chorus in a song into which musicians usually put the most energy. The whole song leads up to it, and if I don't feel like dancing yet, I do now. Case in point: 4:05 in Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. The melody, the lyrics, the beat, and the voice all smash together to create a really powerful chorus. The hook, plot, theme, and voice do the same with the climax of a great YA book.

When I find a song with all five of these elements, I crank up the volume and let the whole thing course through my veins. Just like I'll sacrifice my eardrums for a great song, I'll sacrifice my whole afternoon for a great book.

So as you write or edit your novel, don't forget to reach musical nirvana. Turn up the volume on all your ideas - and write the night away.

~Emilia Plater

New Voices! Emilia Joyce Plater: A Guide to Musical Nirvana

To celebrate the holiday season, (well, besides giving away tons of books) we're sharing our 100 230 (and counting!) followers with some fantastic guest bloggers. Next up in our New Voices series is Kate Hart, writing about the YA heroine we love to hate.

A little about Kate:

Kate Hart is a former teacher who now works from home for a non-profit while corralling two little boys. She's working on my first novel, tentatively titled Refuge. Kate's blog, My Sphere of Domesticity, is always hilarious.

So apparently there's this really popular YA book out right now...Twilight, I think it's called? You might have heard of it? Anyway, it tends to galvanize readers, who fall along the lines of "ZOMG Twilight is the greatest book of all time EVAR" to "Twilight heralds the coming apocalypse." A chosen few of us manage to find a middle ground. But almost everyone, fans and haters alike, agree on one thing.

They hate Bella.

I'm not here to debate poor Bella's flaws and attributes, because there are roughly 27,000 other places on the internet where you can discuss her. But the reaction to her interests me. Why? Because when my second beta reader wrote about my main character, "I ::heart:: Aubrey," my heart grew three sizes and almost exploded from my chest. Not unlike the feeling I sometimes get about my two children.

*alarm bells ring*

Uh oh.

If you allude to your book as your "baby" on writing forums, expect to be roundly chastised. "Writing is a business! You have to be professional! There's no crying in writing! In Communist Russia, book writes you!" (I may have made up that last one.) I don't disagree. If you can't maintain an emotional distance from your work, how can you ever objectively judge if it's ready for the real world?

But the same is true for children. No mother can objectively gauge the attractiveness or brilliance of her child-- and both child and character suffer from smothering guardians who assume their offspring are perfect and have no faults. Even worse: You might be a stage mother, forcing your offspring to dedicate massive amounts of time and energy to only one side of their personality, or a helicopter parent who solves every problem before the offspring even knows it's there. How is any kid, real or fictional, expected to fare in the real world with this upbringing?

If I have one piece of parenting wisdom for the masses, it is this: You can't make a child do anything it doesn't want to do. Sleeping, eating, using a toilet, shutting up-- none of these are things you can force, at least by humane and legal means. Once those children are out in the world, interacting with others and finding their own way, there isn't much you can do besides cross your fingers and hope that you did enough in their formative years to lead them in the right direction.

You can't control the reaction that people "out there" will have to your biological, adopted or literary darlings. People will be mean and call them stupid, vapid, ugly, ridiculous. They will sneer at them and exclude them from birthday parties and laugh when they fall down. Any attempts on your part to defend them will only make matters worse.

But if you've put in enough effort, they'll fend for themselves. By interacting with others, they will reveal depths even you weren't aware of. They'll answer critics with arguments that you never saw coming. Yes, some people will hate for no reason. Others will find that your characters simply "aren't their thing." And that's okay. Your kids won't be friends with everyone in their class, either. But if you've helped develop more than just one side of their personality, if you've prepared them for the real world, they'll make the friends they need to make their momma writer proud.

~Kate Hart

New Voices! Kate Hart: Everybody Hates Bella

Super Surprise Mini-Giveaway #2! Open Internationally!

Today at the Elevensies, I kicked off our Tennerviews – interviews with YA and MG authors debuting in 2010, aka "Tenners" – with Jaclyn Dolamore, author of MAGIC UNDER GLASS. I'm cross-posting our interview here.

As a fellow aficionado of vintage clothes, organic food and the Goblin King himself, David Bowie, Jaclyn's definitely a kindred spirit of mine. Oh, and she draws her characters, too! (You'll see.) Her YA fantasy/steampunk fusion, MAGIC UNDER GLASS, will be released by Bloomsbury on December 22nd, 2009.

Here's a peek…

Nimira is a foreign music-hall girl forced to dance for mere pennies. When wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to sing with a piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it is the start of a new and better life. In Parry's world, however, buried secrets are beginning to stir. Unsettling below-stairs rumors swirl about ghosts, a madwoman roaming the halls, and Parry's involvement with a league of sorcerers who torture fairies for sport.

Then Nimira discovers the spirit of a fairy gentleman named Erris is trapped inside the clockwork automaton, waiting for someone to break his curse. The two fall into a love that seems hopeless, and breaking the curse becomes a race against time, as not just their love, but the fate of the entire magical world may be in peril.


KH: MAGIC UNDER GLASS has ghosts, fairies, magic and clockwork, as well as the requisite romance. Did you set out to write a book with all these elements, or did they surprise you along the way?

JD: The basic elements were there in the beginning, the clockwork and the romance particularly. The fairy part gave me a little angst because they aren't your usual fairies. They are more like humans, but with a strong connection to the earth and nature. I considered calling them something else, but then I would have to make up a name, and in some way I felt like having a race with a foreign name would make the book feel too much like another planet, where I wanted it to reflect our world closely. So I called them fairies, and although I worked some of fairy lore and the Victorian concept of fairies in, a lot of things are made up, like the Queen of the Dead being a fairy called "The Queen of the Longest Night."


KH: What's your very favorite part in MAGIC UNDER GLASS? What part was the most difficult to write?

JD: My favorite part is near the end of the book where the love interest is kind of being tormented. I love tormenting the love interest. Otherwise, the end was the most difficult part to write. It was rewritten the most times, and even when I turned into my editor I was convinced it was horrible. I was surprised that she liked it!


KH: Who are some of your biggest literary inspirations?

JD: L.M. Montgomery. She had such a big influence on my style that people used to complain how even my contemporary stories sounded old-fashioned and wordy. Laura Ingalls Wilder. (And perhaps, Rose Wilder Lane, who put so much work into helping to edit those books.) The writing in the Little House books is always clear and simple, but it gets across wonderful images. Storywise, I have been hugely influenced by long-running fantasy comics like Thieves and Kings, A Distant Soil, Elfquest (the original quest)...


KH: Your upbringing ("homeschooled in a hippie sort of way") and interests (vintage dresses, organic food, David Bowie) are very eclectic. In what ways did they inspire MAGIC UNDER GLASS?

JD: I say I was "homeschooled in a hippie way" because I don't think the term unschooled is widespread enough to use, but, growing up, we very rarely had lessons or assignments or much of any structure at all. We were free to spend hours playing saga-length pretend games with plot lines that went on for weeks and the same characters for years. We were also free to pursue whatever interested us without anyone telling us to learn something else, so that probably contributed to my eclectic interests. My formative years were spent on five acres in the boonies, and my mom's friends were mostly very new age and kooky and artistic. I got the sense that even the adults around me believed in fairies and miracles and magic. A great background for a fantasy writer.


KH: What have been the most challenging/unexpectedly amazing parts of your publishing journey?

JD: Well, it took a while to get an agent and I revised the book many times, learning a lot about editing. That was hard. Really hard. But in some ways, actually being published was what took me off guard. It's been a total dream come true and I've been very happy with my publishing experience. But on a personal level, total emotional upheaval. It's scary to achieve your life's dream for many reasons. I've been really sensitive this year, prone to panic attacks that seem like they aren't related to having my book published at all, but I think they actually are. And I've been dealing with a repetitive stress injury almost all year that popped up the week my first ever editorial letter arrived, which I'm not sure is a coincidence entirely. Anyway, I'm still really happy about everything, it's just that all my feelings, good AND bad, feel super magnified this year. Intense.


KH: When the well's sapped dry, what gets you writing again?

JD: Well, I've never been good at giving myself a break. So sometimes what I really need is to just step away from the computer and do anything else. I'm learning to trust that the urge to write will always come back soon. But the most effective ways to stimulate inspiration are reading books and making or listening to book themed playlists.


KH: Like me, you draw your main characters. Can you share any sketches?

JD: I have had some scanner issues and...well, I haven't scanned any pictures in two years!! I'll have a gallery up on my website soon, but in the meantime, I can give you an older picture of Hollin Parry, the...well, sympathetic antagonist or Byronic hero of the tale.


KH: If your favorite literary characters and Nimira, your book's protagonist, were stuck in a bunker during the zombie apocalypse, what would they talk about?

JD: Well, I would probably have Mr. Rochester and Emily of New Moon, and maybe Jonathan the Zombie Master from the Xanth books -- I had a crush on him as a kid -- which would be a very ironic choice for a zombie apocalypse. But, I bet once they finished questioning Jonathan about zombies and whether there's anything they could do about the apocalypse, they could probably all talk about books. I think they're all sort of introverted, intellectual types. Actually, there could be a cute romance of some kind in all of this...


KH: Can you tell us about your next book in 25 words or less? (I've read rumors of mermaids…)

JD: It's a love story between a book-loving mermaid and the winged boy who was her childhood friend, with a setting based on late 18th-century Italy.


Thanks, Jaclyn!

Find out more about MAGIC UNDER GLASS on Jaclyn Dolamore's website, www.jaclyndolamore.com.

~Kirsten Hubbard

Interview with Jaclyn Dolamore, debut author of MAGIC UNDER GLASS

In addition to writing books, two of us moosers here on the highway also sell 'em. Leila works for a quaint little children's bookshop in New Zealand, and I work for the uber-chain Barnes & Noble in Texas, a state where "little" is pretty much an illegal word. It's big, ya'll. Real big.

So we thought it would be fun to share some stories, some secrets, some inside info on two incredibly different bookstores on opposite sides of the globe. Here's a little scoop on what's going on in the Big Bad B&N this holiday season.

Peek under the cash registers. It's like looking under a teenage boy's mattress.

Yup. Nudie mags. All kinds, tucked neatly behind the cleaning supplies like we're hiding them from Mom. Apparently, the most popular request at my store is the Playboy where Marge Simpson was the centerfold.

Speaking of...that, we card.

If you want to browse the sexuality shelf, make sure you have an I.D., and you're over 19. A co-worker told me he found a 10 year old boy reading the Kamasutra with great interest. When he told the boy he wasn't allowed, the boy cried, "But my mom and dad won't tell me about this stuff – where else am I supposed to learn it?"

Indeed.

It's fair and balanced like Fox News.

Our current events shelf is dominated – dominated – with right-wing propaganda. Not information. Propaganda. Today's featured book: Obamanomics: How Barack Obama is Bankrupting You And Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses. Laura Bush and Mike Huckabee have both done book signings at my store. I do not believe Hillary Clinton would be so welcome.

I'm interested to see, when I move up to the northern U.S., if the shelves are so heavily liberal. Either way, it would be nice if people could have the option of reading books that don't confirm their worst fears, and rather simply provide them with information from another perspective.

Covers that make you look twice.

Let me start by saying, I am all about revamping covers to give classics a new look that will appeal to another generation of readers. But this new version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice – front and center on the YA feature shelf – definitely made me do a double take:


I don't have to say it. You see. You know. And again, I love, love, love that Austen is so proudly displayed in a place where teenagers will notice her, hopefully pick her up, and discover her magic. That makes me so happy. But I have to say it. This marketing ploy gave me an ouchie on my soul.

We're all doomed anyway, why is this so scary?

Most frightening book in the store...the new Stephen King? Nah. Try Christmas Stories for Children...by Glenn Beck.

I'm far too terrified to open it. However, I'm guessing that Santa finally gets his comeuppance for delivering an equal amount of presents to all the children of the world.

Buy a nookie, get a cookie.

First off: it's nook. No article, no capitalization. Barnes and Noble's answer to the Kindle. And seeing one, along with the huge selection of stylish covers to cradle it in, is enough to send me into a fit of consumerism. Want. One.

You can't get your nook by Christmas, but once you do have it, when you walk into your local B&N a little café coupon just might pop up on the screen. Right now, it's for a free cookie. And isn't that worth the $250 you've contributed to the downfall of paper books?

This is why we write.

I've had the pleasure of helping several people, adults and children, find books, which is by far the best part of the job. But the scene that sticks in my mind most so far was the 13-ish year old boy who approached the cash register with a stack of four books. As I rang them up, his eyes traveled over the shelf behind me.

"Oh...can I see that one?" he asked, pointing to a copy of the latest 39 Clues. I handed it to him, and he stared at the price, doing mental calculations.

"Can I trade this one for this one?" he said finally, pointing to one of the books in his stack.

"Sure." I rang the new book up, and he watched with a kind of forlorn look as I placed the other book in a box behind me. He handed me his membership card (yes, he had a membership card!), and started counting out ones and change all crumpled up in "allowance-kept-in-a-sock" fashion.

Then I told him the total with the membership discount, and his whole face lit up.

"Oh, wait...I have enough to get all five!"

And sure enough, he did, by about a dime. He walked off with five brand new books and a huge smile, and I left work ready to write something, knowing that there's kids like that out there to read it.

Bookseller Secrets and Stories: Pride, Prejudice, and the Kamasutra

To celebrate the holiday season, (well, besides giving away tons of books) we're sharing our 100 200 (and counting!) followers with some fantastic guest bloggers. Next up in our New Voices series is Paul Greci, writing about one of our very favorite animals.

A little about Paul:

Paul Greci lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he taught English in an Alternative school for fifteen years. Now he is writing full-time and is represented by Jennifer DeChiara. When Paul isn’t writing, you can find him roaming the Alaska backcountry. To learn more about Paul and his writing, check out his blog, Northwriter.


Moose are huge. And outside my house, sometimes it seems like they appear out of nowhere.

When I see a moose, I stop what I’m doing and pay attention. I almost always learn something new. Last winter I watched one gnaw on shell fungus that was growing on a birch tree.

Several years ago I watched a mother and two calves as they ate the jack-o-lanterns perched on our deck railing.

With writing, I think of a moose-on-the-loose as being struck by a different idea. It wasn’t in the picture a moment ago, but now there it is. And, it’s huge.

So, do you check out the idea? It might be just what your story needs. You never know. Do you just make a note of it and move on, or do you run with it?

I wouldn’t want to use a moose-on-the-loose as an excuse to abandon my story idea, or to procrastinate, but it could be just what my story needs.

I’ve been observing a moose-on-the-loose in my current WIP for a few days now. I’ve just decided to follow it because I think it will deepen an already existing plot thread and add complexity to both the protagonist and two major secondary characters. Hopefully, this moose-on-the-loose isn’t just leading me into a dead end swamp.

What do you do when a moose-on-the-loose suddenly appears in your manuscript?

~Paul Greci

New Voices! Paul Greci: Moose on the Loose

Never heard of Agent Day? That's because this is the inaugural year of the holiday organized by YA Highway's very own Kody Keplinger, 18-year-old author of THE DUFF (Poppy, fall 2010) . She rallied as many YA authors as possible, and the idea quickly went viral. This morning, dozens of authors have participated in Kody's idea: spreading agent love via top-secret testimonials published first thing today.

Lisa and Laura Roecker, authors of THE HAUNTING OF PEMBERLY BROWN (Sourcebooks, 2011) were nice enough to round up all the posts threought the day. You can read all the Agent Day posts by clicking the link below:

If you have an agent, hurry to your blog and participate! If not, this is a fantastic way to find the best agents out there and update your query list.

Thank you, agents, for being our advocates in a tough industry. We truly appreciate your hard work.

Happy (Super Un/Official Top-Secret) Agent Day!

Remember that call for contributions a couple weeks ago? To celebrate the holiday season, we're sharing our 100 200 (and counting!) followers with some fantastic guest bloggers. First up in our New Voices series is Pamela Harris.

A little about Pamela:

My name is Pamela Harris and, according to my blog See Pam Write, See Pam Run, I…well, write and run (though I am hardly an expert in either area). I’m currently a school counselor who’s returning to graduate school to get a degree in my first love—creative writing. I’ve just delved into the world of YA and, damnit, I’m never turning back.

We all remember being teenagers. The homework, the pimples, the parents who just didn’t understand (shout out to Fresh Prince!). And let’s not forget questioning our sexualities.

Never had that issue? Well, according to PFLAG Phoenix, almost 30% of teens will be directly affected by homosexuality, whether it is themselves, their siblings, or their parents. Once a teen is actually identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning (GLBTQ), the statistics become even more shocking:

• 53% report hearing homophobic remarks by school staff.

• 81% report never or rarely seeing faculty or school staff intervene when hearing homophobic remarks.

• 42% report being homeless due to their sexual identity.

• 11.5% report being physically attacked by a family member.

• And perhaps the most shocking statistic of them all, over 30% of teen suicides are committed by gay and lesbian youth.

As a middle school counselor, I see firsthand the isolation GLBTQ youth receive from their peers, teachers, and family. While I offer as much support and encouragement that I can, I know that the biggest relief for these teens is being able to identify themselves with a group. In other words, they need to see that they are not alone through this journey of self-discovery. This is where literature comes into play.

My current WIP features four main teenaged characters, all at a crossroads with their sexualities which results in a messy love square. Since I am still a novice to the YA lit world, I had to search far and wide for strong representations of the GLBTQ youth. After reviewing the GLBT Bookshelf and a thread in the Absolute Write Water Cooler forum, here are a few titles that really stuck out to me:

• Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford: Sarcastic, fifteen-year-old Jeff wakes up in a psych ward and begins to come to terms with his suicide attempt, as well as his own sexuality.

• Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman: A teen with a fascination of funerals and Ouija boards finally meets the boy of his dreams…who just happens to be dead.

• Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters: Holland has a great boyfriend and plans to attend an Ivy League college, but then has as affair with a proud lesbian named CeCe.

• Hero by Perry Moore: Not just your typical “coming out” story, this novel follows Thom Creed as he joins a league of superheroes while hiding his homosexuality from his father.

I’ve recently read Freaks and Revelations by Davida Willis Hurwin and I have to say—I’m in love. I’ll have a complete review on my blog shortly, but I really enjoyed how we see a hate crime from two perspectives: the victim and the basher. It may be a bit extreme to say this, but readers are able to feel sympathy for both parties; both teenagers have rocky relationships with their parents and are ostracized by their peers.

GLBTQ themes may not ever become as popular in YA lit as lovelorn vampires or fallen angels, but if you’re writing contemporary fiction, it’s important to just mention this population. Homosexuality exists—regardless of any personal beliefs. And these kids deserve to identify with characters who look, sound, hurt, and heal like they do.

--Pamela Harris

New Voices! Pamela Harris: GLBT Issues in YA

I'm spending my holiday season working in a very happy place. A place filled with books. And coffee. Not just any coffee.

Starbucks coffee. Gingerbread latte, anyone?

Yup, I'm at Barnes and Noble. And I'm not going to lie – the discount is going to get me in some serious trouble. It's sweet, especially around the holidays.

As a matter of fact, it's so sweet, I want to share it...with you guys!

That's right, here it is: our first mini-giveaway as part of our 100 Followers Celebration! Wait, wait...make that 200 Followers!!!

This one's for the boys – or for the girls who like boys. And action. And car chases. And general good, old-fashioned James-Bond-Die-Hard-testosteroni fun.

The choices:



















The rules:

Head back over to our 100 Followers Celebration post and follow the instructions to enter. You already did that? Then you're finished! Haven't done that yet? Are you insane? Go enter already!!

1. Don't comment on this post to enter this mini-giveaway – your entry in the original contest enters you automatically. (Although I'd love to hear your thoughts anyway if you want to share!)
2. Winning this contest does not disqualify you from the other big prizes! No worries. You may just be that super-lucky person who wins twice and ticks everyone else off in the process.

The winner:

Chooses any one of the above books, and I will order and ship it to you personally! (If you haven't started the Alex Rider series yet but want to, let me know and I'll swap it out for number one (Stormbreaker) instead. Same goes for Percy Jackson. If you already own all of these, we'll work something out, no worries.)

Tweet! Facebook! Email! Spread the word to anyone who hasn't entered our 100 Followers Celebration, because this little contest is closing at 5pm today, EST. Go! Go! Go!

A little hinty-hint...this isn't the last of our mini-giveaways. If you haven't entered yet...go on. You know you want to.

Perks, perks, perks.