Keeping Ahead of Trends in YA Lit
Weekend Writing Special You’ve finished the first draft of your young adult manuscript. It’s new! It’s got a great hook! Nobody has done anything like this before! It’s a reality-television-show-to-the-death featuring vampire-esque aliens. You imagine literary agents begging, no, clamoring, for your manuscript. Your idea is The Newest Thing. Until, a few weeks later as … Read more
First Sentences in YA Lit
Here are 30 first sentences. Do you know the books they go to? If you know what I’ve been reading lately you’ll have an advantage, but I threw a few old favorites in just to keep you guessing. Um, obviously if the suspense is killing you it’s easy enough to find the answers online (which … Read more
Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison
The first book of Kim Harrison’s I read was Every Which Way But Dead. And I was blown away. Like Kelley Armstrong, Kim Harrison was one of the first women in the horror genre to actually get my attention. Yeah, Laurell K. Hamilton got my attention too, but the first book of hers I picked … Read more
First NiFtY Author Interview: Seven N. Blue
For my very first NiFtY (Not Famous…Yet!) Author Interview, I give you Seven N. Blue. I met Seven through the Sacramento Writer’s Group and we clicked immediately. Not only are we both highly intelligent, creative writer mamas, but we have written our young adult fantasy manuscripts in tandem. Seven has incredibly fascinating ideas as well … Read more
Triple Threat
Shaking up the format a bit. More value for your dollar, more bang for your buck: three reviews in one! The line-up: Kristin Cashore’s Fire, Suzanne Collins’s Catching Fire, and Maggie Stiefvater’s Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception (I wanted the third book to have “fire” in the title, but alas.) Each gets a two-paragraph mini-review. … Read more
