Spooky News & Last Call: Eternal Audiobook Giveaway

National Day on Writing Testimonials: "celebrities speak to the importance of writing, the National Day on Writing, and the National Gallery of Writing." Listen to authors Glenda Burgess, Jacqueline Jules, Sarah McCoy, Katherine Paterson, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Natasha Wing share our thoughts. Then Take Part in the National Day on Writing!

More News

Beyond the Book: Geektastic, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci (Little, Brown, 2009) from Alvina Ling at bloomabilities. Peek: "Sure, some of the stories speak mainly to hard-core geeks, and non-geeks might not get all the references. But that's kind of the point. This is a book for geeks, by geeks; but it's also a book for past geeks and future geeks." Notes: (1) don't miss Alvina's click-t0-enlarge geek resume; (2) stories include "The Wrath of Dawn" by Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith.

An Unusual Take on Conflict from Jennifer R. Hubbard at writerjenn. Peek: "If the characters avoid direct confrontation for a while, it builds tension." Source: Nathan Bransford.

New York v. Introverts by Mary Hershey at Shrinking Violet Promotions. Peek: "Elizabeth [Law] heartily encouraged us to get over it, and recognize that our editors (and agents!) are our business partners. Business partners? Wow. That really hit me. Not demigods?"

Moving on...Sometimes It's a Necessity by Emily Marshall at Author2Author. Peek: "If you are serious about your writing, you owe it to your book to have it be the best it can possibly be when trying to query agents, and if during the querying process you learn it’s not the best it can be, I think you need to stop, make it better, and then get back to querying. But how can you determine when to stop?"

Agent Follow-Ups from Moonrat at Editorial Ass. Peek: "...ask your prospective agent what their submission plan is like before you commit to working with them."

Anatomy of a Writer's Group by Allison Whittenberg at Crowe's Nest. Peek: "If you are thinking of creating your own writers group, here are some guidelines..."

Killer Unicorns? BookKids Q&A with Diana Peterfreund Reveals All! from The BookKids Blog! by the crazy folks at BookPeople (of Austin, Texas). Peek: "I was an abstinent teen and I was sick and tired of being told that only religious people are abstinent or that I was necessarily 'saving myself' for my wedding night. The girls in my book chose not to become sexually active when unicorns weren't even around, and their reasons reflect the variety of experiences and beliefs that might shape those choices."

An Open Letter to Agents, with a Modest Proposal Regarding Submissions by Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Editor Cheryl Klein. Peek: "There are lots of pieces involved in putting an offer together, one that will be both financially and artistically sustainable and successful for both the book and the house—And none of those pieces are improved by speed." See also In response to "A Modest Proposal Regarding Submissions" from Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, then a follow up from Cheryl and a follow up from D&GLM. Source: Alice's CWIM Blog. On a related note, check out Publishing Time by Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent.

Multicultural Dialogue: Please Pass the Patate by Carmela Martino from Teaching Authors: Six Children's Authors Who Also Teach Writing. Peek: "Members of my own immigrant family speak with heavy accents and often intersperse Italian words, or Anglicized Italian, with English. If I tried to reproduce such speech in my novel, readers would have a difficult time deciphering it." Read a Cynsations interview with Carmela.

Getting Started on Twitter: A Quick Guide for Kid/YA Writers from Mitali Perkins at Mitali's Fire Escape. Peek: "I recommend using a real name if possible. Or a pen name if you use one. It's your brand, right?" Read a Cynsations interview with Mitali.

Pulverizing Writer's Block by Jo Whittemore at Jo's Journal. Peek: "Treatments for writer's block: Repeat after me. 'I can always revise." Especially if you're on your first draft, this should be your mantra. Right now, you're just nailing down the story, characters, dialogue. Revisions are going to hone and polish your work into a thing of beauty, so just concentrate on writing a rough version of the story first.'" Read a Cynsations interview with Jo.

Writing Through Interruptions by Kristi Holl from Writers First Aid. Peek: "So few of us live on a deserted island. Most writers--probably 90% or more–have to deal with distractions and interruptions."

The Annual KidLitosphere Conference: "The Kidlitosphere Conference is an annual gathering of the Society of Bloggers in Children's and Young Adult Literature. The 2009 conference will take place in Washington, DC, on Oct. 17. While sessions are not scheduled for Friday, a Library of Congress visit is currently in the planning stages. An informal outing in DC will be scheduled for Sunday as well." Source: The Brown Bookshelf.

Spooky Notes

Are you sponsoring a children's/YA book giveaway/contest? Did you post an in-depth interview with an author, illustrator, editor, agent, or other book professional? Did you just compile, say, an annotated bibliography of books set in Mexico? Or on the civil rights movement? Did you pour a week into writing an article about craft, publishing, or the literature community that uplifts/inspires/informs? Did you launch your own new author/illustrator site or blog? Or have it professionally redesigned?

I'm looking for substantive links to share. Please let me know, so I can pass your good news onto my readers and hopefully send some visitors your way. Send the title of the link, the URL, and/or a brief description or quoted excerpt (in the fashion of the links shown above).

Note: round-ups usually appear on Fridays, so a contest that's, say, announced Monday and closed Wednesday of the same week is not a great fit for me.

More Personally

Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith from Jen Wardrip at Authors Unleashed (the blog of TeensReadToo). Peek:

"You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?

"Don't lose yourself in another person. Everyone loves love, but don't forget to love and honor yourself, too. It's okay to choose to stand strong on your own."

We're Going to Need Bigger Bookshelves... by Greg Leitich Smith at GregLSBlog. Peek: "We just discovered that the post office has been holding incoming packages addressed to our PO Box without letting us know they were being held (No, we don't know why). Yesterday, we went to pick up our mail, and discovered three months worth of review copies. (That's six postal bins worth)." Note: we're on it!

Reminder: I'm still on deadline on Blessed (Candlewick, 2010) until after Labor Day weekend. Please hold off on sending any optional e-correspondence. Note: if your interview answers are due or you're sending a news release/link of interest to Spookycyn readers, this does not apply to you! Thanks so much!

Last Call for August Giveaway

Enter to win one of two copies of the new Eternal audiobook (Listening Library, 2009)! One copy will be reserved for a teacher, librarian and/or university professor of children's-YA literature, and one will go to any Cynsations reader!

To enter, email me (scroll and click envelope) with your name and snail/street mail address and type "Eternal audio" in the subject line (Facebook, JacketFlap, and MySpace readers are welcome to just message me with the title in the header). Deadline: Aug. 31! Reminder: teachers, librarians, and professors should ID themselves in their entries!


Austin Events

Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults Day in the Lone Star State: acclaimed authors Kathi Appelt and Sharon Darrow will lead a conference on the craft of writing for young readers on Oct. 2 and Oct. 3 at Teravista (4333 Teravista Club Dr.) in Round Rock, which is located just 20 minutes north of Austin. Note: open to alumni and all other serious writers for young readers! Participants are incoming from nation wide. Spots are filling fast--only 7 more spots available!--register today! See more information. Read previous Cynsations interviews with Kathi and Sharon.

"The Main Elements of Story: Plot, Character, Setting, and Theme" with National SCBWI Speaker Chris Eboch sponsored by Austin SCBWI is scheduled for Oct. 10. Attendees will receive a $10 discount when registering for the local January 2010 conference. Seating is limited. Registration opens July 6. Note: Austin SCBWI events often sell out. From the author site: Chris has a new series, Haunted, debuting August 2009 [from Simon & Schuster/Aladdin] with two books: The Ghost on the Stairs and The Riverboat Phantom.

Author Interview: Daniel Kraus on The Monster Variations

Daniel Kraus is the first-time author of The Monster Variations (Delacorte, 2009). From the promotional copy:

Someone is killing boys in a small town. The murder weapon is a truck, and the only protection is a curfew enacted to keep kids off the streets.

But it’s summer—and that alone is worth the risk of staying out late for James, Willie, and Reggie.

Willie, who lost his arm in the first hit-and-run attack, finds it hard to keep up with his two best friends as they leave childhood behind. All of them are changing, hounded by their parents, hunted by the killer, and haunted by the "monster," a dead thing that guards the dangerous gateway between youth and manhood.

But that’s not all: shadowing the boys everywhere is Mel Herman, the mysterious and brilliant bully whose dark secrets may hold the key to their survival.

As the summer burns away, these forces collide, and it will take compassion, brains, and guts for the boys to overcome their demons—and not become monsters themselves.

In this chilling and poignant debut novel, Daniel Kraus deftly explores the choices boys grapple with and the revelations that occur as they become men.

Are you a plotter or a plunger? Do you outline first, write to explore first, or engage some combination of the two? Then where do you go from there? What about this approach appeals to you?

Up until recently, I've been a plunger. Not just a plunger, but a base jumper. I like digging myself out of difficult spots.

With The Monster Variations, I began with this sentence: "Then he realized his arm was gone."

That's exciting to me, that potential of taking something inexplicable and maybe horrible, and then making sense of it, and then, if I'm lucky, making it meaningful, too.

Much of the book unfolded that way, with me making rather dangerous leaps and then seeing if I could catch hold of anything on the way down. There's a magic to this approach that I think most writers can appreciate: you don't know where you're headed, there are no expectations, and things could go terribly wrong. But when it goes right, it goes really right.

I'm finishing up my second book for Delacorte, Rotters, and from a plot perspective, it's far more ambitious than The Monster Variations and required months of research and plotting.

So out of necessity I became a plotter: I had outlines and sub-outlines and sub-sub-outlines and plot time lines, and character timelines, all of which, when put together, were themselves a novel-length stack of pages.

So that has been an entirely different experience, one in which I felt safer because I had a guide, but also forced me to really push against that guide when the urge struck, which was often.

As a horror writer, what first attracted you to that literary tradition? Have you been a long-time horror reader? Did a particular book or books inspire you?

It's almost false advertising to call The Monster Variations "horror," as there is nothing supernatural about it. In fact, it's rather pastoral in stretches.

A friend described it as Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine (1957)--except just the parts with the serial killer slinking through the night. That's about an accurate of a description I've heard so far. So, yes, it's scary in parts, but it's the kind of scary that comes from the threat of your world being taken apart by a violent, uncontrollable force, in this case a hit-and-run killer.

I didn't start reading Bradbury until I was in college. But from maybe fifth grade through the end of high school, I pumped Stephen King directly into my veins. So I think there is something of his plotting DNA that has mixed with mine.

With The Monster Variations, the obvious touchstone is his novella "The Body" from Different Seasons (Viking, 1982) or the movie version, "Stand by Me" (1986).

With my next book, Rotters, a horror epic about grave robbing, the best touchstone is probably Pet Sematary (Doubleday, 1983).

So while King is sort of my narrative compass, on a sentence level I share a lot more with Bradbury and modern, non-horror writers that are lumped into more of a "literary fiction" pile.

The majority of my adult life has been spent reading these types of books and so what has come out from me has been a hybrid, something I've heard called "literary horror." I don't know exactly what that means, and I reserve the right to shift dramatically in the future, but for the time being, I think I can live with it.



Cynsational Notes

Books by Booklist Authors: Dan Kraus' The Monster Variations by Gillian Engberg from Booklist. Peek: "'Great successes change the directions of lives, but for some reason that seems kind of obvious. It’s the failures—and our public or private reactions to those failures—that I think really kick our lives down certain paths.'"

The New Voices Series is a celebration of debut authors of 2009. First-timers may also be featured in more traditional author interviews over the course of the year.

Celebrating Varian Johnson's & Jennifer Taylor's VCFA MFA WC&YA Degrees

The Austin children's-YA writing community (and friends) gathered to celebrate Varian Johnson and Jennifer Taylor's recent graduation from the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children & Young Adults last Thursday at Waterloo Ice House.


Congratulations to the graduates! Varian's next novel, Saving Maddie, will be published by Delacorte in March 2010. Read Cynsations interviews with Varian and with Varian and his co-founders of The Brown Bookshelf. Jen is not an Austinite, but she joined us for a while after the Galveston Hurricane and we're hoping to lure her back permanently.

Special thanks to authors Shana Burg (with balloons) and Jennifer Ziegler (with bag) for party planning! Author Carmen Oliver smiles from the left-hand side of the frame. Shana's latest novel is A Thousand Never Evers (Delacorte, 2008), and Jenny's is How Not To Be Popular (Delacorte, 2008). Read Cynsations interviews with Shana and Jenny.

Here's a closer look at Carmen and Jenny.

Here we have picture book authors Liz Garton Scanlon--author of the quickly forthcoming All the World, illustrated by Marla Frazee (Beach Lane, 2009)--and Jane Peddicord, whose most recent release is That Special Little Baby (Harcourt, 2007). This week Liz is sponsoring a giveaway of All the World, which has received stars from SLJ, Kirkus, and the Horn Book!

Fellow VCFA WC&YA graduate Gene Brenek with Varian. Cynsations readers may remember Gene as the artistic genius behind the Tantalize and Eternal logos at my Sanguini's shop at CafePress. Read a Cynsations interview with Gene.

St. Edward's University education professor Judy Leavell (in blue) chats with authors P.J. Hoover and Anne Bustard as well as Varian's wife, Crystal. P.J. looks forward to the upcoming release of The Forgotten Worlds Book 2: The Navel of the World (CBAY, 2009). Anne is the author of Buddy: The Story of Buddy Holly (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman, 2005) as well as the mastermind behind Anneographies, a blog celebrating picture book biographies. In addition, she is a third-semester student in the VCFA WC&YA program. Read Cynsations interviews with P.J. and Anne.

Author Greg Leitich Smith poses with VCFA WC&YA graduate Debbie Dunn and VCFA WC&YA second-semester student Meredith Davis. Meredith is currently enrolled in the picture book concentration semester.

Debbie again, this time with first-semester VCFA student Sean Petrie. Sean is jointly enrolled in both the MFA in Writing (for adults) and the MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults programs.

2009 debut authors Chris Barton and Debbie Gonzales. Chris is the author of The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer's Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, illustrated by Tony Persiani (Charlesbridge, 2009). Debbie is the author of several books to be published in New Zealand's Gilt Edge Readers Series. In addition, she's the founder of the Student Author Book Publishing Program. Check out her new blog, Simple Saturdays. Read Cynsations interviews with Chris and Debbie.

Writers' League of Texas executive director Cyndi Hughes smiles with author Cynthia Levinson. Hear Cynthia speak on "Writing for the Magazine Market" at 11 a.m. Aug. 15 at BookPeople in conjunction with Austin SCBWI.

Author Betty X. Davis, who's received media attention for writing into her 90s, chats with debut author Jenny Moss, who drove in from Houston for the event. Jenny is the debut author of Winnie's War (Walker, 2009). Look for a Cynsations interview with Jenny tomorrow!

YA author Jessica Lee Anderson chats with fellow writer Erin Edwards in the foreground, and author-illustrator Mark G. Mitchell visits with P.J. in the background. Jessica's next novel, Border Crossing, will be released by Milkweed in fall 2009. Read a Cynsations interviews with Jessica and Mark. Learn more about Mark's blog and online class, How To Be a Children's Book Illustrator.


P.J. with Chris.

Author Brian Yansky is a graduate of the VCFA MFA in Writing (for adults) program. Brian's next novel, Alien Invasions and Other Inconveniences, will be published by Candlewick in 2010. Check him out at Brian's Blog: Writer Talk (especially recommended to fans of sheepdogs).


Here's one last cheer for Jen!

And one last cheer for Varian!

Author Interview: Arthur Slade

Learn more about author Arthur Slade.

When and where do you write? Why does that time and space work for you?

I write in my office, which is in the basement of my home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada (It's near Moose Jaw, in case anyone wonders).

Through the window I can see the sun shine or the snow pile up, but it's such a small view that it never distracts me from my work.

I start writing at about 7 a.m. every morning (except Sunday) and write until noon.

I take a break every 40 minutes to clear my head. I find I work much harder if I know I'm going to get a break.

After years of writing at the same time every day, my brain wakes up every morning expecting to write. I will sometimes write in the afternoon, but that is usually the time I spend doing all the other writerly chores: paper filing, phone calls, organizing things, big contract signing (err, any contract signing, I should say).

Oh, and I should add that I write on a treadmill desk. Yep, it's weird. Yep, it works. Yep, it actually helps my writing. But it's far to much to explain, so just visit this link.

Why is your agent the right agent for you?

My agent is Scott Treimel, and he's the right agent for me because he catches onto my jokes. Or at least he laughs at them.

All kidding aside, since I first signed with him in 2000, I have had an increase in money (which is kind of nice), and, perhaps more importantly, he's really helped me push my skill as a writer to the next level.

In the beginning stages, he worked hard (for months) on my novel Tribes (Wendy Lamb Books, 2002) before he would submit it. He is an extremely good editor and extremely picky. It was so helpful for me at that stage to realize how much harder I had to work to make my writing stronger.

And he does try to build a career for authors, instead of just selling book by book. I really appreciate his approach. And finally he's quite generous.

Did I mention he bought me lunch?

Could you tell us about your latest book?

My upcoming book is The Hunchback Assignments (Wendy Lamb/Random House, Sept. 2009). I'd recently read The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and really wanted to do something that was inspired by it. I'd also been reading Sherlock Holmes (1887-1927). So, I wondered how I could fuse the two.

The biggest problem was how to have a hunchbacked detective? He'd really stand out. So I hit upon the idea of him being able to change his shape so that he could look like other people. It is explained as an evolutionary development, and he goes back to being the hunchback after several hours.

In my novel, he is raised by a British lord to be a secret agent for the British empire. This meant that I could tap into all sorts of Victorian literature for my inspiration (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, (1886) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870), anything by Dickens (1812-1870)).

It's the first book in a series, and it has been an absolutely wonderful experience writing these books. I feel like a kid again. Which, as a writer, is my main goal!

Author-illustrator Interview: Keith Graves

Learn about Keith Graves.

What do you love most about your creative life? Why?

I love the freedom to dig into my creative sub-conscious every day and pull out the interesting things I find in there.

Then it's like a science project where I build this cool thing that I can kind of see, but there's no blueprint for how to put it together. I have to figure out what the thing is and how to create it on the fly.

Sometimes it comes together smoothly, logically, but often it's all trial and error, and starting over a bunch of times.

Then when it's done, it's like seeing your papier mâché volcano erupt. It's a blast like no other.

When and where do you write? Why does that time and space work for you?

I write in my studio so early in the morning that it's barely actually morning. It's kind of a spooky, peaceful time of day with no distractions, when almost anything seems possible. I sometimes put on ambient creepy sound effects for mood enhancement in the background.

Also, I'm most creative when I first wake up in the morning, more likely to come up with good stuff. Still, I will sometimes sit down and write at other times if the feeling hits me.

What do you love most about being an author? Why?

I love inventing entire worlds and peopling them with interesting beings. I love telling myself stories and then tweaking them over and over again, adding things that make them cooler, thinking “Yeah, like that!”

It's like entertaining myself with wilder and wilder ideas until I’m completely obsessed with the whole thing. At that point, I'm hooked and there's no way out except to write the story.

Then there's the thrill of having the book in your hand at the end, when the thing gets (hopefully) published, and knowing that a bunch of other people might have as much fun reading it as you did writing it.

What can your fans look forward to next?

Next up is Chicken Big, which will be published by Chronicle Books. It's a funny picture book about a giant chick's identity crisis, and the dumb chickens around him who make matters worse by suggesting he may be anything from an elephant to an umbrella. Anyway, I think it's my funniest one.

Then there's my new YA book series tentatively titled "Gory, Horrid, and Macabre." It's a creepy/funny/mysterious/disgusting story about a kid who doesn't know who (or what) he is, or where he came from. Now that I'm writing this, he sounds a little like Chicken Big! I guess I'm into characters with identity problems these days.

But, unlike the chicken book, it's a story with an insane murderer, mutant monsters, a walking corpse, a fourteen year old girl who hates make-up, anhydrous ammonia, a gangster cat, and quite a bit of the stuff the title suggests. I've done some illustrations to go with the story as well, one of which I’ve included here. Coming soon.



Spooky Notes

See the video "Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance" from Lost Boy Studios, in association with Vanguard Films, featuring a story by Keith Graves. Note: don't worry if the whole guide bar doesn't load, "buttons" should still work.

Author Snapshot: Maggie Stiefvater on Shiver

You last visited Cynsations in October 2008 to talk about Lament: A Faerie Queen's Deception (Flux, 2008), which is one of my favorite Gothic fantasies. Could you tell us about your latest release, Shiver?

If I was a novel and my books were chapters, Shiver would be a new chapter for me. Actually, it would possibly be a new part. One of those ones that says something like "Part Two: The Journey" and underneath has a little black and white illustration done by an eccentric old guy with a hyphenated last name. And possibly a quote from Yeats, followed by the regularly scheduled chapters.

The point of this very long analogy is that Shiver represents a big shift for me. It’s a new publishing house, a new format (hardcover!), a new mythology (werewolves!)(not the slavering kind!), a new style (now with 10% more angst!).

Basically, Shiver is a bittersweet love story about Grace, a girl who has always loved the wolves that live behind her house, especially the one with the yellow eyes, and Sam, a yellow-eyed boy who must become a wolf each winter. Each year, he gets less and less time as a human, and this year might be his last.

It's different from Lament for a few reasons. First of all, it’s unabashedly a romance, which I never thought I’d do. Unlike Lament, which had a side dish of romance, love is center stage in Shiver. There is plenty of nookie to keep people warm during cold Minnesota winters. Secondly, Lament is drenched in folklore, something I absolutely love. But Shiver approaches its paranormal aspects--werewolves -- in a scientific way. The magic comes from the setting and the subtle details of the interpersonal relationships and the wolves' tie with nature. And finally, it’s more . . . me. I feel like I really grew and got confident with my writing style, somewhere along the way from Lament to Shiver to Ballad. I play with words a heckuva lot more.

What it comes down to is that I'm revoltingly excited and terrified for this book to come out. I'm torn between thinking this book is such a huge leap forward for me, people will love it! and what if no one thinks this book is such a huge leap forward for me!? Don't even get me started on my neuroses about Ballad, the sequel to Lament. . .

Oh, oh. One last thing. I have heard rumors that some people read the last page of a book first, before they read the entire thing. If you are one of these people and you should happen to pick up Shiver and you should happen to read this and you happen to love me at all, kindly do not touch that last page until you read the rest of it.



Spooky Notes

Listen to Maggie read chapters one and two of Shiver.

Find out more from Maggie about Shiver at Scholastic.

Eternal Is Now Available as an Audiobook from Listening Library; Enter to Win Audio

Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Listening Library, 2009) is now available in audio formats. The readers are Allyson Ryan as Miranda and Jesse Bernstein as Zachary.

about this audiobook

Classified Ads

WANTED: Personal assistant to Her Royal Highness. Duties: Whatever asked without hesitation, including but not limited to secretarial/administrative, household, defense, blood donation, driving, companionship, prey disposal, and love slavery.

At last, Miranda is the life of the party: all she had to do was die. Elevated and adopted by none other than the reigning King of the Mantle of Dracul, Miranda goes from high-school theater wannabe to glamorous royal fiend overnight. Her reckless and adoring guardian angel, meanwhile–fighting in human guise as the princess’s personal assistant–has his work cut out for him with the Master’s Death Day gala fast approaching. Can Zachary save his girl's soul and redeem himself before all hell arrives, quite literally, on their doorstep?

about the giveaway

Enter to win one of two copies of the Eternal audiobook! One copy will be reserved for a teacher, librarian and/or university professor of children's-YA literature, and one will go to any Cynsations reader!

To enter, email me (scroll and click envelope) with your name and snail/street mail address and type "Eternal audio" in the subject line (Facebook and MySpace readers are welcome to just message me with the title in the header). Deadline: Aug. 31! Reminder: teachers, librarians, and professors should indicate themselves as such in their entries!

Cynsational Notes

Buy now from an audio download retailer.

Check out the Eternal blog buzz, reviews, author interviews, and readers' guide.

Eternal Trailer