spookycyn (an inactive blog)

Spookycyn is an Inactive Blog

2011-05-08T18:03:00.001-05:00

Thanks for surfing by! I'm sorry, but Spookycyn is no longer an active blog.

However, I'm letting it remain here for those who might want to peek at the pre-existing posts.

For news of children's and YA literature, visit Cynsations!

To learn more about my spooky books, check out Tantalize, Eternal, Blessed, and Tantalize: Kieren's Story.

And for more reading suggestions, check out Gothic Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal Romance, and Urban Fantasy for Tweens and Teens.

YALSA's Teens Top Ten Nominees, Including Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith

2011-05-08T17:54:00.001-05:00

I'm honored to report that my new novel Blessed (Candlewick, 2011) is among the 25 titles nominated for YALSA's Teens' Top Ten! See annotated list (PDF).

From YALSA: "Teens' Top Ten is a 'teen choice' list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year!

"Nominators are members of teen book groups in sixteen school and public libraries around the country. Nominations are posted on Support Teen Literature Day during National Library Week, and teens across the country vote on their favorite titles each year.

"Readers ages twelve to eighteen will vote online between Aug. 22 and Sept. 16; the winners will be announced during Teen Read Week."

Bachorz, Pam. Drought (Egmont USA)
Beam, Cris. I Am J (Little, Brown)
Beaudoin, Sean. You Killed Wesley Payne (Little, Brown)
Black, Holly and Justine Larbalestier. Zombies vs. Unicorns (McElderry)
Card, Orson Scott. The Lost Gate (Tor)
Clare, Cassandra. The Clockwork Angel (McElderry)
Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay (Scholastic)
Collins, Yvonne. Love, Inc. (Hyperion)
Condie, Ally. Matched (Dutton)
Cremer, Andrea. Nightshade (Philomel)
Fitzpatrick, Becca. Crescendo (Simon & Schuster)
Grant, Michael. Lies (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books)
Hawkins, Rachel. Demonglass (Hyperion)
Hakwins, Rachel. Hex Hall (Hyperion)
Kagawa, Julie. The Iron King (Harlequin)
Lore, Pittacus. I Am Number Four (HarperCollins)
Moore, Peter. Red Moon Rising (Hyperion)
Nelson, Jandy. The Sky is Everywhere (Dial)
Oliver, Lauren. Before I Fall (HarperTeen)
O’Neal, Ellis. The False Princess (Egmont USA)
Patterson, James. Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel (Little, Brown)
Pearce, Jackson. Sisters Red (Little, Brown)
Smith, Cynthia Leitich. Blessed (Candlewick)
Westerfeld, Scott. Behemoth (Simon Pulse)
White, Kiersten. Paranormalcy (HarperTeen)

Cynsational Notes

Check out the readers guide and book trailer for Blessed!

Spooky News & The Owl Keeper Giveaway

2011-05-06T08:37:00.005-05:00

Children's Choice Book Awards Announced (PDF) from The Children’s Book Council (CBC) in association with Every Child A Reader, and the CBC Foundation. Rick Riordan was named author of the year, and David Wiesner was named illustrator of the year. See the complete list of winners.

An Address and a Map Discovering Your Genius as a Writer by Tim Wynne-Jones from The Writers' League of Texas. Peek: "...I’m talking about the genius that each of us possesses to some degree: a natural ability or capacity or quality of mind; the special endowments which fit each of us for our work."

The Interminable Agency Clause by Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware. Peek: "...language inserted into an author-agency agreement whereby the agency claims the right to remain the agent of record not just for the duration of any contracts it negotiates, but for the life of copyright." See also On Agency Agreements by Jennifer Laughran from Jennifer Represents...

Book Talking and Preparing for Focus Meeting by Little, Brown editor Alvina Ling from Blue Rose Girls. Peek: "....because I only have between 1 and 2 minutes to present each title, the presentation needs to be really tight. I want to touch on the summary of the book...."

Twitter Tutorial: The Long Version by Lynne Kelly from Will Write for Cake. Peek: "It's not okay to pitch your novel or query an agent or editor via Twitter, but following them is a great way to find out what's going on in the publishing industry and with their own work...."

Castellucci Joins 'Los Angeles Review of Books' as YA and Children's Editor by Wendy Werris from Publishers Weekly. Peek: "'So few venues review YA and teen books regularly, and even then it’s usually bestsellers and known authors, so this is an opportunity to assign reviews to the quieter books and older titles,' Castellucci says."

From Publishers Marketplace: "Nikki Loftin’s debut novel The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, pitched as Coraline meets Hansel and Gretel, about a young girl whose seemingly delightful new school hides frightening secrets, to Laura Arnold at Razorbill, in a two-book deal, for publication in Summer 2012, by Suzie Townsend at Fineprint Literary Management (World)." Congratulations, Nikki!

Attention New Yorkers: anticipated budget cuts in NYC would effectively shut down many libraries, reduce hours and staff. Please stop by your local library or click to your local library website to sign a petition to save the libraries. See Queens Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and New York Public Library.

Career Planning: Who, Me? by Kristi Holl from Writer's First Aid. Peek: "...making a writing budget–the nuts and bolts of figuring out how much income you need, where it’s going to come from (all possible sources,) and what to do to get it. You’ll want to study this too." Note: Kristi references Chip MacGregor's excellent post Strategic Planning for Writers, but her pep talk/insights/summary are worth considering, too.

Author Advances: How Much You'll Get and When by Author/Agent Mandy Hubbard. Peek: "If you sell a book to one of the big six publishers, and it's a single book deal, and it's something deemed more quiet or literary, you may see $7,500-$10,000. if it has a bigger commercial hook, but still seems a little risky, you may get $15,000." Note: keep in mind that authors also make money from royalties, sub rights sales, public speaking, etc.

From Publishers Marketplace: "Brian Yansky's Fighting Alien Nation, the sequel to Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences, which continues the story of the survivors of an alien invasion, again to Candlewick, with Kaylan Adair to edit, by Sara Crowe at Harvey Klinger (world English). Congratulations, Brian!

Career Insurance: Five Ways to Sell Your Next Book Before Its Written by Roni Loren from Fiction Groupie. Note: emphasis on series writing. Peek: "Unless you're writing the next blockbuster of the century, one book does not a career make. One book is just the gun going off at the starter gate." Source: QueryTracker.netBlog.

For Writers: Race and Science Fiction and Fantasy by Mary Anne Mohanraj from Whatever. Peek: "...it’s easy to be paralyzed by that fear, to retreat back to only writing characters who are just like you, or so vague that they can’t possibly be mistaken for anyone real. But again — that makes for bad fiction. If you’re going to write well, you have to get past those fears." See also Your Process of Creating Characters Across Culture or Class from Mitali Perkins from Mitali's Fire Escape.

I Live in the Middle of Nowhere. How Can I Promote My Book? by Kristina Springer from Author2Author. Peek: "...it's hard to get a book faced out at the book store for more than a couple of months. So what can I do?"

Giveaway Reminder

Enter to win a signed copy of The Owl Keeper by Christine Brodien-Jones (Delacorte, 2010). First prize: a hardcover copy. Second and third prize: paperback copies.

To enter the giveaway, comment at this link or email me (scroll and click envelope) and type "Owl Keeper" in the subject line. Deadline: midnight CST May 27. Note: Author sponsored; U.S./Canada entries only.

See also Christine on Writing Scary But Not Too Scary for Tweens.

Hunger Mountain Critique Auction

Hunger Mountain Critique Auction: Bid for a chance to win critiques from authors, illustrators, and agents from picture books to YA and beyond. See details on:

Note: Hunger Mountain is the Vermont College of Fine Arts Journal of the Arts, featuring an in-depth focus on children's-YA literature.

Spooky Screening Room

Edit Letter Fun: Butcher or Coddler? from lynnekelly2000.

More Personally

This week I turned in my revision of my upcoming YA Gothic fantasy novel, which will be the next fully prose addition to the Tantalize series.

To the left, we see Bashi in the guet room, helping to guard the manuscript as I read through it, tweaking text.

To the right, we see Leo, lounging on Greg's copy of the draft in the parlor. Greg, the kitties, and I read the manuscript out loud to catch typos, missing words, and other minor issues. I'm especially include to skip right over two-letter words like "to," "of," "on," and "so."

See also Official Writer Cat Bios.

I'm pleased to announce that actress Kim Mai Guest will be reading as the character Quincie P. Morris for the audio edition of Blessed for Listening Library/Random House.

Kim Mai also performed as Quincie in the audio production of Tantalize (Listening Library, 2008).

Reminder: all blurb requests must come from editors or agents. Never authors. No exceptions.

Tantalize Reviewed by Anna from Troublingly Good Teen Lit. Peek: "This book could help teens who find themselves with more responsibility than they can handle, or whose parents/guardians are absent. It could also help teens who feel they may have a drinking problem."

Personal Links of the Week:

The Beginning: Or As Nike Advertises: Just Do It from Bethany Hegedus
Possibly the Best Thing About My Job from Jennifer Ziegler
The Right Word from Brian Yansky
Look for the "No" to Find the "Yes" by Lindsey Lane from The Meandering Lane
Interesting Stats on Librarians by Naomi Bates from YA Books and More
Look for Susan Salzman Raab's latest "To Market" column, "Social Media: Time Well Spent - and Time Consuming" in the May/June 2011 SCBWI Bulletin.
Cynthia Leitich Smith at Wikipedia

Spooky Events

Authors Jennifer Ziegler and Cynthia Leitich Smith will speak to YA readers at 2 p.m. June 18 at Bee Cave Public Library in Bee Cave, Texas. Mark your calendars for book talk and pizza!

The Chills and Thrills Book Tour will be stopping at 2 p.m. May 15 at BookPeople. Turn out for authors Mari Mancusi, Tera Lynn Childs, Sophie Jordan, Jordan Dane, Lara Chapman, Jennifer Archer, and Tracy Deebs.

The First Annual BooksmART Festival will be from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 11 as part of Arts & Letters Live from the Dallas Museum of Art. Peek: "Come spend the day with authors, illustrators, musicians and actors, and enjoy talks, workshops, gallery tours, and entertainment, designed to appeal to every member of the family and every age group." Featured children's-YA book creators include Rick Riordan, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson, David Wiesner, Jerry Pinkney, Gene Luen Yang, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Duncan Tonatiuh, Antonio Sacre, Joe McDermott, Jan Bozarth, and Ann Marie Newman.

Guest Post: Christopher Golden on Shared Vision: Writing with a Co-author & The Secret Journeys of Jack London

2011-05-05T08:22:00.000-05:00

By Christopher Golden

One of the many curious things about being a writer—especially a novelist—is the number of people you encounter who believe they could do your job, that the only thing that separates you from them is that you bothered to sit down and write a book, and though they’ve got that bestseller in them, they just haven’t made the time for it yet.

That’s not everyone, of course. Some people look at writers as if we’re strange objects behind glass in some museum display that ought to have a plaque to explain our purpose.

This isn’t a complaint, mind you. Both reactions are fascinating and sometimes amusing.

But I’ll tell you something that’s even more fascinating to me. When it comes to collaborations—two authors writing a novel together—even the just-haven’t-had-time-to-write-my-bestseller crowd seems to get that curious look on their faces, that what’s-that-odd-animal expression that comes over people who encounter the giant South American rodent at the zoo for the first time, the thing that looks like it should only exist in The Princess Bride. Due, presumably, to the fact that I regularly collaborate with other authors, I get that look—and that question—a lot.

“How does that work?” “How do authors write a book together?”

People really do seem mystified by the idea that two people can create one voice. Actors create a scene together, musicians perform a song together and write music together…but you don’t often seen painters working on the same canvas.

Perhaps that’s where people draw the line. Maybe, even subconsciously, a novel is perceived as a solitary work, much like a painting. And I suspect for a lot of writers, that is absolutely true. I suppose many—even most—writers have difficulty imagining creating a piece of fiction that is a shared vision, but it’s simply never been a problem, or even a question, for me.

Writing, I am fond of saying, is a solitary occupation, and I am not a solitary person. In the nineteen years since I quit my job (at the tender age of 25) and became a full-time writer, I have collaborated with more than half a dozen different writers, and those experiences share certain fundamental qualities. In each case, my collaborators were my friends first, and they were all writers whose work I respected and admired.

More often than not, such collaborations don’t arise from a conversation that even vaguely resembles what you might imagine. They don’t start with, “hey, we should write something together sometime.”

Nearly always, they begin with conversations about mutual interests, or drinks and dinner, or a stupid joke on an elevator…something that leads to an idea being born, sometimes in jest, and then a moment when you look at each other, both thinking, hey, that’s not a bad idea. We could really make something out of that. And if it’s something both authors are enthusiastic enough about, then you do it.

I first met Tim Lebbon via e-mail, when I asked him to contribute a short story to an anthology of Hellboy short stories I was editing called Odder Jobs (Dark Horse, 2004). That, I believe, was in 2003.

It feels like we’ve known each other much longer, but we didn’t meet in person until a World Horror Convention in New York City in 2005. I’d been cooking up the plot for a novel I wanted to write called Mind the Gap (Spectra, 2008), but because it was set in London and very much a British story, it felt to me like something I wanted to collaborate on with a British author.

As soon as I met Tim, I felt a kinship with him. We became fast friends and it seemed like serendipity. I told him about the concept for Mind the Gap and he jumped on board immediately.

That novel became a series of four loosely connected urban fantasy novels collectively called The Hidden Cities. They are Mind the Gap, The Map of Moments (Spectra, 2009), The Chamber of Ten (Spectra, 2010), and (coming later this year) The Shadow Men.

While I’m proud of the work we did on those books, especially The Map of Moments, which I think is one of the finest things either of us has ever written, collaboration or not, those books were born “on purpose,” if that makes sense. We wanted to create ideas, to build stories, all of that.

Which brings me around to The Secret Journeys of Jack London (Harper, 2011).

World Horror Convention, Toronto, 2007. Tim and I were at dinner with a large group of friends and colleagues. Thai food. Drinks. Tim was talking about his novelization of the movie "30 Days of Night" and somehow the subject of vampire polar bears came up. [Tim pictured.]

Yep. Vampire polar bears. The very thought of it sparked an instant excitement and enthusiasm in me—not necessarily vampire polar bears themselves, but all of the images and ideas that flooded into my brain at that moment.

Back up. My father was in the Coast Guard during the Korean War, stationed on Kodiak Island in Alaska. Some of my favorite pictures of him were taken during that time of his life. My parents were divorced when I was eleven, and my father died when I was nineteen.

I always wished I could have talked to him more about Alaska. Despite his many flaws, I romanticized Alaska and that part of his life in my mind.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that Jack London has always been my favorite “classical” writer, from the time I first read “To Build a Fire” and The Call of the Wild (1903) in middle school. Jack London inspired me with tales of the frozen north, with darkness and ice and stories told around fires and rough men in rough terrain and the purity and savagery so perfectly melded in the image of a wolf.

In the eighth grade, I wrote a paper called “Atavism in the Works of Jack London.” Fairly certain I got an A. It’s still around here somewhere, if I can only track it down.

Another aside. Also in middle school, I used to run across advertisements for some liquor or other in magazines, and the ads would have bits of poetry quoted from the works of Robert Service—all of them about the same sorts of things that were so central to the works of Jack London. The frozen north. Grim and determined men. The wild.

I can remember those snippets even now. “I have clinched and closed with the naked north, I have learned to defy and defend. Shoulder to shoulder we have fought it out, but the wild must win in the end.”

The Wild.

Robert Service became my favorite poet. I bought collections of his work. I quoted him in my second novel. Then, about ten years ago, my uncle gave me a packet of letters he’d found that my father had written to his Aunt Marguerite during his time stationed on Kodiak Island. He’d been romancing a girl there, and her father had taken a liking to mine. The man had given my father a book that had become my father’s favorite…a collection of poetry by Robert Service.

Full circle.

It’s all wrapped up in one strange cycle for me. Jack London. Robert Service. My father and me.

Back to that Thai restaurant in Toronto and someone says vampire polar bears and all of this goes through my head in a single moment. I look at Tim and say something about how we could do that. Jack London in the Yukon fighting vampire polar bears. Tim says we could do a whole series of them, a trilogy. I say: The Secret Journeys of Jack London.

Because, you see, he loves Jack London, too. He has had the same childhood imaginings of adventures in the frozen north and the grim and determined men of the Yukon and the noble wisdom of wolves. And we both love monsters.

The story started to grow right then, for both of us. After dinner, we walked back to the convention hotel, plotting Jack’s adventures. I think, in that moment, we were both twelve years old again. As adults, going back and rereading the works of Jack London, we’ve discovered even greater depth than we had seen as kids, though I believe we both recognized the power of Jack London’s themes even then.

So we collaborated.

I know, I know. We’re the weird things behind the glass museum case. How does it work? We plot together and we talk—a lot. We started with an outline and then one of us starts writing, does the first chapter and sends it to the other. We get on the phone again (well, on Skype) and talk about the chapter, and then what needs to come next, how far the next chapter should take us, how much we should keep to or stray from our outline, and then whoever is next at bat takes the next chapter.

And it grows. Like that.

It’s The Secret Journeys of Jack London. The first book is The Wild, and that’s out now.

VOYA and Booklist love it, and we love them for loving it, because it’s meant a great deal to us. It’s come from a very personal place that collaborations sometimes don’t come from.

The second book is The Sea Wolves. We’re starting the third one soon. White Fangs. And yep…vampire polar bears.

See, even though these are Jack’s journeys, they’re our journeys, too. And we’re loving every minute of them. [Christopher pictured.]

Maybe some of you still have that curious expression on your faces, wondering how two authors collaborate on a novel together.

Maybe for some of you, I haven’t explained it well enough because I haven’t gone into the mechanics of it thoroughly.

But, really, it isn’t about mechanics, and when it comes to how two writers can create a shared vision, I think I’ve explained it perfectly.

Cynsational Notes

The Princess Bride by William Goldman (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973) was adapted into a film of the same name in 1987.

This video features celebrated comic artist Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and award-winning novelist Christopher Golden, talking their illustrated novel, Baltimore (Random House, 2007).

Book-spine Poem

2011-05-04T08:45:00.001-05:00

Check out this book-spine poem by Christy Cochran, an Austin Independent School District librarian. Copyright 2011, reproduced with permission.

It reads:

Cosmic
Notes from the midnight driver
On the run
Magic steps
One false note
Dark fire
Eternal

Isn't that cool? Thanks, Christy! Support Texas librarians.

In a Similar Vein: Vampire Books

2011-05-04T08:43:00.001-05:00

In a Similar Vein: Vampire Books by Heather Brewer from The Guardian. Peek: "Heather Brewer, author of The Chronicles of Vladimir Todd, explains the allure of writing about vampires and suggests some of her favourites."

Guest Post: Christine Brodien-Jones on Writing Scary But Not Too Scary for ‘Tweens

2011-05-04T08:41:00.001-05:00

“If you look up before you get the light on, It will be there.
"The Thing. The terrible Thing waiting at the top of the stairs.”
--Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity (1990)

By Christine Brodien-Jones

Shortly after Cynthia invited me to write a guest post, I was cleaning out a filing cabinet and ran across my old stories from elementary school. They confirmed what I already knew: I’ve always loved writing tales that terrify and scare.

I grew up reading myths, fairy tales and fantasy. I was a fan of horror movies. Not surprisingly, these influences—vampires, mummies, ghosts, monsters—followed me into adulthood. They began turning up in my fiction.

When writing fantasy for young readers, I find myself revisiting those old frights. Evoking the altered insects in sci-fi films like “Them!” (1954)(ants mutating into man-eating monsters), I created the Usk Beetles in The Dreamkeepers (Macmillan, 1992) and giant scorpions in The Scorpions of Zahir (Delacorte, 2012).

If I think about readers of my books, I imagine Megan, eleven years, sitting under a tree reading her favorite novel, The Magician by Michael Scott (Random House, 2008).

Megan has a child’s sense of wonder and a teen’s rebellious yearnings—and she adores old-fashioned adventures with heroines who save the world. At eleven, she’s at that magical in-between age of the ‘tween, a marketing concept that wasn’t around a generation ago. Maybe what draws her to fantasy is a wish to be brave: by confronting imaginary monsters she slays her own demons.

But Megan, dreamily turning the pages, isn’t concerned about conquering her fears. Her head is filled with incantations, leygates and immortal elixirs. She’s on Chapter Three, lost inside her own adventure, waiting for the magic to take her down a road she’s never traveled, to strange and wondrous lands.

And she doesn’t mind getting a little scared along the way.

I grew up in a house where the stairs creaked at night and I knew someone—or something—was making its way up. I still shudder at the memory. If you write what scares you, it may just happen—what my husband calls a ‘goosebump’ moment, what some British fuddy-duddies call ‘getting the collywobbles’: that delicious instant when the hairs prickle on your neck, your stomach goes hollow and you feel a catch in your throat.

Images from books haunted me as a child, long after I closed the covers: Kay’s heart turning to a lump of ice in Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, Bluebeard’s wife unlocking the forbidden door, Meg Murry’s confrontation with IT in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (FSG, 1962). “The wolves are running,” says the old man to Kay Harker on the train in The Box of Delights by John Masefield (Heinemann, 1935). I still go shivery, recalling that phrase.

‘Goosebump’ moments in my book The Owl Keeper (Delacorte, 2010) occur when Max sees the misshapens (genetic experiments gone wrong) approaching the house where he and Rose are hiding, and also when a plague wolf surprises the two children inside a tower, just when they thought they were safe.

Fantasy storylines are sometimes dark—but not too dark for younger ‘tweens. Many authors use humor to take the edge off the scary parts, as in Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl (Viking, 2001) books, Suzanne Collins’ Gregor the Overlander (Scholastic, 2004) series, and The Witches by Roald Dahl (Cape, 1983)(amusing book, but those witches are fearsome).

There’s a fine line between ‘goosebump’ and horrific.

My editor Krista Marino discouraged me from having the scientists in The Owl Keeper extract the eyes of mutant skræks, saying it was too frightening for young readers. I later remembered my ten-year-old son’s nightmares after reading John Bellairs’ Eyes of the Killer Robot (1986), where a scientist tries to take out Johnny Dixon’s eyes. Shudder!

When describing hopeless situations, things can be bleak but not totally without hope.

Certainly there can be loss, tragedy, even death, but for ’tweens fantasy books tend to have upbeat endings. And hope, according to Lloyd Alexander, author of The Chronicles of Prydain (Henry Holt, 1964-1968), “is an essential thread in the fabric of all fantasies.”

‘Tween reader Megan turns the page, shivering as her heroine flees the Dark Elders. The magic is working, the world needs saving. I watch (from behind my computer screen) as she disappears into Chapter Four.

Cynsational Notes

Christine Brodien-Jones, a graduate of Emerson College, Boston, is a former teacher and editor, and lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband Peter.

Her post-apocalyptic children's fantasy, The Owl Keeper (Delacorte, 2010) comes out in paperback (Random House Yearling) in April 2011 and has been licensed to Scholastic Book Club for Fall 2011.

The Scorpions of Zahir (Delacorte), an adventure/fantasy set in Morocco, will be published in Summer 2012.

She is represented by Stephen Fraser of The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.

Cynsational Giveaway

Enter to win a signed copy of The Owl Keeper by Christine Brodien-Jones (Delacorte, 2010). First prize: a hardcover copy. Second and third prize: paperback copies. To enter the giveaway, comment here or email me (scroll and click envelope) and type "Owl Keeper" in the subject line. Note: if you comment, be sure to include an email address (or link to one) where you can be reached. Deadline: midnight CST May 27. Note: Author sponsored; U.S./Canada entries only.

Cynthia Leitich Smith Signs Three-Book Deal with Candlewick Press

2011-04-27T10:01:00.001-05:00

From today's issue of Publishers Marketplace:

"New York Times bestselling author of Tantalize, Eternal, Blessed Cynthia Leitich Smith's YA novel Smolder, to Deborah Wayshak at Candlewick Press, in a three-book deal, for publication in 2013, by Ginger Knowlton at Curtis Brown Ltd. (world English)."

Spooky News & Giveaways

2011-04-21T09:36:00.000-05:00

Enter to win Blessed (Candlewick, 2011), an ARC of Tantalize: Kieren's Story, and more from Jen Bigheart at I Read Banned Books. U.S. only; ages 13-up. Deadline: midnight CST, April 25.

Check out the Blessed Readers' Guide.

Check out the previous books in the series, Tantalize and Eternal.

Shop the Sanguini's Store at Cafe Press; images designed by Gene Brenek.

More News & Giveaways

Interview with R.L. La Fevers by Jen Wrote This from The Enchanted Inkpot. Peek: "I approach the merging of history and fiction with the idea that my first job is to tell a great story; the history must serve the story, not the other way around."

Debut Novel Expectations by R.L. LaFevers from Shrinking Violet Promotions. Peek: "Middle grade novels in particular, rarely come out of the gate with the same big splash potential that YA novels can engender."

New Agent Alert: Judith Engracia of Liza Dawson Associates from Chuck Sambuchino at Guide to Literary Agents. Seeking: "literary fiction, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, thrillers, mysteries, YA, and middle grade."

The Whole Novel Retreat, presented by the 9th Pacific Coast Children's Writers Workshop, will take place Oct. 7 to Oct. 9 in Santa Cruz, California. Faculty include agent Joan Slattery of Pippin Properties and Susan Van Metre, senior VP and publisher at Abrams/Amulet and an MFA instructor in Writing for Children at The New School in New York. Application deadline: May 15 (later applications will be accepted until June 25 or until the workshop is filled).

How Authors Get Paid from Cinda Williams Chima. Peek: "The fun begins when I discuss royalties. Royalties are monies authors get for each book sold. I say to the students, 'Let’s say you buy a hardcover book for $18. How much of that do you think the author gets?'"

Congratulations to Tim Crow, winner of the Joan Lowery Nixon Award at this spring's Houston SCBWI conference. Manuscripts are nominated by conference faculty and then a winner is chosen to work on his writing for a year with author Kathi Appelt, in memory of Joan's tradition of mentoring.

Spooky Screening Room

Check out the video for Rotters by Daniel Kraus (Delacorte, 2011). See excerpt.

More Personally

After numerous events, I'm spending the next month deep in the revision cave, working on book 4 in the Tantalize series. Please hold off on any non-critical correspondence until I flash the green light. (By "critical," I mean you're drowning, bleeding or on fire.)

I've already posted my photo report from the Texas Library Association annual conference and the YA A to Z conference, sponsored by the Writers' League of Texas. But here's a couple more fun pics from the festivities!

Joy Preble at Moonshine Restaurant Patio Bar & Grill.

Margo Rabb, Varian Johnson and Mandy Robbins Taylor at the Hyatt Regency.

Thanks again to everyone involved with both conferences! See also Greg's report!

Happy Easter and a belated happy Passover to those who celebrate, and many blessings to everyone!

Spooky News

2011-04-15T08:49:00.004-05:00

Interview with Holly Black by Malinda Lo from Diversity in YA Fiction. Peek: "...I think the tricky thing about fantasy is that issues in the magical world should ideally both remind us of issues in our world, but not parallel one thing so closely that it appears to be merely that thing in disguise."

Twelve Tips for Twitterphobes by R.L. LaFevers from Shrinking Violet Promotions. Peek: "Today’s post is for those of you out there who haven’t yet tried Twitter or who have given up on it or who are just plain flummoxed by it."

Skype Authors: Partnering with schools and book clubs through virtual visits to support education worldwide. Suzanne Williams writes: "The authors on the site have pledged to contribute 25% of their fees for any Skype visits booked through the site to a charity that supports education in the developing world. For 2011-2012, that charity is Camfed, and they will be raising money to provide school supplies to elementary students in Malawi. I'm still adding authors to the site and hope to have a group of 20 - 25 participating authors within the next month or two."

What If Your Characters Don't Want Anything? by Charlie Jane Anders from io9. Peek: "If the plot happens in spite of your characters' desires, that makes those desires more important." Source: Gwenda Bond at Shaken & Stirred.

Agents mull change to AAA code of practice by Charlotte Williams and Benedicte Page from TheBookseller.com. Peek: "Literary agents are privately discussing removing a clause preventing them from acting as publishers in the UK Association of Authors' Agents constitution." Source: Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent.

As Nike Says: "Just Do It" by Erin Vincent from Crowe's Nest. Peek: "...I understand that you are busy with a million other obligations. But if you want to write – if you want to be published – you have to start. Right now. Don’t put it off any longer, because trust me, it will never be the right time."

Congratulations to Rubin Pfeffer of East West Literary for signing Kari Baumbach, and congratulations to Kari for signing with Rubin! Note: link to Rubin includes a substantial video excerpt of his presentation at a Highlights Foundation workshop; he offers insights on technology-driven changes in publishing as a business.

You Need a Complete Manuscript by Mary Kole from Kidlit.com. Peek: "The only exception to this rule is if you’re writing older non-fiction, like something for the middle grade or teen age rage or a reference book/textbook. And picture books from author/illustrators..."

The Elusive Advanced Reader Copy by Mary Lindsey from QueryTracker. Peek: "If authors say no to requests, it's not because they don't want you to have an ARC, it's because they are expensive and hard to come by, and in today's market, the buzz from that ARC might be the only publicity that author gets."

Social Networking and Your Picture by Jessica from BookEnds, LLC. Peek: "One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is the use of your book’s cover as your profile picture." Note: your mileage may vary.

Team 'Hunger Games' talks: Author Suzanne Collins and director Gary Ross on their allegiance to each other, and their actors by Karen Valby from Entertainment Weekly.

Making It Through the Middle by Kristi Holl from Writer's First Aid. Peek: "...if you don’t get through middles, you’ll never get to the end–and be published."

More Personally

Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith by M.G. Buehrlen from Young Adult Books Central. Peek: "Book four is still untitled, but it will feature characters from all of the previous books. Expect more adventure, humor, chilling suspense, and moments that may well inspire Quinice/Kieren and Zachary/Miranda shippers to swoon."

Lost Souls? from Book Moot ("Smith does not focus on any individual religion or faith here but the story reflects a belief that we all possess a spirit that can be imperiled. For teen readers, that is not a bad thing to ponder.").

I'm on a revision deadline and spending the week at the annual Texas Library Association Annual Conference and the YA A to Z Conference, sponsored by the Writers' League of Texas (more on all that to come), but first here's a quick look at my comings and goings around town.

Highlights of late include lunch at the Shoal Creek Saloon with Austin author-illustrator Salima Alikhan. Read a Cynsations interview with Salima.

Last weekend, I had coffee with Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA student Melanie Crowder at BookPeople.

Afterward, we continued upstairs to the children's section for Jo Whittemore's launch party for Odd Girl In (Aladdin, 2011).

Jo give a warm, upbeat, funny PowerPoint presentation and then signed books for her many eager fans.

More Personal Links of the Week:

Writers and Dinosaurs: P.J. Hoover from Greg Leitich Smith;
and Do You Read Cynsations? by Debbie Reese from American Indians in Children's Literature.

Spooky News

2011-04-08T08:05:00.004-05:00

Folktales and Fairy Tales--for Teens by Chris Eboch from The Spectacle. Peek: "To update a traditional folk or fairytale, she (Natalie M. Rosinsky) suggests setting the story in a new location. You might also change the point of view, for example telling a princess story from the prince’s viewpoint. Humor is another bonus."

7 Rs of Positivity for the Unpublished Novelist by Lydia Sharp from Writer Unboxed. Peek: "Writing fiction is emotionally taxing work. When you’re feeling especially low, remove yourself from everything." Source: An Englishman in New Jersey.

Vermont College of Fine Arts invites published authors with teaching experience to apply for part-time visiting faculty positions in its highly-acclaimed MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults program. The College seeks a number of prospective faculty members who can be hired in the coming years to meet expected growth. Faculty positions require presence, readings, lectures, and leading workshops on campus for 11-day residencies every six months. Faculty oversee independent study work for the six months between residencies, thus allowing educational work to be interwoven with the activities of home, community, and personal artistic practice. Applications will be reviewed on criteria including publications, teaching experience, literary nominations and awards, and education. An advanced degree is preferred but not required.

5 Tips for a Successful Reading by Marianna Swallow from Chuck Sambuchino at Guide to Literary Agents. Peek: "When presenting, reading from plain paper is easier than reading from a book. And when you do, speak from your gut." Note: with books for young readers (versus adults), I'd say a two-to-three minute reading is long enough--maybe five, if you're theater trained. You can go longer, presenting with illustrations, but it's okay to edit down even a picture book text for length.

Check out the new giveaways at TeensReadToo!

Q&A with Author Carrie Ryan by Cyndi Hughes from the Writers' League of Texas. Peek: "When I first started writing with the goal of making a career out of it I gave myself ten years in which I’d write, revise and submit and then move on to the next project. After ten years, if I still wasn’t published then I could re-evaluate my plan." See also An Original Carrie Ryan Short Story Available as an E-book from Random House via The Compulsive Reader.

Agent Advice: Holly McGhee of Pippin Properties by Ricki Schultz from Chuck Sambuchino at Guide to Literary Agents. Peek: "As a parent and as a writer, it’s our duty to prepare kids for the world. That means telling and talking the truth."

Zen and the Art of Manuscript Submissions by Jeannie Mobley from EMU's Debuts. Peek: "Submission is the part of the process that completely and utterly exposes us all to the most brutal noise and clutter in the world– the voices of self doubt and criticism that come shrieking in like Valkyries onto the bloodied battlefield of our creative minds (because what fruit salad is complete without some Old Norse Paganism?). But here is my point..." Source: Liz Garton Scanlon.

Elements of a Successful Fiction Platform by Christina Katz from Writer's Digest. Peek: "What does a successful platform really look like for a fiction writer?"

Attention Teachers, Librarians, Book Clubs! Randy Russell, author of Dead Rules (HarperTeen, June 2011) have teamed with independent bookstores across North America to giveaway $2,000 in free books to Support Teen Reading. You can participate here to receive a free pinback button for early participation (while supplies last) and be eligible for new books from your nearest indie bookstore (not to mention the iPod nanos and $200 in iTunes credit).

Once Upon a Backstory by Stina Lindenblatt from Query Tracker. Peek: "...figure out what past events made them who they are today or shaped their behavior. Only then will your characters have depth, and their actions will be realistic to who they are."

Readergirlz and Figment will Rock the Drop in honor of Support Teen Lit Day, next Thursday, April 14th. Find out how you can join in here!

Kidlit for Japan Auction

Kidlit4Japan is hosting a children’s-YA literature auction to benefit victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. A daily auction preview appears weekdays at 8 a.m. EDT. New items appear hourly from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Items include signed books, advance reader copies, artwork, critiquing services, book-related swag, author visits, the chance to name a character in an upcoming book, etc." Currently available items include:

Spooky Screening Room

Concubines, Eunuchs, and Fury by Cindy Pon from Diversity in YA Fiction. Peek: "Much of Fury of the Phoenix (HarperTeen, 2011) takes place in the inner court of the Palace of Fragrant Dreams, where the concubines reside, inspired by the actual concubine quarters of ancient China. When I was revising the novel with my editor, she actually crossed out 'thousands' once and wrote 'hundreds?' above it."

More Personally

Thank you to Elizabeth Wrenn-Estes and her Library and Information Science class at San José State University for your hospitality during our online visit on Tuesday night! Special thanks to Mardi Veiluva for tech training and assistance!

So What's It Like to Live with a Writer? from Salima Alikhan. Note: my husband (and sometimes co-author) Greg Leitich Smith and I chime in.

Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith by Maureen McGowan from Get Lost in a Story. Peek: "My series includes not only werewolves, but also werecats, wereopossums, werebears, weredeer, and werearmadillos. If you could shift to any animal form, which would you choose and why?" Discuss at the link.

Thanks to Debbie Reese for this shelf shot of Blessed (Candlewick, 2011) at the Urbana (Illinois) Free Library! Debbie blogs at American Indians in Children's Literature.

Link of the week: YA Books to Movies List compiled by Naomi Bates from YA Books and More.

Spooky Events

The annual Texas Library Association Annual Conference will be April 12 to April 15 at the convention center in Austin. Check out the list of Austin author signings. Notes: (a) Take a Chance on Art and enter a raffle to win the illustration "Space Age" by Melanie Hope Greenberg to benefit the TLA Disaster Relief Fund; see more information; (b) Cynthia Leitich Smith will be signing Blessed and other titles at 11 a.m. April 13 in the Author Signing Area.

Erin Murphy Literary Agency Wine Social will be at 3 p.m. April 16 at BookPeople in Austin. Peek: "Come meet Erin Murphy as well as some of the authors she represents."

YA A to Z Conference, sponsored by the Writers' League of Texas, will be April 15 and April 16 at the Hyatt Regency Austin (208 Barton Springs Road). Cost: $279 WLT Members, $349 Nonmembers (through March 15). See more information. Note: conference faculty includes Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith. Cynthia will serve as the interviewer at "Meet the Author: Gail Giles" and as a panelist on "Going Graphic: Writing Graphic Novels" with Hope Larson, moderated by K.A. Holt. Last call! Register today!

Spooky News & Giveaways

2011-04-01T08:36:00.000-05:00

Attention Writers! Send a photo of yourself with a dinosaur (a museum skeleton, recreation, gas-station logo, made from Legos, whatever) to Greg Leitich Smith for inclusion in his upcoming blog series, Writers and Dinosaurs. You don't have to be published to participate! See link for details. See also Greg on The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History.

Spooky Blogger Tip: Respect authors' copyright. Keep quotes to under 5o words or ask permission to post a longer excerpt.

Reminder: Teen writers/English teachers! Teen writers are encouraged to enter the Hunger Mountain Young Writers Contest. Three first place winners will receive $250 and publication! Three runners-up will receive $100 each. Note: I'm honored to be this year's judge. See link for more information. Hunger Mountain is the Vermont College of Fine Arts journal of the arts.

Creative Confidence by Mary Kole from Kidlit.com. Peek: "You are the only person on this planet who is going to care the most about your creative output and your career. Sure, you will get people in your corner, like your agent, your editor, your mentors, your friends and family, you cat, and your fans, who will care about your books or whatever else you do, but nobody will care about it half as much as you."

Making the Most of Writer's Conference Critiques by Jennifer Ziegler from Chasing Tales. Includes insights from agent Erin Murphy, editor Stephanie Elliott (formerly with Random House/Delacorte Press, now with Sparknotes), former Austin SCBWI regional advisor Meredith Davis, author Dorothy Love, and Writers' League of Texas executive director Cyndi Hughes. Peek from Erin: "It’s perfectly fine to talk it out with the critiquer to solidify your ideas, or to ask if you can have a moment to make a clear note to yourself so you don’t lose the train of thought and can go on to make use of all the time in your session."

Interview with Translator Laura Watkinson by Sarah Blake Johnson from Through the Tollbooth. Peek: "...if a foreign-language publisher is trying to sell something like a YA novel, it makes little financial sense for them to have the whole book translated and time is also an issue, so they’ll usually have just an excerpt translated to take along to the book fair. An excerpt is typically around twenty pages...may be packaged with extra information about the author, such as a bibliography and perhaps an interview."

Your Platform Equals Opportunity by Greg Pincus from The Happy Accident. Peek: "Every time you create content, every time someone visits your blog while you’re asleep, every time you have an interaction…opportunity is created. You form a relationship, sometimes very brief and sometimes one that builds and builds."

Why Love Matters by Danyelle Leafty from QueryTracker. Peek: "...do you want just any old agent? Someone who might enjoy your story without ever having loved it?"

A comprehensive list of U.S. college- and university-sponsored or -hosted children’s and young adult literature conferences, festivals, and symposia compiled by Chris Barton from Bartography.

Publishing Industry News compiled by Kathy Temean from Writing and Illustrating. Peek: "Abrams will launch its third imprint Appleseed Books, a new imprint geared towards babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, in Spring 2012." Round-up includes recent job appointments/promotions, a new interactive online book club for tweens from Simon & Schuster, and more.

Spooky Giveaways

Last Call: Enter to win a signed copy of Throat by R.A. Nelson (Knopf, 2011). To enter the giveaway, comment here or email me (scroll and click envelope) and type "Throat" in the subject line.

Deadline: midnight CST April 1. Note: Author sponsored; U.S. entries only.

25 Days of Giveaways: Day 20: Tantalize Series by Cynthia Leitich Smith from Bookaholics Book Club. Giveaway includes:

-plush bat toy;

-chubby bat stickers;

-author-autographed postcard for Tantalize: Kieren's Story (featuring not-yet-public cover art for the graphic novel, illustrated by Ming Doyle);

-Sanguini's button;

-Sanguini's magnetic menu wipe board.

Eligibility: U.S. only. Deadline: 7:17 p.m. Friday, April 1. See link for entry form and more information. Note: Sanguini's is the fictional vampire-themed restaurant that appears in Tantalize, Blessed, and Tantalize: Kieren's Story.

Spooky Screening Room

Check out this author video interview with Jennifer Lynn Barnes from RT Book Reviews. I had the pleasure of meeting Jennifer and hearing her speak at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival. Learn more about her novel, Raised by Wolves (Egmont USA, 2010).

At the SCBWI-Wisconsin novel retreat in Madison last weekend (details below), I had the pleasure of connecting with one of my favorite YA authors, Deborah Lynn Jacobs. Check out her trailer for Choices (Roaring Brook, 2007).

More Personally

I've had a few questions of late about traveling to writing/books events with only a backpack for trips under four days.

Here's the scoop: Traveling by air, I've had to deal with missing luggage for up to five days.

If I'm on the road, that leaves me with only the outfit I've got on. (Even if shopping sounds appealing, author-speaker schedules are such that I may not have an opportunity to do so.)

Plus, most airlines are charging fees for checked bags. I'd rather not deduct that from my earnings, and, I'm reluctant to pass that cost onto my hosts.

So, I pack my toiletries in a Ziploc bag (making sure to squeeze the air out), roll up mostly travel-knit garments, and plan to wear no more than two pairs of shoes on the trip. I also tend to take outfits that can be hand-washed and hanger-dried overnight.

From there, I slip in whatever is necessary--printed speeches, schedules, giveaways, manuscript, etc. The pack still fits beneath the seat in front of me, which is key with regional jets. Beyond that, I recommend using both shoulder straps. The pack will be heavy, and you're less likely to pull a muscle.

What else? After a fair number of such long-distance treks, I'm returning to writing (and more events) here in Central Texas for the next few months. Check out the schedule below.

But first, I'd like to offer a huge thanks to everyone at Lee County Library System in Fort Myers, Florida for your hospitality at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival! Thanks also to those folks who turned out for my presentation and/or signing!

Personal highlights included meeting Alice Hoffman, Eric Litwin, and Jennifer Lynn Barnes (see video above) as well as reconnecting with Phil Bildner. I also had the opportunity to catch Sara Shepard and Rosemary Well's talks.

I had such a terrific time at An Evening with the Authors at the Royal Palm Yacht Club, an affiliated event, and staying the Hotel Indigo--lovely with excellent service. Beyond that, Fort Myers is one of the friendliest towns I've ever visited!

Another mega thank you goes out to the coordinators and participants at last weekend's SCBWI-Wisconsin novel retreat at the Bishop O'Connor Center in Madison!

Special thanks to RA Pam Beres, ARA Judy Bryan and Ann Angel for bringing me in to teach the workshop. I'm still wowed by the writers I met, consider myself their forever cheerleader, and came home with warm memories.

School Library Journal says of Blessed (Candlewick, 2010): "Off-handed humor, clever wordplay, and a host of supernatural beings will delight fans of Smith’s Tantalize (2007) and Eternal (2009, both Candlewick), the two novels that precede this one, though Blessed can certainly be enjoyed as a stand-alone novel."

Links of the Week: Fight Multiple Sclerosis with author Lindsey Leavitt, Don't You Need a Gown Made of Golden Books?

Cynsational Events

Erin Murphy Literary Agency Wine Social will be at 3 p.m. April 16 at BookPeople in Austin. Peek: "Come meet Erin Murphy as well as some of the authors she represents."

The annual Texas Library Association Annual Conference will be April 12 to April 15 at the convention center in Austin. Check out the list of Austin author signings. Notes: (a) Take a Chance on Art and enter a raffle to win the illustration "Space Age" by Melanie Hope Greenberg to benefit the TLA Disaster Relief Fund; see more information; (b) Cynthia Leitich Smith will be signing Blessed and other titles at 11 a.m. April 13 in the Author Signing Area.

YA A to Z Conference, sponsored by the Writers' League of Texas, will be April 15 and April 16 at the Hyatt Regency Austin (208 Barton Springs Road). Cost: $279 WLT Members, $349 Nonmembers (through March 15). See more information. Note: conference faculty includes Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith. Cynthia will serve as the interviewer at "Meet the Author: Gail Giles" and as a panelist on "Going Graphic: Writing Graphic Novels" with Hope Larson, moderated by K.A. Holt. Spaces are still available! Register today!

Spooky News & Throat Giveaway

2011-03-24T09:00:00.003-05:00

Enter to win a signed copy of Throat by R.A. Nelson (Knopf, 2011). From the promotional copy:

She's superhuman. There's just one catch.

Seventeen-year-old Emma Cooper has always been a risk taker at heart, smart and adventurous. But ever since her first grand mal seizure at the age of 13, her epilepsy has felt like a curse, wrecking her social life, derailing her dreams, even driving her boyfriend away.

Her doctors think they know best. Her mom worries her to distraction.

Tired of being held back, Emma fantasizes about running away, but she can't even legally drive. At least she can channel her frustrations into soccer, where she’s a star — the most aggressive player in the league — until a violent collision ends her playing days.

Heartbroken, Emma steals a car and races into the night, no idea where she is going. Losing control on a steep mountain road, she crashes into a ditch beside a sinister forest. An old cabin beckons through the trees. Emma goes to look for help — and her life is changed forever.

R. A. Nelson takes us on a supernatural thrill ride, a modern-day vampire story set on a NASA base and filled with romance and space-and-science intrigue.

To enter the giveaway, comment here or email me (scroll and click envelope) and type "Throat" in the subject line.

Deadline: midnight CST April 1. Note: Author sponsored; U.S. entries only.

More News

Q & A with Agent Elena Mechlin of Pippin Properties from the Writers' League of Texas. Peek: "I’ve been supremely lucky to be working directly with the incredible list of clients that Holly McGhee has amassed over the years, but in terms of my very own client, I haven’t signed anybody yet, but getting close with a couple of prospects!"

Written in Stone: Editing OP Books for Reissue in E-books by Laura Ruby from e is for book. Peek: "There is one secondary ghost character...that died at his/her own hand. At the time I wrote the book, I felt it suited the story. But after looking at it again, I wondered about it."

The Associates of the Boston Public Library is currently accepting applications from emerging picture book writers/illustrators for the 2011-2012 Writer-in-Residence Program. The fellowship provides a children’s writer/ illustrator with the support needed to complete one literary work, including a $20,000 stipend and office space for nine-months within the Boston Public Library’s Central Branch. Applications are due April 1. Learn more about the program guidelines and the application process (PDF). Learn more about the organization and prior fellowship winners. No calls please.

Franny Billingsley: a newly redesigned author site. Site design by Lisa Firke of Hit Those Keys, who is also the webmaster for The Official Author Site of Cynthia Leitich Smith and Home of Children's & YA Literature Resources. Note: Franny's latest release is Chime (Dial, 2011)(excerpt), which has received six starred reviews. See also A Conversation with Chime Author Franny Billingsley by Lena Coakley from The Enchanted Inkpot.

A Glimpse of the E-Future of Not by Joni from The Spectacle. Note: sharing insights from Kristen McLean, CEO of Bookigee and former executive director of the Association of Booksellers for Children (which recently merged into ABA). Peek: "...teens at least say they’re more influenced to make a purchase based on the jacket blurb than either the cover or the title (though those are moderately important, too). But the single greatest factor is if it’s an author or series they know."

Congratulations to Rae Ann Parker for signing with Erzsi Deak of the new literary agency Hen & Ink, and congratulations to Erzsi on signing Rae Ann.

Conference Expectations by Kim Baker from Crowe's Nest. Peek: "So, what is your primary reason for shelling out the registration fee and signing up for a conference? Is it a book deal? Save your scratch and stay home. If it’s inspiration, community, or honing your craft that you are after, you are on the right track."

A New Independent Bookstore

The Book Spot, a new family-owned independent bookstore, has opened in Round Rock, Texas (1205 Round Rock Ave. #119 78681), just outside Austin. Mark your calendars for the official grand opening celebration April 8 and April 9.

Looking for a little more indie bookstore love? Virtually join Don Tate, hanging out at BookPeople in downtown Austin.

More Personally

I'm a traveling author-speaker-teacher of late, leaving again tomorrow (this time for a Wisconsin SCBWI novel workshop). I've got one more PowerPoint presentation to prepare, so I'll have to update you on all that in more detail in a future post.

Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith by Michelle Delisle from Whatcha Reading Now? Peek: "New Schwarzwald (home of the Wolf pack in Blessed (Candlewick, 2010)) is inspired by small German towns in Michigan, where I went to law school, and here in central Texas. It's not the first time I've set a story in a historically German town; there's also Hannesburg, Kansas, the setting in my debut tween novel Rain Is Not My Indian Name (HarperCollins, 2001)."

You can download a free copy of "Cat Calls"--one of my short stories set in the Tantalize series universe (Candlewick Press) from Library Bin. Then shop the site! "When you purchase eBooks & digital audiobooks, the funds are credited to the participating public library of your choice!" Nifty, eh?

Steven R. McEvoy at Book Reviews and More says of "Cat Calls," "If you have not read any of her books, get the free download and sample her writings; if you have, you will love this new short story."

Links of the Week: Kidlit for Japan, Librarian Helps Students, Author Create Book Trailers.

Spooky Events

YA A to Z Conference, sponsored by the Writers' League of Texas, will be April 15 and April 16 at the Hyatt Regency Austin (208 Barton Springs Road). Cost: $279 WLT Members, $349 Nonmembers (through March 15). See more information. Note: conference faculty includes Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith. The early bird registration deadline is today!

Spooky News & Giveaways

2011-03-17T10:07:00.001-05:00

Enter to Win an ARC of The Coven's Daughter by Lucy Jago (Hyperion, April 19, 2011) from P.J. Hoover at Roots In Myth. P.J. is also giving away five finished copies of Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy) by Lauren DeStefano (Simon & Schuster, March 22, 2011) and three vampire/werewolf-mythology themed books.

YA Deals by Genre & Six-Figure Deals by Genre March 2010 to March 2010 from Kate Hart. Peek: "Hang out with YA authors for awhile, and you'll probably hear us bemoaning the death of contemporary novels. But don't despair. I counted up all the YA deals from the past twelve months and was surprised to find that contemporary is alive and well." Note: includes nifty, color-coded pie charts.

More Personally

Tantalize Series Clarification: a few folks have posted that Blessed is the last novel in the series. It's not. It does conclude Quincie's major arc, but Zachary, Miranda and Kieren's are ongoing and will pick up in book 4, which I'm writing now. (Quincie will appear in that novel, too, but as a more secondary character.) Thanks!

Links of the Week: The Dark Place by Heather Brewer.

Spooky Events

12th Annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 19 in Fort Myers, Florida. Note: speakers include Cynthia Leitich Smith.

YA A to Z Conference, sponsored by the Writers' League of Texas, will be April 15 and April 16 at the Hyatt Regency Austin (208 Barton Springs Road). Cost: $279 WLT Members, $349 Nonmembers (through March 15). See more information. Note: conference faculty includes Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith.

New Voice: Chelsea M. Campbell on The Rise of Renegade X

2011-02-23T08:41:00.000-06:00

Chelsea M. Campbell is the first time author of The Rise of Renegade X (Egmont, 2010). From the promotional copy:

Damien Locke knows his destiny–attending the university for supervillains and becoming Golden City’s next professional evil genius. But when Damien discovers he’s the product of his supervillain mother’s one-night stand with–of all people–a superhero, his best-laid plans are ruined as he’s forced to live with his superhero family.

Going to extreme lengths (and heights), The Rise of Renegade X chronicles one boy’s struggles with the villainous and heroic pitfalls of growing up.

What was the one craft resource book that helped you most during your apprenticeship? Why? How would you book-talk it to another beginning writer in need of help?

The book that really helped me and that significantly helped me on my publication journey (in fact, I don't know if I'd be published if it wasn't for what I learned in this book) is Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel (Writer's Digest, 2002) and Writing The Breakout Novel Workbook (Writer's Digest, 2004)).

I'm not big on books about writing, especially since most of them are written by people I've never heard of who just love writing how-to books. I think it's fair to say that most writing how-to books piss me off.

Writing the Breakout Novel, however, is awesome. It's about challenging yourself to improve your writing and take it to the next level. It doesn't tell you how to write, but instead asks you questions to help you improve your story, like, "What's the worst thing that could happen to your main character? When would be the worst time for that to happen?" Things like that.

It's all about sharpening the conflict in your novel and upping the stakes, both physically and emotionally, and it's hard not to get excited about working on a story while reading this book.

Another thing I love about it is that it's useful at any level. A lot of writing books are only focused on beginners, and there's not a lot aimed at the intermediate writer who knows the basics but can't quite get over the last couple hurdles keeping them from getting published.

Writing the Breakout Novel is great for anyone who wants to improve their storytelling, whether they've got a few novels under their belt but "aren't quite there yet" or have been published for years.

I know the quality of my books jumped up quite a bit after I read this and went through all the exercises in the workbook, and the info I've gotten from it has been invaluable.

As a comedic writer, how do you decide what's funny? What advice do you have for those interested in either writing comedies or books with a substantial amount of humor in them?

Comedy is tough. There's nothing worse than someone who thinks they're funny when they're really not. I think we've all had at least one class with "that guy" who thinks he's hilarious, but everyone in the room is silently willing him to shut the hell up. Obviously, you don't want to be that guy. But the fact that you're even thinking about not wanting to be that guy probably means you aren't.

I think an important element of writing comedy is to write what makes you laugh. You've got to do it for yourself, because if the humor isn't honest, that'll come through and it won't be funny. Plus, if it makes you laugh, it's likely to resonate with other people, too.

I tend to write humorous stories, mostly because that's what comes out and because I enjoy making myself laugh, and The Rise of Renegade X is no exception.

Damien, the protagonist, has a pretty snarky inner commentary running through the whole novel. He says a lot of things I might think to myself but would never actually say.

When I was writing him, I'd just sit down and show what was going on through his eyes, getting his opinions of everything in there, which were usually pretty funny.

Other than funny plot elements, like a supervillain kid having to live with his superhero father, I didn't pre-plan the jokes, I just wrote them as I experienced the story through the character's point of view.

I think it's difficult, but important, to trust yourself. You have to trust that when you sit down to write, something funny is going to come out. Sometimes I don't realize what I've written is funny until I read it over the next day, so don't toss anything you think is boring until some time has passed or someone else has looked over it for you.

Use humor as a tool to show a character's personality--like everything in writing, it should move the story forward and enrich the audience's experience with and knowledge of the characters.

As you write, put in all the jokes you can make work, and worry about weeding out the not-that-great ones that nobody gets but you later on.

Mostly, trust yourself, relax, and have fun.

How "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003) has influenced my writing:

I have a confession to make: I actually didn't start watching "Buffy" until sixth season. I couldn't imagine that a show based on that movie could be any good, and it didn't help that anyone I knew who watched it acted ashamed and called it a "guilty pleasure."

But now I know better, and no one should ever feel ashamed to watch something as awesome as "Buffy." I have since then seen way more episodes and become a big "Buffy" fan. It's fun, and it's got a girl with superpowers who kicks serious ass while dealing with the same problems as everyone else.

One of the other things I love about it is that Buffy can't do it alone, and even the shy nerdy girl is super useful and eventually finds her strength (I was so that girl).

Even though I tend to write about guys, every time I sit down to write a new book, my mind turns to "Buffy." How can I make something that awesome? How can I have characters that kick ass and who have the ability to be both serious and funny at the same time? How can I create relationships that complex?

Whenever I think about blending real life and fantasy elements in my novels, my go-to inspiration is "Buffy." Is it a coincidence that I love writing about teens who live in a world that's part reality, part magic? I always wanted to write fantasy, but it took me a long time to realize I wanted to write about it in the real world, and that the characters I really loved writing about were teens.

It's a pretty safe bet to say that that seed started with "Buffy," and I don't know where I'd be without it. It changed how I thought about fantasy and about YA.

If you've never seen the show, I highly recommend it. You may start out snickering at all the 90s-isms, but don't wig too much--it won't take long for you to get hooked.

Spooky News & NE Tour Report

2011-02-18T09:09:00.004-06:00

In Memorium

Redwall Author Brian Jacques Dead at 71 from The Washington Post. Peek: "Jacques wrote the first book in his famous Redwall series for the children at the Royal School for the Blind in Liverpool, England. The book's hero was a timid mouse named Matthias who found the courage to protect his home, Redwall Abbey. " See also Extreme Sadness: Brian Jacques from Book Moot.

Margaret K. McElderry (1912-2011) from Locus Online. Peek: "Children’s editor and publisher Margaret K. McElderry, 98, died February 14, 2011. She is best known as founder of her eponymous children’s imprint, Margaret K. McElderry Books."

More News

E-Book Sales Rise in Children's and Young Adult Categories by Julie Bosman from The New York Times. Peek: "In 2010 young-adult e-books made up about 6 percent of the total digital sales for titles published by St. Martin’s Press, but so far in 2011, the number is up to 20 percent, a spokeswoman for the publisher said." Source: Varian Johnson.

At Tools of Change, Former ABC Director Kristen McLean to Discuss New Venture, Bookigee by Andrew Albanese from Publishers Weekly. Peek: "Created with input from a 'team of innovators' in fields ranging from specialty design to retail, editorial, Silicon Valley tech, engineering, bookselling and book marketing, Bookigee has an admittedly ambitious goal—in essence, to begin reshaping a consumer process that has become entrenched over decades, but also somewhat inefficient."

The Do's, Don't's and "Stuff" of Writer Conferences by Donna Bowman Bratton from Writing Down the Kidlit Page. Peek: "When you find yourself in the room with revered editors, agents, and award-winning authors, there are certain rules of etiquette you should abide by."

Managing Information Overload by R.L. LaFevers from Shrinking Violet Promotions. Peek: "I have no trouble producing pages, it’s the blocking out unnecessary ‘information’ that lurks everywhere, promising to inform and enlighten me to within an inch of my life."

Author Skype Tour Blog: "a place where authors, teachers, and librarians can connect to help readers discover great new titles and learn more about writing. There are already great Skype-author resources like the Skype-an-Author Network and Kate Messner's list of authors who do free, 20-minute chats with classes & book clubs that have read their books. But sometimes, teachers & librarians may want to connect with an author whose books students haven't read yet...and sometimes, authors may want to talk with groups that haven't read a book yet, to help get the word out about a new title. That's what this site is for."

Teachers and Librarians Love Book Trailers by Darcy Pattison from Greg Pincus at The Happy Accident. Peek: "That is 99% of librarians surveyed who think trailers are effective. Wow!" See also Five Ways Your Characters' Job Affects Your Novel by Darcy from Fiction Notes.

Two Literary Agents by Kathy Temean from Writing and Illustrating. Learn what Molly Jaffa of Folio and Christina Hogrebe of Jane Rotrosen Agency are seeking in manuscripts/clients. Note: in New Jersey, all of the buzz was about the upcoming NJ SCBWI Annual Conference June 3 to June 5 in Princeton. We're talking a mega list of editors, agents, and authors--well worth the trip! Early bird rate deadline: March 1.

Promoting Your Own Books: Who Is Your Publisher? by Michelle in Marketing at Boxcars, Books & A Blog AKA Albert Whitman & Company. Peek: "Aside from the first time author (read: lack of brand name) issues inherent in those possibilities, your publisher just might be more concerned with Baker & Taylor and the American Library Association."

Call for Characters by Darcy Pattison from Fiction Notes. Peek: "I’m looking for contrasts in names, height, weight, ethnic background, style of clothing and personality factors. If X loves cats, Y should love lizards. No, not dogs, silly."

Borders Stores Closing from The Wall Street Journal: about 30% of stores; a complete list. See also FAQ for Vendors about Borders Reorganization from Borders Group Inc. Note: please support brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Seven Tips to Grow Your Mailing List by Katie Davis from Blue Rose Girls. Peek: "Let’s get you a mailing list. You are going to grow your audience and then stay connected."

From Editor to Agent: a chat with Alyssa Eisner Henkin by Bobbie Pyron from From The Mixed-Up Files...of Middle-Grade Authors. Peek: "...I know both editors and kid readers are very ken on the plot-driven-pull-you-in-and-don’t-let-go books that are popular these days. So I’d say plot is a huge factor in my decision in whether or not to represent a book. However, a great voice is certainly of paramount importance."

Spooky Screening Room

Canadian Writers Speak Out On Copyright from Marketwire News Studio.

More Personally

Thank you to Candlewick Press, the event planners, and everyone who turned out, cheered, and helped promote last week's official Blessed tour in NYC, New Jersey, and the Philly area.

(The view out my window at The Standard Hotel in Manhattan/the meat-packing district.)

Cheers to fellow authors Jen Nadol, Sarah Beth Durst, Shannon Delany, and especially Daniel Nayeri (with whom I did two events), who joined me at stops along the way.

(Rita Williams-Garcia--to whom the novel is dedicated--models Blessed at Books of Wonder.)

Mega thanks to Books of Wonder, Francis Lewis High School, Teenreads.com, Borders Columbus Circle, Baker & Taylor, New Brunswick Free Public Library, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, NYPL Mulberry Branch, Romantic Times Book Reviews, The New School, Brooklyn Public Library, Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School, The Voracious Reader, Mercer County Library, and Barnes & Noble, Cherry Hill, N.J.!

(Literary agent Mary Kole and Daniel at The Brass Monkey! Jill Santopolo was kind enough to organize this get-together of Vermont College of Fine Arts faculty, alumni & friends.)

(Susan Van Metre's MFA class at The New School.)

(The Brooklyn Public Library.)

(Authors Libba Bray, Marianna Baer and Melissa Walker at the Brooklyn Public Library.)

(Shannon Delany, Jen Nadol and Shannon Delany at The Voracious Reader.)

Q&A with Cynthia Leitich Smith by Jessica from Chick Lit Cafe. Peek: "Quincie is smart enough to realize that her soul is who she is. If she gives herself up, there’s nothing left. Not her evolving patchwork family or the business she inherited from her mama or her amazing connection to Kieren. He loves her, the real her, not some monster walking around in body. She fights for herself because she has value intrinsically and to those who truly care about her."

Book Review: Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith by Jessica from I Just Want to Sit Here and Read. Peek: "I love Kieren, Quincie's best friend and the only hybrid werewolf. I actually found myself jealous of their friendship. There of course is the slight sexual tension because they haven't pronounced any real feelings for each other, even though you want to scream at them!"

Links of the Week: Dear Teen Me by Bethany Hegedus and Won Ton: A Cat Tale in Haiku recommended by Mercury Boo Leitich Smith (don't miss the comments).

Even More Personally

I'm voting for Chef Drew (Andrew Curren at 24 Diner in Austin) for best new chef in the southwest (and you should, too!).

(My Valentine's Day flowers from my very cute husband and sometimes co-author, Greg Leitich Smith.)

Last night, we joined Anne Bustard and my former Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA student (now alum) Janice Scully (in town from New York state) at the Broken Spoke for some country music by Tony Harrison and Hot Texas and then continued on to County Line on the Hill for barbeque.

Spooky Events

12th Annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 19 in Fort Myers, Florida. Note: speakers include Cynthia Leitich Smith.

Blessed In-Person Author Tour in NY, NJ, Philly Area

2011-02-05T08:51:00.001-06:00

Please join me on a stop of the Blessed (Candlewick, 2011) tour!

Events that are open to the public are indicated as such on the schedule below!

Authors Daniel Nayeri, Jen Nadol, Sarah Beth Durst, and Shannon Delany will be joining me here and there along the way!

Sunday, 2/6/11

1 p.m. to 3 p.m. - Books of Wonder - reading/Q&A/signing to public with Another Pan author Daniel Nayeri (PUBLIC EVENT)

18 W. 18th St., New York, N.Y.

Monday, 2/7/11

10 a.m. to 11:34 a.m. Francis Lewis High School

6 p.m. Borders Bookstore - reading/signing (PUBLIC EVENT)

Borders Columbus Circle
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y.

Tuesday, 2/8/11

4 p.m. to 5 p.m. New Brunswick Free Public Library - reading/Q&A/signing (PUBLIC EVENT)

6:20 p.m. to 9 p.m. Rutgers University -- guest lecture, "Materials for Young Adults" -- room 203

School of Communication and Information -- 4 Huntington St., New Brunswick, N.J.

Wednesday, 2/9/11

10 a.m. NYPL Mulberry Branch - visit with schools

10 Jersey Street (Between Lafayette & Mulberry Streets) New York, N.Y.

8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. New School Creative Writing Graduate Class - guest lecture

66 West 12th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues

Thursday, 2/10/11

11:15 a.m. to 12 p.m. Brooklyn Public Library - Professional Development Day

Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

4:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Brooklyn Public Library - Will You Be My Paranormal Valentine Party (with teens)(PUBLIC EVENT)

Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

Friday, 2/11/11

2:15 p.m. to 3 p.m. Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School Visit

Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin HS, LREI

272 Sixth Avenue, New York, N.Y.

7 p.m. The Voracious Reader - "Will You Be My Paranormal Valentine?" event with Daniel Nayeri, Jen Nadol, Sarah Beth Durst, and Shannon Delany (PUBLIC EVENT)

1997 Palmer Avenue, Larchmont, N.Y.

Saturday, 2/12/11

1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Mercer County Library Event -- West Windsor Branch (PUBLIC EVENT)

333 North Post Road, Princeton Junction, N.J.

6:30 p.m. Barnes & Noble, Cherry Hill, N.J. (Greater Philly area)(PUBLIC EVENT)

911 Haddonfield Road, Cherry Hill, N.J.

Not on the Tour? Attention Event Planners!

It's two YA authors for the price of one! Book now for the 2011-2012 school year and beyond!

"From Classics to Contemporary:" a joint presentation offered by Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of the Tantalize series (inspired by Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)) and Jennifer Ziegler, author of Sass & Serendipity (inspired by Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)).

The authors will discuss how they were inspired by these classics, why Stoker and Austen's themes are still relevant to teens/YAs today, the ongoing conversation of books over the generations, and much more.

Contact Dayton Bookings for more information and to schedule.

Spooky Screening Room & Tantalize Series Update

2011-02-05T08:49:00.000-06:00

Check out the book trailer for Cloaked by Alex Flinn (HarperCollins, 2011).

Check out this book trailer for Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies by Andrea Beaty, illustrated by Dan Santat (Amulet, 2010).

In the following video, Brent Hartinger offers Seven Reasons You Should Read Shadow Walkers (Flux, 2011)(excerpt)(discussion guide):

"The Bookanistas are dancing because we’re so excited that Beth Revis hit the NY Times Bestseller List for Across the Universe (Razorbill, 2011)." - Shana Silver

More Personally

Snow is on the ground, the rolling brownouts are over (we lost power nine times), my work in progress is resting, and I'm packing to leave town.

So, Cynsations is going on hiatus as I take off for my N.E. U.S. Blessed Tour! Those of you in New York, New Jersey, Philly & surrounding areas, I hope to see you on the road Feb. 6 to Feb. 12. I'll resume posting on Feb. 14!

Blessed is now available from Walker Books Australia and New Zealand! See details!

Cat Calls (Candlewick, 2010), an e-book offering a short story set in the Tantalize series universe, is #15 of the Free Books on the Kindle bestseller list!

The winner of the Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway is Melissa in Washington! Congratulations! Thanks to everyone who entered. Cynsations giveaways will resume once I'm back in town.

Thanks again to everyone who attended or raised awareness of the Blessed and (Mari Mancusi) Night School Launch Party last weekend at BookPeople in Austin.

See the party pics and event report! You can order/pick up signed stock from BookPeople! Budget a little thin? Look for the Tantalize series at your local public library. If it's not there, request it on loan.

Is the series not yet available in your country? International releases are still forthcoming (and I'll keep you posted), but you can order the books from Book Despository, which ships free to anywhere in the world? Click to order Tantalize, Eternal, and Blessed. Note: my Native American powwow picture book, Jingle Dancer, is also available.

On a related note, see information from Mari on Finding Night School.

See also congratulations flowers from my mom (side) and a dear pal (below).

Blessed Blog Tour: Interview with Bradley and Giveaway from Pirate Penguin Reads. Peek: "Cursed Internet. Deception was such a readily available snack in the early-to-mid twentieth century." Giveaway deadline: Feb. 6.

Blessed Blog Tour: Secondary Characters & Giveaway by Cynthia Leitich Smith from Badass Bookie. Peek: "Secondary characters mirror individual qualities of the hero. Illuminate them. Secondary characters challenge the hero. Fuel their growth. Secondary characters comment on the main characters. They help tell the readers what we need to know." Giveaway deadline: Feb. 4.

Blessed Blog Tour: Top Ten YA Recommendation s & Giveaway by Cynthia Leitich Smith from A Good Addiction. Giveaway deadline: Feb. 6.

Spooky Events

Blessed In-Person Author Tour Schedule in Central Texas and the Northeastern U.S.: sponsored by Candlewick Press. Are you in Austin, New York, New Jersey, or the Philly area? Come join me along the way!

12th Annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 19 in Fort Myers, Florida. Note: speakers include Cynthia Leitich Smith.

SCBWI-Wisconsin Novel Revision Workshop with author Cynthia Leitich Smith from March 25 to March 27. Note: "Registration is limited to 25 persons."

Event Report: Blessed & Night School Launch Party

2011-01-31T10:32:00.001-06:00

Thanks so much to everyone who celebrated the release of my latest novel, Blessed (Tantalize series), and Mari Mancusi's latest novel, Night School (Blood Coven series), last Saturday at BookPeople in Austin. Thanks also to everyone who tweeted, blogged, facebooked, talked up, or otherwise made noise about the event!

It's vampire (me) versus slayer (Mari) as we leap into action, mugging for the cameras.

Vampire bartender Bethany Hegedus greets guests with a toothy smile. Note: Gene Brenek also helped with bartending/refreshment duties/set up.

The menu included cover art cake, raspberry lemon bars (courtesy of Amy Rose Capetta) as well as bat sugar cookies and heart sugar cookies (courtesy of Anne Bustard).

We offered "fairy blood," "synthetic blood," and "real blood" at the vampire bar! (Special thanks & kudos to Mandy at BookPeople--very creative!)

Here a closer look at the cover-cake, which Mari coordinated with H-E-B supermarket.

Check out these chocolate chip cookies (courtesy of Gene). A' la Sanguini's, the "predator" ones have bacon in them and the "prey" ones don't.

Anne Bustard is famous for her sugar cookies! Aren't these bats adorable?

College Station author Kathi Appelt chats with Mari.

San Antonio author Peni Griffin models the new books!

Austin authors Liz Garton Scanlon, Jennifer Ziegler (and Chris Barton in the background).

Kathi with Austin author Jessica Lee Anderson.

Jessica with author-illustrator Frances Yansky.

Austin SCBWI RA and author Debbie Gonzales with Austin author-illustrator Emma Virjan.

Here's a peek at some of the giveaways, courtesy of Candlewick (Blessed) and Penguin (Night School). We awarded them to folks in the audience who asked a question.

Suddenly, the crowd poured in, and it was time to set down the camera.

Another crowd shot, before everyone settled in for the standing-room-only presentation.

The program consisted of our book trailers, followed by Mari and I interviewing each other and then taking questions from the audience. Note: a number of folks commented that they enjoyed this interactive format.

Finally, we signed books for about an hour and then visited with the readers kind enough to join us. It was an upbeat, jovial, spooky-fun time!

One last shot of author-slayer Mari! What a treat to share the stage with her!

Cynsational Notes

Miss the party? No worries! BookPeople has signed stock of both Blessed and Night School! Swing by the store or call 512.472.5050 to order.

Thank you to BookPeople, Candlewick Press and Penguin Young Readers for your support!

Thank you to Jen Bigheart, the Literary Lonestars & the whole Texas book blogger community! Note: I don't dare try to list everyone for fear of accidentally leaving someone out, but please do know that you are hugely appreciated!

Blessed will be available from Walker Books Australia and New Zealand tomorrow! See details!

LAST CALL: enter to win the Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway from Cynsations. Deadline: Jan. 31.

Blessed Blog Tour: Interview with Bradley and Giveaway from Pirate Penguin Reads. Peek: "Cursed Internet. Deception was such a readily available snack in the early-to-mid twentieth century." Giveaway deadline: Feb. 6.

Blessed Blog Tour: Secondary Characters & Giveaway by Cynthia Leitich Smith from Badass Bookie. Peek: "Secondary characters mirror individual qualities of the hero. Illuminate them. Secondary characters challenge the hero. Fuel their growth. Secondary characters comment on the main characters. They help tell the readers what we need to know." Giveaway deadline: Feb. 4.

Blessed Blog Tour: Top Ten YA Recommendation s & Giveaway by Cynthia Leitich Smith from A Good Addiction. Giveaway deadline: Feb. 6.

Cynsational Events

Blessed In-Person Author Tour Schedule in Central Texas and the Northeastern U.S.: sponsored by Candlewick Press. Are you in New York, New Jersey, or the Philly area? Come join me along the way!

Finally

Here are the book trailers for Night School:

and Blessed:

Spooky News & Giveaways

2011-01-28T08:51:00.001-06:00

Taming That To-Do List by R.L. LaFevers from Shrinking Violet Promotions. Peek: "If you are a published writer, a lot of those To Dos probably pertain to the business side of things. But here’s the kicker: you get to decide precisely which business things those entail."

Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Queried by K.M. Walton from Some Things I Think. Peek: "I wish I didn't compare my query journey to other writers. Yes, I know it's human nature, but it's also extremely unhealthy and seriously gets in the way of success."

SCBWI Team Blog Pre-Conference Interview: Editors & Agents on Interacting with Them by Alice Pope from Alice Pope's SCBWI Blog. Insights from editors Krista Marino (Delacorte), Francesco Sedita (Penguin), and Kate Sullivan (Little, Brown); and agents Kerry Sparks (Levine/Greenberg) and Mary Kole (Andrea Brown). From Krista: "Aggressive, abrasive behavior will turn me away from even the most promising manuscript."

Querying the Cliche by Jane Lebak from Query Tracker. Peek: "Remember that a cliché is a shortcut. And when you use one to describe your own work, you're giving only a surface rendering of a story with depth. Work harder. Give it that depth."

Wernick & Pratt: new literary agency founded by Marcia Wernick and Linda Pratt, both formerly of the Sheldon Fogelman Agency. Source: SCBWI Brazos Valley via Publishers Weekly. Peek: "...represent established and emerging authors and illustrators, whose work ranges from fiction to non-fiction, from very young picture books and novelty books, through early readers, middle grade and young adult novels."

Every Author's Two Audiences by Janet Kobobel Grant from Books & Such. Peek: "Authors often don’t know when they should communicate with their publisher. They don’t want to be pests, but this reluctance to communicate can cause serious repercussions." Source: Kristi Holl from Writer's First Aid.

Harold at Highlights

Harold Underdown will be working with the Highlights Foundation this year in two different workshops. From March 10 to March 13, at the Highlights Founders Workshop site near Honesdale, Pennsylvania, he will introduce proven techniques for self-editing and for revising. The goal is not so much to revise a manuscript (though participants will) but to increase their ability to revise on their own or by working with other writers! Harold will be joined by children's book editor Eileen Robinson, who runs F1rst Pages. Harold and Eileen will be drawing on their experience working in-house as editors and running their Kid's Book Revisions workshop to help writers to think like editors.

The workshop is limited to twelve writers: information and an application form can be found at the Highlights Foundation website. Or you may phone Jo Lloyd at 570.253.1192, or e-mail jo.lloyd@highlightsfoundation.org, to request an application.

Harold will also be teaching this summer at the Highlights Foundation's 2011 Writer's Workshop at Chautauqua, from July 16th to July 23. Scholarship applications are due Feb. 11.

Teen Read Week and Teen Tech Week: Tips and Resources for YALSA’s Initiatives

Congratulations to Megan Fink on the release of Teen Read Week and Teen Tech Week: Tips and Resources for YALSA’s Initiatives (YALSA, 2010). From the promotional copy:

Each year, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) sponsors two national literacy initiatives: Teen Read Week™, which encourages teens to read for fun and become regular library users, and Teen Tech Week™, which encourages teens to take advantage of the free technology available at libraries. Since 2003, YALSA’s award-winning quarterly journal, Young Adult Library Services has offered guidance for librarians planning Teen Read Week and Teen Tech Week events.

For the first time, YALSA has compiled the best YALS articles on teen reading and teen information literacy into one volume, Teen Read Week and Teen Tech Week: Tips and Resources for YALSA’s Initiatives, launching its new Best of YALS series. Editor Megan Fink, middle school librarian at the Charlotte Country Day School and a former Teen Read Week chair, selected articles to form a manual that will offer guidance to librarians planning their annual events, with advice on best practices, collection development, outreach and marketing, program ideas and more.

In addition, YA authors Walter Dean Myers and Cynthia Leitich Smith and Best Teen Read Week contest winners Elizabeth Kahn and Jennifer Velásquez contributed original content about the importance of these initiatives and how they support teens’ information needs, along with an introduction by YALSA past president Judy Nelson.
See more information.

More Personally

Blessed is now available from Candlewick! Thanks to everyone who's read, blogged, tweeted, facebooked or otherwise made noise about the novel! It means a lot to me.

Meanwhile, I continue to work on book four in the Tantalize series, which picks up several plot threads from Eternal and one from Blessed.

It's terrific to be wholly immersed in new novel as the previous one is coming out. I only have so much time to indulge release jitters. As great as it is, being an author, it's being a writer that keeps me grounded and happy.

I also received the exciting news from my editor that the graphic novel Eternal: Zachary's Story is green-lighted to be sent onto illustrator Ming Doyle.

Highlights of the past week include a Writers' League of Texas author event on "Inspiration: The First Glimmer of a Book Idea" at BookPeople in Austin. Here, Bethany Hegedus moderates a panel, featuring Jennifer Ziegler, Brian Yansky and Stephen Harrigan. The program was a kickoff to the 2011 Third Thursday series: Building a Book. See also the League's YA A to Z Conference April 15 and April 16 in Austin.

Guest Post: Cynthia Leitich Smith from Libba Bray. Peek: "I fault Stephen King for my coulrophobia and treasure my tattered copy of V.C. Andrews’ Incest in the Attic series. I was a Whedonesque slayer in a former life."

Book Giveaway and Teaching Author Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith by Carmela Martino from Teaching Authors: Six Children's Authors Who Also Teach Writing. Peek: " What I typically suggest to my students is to physically act out a scene. Literally step into the moment and movement(s). Or to perhaps sketch out a map of the town or bedroom, so that it's easier for them to mentally move their cast around and describe that on the page." Giveaway deadline: Feb. 2.

Quotable -- Cynthia Leitich Smith by Lindsey Lane from The Meandering Lane. Peek: "...today is about Cyn’s favorite quote, the one that stokes her writer engine."

Character Interviews with Quincie and Brad by Valorie from Truth Be Told.

Peek: Peek from Brad (on what he looks forward to in the future): "Flying cars! I've been promised flying cars for decades, and where are they? Beyond that, I look forward to the day when Quincie accepts the inevitable and agrees to join me in our eternal life together."
Peek from Quincie: "f some smooth-talking, older guy starts plying you with liquor, flattering you, and trying to impress you when you're most vulnerable because of, say, your parents divorce or a death in the family or a falling out with your best friend, run the hell away from the jerk. Now, fast, go!"

Blessed Character Interview with Zachary & Giveaway from Girls in the Stacks. Peek: "I missed the amazing, self-proclaimed quirky weirdness of Austin."

Blessed Reviews

Greg and I celebrated release day at Amy's Ice Creams in Austin; see photo of our server.

Blessed: A Delicious and Deadly Treat by Norah Piehl from BookPage. Peek: "...smart, sexy...her homage to Stoker’s classic novel is most apparent, as she uses the book’s characters for inspiration, its plot for structure and its themes for a rich background that will lead many readers to (re)discover the original Dracula even as they enjoy this darkly humorous send-up."

Blessed Review by Kristen from Bookworming in the 21rst Century. Peek: "For a book nearing 500 pages long, the story flew by fast, filled with action and emotional turmoil. I absolutely loved this book and hope there will be more."

Blessed Review from BookChic. Peek: "I love this trilogy of books and how, in this one, Smith merged the casts from the previous two books, Tantalize and Eternal. She did a wonderful job doing it and it felt right. I really enjoyed revisiting these characters and I fell into a rhythm even though it's been a long time since reading both (though less time from Eternal but Blessed is mostly from Quincie's perspective from Tantalize)."

Blessed Review by Jillian Van Leer from Young Adult Book Central. Peek: "I really enjoyed all the action, the love, the betrayal, everything! If you have read the first two books in this series (and even if you haven't!) go out and get this book!"

Blessed Giveaways

Enter to win the Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway from Cynsations. Deadline: Jan. 31.

Blessed Blog Tour & ARC/Prize Package Giveaways by Kari from The Teen {Book} Scene. See individual sites on this online tour for specific prize entry information.

Blessed Online Countdown Event by Valorie from Truth Be Told. Valorie is posting reviews, book trailers, teaser excerpts, giveaways, and author-and-character interviews. Giveaway deadline: 11 p.m. PST Jan. 24. See details.

See also the Teaching Authors Giveaway. Deadline: Feb. 2.

Blessed Launch Party

Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) book party and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin. Event will include author talks, Q&A, refreshments and signing. Wear red and black if you're on the side of Evil or blue and black if you're on the side of Good. Bonus points (and possible prize) to anyone who dresses up as a vampire, shape shifter, vampire slayer, angel or faerie!

The winner of an autographed copy of Night School was Kaya in Oregon.

More Events

Blessed In-Person Author Tour Schedule in Central Texas and the Northeastern U.S.: sponsored by Candlewick Press. Are you in Austin, New York, New Jersey, or the Philly area? Come join me along the way!

12th Annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 19 in Fort Myers, Florida. Note: speakers include Cynthia Leitich Smith.

SCBWI-Wisconsin Novel Revision Workshop with author Cynthia Leitich Smith from March 25 to March 27. Note: "Registration is limited to 25 persons."

Finally

Blessed celebratory ice cream--Darth chocolate with hot chocolate sauce and pecans.

Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith is Now Available

2011-01-25T09:22:00.001-06:00

I'm thrilled to announce that Blessed is now available from Candlewick Press!

Check out the latest coverage:

Blessed: In Which I Interview Cynthia Leitich Smith by Joy Preble from Joy's Novel Idea. Peek: "I’ve created a vampire society with its own history, political structure, and system of laws as well as, say, architectural predispositions. The undead, for example, are big fans of the Arts and Crafts movement."

In Stores this Week (With Interviews and Giveaways) from Adventures in Children's Publishing. Peek: "I wrote the proposal for my editor in March 2008...at the Arizona Biltmore. The place opened in 1929. It's swanky, designed in the Craftsman tradition (think: Frank Lloyd Wright). Irving Berlin penned 'White Christmas' by the pool. Marilyn Monroe referred to that same pool as her favorite. ...I grabbed a chair around that pool, then, later, another around the fire pit, and brainstormed."

Read an excerpt of Blessed from Teenreads.com.

Look for the Blessed ads today in Publishers Weekly online and in the Baker & Taylor's CATS Meow: Library Newsletter for Children's and Teen Services for January 2011!

Latest Buzz

"Quincie is a capable, independent and appealing heroine who has matured considerably since her debut in 'Tantalize.' Smith plans one more book in the series; 'Blessed' raises expectations for a complex (and thrilling) conclusion."

—In 'Blessed,' Neophyte Vampire Battles the Forces of the Undead
by Sharyn Vane from The Austin American-Statesman.

"I found this book intriguing and fun. The characters are well developed, and the plot is a definite attention keeper. This book is more for teens and up, and I'd rate it a 9.5 on a 10 scale."

—Brianna, age 15, from Genrefluent's Bistro Book Club: Teens Talk About Books

"I give Blessed an overall rating of 5 stars [out of 5]. If you love this series, you will be floored at how good this book turned out."

—Valorie from Truth Be Told

Mega Giveaways

Enter to win the Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway from Cynsations. Deadline: Jan. 31.

Blessed Blog Tour & ARC/Prize Package Giveaways by Kari from The Teen {Book} Scene. See individual sites on this online tour for specific prize entry information.

Blessed Online Countdown Event by Valorie from Truth Be Told. Valorie is posting reviews, book trailers, teaser excerpts, giveaways, and author-and-character interviews. Giveaway deadline: 11 p.m. PST Jan. 24. See details.

Blessed Tour

Blessed Central Texas and Northeast U.S. Tour from Candlewick Press. Note: YA authors Mari Mancusi and Daniel Nayeri will be joining Cynthia here and there along the way!

Cynsational Notes

This post features a sampling of the latest buzz surrounding Blessed. I'll highlight more links as part of my weekly round-ups. Thanks to everyone who's reading and discussing the novel!

I greatly appreciate y'all indulging today's celebration. I'll return to highlighting other authors, their books, and news of the publishing world, starting again tomorrow!

Spooky News, Night School Giveaway & Blessed Countdown

2011-01-21T11:47:00.002-06:00

L.K. Madigan's Feast of Awesome Giveaway by Cindy Pon from the 2009 Debutantes. Peek: "How can we best express our love and support for Lisa during this time? Through the celebration of her books. only a fellow writer can know the angst and turmoil associated with creating stories--because we put so much of ourselves in them. Won't you help us in spreading L.K. Madigan Book Love?"

ALA Youth Media Awards: Which Publishers Are Celebrating? by Elizabeth Bluemle from Publishers Weekly. Peek: "I’ll start with a summary, and then post the full list below...."

The Agent’s Role in Today’s Digital Book World by Mary Kole, Literary Agent, Andrea Brown Literary Agency from Digital Book World. Peek: "as publishers embrace different content delivery systems and processes, agents will take on more packaging responsibilities: editorial work, marketing consultation, design, etc. Whether we’re presenting a book to editors or an app proposal to a digital publisher, we will have had a more active hand in its reaching 'market ready' status."

How to Create a Podcast: Ready to Step Out of Your Blogging Comfort Zone? by Joanna Penn from The Creative Pen. Peek: "You can use BlogTalkRadio or other free hosted solutions but I don’t think the quality is very good and iTunes is a great stand-alone market so it’s worth having your own feed."

What's Going on With Borders? by Carolyn Kellogg from Jacket Copy from the L.A. Times. Peek: "Barnes & Noble, if buffeted by Amazon's success, has remained afloat; Borders has been taking on water." Note: a clear, succinct update on the status of the Borders chain.

Should I Mention My Blog in My Query? by Carolyn Kaufman from QueryTracker.net. Peek: "...if you have a huge blog on, say, mountain climbing, but your book has nothing to do with mountain climbing, you don’t have the built-in audience an agent or editor is looking for, and mentioning your blog will look like a non sequitur."

Authors on the Internet: Facing Up To Facebook by Tami Lewis Brown from Through the Tollbooth. Peek: "This week in the Tollbooth we’ll look at Facebook and authors. We’ll see who’s doing what, check out some innovative sites for readers and writers, and look out for pitfalls."

Celebrating Rejection by Danyelle from QueryTracker.net. Peek: "...why celebrate something that can be so painful? Something that we sometimes even come to believe for a time? Because rejection is proof that you're not just existing--you're living."

David Lubar's Travel Challenge: "I have nine school visits scheduled during January, February, and March. I also have a frightening ability to attract terrible weather. (Some schools in rural areas book me in the spring because they need the rain.)" Root for David, and/or commit to donate (be it 10 cents or a dollar) to the charity of your choice each time he foils his bad travel karma! Go, David!

Hardiness by Kristi Holl from Writer's First Aid: A Medicine Chest of Hope. Peek: "I know for a fact that when I focus on the finish line–the day I can say the book is done–that it feels overwhelming."

A Crisis of Self-Confidence by Mary Kole from Kidlit.com. Peek: "Sometimes frustration is a good thing — it spurns you on when you might otherwise quit — but I find that the specific frustration of not being published yet has one common cure: stop submitting and start nursing the writing."

Writing a Young Narrator by Erik Raschke from Crowe's Nest. Peek: "I really focused on the framework in which teens communicated with one another and less on what was actually being said. Once I had written the situation, i.e. boys getting ready to fight, boys talking about sexy movie stars, I could cut out the modern language and replace it with how I used to speak when I was a budding teen (which was roughly the same time The Book of Samuel (St. Martin's, 2009) takes place)."

Taming Time: Practical Tips to Increase Writing Productivity by Sarah Sundin from Novel Journey. Peek: "'I am a professional. I am a professional.' Repeat this until you believe it. Now, act like it. Keep office hours. Even if you only have one hour a day to write, use it well."

SCBWI Team Blog Pre-Conference Interview: Advice on Critiques from Editors and Agents by Alice Pope from Alice Pope's SCBWI Children's Market Blog. Q&A with editors Krista Marino (Delacorte), Franceso Sedita (Penguin) and Jennifer Rees (Scholastic) and agents Kerry Sparks (Levine/Greenberg) and Mary Kole (Andrea Brown). Peek from Krista: "Always keep in mind that editors and agents want to work with writers who are open to suggestions, not writers who think their work is already done. Act appropriately."

SCBWI Team Blog Pre-Conference Interview: Jennifer Besser, Publisher of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of the Penguin Young Readers Group, by Lee Wind from I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? Peek: "Having an agent is very important, and has been for some time now. Of the deals I made in 2010, at least 95% of them were agented, and most years it’s 100%."

CBAY

From Madeline at CBAY: Until Jan. 31, "we will accept unsolicited manuscript submissions for only fantasy and science fiction picture books. These will be for traditional 32-page picture books for ages 2-5.

"...the picture book must either be a fantasy (fairy tales, dragons, fairies, etc.) or a sciene-fiction (time travel, space, under the ocean, steampunk, etc.) tale. We will not consider any other type of picture book. However, we will look at number or alphabet books with a fantasy or science fiction theme. Finally, we will not consider manuscripts written for older children at this time. This is a call for fantasy and science fiction picture books, exclusively." See more information.

More Personally

Blessed will be released on Tuesday, and so this post is bursting with countdown interviews, guest posts, upcoming events, and giveaways! Thank you so much to the bloggers and event planners! I'm honored by your interest, enthusiasm, and efforts. Most appreciated!

I'm also still on deadline for book four in the Tantalize series, which will continue to feature characters from the previous books but is more of a sequel to events in Eternal.

However, I did manage to peek out of the house for a couple of writing community events this week! So, here's my full report!

Tantalize was named a Top Ten pick on the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) list of 2011 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults in the "What's Cooking?" category ("tasty reads to fill your belly and warm your soul.").

Previous honors for Tantalize include:

Borders Original Voices Nominee, March 2007
Featured title, 2007 National Book Festival
2007-2008 Tayshas List
Chapters (Canada) Junior Advisory Board (JAB) pick
Featured title, 2007 Texas Book Festival
Featured title, 2007 Kansas Book Festival

Mundie Moms says of Eternal: "...it's a story about deception, redemption, love, danger, and hope. It's a story that both fans of Dracula and paranormal characters will enjoy reading." Read the whole review.

This week, BookPeople in Austin is celebrating the ALA award winners.

Jessica Lee Anderson gave an inspiring, musical, insightful presentation at the first Austin SCBWI meeting of the year. Here she is with fellow author Betty X Davis.

ARA Carmen Oliver, author-illustrator Emma Virjan and authors Shana Burg and Jennifer Ziegler.

K.A. Holt, author of Brains for Lunch: A Zombie Novel in Haiku?! (Roaring Brook, 2010), models her latest zombie accessory.

Afterward, about 20 of us ended up next door at the Shoal Creek Saloon. Here's Greg, next to newcomer Sara Pennypacker, across from Bethany Hegedus, Sara Kocek (the newest face at the Writers' League of Texas), and Margo Rabb.

Link of the Week: check out Libba Bray's latest cover from Professor Nana.

Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway

Enter to win the Blessed grand prize giveaway from Cynsations! The prize package includes: final hardcover of Blessed (Candlewick, 2011); magnetic Sanguini's menu wipe board with pen that reads, "Stop in for a late-night bite;" Sanguini's magnet; laminated poster from the movie "Dracula," (1931); dragon finger puppet; wolf finger puppet; plush bat stuffed toy; Tantalize postcards; series tie-in buttons; angel wing charm; and Dracula by Bram Stoker, illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert, retold by Nicky Raven (Templar/Candlewick, 2010)(view an inside spread).

To enter, leave a comment at this post at Blogger or this post at LiveJournal! For an extra entry(s): Post, share, tweet, whatever works: (a) this giveaway and/or (b) the Blessed book trailer and/or a Blessed countdown widget; and include the URL in your comment! Also, make sure to include contact information in case you win. Author-publisher sponsored. U.S./Canada entries only. Deadline: Jan. 31.

The Teen {Book} Scene Blog Tour: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Blessed Blog Tour & ARC/Prize Package Giveaways by Kari from The Teen {Book} Scene (enter at the links below for more chances to win--multiple prizes available!):

an interview with Quincie from Bookworming in the 21rst Century; peek: "Blessed proved to be a thrilling continuation of the series by highlighting Quincie's dire situation and her transformation as not only a neophyte but as a stronger, more assertive young woman. "
my guest post, Bringing Together the Casts of Tantalize and Eternal from The Book Scout; peek: "In Blessed, heroes from Eternal may be found in Sanguini’s, the vampire-themed restaurant in Tantalize. Likewise, Quincie steps fully, for the first time, into the underworld.
Blessed review from Pirate Penguin Reads; peek: "Blessed proved to be a thrilling continuation of the series by highlighting Quincie's dire situation and her transformation as not only a neophyte but as a stronger, more assertive young woman."
an interview with Kieren from The Serpentine Library; peek: "or as long as I could recall, I found it boring when she talked about new recipes and napkins. I was polite, but…Then one day, I found every word she said fascinating. Quince herself, fascinating. The way her lips moved… She could talk about napkins forever, and I’d be thrilled to hear it."
author interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith from Mundie Moms; peek: "Don’t ever let fear stop your art—especially if you’re writing horror."

Truth Be Told Blessed Countdown & Giveaways

Blessed Online Countdown Event by Valorie from Truth Be Told. Valorie will be posting reviews, book trailers, teaser excerpts, and fun author-and-character interviews. She's giving away two bookplate-autographed copies of Blessed, each with a Magnetic Sanguini's menu wipe board and pen (see photo above). She's also giving away one board to (a) a random commenter and another to (b) "a person who helps promote the release of the book, randomly chosen based on tweets, adding it to goodreads, and blogging. It will go to someone who didn't win the hardcover." Giveaway deadline: 11 p.m. PST Jan. 24. See details.

Embracing My Spooky Side: a guest post by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Peek: "I had no interest in violent, slasher flicks, though I enjoyed more atmospheric films (with plots) like "Poltergeist" (1982) and "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987). The latter-featuring Jack Nicholson as the devil-especially appealed to me because of its female-empowerment reversal at the end."

In Valorie's review of Tantalize, she says: "The last few chapters of Tantalize were my favorite. This is where you see Quincie show who she really is. These last few chapters are also packed with suspense and action, much of which is unexpected."

Blessed Launch Party

Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) book party and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin. Event will include author talks, Q&A, refreshments and signing. Wear red and black if you're on the side of Evil or blue and black if you're on the side of Good. Bonus points (and possible prize) to anyone who dresses up as a vampire, shape shifter, vampire slayer, angel or faerie!

Last call! Comment here for a chance to win an autographed copy of Night School! Deadline: Jan. 21.

More Spooky Events

Blessed In-Person Author Tour Schedule in Central Texas and the Northeastern U.S.: sponsored by Candlewick Press. Are you in Austin, New York, New Jersey, or the Philly area? Come join me along the way!

12th Annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 19 in Fort Myers, Florida. Note: speakers include Cynthia Leitich Smith.

SCBWI-Wisconsin Novel Revision Workshop with author Cynthia Leitich Smith from March 25 to March 27. Note: "Registration is limited to 25 persons."

The Teen {Book} Scene Blog Tour: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith

2011-01-17T18:41:00.000-06:00

Coordinated by Kari

Monday, January 17: Kristen at Bookworming in the 21st Century (Character Interview: Quincie)

Tuesday, January 18: Kelsey at The Book Scout
(Guest Post: Connecting Eternal and Tantalize to Blessed)

Wednesday, January 19: Sandy at Pirate Penguin Reads (Review)

Thursday, January 20: Maria at The Serpentine Library (Character Interview: Kieren)

Friday, January 21: Stacy at Girls in the Stacks (Review)

Monday, January 24: Lisa at Badass Bookie (Guest Post: Secondary Characters)

Tuesday, January 25: Stacy at Girls in the Stacks (Character Interview: Zachary)

Wednesday, January 26: Kristen at Bookworming in the 21st Century (Review)

Thursday, January 27: Kari at A Good Addiction (Ten YA Recommendations)

Friday, January 28: Sandy at Pirate Penguin Reads (Character Interview: Bradley)

Cynsational Notes

Tour includes Blessed ARC & prize pack (pictured) giveaways! Lots of chances to win!

Special thanks to Kari and all of the host bloggers! I greatly appreciate your time, efforts, and enthusiasm!

Learn more about The Teen {Book} Scene.

Don't miss the Blessed Live Author Tour Schedule (NY, NJ, Philly area, TX, etc.) and Grand Prize Giveaway from Cynsations.

Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith Central Texas & Northeast U.S. Tour Schedule

2011-01-15T09:15:00.001-06:00

Please join me on a stop of the Blessed (Candlewick, 2011) tour!

Events that are open to the public are indicated as such on the schedule below!

Also, note that YA authors Mari Mancusi and Daniel Nayeri will be joining me here and there along the way!

Saturday, 1/29/11

2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. BookPeople - launch party with Night School (Blood Coven) author Mari Mancusi (PUBLIC EVENT)

Wear red and black if you're on the side of Evil or blue and black if you're on the side of Good. Bonus points (prize entry) to anyone who dresses up as a vampire, shape shifter, vampire slayer, angel or faerie!

603 North Lamar, Austin, Texas

Sunday, 2/6/11

1 p.m. to 3 p.m. - Books of Wonder - reading/Q&A/signing to public with Another Pan author Daniel Nayeri (PUBLIC EVENT)

18 W. 18th St., New York, N.Y.

Monday, 2/7/11

10 a.m. to 11:34 a.m. Francis Lewis High School

6 p.m. Borders Bookstore - reading/signing (PUBLIC EVENT)

Borders Columbus Circle
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y.

Tuesday, 2/8/11

4 p.m. to 5 p.m. New Brunswick Free Public Library - reading/Q&A/signing (PUBLIC EVENT)

6:20 p.m. to 9 p.m. Rutgers University -- guest lecture, "Materials for Young Adults" -- room 203

School of Communication and Information -- 4 Huntington St., New Brunswick, N.J.

Wednesday, 2/9/11

10 a.m. NYPL Mulberry Branch - visit with schools

10 Jersey Street (Between Lafayette & Mulberry Streets) New York, N.Y.

8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. New School Creative Writing Graduate Class - guest lecture

66 West 12th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues

Thursday, 2/10/11

11:15 a.m. to 12 p.m. Brooklyn Public Library - Professional Development Day

Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

4:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Brooklyn Public Library - Will You Be My Paranormal Valentine Party (with teens)(PUBLIC EVENT)

Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

Friday, 2/11/11

2:15 p.m. to 3 p.m. Elisabeth Irwin High School Visit

Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin HS, LREI

272 Sixth Avenue, New York, N.Y.

7 p.m. The Voracious Reader - "Will You Be My Paranormal Valentine?" event with Another Pan author Daniel Nayeri (PUBLIC EVENT)

Saturday, 2/12/11

1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Mercer County Library Event -- West Windsor Branch (PUBLIC EVENT)

333 North Post Road, Princeton Junction, N.J.

6:30 p.m. Barnes & Noble, Cherry Hill, N.J. (Greater Philly area)(PUBLIC EVENT)

911 Haddonfield Road, Cherry Hill, N.J.

Not on the Tour? Attention Event Planners!

It's two YA authors for the price of one! Book now for the 2011-2012 school year and beyond!

"From Classics to Contemporary:" a joint presentation offered by Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of the Tantalize series (inspired by Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)) and Jennifer Ziegler, author of Sass & Serendipity (inspired by Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)).

The authors will discuss how they were inspired by these classics, why Stoker and Austen's themes are still relevant to teens/YAs today, the ongoing conversation of books over the generations, and much more.

Contact Dayton Bookings for more information and to schedule.

Cynsational Notes

Enter to win the Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway at this post at Blogger or this post at LiveJournal!

Spooky News & Giveaways

2011-01-14T09:38:00.001-06:00

Diversity in YA Fiction: founded by YA authors Cindy Pon (Silver Phoenix, Fury of the Phoenix) and Malinda Lo (Ash, Huntress), Diversity in YA seeks to bring attention to MG and YA books featuring people of color and LGBT characters. Peek: "We envision DIYA as a positive, friendly gathering of readers and writers who want to see diversity in their fiction. Every week on our website we'll be featuring books that include diversity, from realistic, contemporary novels to absorbing historicals and adventurous fantasy."

Cindy and Malinda will be on tour to at least four cities in 2011. Authors who'll join them along the way include:

See also Author Bios and Tour Locations pages. Join the mailing list for a final list of locations and more (no more than two emails per month).

More News & Giveaways

Inside the Writer's Studio with Carrie Jones, author of Entice by Bethany Hegedus from Writer Friendly; Bookshelf Approved. Peek: "I want people to be kind to each other, to look past appearance and labels and just love each other. I know! I know! I’m such a hippie throw-back for a police dispatcher, but I mean it."

Cool Down Time: Handling Criticism Effectively by Mary Lindsey from QueryTracker.net. Peek: "Rushing into revisions or reacting immediately when you feel defensive will not only make your revisions less effective, it will potentially alienate you from the very people trying to help you become a better writer."

Two $500 Scholarships for Mystery Writers, given by the annual Helen McCloy/MWA Scholarship program, from April Henry. Deadline: Feb. 28.

Erzsi Deàk Launches HEN & INK – A New Literary Studio and Transmedia Company from Austin SCBWI. Peek: "With a growing list of prize-winning clients and new voices from around the world, president and founder of Hen & Ink, Erzsi Deàk, meets often with publishers in the U.S. and U.K. and aggressively markets domestic and foreign rights." Note: post includes submission guidelines and manuscript areas of interest.

Lost in Translation, or using symbols when writing multicultural fantasy by Grace Lin from The Enchanted Ink Pot. Peek: "Making assumptions is particularly treacherous when writing multicultural fantasy. An author wants to make fantasy feel authentic to the culture they are nodding to, yet still build a world that takes a reader away from reality."

Deepening Your Characters Needs by Stina Lindenblatt from Query Tracker. Peek: "...the pyramid is divided into five levels. The needs on the bottom level (physiological) have to be satisfied before you can worry about those in the next level (safety and security). Same deal with the third level (love and belonging). The needs in the first two levels have to be dealt with first. This idea continues all the way to the top of the pyramid, to self-actualization." See also Personality: Creating Real Characters by Darcy Pattison from Fiction Notes.

Where Do Ideas Come From? by Brian Yansky from Brian's Blog: Writer Talk. Peek: "I like to say I get them in a little store out in West Texas somewhere near Marfa." Note: Brian's Blog is smart, wry, and conversational. Highly recommended.

Free Books Aren't Free by Saundra Mitchell from Making Up Stuff for a Living. Peek: "I don’t blame my publisher. There’s weak demand for my books, according to my sales figures. Meanwhile, 800 copies of my book (worth about $1200 toward my advance, if everyone paid for a copy) are being downloaded a week." Note: Saundra's Shadowed Summer (Delacorte, 2009) is highly recommended. Honors include: 2009 Junior Library Guild Selection, 2009 ALAN Pick, 2010 Edgar Nominee (Best YA Mystery), 2010 Society of Midland Authors Book Award (Best Children's), 2010 VOYA Summer Reading List. Please vote for more books by Saundra by buying/ordering it or checking it out of your local library. Learn about her upcoming release, The Vespertine (Harcourt, 2011).

Applying the Women-in-Movies Test to Race-in-Stories by Mitali Perkins from Mitali's Fire Escape. Note: give both a try. Consider the books you write, the books you read.

More Personally

An Open Love Letter to Debut Authors About Hurtful Online Reviews by Cynthia Leitich Smith from Cynsations. See also Writers and Depression by Nancy Etchemendy from the Horror Writers Association. Note: I'm re-running both of these links periodically.

Whether you're someone who prays or sends good thoughts, please send them to L.K. Madigan and her family.

Booklist says of Blessed: "Sure, the vampires, werewolves, and angels provide the lure, but Smith’s obvious affection for her characters makes this more.... Pretty lengthy, but if this is your cup of tea, you’ll relish it."

I was jazzed to see a Blessed poster at the Candlewick booth in Mary Kole's ALA Midwinter Report at Kidlit.com.

Reminder: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith ARC giveaway by P.J. "Tricia" Hoover from Roots in Myth. Note: extra ARC added to giveaway! Two copies available! Deadline: tonight! - midnight Jan. 14.

Local Link of the Week: Donating Books to the Austin Children's Shelter by Stephanie from Stephanie, A History.

Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway

Enter to win the Blessed grand prize giveaway from Cynsations! The prize package includes: final hardcover of Blessed (Candlewick, 2011); magnetic Sanguini's menu wipe board with pen that reads, "Stop in for a late-night bite;" Sanguini's magnet; laminated poster from the movie "Dracula," (1931); dragon finger puppet; wolf finger puppet; plush bat stuffed toy; Tantalize postcards; series tie-in buttons; angel wing charm; and Dracula by Bram Stoker, illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert, retold by Nicky Raven (Templar/Candlewick, 2010)(view an inside spread).

To enter, leave a comment at this post at Blogger or this post at LiveJournal!

For an extra entry(s): Post, share, tweet, whatever works:

(a) this giveaway and/or (b) the Blessed book trailer and/or a Blessed countdown widget;

and include the URL in your comment!

Also, make sure to include contact information in case you win. Author-publisher sponsored. U.S./Canada entries only. Deadline: Jan. 31.

Truth Be Told Blessed Countdown & Giveaway

Blessed Online Countdown Event by Valorie from Truth Be Told. Valorie will be posting reviews, book trailers, teaser excerpts, and fun author-and-character interviews. She's giving away two bookplate-autographed copies of Blessed, each with a Magnetic Sanguini's menu wipe board and pen. She's also giving away one board to (a) a random commenter and another to (b) "a person who helps promote the release of the book, randomly chosen based on tweets, adding it to goodreads, and blogging. It will go to someone who didn't win the hardcover." Giveaway deadline: 11 p.m. PST Jan. 24. See details.

See Teaser Tuesday (features two short excerpts from Tantalize) and an Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith (features, short, romantic excerpt from Blessed) from Valorie from Truth Be Told. Peek: "Both of the previous novels end with calls to action, either express or implied. Loose ends, if you will, that I wanted to more fully address, and I felt that both of those characters [Quincie and Zachary] deserved the chance to reach their full potential."

Cynsational Events

Jessica Lee Anderson will speak on seven things she's learned through her publishing journey...using songs at the Austin SCBWI monthly meeting at 11 a.m. Jan. 15 at BookPeople in Austin. Read an interview with Jessica and P.J. Hoover.

Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) book party and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin.

Event will include author talks, Q&A, refreshments and signing.

Wear red and black if you're on the side of Evil or blue and black if you're on the side of Good.

Bonus points (and possible prize) to anyone who dresses up as a vampire, shape shifter, vampire slayer, angel or faerie!

Comment here for a chance to win an autographed copy of Night School! Deadline: Jan. 21.

Note: Mari will be signing all the Blood Coven books at the Pflugerville, Texas HEB (1434 Wells Branch Pkwy) from noon to 2 p.m. Jan. 15. She'll also be giving away bookmarks.

Guest Post: Cyn Balog on Creating Fantasy Characters

2011-01-13T09:22:00.001-06:00

By Cyn Balog

As an author of paranormal romance, I’ve introduced my share of otherworldly characters.

I based the fairies in Fairy Tale (Delacorte, 2009) partly on existing classical folklore and mythology, bending the rules and the lore when appropriate for my story.

But with the Sandmen in Sleepless (Delacorte, 2010), I had more creative leeway. Very little classical lore exists about Sandman, so I had more freedom to create the Sandmen I wanted to create. After all, this is fiction. You are only limited by the depths of your imagination.

However, you can’t let the freedom go to your head. Good fantasy is always built on a foundation of human experience and emotion. It is that which will make your reader identify with your story.

Therefore, while your creatures may be otherworldly, they must possess some human traits which will make your reader warm up to them. Maybe your character doesn’t speak; maybe it doesn’t even look human, but something about it must be human. For example, even if your main character is a gelatinous glob of goo, maybe it can quiver in fear every time a certain individual is near.

A common mistake among beginners in writing fantasy is the tendency to fill page after page with wild happenings, crazy critters, out-there worlds that are so very different from our own, the reader feels disengaged. They write a plot-driven quest fantasy where it’s just one obstacle after another until the quest is fulfilled. Things just happen to the characters; very little do the characters determine what happens.

This is because the writer has not fully fleshed out the characters. Good fantasy is equally plot and character driven. In any novel, your characters make things happen and create conflict because of who they are.

Unfortunately, with fantasy, it’s so easy to rely on archetypes, just because all those fairy tales of our youth seem to take place in fantasy worlds. It seems only natural to have clichés.

Real characters are not fully good or fully evil. It's fine to rely on archetypes as a start for building your characters, but can you turn them on their heads?

In Fairy Tale, I made the fairy the star football player. I'd read a dozen tales about a girl finding out she was a fairy princess, and I thought it would be interesting (and way more fun) to have the macho guy learn that he was the fairy. Imagine him trying to explain that to his friends around the locker room!

Unexpected quirks in your characters can help to keep your fantasy fresh and entertaining. Creating a character in fantasy is not unlike creating a character for a realistic novel—as with all characters, you add in weaknesses and fears, goals and motivations, and a back story. All these things will make the people in your story--as well as the creatures--come alive.

Cynsational Notes

Cyn Balog is the author of the young adult paranormal novels Fairy Tale and Sleepless. She lives outside Allentown, Pennsylvania with her husband and daughters. Visit her online at www.cynbalog.com.

Look for Cyn's next book, Starstruck (Delacorte) in July. Peek:

When Gwendolyn "Dough" Reilly’s boyfriend and best friend Wish moves away in seventh grade, the only consolation she can find is in her family bakery’s donuts.

Now, it’s sophomore year, and Wish is coming back. But in only three years, they’ve both changed—drastically. he’s seriously overweight, and suddenly Wish is the most popular guy in school, and girls everywhere want him.

Dough has doubts that appearances don’t matter and that Wish can love her as she is, so she launches into a plan designed to keep them together.

That is, until she discovers that Wish’s gorgeous looks and charm might not be all they appear to be.

Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway, Truth Be Told Countdown Event & More

2011-01-13T09:12:00.001-06:00

Enter to win the Blessed grand prize giveaway from Cynsations!

Blessed is the third and latest installment in the Tantalize series, to be released by Candlewick on Jan. 25, 2011. This YA novel is a contemporary romantic thriller that offers a nod and a wink to Bram Stoker's classic Dracula (1897). Note: Sanguini's is the fictional vampire-themed restaurant featured in the series.

The prize package includes:

-Final hardcover of Blessed (Candlewick, 2011);

-Magnetic Sanguini's menu wipe board with pen that reads, "Stop in for a late-night bite" (see close-up at side);

-Sanguini's magnet;

-Laminated poster from "Dracula," starring Bela Lugosi (1931);

-Dragon finger puppet;

-Wolf finger puppet;

-Plush bat stuffed toy;

-Tantalize postcards;

-Series tie-in buttons;

-Angel wing charm;

-Dracula by Bram Stoker, illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert, retold by Nicky Raven (Templar/Candlewick, 2010)(view an inside spread)(see also close-up at side).

To enter, leave a comment here! For an extra entry(s):

Post, share, tweet, whatever works:

(a) this giveaway and/or (b) the Blessed book trailer and/or a Blessed countdown widget;

and include the URL in your comment!

Also, make sure to include contact information in case you win.

Author-publisher sponsored. U.S./Canada entries only. Deadline: Jan. 31.

Here's the trailer for those that missed it yesterday:

Blessed News & More Giveaways

Sanguini's logo by Gene Brenek; shop Sanguini's.

Reminder: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith ARC giveaway by P.J. "Tricia" Hoover from Roots in Myth. Deadline: midnight Jan. 14.

Reminder: Cat Calls E-Book by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick, 2010) is now available for free to Kindle users. See details. Note: Cat Calls is set in the Tantalize series universe.

Blessed Countdown at Truth Be Told

Blessed Online Countdown Event by Valorie from Truth Be Told. Valorie will be posting reviews, book trailers, teaser excerpts, and fun author-and-character interviews.

She's giving away two bookplate-autographed copies of Blessed, each with a Magnetic Sanguini's menu wipe board and pen.

She's also giving away one board to (a) a random commenter and another to (b) "a person who helps promote the release of the book, randomly chosen based on tweets, adding it to goodreads, and blogging. It will go to someone who didn't win the hardcover."

Giveaway deadline: 11 p.m. PST Jan. 24. See details.

See also Teaser Tuesday by Valorie from Truth Be Told. Note: features two short excerpts from Tantalize.

Blessed In-Person Author Events

Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) book party and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin.

Event will include author talks, Q&A, refreshments and signing.

Wear red and black if you're on the side of Evil or blue and black if you're on the side of Good.

Bonus points (and possible prize) to anyone who dresses up as a vampire, shape shifter, vampire slayer, angel or fairy!

The Official Blessed In-Person Author Tour will take place in early February and include events in NY, NJ, and the Philly area. Stay tuned to Cynsations for details!

Official Book Trailer: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith

2011-01-11T12:37:00.000-06:00

Wowza! Check out this spooky-terrific book trailer for my upcoming YA Gothic fantasy, Blessed--releasing Jan. 25!

Cynsational readers: feel free to share/post/tweet this link and/or re-post the trailer itself on your own sites/blogs!

Then let me know--with the URL(s), if applicable--for extra chances to win the Blessed Grand Prize Giveaway! Giveaway details and photo to be posted tomorrow! (It's awesome--trust me!)

Or you can just comment here for a chance to win!

Cynsational Notes

Trailer produced in conjunction with Candlewick Press by Curtis Sponsler, Creative Director and Owner of AniMill. Thanks, Candlewick and Curtis!

See the Blessed media kit (PDF) for author interview and more!

Guest Post: Janice Hardy on The Trouble With Triples

2011-01-07T09:55:00.000-06:00

By Janice Hardy

When I first started writing my middle grade fantasy, The Shifter: The Healing Wars (Balzer & Bray, 2009), I had no idea it was going to be a trilogy.

I’d never written a trilogy before, but halfway through the story I saw the bigger story arc that my protagonist, Nya, could be part of if I nudged her in that direction.

I made some notes, finished the book, and sent it off to agents with a little, “this story stands alone but could continue as a trilogy” statement at the bottom of the query.

Eight months later, I sold a trilogy. What the heck was I gonna do now?

I plowed into the second book, Blue Fire (Balzer & Bray, 2010) and made every mistake a sophomore writer can make.

I learned a lot about writing sequels from that and was better prepared for book three. After going through the process once, I have several things I’ll do differently the next time I try another trilogy.

1. Figure out the entire plot in advance.

Sure, I knew the story of all three books, but knowing book three is “about the war” doesn’t do squat when you’re trying to figure out the plot for books leading up to that war. Each book needed its own plot arc, and that plot arc needed to fit into the series arc.

They also couldn’t just be rehashes of the same basic plot from the first book. They needed to offer new story and raise the stakes.

I won’t need to know every little subplot, but understanding the big set pieces in advance will save me a ton of tears later.

Things like: How does each book start? What’s the core conflict and major goal? What are the stakes? How does each book end? How does each book build off the previous book?

2. Figure out my characters in advance.

This might be a toughy, but characters tend to slip in as stories go on. Adding five or six each book didn’t see like that big a deal until I got to book three, then suddenly everyone was in the same book. I had dozens and dozens of characters, each with their own small subplots, and it was way too much to deal with. Trying to wrap up all those characters and subplots was maddening.

Pre-planning some characters that I can recycle each book will help eliminate that “character creep.” It’ll also make me think twice every time I start to add another character to the story.

3. Figure out my big secrets in advance.

I had characters reveal awesome secrets to me in Blue Fire that I’d had no clue about in The Shifter. So I had to figure out how to make those delicious new secrets work with what I’d already written and couldn’t change. But if I can plan my big reveals and decide where in each book they are revealed, stuff won’t sneak up on me as much and hijack my plot. Uncovering secrets is also a great way to keep readers interested, so pre-planning those will help move the plot along as well.

Naturally, I won’t know everything before I start writing, and things are always revealed as the story develops. But a little more “forward thinking” on my part will save me a lot of frustration later. And probably lead to a much better trilogy in the end.

Cynsational Notes

A long-time fantasy reader, Janice Hardy always wondered about the darker side of healing. For her fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices. Her books include The Shifter and Blue Fire from Balzer & Bray/Harper Collins.

She lives in Georgia with her husband, three cats and one very nervous freshwater eel.

Don't miss her blog, The Other Side of the Story: One writer's take on writing, querying, and publishing.

Spooky News & Night School Giveaway

2011-01-07T09:06:00.005-06:00

Enter to win an autographed copy of Night School by Mari Mancusi (Book Five in the Blood Coven vampire series)(Berkley)! From the promotional copy:

Vampires, Slayers and...fairies?

Sunny and Rayne McDonald are about to get schooled.

After their parents’ shocking revelation about their fae heritage and an attack on their lives, the McDonald twins find themselves on the run—forced to hide out at Riverdale Academy, a boarding school for vampire slayers, deep in the Swiss Alps. With no cells, no internet, and no way to contact their vampire boyfriends—the twins are on their own.

Being a vampire stuck in a school full of slayers isn’t easy. Especially with no blood substitute stocked on campus.

Soon Rayne finds herself succumbing to her bloodlust and losing control—especially around the arrogant, but devastatingly handsome Corbin Billingsworth the Third—who isn’t sure whether he wants to kiss her...or kill her.

But when Sunny starts acting strange, Rayne realizes Riverdale Academy may be hiding some deadly secrets of its own—leading to a showdown in Fairyland that may cost the twins their lives.

To enter, comment or email me (scroll and click envelope) and type "Night School" in the subject line. Deadline: Jan. 21. Sponsored by the author; U.S. entries only.

Note: Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) presentation and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin. See details under "Cynsational Events" below!

More News & Giveaways

2010 Cybils Finalists from the Cybils 2010: Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards. Note: fresh, fierce picks in every category. Take a look!

The Creative Life Workshops from Children's Literature Network. Two long-time SCBWI members/children’s authors (Lisa Bullard and Laura Purdie Salas) are offering a series of online classes that will give you the inside scoop on how to submit your manuscript to a publisher. "Matchmaking Your Manuscript” offers guidance on how to create a “hit list” of the editors/agents that are the ideal targets for your manuscript. “Love at First Sight” offers personalized feedback to help you create a powerful and professional cover letter. The classes will cover manuscripts for children and young adults in all genres. Sessions begin Jan. 13. See more information.

See also Finding a Publisher Is a Lot Like Dating by Lisa and Laura from Donna Gephart at Wild About Words.

16 Must-Have Elements for a Successful Novel by Kathy Temean from Writing and Illustrating. Peek: "Only two thousand words – a suggestion only to change the subject as often as every two thousand words to keep the interest of readers who are growing up as members of the Twitter-Facebook-texting-random-browsing generation."

Are You Ready for an Agent? by Tabitha from Writer Musings. Note: insights from agents Jennifer Matteson and Edward Necarsulmer IV. Peek: "Unless you’ve got several sales under your belt that are doing well, don’t pitch an idea or concept with sample chapters in a query. Agents and editors need to see the completed manuscript for fiction."

Rearranging the Teen Shelves, compiled by Megan Crew from The Enchanted Inkpot. Authors weigh in on Barnes & Noble's recent decision to display books by genre/category.

How to Avoid Getting an Agent by Rachelle Gardner from Rants & Ramblings of On Life as a Literary Agent. Peek: "Sometimes we Google your name if we like your writing and are considering discussing representation with you. If we find things that scare us away, you'll never know we were even investigating you. You'll get a form rejection."

Readers Choice 2010 Winners from Young Adult Books Central.

How Much to Sell Yourself by Mary Kole from Kidlit.com. Peek: "Where’s the line between confident and bombastic?"

Manuscript Submissions Etiquette by The Buried Editor from Buried in the Slush Pile at CBAY Books. A list of tips for electronic submissions. Peek: "If you are doing multiple submissions, you need to send multiple emails."

Spooky Screening Room

Get to know the Class of 2k11: Debut YA and Middle Grade Authors:

And get to know The Elevensies:

Check out the book trailer for Desires of the Dead (A Body Finder Novel) by Kimberly Derting (Harper, Feb. 15, 2011). Source: Jen Bigheart from I Read Banned Books.

More Personally

Here's a terrific teen review of Blessed from School Library Journal: "A beautiful novel that ties together two other amazing books, Tantalize and Eternal, this story has wonderful characters and a timeless setting. I felt that I had glue on my hands—-I just couldn't put it down! This is a novel for just about any fantasy reader. I would, and will, recommend it to everyone. –-Marissa H., age 14

Turning to the kidlitosphere, Gwenda Bond at Shaken & Stirred says, "This series is set apart by its rich, quirky universe, the way Cyn plays with gender dynamics, and how truly funny and poignant it is. Not to mention it's in direct conversation with Bram Stoker's Dracula. I. Loved. It."

Thanks also to Reading in Color for featuring Blessed as its Waiting on Wednesday Pick!

Excited about the upcoming release of Blessed? Please feel free to grab a countdown widget for your blog or website with my thanks!

Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith ARC giveaway by P.J. "Tricia" Hoover from Roots in Myth. Deadline: midnight Jan. 14. Thank you, Tricia!

Reminder: Blessed: Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith and Giveaway by Jen Bigheart from I Read Banned Books. Peek: "I started making notes on Quincie in late 2001/early 2002, so it's been quite a journey. She may well have small roles in future books-the graphic novels start coming out in Aug. 2011-but Blessed does conclude her big arc in the prose novels." Giveaway deadline: midnight CST Jan. 9. Scroll for more information.

Author Insight: Sold or Sell-Out? from Wastepaper Prose and Other Literary Woes. Note: I join 14 other authors in discussing the editorial changes we will make, won't make and why.

Reminder: Cat Calls E-Book by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick, 2010) is now available for free to Kindle users. See details.

Even More Personally

Last week was my birthday! Here are my flowers from Greg, who's blogging today at GregLSBlog about living in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, a paleontology museum in a Claremont, California High School, and free "Paleontology for Educators" workshops that they're providing this winter. In other news, he recommends Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys (Philomel, 2011).

On a sadder note, one of my favorite local restaurants, Katz's Deli, closed. It opened in 1979, ironically, with the slogan, "Katz's Never Closes." My thanks to Mr. Katz and my waiter, Calvin, for many breakfasts, now-and-again lunches, and the occasional dinner.

Farewell, One Pastrami Center! You (and your kosher breakfast tacos) are already missed.

Here's a peek at my work in progress. It's the (still untitled) fourth prose novel in the Tantalize series, and while characters from previous casts are in play, draws more from events in Eternal.

That's Music Choice (Sounds of the Season) on the television. Special thanks to April Lurie for the Diet Coke. Most appreciated.

Congratulations to Shayne Leighton on the sale of her debut YA novel, Of Light and Darkness, to Decadent Publishing. Shayne created the Tantalize and Eternal book trailers. Don't miss her new film, "The Incubus."

Link of the Week: Female Movie Character Rating Scale by Janni Lee Simner. Consider your work in progress with this in mind.

Spooky Events

Save the Date! Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) book party and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin. Event will include author talks, Q&A, refreshments and signing. Wear red and black if you're on the side of Evil or blue and black if you're on the side of Good. Bonus points (and possible prize) to anyone who dresses up as a vampire, shape shifter, vampire slayer, angel or faerie! Read a guest post by Mari on Kids Don't Read Like They Used To...And That's a Good Thing (on connecting books to technology). Don't miss the Night School blog tour!

Guest Post: Julie Berry on Writing What You Know

2011-01-06T08:30:00.003-06:00

By Julie Berry

Write. What. You. Know.

I used to bang my head against that tired maxim. What does a frumpy suburban mom who’s lived a coddled , well-fed life know about anything worth molding into a sparkly fantasy adventure?

Peanuts. Diddly-squat.

It took reams of bad beginnings and ample reassurance from advisors at Vermont College of the Fine Arts to begin to learn what I did know. (One wise instructor, whom I won’t name to avoid obvious flattery, rhymes with Bynthia Beitich Bsmith.)

I knew a little about emotions. I remembered adolescent feelings. That carried me through my first novel, The Amaranth Enchantment (Bloomsbury, 2009).

Soon after, I thought about all the people who’d asked me why, in heaven’s name, I wrote books for girls when I had four sons at home. “Because,” I would answer, “I am a girl. I write for me. My books aren’t cupcakes I bake for my kids.”

Behind that bluster lurked a smidgen of fear. I knew how to be a girl, or at least, a Julie girl. As for boys, I only knew how to feed them and yell at them. I feared I’d fail if I tried to inhabit one.

I’ve since determined that whenever I discover a writerly fear in myself – i.e., a conscious awareness that I wouldn’t dare grapple with the artistic challenge of depicting, say, the inner life and longings of a fish, then that is exactly what I need to try next.

Fears are revelations in shabby clothes.

With my sister, illustrator Sally Faye Gardner, as a collaborator, I set out to learn what I knew about boys. What did they like to read about and think about?

A lot of the same things I enjoy. Comic books and superheroes and mayhem and monsters. We threw those ingredients into our mixing pot.

Who are the enemies in a squirmy boy’s world?

Authority figures. The people that make you sit still and eat kale and stop playing with matches. Psychotic mothers like me, in other words. Irate school principals and disgruntled teachers.

(If you’re a teacher, you’re among the chosen. I’m talking about those Other Teachers.)

Monsters. Teachers. Parents.

Step one – eliminate parents via A) bloody death or B) boarding school. We went for B, and that left monsters and teachers to reconcile.

Then the obvious answer stared us in the face. Middle school teachers are monsters who eat kids for breakfast. It’s true, isn’t it? Sally and I went to the same junior high school back in the day. We remember. Write what you know. Speak your truth.

We needed a setup, a reason for our hero to be plucked from normalcy and thrust into the monster school abyss.

At the time, I was engaged in many drawn-out discussions with my local school to help my son with behavior struggles. One option was to consider sending this son to a specialized, out-of-district school. I took a walk one night to de-stress over his situation – and over my deadline to write a new Chapter One.

Once again, a revelation. Life handed me the solution to my creative challenge.

Chapter One became a meeting with the school – my meetings with my school in disguise—where Cody Mack, his clueless parents, and his pompous principal meet to plan his academic fate. Who better to take on Cody’s education than Dr. Archibald Farley, noted neuroscientist, closet vampire, and Headmaster of Splurch Academy for Disruptive Boys?

That illustrated chapter of the meeting with Cody, his parents, his principal, and the vampire sold four books.

The first two Splurch Academy: For Disruptive Boys books, The Rat Brain Fiasco and Curse of the Bizarro Beetle (both Grosset & Dunlap, 2010).

So write what you know. Speak your truth. What you’re living now is what you know now. It will seep into your story anyway, so own it. Mine it.

Once when I had a prolonged respiratory challenge, my protagonist often faced situations that left her feeling she couldn’t breathe. Everywhere, breath had thematic significance. Once when I was on a fitness kick, running appeared everywhere in my draft, on literal and symbolic levels. Far too often my protagonists are notably sleep-deprived.

I write boy characters – or girl characters, or fish characters – who feel real when I write what I know about being alive now, and not what I know about Pokemon and Mario Kart and what it’s like to stand before the pot to go. This is the cupcake I can give my boys.

Good thing, too, since there’s been precious little baking in my house since this writing gig began.

Spooky Notes

Julie Berry grew up in western New York. She holds a B.S. from Rensselaer in communication and an MFA from Vermont College in Writing for Children and Young Adults. She now lives in eastern Massachusetts with her husband and four young sons.

[Cyn Note: she is in no way "frumpy."]

Visit the official Splurch Academy: For Disruptive Boys website, which includes more on the books, updates, events, the scoop on the creative team, links, really nifty activities (Create a Comic!), and contact information.

Widget: Counting Down to Blessed (Candlewick, Jan. 25, 2010)

2011-01-05T08:58:00.003-06:00

Countdown Creator Progreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

Please feel free join me in counting down to Blessed, which crosses over the casts of Tantalize and Eternal. See also the Blessed media kit (PDF). Just click "Get Widget" for the code to embed.

Thanks for your support and enthusiasm!

Welcome to 2011! Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T09:22:00.000-06:00

2011 Books by Austinites compiled by Greg Leitich Smith from GregLSBlog. See also 2010 Books by Austinites! Note: a little love for the home team!

Spooky News, Giveaways & Birthday

2010-12-31T09:14:00.001-06:00

The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction from The New York Times. Insights from Scott Westerfeld, Jay Parini, Andrew Clements, Michelle Ann Abate, Maggie Stiefvater, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Lisa Rowe Fraustino. Note: click author names for individual insights. Source: Jennifer Ziegler.

Scam Proofing Your Writing Career by Jan Fields from Kristi Holl at Writer's First Aid. Peek: "The Internet is like one of those ancient treasure troves you read about in stories. You can find wonderful things there. Or you can hit the booby traps and get squashed flatter than a flitter."

Use Photos on Your Blog and Articles by Kathy Temean from Writing and Illustrating. Peek: "One of the best ways to make your articles look appealing and to hold reader’s attention is to use images to illustrate your work. But where do you find images that you can use without getting into copyright trouble?"

How's Your Query Letter IQ? an interview with Jessica Greene of J.R. Professional Writing Services by Dianne Ochiltree from Kathy Temean at Writing and Illustrating. Peek: "Number one, absolutely no contest, is spelling and punctuation. Surprised?"

Tenners in Eleven: a round-up of 2010-2011 new releases from this dynamic group of new voices by Teri Hall from the Tenners. See also Fall 2010 Flying Starts from Publishers Weekly.

Pathway to Becoming a Bestselling Author by Stina Lindenblatt from QueryTracker.net. Peek (under "agented writers"): "Start working on a new project so if your current book doesn’t sell, you’ll have something new for your agent."

Steampunk: Full Steam Ahead by Heather M. Campbell from School Library Journal. Peek: "Steampunk is both speculative fiction that imagines technology evolved from steam-powered cogs and gears–instead of from electricity and computers–and a movement that fosters a do-it-yourself attitude and a love of beautifully crafted, yet functional, objects." See also Arthur Slade on How to Put the "Steam" in Steampunk.

Spooky Screening Room

Check out the book trailer for The Lost Saint by Bree Despain (Egmont, 2010).

Austin Scene

For those who missed it over the holidays: Arrested Development? Young-at-heart Austin is home to a booming Young Adult literature scene by Melanie Haupt from The Austin Chronicle (cover story). Peek: "In many ways, the wedding of Victorian gothic to Austin's buzzing eclecticism within the context of Young Adult literature – itself a crazy amalgam of genres – is the perfect metaphor for the town itself. And it just so happens that Austin is a literary hotbed for the production and consumption of YA fiction. Austin and YA lit offer something for everyone, from dark, paranormal romances featuring werearmadillos to powerfully realistic portrayals of Southern racism during the Civil Rights movement."

Read in 2010: Austin Writers Recommend Their Favorite Books of the Year from The Austin American-Statesman. Peek from me: "I don't reach for historicals first, but [Y.S. ] Lee's Mary Quinn mysteries--[A Spy in the House (The Agency: Book One) and The Body in the Tower (The Agency: Book Two)(both Candlewick)]--read like lush, romantic fantasies, with plenty of page-turning intrigue and suspense." Note: recommendations from Chris Barton, Varian Johnson, and more.

More Personally

Thank you for all of your enthusiasm and support in 2010! I'm so grateful for the terrific fellowship, insights, and passion for the craft of writing and reading books for young readers. Here's to an even better 2011!

Vampires, Werewolves and Guardian Angels: a review of Blessed (Candlewick, Jan. 25, 2010) by Teri Lesesne AKA Professor Nana from The Goddess of YA Literature. Peek: "Archetypes, motifs, and plenty of references to other vampire literature make this a terrific read for fans of the genre, too. Quincie is no shrinking violet; she is a strong young woman surrounded by danger at every turn. Lots of action and blood and gore balanced nicely with a growing romance between Quincie and Kieren."

Blessed: Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith and Giveaway by Jen Bigheart from I Read Banned Books. Peek: "I feel that her arc makes a fresh and substantive contribution to the literary tradition surrounding the vampire mythology. It calls long accepted metaphors into question, especially as they relate to gender, power, and the ability to be defined by someone else (versus defining yourself)." Giveaway deadline: midnight CST Jan. 9. Scroll for more information.

Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith by Stacey O'Neale from The Young Adult Fantasy Guide. Peek: "It's [Blessed (Candlewick, Jan. 25, 2011)] more romantic and horrific and sexier and has more heart than the previous two books. Quincie is also a far more reliable narrator than she was in Tantalize because she's on the other side of her transformation."

Author Insight: The Significance of Books from Wastepaper Prose and Other Literary Woes. Note: Insights from 30 authors, including me, every upcoming Tuesday and Thursday.

Reminder: Cat Calls by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick, 2010) is now available for free as an e-book from Amazon.com! See more information!

Reminder: you're always welcome leave a comment at Cynsations at LJ. Please also find me at facebook, JacketFlap, Twitter, and YouTube. Check out Greg's news at GregLSBlog.

Even More Personally

Happy Birthday, Cynthia Leitich Smith from Happy Birthday Author: Where Reading and Birthdays Come Together. Peek: "I was born in a snowstorm on New Year's Eve in Kansas City."

Hey, hey, it's my birthday!

And yes, a birthday on New Year's Eve definitely prompts one to evaluate where she is in life.

That's okay! Don't panic. I'm a work in progress.

Much joy and many blessings to you in the new year!

My holiday has been almost entirely spent writing. I'm working on book #4 (still untitled) in the Tantalize series.

Here, you can see the dining room table set for Christmas dinner in the foreground and my work area in the background.

Dinner is turkey, giblet stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, and corn. Dessert was bananas foster, all made by Greg, naturally.

On the 28th, fellow Austinites gathered around that same table for yet another day of writing.

Here's former Austin SCBWI RA Tim Crow with authors Jennifer Ziegler (in white) and Julie Lake (in green). Look for Jenny's Sass and Serendipity in July 2011 from Delacorte.

On the other side of the table, we have Greg with authors April Lurie and Chris Barton. Bethany Hegedus also joined us, a little later in the day. Look for Chris's Can I See Your I.D.? True Stories of False Identities in April 2011 from Dial.

Menu: armadillo eggs, chicken enchiladas, homemade salsa, tortilla chips, tamales, fruit, cranberry apple casserole, chocolate-covered pretzels, and cookies! The armadillo eggs (cream-cheese-stuffed jalapeno peppers, wrapped in bacon) were brought by Tim.

My present from Greg was Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out by Lee Goldberg (Obsidian, 2010). I adore these parallel stories that tie into the series at various points.

In return, I gave Greg Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read by Stanislas Dehaene (Penguin, 2010). From the promotional copy: "The act of reading is so easily taken for granted that we forget what an astounding feat it is. How can a few black marks on white paper evoke an entire universe of meanings? It's even more amazing when we consider that we read using a primate brain that evolved to serve an entirely different purpose. In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene explores every aspect of this human invention, from its origins to its neural underpinnings. A world authority on the subject, Dehaene reveals the hidden logic of spelling, describes pioneering research on how we process languages, and takes us into a new appreciation of the brain and its wondrous capacity to adapt."

Before bed most nights, we revisited favorite movies like "The Princess Bride" (1987), "White Christmas" (1954), and "Oh, God! You Devil" (1984)(I adore George Burns.).

I also fell in love with DreamWork's "How To Train Your Dragon" (2010), which we saw late one evening on DVD. Here's the trailer.

Spooky Events

Save the Date! Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) book party and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin. Read a guest post by Mari on Kids Don't Read Like They Used To...And That's a Good Thing (on connecting books to technology). Don't miss the Night School blog tour!

New Voice: Greg van Eekhout on Kid vs. Squid

2010-12-30T08:32:00.001-06:00

Greg van Eekhout is the first-time author of Kid vs. Squid (Bloomsbury, 2010). From the promotional copy:

The citizens of Atlantis are stuck selling cotton candy on the boardwalk, and only our hero can help.

Thatcher Hill is bored stiff of his summer job dusting the fake mermaids and shrunken heads at his uncle's seaside Museum of Curiosities. But when a mysterious girl steals an artifact from the museum, Thatcher's summer becomes an adventure that takes him from the top of the Ferris wheel to the depths of the sea.

Following the thief, he learns that she is a princess of the lost Atlantis. Her people have been cursed by an evil witch to drift at sea all winter and wash up on shore each summer to an even more terrible fate—working the midway games and food stands on the boardwalk.

Can Thatcher help save them before he, too, succumbs to the witch's curse?

With sharp, witty writing that reads like a middle-grade Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Greg van Eekhout's first book for young readers is a wild ride packed with as many laughs as it has thrills.

How did you discover and get to know your protagonist? How about your secondary characters?

Of all the characters I've written about in various stories, Thatcher, the boy in Kid vs. Squid, was probably the easiest to discover. I actually didn't feel like I was discovering him. It was more like he showed up on the page, already talking, and I just had to listen to him.

His best weapon is his smart alec mouth, and my biggest challenge writing him was getting him to shut up.

But Trudy McGee, who started out as Thatcher's sidekick, kind of threatened to take over the book. She's sort of a detective/superhero, and she's all about solving problems, taking action, throwing fire crackers, whatever it takes to get the job done.

Both characters could dominate a scene, Thatcher with his wisecracks and Trudy with her backpack full of crime-fighting gear. And whenever I had the two of them on the page together, it felt like watching a pair of actors improvise. All I had to do was nudge them along to keep the story moving.

Most of the time, writing doesn't work like that for me, but these two characters made it easy.

Most of the other characters in Kid vs. Squid came about just by imagining who would live in a town cursed by the severed head of a witch from Atlantis. It just made sense that there'd be jellyfish boys riding bikes, and that the king of Atlantis would be working the popcorn stand.

A couple of characters, though, fell in my lap out of real life. I was on the beach one day when this guy walked out of the surf, completely draped in kelp. So much kelp that it looked as if he was made of kelp! So I took that image and made up the evil witch's henchmen, the kelp guys.

Real life is weird!

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

I think most kids start out as fantasy fans, even if the fantasy they're into isn't necessarily Tolkien-style with swords and wizards and eating stew with elves. Dr. Seuss is fantasy. "Toy Story" is fantasy. Spider-Man is fantasy. Most entertainment for kids features an elevated reality in which people have abilities that we don't have in real life or the laws of physics don't resemble what goes on in the real world or animals talk.

That's fantasy.

A walking, talking sea sponge? Total fantasy. So basically, I've been a fantasy fan all my life.

My inspiration comes from so many sources that it's really hard to narrow it down to any particular books, but just off the top of my head, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (Simon & Schuster, 1962) stands out. I like the idea that you don't have to go somewhere else to experience fantasy, that there's weird stuff going on all around us, maybe out in the open, maybe in the shadows, and Bradbury often takes that approach.

Probably, though, the more immediately visible influences on my work are comic books and cheesy '70s and '80s Saturday morning cartoons.

How have you approached the task of promoting your debut book? What online or real-space efforts are you making? Where did you get your ideas? To whom did you turn for support? Are you enjoying the process, or does it feel like a chore? What advice do you have on this front for your fellow debut authors and for those in the years to come?

I'm lucky in that my local indie bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy, has been incredibly supportive. They've had me to the store twice for signings, and they've gotten me on panels at Comic-Con, and they set up my first school visit.

I'm a bit skeptical about the effectiveness of self-promotion, so my approach is just to do things that I enjoy. Answering interview questions is fun. And I like meeting readers face-to-face. So even if turns out that making appearances doesn't have any real measurable impact on my sales, at least I've gotten to meet people who've read my book or might potentially read my book, and that's it's own reward.

Cynsational Notes

Kirkus Reviews cheers, "Drawing together a memorable supporting cast that ranges from a half-human Atlantean princess to a genial shark-man ('Howdy-do. Swim with us to shore or we’ll eat your legs'), van Eekhout chivvies the plot along at a lively pace to a hold-your-breath climax and a deftly choreographed resolution."

School Library Journal cheers, "Van Eekhout carefully balances his tongue in his cheek with some really creepy situations, and the result is a humorous fantasy that will rush over young readers like a tidal wave."

New Voice: Ilsa J. Bick on Draw the Dark

2010-12-29T08:18:00.000-06:00

Ilsa J. Bick is the first-time author of Draw the Dark (Carolrhoda Lab; 2010). From the promotional copy:

There are things the people of Winter, Wisconsin, would rather forget. The year the Nazis came to town, for one. That fire, for another. But what they'd really like to forget is Christian Cage.

Seventeen-year-old Christian's parents disappeared when he was a little boy. Ever since, he's drawn obsessively: his mother's face...her eyes...and what he calls "the sideways place," where he says his parents are trapped. Christian figures if he can just see through his mother's eyes, maybe he can get there somehow and save them.

But Christian also draws other things. Ugly things. Evil things. Dark things. Things like other people's fears and nightmares. Their pasts. Their destiny.

And some things the people of Winter would rather forget—like murder.

But Winter won't be able to forget the truth, no matter how hard it tries. Not as long as Christian draws the dark...

How did you approach the research for your story? What resources did you turn to? What roadblocks did you encounter? How did you overcome them? What was your greatest coup, and how did it inform your manuscript?

I’m going to turn this question around a bit because I think that the research process for any story is reflexive and reflective of history (personal and otherwise) and imagination.

As a child psychiatrist, I’ve always been interested in the sideways place in people’s minds: that hole down cellar where darkness lives. So, for me, researching a story means digging deep, personally and otherwise.

So, some things you need to know:

a) I’m Jewish and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor;

b) I live in rural Wisconsin about a stone’s throw away from an old Hebrew cemetery—which is weird because we’re the only Jewish family in town;

c) A German PW camp once stood about four miles from my house, and was only one of thirty-eight such camps in the state;

d) I think all art tells a story.

A somewhat longer version:

Being Jewish and a survivor’s daughter, I’ve always felt the Holocaust as a kind of background music. Couple that with my move from the East Coast to Wisconsin almost a decade ago—to a place where we are, literally, the only Jews in town. Virtually no one in my village has ever met a Jew.

I remember the first time this older guy found out I was Jewish. First thing out of his mouth: "Hey, I heard Jewish people get buried standing up."

I’m not making this up. To put this in perspective, there used to be about a thousand Jews and several synagogues as late as the 1950s--so many Jews, they called this area, “Little Jerusalem."

But . . . wait a minute. There’s that Hebrew Cemetery just spitting distance from my house. So what’s with that?

So I got curious and unearthed some interesting stuff, which led me a fabulous book, Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WW II Prisoner-of-War Camps by Betty Cowley (Badger Books, 2002). From Ms. Cowley’s work, I learned that prior to 1942 England held several thousand German prisoners of war but became increasingly nervous that Hitler was going to destroy England from the inside-out by air-dropping weapons to all those prisoners. So England asked the U.S. to take the PWs off their hands.

The first PWs started arriving here in 1942. Wisconsin’s Camp McCoy was one of the first Army base camps where captured Germans (and Italians and Japanese) were processed before moving along to other smaller, rural branch camps to ease manpower shortages on farms and in factories.

At its peak, the number of German PWs in the U.S. was about a half-million men. In many towns, especially in the heavily Germanic Midwest, camp officials were deluged with requests from U.S. citizens about German relatives.

Cowley’s book is chock-full of stories about things like German PWs knocking on relatives’ doors or those of German-Americans, only to discover a cousin or uncle or brother in a nearby PW camp.

After the war, many German PWs came back to the U.S.—to these communities—to live.

All that history got me thinking: what would it be like to be Jewish and to live here at that particular time? Here are Germans PWs, soldiers who’ve pretty much wanted to wipe you out, and now they’re just down the road. Your neighbors aren’t unhappy; in fact, they’re thrilled because some of these PWs are relatives or friends.

Think about that.

That’s where my protagonist, Christian Cage, enters: at the intersection of history and imagination and into a story I wanted to tell about darkness, secrets and guilt. (Christian’s name says it all, don’t you think?)

Christian tells his personal story to himself by painting his questions. Sometimes, his darkness freaks him out, but he keeps going and, personally, I think that takes guts. No matter how frightening, I think the journey through the darkness is worth it.

Call the reward insight; call it understanding. Or hope.

How did you go about identifying your editor?

Actually, my editor identified me!

I came up with the idea for this book at a writer’s workshop devoted to crafting queries and synopses. When I got home, I shot out my query and synopsis to a couple editors whom I’d researched pretty heavily in terms of what their houses were putting out and what their personal tastes appeared to be.

One answered immediately and wanted to see the book—which was kind of a trip because I hadn’t yet written the darned thing! So I typed my fingers off for about eight weeks and sent off the resulting book, originally titled "Stalag Winter."

And then I waited. And waited. And waited. And . . .

Well, you know the drill. After about five months of waiting, I contacted her again, only discover that she’d since quit her job.

At around the same time, I stumbled on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and figured, fine, I’ll submit "Stalag Winter." There was no YA category that year, and so I submitted under "mystery," thinking my chances were slim to none.

I mean: a YA paranormal mystery? Hellooo . . .

As it happened, I made it to the semi-finals: the final hundred out of over five thousand entries. So I was pretty stoked; by then, other people had passed on "Stalag Winter," but that was fine. I had another book ready to make the rounds anyway; I figured that I’d mention "Stalag Winter" and the ABNA in the queries. Couldn’t hurt.

I sent out five queries—for a completely different book—on a Sunday afternoon.

By Monday morning, I had five replies, asking for the manuscript. On Wednesday, my fantabulous Carolrhoda Lab editor, Andrew Karre (interview), popped into my email, asking if we could talk. (Uh . . . that would be yes.)

We talked on Friday; Andrew wanted the book; it was kismet.

Andrew is the best kind of editor: one who’s boundlessly energetic, enthusiastic and eager to get under the book’s hood—not to yank out the distributor cap but figure out how the book works and how to make it work better. Above all, Andrew is interested in the writer. He wants to know what makes a writer tick. My kind of guy.

Mind you, though, his was a call for "Sin-Eater," not the book that became Draw the Dark. That book was still in the running for the ABNA. Andrew asked to see every YA I’d written, so I also shot him "Stalag Winter"/Draw The Dark.

Well, he completely flipped and wanted Draw The Dark, too.

All I had to do was lose the contest.

I did, but honestly, I won, big time. At this point, Draw The Dark is the first of three books Carolrhoda will be putting out; the others are Sin-Eater and Sweet.

I can say, with complete honesty, that I really look forward to working with Andrew on all these projects and many more.

Happy Holidays...

2010-12-24T08:11:00.004-06:00

from My House to Yours!

Cat Calls E-Book by Cynthia Leitich Smith Now Available for Free

2010-12-23T08:39:00.000-06:00

Cat Calls by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick, 2010) is now available for free as an e-book from Amazon.com!

Cat Calls is set in the Tantalize series universe and features entirely new characters. Here's a peek:

Tiffany's grandma sees something wild in her future -- but is Tiffany prepared for the powerful shape it will take?

I’m what people call “a late bloomer.”

This May, not long after my sixteenth birthday, I finally started my period for the first time and shifted from blah to bombshell overnight.

For me, it was a relief.

My mom, on the other hand, had a full-scale panic attack. Before you could say “Xanax,” she packed me up and shipped me off to my grandmother, who at the time was predicting the future in Missouri off I-35.

Cynsational Notes

Tiff is claws-down the sassiest point-of-view character I've ever written, and this story radiates "animal" in a fierce, sexy, mind-bending kind of way.

Amazon.com tends to be the first online retailer to roll out new e-releases, but as the book becomes available at other outlets, I'll update you on that information. If you want it now, though, you should order here.

"Cat Calls" was originally published as a short story in Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists and Other Matters Odd and Magical, edited by Deborah Noyes (Candlewick, 2009).

It also will be featured at the back of the Blessed (Candlewick, Jan. 25, 2011) e-book.

Spooky News, Cat Calls (free e-book) Release, Blessed Giveaway

2010-12-23T08:26:00.003-06:00

2010 Trends and Industry Predictions by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and Ally Carter from Jennifer. Peek: "High concept historical fiction might be poised to make a move if, like paranormal, it has a mix of commercial elements. From crime-fighting flappers to Austenian assassins, historical might be a very interesting place to be in 2011 and beyond."

I Got the Call! Um, Now What? by Jennifer Laughran from Jennifer Represents. Peek: "Let the other agents who are considering your work know that you have an offer. Give them a few days or a week to read and respond."

Should You Post Your Writing Online? by Mary Kole from Kidlit.com. Peek: "Even though most editors and agents don’t like to work with previously published material, whether posted online or self-published, a short sample on your blog may not be enough to put them off your project. (Careful, though, as individual policies here do vary greatly.)"

Listen. Listen. by Jane Lebak from QueryTracker.net Blog. Peek: "For Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate, give yourself the gift of believing you have something important to say."

Triaging Rejection Pain by Laurie Halse Anderson from The Debutante Ball. Peek: "Maybe you say prayers, or light candles, or visit shrines like Mark Twain’s house and leave small offerings of cigars and pots of ink. And then you wait."

Interview with Robin Wasserman by Debbi Michiko Florence from One Writer's Journey. Peek: "...you just have to keep reminding yourself that you have no control over how a book is received by the world. The only part of the publishing process that writers actually have control over is the writing. And I've found that focusing on that makes for a much saner Robin."

Dealing with Rejection by Mary Kole from Kidlit.com. Peek: "...cast off your unsuccessful projects and work on something else. Focus on your craft. Plod along toward mastery."

A Case for Villains by Danyelle from QueryTracker.net Blog. Peek: "No villain=no conflict=no plot=no point."

Developing Your Writer's Intuition by Angela Ackerman from Adventures in Children's Publishing. Peek: "Trust your intuition and if you think there's a problem, get some fresh eyes and opinions. You only get one chance to impress, so send out your best."

Bibliography of 2011 Children's-YA Books By/About People of Color from Color Online.

Mini Writing Conference -- 6 1/2 Lists of Advice from Editors, Agents, Authors and a Really Cool Kid from Donna Gephart at Wild About Words.

SCBWI Team Blog Interview with Art Directory Lucy Ruth Cummins by Jaime from CocoaStomp. Peek: "Often if I'm totally 'in the zone' working on a book, I'll have a hard time checking out the moment the whistle blows. Really flowing with a project is such a wonderful feeling, and squandering that flow is something I try never to do."

Writers Links: Promotion: a round-up of ideas, tips, and resources from Children's & YA Lit Resources.

New Blessed Interview & Giveaway

Chatting with Cynthia Leitich Smith & Blessed ARC Giveaway by Chris Eboch from The Spectacle. The full scoop on my YA Gothic fantasy series, how Stephen King scared me, the challenges of writing speculative fiction, connecting with a publisher, reaching readers, the sci-fi/fantasy world I'd want to live in, my favorite actors, and my feelings about Aquaman.

Comment for a chance to win an ARC of Blessed (Candlewick, Jan. 25, 2011)!

See also the Blessed media kit (PDF). See also Chris's blog Write Like a Pro! A Free Online Writing Workshop.

Cat Calls: Free E-book Release

Cat Calls by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick, 2010) is now available for free as an e-book from Amazon.com!

As additional online retailers make the e-book available, I'll update you with that information.

"Cat Calls" was originally published as a short story in Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists and Other Matters Odd and Magical, edited by Deborah Noyes (Candlewick, 2009).

More Personally

Link of the Week: One of the Many Reasons I Love My Agent, Ginger Knowlton by Debbie Ridpath Ohi from Inkygirl.com: Daily Diversions for Writers. Note: Ginger is my agent too.

I'm spending this holiday in deadline mode, but here's a peek at the tree.

And here's my before-Christmas present from Santa Claus AKA my Candlewick editor, Deborah Wayshak--my first author's copy of Blessed (Candlewick, Jan. 25, 2011).

Giveaway Reminder

Enter to win a illustrator-autographed copy of Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten? by Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Daniel Jennewein (Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins, 2011)! The book will include a customized drawing--the winner can pick the buffalo's pose!

To enter, email me (scroll and click envelope) and type "Buffalo" in the subject line. Facebook, JacketFlap, MySpace, and Twitter readers are welcome to just privately message or comment me with the name in the header/post; I'll write you for contact information, if you win. Deadline: Dec. 31. Sponsored by the illustrator; world-wide entries.

Spooky Events

Jessica Lee Anderson will speak on seven things she's learned through her publishing journey...using songs at the Austin SCBWI monthly meeting at 11 a.m. Jan. 15 at BookPeople in Austin. Read an interview with Jessica and P.J. Hoover.

Save the Date! Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) book party and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin. Read a guest post by Mari on Kids Don't Read Like They Used To...And That's a Good Thing (on connecting books to technology). Don't miss the Night School blog tour!

A Cacophony of Conference Contests from Austin SCBWI in conjunction with Books, Boots, and Buckskin, the chapter's regional conference on Feb. 18 and Feb. 19. Note: includes drawings for saved seats and both author/manuscript and illustrator/portfolio critiques.

New Voice: Shaun David Hutchinson on The Deathday Letter

2010-12-21T08:56:00.002-06:00

Shaun David Hutchinson is the first-time author of The Deathday Letter (Simon Pulse, 2010). From the promotional copy:

Carpe Mortediem!

Ollie can’t be bothered to care about anything but food, girls, and games until he gets his Deathday Letter and learns he’s going to die in twenty-four hours. Bummer.

Ollie does what he does best: nothing.

Then his best friend convinces him to live a little, and go after Ronnie, the girl who recently trampled his about-to-expire heart. Ollie turns to carloads of pudding and over-the-top declarations, but even playing the death card doesn’t work. All he wants is to set things right with the girl of his dreams.

It’s now or never....

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? What advice do you have for beginning writers struggling with plot?

I'll tell you a secret: I suck at plot. Maybe that's not the sort of thing a writer should admit. It's like an accountant admitting that he sucks at math. But it's the truth. Plots are my weak point.

I don't think writers are either plotters or plungers. Instead I think we all fall on a spectrum somewhere. We all begin in the same place, groping about in the dark with naught but a lamp to guide our way. The only real difference is that some people have a much brighter light. Some writers can see a story from beginning to end before they write a single word, whereas some writers' lights are barely bright enough to illuminate their shoes.

My light is pretty dim. Generally, when an idea comes to me, I know two things: the beginning and the end. For instance, with The Deathday Letter, I began with Ollie. I knew his story began in bed on the last day of his life, and I knew that it ended 24 hours later with his death.

The rest of the story had to be uncovered one slow step at a time.

For me, it's like exploring. Like a Chose Your Own Adventure book. Sometimes I take a left when I should have taken a right and I end up having to delete huge chunks of work, but that's the fun of it for me. Not knowing what's coming next is how I stay engaged for so long.

I do have a notebook where I'll write scene ideas, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'll ever use them. I let every scene inform the ones that come after. I find that if I outline first, it traps me, boxes me in and takes away my ability to explore. If something unexpected happens, I like having the freedom to follow that new event to its logical conclusion.

The downside to this is that, if you're like me and suck at plotting, you can end up with a story that doesn't quite work. One that you have to heavily revise. This is where the plotters with their bright flashlights have the advantage. They have the ability to see those inconsistencies prior to writing the first draft. But hey, that's what revising is for.

After my first draft, I become an outlining fiend. I have this crazy spreadsheet a friend gave me, that I use to break down every scene by character and location. It's crazy but allows me to get into the nuts and bolts of the story.

To beginning writers who are maybe struggling with these issues: listen to what works, ignore the rest. You heard me right. There are a thousand voices telling newbie writers how to do this and how to do that. Most of them are wrong...for you.

I've heard the amazing Hannah Moskowitz, author of Break (Simon Pulse, 2009), finishes a first draft in a week, writing mostly in front of the television. Most people will tell you she's nuts, but it works for her and she's pretty genius in my book.

So when it comes to plotting or plunging or going bat-poop crazy on some blank paper, I say flick on your flashlight, see how far you can see, and forge your own path through the dark.

If it works for you, then it's the right way to do it.

As a comedic writer, how do you decide what's funny? What advice do you have for those interested in either writing comedies or books with a substantial amount of humor in them?

There's a secret to being funny. Want to hear it?

Okay, here it is: don't try to be funny. That's it.

Go forth and make people laugh now.

Okay, seriously, I don't know anything about how to be funny. I don't actually consider myself a funny guy. Ask my brother, he'll tell you how lame I am. But I suppose that's not the answer anyone wants. So here's what I've learned.

First, you can't try to be funny. Every time I've ever written a joke, it's fallen flat. Jokes can't be forced, they have to come organically from a situation. For me, that's the biggest rule. Sure, you can do things to enhance a funny situation, but everyone can tell when you manufacture one.

The other thing you have to do is be prepared to to be humiliated. You can't be self-conscious if you're going to be funny.

What does that mean? It means that you better be able to handle the idea of your mom reading a book filled with crazy euphemisms for boy parts. It means going there. To that place that other writers won't go. It means being open and raw and honest even when it hurts.

One of the best examples of this, in my opinion, is Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner (Random House, 2007). In titular character Shakespeare Shapiro, Wizner created a gut-crushingly honest teen that made me laugh harder than I'd laughed in just about forever. And that's because Wizner doesn't pull any punches.

This goes back to some great advice I learned from reading Stephen King's book, On Writing (Scribner, 2000): Be honest.

What Wizner gives us (and what you must also give, if you're going to write a comedy) is one hundred percent of your soul. You have to be willing to be honest with yourself and draw from your most humiliating moments, if you're going to make people laugh.

It's a painful but rewarding process.

The difference between those who write drama and those who write comedy is ugliness. Comedic writers embrace the ugly in everything.

Kissing, for instance. Open up most dramatic books and you'll find the tentative first kiss between two lovers. It's beautiful and sweet and tender. It's magic. And it's also bull.

I don't know about you, but my first kiss was nothing like that.

Mine was in the parking lot of a grocery store. I was hot and my breath smelled like Doritos and she was wearing too much make up. I remember thinking that her tongue tasted like bologna and kind of made my skin crawl. The steam from our breath made my nose wet and it felt like snot. When we were done, I slipped a dollar into her Salvation Army bucket and went back into the grocery store to finish my shift.

Not the stuff dreams are made of. But possibly funny.

As a person who writes the funny, I embrace the ugliness of my first kiss. I milk it for its tragic awkwardness. And I'm not embarrassed to share it with you. If you want to write comedy, these are the things you have to do.

Also, you have to be prepared for people who won't think you're funny.

Humor is highly subjective. People might laugh at the story of my first kiss because they've had similar, cringe-inducing experiences. But maybe there's someone out there whose every kiss has been fairy-tale magic wrapped up in candy-cane bows. Without a similar experience to draw from, that person might read my story and simply think me a sad, sorry individual. But that's the risk you take.

I knew when I sold Deathday that the high proportion of boy-oriented jokes might be a turn-off to some female readers, but it was a risk worth taking, and if you want to be funny you'll have to take similar risks.

Comedy is like love: you can't force it. You just have to be open to it, ready for it, and prepared for total humiliation. I may not know anything about being funny, but I know a heck of a lot about being embarrassed.

Spooky Notes

Check out The Deathday Letter website, read chapter one (PDF), and learn more about Shaun from Simon & Schuster. Visit him at facebook and his tweet deck.

Spooky News & Giveaways

2010-12-17T09:08:00.000-06:00

Enter today to win the Cynthia Leitich Smith Grand Prize Giveaway from Book Club as part of Book Club's 31 Days of Giveaways!

The prize is:

a signed Blessed (Candlewick, Jan. 2011) ARC;

Quincie's Chicago-themed road trip journal (lined for your own notes);

and a plush toy bat with purple ears and bow tie!

To enter, you'll need to surf to the immediately preceding link answer the following questions:

(1) In the 2003 movie "Elf," what are the four main food groups that elves stick to?

(2) What did I give you last Christmas, that the very next day, you gave it away? (Hint: The name of of the carol is in the question.)

(3) Rudolf the red nose reindeer was made fun of by the other reindeer until what happened?

Surf over to answer in the comments section of today's prize post at Crissi's Blog. The winner will be randomly selected from the correct answers and awarded within 24 hours.

Good luck, and happy holidays!

See also a Cynsations interview with Cristina Brandao on Book Club at facebook. Note: Book Club is currently 12,516 members strong.

More News & Giveaways

What Children's Publishers Are Doing in the Apps Space: Houses Are Testing, Experimenting by Rachel Deahl from Publishers Weekly. Peek: "Bloomsbury is creating its first app this season, based on Carrie Jones’s YA paranormal romance series Need. A spokesperson for the house said the planned release date for the app is December, to coincide with the publication of the third book in the series, Entice (2010)." Source: Alice Pope's SCBWI Blog.

Congratulations to Paul B. Janeczko on the success of The Dark Game: True Spy Stories (Candlewick, 2010)! From the promotional copy: "Ever since George Washington used them to help topple the British, spies and their networks have helped and hurt America at key moments in history." The Dark Game is a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults and Booklist said: "With well-chosen subjects (including many women and African Americans who used their marginalized positions to gather information) and contagious enthusiasm for the spy world's 'tantalizing mysteries,' this makes a strong choice for both avid and reluctant readers alike."

Re-submissions and Re-querying: Yes or No? by Stina Lindenblatt from QueryTracker. Peek: "What should you do if you’ve queried an agent with sample pages, but by the time they’ve request the partial or full, you’ve made substantial changes to those pages?"

Figment Looks to Attract Young Writers from Publishers Weekly. Peek: "Founded by New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear and former New Yorker managing editor Jacob Lewis, Figment.com is an online writing community aimed at attracting a membership of young people, ranging from kids to teens and older, to post, share and comment on each other’s original writing. Launched this week...." Note: I've had the opportunity to visit with Jacob on a couple of occasions and have participated in a couple of pre-launch activities on the system.

Interview with Robin McKinley on Pegasus (Putnam, 2010) by Parker Peevyhouse from The Spectacle. Peek: "I did realise [sic] that something the size of pegasi either had hollow bones or some magic to allow them to fly at all, but that kind of explanation or confirmation tends to come later in the story-telling process."

What To Expect When You're...On Submission by Elizabeth Fama from Crowe's Nest. Peek: "When your agent tells you the names of the editors on your submission list, it’s a little like learning that you’re pregnant.'"

New Agent Alert: Brianne Mulligan of Movable Type Literary Group by Chuck Sambuchino from Guide to Literary Agent's Editor's Blog. Peek: seeking "high-concept YA and middle grade fiction."

Books, Boots & Buckskin: 2011 Austin Regional SCBWI Conference Contest from ARA Carmen Oliver from Following My Dreams. Prizes include saved front-row seats. Deadline: Feb. 1. Note: conference dates are Feb. 18 and Feb. 19 at St. Edward's University in Austin; see more information.

Cover Stories: Matched by Ally Condie from Melissa Walker. Peek: "The dress is beautiful and has significance to the story, as does the bubble/glass world and the color green." Peek: "Matched was just named #1 on the Winter 2010-2011 Kid's Indie Next List. "

Too Many Cooks - How Do You Handle Conflicting Critiques? by Mary Lindsey from QueryTracker. Peek: "First, as with all criticism, do not take it personally or you cannot objectively evaluate the input. Then, consider the source. How well do you know this person? What are his/her qualifications?"

2010 YA Books Central Reader's Choice Nominations from YABC. Peek: "This year, YABC is hosting our own Reader's Choice Awards for 2010! We'll be collecting your nominations until Sunday, Dec. 19. Then, on Monday the 20th, we'll open the voting for your favorites...." Note: picture book, middle grade, and YA author and book categories. Go nominate!

What Makes a Great First Page? by Alvina Ling from Blue Rose Girls. Peek: "I can definitely gauge how talented a writer is based on the first page. In fact, because authors know the first page is so important, they tend to spend a lot of time revising that first page (if they're smart!)."

GregLSBlog Favorites of 2010 from Greg Leitich Smith. Note: book pics from picture books through YA. Here's a peek (above) at his middle grade choices.

World Building Through Character by Anna Staniszewski from annastan. Peek: "Build as you go, allowing your characters to lead you."

Whether to Give Up on a Project by Jennifer R. Hubbard from writerjenn. Peek: "Sometimes the magic leaves a project. We don't get to the ending, or maybe we don't get to turn that early draft into the book it could be."

Where Do I Go From Here?: 3 Literary Agents, 3 Opinions: a one-day workshop from Andrea Cascardi of Transatlantic Literary Agency, Anna Olswanger of Liza Dawson Associates, and Ann Tobias of A Literary Agency for Children's Books from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 6 at The New York Open Center, 22 East 30th Street, New York NY 10016. (This event is not affiliated with The New York Open Center.) Fee: $295.00 to February 6, $325.00 thereafter (lunch included). Group size is limited; previous workshops have sold out.

Lindsey Scheibe: new blog from an Austin-based YA writer, represented by Mandy Hubbard of D4E0 Literary Agency. Peek: "For now, I hope to put up three blogs each week. One personal. One writing focused. One highlighting writing related blogs or sites that I admire and find enlightening." More about Lindsey: "She volunteered with Makarios the past two years, as well as visited their missionary school in the Dominican Republic where they service Haitian and Dominican children."

Do What You Do Well by Brian Yansky from Brian's Blog - Writer Talk. Peek: "The truth was maybe one or two could write beautiful prose (and this was in a large group of talented writers). Most just didn’t have that gift. But instead of struggling to develop what gifts they did have they got caught up on language because that was what all the teachers praised most."

Cynsational Screening Room

Check out the book trailer for Shadow Hills by Anastasia Hopcus (Egmont, 2010). Anna lives in Austin, Texas; and Shadow Hills is her debut novel.

Austin Scene

Austin SCBWI members gathered last week at Opal Divine's Marina for fajitas and holiday cheer.

Author-illustrator Don Tate with illustrator Erik Kuntz.

Authors Jessica Lee Anderson and Margo Rabb.

More Personally

I'm honored to announce that my essay, "Isolation," will appear in Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories, edited by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones (HarperTeen, fall 2011). A percentage of the book's proceeds will go to a national anti-bullying program. See also Anthology to Compile Authors' Personal Stories About Bullying by Sally Lodge from Publishers Weekly.

Cynthia Leitich Smith: Children's Book Author Interview by Aaron Mead from Children's Books and Reviews. Note: I talk about my writing, life on line, and offer advice to beginners. Peek: "A picture book is like a puzzle, getting just the right combination of words and elements. A novel is more like an endurance trek, uphill in the rain, carrying a rhino on your back. I love both."

Great Gifts for the Paranormal Romantic by Madeline from BookKids at BookPeople in Austin. Suggestions include Tantalize (Candlewick, 2007, 2008) and Eternal (Candlewick, 2009, 2010) and more by other nifty YA fantasy authors.

Thanks also to Katiebuggy129 for this writing project video on Eternal! Cynsational readers--I love the songs and comments! Great voice and humor! Wow!

And the Christmas train is chugging around the kitchen table.

Link of the Week: Bags get bookish: 'intellectual' clutch bags by Olympia Le-Tan from Fashion Telegraph. Source: April Henry.

Please note that I'm in the deadline cave and restrain from sending any non-critical messages.

Spooky Events

Save the Date! Joint Launch Party: Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick) and Night School by Mari Mancusi (Berkley) book party and signing at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at BookPeople in Austin. Read a guest post by Mari on Kids Don't Read Like They Used To...And That's a Good Thing (on connecting books to technology). Don't miss the Night School blog tour!

Eternal Trailer by YA Reader Midnight Machiko

2010-12-16T08:00:00.001-06:00

Color me blown away by YA reader Midnight Machiko's book project video on my YA Gothic fantasy Eternal (Candlewick, 2009, 2010)!

Check out the art, music, emotion! I don't think I could love it more. I don't even think that's possible. How about you?

Feel free to comment at Cynsations LJ.