Spooky News

On the Act of Writing by Cate Tiernan from Teenreads.com. Peek: "I’m trying to interpret the world around me (and the world inside me), and I’m trying to express that in a way that others will understand, and perhaps come to see themselves in, at least a little bit."

Habits of a Working Writer by Kristi Holl from Writer's First Aid. Peek: "You must begin to think like a writer–and that will lead you to acting like a writer. Then you’ll build the habits of a writer–and eventually you will get to enjoy the benefits of being a writer."

Reading Aloud: An Effective Editorial Tool by Mary Lindsey from QueryTracker.net. Peek: "The human mind compensates for errors. When reading, mistakes are missed because the brain anticipates patterns and corrects inconsistencies automatically. Reading out loud forces the reader to slow the rate, which helps identify errors."

The Pirate Code of Children's Literature by Stacy Whitman, Editorial Director, Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Peek: "A lot of editors will suggest that you make your protagonist a year or two older than your anticipated reader. Kids older or younger might read and love the book, but the targeted reader is probably in a narrow age band."

This is Why You Always Meet Your Deadlines by Eric from Pimp My Novel. Peek: "...this business is slow enough as-is, so as debut writers who always want to make the best of impressions, it's in your collective best interest to get your manuscripts and revisions delivered on time." Source: Elizabeth Scott.

Interview with Newbery Honor Author Kathi Appelt from Bobbi Miller. Peek: "I’ve begun to consider fantasy in a larger sweep — including tall tales, folk tales, superhero stories, magical realism, etc."

How to Deal with Contradictory Query Advice from Nathan Bransford. Peek: "Consider the source, consider the freshness of the advice, and beware of anyone who tries to tell you that there's one way and only one way to find successful publication."

SLJ's Trailie Awards Asks Readers to Vote for Their Favorite Book Trailer by SLJ staff from School Library Journal. Peek: "Voters must select the best video in six categories: publisher/author created for elementary readers (PreK-6); publisher/author created for secondary readers (7-12 grade); student created for elementary readers (PreK-6 grade); student created for secondary readers (7-12 grade); adult (anyone over 18) created for elementary readers (PreK-6 grade); and adult created for secondary readers (7-12 grade)."

Creating Your Main Character by Cynthia Watson from Carolyn Kaufman at QueryTracker.net. Peek: "Does my main character behave logically, i.e., does he have common sense, worthy goals readers can relate to?"

Tweet Round-up by Alice Pope from Alice Pope's SCBWI Market Guide. Note: terrific list; well worth a careful read through. See also 12 Ways to Create Suspense by Gail Carson Levine from Ingrid's Notes.

Author Guest Post: Kimberley Griffiths Little on the Book Trailer for The Healing Spell (Scholastic, 2010) from Jess at The Cozy Reader. Peek: "Nua Music wrote the original music for the trailer and created the sound design as well as doing final work on all the images to make them match in color and texture as well as producing the video and doing the opening and ending images, credits, etc." Note: Scholastic is offering the full song as a free download. Listen to "Treater Woman," and learn more about The Healing Spell.

The Importance of Sitting in One Place and Reading by Craig A. Platt from Art Bystander. Peek: "I am reading. My mouth slightly bitter from the drink I am enjoying. This is a true feeling of calm." Source: @Candlewick.

Cynsational Screening Room

Check out the book trailer for Halo by Alexandra Adornetto (Feiwel and Friends, 2010). Note: from Alexandra's bio Alexandra Adornetto was fourteen when she published her first book, The Shadow Thief, in Australia.... Alex lives in Melbourne, Australia; Halo marks her U.S. debut. "



Watch this video interview with author Alexandra Adornetto, age 18, from Macmillan Children's.



Reminder: The launch party for Brains for Lunch: A Zombie Novel in Haiku?! by K.A. (Kari) Holt, illustrated by Gahan Wilson (Roaring Brook, 2010) will be at 2 p.m. Sept. 12 at BookPeople in Austin. See also Kari's rundown of the awesome things that will be happening Sunday (including, but not limited to: giant floating ice brains, Kari: zombified).



More Personally

Happy belated anniversary to my very cute husband and sometimes co-author Greg Leitich Smith. I woke up to these roses on Saturday morning. Note: earlier this week, he announced the sale of his next novel, The Chronal Engine: Ahead of Time, to Clarion (2012); see more information.


What else? I'm pleased to announce that Turkish language editions of Tantalize and Eternal will be published by Artemis Yayinlari in Istanbul.

My favorite quirky link this week is The Alphabet Carved in Pencil Leads from jama rattigan's alphabet soup.

How They Do It: Guest Blogger Cynthia Leitich Smith on Process from Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story. Peek: "I do still exchange manuscripts with...Greg Leitich Smith. We met as first-year law students, and we're much more direct with each other than we'd ever be with anyone else. Imagine receiving a manuscript marked, 'No way is this going out of the house with the family name on it.'"

Holiday Catch-up

For those who may have missed a post or two over the Labor Day weekend:


Web Designer Update: Lisa Firke on the Redesign of www.cynthialeitichsmith.com from Cynsations. Peek: "One of the more subtle ways I’ve tried to distinguish between your role as author and your role as curator of the literature resources is the horizon line in the masthead image."

New Voice: Inara Scott on Delcroix Academy: The Candidates (Hyperion, 2010) from Cynsations. Peek: "I did not originally connect the events in my novel with current events. I wanted to challenge the dualistic paradigm usually seen in fantasy novels because I found that fascinating, not because of any particular issue in the real world. Yet at the same time...." See also Cover Stories: Inara Scott on Delcroix Academy from Melissa Walker.

And finally, I posted some pics of a party at my house in honor of Anne Bustard's and Lindsey Lane's recent completion of their MFA degrees in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Anne and Lindsey graduated in the July 2010 class. Both are published picture book authors.

Illustrators Mary Sullivan (in black and red) and C.A. "Christy" Stallop (in black and denim) chat in the foreground while illustrator Erik Kuntz and VCFA grad and author Lindsey Lane visit in the background.

Spooky Events


The Smart Chicks Kick It Tour begins in Austin with authors Kelley Armstrong, Melissa Marr, Alyson Noel, Holly Black, Rachel Caine and Cassandra Clare at 7 p.m. Sept. 13 at BookPeople. See the whole schedule from Mary E. Pearson.

Clarion To Publish The Chronal Engine: Ahead of Time by Greg Leitich Smith

Breaking news!

Clarion Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) will publish The Chronal Engine: Ahead of Time by Greg Leitich Smith (2012). Greg describes the book as a "mystery-adventure, time-travel novel."

From Publishers Marketplace, "Using their reclusive grandfather's time machine, a trio of contemporary teens travel to the Age of the Dinosaurs to solve a family mystery and rescue their sister..."

Cynsational Notes

Congratulations, Greg! I know better than anyone the extraordinary research and storytelling that has gone into this novel. I can hardly wait until it's time to share it with young readers!

Cynsational readers, please feel free to surf by and offer greetings and/or cheers at Greg's blog! (You can also subscribe to his blog at its LiveJournal syndication).

Web Designer Update: Lisa Firke on the Redesign of www.cynthialeitichsmith.com

Learn more about Lisa Firke of Hit Those Keys.

Thank you so much for redesigning my official author site! Could you give folks new to it a brief overview, from a web designer's perspective, of the monstrous beast that it is?

Sure! Well, just in terms of literal size, at last count, your site contained nearly 2000 files, including 377 html pages, 978 images, and nearly 8,400 external links. I have to be very consistent in how I place files within the site, and the conventions I use for naming files and such, just to keep things from becoming too chaotic.

And you, in your instructions to me for updates, have evolved a very clear and careful way of indicating where changes and additions are needed. (I now teach all my new clients to indicate what changes they’d like using the format you do.)

If we didn’t work in this methodical way, we’d both have gone nuts by now.

(And, I think if we’d both known, when we first dived in six years ago, just how big the site would become, we might have opted for a more robust content-management system--and that’s something that we may still have to think about in the future--but curating it by hand has let us keep things totally custom and that’s had its advantages.)

Going in, we talked about the dualities of the site--both as an author home base and a children's-YA literature resource, and even under that author umbrella, in representing someone who offers books for both kids and teens. How did you represent the dual (quad?) goals of the site?

Well, first a tad more background: this is our third iteration of the site, and each iteration has had slightly different goals, even though all along the dualities you mention has been a major concern.

For the first iteration that launched in 2005, the major goals of the redesign were to make your large collection of resources easier to discover and navigate, to upgrade the underlying code, and, most of all, to make the site as smart and hip as you are yourself!

In 2008, for the tenth anniversary of the site, we revisited the design again. The graphics were streamlined and we were able to play much more with the site visually because of the way web technologies had advanced. I was able to incorporate more imagery and animation.

Now, in 2010, the site has undergone a more profound visual transformation.

To put the focus more on you, Cynthia, I created a digital portrait (based on a photograph) and combined this with the daisy-sun graphic (now in its most streamlined form to date) that we'd been using all along. Links to key destinations within the site are highlighted in the new masthead.

One of the more subtle ways I’ve tried to distinguish between your role as author and your role as curator of the literature resources is the horizon line in the masthead image.

The masthead shows you against a flat landscape with a large sun beginning to dip below the horizon. All the links pertaining your works as an author are above this horizon line, while the links to separate resources and information fall below the line (as does the tagline about the site being the home of the children’s and YA literature resources.) That’s one way of indicating some separation in the different parts of the site.

For a bit of extra fun, when visitors browse to the pages dedicated to your work for teens, we 'turn out the lights' on the graphics for a striking after-dark effect.


As ever, the discovery and navigation of the content—making these as simple and graceful as possible —has driven most of my design decisions.

What were the challenges?

With such a big site, with such varied content, and with a visitor not necessarily beginning their exploration at the front page of the site, letting people know where they are and what exactly “there” is becomes really important. And with so many choices of where to go, how much is too much to show at once?

I approached this challenge by making the question part of the design. When you land on a page, the navigation accordion in the sidebar opens to show what section this page is in.

This is reinforced by a background color in the submenu, by the words “you are here” and by the current page being highlighted in bold.

Also, to keep things more focused, we now show only the links in one particular section at a time (rather than for the entire site), and provide links back to the beginning and to the full site map for when a visitor has finished exploring one area and is ready to see something else.

(The trade-off here is that it is a little harder to skip around, but I think the focus we gain is worth it.)

Another challenge came with trying to make changes to a design we both liked, but which was beginning to date itself. Plus, of late, your books are being published internationally. So, I did look to some European designers for inspiration--not to copy, but to help refresh my vision.

Interestingly, though, the inspiration for this design actually came from something very American--the kitchy tourist postcards of the mid 20th century and the oversimplified use of color in paint-by-numbers kits of the same period.

That was what led me to the style you see now, which I think ends up being very fresh.

What were the rewards?

It’s funny, whenever I dive deep into cynthialeitichsmith.com, I find myself reading, making notes on books I haven’t yet read, and appreciating the community of people who make books. The content of the site is very inspiring.

Did you have any ah-ha! moments that stood out?

I need to stop telling people that I can do things quickly. Clearly, I can’t. But I did learn some things about not getting in my own way.

Also, that it’s worth stopping to clear small technical irritations out of the way even when that feels like a halt in forward progress. I did a fair amount of digital housekeeping behind the scenes this time around, and I can already tell that my process is smoother and more pleasant as a result.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

Just that I appreciate the way you let me follow my own lights as I work. You trust me to keep the site’s interests in mind and that frees me up to do some really exciting things with it.

Cynsational Notes

Thanks, again and again, Lisa, for your vision, creativity, and technical magical making!

Learn more about Lisa Firke of Hit Those Keys.

New Voice: Inara Scott on Delcroix Academy: The Candidates

Inara Scott is the first-time author of Delcroix Academy: The Candidates (Hyperion, 2010). From the promotional copy:

Dancia Lewis is far from popular. And that's not just because of her average grades or her less-than-glamorous wardrobe.

In fact, Dancia's mediocrity is a welcome cover for her secret: whenever she sees a person threatening someone she cares about, things just...happen. Cars skid. Structures collapse. Usually someone gets hurt.

So Dancia does everything possible to avoid getting close to anyone, believing this way she can suppress her powers and keep them hidden.

But when recruiters from the prestigious Delcroix Academy show up in her living room to offer her a full scholarship, Dancia's days of living under the radar may be over.

Only, Delcroix is a school for diplomats' kids and child geniuses--not B students with uncontrollable telekinetic tendencies. So why are they treating Dancia like she's special? Even the hottest guy on campus seems to be going out of his way to make Dancia feel welcome.

And then there's her mysterious new friend Jack, who can't stay out of trouble. He suspects something dangerous is going on at the Academy and wants Dancia to help him figure out what. But Dancia isn't convinced. She hopes that maybe the recruiters know more about her "gift" than they're letting on. Maybe they can help her understand how to use it....

But not even Dancia could have imagined what awaits her behind the gates of Delcroix Academy.

What were you like as a young reader, and how did that influence the book that you're debuting this year?

I was, and likely always will be, a devout reader of romance and fantasy. I lived for stories of dashing heroes and heroines; larger than life figures who saved the world, found a love for all time, and lived happily ever after. I wanted big, unrealistic stories that took me away from real life and transported me to a magical place.

Of course, that also meant I didn’t enjoy much of what I read in school. I found “literature” was usually code for stories that were realistic and depressing.

Because of this, I didn’t major in English and Creative Writing. I didn’t think I could be a “real” writer because I didn’t love the books that were considered “good literature.”

Instead, I went to law school where I could indulge my love of writing in settings where brevity and story were valued above all else.

Eventually, though, my love of fiction won out. I wrote my first novel (a romance that will never see the light of day!) in 2005 and have been writing ever since.

Now, all you lovers of literature, don’t despair! I’m not anti-intellectual, and I love the way a good book can raise important issues and make you question your assumptions about the world. In fact, I wanted to do just that in my novel, Delcroix Academy: The Candidates. I simply wanted to do it in the context of romance, fantasy, and a great story.

As a fantasy writer, going in, did you have a sense of how events/themes in your novel might parallel or speak to events/issues in our real world? Or did this evolve over the course of many drafts?

I did not originally connect the events in my novel with current events. I wanted to challenge the dualistic paradigm usually seen in fantasy novels because I found that fascinating, not because of any particular issue in the real world.

Yet at the same time I was writing the novel, the “war on terror” was escalating, protests against the Iraq War were growing, and domestic surveillance activities were increasing.

By the time I finished the book, the focus of the nation seemed to have turned on exactly the sorts of issues that Dancia encountered at Delcroix Academy.

Coincidence? Probably not. I don’t see how any writer can fail to be influenced by the zeitgeist of her time. But it was an unconscious evolution, rather than a conscious attempt to work out current events in a fictional setting.

What advice do you have for other writers in seeking the right agent for them?

My first agent and I have parted ways, and I’m working now with a new agent who I just adore. Though it was difficult to make the decision to change, I’m a lawyer and a business person, and I know that when it comes to client relationships, things just don’t always work out perfectly. You can’t take this too personally or get too emotionally wound up in it.

My advice for other writers is to be realistic but optimistic. Shoot for the stars, do your research, and query the agent you think is perfect for you and your book.

But don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You never know who will connect with your writing, and you may find that it’s a young, hungry agent who sees the promise in your work, rather than the “dream” agent who has a hundred clients, all of whom are already on the best seller list.

Treat your writing as a career and an evolutionary process. Listen to your gut, but don’t let emotion or fear prevent you from moving forward and becoming the success I know you can be!

New Voice: Stephen Messer on Windblowne

Stephen Messer is the first-time author of Windblowne (Random House, 2010). From the promotional copy:

Every kite Oliver touches flies straight into the ground, making him the laughingstock of Windblowne.

With the kite-flying festival only days away, Oliver tracks down his reclusive great-uncle Gilbert, a former champion. With Gilbert's help, Oliver can picture himself on the crest, launching into the winds to become one of the legendary fliers of Windblowne.

Then his great-uncle vanishes during a battle with mysterious attack kites—kites that seem to fly themselves!

All that remains is his prize possession, a simple crimson kite. At least, the kite seems simple. When Oliver tries to fly it, the kite lifts him high above the trees. When he comes down, the town and all its people have disappeared.

Suddenly, the festival is the last thing on Oliver's mind as he is catapulted into a mystery that will change everything he understands about himself and his world.

Inspired by the work of Diana Wynne Jones, debut author Stephen Messer delivers a fantasy book for boys and girls in which the distance between realities is equal to the breadth of a kite string.

What were you like as a young reader, and how did that influence the book that you're debuting this year?

Like a lot of avid young readers, I read everything I could lay my hands on, without much discernment or filtering.

There was lots of classic children’s literature--like The Story on Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting (1920) and Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers (1934) and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (Harper, 1950-1956)--but also loads of books on baseball, astronomy, and even a few historical romances (which I didn’t really understand).


I read a lot of things that were over my head as a 10-year-old boy, like Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862) and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (Yearling, 1970). But I still read them and was shaped by them.


Eventually, I grew up and something terrible happened--I became picky about books.

But I still want to be like that un-picky young reader and read outside my narrow interests and also bring that spirit of eclecticism to my writing. It helps to have all those different resources to draw from.

When writing Windblowne, I kept a stack of books at hand, not only reference works on kites and tree houses, but also volumes of P.G. Wodehouse and The Art of Final Fantasy IX by Dan Birlew (Brady Games, 2000), and whatever else struck me as fun or conducive to sparking that unexpected idea. I want to pull lots of disconnected bits into my work and link them together.

We do this easily when we’re kids, and it’s a good challenge for us when we’re grown.


As a fantasy writer, how did you go about building your world?

There’s a woodblock print by the Japanese artist Hokusai called “Caught By the Ejiri Wind” (1831-1833), in which a group of travelers on a road have been caught by a wind gust. They lean hard into the blast as papers fly from their hands, their clothes billow, they lose their hats, leaves blow from the trees. It’s a powerful evocation of the unpredictable force of nature.

The mountain town of Windblowne in my book is constantly buffeted by vigorous winds, and everything from the construction of homes to the daily life of the inhabitants is influenced by this fact. All buildings in Windblowne are built up in the branches of giant oak trees, which are the only things that can reliably withstand the winds, particularly at night when the winds blow strongest.

In order to help me summon this sense of omnipresent wind and nature, I surrounded myself with art and objects and music that conjured up this world.

Above my desk in my study I hung a framed print of “Ejiri Wind” and a crazy colored dragon kite that reminded me of kites used in the book.

The list of music goes on and on, but one work that always helped put me in the right frame of mind was Sibelius’s 5th symphony, which has a motif inspired by the sight of 16 swans taking flight.

For my next book, The Death of Yorik Mortwell (Random House, summer 2011), I did the same thing, with a completely different set of artifacts -- spooky art by Edward Gorey and spacy music from Terry Riley.

I sort of trick out my study in this way, so that when I go in to write, I’m entering the world of the book.

Spooky News & Giveaways

R.A. Nelson: redesigned site from the author of Teach Me (Razorbill, 2007), Breathe My Name (Razorbill, 2008), Days of Little Texas (Knopf, 2010), and Throat (Knopf, 2011). Read a Cynsations interview with R.A.

New Agent Alert: Jason Pinter of Waxman Literary Agency by Chuck Sambuchino from Guide to Literary Agents. Note: Jason is seeking middle grade and YA fiction. Peek: "I'm a sucker for stories about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations, and normal people who must overcome seemingly insurmountable odds."

Life on the Road: Tips for Authors on Tour by Richelle Mead from Blue Succubus. Peek: "Because most signings are at 6 or 7 p.m., I often get picked up at 5 or 6 p.m., meaning I don't get to eat at dinnertime. Get food when you arrive, or you may not eat at all."

6 1/2 Ways to Impress an Agent by Tina Wexler from Donna Gephart at Wild About Words. Peek: "Demonstrate knowledge of their list. This doesn’t mean you have to read every book they’ve ever sold--I leave that job to my mom--but by showing them you know a bit about who they represent, you’re telling agents you’ve done your research on who to query."

Congratulations to Vermont College of Fine Arts, which is ranked first among low-residency MFA programs, according to Poets and Writers!

The Package of Services That Publishers Provide Authors and How This Is Changing by Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent. Peek: "Here are the basic services traditional publishers provide for an author, why these services matter, and how this is (and isn't) changing...." Read a Cynsations interview with Nathan.

Guest Post: Agent Michelle Andelman on Dystopian Fiction from The Spectacle. Peek: "I dived in feeling self-important, feeling like my mom trusted my opinion, feeling like I was revisiting a place I’d just left. Cracking the spine, I felt adult for the first time. And, then I fell in love."

Agent Interview: Mary Kole from Alice Pope's SCBWI Children's Market Blog. Peek: "I'm still very much looking for talent, but I feel like I can take my time now and be really picky. I'd say I can sum up my goals in agenting and in life with, 'Read and learn more and more every day.'" See also Mary on Mature Voice for the YA Market from Kidlit.com.

Inevitable Envy by Eric from Pimp My Novel. Peek: "If you feel it—or rather, when you feel it—first of all, take comfort that you’re in the very best of company." Source: Elizabeth Scott.

How Many Projects Do You Have to Write Before the Big One? from Jennifer Hubbard. Peek: "I think the typical answer is around four (I vaguely recall someone compiling statistics on this, but it's also my experience anecdotally, from talking to other writers). I do know writers who have sold the very first book they ever wrote, but they are the exception."

Writing in the Woods: authors Marsha Wilson Chall, Phyllis Root and Jane Resh Thomas are offering a writing workshop from Oct. 9 to Oct. 15 in Spring Valley, Minnesota. Application deadline: Sept. 1. Note: "Two graduate credits will be available through Hamline University." Peek: "As teachers, readers, and creators of children’s literature, we invite you to live and write with us for a week in the woods. We provide a safe, supportive writing environment and promise to nurture you and treat your art kindly." Read a Cynsations interview with Phyllis.

Congratulations, David Macinnis Gill

Congratulations to David Macinnis Gill on the release of Black Hole Sun (Greenwillow, 2010). From the promotional copy:

Durango will take on any mission—as long as it is dangerous, impossible, and hopeless, and as long as it pays enough for him and his crew to get by.

Fortunately for Durango, he also has Mimi, a symbiotic nano-implant, to keep him on the straight and narrow, as well as a crew of loyal soldiers. Because he’s going to need everything he’s got for his latest mission—defending a rag-tag clan of helpless miners from a ravenous horde of feral cannibals and their enigmatic but brutal leader, who is hellbent on taking out the miners, and Durango along with them.

Read a Cynsations interview with David about his previous book, Soul Enchilada (Greenwillow, 2009)

Spooky Screening Room

Mocking Jay (Scholastic), the third and final book in the Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy is now available. Check out Editor Spotlight: Jennifer Rees by Sherrie Peterson from Write About Now. Peek: "It wasn’t until she delivered the manuscript for The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008), however, that we truly realized just how big and wide-reaching a project this was. We literally walked around with goosebumps for days."



More Personally

I'm honored to be among the 2010 Festival Authors scheduled to appear at the 15th annual Texas Book Festival Oct. 16 and Oct. 17 at the State Capitol Building in Austin.

The line-up also includes M.T. Anderson, T.A. Barron, Chris Barton, Holly Black, Heather Brewer, Cinda Williams Chima, Andrea Cremer, Tony DiTerlizzi, Keith Graves, Justine Larbalestier, April Lurie, Deborah Noyes, Scott Westerfeld, and Brian Yansky.

My fave amusing links of the week are (a) Erm. This Hope This Doesn't Ever Become a Fashion Trend by Leila Roy from Bookshelves of Doom, highlighting hats made out of books (check out the photos!); and (b) Inside the Science Fiction Book Contract by Greg R. Fishbone from The Spectacle (I particularly liked the "Cloned Author Clause.")

Spooky Giveaways

Reminder: Surf over to Mundie Moms to read the latest interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith, and enter to win bookplate-signed copies of Tantalize (Candlewick, 2007, 2008) and Eternal (Candlewick, 2009, 2010)! With Blessed (Candlewick, 2011) coming soon; now is a great time to get caught up on the series, if you haven't already. Or enter to win a book to give to your local high school or public library. All you have to do is fill out a short form. Deadline: Sept. 15; U.S. entries only.

Enter to win Vampire High: Sophomore Year by Douglas Reese (Delacorte, 2010)(author interview). To enter, email me (scroll and click envelope) and type "Vampire High: Sophomore Year" 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: Aug. 31. Publisher review copy; U.S. entries only.

More Spooky Events

Join author Mari Mancusi at 11 a.m. Aug. 28 for a discussion of Boys that Bite (Berkley, 2006) at Cedar Park Public Library in Cedar Park, Texas. The Teen Book Club is open to all teens ages 10-17 and meets in the Teen Zone. Teens can come by the library and pick up their free copy of the book in advance. Read a Cynsations guest post by Mari on Kids Don't Read Like They Used To, and That's a Good Thing.

The launch party for Brains for Lunch: A Zombie Novel in Haiku?! by K.A. Holt, illustrated by Gahan Wilson (Roaring Brook, 2010) will be at 2 p.m. Sept. 12 at BookPeople in Austin. Read a Cynsations interview with K.A.

Guest Post: Alma Alexander on Revising a Novel She Wrote at Age 14 (Now With Teen Advisors' Input)

By Alma Alexander

More than thirty years ago, I wrote my first original novel.

In longhand. In pencil. In three hard-cover notebooks.

Approximately 200,000 words of it.

I was fourteen years old.

It was not the first novel I had written, but it was the first one which wasn't a "practice" one, derivative of the authors whom I loved at the time.

It proved to me several things - that I was capable of writing something of this length that was purely my own, that I was capable of keeping a large plot arc in the back of my head while I juggled subplots, that I was capable of writing characters who live and change as the circumstances dictate.

To be sure, looking at the actual writing, after more than three decades of living and ten years as a professional author, it shows, sometimes painfully, how very young I was when I wrote this thing. But the story is still good. The story still stands. The characters still live.

So I launched a new project. I would post this novel online, chapter by raw and terrifying chapter, and then - with the commentary and suggestions of a panel of teen advisors who will weigh in on the original chapter and all of its flaws as they see them - I will edit and rewrite this novel with all the experience of my years as a professional, and see that story re-born in a new and glittering guise.

I have four Teen Advisors, ranging in age from 14 to 19, scattered across the length and breadth of the United States (and one from Australia!), and they and I will lick this thing into shape - and then I will be posting a new and shiny chapter, rewritten and repurposed. We will continue doing this, chapter by chapter, until the novel is done.

My young friends and I think this will be quite an experience. For all of us. And I'm hoping that lots of young writers interested in process and craft will join us for the ride.

The first chapter is now live, and awaiting commentary. We are here.

Spooky Notes

Alma Alexander is the author of 10 books, including the internationally acclaimed The Secrets of Jin-shei (HarperOne, 2004)(published in 14 languages) and the HarperCollins young adult series, Worldweavers.

Bellingham teen to advise on rewrite of early novel by Alma Alexander by Dean Kahn from The Bellingham Herald. Peek: "Steiger did wonder if she was up to the task of advising an author she admires - "I feel like I don't have a right to do that," she said - but decided working more with Alexander was worth the challenge."

West Richland teen helping fantasy author rewrite novel by Sara Schilling from the Tricity Herald. Peek: "The author said the project will benefit both her and her young collaborators. She'll get insight into what teen readers want in books, and they'll get a window into the writing world and experience they can tout as they apply to college or pursue careers."

Spooky News & Giveaways

Ads and E-Books: Money Should Still Flow Toward the Author by Saundra Mitchell from Making Up Stuff for a Living. Peek: "Product placement should be treated as a subright- I propose, on the same percentages as foreign rights subrights. Approximately 25% to the house, 75% to the author." Read a Cynsations interview with Saundra.

Ageless Wisdom by Kristi Holl from Writer's First Aid. Peek: "While sorting donated books and magazines for a library book sale, I came across a real treasure: a 1956 Writer’s Digest. Priced at 35 cents, it was a far cry from the large glossy print magazine or colorful web site of today."

Writing Under the Influence by Tabitha Olson from Writer Musings. Peek: "So, now we have a dilemma: read and possibly be influenced by other authors, or don’t read and possibly come across as naïve or uninformed. What’s the solution?"

Copy Cat by Allison Winn Scotch from Writer Unboxed. Peek: "I’m trying to toe this line, to figure out the balance between recreating my work and challenging myself and not, say, offering a work so different that no one recognizes the threads that tie all of my books together." Source: Elizabeth Scott.

YA Fantasy Showdown: "There are 32 characters, all present and accounted for. That means sixteen battles. Half of them will not be making it to the next round (yes, you may shed tears for them. We will). BUT. It is up to you to vote on who moves on."

OpenSky helps authors develop their brands: The website gives them the chance to make money by selling books, as well as their favorite products, directly to consumers. By Geraldine Baum from the Los Angels Times.

How to Create a Dystopia by Parker Peevyhouse from The Spectacle. Peek: "Since the point of a dystopian novel is usually to magnify a current flaw in society, it works best to create a world based on one main flaw."

Writers Against Racism: Get Caught Reading an Author of Color's Book by Amy Bowllan from Bowllan's Blog. Peek: "I was hoping to end the summer, catching everyday people, reading books by Authors of Color. Please send these jpeg snapshots to me, via e-mail, with a short blurb about the setting and who is in the picture, name of the book, author etc..."

Agent Interview: Erin Murphy by Brenda Sturgis from suite101.com. Peek: "Picture books have to have enough layers that their genius only becomes truly apparent through multiple readings. Which is not the same as having a lot of words--not by a long shot."

Random Acts of Publicity - Sept. 7 to Sept. 10 by Darcy Pattison from Fiction Notes. Peek: "a week when you do something to promote a friend’s book, or to promote a recent book you’ve read. Four days of promoting others’ books should be great fun."

Onward Through the Fog by Brian Yansky from Brian's Blog - Writer Talk. Note: Brian talks about the temptation to quit writing and holds up "The African Queen" as a model for reconsidering.

Congratulations, K.A. Holt

Congratulations to author K.A. Holt on the release of Brains for Lunch: A Zombie Novel in Haiku?! by K.A. Holt, illustrated by Gahan Wilson (Roaring Brook, 2010)! From the promotional copy:

The difference being that this middle school novel is written entirely in Haiku. Loeb, its zombie protagonist has a problem: the object of his affection, Siobhan, is a lifer (i.e. human). What to do? In scenes set around a lunch table (the menu: brains) and around the school, eyes roll and jaws drop (literally). Also featured in the cast of characters is Carl, a chupacabra (bloodsucking critter) and Mrs. Fincher, a sympathetic and seductive librarian.

The launch party for Brains for Lunch will be at 2 p.m. Sept. 12 at BookPeople in Austin.

Austin Scene

In the BookKids department of BookPeople, children's author Pamela Ferguson shows off her debut novel, Sunshine Picklelime, illustrated by Christian Slade (Random House, 2010).

We both were attending a panel on "Diversity in Children's Literature," sponsored by Austin SCBWI. Regional advisor Debbie Gonzales led the discussion with author Varian Johnson, author/illustrator Don Tate, author/librarian Jeanette Larson, and author Lila Guzman.

After the meeting, a bunch of us met for lunch at Frank and Angie's Pizzeria.

More Personally

Jeepers! I received nine blurb requests last week, most of them from folks who had some kind of connection to me. Here's the scoop: I require that all book blurb requests come from editors or agents. I do not want to hear via email or in person from the author, no matter who it is.

U.K. readers: you can find Tantalize and Eternal at WHSmith. Happy shopping!

Speaking of international releases, thanks to Curtis Brown for sending more copies of the Polish edition of Eternal and this copy of Sanguine (Tantalize) from Intervista Editions in France. Note: Tantalize was featured as a Random Recommendation at A Simple Love of Reading. Peek: "Although Kieren doesn't have the largest part in this book, his feelings for Quincie are unmistakable, and I hope that in Blessed, the next book in the series, they are able to overcome what happened to Quincie in Tantalize." I'm not giving out any spoilers (yet), but I will say that I suspect Quincie-Kieren fans will be pleased with what happens next.


Giveaway Reminders

Surf over to Mundie Moms to read the latest interview with me, and enter to win bookplate-signed copies of Tantalize (Candlewick, 2007, 2008) and Eternal (Candlewick, 2009, 2010)! With Blessed (Candlewick, 2011) coming soon; now is a great time to get caught up on the series, if you haven't already. Or enter to win a book to give to your local high school or public library. All you have to do is fill out a short form. Deadline: Sept. 15; U.S. entries only.

Enter to win Vampire High: Sophomore Year by Douglas Reese (Delacorte, 2010)(author interview). To enter, email me (scroll and click envelope) and type "Vampire High: Sophomore Year" 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: Aug. 31. Publisher review copy; U.S. entries only.

New Voice: Amy Brecount White on Forget-Her-Nots

Amy Brecount White is the first-time author of Forget-Her-Nots (Greenwillow, 2010). From the promotional copy:

Something—some power—is blooming inside Laurel. She can use flowers to do things. Like bringing back lost memories. Or helping her friends ace tests. Or making people fall in love.

Laurel suspects her newfound ability has something to do with an ancient family secret, one that her mother meant to share with Laurel when the time was right. But then time ran out.

Clues and signs and secret messages seem to be all around Laurel at Avondale School, where her mother had also boarded as a student.

Can Laurel piece everything together quickly enough to control her power, which is growing more potent every day?

Or will she set the stage for the most lovestruck, infamous prom in the history of the school?

What were you like as a young reader, and how did that influence the book that you're debuting this year?

I read everything I could get my hands on and always checked out the maximum number of books from the library! My days were filled with Encyclopedia Brown [by Donald J. Sobel (1963-)], Betsy Byars, Madeleine L'Engle, and even Harlequin romances. I've never felt complete unless I'm in the middle of or looking forward to a book.

Later in high school, I was steered into the classics and fell in love with Dickens, Jane Austen, and some Russian novelists. I like to think of my tastes as eclectic, although definitely preferring fiction.

When I thought about my audience for Forget-Her-Nots, I wrote for the girl that I was: someone with endless curiosity about the world who wanted to come away from the last page of a book with more than she started.

So, I gave my readers something that most of them have never encountered before--the language of flowers. Many of them have already told me that they don't look at flowers in quite the same way anymore. I love books that help me connect with the world in a new and creative way. I hope I've inspired readers to do that with mine.

As a magic realism writer, how did you go about building your world?

The world of the Avondale School was tremendously fun to build. The fictional girls school was constructed in the Victorian period (in the U.S.), but it's also set in Charlottesville where I used to live.

So the campus is a wonderful combination of a mysterious, Gothic-type conservatory and neoclassical buildings, like those on the campus of the University of Virginia.

I gave the school a rich history of strong women and fascinating traditions, such as the May Day maypole dance.

Laurel's school had to have extensive gardens that she could wander through and explore her gift, but it's also a modern campus with soccer fields, a dining hall, and a quad with Frisbees zipping across.

Charlottesville has a climate with a long spring and fall -- plenty of time for lots of flowers to show off. Most of the novel takes place in the spring, and I did do a lot of research and observation to make sure that I got the bloom times correct.

I also did a lot of research on the language of flowers and human/flower relations throughout history. The Avondale campus is a place where the language comes vibrantly and unpredictably alive, so the campus seems to reverberate with myths, poems, and stories about flowers.

I had so much fun creating the gardens and conservatory in particular, that I'd love to revisit the campus in a companion novel to Forget-Her-Nots and already have some ideas rooting.

Spooky Notes

Amy Brecount White has taught English literature and writing to middle school and high school students. She has written numerous articles and essays for publications such as the Washington Post, but Forget-Her-Nots is her first novel.

She can often be found in her garden and gives flowers to her friends and family whenever she can, though none have had magical effects—yet.

Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith; Tantalize and Eternal Giveaways

Surf over to Mundie Moms to read the latest interview with me, and enter to win bookplate-signed copies of Tantalize (Candlewick, 2007, 2008) and Eternal (Candlewick, 2009, 2010)!

With Blessed (Candlewick, 2011) coming soon; now is a great time to get caught up on the series, if you haven't already.

Or enter to win a book to give to your local high school or public library.

All you have to do is fill out a short form. Deadline: Sept. 15; U.S. entries only.

In the interview, I talk about my inspirations, Austin and Chicago settings, my writing process, my books, and my upcoming releases.

Peek: "Legend has it that if a cat sits on your manuscript, it will sell. (You can't just plop the kitty down on the paper. He must choose to position himself in that spot)."

Here's Sebastian "Bashi," lounging in my writing chair in the reading room.

Shelf Sightings: Eternal in Poland

James Klise, author of Love Drugged (Flux, 2010), writes, "We saw the Polish edition of Eternal in Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, and Torun (famous for two things: Copernicus and gingerbread!). The Polish chain Empik, which is like Borders, is promoting it heavily. Yay!"

Let's take a peek!


Wow, top row, face out and in great company!


Here's the back cover! Can any of y'all read it? (I recognize "bestsellerze Top 5, the New York Times...Zachariasz...Mirandy...wampira..." and that's about it!


Big thanks to James for sending on the report and photos! Much appreciated!

Cynsational Update

Over at Cynsations at LiveJournal, Anna Staniszewski translates:

A romantic and lyrical story of the dangerous love between a girl turned into a vampire and a fallen angel in this Top 5 bestseller in the New York Times in March 2010.

Eternally Banished

Zachary would do anything for Miranda. For her, he breaks the rule that guardian angels are warned never to break: he shows himself to his dying love. But even then he isn't able to protect her. Attacked by a vampire, Miranda succumbs to a dark transformation...


Thank you, Anna!