Recently in Bloggy bits Category
There's another brohaha brewing on the interwebs about Margo Rabb's essay in The New York Times about her book being labeled as YA, and the assumed stigma that comes along with it, quoting a number of writers of both adult and children's books. Justine Larbalestier wrote about the "stigma", disagreeing with many of the points Rabb raised. I think it's telling that Rabb picked authors like James Patterson to quote, which seems an easy agreement to her point, especially since the Times has written before about Patterson's horror at the sales of his books when they were shelved only in the teen section.
There's also A.M. Holmes, who Rabb quotes as saying "Young people will find an adult book, but it doesn't work the other way." And excuse me for saying so, but doesn't that tell you something amazing about teens? They will go seek out the best books they can find, no matter where they're shelved, while adults apparently need seeing eye dogs like The New York Times to find their way to good books to read. Good on teens, I say!
The more telling interview, I think, is with Sherman Alexie, and while I know I've heard his words before, having been fortunate enough to hear him speak at BEA, they're words well worth repeating:
A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. is the Garden of Eden of literature.YA writers, do feel free to go forth and multiply!
I find myself once more in the New York office, with a strangely adorable cat named Mr. Pongo peering at my fingers as I type. This is the consequence of a stopover at famous author MJ's swank pied-a-terre. The famous MJ, I might add, who recently so perfectly captured our series of conversations about her deadlines on her blog. Read it yourself.
As for me, I'm off to my first meeting for the day, and a search for a New York bagel. Oh bagels, how I've missed you.
I feel like I'm over-blogging today, perhaps to make up for Friday, but there's so much exciting stuff on the intrawebs! Like this brilliant list I agree with 99.99%, from J.A. Konrath. Yes, it's personal, and your results may vary, but it's a fantastic place NOT to start your story/novel.
Maureen Johnson blogged earlier this week about muses, and how, despite classical literary evidence to the contrary, they're not so helpful when you're on deadline. Justine Larbalestier picked up the baton and added some thoughts of her own on the subject.
So what about you? Where do you stand in the debate?
While I do believe some ideas can come to a writer in a muse-like flash of inspiration, that's the easy part. Writing them down, perfecting the words, polishing the story -- that's the tough work, and our flighty little Greek goddesses usually aren't around for that.
No funny pictures, just a fascinating article in The New York Times on child brides in Yemen asking for and getting divorces.
One morning last month, Arwa Abdu Muhammad Ali walked out of her husband's house here and ran to a local hospital, where she complained that he had been beating and sexually abusing her for eight months.I first came across this when a friend linked to a website talking about the article, which has some very interesting discussion going in the comments. For my part, while the custom is barbaric, I can't help but read this and beam with delight. If young girls can do this, what can't they do?
That alone would be surprising in Yemen, a deeply conservative Arab society where family disputes tend to be solved privately. What made it even more unusual was that Arwa was 9 years old.
Something to remember when you're writing books for them.
Over on her blog, Josie Bloss shares her top secret pub day plans for Band Geek Love: a tattoo!
I love this idea, and have seen it before on authors. What a fantastic way to celebrate the culmination of years of work! I even know another one of my authors has made a similar promise to herself.
So here's my question for you before the long holiday weekend: if your WIP or totally imaginary book's publication day was tomorrow, what would you do to celebrate?
I've thought in the past about a tattoo to celebrate a life's milestone, but I think I'm too indecisive when it comes to my personal appearance. I mean, I change my hair color with the seasons, and I have long hair precisely so I can wear it lots of different ways. And my clothes run the gamut from preppy to classic to trendy to stay-at-home (step)mom. I did have one idea for an image that has several meanings to me, but where would I put it?
No, too many decisions to live with for the rest of my life.
So I think I would go shopping. I like the idea of a small piece of jewelry that I could wear to remind myself of my accomplishment, that I could change if I wanted to wear something else. Something like a small diamond earring.
What about you?
In other news, I'm going to do my best to get through all my queries before the long holiday weekend, in case you're waiting on a response from me. I'm hoping to read partials over the weekend, so will have responses on those for some people next week.
Have a great Fourth of July!
We're all about themes this week at kt literary, and since the Shelf Elf has posted a great review of Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson, and mentioned fondly The Hopewell Hotel which plays such a big part in the story, I couldn't help but wonder...
What are some of the most memorable hotels you've stayed in?
For me, there was this hostel in the Garden District of New Orleans my junior year of college. Five friends and I drove down from Delaware for our spring break, and stayed on the second floor at the front of a converted mansion. A small bathroom linked our two bedrooms, each of which had floor-to-ceiling windows wider than an arm's reach that opened out onto a balcony. At the time we were staying there, the hostel was also hosting an international smorgasbord of other young travelers, and we spent many nights that week all out on our balcony, talking to each other, learning about everyone's travels (and drinking). I'm not sure I'd want to go back now, being in a completely different time of my life, but it was a perfect hotel for a college-age kt.
Your turn!
It is the official pub date for Josie Bloss's debut novel BAND GEEK LOVE, and in celebration, I'm sharing tales of my high school geekiness. Oh yes.
Unlike the classic high schools you read about in teen fiction (or, if you were a child of the 80s, saw in a plethora of John Hughes films), my high school wasn't huge. Didn't have hundreds of people. Didn't even have boys, actually -- we were an all girls Catholic school in the New York suburbs, just down the road from a giant high school in a gorgeous gothic styled building that was all those things I saw on the movie screen. And for about half a semester my senior year, myself and four of my best friends walked the two and a half blocks to that giant high school every day to take Calculus.
Our school was closing, you see. The writing was on the walls. No freshmen had enrolled, all the girls who would be juniors left to get in two full years somewhere else, and most of the sophomore class had also bailed, leaving just 41 seniors in an echoing building. So no, the administration wasn't about to bring in a specialized teacher for those of us who had advanced beyond their teaching capabilities. Thus -- the walk down the road to the public high school.
Now, every public high school has its geeks -- band geeks, drama geeks, science nerds, etc. But this is nothing -- nothing, I tell you -- to five plaid-skirted girls coming to your high school just to take Calculus.
I could tell you I was also a cheerleader, helped organize a fashion show, drove a red convertible on ring day and gave speeches on class day, but this does nothing to balance out my Calculus-taking geekiness.
Eventually, someone caved to pressure and they brought us back within the confines of our school's walls and found us a teacher. And after passing that class (thanks to a sister who retaught me every principle of Calculus at home each night while I struggled over my homework), I never had to take another math class again.
That's me. How were YOU a geek in high school?
It's a short week, and many of you may be lucky enough to be heading to the beach. What better book to stash in your beach bag than Cruel Summer? If you hop on over to Alyson Noel's blog, you can find out how you can win an entire bag full of summer reads, including Cruel Summer.
And, well, if you're me, you're spending the week hoping to get a lot of reading done, finalizing a contracts (fingers crossed!), and negotiating a new deal for one of my clients. My dreams of heading to the beach will have to wait until later this month, when I relocate to the New York office for a week and can actually get to the ocean. Woot! Until then, since summer's the theme and all that, tell me: What are your favorite Summer books? Whether that's a book you read in the summer, a book you read every summer, a book that's about summer, or a book that somehow, for some reason, just screams "Summer!" to you.
For me, summer makes me think of big, juicy reads, like the ones the Brits have termed "bonkbusters." (Yes, it means what you think it means.) I love Louise Bagshawe's books, and know there's several of them stashed on various shelves in the Unfeasible Beach House, with sand in the spine and slight water damage. Now, apparently Louise has gone a bit mainstream and entered politics or something, but there's also her sister Tilly. Both write books I consider delicious summer reads.
Your turn!
It's been a busy few days around kt literary headquarters, and I have loads of news and links to share with you. So let's get to it!
- Seventeen's Summer Book Club is featuring Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
- Teen and tween librarian Green Bean Teen Queen reviewed Alyson Noel's Cruel Summer
- The Bermudez Triangle by MJ is available as an audio download from Audible. Hear the book that was banned in Oklahoma!
- On July 13th in Hollywood, Alyson Noel will be participating in the first ever Rock n' Read Festival. More details on the website or on Alyson's blog.
- On a sad note, Tasha Tudor passed away on Wednesday. I loved her illustrations of The Secret Garden.
- The famed and fabulous dancer Cyd Charisse also passed away last week. If you're not a musical geek like me, you may know the name as the movie star the main character of Rachel Cohn's Gingerbread is named for. (Not a kt literary client, but still an awesome book.)
