• Teens Read Too posted a great review of Albatross by Josie Bloss. In part:

ALBATROSS is a powerful, insightful novel that centers on a problem in relationships that has unfortunately become all too common. Readers will feel like the people who witness those being emotionally abused in a relationship, and want to try so hard to tell that person to get away from the abuser, but are unable to fully control the situation. Josie Bloss constructs a realistic portrayal of such frightening yet truthful experiences of abuse that will exert a passion in readers to take action when they witness or are themselves in an abusive relationship.

• Cynthia Leitich Smith of Cynsations posted an interview with Sara Beitia (who has a blog and didn’t tell her agent — bad author!)
• Matthew Cody was at NY Comic Con last weekend to moderate a panel and sign copies of Powerless. Suvudu got a video interview. And hey, speaking of Powerless, wouldn’t it make an AWESOME Cybils nominee? This blogger thinks so, and I agree!
• Finally, Ransom Riggs has a cool post up at Mental Floss about his “found snapshots” collection, and the things people write on the back of pictures. Some things never change.

Have you found anything cool on the internet lately I might have missed? Link ‘em in the comments!

Hey, look! Another interview!

But I did want to make sure you saw the fantastic interview with Josie Bloss than Meg Cabot posted on her blog! Please do check it out, and consider picking up your own copy of Albatross!

My favorite part may be the picture of Josie and Meg at one of Meg’s signings years before. It reminds me of a picture of myself from college, when some friends and I went down to New Orleans over Spring Break, and I insisted on our visiting Anne Rice’s house in the Garden District. (I was a huge fan of her vampire books, looooooong before the current vampire publishing phase.) We were looking at the outside when who should pull up but Anne Rice herself! So yeah, I totally got a picture — and years later, when I worked at Janklow & Nesbit, I got to work on some of her books!

What authors have you met that inspired you in some way?

An interview with S. Terrell French is up on Cynthia Leitich Smith’s blog Cynsations, in her New Voices Series celebrationg 2009 debut authors.

I shared this on Twitter earlier, but here’s an article from the Arizona Daily Wildcat in which I’m quoted talking about publishing.

Finally, I’m delighted to share what I hinted about the other day:

Don’t miss the end, which reveals a secret about author Matthew Cody.

In the meantime, I can share this review of Pink by Lili Wilkinson. Lili’s at the Edinburgh International Book Festival right now, and I’m very jealous. Not just for the books, and the fabulous authors she’s keeping company with, but for Edinburgh itself, which is one of my favorite towns in the UK. What’s not to love about a city with a volcanic rock formation smack dab in the middle of it, crowned by a castle? Swoon.

Also, check out this great interview with S. Terrell French, author of Operation Redwood. The interviewer asks a couple of fun questions, including “If you weren’t an author, what would you be?”

Well, readers, what would YOU be?

How important do you feel social networking is to authors?

Vitally important, I think. Gone are the days when an author could write a brilliant book, send it to a publisher, have it published to great acclaim, and then write another while remaining a virtual recluse. OK, fine, not completely gone — it still works for Thomas Pynchon. But are YOU Thomas Pynchon? Probably not.

Besides using Twitter and Facebook, etc. to add updated content to your website, social networking is fantastic for building a community. It’s all right there in the name, really. Social = community. Find other authors in your genre or age range, add your thoughts to their conversations, comment regularly, and you’ll find people who want to do the same to you. Not as a tit-for-tat thing, but because you’re adding to the community naturally. And authors are fantastic about promoting their fellow writers’ projects. I see that on Twitter everyday.

Once you’re established, social networks are also the ideal way to keep in touch with your fans. You may not be able to respond to every email or fan letter you receive, but you can tweet daily, and provide some of that back-and-forth with your fans that creates a lasting relationship.

Check out the rest of my interview and be sure to see what Shelli’s other interview subjects have to say.

First, the School Library Journal ran one librarian’s “Open Letter to Kids’ Book Publishers.” Then, editor Andrew Karre wrote a rebuttal to her point about the length of books being published.

I don’t disagree that there are books out there that are too long, and I really love short novels, but I respectfully (but firmly) reject the notion that there is a meaningful general limit to length.

Today, he tweeted librarian (and author) Lisa Chellman’s response to the Open Letter, with a brilliant riposte to the original writer’s request for more books with books instead of girls.

Hey, listen up writers and editors! Any book that doesn’t specifically deal with breasts and periods and pretty, pretty princesses should be about boys. Because boys don’t see themselves reflected in literature, film, politics, science, or sports nearly enough. Because boys are the default. Because we’re lazy slaves to the patriarchy.

Excuse me while I barf.

Thinking of Andrew Karre, who was kt literary client Josie Bloss‘ first, brilliant editor makes me think of Josie herself, the cover of whose latest book Band Geeked Out is featured on Jacket Whys, picking up on another trend in cover design. A note for Jacket Whys: Band Geek Love had the same style design!

Then on to another kt literary client, S. Terrell French! Into the Wardrobe has a great interview posted, where Susannah talks about her inspirations and the rewards of writing Operation Redwood. There’s another short review from the King’s English Bookstore in Salt Lake City here, which calls Operation Redwood “intriguing and sensational”!

Next, a quick mention of Vacations From Hell in the Sacramento Bee — notable for being a list of fantastic summer titles not just for kids, but for all readers.

And I’m sure you already heard about the brouhaha around Alice Hoffman’s response to a bad review, but you should check out Jennifer Weiner’s blog about it in the Huffington Post.

And finally, I still want this.

What’s on your mind? Any links you want to share? Add ‘em in the comments!

What kind of questions? Whatever! Personal stuff, work stuff, questions about what I’m looking for, how I work, my favorite tv shows/shoe store/shampoo… I’ll answer just about anything you can dream up. Go wild!

A skilled artist faces expulsion from a puritanical culture so tied to rules and the past that change is viewed as evil in a tale in which beauty and pleasure have all but disappeared.

But that’s not all! The Unnameables has also been nominated to YALSA’s list of Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) for 2010. I had the pleasure of hearing some of the discussion at the recent ALA Midwinter meeting of the nominated titles for 2009, and I think we can look forward to Ellen’s book being read and discussed all year long. For a look back, you can find the list of 2009’s final BBYA titles on the ALA website here, with their top ten listed separately.

But wait! There’s more! Lili Wilkinson, whose forthcoming novel Pink will be published by Allen & Unwin this summer, and by HarperCollins US next year, has been interviewed on Hey, Teenager of The Year. We love her because she chooses Buffy as a favorite kick-butt heroine.

Finally, Wands & Words has a thought-provoking post up on her site debating the value in lists like BBYA or the NYPL’s “Stuff for the Teen Age” focusing on fewer titles — mainly those that are already well-known. What of those undiscovered gems that deserve recognition?

It truly is a fascinating article, and well worth a close read.