Posts Tagged "ya"

Esteemed young adult author Walter Dean Myers was recently selected as the new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The choice of Myers was hardly a controversial one considering his large body of work and the numerous awards he has won. That said, the New York Daily News ran a story last week titled, “Against Walter Dean Myers and the dumbing down of literature: ‘Those kids’ can read Homer” almost immediately Twitter was abuzz with responses to the article. I’m not going to dissect the article. You can read it for yourself and form  your own opinion. I’m only going to take issue with one teeny, tiny part of the article. The writer claims, “the purpose of literature is to elevate. Not to...

I’m very excited to be able to share the newly revised cover for my next book, Ferocity Summer. Artwork-wise there has been no change, but it does include blurb from author A. S. King: I am grateful to A. S. King for this blurb and am truly honored by her kind words. In case you aren’t familiar with her and her work, she is a super-talented YA author. Her debut The Dust of 100 Dogs blew me away. Then she came out with Please Ignore Vera Deitz last year, and I was not at all surprised when it was awarded a Printz Honor. I just finished her latest, Everybody Sees the Ants. It’s one of those books you will want to stay up all night reading. It’s a serious book, that has all these laugh out loud funny parts and a wonderful collection of quirky...

It seems the palooza tagline has been used for all manner of events. I wonder if any enterprising equine enthusiasts (how’s that for alliteration?) have had an Appaloosa-palooza. If they haven’t they certainly should. Well, there won’t be any appaloosas (sorry, equine enthusiasts) but that’s about the only thing there won’t be at this Saturday’s YA-Palooza right here in downtown Clinton, NJ. I’ll be joining fellow YA authors Charlotte Bennardo, Kristi Cook, Amy Holder, Kathy McCullough and Natalie Zaman for this event which runs from 1 to 3. Enjoy lunch with the authors, answer fun trivia questions, win prizes and get a jump start on your holiday shopping at this fun event.  The Clinton Bookshop is located at 12 E. Main...

. . . is that they don’t get it right. The online YA community has been a buzz because of a recent article that bashes young adult literature by saying it is all dark and disturbing, all about bad things happening to teenagers, contains foul language and basically has no redeeming value whatsoever. This is just my quick summary, but you can read the full article here. First of all, I think the whole practice of trying to pigeonhole any large and ginormous thing, like say, the whole of YA literature is just utterly absurd. I mean if that’s the case, why not just try and pigeonhole the whole of adult literature or all literary classics? Second of all not all of YA literature is of the wings and fangs variety. I feel the need to say this because even...

I feel a little bit bad for putting my local postal clerk to work hefting a 20-pound box of books to the counter on tax day no less, but it’s hard to feel too bad when I am now the proud owner of a whole box full of copies of my novel. Sure, most of these author copies are already earmarked for various giveaways, and will not be in my possession for very long, but it’s still nice to see, and of course if you want to try to win one of the books from this box, there are a few different opportunities on my giveaways page. I also want to tip you off to another giveaway, where you can win a copy of Popular. This one is being hosted by Apocalypsie, Jill Hathaway. In case you were wondering the Apocalypsies are a group of debut children’s and young...