YA Market: If Teens Aren’t Tweeting, Why Are We?
Authors should blog. Authors should get on Facebook and set up fan pages. Authors should tweet. And many YA authors do, setting up themed blogs, tweeting their favorite books, putting up book trailers and extra content. But just who is the content reaching? According to a recent study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, teen blogging and tweeting are down. Interestingly, the researchers list teens as 12 – 17 years old and young adults as the 18 – 29 set. Key facts from...
Read MoreNew Adult Fiction – Beyond the Limits of YA, or Just New Packaging?
Earlier this week, I asked about the limits in YA literature. Is there a line? And if so, where is it? St. Martins’ Press may have the answer. Late last year, they ran a contest in conjunction with #YAlitchat founder, Georgia McBride, to find some New Adult, or NA, titles. From McBride’s blog: We are actively looking for great, new, cutting edge fiction with protagonists who are slightly older than YA and can appeal to an adult audience. Since twenty-somethings are devouring YA, St....
Read MoreCandor review over at SFWP.org
My first review for the Santa Fe Writers Project is up! If I were pitching Pam Bachorz’ Candor at an editorial meeting, I’d call it “dystopian contemporary YA meets The Stepford Wives with a dash of Wisteria Lane from a male perspective”. Oscar Banks is cookie-cutter perfect. He’s a straight A student, is dating the prettiest, smartest girl in Candor High, and has more friends than a parrot at a pirate convention…[more] Read it at SFWP.org, then check out some of their excellent...
Read MoreFree Write: First Coffee Ever
A 20 minute free write session. It started out based in truth, but quickly moved on from there… Everybody’s doing it. Everybody’s looking at me. My hands tremble, lightly at first, then transition into a fully-fledged shake. My feet edge me closer, closer, closer until my gut clenches and I think I’m going to puke. It smells foul. It looks foul. The steam hurts my eyes. “Don’t be a moron. Drink it. You’ll feel good.” “Yeah, yeah I know,...
Read MoreThread
I wrote this little sketch a while ago, then forgot about it. It came from listening to my father and uncles reminiscing after an Eid party. * * * Karim eyed the spool of thread longingly. His father had said no, not today, when he had asked for some of the pink cotton. He knew that when Abu said no, that it was for The Greater Good. But the thread, sitting in the old sugar box under the windowsill, was taunting him, tempting him, simply begging to be slipped into a pocket. “I’d prefer it...
Read MoreHunter
Sweat beads on the drum, catching on my fingers, coating them in rough animal smell. “It’s deer,” the dealer tells me, ”from hunters in the north. They don’t waste nothin’, them hunters. Meat for summer, jerky for winter, leather an’ all for me.” He leans in close. “Betcha you can guess who gots the better deal.” I try not to gag at the stench of ale on his breath; it isn’t hard. After ten years of Ewan and his drink, I’m used to it. I was used to it the day after...
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