Friday Submission Winner

I received quite a few submissions for the Sourcebooks Fire YALitChat Writing Contest this week. I have to say, I was surprised by a few things. First, the rush to submit. People submitted before the official start of the contest. What happens when you’re in rush? Most times, something is forgotten. I saw a lot of typos, work that was not proofread, checked and re-checked. The contest is open until the end of February so I’m not sure what the rush is. There’s no prize for getting in early BUT for those who submitted poorly proofed work, you’ve lost the opportunity to have your work considered.

Next, I found some really interesting ideas and some recurring themes. You’d be surprised how many people are writing about similar things when you’re sitting at your desk cranking out lines. Dragons, mermaids or sea creatures, fae yet so far, not one vampire.

I was quite surprised to find some issues with basic writing skills including grammar and sentence structure. There was one sentence that had seventy-nine words in it! I counted it, then copied and pasted it into Word and let Word count it. Then I did it again. I scratched my head and read the sentence two more times. I simply could not get over a sentence with so many words in it. One sentence. Come on, people.

I posted comments about what I was reading up on the YALitChat ning community and responded to contest questions. Members of the Teen Fire Group get to read first-hand about each submission as I read. The hopes I have for each one from the promise of the title, the novel description and the first two hundred and fifty words. Some make me laugh and some make me cry. Some piss me the heck off. Some authors recognize their submissions based on the way I describe them–yet I don’t read the name of the writer when reading the submission. They emailed me to ask questions, apologize for not following rules, ask for special favors–you name it. Grrr.

But to get to what this post is REALLY about, a winner. Plucked from the submission stack this week is Jodi Meadows! I was completely blow away by her submission. She hit it out of the park. Premise, story, writing, pitch. It was all there. Nothing I would change. Congratulations, Jodi. Sourcebooks Fire will be sending you a copy of PICTURE THE DEAD by Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown.

Good luck to all the contest entrants. Contest ends February 28th! You must be a member of YALitChat to enter. Check back next Friday for the most impressive entry of that week!

xoxo-G

February ARC Giveaways

I’m giving away one book each Friday to the person with the most impressive submission during the Sourcebooks Fire #YALitChat Writing Contest! I’m so excited and think I may already have this week’s winner. Watch this blog on Fridays (and twitter) for my announcement. Contest ends February 28, 2010. Details can be found here. To enter, you must be a member of YALitChat. Good luck!

Feb 5, 2010 – Picture The Dead ARC Giveaway

February 12, 2010 – Merlin’s Harp ARC Giveaway

Feb 19, 2010 – Dreaming Anastasia ARC Giveaway

February 26, 2010 – Beautiful Dead ARC Giveaway

Good luck-

G

We Have a Winner!

Congratulations to Dani Samson! She’s our 700th member of #YALitChat online and winner of the fabulous swag pack from Leap Books! She sent me a note and I could “hear’ the excitement in bursting from her.

“I am so excited! Today I found a cool YA book community and won an awesome prize pack! Thank you soooo much!”

Congratulations, Dani! So glad you’ve found us.

Looking forward to 800. Thanks to Leap Books for providing these awesome goodies.

xoxo-

G

I’m Giving Away Goodies When We Reach 700 #YALitChat Members

So, I made a New Year’s Resolution when we had just 235 members that I wanted to reach 600 in 2010. I had no idea we’d reach that number by the second week in January! I guess I need to dream bigger. When we reached 550 members I said I’d do a swag  bag giveaway at 600 but then got TOO busy and forgot! So here we are approaching 700 members and I’m poised to remember. I even have real STUFF to give away! Aren’t you proud of me? Say yes! What am I giving away you ask? A Leap Books T-shirt and a copy of ISLAND STING and FREAKSVILLE! Join now!

  

Sponsored by Leap Books.

ABOUT LEAP BOOKS

Leap Books, LLC, is a new WY-based publisher that opened on January 1, 2010. A member of the Children’s Book Council, Leap is committed to producing quality fiction for teens and tweens. Our Surge line for teens (ages 14-19) will feature paranormals, contemporaries, inspirationals, and mysteries. Our Frolic line for tweens (ages 10-14) will focus on the same categories, but we’ll be putting out lighter paranormals for this age group. We also plan to branch out with fantasy, historical, and multicultural titles.

More about Leap Books can be found on their website at www.leapbks.com.

Sourcebooks Fire #YAlitchat Writing Contest Update

Ten more days until the official RSVP invites go out and I could not be more excited. It is also ten more days until my birthday! Way to go Sourcebooks Fire! We’ve taken your feedback and questions into consideration and revised the requirements a little to make it easier for you to submit and understand the process. So, here are just some of the changes we’ve made.

1.The contest IS open to international submissions!

2. Your manuscript does NOT have to be complete but should be NEAR completion prior to submission.

3. You will include your submission in the body of your email NOT as an attachment as previously stated. No attachments will be read.

4. Authors retain all rights. Sourcebooks Fire may use winning entries in contest promotions.

5. Writers are not required to sign with Regina Brooks or Serendipity Literary Agency.

Hopefully that addresses some of the questions and concerns. This supercedes all previous communication on the contest including blog comments to the contrary.

I look forward to reading your submissions!

Remember, you must be a member of #YALITCHAT on ning to submit! Join here. 

Good luck!

xoxo-

G

New (secret) Year Confetti w/ Jennifer Hubbard

So, it may be a tad bit corny but my last author interview of the year is with first time YA novelist, Jennifer R. Hubbard and one of my favorite writer types. Not just because Jenn has been a great supporter of #YAlitchat (shameless plug) but because she is genuine, responsive and pretty darn funny. She also happens to have written one of the more original YA books of 2010. Though I’ve not yet read THE SECRET YEAR, when I first read about it on her agent ’s blog (yes, she happens to be agented by non other than Nathan Bransford), I knew it had to be something special. This is the lightest interview I’ve done this year. After all, Jenn and I needed a break and it’s New Year’s Eve! Enjoy the interview and Happy Secret Year!

1. I’m so excited for THE SECRET YEAR. Can you tell me what inspired the story?

 When I’m describing the book most succinctly, I say it’s about secrecy, loss, and obsession.  The intersection of those topics proved to be rich territory.

My first idea of the book was the scene described on the first page: a boy whose secret girlfriend has just died.  I knew she had left behind a notebook that would fall into his hands; I wrote the novel to find out what was in the notebook and what would happen next.

2. You’ve managed to put a new and unexpected twist on the classic “love from the other side of the tracks” story. Was that hard to do?

These characters know the “other side of the tracks” story line; they’re very much aware of it.  They use it, in fact, to enhance their attraction; they play it up intentionally.  And yet, it comes back to bite them.  It affects them in ways they don’t fully appreciate.

3.  What’s it like to work with Nathan Bransford–rumored to be one of the nicest agents in the business?

One of the best things about working with Nathan is how much he cares about good writing, about making each project the best it can be.  He’s an excellent agent and a pleasure to work with.

4. There are many teens out there that are keeping some pretty big secrets. Any advice?

I don’t know how qualified I am to give advice like that.  But generally, I suppose this is a good rule: a secret that hurts yourself or others is too big to keep.

5. What’s the biggest secret you’ve ever kept?

Writing a book called The Secret Year, I really should’ve expected this question—it’s cropped up in a few interviews.  And the fact is, my characters lead more exciting lives than I do.  I don’t have any secret letters from a dead lover lying around my house, the way my main character does.

6. What are you working on now?

I can’t talk much about works in progress, but I’m always working on something.  I’m still quite interested in contemporary YA.

7. What do you do when you’re not writing?

 Hiking is my favorite leisure-time, non-writing activity.  And reading, of course!

About The Secret Year:

Seventeen-year-old Colt has been sneaking out at night to meet Julia, a girl from an upper-class neighborhood unlike his own. They’ve never told anyone else about their relationship: not their family or friends, and especially not Julia’s boyfriend. When Julia dies suddenly, Colt tries to cope with her death while pretending that he never even knew her. He discovers a journal Julia left behind. But Colt is not prepared for the truths he discovers about their intense relationship, nor to pay the price for the secrets he’s kept. JANUARY 7, 2010 from Viking (Penguin Books for Young Readers)

Jennifer R. Hubbard’s Official Website

Jennifer’s Blog

Follow Jenn on twitter: @JennRHubbard

Sourcebooks Fire #YAlitchat Writing Contest

Sourcebooks is launching a new Young Adult division called Sourcebooks Fire and we’re celebrating for two whole months!

CONTEST DETAILS

Submissions for the contest will run 2/1/2010 – 2/28/2010. PLEASE NOTE: Sourcebooks Fire has launched their ning community. They have awesome contests and info on their releases. You may even see someone you recognize there. Also, if you’ve not RSVP’d to the contest yet, do so there. PLEASE DO NOT RSVP in BOTH PLACES.

Please follow the following directions carefully to submit a piece of YA fiction for consideration:

To participate in the contest, you MUST RSVP to the event.

Instructions on where to send submissions, as well as outlines for what we’re looking for, will be emailed on Friday, January 29th. Instructions as to the email address you’ll need for all submissions will be provided in that document.

Only submissions from people who’ve RSVP’d will be read and judged to prevent multiple submissions.

In the body of your email, please include:

Author contact info (full name, email), the title of the piece (less than 15 words) under a header reading “Title,” an up to 100-word description of your novel and under the header “Novel Description” the first 250 words of your novel under the header, “Chapter 1.”

 No additional information will be read by judges.

EX:

Author Contact
Best B. Known, bestbknown2u4sure@igotzthemgoods.com

Title
The Grapes of Wrath

Novel Description
Haunted by dreams of chocolate, boy unwittingly dreams the cure for chocolate addiction in YA writers. When he posts the cure to his blog one day, he becomes instantly hated and ostracized.

Chapter 1
The sky, gray above, hung like the rug Mrs. Lewiston used to drape over the porch railing each weekend. Drab, lifeless and low; we were the same in our defeat.

Submissions will go through three rounds of judging. Georgia McBride, founder of #YAlitchat will be the first-round judge, whittling down the entrants to the top one hundred fifty (150).

These one hundred fifty (150) entries will then be ranked on a scale of 1-10 by three Sourcebooks Fire editors. The top twenty (20) submissions (calculated by adding scores) will be notified and allowed to submit a pitch letter and first twenty (20) pages of their novel for further consideration by Sourcebooks editors, as well as YA literary agent Regina Brooks, founder of Serendipity Literary agency.

These twenty (20) up will also receive copies of books Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks.

Depending on the number of submissions, winners will be announced at the end of March.

Of additional consideration and interest: This contest is open to international submissions. All submissions are property of author. Author retains all rights. Sourcebooks Fire may use winning entries including author names in contest promotions. Writers are not required to sign with Serendipity Literary Agency. Manuscripts must be in completion stage but do not need to be completed.

Below is a tentative schedule of events we’ve created to celebrate the launch of Sourcebooks Fire!

January 1, 2010

1. TeenFire (Sourcebooks Fire) Group launches on #YAlitchat’s ning community

2. TeenFire ning launches (Sourcebooks Fire ning group)

3. Contest registration begins via RSVP

January 6, 2010 – #YAlitchat with Sourcebooks Fire Acquisitions Editor, Dan Ehrenhaft

January 13, 2010 – #YAlitchat w/ Adele Griffin (author of V for Vampire, The Juliana Game, etc) and Lisa Brown (wife of Lemony Snickett and renowned illustrator) re: collaborative writing & how to write a research intensive book.

January 20, 2010 – #YAlitchat w/ Lit Agent Regina Brooks

January 27, 2010 – #YAlitchat w/Eden Maguire, RJ Anderson, Sarah Rees Brennan, Book Chick City and more! Re: international marketing of US YA books

January 29, 2010 – RSVP email to be sent to contest registrants and MY birthday!

February 1-28, 2010 – #YAlitchat Writing Contest with Sourcebooks Fire: Submissions via RSVP ONLY

Feb 5, 2010 – Picture The Dead ARC Giveaway

February 12, 2010 – Merlin’s Harp ARC Giveaway

Feb 19, 2010 – Dreaming Anastasia ARC Giveaway

February 26, 2010 – Beautiful Dead ARC Giveaway

March 18, 2010 – Sourcebooks Fire Launch Party in NYC + Super Swagbag Giveaway (my blog)

March 31, 2010 – Contest Winners Announced

To submit to the contest, get more information and the latest contest details, you must be a member of #YAlitchat.  Join here.

Jan 27 #YAlitchat @ 3PM EST Topic: International Marketing of US YA Books

Special discussion on marketing US YA books in the international space–particularly Europe, Australia and Asia. Special guests include international authors Eden Maguire (UK), RJ Anderson (Canada) and Sarah Rees Brennan (Ireland) as well as UK book blogger–Book Chick City. Other guests TBD. Among some of the items we will discuss are:

1. Writers who can’t get agents in the US–some are getting agents in the UK or Canada
2. Writers who live in the US and can’t get published here, are selling foreign rights and doing well in other countries or getting published by UK publishers like Snowbooks or Frances Lincoln Children’s Books (for example).
3. Published authors in the US that have a hard time (sometimes) understanding the different marketing that goes into overseas promos, markets, audience (covers, websites, audience, interacting with readers, etc.)
4. What are the available international resources available to writers so that all of this makes sense?
5. Marketing international writers to the US audience and or launching an international title in the US.
6. Writers from other countries–what can they do to help their books sell better here? How can US writers buddy with international authors to work together for better results for everyone?
7. How are bloggers and online book reviewers leveling the playing field–online?
8. How can #Yalitchat serve as a resource?

 Join us at this special time for a lively and informative discussion.

Book Review: Journey Of Dreams by Marge Pellegrino

About JOURNEY OF DREAMS

Helicopters slash through the air like machetes, soldiers patrol the roads hunting down guerillas… for the peaceful highlanders of Guatemala, life has become a nigthmare. Tomasa’s mother has to go into hiding with her eldest son, and when they see their house razed to the ground and the villages mascared, Tomasa, Muelito and baby Maria set off with Papa on a perilous journey north to find Mama and Carlos. This is Tomasa’s story of how her family survives the Guatemalan army’s ’scortched earth’ campaign, and how their love, loyalty to each other and Papa’s storytelling keep them going on their harrowing search for refuge in the United States.

When I first received this ARC, I was skeptical that the author could do a good job with a family saga in a YA setting and maintain the level of tension necessary to hold my interest. Pellegrino manages to do just that as well as develop the many characters from the large family she’s created–well. She tells a horribly sad and profoundly important story in a way that makes you feel better for having read it.

Pellegrino is very good with descriptions and in my opinion it is her care with orienting the reader with description that makes the book. You are there with the family as Papa is about to be shot or as the helicopter “thwaps” in the distance. Sound and vision are important elements in this story. Pellegrino masterfully uses something as simple as the sound of crickets to clue the reader in to important information.

“Each footstep is like a string wrapped by a thread, marking another piece of our journey. Only God knows how large the fabric will grow or how long our lives will be.” Pellegrino further draws the reader into the story with great literary comparisons. Pellegringo could easily have gotten bogged down in the weight of the subject matter but the novel is fast-paced and definitely worth reading. One caution–some might find words they don’t know distracting (usually words or phrases in Spanish) distracting but there is a glossary in the back of the book (genius).

JOURNEY OF DREAMS is published by Francis Lincoln Children’s Books, a UK publisher.   

JOURNEY OF DREAMS on Goodreads

Marge Pellegrino online

Author Interview: Lisa Schroeder

 Author, Lisa Schroeder sat down with me recently to talk about her life and two new releases coming in January. CHASING BROOKLYN and FAR FROM YOU. We’d never spoken before so I was excited and honored. She is as lovely as I’d heard and it was my absolute pleasure to talk with her. Enjoy the interview.

 

1. CHASING BROOKLYN… Tell us what inspired it?

CHASING BROOKLYN came about because of all the fans who wrote to me telling me how much they loved I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME and begging me to write something else “just like that.” Well, you know, there can only be one I HEART YOU. I sort of played around with a sequel idea but my editor thought we left Ava in a good place. But he wondered if I might write something taking place in the same town, so Ava could make a brief appearance. A companion novel, if you will.

I wanted something where there were two ghosts this time, one sorta scary, and one not, because I felt like it was important to make it different from I HEART YOU in a lot of ways, even though it’s another ghost story. As I was playing around with the beginning, at some point, I tried a male voice along with the female voice. And I liked it. So I started alternating, and from there it took off, and I had a story about Brooklyn and Nico and how they come together to deal with the ghosts in their lives.

2. I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME was chosen as an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers. Congratulations! Are you feeling pressure to repeat that success?

Thanks – I’m thrilled it made that list! I do get a lot of notes from teens who start out – “I usually hate to read but I love your books…” I think, in general, verse novels are great for reluctant readers because they move quickly, there’s lots of white space on the page, and there aren’t long, overwhelming chapters. They can set the book down at any place and come back to it quickly.

As far as feeling pressure, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I work really hard on each book to make it the best it can be, and all I really want are for some readers to really connect with it and enjoy it. Anything beyond that is icing on the cake.

3. You say on your website that you loved high school! That’s awesome. Can you tell us what specifically you loved about it or what made it enjoyable for you?

I just had so much fun in high school. Great friends who had fun times in a small town. We had an incredible football team my sophomore year – went all the way to state. And we caravanned around the state with the team, and the sense of community was amazing. It was all of that and more. A great group of people who lucked out and got to go through that crazy thing called adolescence together. I was blessed.

4. What are you hoping readers will take away from after reading CHASING BROOKLYN?

You know, first and foremost, I just want to tell a good story. To pull the reader in and take him/her on a journey that touches their heart. After that, I suppose, like all my books thus far, I hope they appreciate their loved ones a little more, and realize how precious life is.

5. Is is tough to write paranormal books and have a full-time/”day-job”?  Translations: Do your co-workers think you’re nuts?

LOL, uh yes. And yes. People ask me a lot how I do it, and I don’t really know. I work hard and I work a lot. But I really enjoy writing and telling stories and most of the things that go along with being an author – meeting other authors, readers, librarians – and talking books, which I just love so much! So I keep plugging away at both jobs, letting my house get dirtier than I’d like, not working out as long as I’d like, and not doing as many fun things as I might like. Someday, I will probably have to choose – I don’t know that I can keep up this pace forever. But for now, I take it one day at a time and do the best I can.

7. Do you have a release day ritual that you care to share?  

Each of my YA novels so far have been released in January, although FAR FROM YOU got bumped up a little, to late December, although it still had a 2009 publication date. CHASING BROOKLYN is scheduled to be released January 5, 2010. So far, my ritual has been a special vlog which I put up on you tube and my blog (http://lisa-schroeder.livejournal.com or http://lisa-schroeder.blogspot.com) to celebrate. Last year I called Edward Cullen to see if he’d help me get the word out about my new book. He said no. Hrrmph. Will the tradition continue? You’ll have to tune in on January 5th to find out!!

Thanks for stopping by, Lisa. Best of luck with CHASING BROOKLYN!

 

Thanks for having me – it’s my pleasure, really and truly!

Lisa on the web:

My web site: www.lisaschroederbooks.com

Blog: www.lisa-schroeder.blogspot.com

Twitter: lisa_schroeder