Donna Jo Napoli’s unlikely journey to literary success: interview by Linda M. Castellitto from BookPage. Here’s a sneak peek: “I so enjoy giving my readers something to taste and hear and feel,” Napoli says. “I pay a lot of attention to the senses.”

WOW! Talks to Tracy Grand of JacketFlap.com by Angela Mackintosh from WOW! Women on Writing. Here’s a sneak peek: “If someone emails me and says they wish I had such and such feature on the JacketFlap, and I think it will be useful and interesting to others in the industry, I typically try to find a way to incorporate it into the site.” Read a Cynsations interview with Tracy.

Uninvited by Amanda Marrone at the YA Authors Cafe. Here’s a sneak peek: “I researched vampire facts—I was always a vampire lover, but I wanted to dig deeper. I found some fun things I didn’t know—you can kill a vampire by immersing it in water, or hire a Bulgarian sorcerer to do it for you!” Read a Cynsations interview with Amanda.

“New Moon” rises in YALSA’s 2007 Teens’ Top Ten from the American Library Association.

“Submission No-nos and Yes-yeses” with Nadia Cornier: “literary Agent Nadia Cormier talks with us about how to create submissions that make an agent sit up and take notice, and how to spot common submission mistakes” 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. EST, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. CST Nov. 8. To send questions, email Jan (alternate). To hear Nadia. Attend the chat at ICL.

The Skinny on Agents by Jan Fields from the Institute of Children’s Literature. Note: introductory overview to who needs an agent, how to find one, and how much it costs. See also my related links.

Holiday High Notes 2007: the Horn Book Magazine reviews “the best new books of seasonal interest.”

“You are invited to Astrid Lindgren’s 100th Birthday Celebration” (PDF file) Nov. 14 at House of Sweden (2900 K Street NW, Washington, D.C.) from the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C.