This past weekend was the 15th Anniversary of the Texas Book Festival at the state capital and surrounding streets in Austin. Thank you to the staff, volunteers, authors, booksellers, exhibitors, Penguin Young Readers, and everyone who turned out to celebrate books!
Attendance was up this year! I attended sessions where latecomers were turned away due to fire-code restrictions.
Continue Reading 15th Anniversary of the Texas Book Festival »
Bethany Hegedus is the author of Between Us Baxters (WestSide, 2009) and Truth with a Capital T (Delacorte, 2010). From the promotional copy of Truth with a Capital T:
Lots of families have secrets. Little-Known Fact: My family has an antebellum house with a locked wing—and I’ve got a secret of my own.
Continue Reading New Voice: Bethany Hegedus on Between Us Baxters and Truth with a Capital T »
Learn about Tanya Lee Stone.
What first inspired you to write across forms in children’s-YA literature?
Since I didn’t set out to write across forms in a deliberate way, I’m not sure there was any one moment of inspiration linked to that outcome. However, I do recall having a moment in which I gave myself permission to switch gears.
By Brian Yansky
I’ve written elsewhere that my first short-story, “Santa Claus and the Twenty-seven Bad Boys,” which was written in the first grade, neatly outlined my material for a lifetime of fiction writing: it had a stubborn fascination in the mythological and supernatural creatures that haunt and enliven our culture, an affection for odd and strange characters,
Continue Reading Guest Post: Brian Yansky on Being Unreasonable »
Enter to win an author-signed copy of Hibernation Station by Michelle Meadows, illustrated by Kurt Cyrus (Simon & Schuster, 2010). Personalization of the signing is optional to the winner! From the promotional copy:
Everybody to the Station!
Time for Winter Hibernation!
With room for all kinds of critters from big burly bears and clamoring chipmunks to grumpy groundhogs and fidgety frogs,
Fuzzy slippers, warm pajamas,
Forest babies and their mamas…
show up early at the station!
Time for winter hibernation.
In the winter, I want to wear cozy pajamas. I want to curl up in a blanket with pillows, snacks, and books. I want to nap and read and nap and have a snack and nap and have another snack and then nap some more.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Michelle Meadows on Hibernation Station »
Tami Lewis Brown is the first-time author of Soar Elinor (FSG, 2010). From the promotional copy:
Elinor Smith was six when she first went for a ride in a rickety “flying machine,” and she was just sixteen when she earned her aviation license in 1928. But not everyone thought that girls should fly.
Continue Reading New Voice: Tami Lewis Brown on Soar, Elinor! »
Outrage motivated my first picture book, Betsy Who Cried Wolf, illustrated by Scott Nash (HarperCollins, 2002), obviously based on “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”
In the original tale, when the Boy cries wolf for the third time and there really is a wolf,
Continue Reading Guest Post: Gail Carson Levine on Outrage, Fairy Tales, and Betsy Red Hoodie »
Sara Beitia is the first-time author of The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon (Flux, 2010)(author blog). From the promotional copy:
We’ve been over this, he says. We have to get to her first.
I know! Olivia snaps. I’m keeping company with a suspected murderer and I’ve probably become an accessory at this point,
Continue Reading New Voice: Sara Beitia on The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon »
Holly Cupala is the first-time author of Tell Me a Secret (HarperTeen, 2010). From the promotional copy:
Tell me a secret, and I’ll tell you one…
In the five years since her bad-girl sister Xanda’s death, Miranda Mathison has wondered about the secret her sister took to the grave, and what really happened the night she died.
Continue Reading New Voice: Holly Cupala on Tell Me a Secret »
