Author-Publisher Interview: Lee Merrill Byrd of Cinco Puntos

Lee Merrill Byrd was born and raised in New Jersey, but then relocated to the southwest. She founded Cinco Puntos Press with her husband, poet Bobby Byrd in 1985. Cinco Puntos publishes adult non-fiction, adult fiction, poetry, and children’s literature. Its focus is on “multicultural literatures of the American Southwest, the U.S./Mexico border region and Mexico.”

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YA Novelist Cecil Castellucci To Debut Graphic Novel

For Graphic Novels, A New Frontier: Teenange Girls by George Gene Gustines from The New York Times. Don’t miss this article, which among other news of note mentions: “The first Minx graphic novel will be ‘The P.L.A.I.N. Janes,’ written by Cecil Castellucci and illustrated by Jim Rugg.”

I had the honor of taking a sneak peek at Cecil’s book at NCTE/ALAN,

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White, Bray Win TSRA Golden Spur Awards

Texas State Reading Association‘s Golden Spur Children’s-YA Awards have been announced. They honor work by Texas authors.

The winner was Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 by Andrea White (Eos/HarperCollins) and the honor books were The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (Hyperion)(author interview) and Dona Flor: A Tall Tale About A Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart by Pat Mora (Knopf)(recommendation).

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Picture This: Picture Books for Young Adults: Notes from ALAN 2006

The following Q&A was developed in response to tentative questions for a panel, “Picture This: Using Picture Books to Connect Teens with Young Adult Literature,” hosted by Sunya Osborn of Nebo School District in Spanish Fork, Utah at the ALAN Workshop 2006 in Nashville.

The panel featured Paul Janeczko, Sneed Collard,

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