I had the pleasure of interviewing SHINE, COCONUT MOON debut author Neesha Meminger recently -- please do check it out!

The PEN Children's/Young Adult Book Author Committee page is chock full of all kinds of interesting goodness, like a correspondence between Markus Zusak and Susan Campbell Bartoletti, archived audio such as Leaving Home as a Rite of Passage with Neil Gaiman, Isabel Hoving, Janne Teller, Markus Zusak, and moderated by Robert Lipsyte; and Crossing Borders: Universal Themes in Children's Literature with Cornelia Funke, Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton, Pat Mora, Kyoko Mori, Salman Rushdie, and moderated by Lois Lowry, and Capturing Race, and online discussion.

New post up on AuthorsNow!; please share your 'book that changed everything' in the comments. Thanks so much to everyone who supplied such fantastic anecdotes.

Glossy promotional campaigns, bestseller lists everywhere, that indefinable buzz that skyrockets a book to the forefront of our collective imagination — we’re inundated with hard sells these days, often for the same few titles. How do you offer readers books beyond the bestsellers? How do you find the ones that will resonate with you and the people in your community?

My first 'Five Faves' column on AuthorsNow! is up; if you have a moment, stop by and share your favourite ways to find new books.

So I was walking down the street thinking about something that was really upsetting, quite painful...and within seconds, I was wondering how I might use it in a story. In a way, that's not anything new at all, using people, places, and things from my life in writing (and I'm pretty sure it's not just me -- I mean, that's kind of what we do, right?) But this time the 'writing' thought came so quickly. I don't think that I want to be one of those artists that 'uses' everything and everyone for artistic purposes; there's a fine line, you know? Anyway, I freaked myself out.

Random Writing I'm Enjoying:


"My father left home when I was young, so when I was introduced to the concept of God as Father I imagined Him as a stiff, oily man who wanted to move into our house and share a bed with my mother. I can only remember this as a frightful and threatening idea. We were a poor family who attended a wealthy church, so I imagined God as a man who had a lot of money and drove a big car. At church they told us we were children of God, but I knew God's family was better than mine, that He had a daughter who was a cheerleader and a son who played football. I was born with a small bladder so I wet the bed till I was ten and later developed a crush on the homecoming queen who was kind to me in a political sort of way, which was something she probably learned from her father, who was president of a bank."


-from Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller


I do like that.


Other Randoms:
A great post by an author on negotiating for oneself.

Interesting Article on Digital vs. Print Literacy and a sort-of related one on liner notes

One day I will graduate to being this kind of mom; these are very cool. I did make some rhubarb jam yesterday. And I found a doll I started making a couple of weeks ago. I may even finish her now.

"I'm YA and I'm OK", Margo Rabb's piece in the NY Times