I’ve been in revision mode since the beginning of the year, which is why my podcast is sporadic and my blogging has been pretty lax. Despite the number of hours in the day, when I’m really trying to tune my focus, taking time for anything else feels like cheating, or wasting precious moments that should be spent correcting typos and eliminating the word ‘just’ from my manuscript. Continue reading
Today on YA Rewind, author Gail Carriger joins me for a chat about her new young adult novel, Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School Book One). We talk about her literary influences, what appealed to her about a teenage protagonist, and why Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality floats above the moors. Continue reading
Considering how big a fan I am of the original source material (as well as the A&E mini, the Keira Knightly film, and the zombified version), I’m surprised it took me as long as it did to sit down to watch the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, “an online adaptation of Jane … Continue reading
SPOILER WARNING! I only started reading The Dresden Files at the end of 2011, after friends spent the car ride home from Comic-Con talking about Ghost Story, which had just been released. I’d seen the short-lived SciFi series, and been reliably informed that the show was almost nothing like its source … Continue reading
Today on YA Rewind, after an unexpected hiatus, I’ve gone back to the works of Lloyd Alexander for what may be one of my favorite books of all time: The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. I talk about how magic helps the moral go down, discuss the changes planned for this podcast in the new year, and finish with Book Jacket Theatre, the segment in which I pull really terrible blurbs from the ‘Paranormal Teen Romance’ section and give them all the melodrama they deserve. Continue reading
I’ve never seen an episode of Oprah in my life, but I understand that periodically she would share whatever tickled her fancy with her audience, and today’s my birthday, so I thought it would be a good time to share the things that have tickled mine. (Metaphorically.) I suppose with Thanksgiving coming up I could also title this post ‘Things I’m Grateful For’ but that enters the dodgy world of ending sentences with prepositions. Mostly, I want to share some neat or useful things I’ve found, and I love any excuse to use bullet points. Continue reading
Whenever I start a new writing project, I like to make a mock-up of the cover art. There are a few reasons for this: 1) because it’s fun, 2) because it helps me visualize the story, and 3) because it allows me to live in the delusion that it could become a reality some day. Of course, just because you’re a writer doesn’t mean you have any drawing ability whatsoever, which is why I love Photoshop so much. Continue reading
In much of literature, love stories are about couples who have to overcome tremendous obstacles to be together – but sometimes the only obstacle to a happily ever after is the couple itself. Two characters who spend most of a story arguing until a sudden realization and declaration of love is, of course, a romantic comedy staple, and not unique to the silver screen. Some of our favorite fictional pairs spend their books completely oblivious to the relationship that’s right in front of them. Continue reading
In this episode of YA Rewind I talk about middle grade fiction and books for young readers including a favorite from when I was a kid: The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. Then I explore the differences between the rules of magic for kids and the rules of magic for adults, and later I share a performance from Book Jacket Theatre, the segment in which I pull really terrible blurbs from the ‘Paranormal Teen Romance’ section and give them all the melodrama they deserve. Continue reading
In this episode of YA Rewind, I talk about the great Lloyd Alexander and The Illyrian Adventure, the first of his books to feature intrepid orphan Vesper Holly. On the Casting Couch, I pick out my ideal cast for a Vesper Holly movie and discuss some upcoming YA adaptations, and in the new Book Jacket Theatre segment I perform a melodramatic reading of a book summary from the ‘paranormal teen romance’ section of Amazon. Continue reading
