Writing Excuses hilarity, conferences and conventions for children’s/YA

Today’s Writing Excuses covers conventions you (writers) should be attending, but they didn’t really have time to cover conventions and conferences specifically geared for children’s books (and I actually am not sure if any of them have been to anything except the occasional BYU Writing for Young Readers). I’ve been meaning to post something about … Read more

Links for the cover issue

Via the Brown Bookshelf, John Green discusses the cover issue for Justine Larbalestier’s book in a thorough way, taking into account all the changes our industry is going through. *** Also, I’ve added several books to my POC booklist thanks to all the people who have been suggesting books. There are a number of fantasy … Read more

Questions I have about our industry in general

I added these to my last post, because some readers pointed out that it sounded like I was defending Bloomsbury’s choice of cover, which wasn’t my intent at all. In fact, I was trying to point out that despite pressures from sales and marketing, the fact remains that it is very important to be aware … Read more

Cover art considerations

Justine Larbalestier’s new book, Liar, has been getting a lot of attention lately. When she first revealed the cover, I thought it was nice — striking image, interesting thing happening with the hair. But having never read the book, I didn’t realize that the main character describes herself as black, with short hair, and looking … Read more

Book lists: Multicultural SF/F for MG and YA

ETA: If you’re just googling into this list now, please see my booklists over on Pinterest, which I keep much more up-to-date than this page from several years ago. I break them down by age group and genre. I also publish diverse science fiction and fantasy for young readers at Tu Books now. See the … Read more

Also, for those who were wondering

I’m not sure I posted about this here, though I did talk about it on Twitter and Facebook. Several weeks ago, my ten-year-old niece had a heart attack. She was rushed to Seattle Children’s, where she was in ICU for a couple weeks on bypass and a respirator. She successfully recovered enough to take her … Read more

Upcoming books by friends

For those of you who are RPG players or DMs, here’s a book for you. Back in April, I got the chance to line edit/copyedit X-treme Dungeon Mastery, a new book by bestselling fantasy author Tracy Hickman and his son, who is a magician in his own right, Curtis Hickman, and illustrated by Howard Tayler. … Read more