Category: Uncategorized

Yesterday, Cheryl Rainfield and I did a Twitter chat about breaking the silence in YA books. We talked about the important of writing about painful issues and how often a book is the only one who understands what we are going through. Readers shared books that saved them and their wish to have had the edgy, raw, dark (often thought by others as “too dark”) books available when they were teens. I am so thankful to the YA authors who push the envelope, whose books have inspired me to write mine.

And I am also grateful that I will be joining a lot of them at this year’s NYC Teen Author Festival, created by David Levithan (one of those awesome envelope pushers). Imagine so many teen authors all in one room! For a week!

Here are the deets: From Monday March 26 through Saturday, March 31, authors of Teen Lit will be reading from their books, discussing issues they write about, saying what makes their characters tick. All will culminate in a MEGA author signing on April 1 at Books of Wonder. Check out the full schedule for all events here on the NYC Teen Author Festival FB page (and please re “like” the page even if you have before because there was some cooky FB stuff that erased the first page). I’m also posting it below if you want to scroll through.

Want to know what I’ll be doing there? Glad you asked! I’m so psyched to be part of the Saturday (March 31 from 2:50-4) symposium at the NYPL on 42nd street. The topic is Moments of Truth: Characters at a Crossroads about defining moments that changed our characters, and not only does the panel put me in amazing company (see the fab authors I’m with below!!) but the wonderfully talented E. Lockhart will be the moderator. What more can a girl ask for?? And, if you want a signed copy of PIECES OF US, I’ll also be at the Mega BOW signing on April 1 (I’ll be signing 1:45-2:30). Hope to see everyone there!

2012 NYC Teen Author Festival

Monday, March 26 (Mulberry Street Branch of the NYPL, 10 Jersey Street b/w Mulberry and Lafayette, 6-8): 

Plotting Dangerously: Doing What it Takes to Find the Story

Coe Booth
Jen Calonita
Paul Griffin
Deborah Heiligman
Melissa Kantor
Morgan Matson
Kieran Scott
Melissa Walker

moderator: David Levithan

Tuesday, March 27 (McNally Jackson Bookstore, 52 Prince Street, 7-8:30):
The Mutual Admiration Society Reading

Madeleine George
Ellen Hopkins
David Levithan
Jennifer Smith
John Corey Whaley

Wednesday. March 28 (42nd St NYPL, Bergen Forum, 6-8): 
Things Fall Apart: World Building and World Destroying in YA

Anna Carey
Sarah Beth Durst
Anne Heltzel
Jeff Hirsch
Andy Marino
Lauren McLaughlin
Lissa Price
Jon Skovron

moderator: Chris Shoemaker

Thursday, March 29:
The NYC Big Read

NOTE: SPECIFIC MANHATTAN LIBRARY LOCATIONS TO COME

Queens – Long Island City branch of the Queens Public Library (37-44 21 StreetLong Island City, NY 11101)

Tara Altebrando
Brent Crawford
Gina Damico
Jeff Hirsch
Andy Marino
Jon Skovron
Alecia Whitaker

Manhattan – Locations to come

Jen Calonita
Anna Carey
Matthew Cody
Jocelyn Davies
Melissa De La Cruz
Hilary Graham
Christopher Grant
Leanna Renee Hieber
Anne Heltzel
Gwendolyn Heasley
PG Kain
Kody Keplinger
Lauren McLaughlin
Sarah Mlynowski
Eugene Myers
Micol Ostow
Stephanie Perkins
Jessica Rotherberg
Lena Roy
Erin Saldin
Leila Sales
Eliot Schrefer
Samantha Schutz
Mark Shulman
Arlaina Tibensky

Brooklyn – Brooklyn Public Library, central branch, Grand Army Plaza
Kate Ellison
Gayle Forman
Melissa Kantor
Barry Lyga
Michael Northrop
Matthue Roth
Victoria Schwab
Melissa Walker

Bronx — Bronx Library Center – 310 East Kingsbridge Road, Bronx
Elizabeth Eulberg
Paul Griffin
Alissa Grosso
David Levithan
Sarah Darer Littman
Kieran Scott
John Corey Whaley

Friday March 30, Symposium (42nd Street NYPL, 2-6)

2:00 – Introduction

2:10-3:00: Being Friends With Boys

Elizabeth Eulberg
Jenny Han
Terra Elan McVoy
Stephanie Perkins

moderator: Sarah Mlynowski

3:00-3:50: The Writer as Time Traveler: Writing the Past While Sitting in the Present

Judy Blundell
Matthew Cody
Jennifer Donnelly
Leanna Renee Hieber
Suzanne Weyn

moderator: David Levithan

3:50-4:40: No Ordinary Love: How to Create a Satisfying Love Story and a Satisfying Supernatural World at the Same Time

Andrea Cremer
Melissa de la Cruz
Jeri Smith-Ready
Victoria Schwab
Margaret Stohl

moderator: Barry Lyga

4:40-5:30: New Voices Spotlight

Emily Danforth
Kate Ellison
Lucas Klauss
Carley Moore
Aleica Whittaker

Friday March 30, Barnes & Noble Reader’s Theater/Signing (Union Square B&N, 33 E 17th St, 7-8:30)

Andrea Cremer
Emily Danforth
Lucas Klauss
Stephanie Perkins
Siobhan Vivian
John Corey Whaley

moderator: David Levithan

Saturday March 31, Symposium (42nd Street NYPL, 1-5)

1:00 – Introduction

1:10-2:00 – Rising to the Challenge: YA Characters Facing Down What Life Throws Them

Tara Altebrando
Matt Blackstone
Susane Colasanti
Kody Keplinger
Siobhan Vivian
K.M. Walton

moderator: David Levithan

2:00-2:50 — Killer Instincts: Death, Murder, and the YA Novel

Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Gina Damico
Kim Harrington
Barry Lyga

moderator: Marie Rutkoski

2:50-4:00 — Moments of Truth: Characters at a Crossroads

Natasha Friend
Margie Gelbwasser
Jennifer Hubbard
Stewart Lewis
Sarah Darer Littman
Jess Rothenberg
Daisy Whitney

moderator: E. Lockhart

4:00-5:00 – Looking Forward to Fall

David Levithan
Marie Rutkoski
Eliot Schrefer
…and more authors reading from their upcoming books

Sunday April 1: Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing at Books of Wonder (Books of Wonder, 1-4): 

1-1:45:
Jennifer Barnes (Every Other Day, Egmont)
Matt Blackstone (A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie, FSG)
Caroline Bock (LIE, St. Martin’s)
Jen Calonita (Belles, Little Brown)
Anna Carey (Eve, Harper)
Susane Colasanti (So Much Closer, Penguin)
Andrea Cremer (Bloodrose, Penguin)
Gina Damico (Croak, HMH)
Emily Danforth (The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Harper)
Jocelyn Davies (A Beautiful Dark, Harper)
Sarah Beth Durst (Drink, Slay, Love, S&S)
Elizabeth Eulberg (Take a Bow, Scholastic)
Gayle Forman (Where She Went, Penguin) 
Natasha Friend (For Keeps, Penguin)
Kim Harrington (Perception, Scholastic)
Barry Lyga (I Hunt Killers, Little Brown)
Daisy Whitney (The Rivals, Little Brown)

1:45-2:30
Margie Gelbwasser (Pieces of Us, Flux)
Alissa Grosso (Popular, Flux)
Jenny Han (We’ll Always Have Summer, S&S)
Leanna Renee Hieber (Darker Still, Sourcebooks)
Anne Heltzel (Circle Nine, Candlewick)
Jeff Hirsch (The Eleventh Plague, Scholastic)
Jennifer Hubbard (Try Not to Breathe, Penguin)
Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of True or Dare, Penguin)
PG Kain (Famous for Thirty Seconds, S&S)
Melissa Kantor (The Darlings in Love, Hyperion)
Kody Keplinger (Shut Out, Little Brown)
Lucas Klauss (Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse, S&S)
David Levithan (Every You, Every Me, RH)
Stewart Lewis (You Have Seven Messages, RH)
Sarah Darer Littman (Want to Go Private?, Scholastic)
Elisa Ludwig (Pretty Crooked, S&S)

2:30-3:15
Carolyn Mackler (The Future of Us, Penguin)
Andy Marino (Unison Spark, FSG)
Wendy Mass (13 Gifts, Scholastic)
Terra Elan McVoy (The Summer of Firsts and Lasts, S&S)
Lauren McLaughlin (Scored, RH)
Sarah Mlynowski (Ten Things We Did, RH)
Carley Moore (The Stalker Chronicles, FSG)
E. C. Myers (Fair Coin, Pyr)
Michael Northrop (Plunked, Scholastic)
Micol Ostow (What Would My Cell Phone Do?, Penguin)
Stephanie Perkins (Lola and the Boy Next Door, Penguin)
Jessica Rotherberg (The Catastrophic History of You and Me, Penguin)
Marie Rutkoski (The Jewel of the Kalderash, FSG)
Erin Saldin (The Girls of No Return, Scholastic)
Leila Sales (Past Perfect, S&S)
Kieran Scott (He’s So Not Worth It, S&S)

3:15-4:00
Melissa De La Cruz (Lost in Time, Hyperion)
Alyssa Sheinmel, (The Lucky Kind, RH)
Jennifer Smith (The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Little Brown)
Jeri Smith-Ready (Shift, S&S)
Jon Skovron (Misfit, Abrams)
Victoria Schwab (The Near Witch, Hyperion)
Mark Shulman (Are You Normal?, National Geographic)
Margaret Stohl (Beautiful Chaos, Little Brown)
Arlaina Tibensky (And Then Things Fell Apart, S&S)
Siobhan Vivian (The List, Scholastic)
Melissa Walker (Small Town Sinners, Bloomsbury)
K.M. Walton (Cracked, S&S)
John Corey Whaley (Where Things Come Back, S&S)
Alecia Whitaker (The Queen of Kentucky, Little Brown)
Maryrose Wood (The Unseen Guest, Harper)
Natalie Zaman and Charlotte Bennardo (Sirenz, Flux)

Abuse. Bullying. Violence. It needs to stop. Empower victims with a voice and help break the silence.

Join Cheryl Rainfield (SCARS, HUNTED) and me for a Twitter Chat Monday, March 5 at 7 PM, as we discuss the need for realistic YA, writing about painful issues, the importance of breaking the silence and more. We’ll be using the hashtag #BreakSilence, so if you use something like TweetChat it’ll be easy to follow along. Ask us questions during the chat, or send your questions ahead of time to twitterchat @ jkscommunications (dot) com.

5 lucky #BreakSilence Twitter chat participants will win 1 of these 5 prizes:

PRIZES:
1 signed copy of PIECES OF YOU + signed bookmarks
2 signed copies of HUNTED (paperback Canadian version)
2 ebook review copies of HUNTED

Tweet #BreakSilence and help spread the word.

When Margie Gelbwasser wrote her first YA novel, INCONVENIENT (Flux, 2010), her dad said, “The writing is nice, but there are very few Jewish alcoholics.” A Russian woman who read it said, “Yes, to Americans it may seem like the mom is an alcoholic, but she isn’t really.” And then there were those who thanked her for telling their story. Too much of real life is kept behind closed doors, with victims thinking their plight is 
the norm or that this only happens to them. Margie’s second novel,PIECES OF US (Flux, March 2010), deals with cyberbullying, abuse and dating violence.

She’s been told “These things may happen, but they shouldn’t be written about.” It’s the silence that causes cycles to repeat. “Too dark” for some, is another’s reality. By allowing the “too real,” victims gain strength. Confront the realistic in YA and #BreakSilence.

Visit Margie at her website.

YA author Cheryl Rainfield is an incest and ritual abuse survivor. Her abusers frequently told her that they’d kill her if she talked, and since she’d seen them murder other children, she knew they could kill her, so became became terrified to talk. Writing became her safe way of “speaking”, her way to have a voice. Books, too, helped her survive–helped her escape the abuse she living, helped her dream and hope, and in some small ways helped her know she wasn’t alone. But she never fully found her own experiences reflected in books, and that’s why Cheryl wrote SCARS and HUNTED. She wrote the books she needed as a teen, and couldn’t find. She talked about the things others never seemed to talk about–self-harm, sexual abuse, being queer (in SCARS) and cults, torture, bullying, and homophobia (in HUNTED).

Meghan Cox Gurden in the WSJ called SCARS (and many other YA books) “too dark.” But Cheryl lived “too dark.” Many teens now are living “too dark.” We need reflections of our own experiences to know that we’re not alone, and to give us some hope that things can get better. Join us and #BreakSilence.

Visit Cheryl at her website.

What does realistic fiction mean to you? What kinds of contemp stories draw you in? Check out my take on keeping it real and why I lean toward the darker topics, as opposed to puppies and rainbows. Read my essay in Book Page and let me know your thoughts.

So, I should be working on a new project right now but I just got the go-ahead to share my cover for PIECES OF US (Flux, March 8, 2012), and I can’t think straight. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Hope you do too! And summary for the book is below too!

PIECES OF US Summary:

At home in Philly, Alex is angry. Angry at the dad who offed himself rather than stay around; angry at the mom who goes from one guy to the next without a thought for her family. Alex may be a player and a bully, but his little brother Kyle will do anything for his approval.

At home in the suburbs, Katie is Miss Popularity, the golden girl that everyone expects too much of, the one who will always be the prettiest and best in her parents eyes, and everyone else’s. Her shy little sister Julie just wants a bit of the attention that Katie gets so easily. 

But during their summers at lake houses in Upstate New York, all four teens have a chance to leave their old identities behind. They can be anything here.

Here, no one knows the truly disturbing nature of Kyle and Alex’s dysfunctional relationship. No one knows that the girl Katie pretends to be is a lie. Julie never worries that Kyle is only spending time with her to get to her prettier sister. And the secrets that are threatening to destroy each of them seem are safe.

But secrets have a way of getting out…

Today’s AN! post discusses why I love writing. Check it out here.

I had the opportunity to do an interview for Cynsations, Cynthia Leitich Smith’s blog. Was so happy to have the chance to do this because not only is Cynthia an amazing author but she does so much for writers, the writing community, and educators. Check out my thoughts on my teen years, finding time to write now, and Inconvenient here.

We know that hating a main character can completely ruin a novel. But what about characters we’re SUPPOSED to hate. Have they ever ruined your enjoyment of a novel. Check out my take on the subject and post your thoughts on The Story Siren’s blog! I got to guest post today!!