This is the season for writing conferences around my parts, and as I've been gearing up, I've been thinking over conferences past. As I've always gone to conferences as an attendee, rather than a presenter, this post is geared toward attendees. I was fortunate enough to sell my first novel to an editor I met at a writing conference, but I by no ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Someday I'll probably try my hand at writing a screenplay. Until then, I'll be very happy getting lost in the plethora of YA films already out there, and completely brilliant. YA films can be dark, funny, realistic, fantastic--just like YA books. What follows is my list of the ten best YA films. Just my humble opinion, mind you.

(You’ll notice ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Below are ten pictures that always rev up my imagination. I could have chosen a billion others, of course, but these were the first ten I thought of:






( Read more... )

I've spent a lot of time in schools, community centers, libraries, and all kinds of classrooms over the years, and have always enjoyed looking for ways to make connections between literature and academic life, to bring books into the classroom and library in dynamic and innovative ways. There are so many resources out there to help MG and YA ( Read more... )

A lot of us take these first few weeks of the New Year to assess where we are, where we were, and where we’d like to be. For my Top Ten, I wanted to look at the Tenners - where we are, were, and are about to be - to see if there’s anything to be learned about publishing, specifically selling a debut novel, from our experiences.

55 of the 82 Tenners ( Read more... )

As winter approaches (it dropped below 70 this week in Miami….brrr), I thought I’d remind us all of warm, sunny days by featuring some of my favorite beach spots.

1) Miami Beach, Florida - This is my local beach so I usually overlook it, but it is truly one of the best in the world. It has a nightlife like no other (South Beach is world ( Read more... )

Sizzlin' movie heartthrobs are totally easy to name, but my first boy crushes were on cartoon hotties. That's right-Tom Cruise, you have nothing on Handy Smurf. As an adult, I can still see the appeal of these animated cuties (maybe it helps that they're made to look like the actors voicing them too) so I thought I would submit a run down of the ( Read more... )

I’m inspired in my writing by certain movies and the techniques directors use to engage the viewer. I think as writers we can learn from movies, particularly how to introduce our main characters in a way that the reader develops a stake in finding out what happens to them, and wants to keeps reading to the end of the book.

My list has all types of ( Read more... )