#WritersRead: A Twitter Book Club

Our inaugeral #WritersRead Twitter Book Club was a success! We had a great time discussing Maggie Stievater’s Shiver. Our next book will be…Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan!

Here’s how it works:

• Buy or borrow Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
• Read Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
• Show up on Twitter on Thursday, May 20 at 6:30 PM PST.
• Use the hashtag #writersread to join the conversation.

Some tips for reading:
Look for the techniques the author is using, and if they were put to good use or not. Think about what you admire or what you would do differently.

• Plot
• Characterization
• Dialogue
• Novel Structure
• Tone
• Setting

Guest Post: Kate Hart on Querying and Applying to College

I begged invited Kate to guest post a gazillion years while ago. She is funny, talented, and an amazing friend. We are proof that a “virtual” friendship can work, and I have approximately 900 Twitter DMs to her in case you doubt me. Aside from my sister, she was the first person I told when I got an agent, and she jumped up and down with me. I can’t wait until it’s my turn to do the same with her, and I am biting my nails to the quick as she embarks on this terrifying illuminating journey.  Read on to see her thoughts on querying.

******

Cory is my first “writing friend,” and among the many things cementing the friendship is the fact that between the two of us, we have probably applied to school more times than half the eastern seaboard. I’ve tried and disliked three separate graduate programs (turns out I really want to write– who knew?); I’ll let Cory fill in her own educational history below.*

My fickle obsession with higher education has an upside, though. It was good preparation for querying. In many ways, the processes are the same:

• You must sum up your entire novel/being in a short letter/essay and submit to the judgment of strangers.
• An obscene amount of research will serve you well.
• Connections in the biz/on the board of directors can help you out– but aren’t necessary.
• That said, having an alum/a published writer for a parent doesn’t hurt.
• Your extra-curricular activities really can help– or hinder, depending on what you’ve been doing outside of school/saying online.
• There will be lots of hurdles to jump through. (Synopsis or no? Sample pages or no? Personal statement or no? Times or Courier?) These are designed to test your dedication. You have to prove you want it. And that you can follow directions.
• It will be tempting to apply/query the same places as your friends.
• You will spend a LOT of time checking your mail/inbox.
• You will probably panic. A lot.
• You’ll have to accept that the decision is out of your hands.
• Rejection will hurt. It will be disheartening, even embarrassing. It will not be the end of the world.
• You will be jealous when others succeed before you.
• You might have to choose between several good offers. You can only choose one.
• A good match is essential. If you choose wrong, you can probably change later, but it won’t be pleasant.
• Once you get in/get agented, you have a whole new challenge ahead of you.
• In grad school as well as writing, it’s publish or perish.

The good news is that unlike school applications, you don’t have to pay to query (and if you do, RUN THE OTHER WAY). You don’t have to take a standardized test… but you also don’t get the luxury of a safety school. Few people will question your decision to go to school; few people will believe you actually think you can get published.

You can query from anywhere and don’t have to worry about a campus visit, but there’s no promise of keg parties in the future to keep you motivated. There is, however, the dream of hitting it big and making a gazillion dollars. And if you’re really lucky, both in school and writing, you might make some new best friends– and you don’t have to share a small dorm room or eat cafeteria food in the meantime.

*Note from Cory: I’ve been to so many colleges, I frequently lose count. I think I’m at 11 now, and I’m working on my second Master’s. Even between degrees, I’ve taken classes for fun, like Poli Sci and French.  Admissions departments fear me and my boatload of transcripts.

Teaser Tuesday

More of my wip, Interior of a Heart. This is a literary YA I’m working on about a girl turned into an outcast in her town when she keeps a secret for her boyfriend, a soldier who has gone MIA in Afghanistan. Quinn’s father has just told her that Carey is MIA.

*Removed snip*

Eight Things You Need to Know About YARN

YARN’s Mission: To publish the highest quality creative writing for young adult readers, ages 14-18, and those in other age groups who enjoy young adult literature. YARN features short fiction, creative essays, poetry, and author interviews. We also hope to encourage discussions about published work through the Comments area. We seek to discover new teen writers and publish them alongside established writers of the YA genre.

Most of us remember reading short stories when we were young adults. If you are a young adult writer, you may know that there are few places to submit shorter works like the ones we read when we were younger. The tide is changing with the help of The YA Review Network (YARN), a literary journal that aims to publishing writing for young adult readers. Kerri Smith Majors, the Editor, and Shannon Marshall, the Assistant Editor, agreed to answer a few questions about the journal. Read what they had to say, and then SUBMIT!

1. Starting a literary journal is a huge undertaking. What motivated you to create YARN?

This is something I write about in a more detail in my blog.  But the nutshell version is that I started writing a short story for a YA audience, and after a search on the internet, I saw that there were very few places for YA writers to publish short works–whereas there are hundreds of venues for adult writing!  I wanted to start YARN to fill that gap in the market, and to celebrate the quality and diversity of the genre. We also offer the opportunity for young writers to be published alongside established writers who contribute pieces and interviews to YARN.

2. What kind of works are you accepting submissions for?

We accept all kinds of submissions; in fact, in a few weeks we are going to publish a retelling of the “Little Red Ridinghood” fairytale.  If it’s well written, imaginative, and geared toward readers of YA literature, we’ll consider it.  For more on what we’re looking for, and how to submit, see our Submission Guidelines.

3. As the editors of YARN, do you have any personal preferences for submissions?

While of course all editors have their personal tastes and preferences, we try to read every submission with an open mind, thinking about audiences other than ourselves.  We enjoy being surprised by writers of the YA genre with new subject matter, and new viewpoints.

4. Kerri, as a writing professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University and a YA writer, have you noticed a shift in academia attitudes toward writing YA literature?

This year, I mentored a senior honors thesis by YARN’s very own Lourdes Keochgerien, entitled “The Odyssey of the YA Label: From Ambiguity to Certainty.”  It’s about how YA has historically been treated as a lesser second cousin to “real” literature, as a genre that is simplistic and moralistic, and how this has always been an unfair and untrue generalization.  To support her thesis, she analyzes the explosion of complex, literary YA in the past 10 years, focusing on books like “Paper Towns” by John Green and “The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks” by E. Lockhart.

But I would say Lourdes is a trailblazer.  Because YA is a genre–like mystery, or romance, or fantasy (despite that fact that YA actually encompasses all those other genres)–it is still viewed as somehow less than the gold standard of Literature-with-a-capital-L, adult literary fiction.  I would add that this problem is not just within academia, but within the YA genre itself, from its very practitioners!  Here are two links that Lourdes discusses in her thesis that readers might find interesting in an incendiary way: New Yorker and NPR.  On the other hand, there is hope!  Especially since more and more adults are starting to realize that the offerings on the YA shelves are rich and wonderful–see this article from the LA Times.

5. Shannon, you studied acting and decided to switch things up by becoming a high school English teacher. What kind of reading interests are you noticing amongst the teens you teach?

My students helped me to rediscover my love for the YA genre.  And they’ve taught me to be open and appreciative of a great variety of storytelling. I keep a library in my classroom and an ongoing class blog where we all contribute notes on the books we’ve recently completed.  Right now, dystopian literature is massively popular with my students, especially “The Hunger Games,” “The Uglies” series, and the Susan Beth Pfeffer “Life As We Knew It” trilogy. The “Twilight” series is still being discovered by many younger teenagers who gobble up the books at an astonishing rate and then move on to consuming anything paranormal and romantic that they can get their hands on.  Realism, however, is not dead. “13 Reasons Why” by Jay Asher, “Looking for Alaska” by John Green, and “Lock and Key” by Sarah Dessen are just a few of the realistic YA novels recently circulating through my students. They appreciate and demand unflinching honesty.

6. YARN offers a unique opportunity for YA writers to submit shorter works, poetry, and essays. What kind of response has the writing community had to YARN?

So far, uniformly positive.  We’ve been very pleased.  In addition to excellent submissions from as yet unpublished authors, established authors such as Alisa Libby, Tina Ferraro, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Barry Lyga and Mitali Perkins have all contributed material to YARN. We’re thrilled!

7. One of your goals is to engage teen writers. Have they responded like you hoped they would?

If the high-quality teen writing we’ve received is any indication, then yes.  We’re on the right track.  This summer we’ll be looking for ways to reach out to more teen writers and readers.

8. YARN is your brainchild. How do you hope to see it grow over the next few years?

We’re looking forward continuing to promote literacy and celebrate the YA genre through an expanded audience and additional collaborations with writers in the YA community. We plan to reach out to the educational community as well in the hope that YARN may be a possible resource for teachers looking to promote reading and writing in their high-school classes. In addition, we’re hoping to begin to experiment with other online mediums like podcasts.

A big thanks to Kerri and Shannon for their time!

Kerri Smith Majors has an MFA from Columbia University. Her work has been published in “Guernica,” ” So To Speak,” “Ellipsis,” and “Poets and Writers.” She is a writing professor at Fairleigh Dickinson, and has written a YA novel, “Dream Traveler.”

Shannon Marshall has a background in drama and graduated from the University of California Los Angeles School for Theater, Film and Television. She now teaches high school English and is hard at work writing a screenplay.

(Photos and YARN Logo are property of YARN.)

Exposed!: YA Confessions

The casual pose. Every former cheerleader has this picture.

As many of you know, the things that we took pride in back in our high school days are often the things that cause us to wag our head in embarrassment. Some of us are still holding on to our high school hang ups (which is why I skipped my ten year reunion without a second thought). Each time we write, we have to take ourselves back to the painful place of teen angst and general turmoil. The more crystalline these memories are, the better we can put ourselves into the shoes of our characters. So here’s to embarrassing teenage moments, the funny and the sad. Feel free to share yours.

Confession:

I HATED being a teenager. I felt like I a forty-year-old crammed into a sixteen-year-old’s body. The thing is…I ached to be one of those fun-loving teens.  So I joined or tried out for a million clubs, including…wait for it – CHEERLEADING.

Yeah, I know. You’d never have guessed from my sparkling personality. Neither would’ve my fellow classmate until I showed up game days in my cheer uniform. But I was totallylike on the squad. I was quiet, and so NOT the cheer type. I confess that I loved it. And I had some amazing experiences, like cheering at a Clippers halftime and being in a Super Bowl halftime show (the Michael Jackson one – that is a story I will tell someday). I loved cheer competitions – we took second in state – and hated basketball with a fiery if-I–have-to-do-this-stupid-We-Will-Rock-You-cheer-again passion. At 5’2” I threw basket tosses, could pop a girl into a shoulder stand in 1-2-3 flat, and could yell  like a banshee. I was co-captain my junior year and even went on to cheer in college. Kind of embarrassing but true.

A testament to flexibility. I wish I could still do this.

These days I cringe when people talk cheer, as if I’m ashamed that’s part of my past. Especially when I remember the musty wool trail of sweaters and pleated skirts in my mom’s attic, and how they would fit on my big toe now. Maybe. I think this is because I take pride in the fact that I didn’t fit in to anyone’s stereotype of who I should be. Say you were a cheerleader, and people instantly assign a personality to you (think Cheerios onGlee). That wasn’t me. And I’m glad. Still, I have these embarrassing  great pics to share for your mocking pleasure.

I know you all must have some confessions to share. Bring it on! (Oh. I. Did.)

My family hasn't stopped teasing me about being a cheerleader. I think it's revenge for having to listen to me chant cheers under my breath for years.

What can I say? The stunts were my favorite part.

Writers Read: A Twitter Book Club – TONIGHT!!!

Do you love talking about books?

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Have you read Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater? Then you must show up TONIGHT for Writers Read – A Twitter Book Club!

Time:
TONIGHT, Thursday, April 22 at 6:30 PST

Where:
Twitter. Use hashtag #writersread to join the conversation.

Teaser Tuesday

A little more of my WIP, Interior of a Heart. This is a literary YA I’m working on about a girl turned into an outcast in her town when she keeps a secret for her boyfriend, a soldier who has gone MIA in Afghanistan.

*Removed snip*

What Inspires Your Work?

Friday night I gave a friend a ride home from work. We were chatting about my book, and I was telling her how an event had inspired a scene in my book. She thought that was fascinating; kind of like getting a Behind-the-Scenes look into my work. So here’s your peek into some of the moments that inspired TOUCHED.

1)      Chevy Malibu – In March 2009, I was busy working on the last scenes of my book. On my way to work one morning, I T-boned a woman on the freeway in my little Ford Focus. (Not my fault, BTW.) As I waited out the insurance rigmarole, I drove around in a rental car. Sorry, Chevy, but I hate your Malibu. So when I needed a car to crash in my story, I gleefully chose you. And boy, did I smash you.

2)      In September 2008, my work took me on a three-week tour of San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston. My co-worker and I visited a few sites, including Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, the first Starbucks, and the Space Needle. All of these locations made it into the first draft of TOUCHED, though you can hardly recognize them in the final draft. Why? Because I love mac and cheese, coffee, and heights.

3)      My friend, Lindsay, is afraid of heights. I realized this when she stood against the wall at the Space Needle, while I tried to peer over the edge through the bars, going “See how high up we are? Isn’t this great?” This moment made it into the book, morphed into a scene between the two main characters. The Space Needle also magically transformed into a lighthouse.

4)      In 2003 I lived in New York City down near Wall Street. I used to get up early in the morning to ride the ferry to Staten Island because (1) it was free and (2) I loved seeing the Statue of Liberty when the sun was coming up. When I worked in Seattle in September, my job had me riding the ferries back and forth between Seattle and Bainbridge Island (don’t ask – a job in marketing has you doing all kinds of things you’d never expect). I knew my book had to include ferries. There’s something lonely and romantic about them. If you’ve seen the Seattle skyline from the car deck with not a soul in sight, you know what I mean. When I moved my story to a fictional town on the East Coast, I created a fictional ferry to transport my characters to my fictional island. Also, since I worked with the folks who run the advertising on the ferries, I know that the deck on either end of the boat with the green rails really is called a pickle fork.

5)      My father lives in East Haven, Connecticut. When I visited him one winter, I saw it snow on the beach. As a Southern California girl, this fascinated me. I’ve since lived in snowy climes, but snow still makes me pause like a giddy little girl. That’s why my location features snow AND beaches.

6)      My MC remembers a scene with her mother of a day spent on the beach using a blanket instead of towels and pans in place of sand toys. We never had a lot of money, but I remember some fun days at Huntington Beach with my own mom.

7)      The mother’s shoes with the plastic cherries. This is a callout to one of my favorite authors, Jennifer Crusie. One of her MCs has a pair of these shoes in her novel, Bet Me. Our characters have nothing in common, but I included them anyway. J

8)      In an early scene with my MC and her father, she watches as a local helps himself to coffee at the server’s station. On a location visit to Port Townsend, WA (my town is modeled after there), I watched a local do this very thing at a local diner.

9)      A couple of scenes between my two MCs take place in a park that is a labyrinth with a haven at the center. This park – Sather Park – really exists in Port Townsend. On a visit to the town, a friend and I came across a bunch of teenaged boys playing war games in the maze. Don’t worry. They were responsible. They used biodegradable bullets and halted the game to chat with us about the town.

10)   One of the creepiest scenes in my book takes place at a hostel in town. When I did a location visit to Port Townsend I stayed at their hostel at the Fort. It was the middle of winter so the place was deserted. I had the bottom floor entirely to myself because I booked a private room. When I came in at night, the wind was blowing, and I couldn’t tell if the ocean sound I heard was the actual water or the wind in the trees. Without city lights, you could see every star, but the place was black, black, black. So, of course, I had to put it into my book. Note: It’s actually a decent place to stay and the people are very nice. It also caters to a great writing community though I didn’t know it at the time.

What inspires your work?

Crossword Caper

Tip: Click the crossword to see it at a larger size.

The Answers:

Across:

Book Review: WINTERGIRLS

I loved SPEAK. The book floored me from the first page. As a writer, the quality of the work and the unique voice of the narrator are things to strive for. As a reader, the gorgeous symbolism and heartbreaking story tugged at the teenager residing in me. So when I picked up Laurie Halse Anderson’s WINTERGIRLS, you better believe I had high expectations. Thankfully, Ms. Anderson lived up to them.

The cover features a haunting image of a girl’s face shielded and obscured behind a wall of ice, a perfect visual symbol of the heart of the novel. WINTERGIRLS takes you inside the ice, allowing you to experience what life is like for Lia, a girl suffering from anorexia. With a skill that appears effortless, Ms. Anderson captures the dichotomy of an illness that is about taking control and losing it all at the same time. Lia and her best friend, Cassie, once competed to see who would be thinnest, but when Cassie dies, Lia’s guilt and illness send her spiraling alone into a world where her worth is painfully measured in calorie intake and the number on her scale. Her helpless and dysfunctional family fail to notice as the pounds drop off until Lia feels “I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.”  Poetic language and techniques are used to illustrate the obsessive nature of this eating disorder, and the flowing narrative feels real, never flinching from the ugly thoughts we all have.

While the novel focuses on eating disorders, Lia’s insecurities and heartbreaks are universal ones. Don’t be surprised to find yourself relating to her pain, and be prepared to find yourself delving into your own wounds.  Stark and heavy, WINTERGIRLS is no light read, but a work that sticks with you for weeks after you’ve finished it.