Links

For the latest and greatest in all things YA (plus some detours), here are your Friday links:

People unfamiliar with YA often ask me what the deal is with these teen books, and why there’s even a whole section for teens now. Note that most of these people are adults… I usually encourage them to read some of my YA favorites, but here’s a good (oldy but goody) Writer’s Digest link about the genre, and what gives.

In honor of banned books week, read one of these children’s books. I mean, how can you not like Captain Underpants?

Stolen from the Publishers Marketplace news page: Sourcebooks starts a new YA imprint called Fire with books out in Spring 2010; read all about it here.

At FiveAwesomeYAFans (they are pretty awesome), Catherine Ryan Hyde has been blogging the month of September away, some about her book Diary of a Witness, which is on my (dangerously toppling) to-read pile. If you sign up at this group, come be my friend? I’m all lonesome.

Meredith at YPulse interviews author Libba Bray of Going Bovine—not a mystery, but still sounds like an interesting book. Ms. Bray is also part of a chat this month over at readergirlz.

For you children’s writers who want feedback on your work: agent Mary Kole at Andrea Brown will take your query letter in this contest. The winner gets a critique of the first 30 pages of their manuscript—sounds like a sweet deal.

Live in the Colorado Springs area? Check out the Authorfest of the Rockies this Friday and Saturday at the Cliff House in Manitou Springs.

And if you’re a writer, editor, or someone else in publishing, and live in New York, consider this charity organization: Girls Write Now. It sounds like a really cool way to give back, and who can’t use a little good karma, right?