Boom Boom Pow

You know you want to boom boom pow--it's Friday after all. And this is the clean version, so you can even play it if you're in the office or live in Colorado. Happy weekend!

Thursday YA News

This week in YA:

First off: today is School Library Journal’s Webcast What’s Up In YA (2 p.m. ET), in case you want to listen in. And for those of you late to the party, I’m sure they’ll archive it for you.

What’s hot in YA? The end of the world, says this article in Publishers Weekly. And here I thought it was angels—no, werewolves—no… Never mind, I don’t know anymore.

YPulse’s talks about ChatRoulette—I can see a YA novel spawning from that site.

If you’re a teen and are into music: check out The Battle of The Bands Campaign by DoSomething.org and VH1’s Save the Music. You can send in a tape of your musical performance, and a testimonial of why music matters to you. Sounds cool—I’m just saddened by the fact that music still needs saving. Seems like a no-brainer that kids need music, right?

Glee goes to Washington. And Disney goes Goth with Alice—guess everyone wants a piece of the Twilight crowd. Speaking of which, here’s the trailer for Eclipse (due out in March).

Wondering what e-book readers want? Find out in this GalleyCat article on a recent survey.

Publishers Weekly’s Josie Leavitt talks about a teen visit to her bookstore—some unexpected opinions on book covers there (“Why are they so ugly?”).

Wondering what books to look forward to for fall in books? Here’s PW Fall Sneak Peek; you’ll have to pick the list apart to find the YA among picturebooks etc.

For those of you marketing to teens, check out this article on influencers and forums (can’t help but think of Scott Westerfeld’s So Yesterday when I read that).

And under the heading Did-We-Really-Need-Research-For-That?: teens love to text, reports a MediaMark Research and Intelligence Report. Well, duh.

On a related note: teen girls are becoming a greater driving risk, reports The Chicago Tribune. The cause? You guessed it: texting.

And for fun: here’s a monkey.




Come on, who doesn’t love a monkey?

Where I Let Others Do The Talking

I just finished editing a manuscript I’d been working on for over a year. So I thought I would write a post about the process, all navel-gazing and deep and everything, but then I was getting bored with myself just thinking about it all. And I really didn’t want to make you suffer through all that.

So instead, I thought I would link to an interesting set of interviews on Rod Norman’s blog: one with author Josh Gaylord of Hummingbirds, and one with Megan Abbott of Bury Me Deep (this one’s nominated for just about every award—and very deservedly so). These authors are married, which gives the interviews an interesting angle, but I was mostly struck by how humble they both are. Reading their answers, I came away feeling better about my own writing somehow.

Anyway, don’t hang around here—go read these interviews. Not YA, but still. Great stuff.

Because I Want To Be Where Jason Mraz Is In This Video

I just shoveled the driveway again. Nuf said.

LA Times Book Prize Finalists

More award news, the LA Times Book Prize Finalists this time. Here's the YA roundup:

Young Adult Literature Finalists

James Cross Giblin, The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Frances Hardinge, The Lost Conspiracy (HarperCollins)
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers)
Elizabeth Partridge, Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary (Viking Children’s Books/Penguin Group)
Shaun Tan, Tales from Outer Suburbia (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)

I hadn't heard of any of these, so I'll be off to check them out. Congrats to the nominees!

Agatha Nominees

The Agatha Nominees have been announced; see them all on Sarah Weinman's blog.
Here are the Children's/ YA (bummer they lump them together; how are you supposed to judge a children's book against a YA?)nominees:

Best Children's/Young Adult:
The Morgue and Me by John C. Ford (Viking Juvenile)
The Hanging Hill by Chris Grabenstein (Random House)
The Case of the Poisoned Pig by Lewis B. Montgomery (Kane Press)
The Other Side of Blue by Valerie O. Patterson (Clarion Books)
The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer (Philomel)

Thursday YA News

Thursday YA news! Get it here while it’s hot:

Wifi ain’t just for cybercafés anymore; check out Arizona’s Vail school district’s experiment of putting Wifi on the bus. No more rowdy riders, apparently. Cool idea, if the funding is there.

Are you a writer? If so, check out NPR’s three minute fiction contest. I love flash fiction, such fun to write.

In Twilighty news, Breaking Dawn will be adapted into two films, reports Mediabistro. Filming is not expected to begin until mid-October, so don’t get too excited just yet if you’re a fangfan.

At PW, Elizabeth Bluemle blogs about (children’s) bookseller wisdom for authors, publishers, etc., which I thought was very interesting and useful, since it’s coming from the frontlines.

For those of you marketing to teens, MediaPost’s Morgan Stewart blogs about an ongoing study in conjunction with the Center for Media Design on how tech habits influence teens’ buying decisions. Very interesting hard data there, so check it out if you’re looking for better ways to reach your teen audience.

Twitter or Facebook? Get a teen’s perspective on the pros and cons, at YPulse.

Europe launched its Safer Internet Day (SID) with a child-friendly version of Internet Explorer. And on this same topic of safety: YouTube adds a violence and profanity filter.

Finally, for fun, here’s what happens when you give a seven year-old girl a kitten: