My holiday gift to you is a short story (OK, flash fiction) I wrote featuring characters from my second book, Being God. Malik Kaplan\’s mother is Catholic and his father Jewish, so when the relatives get together to celebrate the holidays, festive is not always the right word. If you read to the end I […]
Today is the last day of the Heartbreaker\’s Blog Tour. It\’s your last chance to win a Kindle and read posts about me, diversity in YA books, Minority Of One that follows a gay black teen and a straight white girl as they each seek answers to the question, What if you were the only
What If You Were The Only One Of Your Kind? Read More »
I have seen a lot of discussion lately about contest judging. There is a big blame-it-on-the judge outbreak for making snarky comments or having a God complex and not liking the manuscript. Maybe it\’s because I just finished donating my time to judge two contests, I\’m in the middle of a third, and coordinating a
I had the honor of being the final judge for a local library\’s teen writing contest. (Special thanks to my author friend Laurie Brown, who is also a member of the library staff and invited me in to judge) The entries were written over the end-of-year holiday. Library staff did the preliminary judging, then they
Judging a Library Teen Writing Contest Read More »
February can\’t end soon enough. The snowstorm hit at the worst time, just as I am preparing to finish teaching my on-line class for authors who want to learn more about writing using the male POV. I have also just begun my duties as the contest coordinator for a writing contest for adult romance writers,
Good Writing Talks to Your Soul Read More »
Thanks to everyone who entered the contest, and double thanks to people who gave me the names of new books featuring Heroines of Color. I was not yet aware of. I\’m now on a crusade to find them and read. I was specially pleased to find out about TU Publishing, an imprint of Lee and
And the winner is… Read More »
A number of my friends in various writing groups received word yesterday that they are finalists in RWA contests – either the Golden Heart for unpublished authors, or the Rita for books published in 2011. Being ineligible for either (I am published, but my book is from 2010) I was surprised and pleased to get another
Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award Read More »
Last week I discovered something about my novel, PULL. Somebody out there really likes it. And, they have nominated the book for two really big honors. PULL is a nominee in the Cybils Awards Young Adult Fiction category. This is the Children\’s and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards, and some blogger or fan liked the
Doing The Happy Dance Read More »
PULL\’s 2010 Reader\’s Choice award for it\’s first place in Young Adult books arrived in the mail today. I understand why it is affectionately known as a tombstone. Since I could not be in both New York for the RWA conference where the award was given, and in beautiful, if muggy, New Orleans for ALA and a
PULL Wins the National Reader\’s Choice Award – part 2 Read More »
I just returned to Chicago from the American Library Association meeting in beautiful–and incredibly hot–New Orleans. When I arrived I was greeted by the news that this morning, at the OK RWA breakfast during the Romance Writers of America contest in New York City, PULL was awarded first place in the National Reader\’s Choice Awards. I wish I
PULL Wins the National Reader\’s Choice Award!! Read More »