…5 Things I’ve Learned from forthcoming YA author Ryan Graudin is necessary reading for aspiring writers. Literary Rambles does it yet again. If you don’t yet follow their blog, I highly suggest you do. Soon. One of the most useful pieces of advice from “5 Things I’ve Learned” is about how to conduct queries. Graudin […]
This past week I found an interview with published author Janice Hardy on Literary Rambles. It’s worth sharing with anyone aspiring to write Young Adult/Middle Grade Fantasy trilogies. For those unfamiliar with Janice Hardy’s work, she wrote the Healing Wars trilogy. The newest book in the series, Darkfall, was released Oct. 4. Here’s a summary […]
As seen on stumbleupon.com.
While perusing Neil Gaiman’s blog this week, I noted a link he put to a website that showed anonymous paper sculptures someone left in the Scottish Poetry Library. They can be found here. When librarians (and aspiring writers) have difficulty marketing ourselves, it helps to remember the purpose, the core of what we do. It […]
In our digital age of ebooks, digital text, and yes, hybrid books, it becomes all the more imperative to develop an online presence to go along with query submissions. And yes, even us reluctant to get on the social media band wagon may need to bite the bullet and give Twitter a try (no matter […]
I read the Annoyed Librarian (AL) blog on occasion. Usually she (I think it’s a she, as the AL is anonymous) has some wry quip about how the library profession is self-destructing, and librarians are too worried about staying relevant to notice. I usually enjoy these diatribes, but today’s post left me a bit depressed, […]
For a long time, I thought editors were to blame for books that weren’t very well-written. After all, wasn’t it up to them to clean up unecessary words, sentences, and phrases that didn’t move the story along? But the more I’ve talked with, researched, and read blogs from people on the editing/publishing side the more […]
Many apologies for the delay. New job, new house, moving to a new state, and other life events forced my writing to the backseat, which I always hate. Now that things are settled, I’ll be posting more frequently. I’d like to place a correction to my Twilight reference from the previous post. Stephenie Meyer did […]
I’ve commented in previous posts about some of the books I’m assigned to review. Some are interesting reads, while others are, shall we say, not. An interesting read results when an author considers their reader. This translates into straight-forward sentences (with no unecessary words dangling like useless branches waiting to trip up the narrative) and […]
I’ve updated the “Useful Blogs” section to include blogs from literary agencies. I also included a really great one that features up and coming YA titles. I’m in the throes of moving, but will send more updates once we’re settled in the new place. Thanks! -The Writer Librarian