I’m off to BEA on Thursday, so I’m actually very nervous. The idea of autographing Compulsion is surreal, because I’ve never even been to BEA as a reader. And trust me, I am first and foremost a reader. There’s no denying that. I’m going to be fangirling all over the authors I love, hopefully inside my skin and not all over my face.
Are you a reader first, or a writer? If you were going to BEA, what authors would you want to see?
Here’s the sneak peak again from over at Jenna Does Books (thank you, Jen!)
What BEA books are you dying to get your hands on?
YA Book Giveaway This Week
And don’t forget my FOUR Pick ANY YA Novel giveaways this month. They’ll be ending on Saturday, and entering any (or all) of them will also give you an automatic entry for the May Grand Prize giveaway, which is a hardcover set of THE ARCHIVED and THE UNBOUND signed by Victoria Schwab, plus a key necklace, and a signed ARC of Compulsion.
Also, there’s an interview with me and a giveaway of Ally Carter’s DON’T JUDGE A GIRL BY HER COVER over at The Perspective of a Drama Queen.
I don’t want to do a ton of giveaways or interviews — although I’d love to! — but I definitely also want to give a hand to some up and coming blogs as well as some of the more established ones. If you’d like to host a Pick ANY YA Novel giveaway, stop by my website and let me know.
For more giveaways, sign up for the newsletter, and if you’ve read Compulsion already and want to join the street team, check here. There’s lots going on behind the scenes. : )
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS
- Holy moly, we’ve been nominated for the YA Highway web awards! Thank you guys! There are a lot of categories, and a lot of great sites, so hop over there to see who’s nominated because you might find some great new resources! (They’re FABULOUS, trust me!) And if you are so inclined, feel free to vote for us. But I’d find it hard to choose myself . . .
- Announcing the first ever World Cup of Literature from Three Percent, the University of Rochester’s resourse for international literature. The event will take place during the soccer World Cup, and will feature a 32-book “knock-out tournament.” Two books will square off against each other in each match. Read more over at Publishing Perspectives.
What does your favorite YA series say about you? Find out at Gurl.com!” of creative writing courses. - Amazon has stopped selling JK Rowling’s books plus others from the Hachette Book Group thanks to an escalation in the dispute between them. Don’t want to wade through the thicker volumes of behind the scenes stuff? Here’s a quick recap from Buzzfeed. But if you want more details, you can try Publisher’s Lunch.
- Would you go out of your way to visit a bookstore to get a signed first edition of a favorite current release you’ve had your eye on?
- Dying to know more about the characters from the upcoming The Giver movie? I am, so it’s great that Andye at Reading Teen did a great post with the deets.
- Not sure what to read next? You could check out the new top forty YA list from Rolling Stone
- Want a peek at the upcoming FALLEN movie based on the book by Lauren Kate? Here you go.
- Katie at Mundie Moms had a great interview with John Green about the upcoming FAULT IN OUR STARS movie.
RECENT YA GIVEAWAY WINNERS
Life by Committee
by Corey Ann Haydu
Hardcover
Katherine Tegen Books
Released 5/13/2014
Winner – Helen Adi
Some secrets are too good to keep.
Tabitha might be the only girl in the history of the world who actually gets less popular when she gets hot. But her so-called friends say she’s changed, and they’ve dropped her flat.
Now Tab has no one to tell about the best and worst thing that has ever happened to her: Joe, who spills his most intimate secrets to her in their nightly online chats. Joe, whose touch is so electric, it makes Tab wonder if she could survive an actual kiss. Joe, who has Tabitha brimming with the restless energy of falling in love. Joe, who is someone else’s boyfriend.
Just when Tab is afraid she’ll burst from keeping the secret of Joe inside, she finds Life by Committee. The rules of LBC are simple: tell a secret, receive an assignment. Complete the assignment to keep your secret safe.
Tab likes it that the assignments push her to her limits, empowering her to live boldly and go further than she’d ever go on her own.
But in the name of truth and bravery, how far is too far to go?
What is your favourite thing about LIFE BY COMMITTEE?
My favorite part of my second novel is the character Sasha Cotton. I wanted to capture a very specific type of girl to be my main character, Tabitha’s foil. I didn’t want your average enemy– the kind that has hurt you and is mean to you and that you hate for those reasons. I wanted a character for Tabitha to be jealous of and pained by even though Sasha never actually does anything to her. I wanted to capture something more complicated and, in my experience at least, common. Obsessing about someone and hating someone who you desperately wish you could be more like. Mistaking truly deep envy for distaste or anger.Sasha Cotton feels full and real to me, and I don’t feel that I’ve seen many characters like her in YA fiction. She’s spacey and sexy and unusual and sad and needy and dreamy. She’s everything Tabitha could never be. And she exposes something ugly in Tabitha, which makes her even more exciting to me. Some people are catalysts– not necessarily of actions, but of feelings. Some of them bring out the very best of us and some bring out our very worst. I wanted to write a character who would stir of the very worst in Tabitha. And I wanted her to be somewhat unassuming. Not cruel. Not flashy. Just quirky enough to drive someone crazy.
Winner – Helen Adi
Sasha Cotton feels full and real to me, and I don’t feel that I’ve seen many characters like her in YA fiction. She’s spacey and sexy and unusual and sad and needy and dreamy. She’s everything Tabitha could never be. And she exposes something ugly in Tabitha, which makes her even more exciting to me. Some people are catalysts– not necessarily of actions, but of feelings. Some of them bring out the very best of us and some bring out our very worst. I wanted to write a character who would stir of the very worst in Tabitha. And I wanted her to be somewhat unassuming. Not cruel. Not flashy. Just quirky enough to drive someone crazy.
