Shameless Saturday

(left to right) Jennifer Bradbury (SHIFT), Jody Feldman (THE GOLLYWHOPPER GAMES), P.J. Hoover (THE EMERALD TABLET), Nancy Viau (SAMANTHA HANSEN HAS ROCKS IN HER HEAD), Brooke Taylor (UNDONE), Stacy Nyikos (DRAGON WISHES)

These awesome 2k8 classmates rocked at the National Council of Teachers of English conference with their panel: New Voices for a New Generation. They shared the scoop on how to grab reader interest in a technological world. San Antonio, Texas may never be the same again!





More accolades this week for Ellen Booraem's middle-grade THE UNNAMEABLES!

School Library Journal says THE UNNAMEABLES has "a style and charm all its own," and the American Library Association's Booklist says "Patient readers who like a little quirk in their fantasy will enjoy this stick-it-to-the-status-quo romp."

Go, Ellen!





And...you can catch up with Ellen on a couple of blogs! Here she is on the ever-popular Cynsations, talking about her writing life. And then there's a really fun interview on Laura Bowers' Shop Talk








And...Happy Birthday, Jonathan Swift! (November 30, 1667)

CYAL8R

It's been a fun week with our Now & Later lists. As you dig into your kids Halloween candy tonight and find those sassy, sweet squares, be reminded of where you've been and where you're going.


PJ Hoover

In 2008, my greatest accomplishments were:

1. Writing 2 new books
2. Releasing my debut novel, The Emerald Tablet
3. Signing with agent Laura Rennert
4. Quitting my day job to write full time
5. Spending more time with the people I care about!

2018 I hope to have:

1. Published 10 more books
2. Met Zahi Hawas
3. A full time housekeeper
4. Someone else to cook my meals (since I rarely do)
5. Regular writing retreats with my awesome critique group

Jen Bradbury

In 2008, my goals were:

1. To revise my wierd mummy book
2. Start our kitchen remodel
3. Blog a little
4. Learn to make really good Chili Rellenos so we don't have to go out for Mexican once a week
5. Not obsessively check my Amazon ranking

By 2018, I hope to:

1. Finish that kitchen remodel
2. Have a new book out every year
3. Have my kids in school so I can maybe teach part time again (we'll need the cash for that remodel)
4. Not hate gardening
5. Have completed a big bike tour with our kids with us on tandems! Europe? New Zealand? We'll see!

M.P. BARKER


Greatest writing accomplishments:


1. Had an actual published book in my hands with MY name on the cover, after 10 years of work and more than 70 rejections!

2. Being a part of the Class of 2k8

3. Pulled off nearly 50 book promotion events (so far!) from signings and discussions at bookstores, libraries and schools, to radio & TV interviews to online interviews and guest blogs--including the Class of 2k8 Southern New England Mini-Tour and slumber party extravaganza all without killing myself (so far, that is)

4. Got good reviews in Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal, and was featured in Kirkus First Fiction Special Issue

5. Learned how to make a web site.


In 2018, I hope to:


1. Be making a full-time living as a writer, with a new book written every year.
2. Take at least one super-fantastic vacation to another country every year
3. Finish renovating my house and yard!!!
4. Read more books, watch more movies, listen to more concerts
5. Learn to relax and enjoy life and not run around like a crazy person all the time




We'll be seeing you Now and Later. Happy Halloween!

Day 3: Jennifer's VIP

In getting to know Jennifer we've learned her husband has been a strong influence on her writing, but we wondered if there was a teacher or librarian along the way who set her on her path to publication. Here's her heartfelt answer....


I'm pretty sure the expectation for this question was that I'd talk about a teacher or librarian from my own schooling that influenced me. And I had some great ones—Gail Kirkland at Daviess County High School and Linda Tatum from Tamarack Elementary to name two—but the person who really got me started writing in the way I'm writing now is Cathy Belben.

Cathy is the librarian at the school where I taught for eight years, Burlington-Edison High. She was assigned as my mentor my first year, and I'm so lucky for it. Cathy is an amazing teacher, a passionate librarian, and absolutely one of the funniest people I know. But she is also a gifted writer. She's published hundreds of articles on all sorts of topics. From incorporating crafts in the library for professional magazines to her piece on donating her own remains to the body farm for Bust Magazine. She's published award winning fiction, spent a season living in Hollywood writing for Veronica Mars, and generally inspires everybody who comes into contact with her. She's the one who really got me hooked on great YA, and who invited me to join her writing group even though I didn't really write much at the time. She's just one of those people who make you want to join the party of words and story and craft, and we're so lucky to have her in our community.

She's also a great friend. Here we are on one of our homecoming dress up days at school. I think it was superhero day, and we came dressed as twin triathletes. Goggles, running pants, towel capes. We took our bike helmets off for the photo so we wouldn't, ahem, look dumb.

Here we come to saaave the day!

Cathy truly is a superhero. (But she might need to hire a new costumer.) Tomorrow we learn why some writing contests left Jennifer wondering if she'd ever get published.

Day 2: An interview with Jennifer Bradbury

We're back today with Jennifer Bradbury for a nice, cozy interview. So, pull up a chair, grab your fave drink and let's get to know this well traveled author.

2k8: So tell us, Jen. Where do you do most of your writing?

JB: I do most of my writing in this chair. Since I write while my daughter is sleeping, I work in the opposite corner of the house from her bedroom, which happens to be our office/playroom (we call it the "rumpus" because the elderly woman we bought the house from called it that. Kept the name in her honor, but got rid of the geometric self-stick pea green linoleum.) The chair is sort of halfway between the office and play parts of the room, which is kind of appropriate for a calling that when its going right is equal parts work and play. Plus, I can kick back with the laptop.

2k8: We bet a lot of moms can relate. Can you tell us how SHIFT came about? How did you begin writing it?

JB: We were living in India while I was on a Fulbright teaching exchange. I'd been given a light teaching schedule, and had been thinking for years about how to write a YA featuring a bike trip. So in an effort to keep myself busy, I'd go downstairs for a couple of hours every afternoon to the library and write a chapter. My husband (who was not working while we were there) was usually at home waiting to read the chapter when I arrived. All this was happening while my friend who was getting our mail for us here at home was opening rejections from agents on a manuscript I'd been working on before we left. But my husband's enthusiasm and my own need to keep busy kept me going, and by the time we got home in January, I'd made it through a couple of passes on the story.

2k8: Your husband rocks! And how did SHIFT find a publisher? What's the real scoop?

JB: I'd queried my agent on that story that I mentioned above, and she'd liked it enough to ask for some revision, but ultimately passed. Then when I came home and decided to start sending out this new one, I thought of her again. I queried her, and her office requested a full. I took some time getting it to her (my daughter was born and I sort of forgot all about wanting to be an author for a while!), but they actually emailed again a few months later to ask why they hadn't seen it yet. So I sent it off, and she called within a few weeks with an offer of representation. I remember feeling like if this was as far as I got, I could be happy—just having someone who didn't love me but liked the story and had some faith in it. But it did go further. And quickly! The following Monday, my agent called to tell me she had an offer from Atheneum, and here we are!

2k8: They emailed you? Wow! Did anything surprise you or catch you off guard when you were writing your book?

JB: I was definitely shy about writing from a male point of view. But I ended up having a blast. My favorite bit of confirmation on this came from my brother-in-law, who is one of my early readers. He read a draft of the story while we were still over in India, and emailed me to tell me what he liked and said that he'd always known I'd make a really great guy. Which is really nice—maybe a little weird—but mostly nice.

2k8: That's a high compliment! Okay, now imagine you have an offer from your dream press to publish your dream book, no matter how crazy wild or unmarketable it might be (though of course it might not be). What story would you want to write and why?

JB: Um . . . whatever I'm working on at the moment? I do have a draft of something that I love but I think might be destined to languish in a drawer for a while. It’s a historical spy YA novel, dealing with debutantes and mummy unwrappings in 1815 London. But I love such a range of stories and subjects, that its fun to mash up my enduring adoration of Jane Austen with a past addiction to Alias. But I've always known fun for me isn't necessarily universal. I wrote it between SHIFT and APART, my next book for Atheneum. APART follows three sisters divided by a father's mental illness, the pressure ofliving with a secret everyone already knows, and what it means to makethe most of the family you find yourself in.

2k8: Please, please, please do NOT let the debutantes and mummies languish and APART sounds incredible. Can't wait for it. Last, but not least, what question won't most people know to ask you? And what's your answer?

JB: What's the first book you read all by yourself?

Answer: DANNY AND THE DINOSAUR by Syd Hoff. Love that book!

You've come a long way, baby!

Tune in tomorrow when we'll learn about a special librarian who had a lasting influence on Jennifer.

Sometimes the best bookstore ain't a bookstore at all...

Continuing our search for the best bookstore in the known universe, we turn to Jen Bradbury, author of the YA novel, Shift.

Jen, as it turns out, lives in a Northwestern bookstore-desert, but that doesn't stop her from browsing the stacks... right, Jen?

It's true! My favorite bookstores are half an hour away in Bellingham, but I don't make it up there as often as I like. So instead of writing about my favorite bookstore, I'd like to tell you about the one I buy from most often, and I'm sure you'll agree it has its own special benefits.

Value Village is part of a thrift store chain based in the northwest. The book selection may be small, but in most of the stores I've visited they position they bookshelves close to the furniture, which means they encourage you to sit down and read somebody's old book on somebody else's old sofa. And you can buy them both if you want! That's an experience you simply can't get anywhere else.

And The Village might be the only place you can find Siddhartha shelved alongside the latest celebrity biography. Such juxtaposition inspires all kinds of wonderful tangential thought. Sort of like the way books are pitched sometimes in query letters or in deal announcements—"Its Indiana Jones meets The Namesake." Only here the pairings are even more unholy. Try cross pollinating The High School Musical Sticker Fun book with one of the old Oprah's Book Club picks and see if you don't come away just a little inspired.



Because thrift store employees aren't necessarily shelving for anything except space conservation, part of the joy is coming across books I might not otherwise find. In a normal bookstore, I tend to beeline for the children's/YA sections, and then migrate into travel, if my husband is content looking at the woodworking books. But in Value Village, everything's chucked in together, waiting for me to make some new discovery.

And some of those discoveries are priceless. There's really nothing better than unearthing a lovely, full-color illustrated, leather bound anthology of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales published in 1923. Unless its taking that book home for the low, low price of $1.89. Or half that on discount Fridays.

Thrift stores are also pretty much the only safe places to shop books with a toddler. Following a two-year-old around Barnes and Noble, means you spend most of your time reshelving (incorrectly) the books she tugs gleefully off the racks. On the worst days you end up buying the pop-up version of Ulysses because your daughter absentmindedly ripped a page and you can't bring yourself to hide it behind the others on the display. Such trips end up being costly without really enhancing our home library. But in thrift stores, my daughter can accidentally rip a page and I'm only out a buck.

The only real problem is that writers and publishers don't see any of the profits from these secondhand sales. But most often the thrift stores exist to support worthy causes. Even better, it means the books are being read and passed on, collecting the stories from their readers to rival the ones contained in the pages themselves. And I don't think any writer could mind that.

Like the kids say, "Tru dat!"

Do the kids say that? Do they really?

Sigh... probably not. Really, we're not so cool as we like to think. Thankfully we have you, our readers, forcing us to "keep it real."

Keep it real???

Doh! There we go again!!!

(And so we shuffle off to read, or write, and drink some chamomile tea, like the dorks we are.)