Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke Zita the Spacegirl is a graphic novel for younger readers about a young girl named Zita who discovers an asteroid with a big red button. Despite her friend Jonah’s warnings, Zita pushes the big red button (as one does, right?) and it opens some kind of teleport gateway through which tentacles reach out and grab Joseph right before the gateway disappears. Determined to rescue her friend, Zita pushes the button again and leaps through the portal,

The first fifty pages or so read like a post-apocalyptic survival story, mixed with the main character’s memories of his relationships with his friends and family. At first, I was really worried this would turn out to be some kind of boring literary experiment, and the third person present tense definitely adds to that feeling. And while at times it did read as a literary experiment, it definitely wasn’t boring. Once things started to happen and plot twists started showing up

“Where do you get your ideas?” This is one of the questions that authors dread because it comes up so frequently, pretty much every time they take questions at signings or other events. I went to an event with Jane Yolen once where she addressed this issue first thing before opening up the discussion to questions from the audience (though someone who I guess hadn’t been listening still asked anyway). But when a stranger asked me this recently after hearing me read my writing,

The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness is a YA dystopia series about a planet where men’s thoughts can be heard out loud by everyone due to an alien virus. This series is amazing. The strangeness of the premise (and the obvious statement about our information-overloaded society), the break-neck pacing, and the violence made it hard for me to connect all the way with the main character, Todd, in the first book–but by the end of the third book, I loved the series even more t

I miss the good old days before the baby (writing-wise, at least). I’d roll out of bed, eat breakfast, and then write until I was finished for the day. I was pretty good at setting goals and getting work done, until I became pregnant. Then writing was very difficult. I had trouble thinking and forming sentences. My creative brain was gone. Thankfully it came back when the baby was born! To say it’s been tricky getting work done while watching my 7 month old is a bit of an und

While Anderson’s ability to immerse himself into his character and into the world he creates kind of turned me off in Octavian Nothing, it was masterfully done here. I was hooked from the hilarious first line: “We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.” HA! I think this book would appeal to adults who aren’t typical YA readers. Especially those who like sci fi/tech kind of books. *spoilers below* The ending of  Feed really left me thinking–n

Anyway, the book is about a young girl named Tally who is living in a post-apocalyptic future where everyone gets major reconstructive surgery to look “pretty” as soon as they turn 16. But of course things don’t turn out the way she hopes and she has to decide whether to betray her friend and get the operation she wants or to stay “ugly” forever. This book has it all: romance, adventure, plot twists, and unforgettable characters. My only problem with it though was that I didn

So this morning, my husband showed me this XKCD comic making fun of Neal Stephenson’s new book Anathem (Disclaimer: I have not actually read this book): Then, later today, I read (okay skimmed) an interview with Neal Stephenson on Goodreads.com where he points out that even Harry Potter has loads of made up words. How fun would it have been if J.K. Rowling had called “quidditch” the “flying hockey-like game” instead? Or if Tolkein had called hobbits the “little furry-footed g

I found this post on submitting to editors while doing research on publishers and found it helpful. It is an interview with Stacy Whitman, editor at Mirrorstone, in which she discusses the submission process. Writingexcuses.com seems to be a website full of interesting interviews about writing science fiction and fantasy (and just plain writing in general). #editors #fantasy #scifi

I just read this article from the Boston Globe’s Off the Shelf Blog. It talks about a new book called called Space Vulture by Gary Wolf and John Myers based on a scifi published in 1952 called “Space Hawk: The Greatest of Interplanetary Adventures”. What is fascinating about this to me is the story of these two authors. They were friends as children, apparently, and one of them is a screenwriter (remember Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) while the other is a Catholic priest! I’m not