It ain’t easy being a writer. And I’m not talking about the hard work, the solitude, the craft—that’s a post for someone else’s blog. I’m talking about the money we want to spend wisely. Namely, the money most of us don’t have.



And this isn’t about the not-enough-to-live-on advances either, or the… Continue

After hearing about it at FiveAwesomeYAFans, I read Catherine Ryan Hyde’s Diary of a Witness. The cover is really nice (you can see it here), simple and foreboding, which made me hope that maybe this was a mystery.



It was not. It was a real page-turner all the same though, so I thought I would tell you what this book is all about. Our main character is… Continue

As always, here are your Friday YA-related links, and some sundry items I felt like adding:



You can nominate your favorite (recent) YA book for the Cybils—check it out here.



At Teenreads, there are several contests to win books (you have to scroll down a bit to get to that part). Penguin also has a contest where you can win some classic books, more on that… Continue

After reading this article in The Village Voice (warning—lots of f-bombs), I got to thinking. Well, first I was laughing, then I got to thinking. Mostly about how dumb some people are, and then about how incredibly valid this point is: have respect for the years it takes to hone a craft, whether it’s painting, writing, or editing, whatever.



For this Friday link post, I thought I would… Continue

Now that I got my Edgar rant off my chest, and my soapbox has been reinstated as a coffee table, I thought I should think about criteria for my list of YA mysteries. Since everyone else seems to be so liberal with their interpretation of the genre.



So here are my four must-haves:



1. Must have a mystery as the central plot. This means the solving of the mystery has to be at the front of the story, and at the top of lead character’s list. Navel-gazing and peer… Continue

I’ve now read all the 2009 YA Edgar nominees, in case you’ve been hanging around the blog long enough to remember when I started this exercise. The point, for me anyway, was to see what’s happening in YA mystery today—what does it take to make the YA Edgar shortlist in 2009? I wanted to know.



And I was kind of… well, disappointed, if you want to know the truth. Don’t get me wrong: all of these books are worth… Continue

Some books get all the publicity, marketing money—you know how this works. And I certainly have nothing against Dan Brown. The man worked hard to get where he is.

But to even out the odds a little, buy something else, M.J. Rose said in her cool blog. So for me #buy+brown: Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd.

Pass it on. Share a book you’re excited about.

I had originally put Torn to Pieces by Margot McDonnell aside, since I figured out the plot by page two. But the point of reading the YA Edgar nominees of this year was to get a full picture of what’s happening in YA mystery. So I felt I had to read this book, too.



And I’m glad I did. After a bit of a choppy start, I got absorbed by the story of 17 year-old Anne, whose mother goes missing. At first, Anne’s thinking it’s just another business trip (her mother is a ghostwriter… Continue

Friday links (a.k.a. time-wastery) come early, since I’m actually hoping to get some writing done tomorrow. So here you go:



It’s a book! It’s a movie! It’s a website! No, it’s a digi-novel. When the TV writers strike was going on (last year, was it?), apparently CSI creator Anthony Zuiker (along with Duane Zwierczynski) came up with this hybrid… Continue

Last week on my blog, I talked about Siobhan Dowd, who died far too soon, and left two manuscripts behind. I read one of them: Bog Child, Edgar nominee this year. I was careful not to let the fact that Ms. Dowd was no more cloud my opinion of this book. The point of my reading all the YA Edgar nominees was, after all, to take an honest look at YA mysteries. Heartbreaking stories aside.



So I cleared my head and began… Continue