RIASS stuff:
Book Review: The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer'Rating: 
'Vikings! Trolls! Spoken-word poetry!
Book Review: Ever by Gail Carson Levine'Rating: 
'A YA hero's journey set in a quasi Ancient Mesopotamia.
Book Review: Wild Encounter by Nikki Logan'Rating: A romance that didnt work for me because of the high power difference between hero and heroine.
Giveaway: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley'(world);'Giveaway: Dracula by Bram Stoker'(world)
Id like to extend a thank you to reader Don N for his kind support of the site.
Other bookish stuff:
Seanan McGuire on why she refuses to allow her protagonists to be raped or sexually assaulted.'Too often in genre fiction, rape/sexual assault is used as a characterisation shortcut. Its used to create a revenge narrative, or to explain why a character is broken or damaged. I'do not understand'I'will'not understand, I refuse to understand'why rape has to be on the table for every story with a female protagonist, or even a strong female supporting cast, says McGuire.
The Dos and Donts of Launching a Book'These include being part of a conversation, not just self-promoting; thanking people who have supported you; not responding to negative reviews; and remembering that although your books launch is incredibly important to you, its less so for your friends and familybut that doesnt mean they dont care.
Zest book launches line of memoirs for teens'Showcasing memoirs and first-person accounts, these books take readers deep inside the lives of an amazing set of young people as they struggle to figure out who they are and who they want to be'often in the face of some very serious personal struggles.
Adrienne Kress on comedy'Kress says that she likes comedy because it often handles drama better than drama handles drama, and that she enjoys the contrast between the serious and the irreverent. She also notes that one of the reasons that comic works often arent seen as important is because people cant get past the comic tone.
Margaret Atwoods 10 rules of writing'Seriously pragmatic stuff. Eg: Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils. If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.
Great literature should stay on all reading lists, says Hannah Bett'However, outside academia, the supplanting of a canon with the notion that all artistic expressions are equal has proven a regressive rather than an emancipating phenomenon, says Bett, who goes on to argue that its not the classics that are at fault in terms of social exclusion, but rather the fact that so many people today dont have access to them, and therefore are being deprived of the breadth, depth and grounding that the classics have to offer.
and David Gaughran talks about the death of literary fiction'Is literary fiction under-performing?, asks Gaughran. Gaughran notes that literary fiction tends to perform less well than genre fiction, and that its taken some time for literary readers to make the shift across to ebooks. In addition, many publishers are also being slow to provide ebook editions to a number of literary works, and when they do, are pricing them too high to be viable.
Sherman Alexies excellent tips for writers'These include: dont Google yourself, dont have rituals that stop you from writing, read 1000 pages for every page you write, and never lose that sense of wonder you have for writing and your favourite authors work.
JK Rowling plans to return to writing childrens books'I have a lot of things on my laptop currently, including a couple of things for children for a slightly younger age group than Harry Potter was aimed at which are nearly done and will, I think, be the next thing I publish. Also of interest is Rowlings response to criticisms that her attacks on the middle class in'The Casual Vacancy are unfounded given her position.
A giant F Scott Fitzgerald Pinterest board
In Melbourne? Pop along to the launch of Arcade Publications latest book,'The Hanging of Minnie Thwaites. Wear black, look gloomy, and prepare for an awesome launchArcade never disappoints with their launches. Ill be there, along with a few bookish peeps!
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