RIASS stuff:
A review of'Bunheads'by Sophie Flack'(a look into the highly competitive world of professional ballet)
A review of'Free-Falling'by Nicola Moriarty'(a page-turning chick lit debut from this Aussie author).
Coming up: an'interview with Margareta Osborn, a guest post from Nicola Moriarty, and an interview with Joel from'Momentum Books, Pan Macmillan's new digital-only imprint.
Just a note that I'll be tango dancing my way through Argentina in April, and would love to receive some guest posts to feature during that time. Feel free to drop me a line at readinasinglesitting@gmail.com.
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Other bookish stuff:
MG fantasy: where are all the girls?
Despite the huge success of Rowling's books, the gender gap really vanished? Among the current list of popular middle grade fantasy novels, there are very few female protagonists.' Consider the following titles: Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, The Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan, The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Johnathan Stroud,' The Abhorson Trilogy by Garth Nix, His Dark Marterials by Robert Pullman, Eragon by Christopher Paolini, Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer'.see a pattern here?
Is writing success fleeting?
Nowadays, unless you have a super-mega-hit bestseller, I dont think you ever make it as a writer permanently. I think you have to make it all over again, prove yourself all over again, with each book.
How to quintuple your word count:
Drastically increasing your words per day is actually pretty easy, all it takes is a shift in perspective and the ability to be honest with yourself (which is the hardest part). Because Im a giant nerd, I ended up creating a metric, a triangle with three core requirements: Knowledge, Time, and Enthusiasm. Any one of these can'noticeably'boost your daily output, but all three together can turn you into a word machine. I never start writing these days unless I can hit all three, says Rachel Aaron (see our review of Rachels debut).
Kids and why they read:
I like a couple. They're 'kind of all my favorite. But if I had to choose one to take to a desert island it would be'The Son of Neptune. I like it because it's so long it took a long time to finish it. My mom and I read it together.
Finding your YA voice:
The YA voice is more than slang or shallow conversation about hair and boys. Teens deal with serious issues like the rest of us, they just do it in their own way. Approach your story as someone who'hasn't'been through it all before, and you just might find your own teen voice.
On authors who have bonus hero cred:
There is no reason why a writer should have led an adventurous life; indeed some of the greatest hardly ever left home.' But when a favourite author turns out to have been a hero as well, it adds a touch of piquancy to his books.
Are you signed up for the Australian Women Writers 2012 challenge?
Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany
Not bookish, but definitely channelling Verne
10 Evocative Writers of Place
14 movie cameos by the authors of the original books
Lou Anders & E.C. Myers talk YA Novels on The Functional Nerds Podcast
Is QR the next big thing in social media? This TumblR makes its point more succinctly than I ever could.
Jonathan Franzen being unspeakably irritating about why Twitter is unspeakably irritating
Eye-catching books of the day:
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