Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 132

Confetti, Lists, River Cure, and More on Critique

I was going to list some of the awesome writers I've had the privilege of cheering on and congratulating in recent days, but Erin Dionne listed them already.  :-D  Confetti!!!!!!!!!

Speaking of lists, the Class of 2k10 made a list of our books by seasonal/holiday/event themes for book clubs, librarians, teachers, and any reader who wants books that tie in with particular topical events or seasons.

And speaking of the Class of 2k10, my launch post over there went up. I try to keep my interview/...

Author Events Page

This is a reference post; I'll update it as necessary. All dates and times are in the Eastern US time zone unless otherwise noted.


2010 Events/Appearances

Saturday, January 23, 2-4 PM: Educator Reception, Barnes & Noble, Jenkintown, PA

Saturday, January 30, 2-4 PM: Launch party at Children's Book World, Haverford, PA

February 2, 6:30-7:30 PM: Blog talk radio show, "A Book and A Chat"

February 16, 8 PM: Online chat with the Page Flipper

Saturday, February 27, 1-3 PM: Book Signing, Borders...

Guest Post: Becky Levine on Revising from a Critique

As promised, here is a guest post from Becky Levine , author of the newly released THE WRITING & CRITIQUE GROUP SURVIVAL GUIDE (Writer's Digest Books).



Not only is she sharing her wisdom here with us today, but she's generously offered to give away a copy of her book to some lucky person on this blog!  Leave a comment to participate; complete rules of the giveaway are posted below.

You may already know Becky Levine from her brilliant posts about writing (the link to her blog and website was...

Critique groups: intro

I've been blogging about the craft of writing for more than two years now, but I realize I haven't said much about critique groups.

I will be remedying that this week. But I decided to call in an expert, who will be featured in a guest post and giveaway!

As a little intro to the subject, I'll share some of my own experiences with critique groups here.  I'll start with this picture:

copyright 2009 Kathye Fetsko Petrie

This is a picture of me at my in-person critique group. Why am I laughing, you a...

More January debuts!

More recent and upcoming debut novels from the Class of 2k10 and the Tenners:



ISLAND STING by Bonnie J. Doerr (Leap Books, January 6). Young adult, ecological mystery. Kenzie didn't expect her first summer in the Florida Keys to be murder. Cute guys, awesome boats, endangered species, gun-toting thugs ... in Angelo's up and down world, Kenzie needed a life jacket and Dramamine.



LEAVING GEE'S BEND by Irene Latham (G.P. Putnam's Sons, January 7). Middle grade, historical. A 10-year-old girl duri...

Inspiration

What inspires you?

On her blog all month, Lisa Schroeder (CHASING BROOKLYN) has been urging people to "Dream Big" by having a series of guest posts on the topic (Varian Johnson, Jo Knowles, Linda Urban, and Elizabeth Scott are just a few of the sparkly authors who have stopped by there). Lisa's blog is usually inspirational anyway. It was one of the first blogs I ever followed.  She has such a calm, centered, this-is-what-I-can-do-today approach that is uplifting, while making our writing dre...

Respecting the audience

Aside:  I want to thank kaz_mahoney   because in this post, she uploaded a picture of a crocus poking through snow. Which reminds me of all those crocus bulbs (and daffodils, tulips, irises, hyacinths, etc.) that are underground right this minute, forgotten and invisible, waiting to bloom.

Today's topic arises because one of the pits that is easy for writers of children's and young-adult literature to fall into is the talking-down pit.  While there are children and teens writing for their own ...

Bleeding Violet

The Secret Year has been mentioned several times in relation to The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet, and in this interview with the Story Siren, I said, "TSY is not a retelling of either book, but in some ways it has a conversation with those works." If you saw that and wondered what I meant by a "conversation"--well, I discussed the love-across-dividing-lines issue in more depth at Steve Brezenoff's blog, Exile in Goyville.  I also hope you'll stop by Steve's blog because he's running a givea...

Truth and fiction

For my monthly post at AuthorsNow!, I tackled the topic of the absent parent in YA lit. I've seen this topic raised several times in various forums, and decided to throw my two cents out there.

My other writerly thought of the weekend has been this one: In both A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Harriet the Spy, the main characters (young girls who want to be writers) are counseled by women in authority about fact and fiction, about truth and lies, and the role of story-telling in it all.

In Harriet...

In search of the perfect verb

It's amazing how long it can take to find the right verb. The verb that conveys the precise meaning and proper tone for the scene, yet is within your narrator's vocabulary. The verb that you didn't already use in the preceding sentence. The verb that doesn't create an undesirable rhyme or distracting alliteration with the words around it.

To make it even more maddening, that search is repeated in paragraph after paragraph, page after page.

Good times, my friends. Good times.