Holly Cupala's Blog, page 49

Will Your YA Be Read in Braille?

Corey Doctorow posts here about his own YA novel, Little Brother, being published under a Creative Commons License, which allowed Patti Smith, a teacher of visually impaired kids in Detroit, to download the book version and convert it to Braille for her young readers.

As Corey points out, it's legal to convert any book to Braille or audio book for blind readers, though much easier to do with e-text.

Now Corey is encouraging other YA writers to get their books into the hands of kids hungry for g...

Writers, Artists, and Poets: Stay Vulnerable

Have you seen this wonderful video by multi-talented author, Beth Kephart?



We are honored to have Beth as our inaugural Writer-in-Residence over at readergirlz. Watch for more of her vlogs and posts on writing!

Momentous Monday: Janet's Party & Meeting Melissa Walker!

Janet Lee Carey's STEALING DEATH party was so much fun! She had an amazing live Marimba band (wish I'd caught some on video!), an intriguing reading (plus her inspiration, which I always find fascinating), a dance performance straight from the pages of the novel, and of course many friends, including Dia Calhoun, Justina Chen Headley, Peggy King Anderson, Kathryn Galbraith, Katherine Bond, Molly Blaisdell, and so many more.

I'd met Deb Caletti a couple of times in person and we've had some cor...

Funky Friday: Stealing Death Cookies

That probably sounds odd. What I mean is, Janet Lee Carey's book launch party for STEALING DEATH is tomorrow night, and I'm making cookies for the event!



I can't wait to see the book in the flesh, so to speak, after getting to hear it week by week at our writing group - isn't the cover gorgeous?



The setting for STEALING DEATH is a drought-parched land inspired, in part, by the African desert. So I thought, what better cookies could I make than an African-inspired recipe? I hunted around and fou...

Book Blogger Appreciation Week!

Even as we surf and type, the BBAW folks have been hard at work gathering the best blogs for our voting pleasure - including the kidlitosphere!

Besides the category of Best Kidlit Blog and Best YA Blog, a number of kidlitosphere blogs are up for awards in other categories, including GuysLitWire, Nathan Bransford, Beth Kephart Books, and more.

Voting closes Saturday September 12 at 11:59 PM EST. See you there!

Website update: check!

Life is almost back to normal...which means we finally got to update hollycupala.com with the correct title, etc. for TELL ME A SECRET!

The next major update will be in the next few months, when my publisher lets me unveil the amazing cover they are working on....

Oooh, and I made fancy graphic links for twitter and facebook:


What's next? Time will tell what we have up our sleeves at Brimstone Soup with partner-in-crime, CuppaJolie.

What do you have up your sleeve, now that summer is almost...

Janet Lee Carey: Party in Seattle!

If you are in the Seattle area this weekend (and you should be, after all of that hardcore resting from your labors!), then why not come out to celebrate the release of Janet Lee Carey's latest YA fantasy novel, STEALING DEATH at Parkplace Books in Kirkland:

It's this Saturday at 6:30 pm. Even better: Janet supports PlayPump, Water for Thirsty Villages, with some of the proceeds from her novel. Hooray, Janet!

Funky Friday: Knit One, Purl One

Something about the threat of cloudburst while on vacation makes me head for the yarn store.

My friend Kathryn (as seen on the readergirlz Teen Read Week posters) turned out to be the perfect companion for just such an occasion: she turned me on to Ravelry.com , a social networking site devoted to the yarn-obsessed, through which we found Knitting, Etc. in Ithaca, NY (say it with me, "Oooooooooh..."):

I found bamboo needles as thick as my husband's thumb. I found feather-soft Alpaca in the...

Autumn Brimstone

Ok, so now we have the final stats of Brimstone Soup's first official poll:

Book reviews7%First draft tips70%Finding your voice51%Interviews40%Holly's writing news70%Getting ready for NANOWRIMO/Golden Coffee Cup11%Another writing event18%Industry news18%Things to make and do18%Other (leave a comment)3%
All I can say is...WHEW! I'm really, really glad you people (well, most of you people) aren't clamoring for me to provide Industry News or Book Reviews (both of which are already done...

readergirlz in September

Some very exciting things are happening over at readergirlz this month - our very first Author in Residence, Beth Kephart (amazing author of HOUSE OF DANCE, UNDERCOVER, and NOTHING BUT GHOSTS), who will be vlogging about writing and cool contests.

Plus we'll have Kristin Cashore and GRACELING all month, with a rgz LIVE! chat at the rgz blog on September 16th at 6 p.m. Pacific/9 p.m. Eastern:

However, I confess the thing I am most excited about are our Teen Read Week plans (hopefully unveiling ...