Phoebe North's Blog, page 20

Up at the Interroblog: Review of Matt Blackstone's A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie

At the outset, I was quite excited to read Matt Blackstone's upcoming debut A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie. The opening reminded me of a male version of Kirsten Hubbard's Like Mandarin. In early chapters, fourteen-year-old Rene meets Gio, a tall, slang-inventing, facial-hair sporting classmate and is instantly entranced by him. He assures us that he's not gay, but that he merely wants to be Gio—but of course, this isn't an easy prospect for Rene, an awkward kid who wears a superhero cape to...

Attack of the Plot Ewoks

Hi guys, I'm still editing. I've gotten some helpful (and labor-intensive!) advice from the Interrobangs which has temporarily stalled my forward progress as I go back and make things more awesome.

Sigh.

Editing is hard work. I've mentioned that. Have I also mentioned that it's dry and unfun and boring? Well, it is. I hate you, editing. Go curl up and die.

What I like is writing. And, also, brainstorming new ideas, and figuring out plot threads and untangling things and crafting them from the...

Review: The New World by Patrick Ness

The New World by Patrick Ness

Somehow, I missed the memo that Patrick Ness wrote a short story prequel for his Chaos Walking Trilogy. I didn't hear about it until this week, when a former co-worker mentioned that she'd picked up the books, hoping they'd continue the story about Viola's life on a generation ship. As you might know, generation ships are a subject near and dear to my heart. I'd also been somewhat frustrated by Viola's sparse characterization in The Knife of Never Letting Go

Something Something Editing

I wasn't going to do this post, because I feel a little stupid talking about editing. For one thing, even though this is the fifth book I've written, I really only feel like I've started to figure out how to actually edit effectively very recently. And because the process is new to me, I can't be sure that I'm really doing it right. It also feels somehow presumptuous, talking about one's editing process. I'm not sure that what works for me is likely to work for anyone else, and so please...

Review: I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip. by John Donovan

I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth The Trip.: 40th Anniversary Edition by John Donovan

Recommended.

There's no doubt that John Donovan's 1969 young adult novel, I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip is historically significant—charmingly pitched by the author to Harper & Row editor Ursula Nordstrom as a "buddy love" novel, I'll Get There . . . was, in fact, the first teen novel to include "gay" content. In an era when homosexuality was still considered a mental disorder...

Over at the Interroblog: Call for a New New Realism

I have a post up on the Interroblog today on emotional realism in genre YA.

I was reading the fortieth-anniversary edition of John Donovan's woefully little-known young adult classic I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip last. If you're not familiar with this title (and you might not be; it was out of print for twenty years!), it was the first "gay" young adult fiction ever published, way back in 1969.

But to call it merely the first gay YA novel would be to sell it short, because I'll...

Review: Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund

Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund

Recommended.

Don't let the cover fool you.

Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund is not a romance novel. Nor is it historical fiction, despite the weirdly archaic choice of dress for the male cover model, the loopy font and embellishments of both the cover and the chapter headings, and the cover copy that wholly obscures the true genre in favor of, instead, oblique references to lurking dangers, dangerous secrets, and undiscovered bonds.

Academy 7 is, in fact, a space opera.

But...

Late Night Rant on YA Sci-fi and the Labeling Of

Hi, guys! I'm editing.

If you're anything like me, you will zoom in on this image to try and read the text. Because you are nosy. 'scool.

I just looked at the clock and realized it was almost midnight and I hadn't written a blog post yet. I could write about slashing and burning my book, but that's boring. Really–talking about editing? Snooze. What works for me isn't likely to work for you, anyway.

But I was just listening in a bit to someone's twitter conversation, and it seemed to be ripe...

Review: Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge

Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge

"All one needs for a novel is an intelligent young person and a city."

I was at the end of my academic career when a professor decreed this in a graduate class—I knew then, from the instinctive revulsion I felt at the idea, and the knee-jerk litany I began to compose in my head of other necessary components needed for a novel (Plot! Characters! Conflict!), that I'd finally crossed the divide between commercial and literary writing.

In some ways, my tastes are still a...

goodreads tips for authors

How to be using the goodreads?!

I've been meaning to put this post together for awhile, but then a blog post by Beth Revis where she shares social media tips got my butt in gear. goodreads.com, a social networking site focused on books, can be a pretty intimidating place for an author. The community there is very reader-centric, with its own mores, and a heavy focus on consumer book reviews (scary!). Having been a member there as a reader for over three years, I thought I'd share some tips on ...