Krista Van Dolzer's Blog, page 23

Happy Release Day, RED BUTTERFLY!

The title of this post pretty much says it all. RED BUTTERFLY's birthday is here, so it's time for a celebration! I fell in love with an early draft of Amy's book from the very first poem, and now I can't wait to hold the real, live book in my hands (and to see Amy June Bates's accompanying illustrations!).
A brief summary from Goodreads:

Kara never met her birth mother. Abandoned as an infant, she was taken in by an American woman living in China. Now eleven, Kara spends most of her time in th...

Book Recommendations: THE BURNING SKY and THE PERILOUS SEA by Sherry Thomas

I'd seen these books around, but it wasn't until I stumbled on Michelle's excellent reviews that I finally sat up and took note. When she mentioned that the second was even better than the first, I decided to give them a try--and thank goodness I did!

Thanks to his mother's visions, Prince Titus, whose kingdom has been all but taken over by Atlantis, knows that someday he'll discover an elemental mage who will have the power to overthrow the Bane, Atlantis's mysterious dictator. When he witnes...

THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING Is a Junior Library Guild Selection!

I'm so pleased to announce that THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING is a Junior Library Guild Selection. Now, if you're anything like me, you've heard of Junior Library Guild selections, but you don't really know what they are or what that means, so here's a brief explanation (insofar as I understand it):

The Junior Library Guild is essentially a book club for teachers and librarians, so members can order books, often at steep discounts, for their classrooms and libraries. But the Junior Library...

It's 2015?

Well, it's 2015. (Actually, it's been 2015 for, like, a week, but I'm sure you already noticed.) In my personal life, it feels like time is speeding up, but in my writing life, it feels like time is stretching out. THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING comes out in a little less than four months, but that doesn't mean much to me right now. The same thing happened to me before Honey Bear came home from his mission. I remember staring at a calendar the week before his homecoming and thinking, "Wow,...

Book Recommendation: STEERING TOWARD NORMAL by Rebecca Petruck

I know what you're thinking: since Ms. Petruck and I have the same agent, this post must be part of a setup. But I can assure you that it's not. I've read a bunch of Kate's clients' books, and while I've enjoyed almost all of them--her existing client list was one of the main reasons I signed with her--I've never officially recommended one.
Until now, that is.

Diggy Lawson is resilient. When his mom dumped him on his dad's porch, then rode out of town on a tractor, baby Diggy didn't flinch. Aft...

We Have Winners!

Without any ado, the winners of the signed copies of AN UNCOMMON BLUE:

Jeff Krebs
Heather
Carla Luna Cullen

Congratulations, all! Please e-mail me at kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com with your mailing addresses so I can pass them on to R.C.

And for those of you who didn't win, AN UNCOMMON BLUE is available from all the usual suspects, so if you're still looking for that last-minute gift (or, you know, if you just want one yourself), you can still nab a copy.

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanza

From "The Writer's Voice" to Publication

One of the best parts of organizing online writing contests is watching new writers' journeys unfold. R.C. Hancock, who was on my team for the inaugural round of "The Writer's Voice" back in 2012, is one of those writers (and if you want to check out his entry, you can find it here). AN UNCOMMON BLUE went on to sell to Cedar Fort and officially comes out today. I invited R.C. to come back to the blog and tell us the story of how AN UNCOMMON BLUE came to be, and he graciously agreed. Three sig...

Interview with an Agent: Madeleine Clark

I'm pleased to welcome Madeleine Clark of Sterling Lord Literistic to the blog to round out the year's additions to my "Interview with an Agent" series. Happy reading!

KV: How long have you been agenting, and how did you get into it?

MC: I’ve been at Sterling Lord Literistic for the last three and half years and before that I was working at a publishing house in North Carolina: Algonquin Books to be precise. Like a lot of people in publishing, I was an English major and avid reader who wanted m...

Great News for Great Friends

Liz and I have been friends since Kate signed us within a week or two of each other back in the spring of 2012, so when I found out that Albert Whitman wanted to buy Liz's latest sci-fi, I busted out my happy dance. The official announcement is over at Publishers Weekly, but if you don't feel like clicking, I've pasted it below:
"Wendy McClure of Albert Whitman has bought NA author Elizabeth Briggs's first YA project: a science-fiction novel called Future Shock plus a sequel. In the books, a L...

Mini (Work-in-) Progress Reports

I haven't had a ton of time to blog lately, so here's a quick roundup of the projects I've been working on:

Steve

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 60,000
Status: Chilling like a villain (okay, not really like a villain, but it (sort of) rhymed)
Attitude: Not hostile

Also known as THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING, Steve is the little book that could. It recently occurred to me that I started querying this manuscript three years ago this month, and I'm STILL working on it. Okay, maybe I'm not a...