Three Recommendations:

* Delia Sherman talks about her new YA novel The Freedom Maze in a podcast over on the Small Beer Press website, chatting about "her southern roots and the nature of dreams." It's a terrific little podcast -- and the book in question, a time-travel fantasy set in Louisiana, is quite simply one of the best YA novels I've read in years.

* Stephen Fry discusses the subject of storytelling in Episode 5 of Fry's Planet Word over on BBC Two. Fry asks "what makes a good story and why some writers just do it better. He reveals what stories make him shiver with joy or, conversely, shudder with horror. From Homer's epic to Joyce's modern-day reinvention with Ulysses, from taking in Shakespeare, PG Wodehouse, Tolkien, Orwell, Auden, Bob Dylan and the even the mangled web of words that became known as Birtspeak, Stephen uncovers why certain words can make us laugh, cry or tear our hair out." Watch this soon, as it will be online only until November 1.

* Christina Cairns continues the discussion on "creative burn-out" in her excellent new post "Decending into the underworld, the labyrinth, the abyss" on A Mermaid in the Attic.