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Sara Zarr delivers the keynote speech to kick off the final day of the 2011 SCBWI Annual Winter Conference.

Sara is the acclaimed author of three novels for young adults: STORY OF A GIRL (National Book Award Finalist), SWEETHEARTS (Cybil Award Finalist), and ONCE WAS LOST (a Kirkus Best Book of 2009). Her fourth book will be out in late 2011. She's also written for IMAGE JOURNAL, Hunger Mountain Online, and RESPONSE MAGAZINE, as well as for several anthologies. (If you need a reading recommendation, ask Sara--she recently read over 200 books as a judge for the National Book Awards.)

Click here to read a pre-conference interview with Sara.

Sara came the the SCBWI conference as an attendee in 2001, at which she had been pursuing writing for five years and becoming frustrated. She came back in 2005 and she was really getting discouraged that things weren't happening in her career.

"They say write the book you want to read. I'm going to give the speech that I need to hear," Sara told us. "I speak to you as a colleague, comrade and friend."

The time between when you're no longer a beginner but have yet to break into the business is probably the hardest in your career, she says. Your greatest creation is your creative life. It's all in your hands. Rejection can't take it away; reviews can't take it away. The life you create for yourself as an artist, may be the only thing that's really yours. Create a life you can center yourself in calmly as you wait for you work to grow.

Here are a few some of the characters tics of a fulfilling creative life that Sara shared with us...

It's sustainable. Celebrate career milestones, but remember that they aren't the point. What's important is the love of the work. "Most creative I know don't have a retirement plan."

It invites company. Most creatives are introverts. Seek mentoring and be a mentor. Other creatives are the only ones who understands the joys and struggles of the creative life. There's never a point where you have nothing else to learn. But at the same time, don't consider hundreds of people on Twitter who you've never meant as your inner circle of friends.

It knows when to send company away. Ultimately this is about you. When it comes to getting your work done, no one can do that but you. There's power and importance to privacy. Think before sharing, name dropping. Know when to turn off Google alerts and GoodReads. "We can't let all of these voices and opinions be present in our creative moment."

It gives back. It give back to you and to others. As you're engaged with you work and your world you'll be a better spouse, friends, sibling. You'll be more self-actualized.



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Jennifer Harris used to be that poor, chubby kid who sat alone in the cafeteria. Well, almost alone. There was Cameron Quick, another social outcast. Another kid living in poverty and living on the fringe of third grade society. He was her only friend and the only person who ever understood Jennifer Harris. And then he disappeared.

Years pass. Jennifer gets a new stepfather, a new house, a new school, a new name, a new life. She reinvents herself as Jenna Vaughn. Jenna Vaughn is one of the pretty, thin popular girls. She has friends and a hot boyfriend. But she also has a secret – a dark memory that ties her forever to Cameron Quick and to the old Jennifer Harris, who never really left. SWEETHEARTS is the story of Cameron’s return to Jennifer’s life and what happens when her two worlds meet.

As a National Book Award Finalist, Sara Zarr has a lot riding on this next novel, scheduled for release in February 2008. There will be inevitable comparisons to STORY OF A GIRL. Can this second book live up to that standard? Truth be told, I liked SWEETHEARTS even better. The characters in this novel absolutely shine, from the insecure third grade Jennifer and the third grade Cameron whose generosity and fierce loyalty made me want him for a friend, to the high school version of these kids, still haunted by their grade school selves. The minor characters shine, too. One of my favorites was Jenna’s stepfather, whose quiet support helps Jenna and her mother rebuild what was broken so many years ago.

Some character-driven novels sacrifice pace and tension, but that’s not the case with SWEETHEARTS. From the very first chapter, readers sense there’s a story from Jennifer’s childhood that’s not being told in its entirety. Zarr reveals that story in bits and pieces, snippets of memory and elegantly woven flashbacks throughout the book. All the while, the parts of the story left unspoken create powerful tension.

I read SWEETHEARTS in just a few sittings. When I was away from the book, I spent half my time thinking about the characters and hoping things would go well for them. They grow on you like that. Sara Zarr has written another fantastic novel –- one that celebrates the power of childhood friendships, loyalty, and inner strength. Like STORY OF A GIRL, Zarr's new release is loaded with realistic characters, hope, and heart. The fabulous cookie cover art delivers on its promise – SWEETHEARTS an absolutely delicious read. 

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Thanks to Lifelongreader who points out that there is a podcast on Jodi Picoult's web site which gives some background to Nineteen Minutes. Two of her novels have been challenged. The Pact which has been covered in an earlier post and Nineteen Minutes, her latest novel which was banned from the high school in her home town of Hanover.

The book has been pulled off the reading list at the local high school in Hanover, N.H., Picoult’s hometown. Picoult calls the school’s decision “crazy and really sad” and is making no apologies for this latest story. It comes following a year that saw a record number of school shootings across the U.S., seven of them fatal. “I subscribe to the theory that kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for and that trying to protect them by pretending these issues don’t exist is not doing them any good,” said Picoult, 40, who has a teenaged son attending that school in Hanover.

School officials are concerned that the setting resembles the layout of the high school in Hanover and that students might find that traumatic.

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According to an article in the Daily Press & Argus, Erin Gruwell, author of the controversial The Freedom Writers Diary made a stop in Howell, MI, where her book has been targeted by a group of parents opposed to allowing its real-life language be allowed in the schools. I would encourage you to read the whole article.

Meanwhile, Monroe County, MI has chosen Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for their Big Read as has Anchorage Alaska. Anchorage Daily news reports that RAY BRADBURY, 87, author of Fahrenheit 451, will participate in an interactive simulcast at 3 p.m. March 23 in the Assembly Chambers at Loussac Library. Participants are encouraged to submit questions in advance.

The CBC has taken their share of criticism for not allowing award-winning author Yann Martel to read from Mein Kampf on a radio broadcast made in celebration of Freedom to Read Week.

Bookslut interviews Maryrose Wood, who is the author of Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love and is one of the authors who is taking the "Banned Book Challenge."

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher became the second book in less than a year to be removed from Carroll School District, Iowa. It was removed from the English class after a local pastor complained about its explicit language but has since been returned. Peter Hedges' What's Eating Gilbert Grape was returned after a superintendent removed the book without following the official policy. Crutcher's official view of censorship is, "The truth screams to be told in its native tongue." He maintains a page on his site that deals with censorship issues about his and other authors' books.

In a 2005 article for the Princeton Perspective, best-selling author Jodi Picoult explains why she writes banned books.

The truth is, I don’t write easy books. I cover issues such as domestic and sexual abuse, rape, euthanasia, infidelity — topics that are unsettling. My objective as a novelist is to take you for a breathless ride, and to make you rethink what you believe, and why. What is eye-opening to one person is offensive to the next, and it is nearly impossible to draw that line, or determine who has the right to draw it....I don’t write about controversial issues because I like to be edgy. I write about them because, like my readers, I don’t have all the answers. When a moral or ethical question roots itself in my mind, I find myself thinking about what I’d do in that situation. I force myself to turn over every stone, consider the issue from every perspective. I find myself walking down roads that are often uncomfortable....

Read more about The Pact on Jodi Picoult's web site.

Cynsations, a blog that includes news about children and young adult literature speaks to Brent Hartinger about what he has been up to since the challenge to his book Geography Club over its portrayal of homosexuality.

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