Columnist: Maurene Goo

It’s very exciting to write the debut post for this new series of diversity recs for YABC! As a member of We Need Diverse Books and as a YA author who started this entire journey because I wanted to see books that reflected something close to my teen years in print—well, this means a lot.

My inspiration for this first blog post is two-fold: 1) What better way to kick off this debut post than with fellow authors from my debut year? I met Brandy Colbert, Stephanie Kuehn, and Justina Ireland through The Lucky 13s, and not only do they write awesome books that I enjoyed reading, but they are three pretty wonderful human beings whose voices are so valuable. 2) Last month, there was a great hashtag on Twitter called #BlackWomenAuthors, and I was so inspired by it that I wanted to apply it to my first blog post.

So without further ado…

Pointe by Brandy Colbert

Pointe has been called gritty by a lot of reviewers, and I can see why. But I find it more accurate to describe it as a story about grace and redemption. Colbert’s beautiful writing is such a complement to this wrenching story. The story centers on Theo, a sixteen-year-old dancer who is poised to pursue a bright ballet career. Things get thrown off course when her abducted childhood friend, Donovan, returns home after four years. Pointe juggles some heavy-duty topics—sex, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress, just to name a few. But it’s all handled with a natural hand rather than a heavy one, and that’s also how Colbert deals with Theo’s skin color—being black is another facet of Theo that gives her nuance as a character, but doesn’t define her trajectory in life. But, let’s be real, hasn’t a good YA about a black ballerina been a long time coming? Also, fun fact: Theo is named after Theo Huxtable!

To read more about POINTE, or for links to purchase the book, go HERE.

Promise of Shadows by Justina Ireland

It will be no surprise to anyone who knows Ireland that there is a whole lot of fun badassery in her sophomore novel, Promise of Shadows. The novel takes place in a modern world where Greek mythology is very much real. The main character is a Harpy named Zephyr Mourning who has been dragged into the hells of Tartarus for reasons that become clear as her past unfurls, one layer at a time. I’ll keep mum about most of the plot to avoid spoilers, but let’s just say there are some big, world-saving things ahead for Zephyr, the timid and less-than-confident Harpy. What’s refreshing is to see Greek mythology and the hero’s journey from the point of view of someone who isn’t some pure-of-heart-golden-haired wunderkind, but rather, a failed warrior with a penchant for blood, and oh yeah, dark skin, blue dreads, and snaky lines of dark power tattooing her entire body. It’s a great update on classic Greek mythology, and Promise of Shadows features a snarky, irreverent main character whose fantastic voice carries us through the complexities of taking up the savior mantle. Fans of Buffy, rejoice.

To read more about Promise of Shadows, or for links to purchase the book, go HERE.

Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn

There is so much importance in diversity acting as a mirror for readers' experiences, but there’s also its other big purpose—to act as a window into another, wholly unfamiliar world. Charm & Strange was a much-needed window for me as a reader, opening my eyes to the dark, intensely sad world of childhood mental illness. This Morris-winning debut took my breath away. Kuehn takes on a very challenging subject by using a fantastical metaphor as a vehicle for her traumatized main character, Drew/Win. The book is structured so that every other chapter you are following ten year old Drew’s story, and then sixteen year old Win’s story. You know from the very beginning, through a broken and suffering Win’s point of view, that something deeply traumatic happened to him one fateful summer. And even as you dread that terrible truth, there is so much humanity and empathy in the way Kuehn treats Drew/Win. This book changed me, in the way that only books can.

To learn more about Charm & Strange, or to find links to buy the book, go HERE.

Which book do you want to add to your TBR pile and why? Tell us in the comments. We'd love to hear from you!

 Maurene Goo is the author of Since You Asked. She studied communication at the University of California, San Diego, and received a master’s degree in publishing and writing at Emerson College. She has very strong feelings about graphic design and houseplants and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a very old cat. She is also a team member of We Need Diverse Books http://weneeddiversebooks.org/

The 10-day virtual book tour for Helping Herbie Hedgehog, sponsored by the National Writing for Children Center, starts today.

Just click here to start the tour:

Day 1 – Helping Herbie Hedgehog

In today’s post, you’ll learn more about Melissa Abramovitz, author of Helphing Herbie Hedgehog.

I came very close to making a terrible financial blunder last week.

I wanted to make it with all my heart.

I came very close to buying a house in Greencastle, Indiana.

This is the house:

Mari with Cory Putnam Oakes & Christina Soontornvat

Cold meant snow. Snow meant snowboarding. Snowboarding meant everything.

Lexi Miller--aka "Golden Girl"--is Queen of the ‘Cross--snowboard cross, that is. As the most promising student at the elite ski and snowboard school, Mountain Academy, she is a sure lock for the Olympic-level trial team and has the most promise for a future Olympic gold medal the school has ever seen. 

Until a freak fall during a snowboard-cross competition crushes her dreams and puts her future on hold.

One year after her disastrous fall, Lexi is back at Mountain Academy and attempting a comeback. But everything has changed—her best friend is suddenly friends with her arch-enemy on and off the slopes, and everyone seems to be rooting for her to fail.

Everyone except Logan Conrad that is. Logan is a “staff rat” whose mother works at the school and he believes snowboarding should be for fun—not sponsors. With his help and friendship, Lexi begins to discover a whole new world outside her favorite sport and even a new passion for music.

But Lexi's dad--who just happens to be her coach and lead instructor at Mountain Academy--has strong opinions on his daughter's future. Can Lexi figure out how to balance her dreams with the dreams of her dad's--and find out what exactly happened on that mountain a year ago?

Anna Ingwersen is a native Texan who spent her crucial years in New Mexico (still miss those sunsets) and has now settled in Edinburgh where she writes, reads, mothers, and teaches yoga. Currently, she’s working on another historical fiction novel and a short story. Her last short story,” The Snowbird,” was published in Deep South magazine. Anna’s been writing stories for as long as she can remember, including a sequel to Gone with the Wind, co-authored by Caroline Starr Rose, at the age of ten.

Please tell us about your book.

The Moon Garden is historical fiction taking place against the backdrop of pre and post Civil Rights Texas. Both main characters live under different societal constraints, James, as a black man passing for white, and Elana, as a free spirited abstract artist. Their attraction is strengthened by their shared identities as outsiders. However, their love affair cannot protect them from circumstances beyond their control, forcing decisions that, thirty years later, may finally be redeemed.

It’s a love story, but also a story about identity, ethics, and how the daily decisions we make shape the course of our entire lives. I also explore how we are limited by the times we are living in and how we struggle to create authentic lives under these constraints.

I’d never heard of Texas’s Veterans’ Land Act Scandal before reading your book. What drew you to this subject?

The Texas Veterans Land Board Scandal provided additional historical backdrop for the story. It was the biggest scandal in state history, one in which state land promoters and politicians were involved in cheating veterans, many of whom were black, out of low interest state backed loans for land. I was drawn to this scandal because at the time I was working in state government and could see how easily people can forget their ethics and forget they work as civil servants. After reading about the scandal, it just seemed ripe for a juicy novel! It was unbelievable how high and deep it ran, how a prominent lawyer investigating the scandal was the victim of an attempted murder via a car bombing, and how the story broke because an intrepid reporter from a small town followed his instincts and went on to win a Pulitzer for his work.

The glimpses you give us of both Austin and Galveston feel intimate and familiar. Can you talk a little about the importance of setting and specifically why you’re drawn to write about Texas?

I’m a Texan and spent most of my life in Austin and near Galveston. I love these two places for different reasons, and both places are very dear to my heart. Both places are very evocative for me. I suppose I’m always a bit homesick, and writing about these places helps me to be there on those days I miss hearing a mourning dove cooing outside my door or a cheeky grackle giving me a disapproving look.

Also, as a writer, I feel setting is an essential character in a book. I want a reader to feel they are fully immersed in the story and setting allows that to happen. As a reader I also love books with a well-drawn setting. It takes me somewhere new, a little holiday without leaving home.

Moon Garden moves between the 1950s past and the 1980s present. What made this the best way to tell your story?

I liked the idea of a man who had lived an extraordinary life during difficult times, looking back on his life and trying to make sense of it all. America’s history is so short and I felt contrasting the 1980s and the 1950s illustrated that really well. Only thirty years span between Jim Crow and the 1980s. So much had changed, yet for many, what they had experienced in terms of social change, wasn’t ancient history, and still isn’t!

What are some challenges associated with telling a story from two different character’s perspectives? What are some advantages?

I felt like I really knew James and Elana, so for me, I had to write from both perpectives. Both suffer from different, yet powerful societal constraints, and I was passionate about exploring that. I think if your characters both have a story to tell, then do it, just make sure they both need to be there. For a while, I didn’t want to listen to Elana and then she came out and demanded to be heard. It evolved that way naturally and through valuable feedback, I was able to let her come through.

I think the advantages of writing from two perpectives are that you get to see two different takes on the same events, that you see reality can be extremely different for two people living in the same time. I’ve always been fascinated by the diversity of experiences we all have and how it shapes our actions and who we are.

The post An Interview with Anna Ingwersen, author of THE MOON GARDEN appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

Eliza Wheeler is an illustrator and author of children’s books, including MISS MAPLE’S SEEDS, which debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list, and the Newbery Honor winning novel DOLL BONES (by Holly Black). Eliza is a northern Wisconsin native currently living with her husband in Los Angeles, California.

I met Eliza when we were both chosen for the SCBWI Illustration Mentorship Program back in 2010, and we've become good friends since.  It's been exciting to watch her career take off! So looking forward to rooming with Eliza at the SCBWI Summer Conference in Los Angeles this year.

Also excited about the launch of WHEREVER YOU GO, a new picture book written by Pat Zietlow Miller (I'll be posting an interview with Pat later this week), illustrated by Eliza, coming out from Little, Brown Books For young Readers on April 21, 2015. I LOVE this book so much! Young readers will appreciate the fun journey and look-more-closely-what-do-you-see gorgeous artwork while grown-ups will also enjoy the underlying (and uplifting) life sentiment. You can read the (starred) review on Kirkus.

Synopsis of WHEREVER YOU GO:

Join an adventurous rabbit and his friends as they journey on winding roads to discover the magical worlds that await them. Pat Zietlow Miller's lilting rhyme and illustrator Eliza Wheeler's enchanting landscapes celebrate the possibilities that lie beyond the next bend in the road, which always leads you home again.

You can find out more about Eliza and her work at her website, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Q. Could you please take a photo of something in your office and tell us the story behind it?

The favorite thing in my work-space is the doll that I made while I was creating my first book, MISS MAPLE'S SEEDS.

While I was working on the sketches for this book, I wasn't feeling confident in the consistency of the many angles of my one singular character (Miss Maple) in the story, and so I decided to build a doll of her. I'd never done this before, and it took me a long time.

I used a self-hardening clay called LaDoll for the head, arms and feet, and then made the body out of wire and stuffed and sewn fabric. It was worth the work because I was able to pose and photograph her with lighting in all the positions and angles I needed to draw. And now she sits on my shelf.

My husband, Adam, occasionally takes walks around the block, and will sometimes bring back the most interesting seeds or leaves. She hangs on to those for me.

Q. What advice do you have for young writers and/or illustrators?

Seek a balance in your creative work and daily life that's not only sustaining, but life-giving. Finding this balance has been and is still a constant process for me.

I often hear creative people talk about working hard, going all-or-nothing, taking leaps of faith, giving ultimatums and timelines about 'making it' into an industry, etc. Especially for those just starting out, the dilemma is often between time and money. Trying to do the creative work 100% right away brings a lot of pressure and tension into your life that can stifle creativity, which then becomes paralyzing.

On the other hand, feeling locked into a life that allows no time for creative work is also stifling. So the goal is to find the perfect situation that gives you just enough of both.

That often means working part time or full time at a day job for many years and finding a few regular hours on nights, mornings or weekends to turn off the world and focus (or just play!). The baby steps that you make during these hours will begin to add up, and form into tangible, inspired projects. That momentum will build, and then the scales gradually tip.

Making progress is about daily baby steps. It's not about achieving instant perfection in one fell swoop. It's a small seed that grows imperceptibly for a little while.

Q. What are you excited about right now?

I'm very excited to be traveling to Madison, Wisconsin in May to celebrate the release of my new illustrated picture-book, WHEREVER YOU GO, written by Wisconsin author Pat Zietlow-Miller. Pat's manuscript is rhythmic and beautiful, and was basically a blank canvas for me. The text was so open that I could create a narrative within the pictures. This book stretched my creative muscles in a lot of new and sometimes uncomfortable ways (the joke with my agent was that I was drawing my fingers down to bloody stumps) -- there's a scope and level of detail in this artwork that I'd never created before -- so I'm thrilled to finally be able to share it with everyone, and to be able to team up with Pat in that sharing process.

------
For more interviews, see my Inkygirl Interview Archive.

Over at her Poetrepository, Mary Lee is writing a poem for each day of April either using an emotion word or evoking that emotion--this after writing a poem in March for each and every one of my Forward...MarCH CHallenge words!  I am humbled and could not possibly keep up this pace of writing and blogging, but I have promised myself that I'll join in where I can.

For example, I have begun a cleridoubledactylhew in response to Kwame Alexander's challenge over at Today's Little Ditty with Michelle--a wonderful post!  Kwame's challenge is to write a clerihew, the rules for which are quite loose, but yesterday at The Miss Rumphius Effect, Jane Yolen shared some very fun double dactyls, which, like clerihews, are written about people.  When I went to save my very difficult cleridoubledactylhew, I had a serendipitous thing happen: I caught sight of a doc called "Sadness made me keep a diary."  I'd totally forgotten about writing such a poem. It needed more work, but here it is.

Why I keep a diary

She was withering,
I was blooming. I visited,
sat in a familiar wing chair
in an unfamiliar room,
looked through a box of her papers:
calendars, church bulletins, a little locked
five-year diary marked 1943.

"July 14:
Fell down the basement stairs
carrying a bushel of peaches ($2.15).
Broke my ankle.
Tried not to cry in front of the children.”

“September 9:
Collected rents today (sunny, 79*).
Made black-and-white cookies
for the Ladies’Aid meeting.
Charlie & Lila growing awfully fast.

“November 21:
Find myself talking to Arthur’s
picture too much.
Took it off the piano today
and put it away.”

All my gramma’s sadness—recorded
in brisk, cheerful lines, hidden
under a bushel, now unlocked.
At home I began my own little
five-year diary, so that someday
my children might understand
why sadness is hard for me.


–HM 2015
all rights reserved


Other challenges I am visiting have produced this work:


For Jone's Double LL challenge, using the words "alluvium" and "elliptic":

erosion

after recess
cheeks bear
an alluvium
of shallow silt
carried by
fleeting tears

–HM 2015
all rights reserved

These days libraries aren't just about books, they are about endless resources. Common Craft recently released a video about what our modern libraries do... (Click the image to see the video at School Library Journal.)

We continue to consider failure through the wise, honest words of science fiction author Lyda Morehouse (and a few from Milton).

In the Koran, Iblis (Satan) feels Allah tricked him (long story, but he’s super mad about Allah’s newest creation, human beings, and when Allah presented this new muddy clump of animated clay, Satan refused to bow before it, because, he felt, that God was the only one worthy of his devotion. Satan thought that the point of this exercise to check the loyalty of the angels. He thought himself pretty smug for having passed. So, no surprise he feels very PWN’d when Allah says he will be cast out of Paradise for his transgression,) so Satan/Iblis says:

“Because You have sent me astray, surely I will sit in wait against them (human beings) on Your Straight Path. Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left…”

Traditional New York publishers aren’t the Great Satan, but I have spent many days counting the ways in which I feel they share similar characteristics.

So.

Many.

Days.

There are a lot of reasons to be bitter about the state of publishing. My personal story of heartache has a lot in common with Iblis’s, at least in my own mind. I actually got into Paradise, which is to say that a prominent publishing house picked up my first novel. That book came out to a moderate amount of fanfare. From there on out, I tried to be a perfect angel. I never missed a deadline. When my editor called and said, “So, this Twilight book is hot. You think you could do something similar?” I happily said yes, even though maybe a tiny part of my soul died a little. I never fought editorial changes to my book. NEVER. “It’s their book,” I told myself. “They paid for it.”

Except once.

And then I was cast out.

I spent a lot of time brooding about this since. Was it just my time and was this the excuse they were looking for? I know that can happen because I narrowly avoided being “quietly shown the door” earlier because I met and bonded with my previous editor. My science fiction numbers hadn’t been what the publisher was hoping for, but we chatted at a convention and he, bless his soul, decided he’d tell me what his bosses had in store for me and helped me switch from science fiction to romance. So, I’d gotten some awesome breaks in the past.

Truthfully, I got fourteen published books out of my run; I was probably simply due for a fall.

But you would not believe the amount of time I have spent turning over details and events around that final moment. Who’s fault was it? Was it fair? Who could I blame? Should I have fought over creative differences earlier? Would that have helped my books be better, and thus improve my numbers? Or, was it a mistake to fight? Should I have continued to capitulate in hopes that things would get better and so that would have yet another book to write under contract?

Any one of those could have been my great failure. But, believe it or not, none of that really matters.

The mistake I’ve made is allowing myself to become bitter. The single most destructive force in my career has been me: my willingness to bow my head and quit.

I always believed that I could never not write, and that’s been true. I’ve been writing ever since my publishing career crumbled beneath my feet, but I gave up striving for publication. There are so many new avenues for writers these days and instead of exploring self or small press publishing, I have stared at the doors of heaven and shaken my fists.

This is a mistake—it’s a failure of resilience, a loss of hope that I’m finally beginning to recover from. I’ve been trying my hand at new ways of writing: a comic book script, collaboration, self-publishing, etc.

And I’m here to tell you that writing can still make me happy. It’s still the greatest job on earth. Ultimately, I have found an answer to the question another writer once posed:

“To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or by opposing, end them?”

It is better to oppose them.

It is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

 Lyda Morehouse writes about that gets other people in trouble: religion and science.  Her first novel Archangel Protocol won the Shamus Award for best paperback novel featuring a private detective.  A subsequent novel, Apocalypse Array, also came in second for the prodigious Philip K. Dick award.  This, however, did not insulate her from failure and so she revived her career as paranormal romance writer Tate Hallaway, author of the Garnet Lacey series and the YA series, Vampire Prince of St. Paul.  She is now attempting to rise from the ashes again. Wish her luck and follow her progress at: www.lydamorehouse.com or on twitter @tatehallaway or via the various places she blogs, including www.tatehallway.blogspot.com

May Contain Spoilers

Review:

I saw this at the library and had to check it out.  Why? Because they don’t have many Harlequin Comics and they are like my crack.  They’ve also greatly improved from the first ones I read, where the words didn’t even stay inside the word balloons.  Why even have word balloons, if the text is going to drift lazily beyond their borders?  It used to drive me crazy, so I’m happy to report that that particular issue is now a non-issue.

Chloe is a housekeeper for the wealthy Carstairs family, and one day, while doing her thing, she’s startled by a handsome man swimming in the pool.  His face and leg are marred by terrible scars, and Chloe learns that he’s Declan, the eldest Carstairs son, and that he survived a horrible mountain climbing accident that took the life of his brother. 

Chloe also discovers that he’s blind, and that he’s irritated with people mollycoddling him.  He’s frustrated that he needs assistance, so Chloe does her best to help him without robbing him of his pride.  She’s confused when Declan demands to know who was visiting with his brother, Adrian, before he died.  Adrian, she insisted, kept to himself.  She doesn’t share that he also stalked her and intimidated her, making her feel threatened whenever he stayed at the mansion.

Declan is still reeling from Adrian’s death.  The last thing he said before he fell off the mountain was that he couldn’t go on with his broken heart.  He then showed Declan a photo on his cell phone, the photo of a beautiful woman who took advantage of his little brother and then spurned him.  Declan vows that he will find her and extract his revenge upon her.

Declan and Chloe begin to grow close, and after a night of unbridled passion, Declan regains his sight.  But wait!  Now that he can see Chloe, he recognizes her as the woman on Adrian’s phone.  Shocked, he flees from the mansion without a word to Chloe.  Chloe is understandably hurt when she doesn’t hear from him in months, and then is suddenly called to work at a party he is hosting.  Once there, he springs his attack, accusing her of using and abusing his brother, and blaming her for Adrian’s death.  These two have quite an obstacle to overcome!

First off, the art is lovely.  The characters are long and lean, and everyone has hair that seems to take on a life of its own.  Facial expressions are easy to decipher, and the action flows seamlessly from panel to panel. 

The story, however, felt too abbreviated.  The introduction is well done, with Chloe helping the stubborn Declan with the things he can no longer do without his sight, but the conclusion was rushed and unconvincing.  Since these Harlequin Comics are only about 150 pages, there is a lot of story to fit into a short amount of space.  Declan treated Chloe horribly and completely misjudged her, and I didn’t think he groveled enough for her forgiveness. 

This is a common complaint I have with the manga based on Harlequin novels, but that being said, I still managed to purchase a bunch of them on Amazon over the weekend because they were priced at .99.  Who could possibly resist that?  If you’re curious about these comics, there are several titles available on Scribd, and you can check your local library too.

From Amazon:

One day, Chloe, the housekeeper of the wealthy Carstairs family’s villa, meets a mysterious man by the mansion’s pool. He has a strong, sun-kissed body with a long scar running down his thigh and a deep scar carved into his cheek. Learning that Declan is the owner of the house, Chloe tries to hide that she was gawking at her boss by greeting him. It is then that she realizes that he is practically blind. It is the beginning of their dangerous relationship, and Declan is on a mission to find the woman who jilted his deceased little brother.

I had the pleasure of meeting Erin Entrada Kelly at Children's Book World in Haverford, PA, during her book launch party on March 27. She read a passage from Blackbird Fly, and gave a moving and heartwarming speech about growing up as the only Filipino American in her class in a small town in Louisiana. So she always felt different.

Today’s diversity read is one I had been looking forward to since meeting the author at one of the biannual SCBWI conference LGBTQ meetings a year ago. It doesn’t exactly fall into any of my categories, but boy, is it … Continue reading →

I'm back in the deadline cave (Dear NEVERSEEN: why must you refuse to cooperate!) so I am throwing these MMGM links together on minimum brainpower. Here's hoping they're right--sorry if they're not.

- Iron Guy Carl is back with a review of MISSION TITANIC. Click HERE to read his thoughts. 

- Cindy Tran has a triple feature for you guys this week. Click HERE to see what the books are!

- Michael Gettel-Gilmarten is on the edge of his seat for SURVIVING BEAR ISLAND. Click HERE to see why.

- Andrea Mack is marking her calendar for SEPTEMBER 17.  Click HERE to see her review. 

- Katie Fitzgerald is spotlighting CODY AND THE FOUNTAIN OF HAPPINESS. Click HERE to see her feature.

- Jess at the Reading Nook wants you to take the WORST CLASS TRIP EVER. Click HERE for her thoughts. 

- Suzanne Warr is sharing how to get in the middle grade mood. Click HERE for details. 

- Greg Pattridge is raving about TIME SQUARE--THE SHIFT. Click HERE to read his feature.

- Rachel at What Rachel Wrote is cheering for THE WHIPPING BOY. Click HERE to see why. 

- The Mundie Moms are always huge supporters of middle grade. Click HERE for their Mundie Kids site.  

- Joanne Fritz always has an MMGM for you. Click HERE to see what she's talking about this week.   

- Karen Yingling also always has some awesome MMGM recommendations for you. Click HERE to which ones she picked this time!  

If you would like to join in the MMGM fun, all you have to do is blog about a middle grade book you love on a Monday (contests, author interviews and whatnot also count--but are most definitely not required) and email me the title of the book you're featuring and a link to your blog at SWMessenger (at) hotmail (dot) com. (Make sure you put MMGM or Marvelous Middle Grade Monday in the subject line so it gets sorted accurately) You MUST email me your link by Sunday evening in order to be included in the list of links for the coming Monday. (usually before 11pm PST is safe--but if I'm traveling it can vary. When in doubt, send early!) (Also make sure the post you send me is a new post, not one from earlier in the week. I try to keep the content fresh)

If you miss the cutoff, you are welcome to add your link in the comments on this post so people can find you, but I will not have time to update the post. Same goes for typos/errors on my part. I do my best to build the links correctly, but sometimes deadline-brain gets the best of me, and I'm sorry if it does. For those wondering why I don't use a Linky-widget instead, it's a simple matter of internet safety. The only way I can ensure that all the links lead to safe, appropriate places for someone of any age is if I build them myself. It's not a perfect system, but it allows me to keep better control.

Thank you so much for being a part of this awesome meme, and spreading the middle grade love!

*Please note: these posts are not a reflection of my own opinions on the books featured. Each blogger is responsible for their own MMGM content and I do not pre-screen reviews ahead of time, nor do I control what books they choose. I simply assemble the list based on the links that are emailed to me.

I so enjoyed April Halprin Wayland's interview with Paul B. Janeczko! Thank you, April!

And congratulations to Jone M, who won IN DEFENSE OF READ-ALOUD!


Continuing our celebration of poetry, here's another of my favorite poets.

morguefile.com

morguefile.com

The Aliens Inc, Chapter Book Series

Try Book 1 for Free

Darcy’s Note: In my question to understand action scenes better, I came across Ian’s book and was blown away by how practical it is. To make it even more practical I created an Action Scenes Checklist. To understand it and fully exploit it, you should buy his book and read it cover to cover. Yes, I’m that enthusiastic about it. If you plan ANY action in your story, you need this book. Stay tuned below for a chance to win a copy of this book and Healy’s latest novel.

Guest post by Ian Thomas Healy

Like many people, I love movies, and I have a special love for tight action sequences. I have always taken pride in my ability to translate that type of action into my books, and as a writer specializing in superhero fiction, action is an important component of my work. After years of being asked by my writer friends to help them with their own action sequences, it occurred to me that there might be a need for this sort of information across the industry, and so I sat down and analyzed what was it exactly that I did instinctively when I wrote action scenes, and how I might teach that to others. Thus, ACTION! WRITING BETTER ACTION USING CINEMATIC TECHNIQUES (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055LH0MU ) was born (naturally, during a running firefight with explosions and hair-breadth escapes).

A lot of writers dance around action, because writing it is daunting and uncomfortable. By its very nature, action is high-energy, full of motion and intense pacing, and for many writers, it’s a weird change from what they’re used to. At its very root, though, action is a means to resolve conflict, and conflict is the basis of all good storytelling, so it’s not something to run from (crashing through a window, sliding down a rooftop slope, and then dropping into a waiting convertible), but to embrace as an important part of your toolbox.

In ACTION, I break down what makes an action scene tick, from individual acts, called Stunts, up through Engagements (related series of stunts), to the all-encompassing Sequence, which contains more than one Engagement. Here’s an example of an action scene from my new book CASTLES, which released on April 1:

Sally rushed into the building. All she knew was in the space of a single breath, her entire squad had been taken out. Who were these guys, and how had they stayed under the radar so long? Parahuman criminals didn’t just appear out of the woodwork at random, especially when they were working as a team. There had to be records on these guys somewhere.

And then Sally ran across someone who could move nearly as fast as she could, and she was fortunate not to have been gutted like a fish by the barbed quills sprouting from the new combatant’s arms. He slashed at her and she twisted and dodged through the lobby of the building on full defense. Unlike the criminals two floors above, the guy attacking Sally wore less of a jumpsuit and more of a wrestling-style singlet. The quills seemed to grow all over his body and she thought of him as Porcupine Man.

Super-speed abilities were rare in the world, even more so than psionic powers, and yet this was the second speedster Sally had fought in as many weeks. “Is there a factory churning you guys out or something?”

Porcupine Man’s perceptions were apparently accelerated like hers, for he understood her despite her rapid speech. “The times, they are a-changin’.” He spread his arms wide and flexed his chest in a peculiar way.

Sally dropped to the floor as several quills whisked over her head to embed themselves in the reception desk, quivering like arrows. A sharp, burning pain shot down her back and she knew one of them had grazed her. She hoped like hell they weren’t tipped with poison. “That’s a Bob Dylan lyric. My husband loves that song.” She pulled her horseshoes from her belt.

“Maybe he can play it at your funeral.” Porcupine Man shot more quills at Sally and she threw herself backwards over the reception desk to put something solid between her and her opponent. With his speed, she only had a moment to decide on her next action, and she froze when she saw a terrified woman huddled beneath the desk, eyes wide, a quill poking out of her bloodstained blouse.

Sally had no time to check to see if the woman was severely hurt. She couldn’t stay hiding where she was and put the civilian in danger. Nor could she risk slowing herself down enough to offer any comfort. She heard the patter of Porcupine Man’s approaching footsteps and forced herself to move. She ran, leaning forward to make herself a smaller target. The slice on her back burned like a paper cut with lemon juice in it. He skidded to a stop and Sally knew she had an advantage over him, being able to stop and start instantly.

She glanced back and saw him fire another quill at her from his chest. It had gone from a veritable barbed forest to a sparse stand in just a few moments. His quills didn’t replace themselves very quickly. Maybe she could get him to use them up. She dove for the floor again, twisting herself around to land on her shoulder. The quill passed right over her face, close enough that she could see the wicked barbs on its tip. As she slid, she hurled one of her horseshoes at him. Normally, throwing away one’s melee weapons was a poor choice, but Sally had spent thousands of hours at the targeting range, learning how to throw things effectively. When accelerated by her super-speed arms, the most innocent objects could become deadly projectiles.

Her horseshoes were hardly innocent.

The iron ring caught Porcupine Man on his sternum, hitting him hard enough to send him flying back into a wall, which cracked with his impact. He fell amid a pile of broken drywall and didn’t move.

This scene represents a single Engagement in a larger Sequence, which is Mustang Sally’s team of superheroes versus a group of super-powered bad guys. There are several Stunts in this Engagement:

1. Sally dodges as Porcupine Man attacks her in melee combat.
2. Sally dodges again as Porcupine Man shoots spines at her in ranged combat.
3. Sally dodges yet again as he keeps shooting at her (she’s having a rough go of it).
4. Sally goes on the offensive and throws a horseshoe at Porcupine Man, taking him down.

In ACTION, I coach you on methods for writing these types of scenes on a step-by-step basis. When Darcy contacted me to say how helpful she’d found my book, it made my day, because any time I hear that I’ve helped someone to become a better writer, it makes the whole process worthwhile. If you find it a valuable tool for yourself, please don’t hesitate to post a review online and to let me know how it helped you!

Download my Action Scenes Checklist based on Healy’s book.

Leave a comment and your name will be in a giveaway for a copy of one of Healy’s ebooks (Kindle, epub or pdf). There’s one copy each of ACTION! and CASTLE.

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5. Perfect For You  This Friday, I'll be sharing more info about my YA contemporary romance Perfect For You. Long story short, I took my rights back from the publisher and I'm relaunching the book this month. It's now available as an ebook AND as a paperback. Yay! And it got a new cover. Check it out. If you're interested in reading the book, you can find it on Amazon or B&N.