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It's November on the Class of 2k8's blog. And we're starting the month off with a Shameless Saturday.

So, take a deep breath and jump in. Lots of good news blew in this week.

A couple of 2k8ers have signed new book contracts. Wow!

Jennifer Bradbury, author of Shift, recently sold two more books to Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Wrapped features seventeen year old Agnes Wilkins on the eve of her debut in 1815 London. The young adult adventure/mystery features mummies, espionage, and plenty of Jane Austen references. Wrapped will come out in Summer 2010, and its sequel will be available the following year.

From Publishers Weekly: Marissa Doyle's Waterloo Plot, the third book set in the same world as Bewitching Season, in which a young witch must overcome physical and emotional scars while investigating who is attempting to assassinate members of the British War Cabinet, including her father, in 1814-1815, to Kate Farrell at Holt, by Emily Sylvan Kim at Prospect Agency (NA).

The Sierra Magazine took notice of three 2k8 classmates:

"Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different (Delacorte Books for Young Readers), by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, introduces a headstrong girl who discovers, among other things, an ingenious method of thwarting a stinky flock of geese from eating the family garden. Luka, the 13-year-old hero of Bringing the Boy Home (HarperCollins), by N.A. Nelson,longs to return to the Amazon's Takunami tribe in a journey of self-discovery and courage. Samantha Hansen Has Rocks in Her Head (Abrams), by Nancy Viau, is a tale of a fourth-grader with a white-hot temper and a love of rocks and science."

Kudos from Confessions of a Bibliovore for Swimming with Sharks by Debbie Reid Fischer:

Fischer walks a delicate line in Peyton, managing to keep her sympathetic while making it clear that she is in it as much as the rest of the cheer squad. At the same time, she is victim of a far more subtle bullying pattern than Ellika. Her redemption toward the end feels like our own. Pick this book up for a thoughtful and all-too-probable story about how anybody can bully, or be bullied.


And The Book Muncher said this about Stacy Nyikos' Dragon Wishes:

I was very impressed with Nyikos’ debut middle grade novel and hope she plans to write more in the future. Dragon Wishes can be enjoyed by both younger and older readers, particularly fans of books with Chinese culture or novels with dragons.

For those of you participating in NaNoWriMo, (National Novel Writing Month), we wish you the very best of luck. Not to mention incredibly fleet fingers!

Be sure to check back Monday as we begin our week-long launch for P.J. Hoover's The Emerald Tablet.

This is part of a year-long series about those intrepid newcomers, The Class of 2k8. To help marketing efforts for debut novelists, these 28 novelists have banded together to create a group marketing effort.

Bringing the Boy Home , HarperCollins, July

N.A. NELSON’S WORKSPACE

I’ve always torn things out of magazines. Always. If something grabs me — an article, a picture, a recipe…I tear it out. (That’s actually how I got my dream engagement/wedding ring, but that’s another story entirely.)

IN HIGH SCHOOL

In high school, I would hang these grab-me-in-the-gut things in my locker or — as you can see from the picture below — in my bedroom. No big surprise…all teenagers do that, right? We surround ourselves with things that define or inspire us — hunky guys and celebrity babes.

(my surprise sixteenth birthday party!)
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IN COLLEGE:

In college it was pretty much the same thing. My dorm room was a blank slate just waiting for me to put my stamp on it. So I did: James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Benetton ads and boyfriend pictures (the monkey unfortunately, not the lifeguard). I marked my spot.

MY WRITING ROOM AS A 36 YEAR-OLD

Then came life after college. Time to grow up. No more plastic snap-together nightstands. No more bean bags. No more movie posters. And certainly no more magazine tear-outs taped to the walls. Right?

WRONG!

Yep, I still rip pages from newspapers and magazines and I still pin them to my wall. Some of the things up there inspire me. Some serve as reminders. And some I think are just. plain. cool.

I’ll always do this; my whole family does. My children tape up toys they like, my husband prefers photos of snowboarders and surfers launching off mountains and waves. Our dog has a photo of a nice T-bone steak above her food dish. Well, okay, I admit that last part about the dog isn’t true, but if she knew how to use a tape dispenser, it might be.

Anyway, a friend informed me that what we’re doing is similar to the vision boards people make to help them create the life they want to live. I believe it. One thing I pasted up came true. So I took it down and replaced it with something else — an article titled “36 Hours in Seville.” Uh-huh. That’s right; I’ve always wanted to visit Spain and it just so happens that last week, this Seville article showed up in the Sunday New York Times newspaper. So I tore it out and hung it up and well…

…we’ll see. In the meantime, I offer you this challenge in the form of a paraphrased Capital One credit card ad — “What’s on your wall?”

2k8 Stories

Look for these other 2k8 Stories:

March: Jody Feldman
April: Zu Vincent
April: M.P. Barker
May: Sarah Prineas
June: Daphne Grab
July: N.A. Nelson
August: Laurel Snyder
September: Nancy Viau
October: Ellen Booraem
October: P.J. Hoover
October: Courtney Sheinmel