If you haven’t yet, you should check out this week’s Teaser Tuesday. (Speaking of Grapemo, I’ll have to get some serious writing done tomorrow–I’m two days behind!) There’s also some great contests floating around the web this week, including…

Query magic

Elana Johnson (YA author) is running a query contest on her blog, offering a query letter critique from some very cool agents, namely:

1. Kate Testerman-Shafer of KT Literary (critique will be posted on her blog, Ask Daphne)
2. Michelle Andelman of Lynn C. Franklin Associates
3. Mary Kole of Andrea Brown Literary Agency
4. Michelle Wolfson of Wolfson Literary Agency
5. Joanna Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation

Visit her blog to enter.

Marketing ahoy

Shelli Johannes (MG/YA author) is also running a week long contest, which offers some great grand prizes:

Grand Prize Package #1 – The Unagented Writer Package is for those who currently DO NOT have an agent and want one. This includes:
- A lot of books on writing and querying
- A query/ 3 Chapter Critique by my awesome agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin at Trident Media Group!!!!!!!

Grand Prize Package #2 – The Agented Writer Package is for those who do not want an agent, have an agent, are on submission, have a book deal, or are published. This includes:
- A lot of marketing books
- Free 2 hour consultation with me on marketing you and your book
- One free marketing item – design of a business card, bookmarker, postcard etc

Enter over at her blog.

You’ve got me wrapped around your finger

For everyone who read and loved SHIVER, Stiefvater has nine ARCs to give away. Nine!

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other.  Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack.  And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love — the light and the dark, the warm and the cold — in a way you will never forget.

Comes out in stores everywhere July 20th. Pre-order here.

Enter to win an advanced review copies of LINGER, Sisters Red, The Dead-Tossed Waves, and The Replacement on Maggie’s blog.

While I’ve know about #yalitchat for awhile, I just recently discovered the ning community. It’s flowing over with resources and info, you should check it out.

Speaking of YA, I’ve entered my first book contest over at Anna Staniszewski’s blog. She’s giving away SHIVER and THE MAZE RUNNER. Hurry, the contest ends tonight.

After reading Iain Broome’s article on it’s writery advantages, I joined the audio blogging community AudioBoo. While I may (more likely not) post audio snippets myself, I’m interested to follow & listen to other interesting people. Will be posting good feeds here as I find them.

American Red Cross: text “HAITI” to 90999 and donate $10. Don’t think ten bucks can make a difference? As of Thursday afternoon, people had donated $5.1 million.

WorldVision: Online donation

View a full list of professional charities at Charity Navigator

Or bid on art, audio, or food at Help Haiti Fandom Auction.

Buy music and apparel from Gotee Records – 100% of the cost will be donated to Hands and Feet.

A new design for a new year, plus a new resolution: blog at least once a week. If the snow stays intent on keeping my driveway buried, this should not be hard.

2009 was a dreadful year all round for myself, my family, and most of my friends. Family sentiment especially was “Thank God it’s over.” However, when it wasn’t bashing us over the head with large, spiky sticks, ‘09 did try, every once in a while, to redeem itself.

the life and times of a YA writer

Began Violet my current work in progress (WIP), and finished & revised Kit, my second novel. No, these are not titles. They’re characters.

Lost the ability to attend my Wednesday morning group (regained it later) and so joined a couple night critique groups. I love them, especially the one that meets at IHOP. Not only do I get excellent feedback and advice, I can get my monthly dose of egg nog pancakes.

(Speaking of egg nog, Shatto’s is all kinds of wonderful. The best on the market.)

I’ve discovered the joys of reading on my iPhone – Stanza’s my favorite, but Kindle’s good too. Never thought I’d be an ebook person, but it’s wonderful to curl up anywhere and read. My books are always with me–including some as yet unpublished goodies by friends.

(More: what 2009 got right)

One of the nice thins about creating a YA Twitter directory, is I now follow (with @readwritetweet) everyone listed there. Today I came across The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online (via Justine Larbalestier, YA author, @JustineLavaworm) on how we socially classify ourselves through MySpace and Facebook. To quote one of the teens in the article (and much of the basis for it):

Kat (14, Mass.): I’m not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever, and Facebook is all… not all the people that have Facebook are mature, but its supposed to be like oh we’re more mature. … MySpace is just old.

The article then proceeds to dig deeper into the race/class aspect.

I can’t argue with the perception as such, Facebook is generally considered “higher class,” but I think it has more to do with function than social class. A sociologist sees stratification. A web designer sees, well, web design.
Sure, MS & FB are social sites, but doesn’t mean they function in a similar way or with the same goals.

Design

Let’s start with FB.

(Read more…)