It’s award season and the results are finally in!

No, no, not those awards, which remind us that the people who create children’s books are artists as well as craftspeople.

No, I’m talking about the Bulwer-Lytton Awards for worst opening sentence. It is Edward George Bulwer-Lytton whose 1830 masterpiece Paul Clifford begins:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

In his honor, each year hundreds of writers compete to write similarly overwrought and overextended sentences, and they are always a riot. Mere badness isn’t enough; these entries are all hilariously awful. Check them out at the link above!

There are two sorts of people in the world: Those who write in and mark up books; and those who view those of us who do write in books as sacrilegious pigs.

Okay, okay—maybe there are a few other sorts of people. (I’ve never been a fan of that whole “There are two kinds of people” routine, except where it is inarguable: women/men; living/dead; rational people/fans of Glenn Beck.)

Myself, I’ve gone from treating every book as a sancrosanct object (as a boy) to routinely scribbling in books (as an adult). Some I so love that I want to puzzle out how they work, and I buy multiple copies and mark them up (Moore, Munro, Cheever, Konigsburg, others). Some books I find so maddening that I have to immediately vent my hooting disdain (among them recent award-winners and bestsellers—don’t ask). Years later I’ll be flipping through an old copy of something and find an expletive in a margin and think, “Really? Was it that bad?”

But my marginalia is as nothing compared to the marginalia of the greats.

There is a wonderful little piece by Ian Frazier in this week’s New Yorker about the marginalia in books owned by famous writers, among them Nabokov, Coleridge, and Twain—who probably wrote the most entertaining marginalia: “At the end of an unusually exasperating chapter, [he wrote,] ‘A cat could do better literature than this.’”

So writing in books: Bad? Good? A necessary evil? A perversion that must be stamped out? Do you write in your books?

I was fortunate enough last summer to speak with Bruce Coville at an SCBWI event in Orlando. (He’s an amazing speaker—truly amazing—and if you catch word that he is speaking somewhere, by all means go and see him.) Bruce mentioned something he called “The Rule of Twenty.” He doesn’t recall where he picked it up—a business article? a self-help book? a primer on original thinking?—but wherever it came from, I have since relied on it and relied on it often.

What is it? Put most simply, it is this: It is only when one reaches the twentieth or so idea that one starts entering the realm of the truly original idea.

The first five or ten? Those are the obvious ones that the brain goes to along its well-traveled paths. Most people’s heads will go that way and think of that thing. (Are you disappointed when you can see the plotline of a movie from a mile away? That’s thanks to the filmmakers working the shallows of the Rule of Twenty.) In the teens, you are starting to bushwhack into uncharted territory, where most people’s brains (more…)

Although I typically blog about my authors’ books, today I am actually writing about my own.

On June 8^th, my second novel for teens, Crash Test Love, was released. I truly believe that having the firsthand experience of publishing a novel—finishing that elusive first draft, going through rounds of revision with a skilled editor, worrying about the cover, reviews, and all that jazz—only makes me a more insightful and skilled agent, and I am incredibly proud to share this novel with all of you.

I am happy to invite any Upstart Crow blog readers who live on Long Island to a reading I will be doing at the Barnes and Noble in Carle Place tonight at 7pm.

More details here: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/67004

Enjoy!

Today I’m doubly excited to announce the release of not only two fantastic projects from Upstart Crow Literary, but also the first two books I personally sold long, long ago.

No longer do I have to tell editors, conference attendees, friends, and family that the books I’ve sold will come out “soon.” Now when someone asks what I do and I try to explain my job, I’ll have actual books I can direct them toward. So, as you can probably imagine, I’m super excited for two very talented authors. (more…)

To help count down to the release of Shaun Hutchinson’s The Deathday Letter, today we’re running a little contest on here, Facebook, and Twitter.

The Deathday Letter takes place in a world much like our own: the one difference? In this world, you receive a letter the day before you kick the bucket letting you know your croakage is happening within 24 hours whether you like it or not. When teenage Oliver receives his deathday letter, he embarks on an epic and hilarious last day full of risks, best friends, and pudding. Yep. Pudding. As the clock ticks down and Oliver’s staring the reaper in his surprisingly pretty blue eyes, he realizes it’s his last chance to make his mark, however small, on the people around him.

Sounds awesome, right? It is! So here’s the question I pose to you: What would your teenage self have done with 24 hours left to live? Stood up to the bully? Finally tried foie gras? 24-hour laser tag session?

Leave your answer in a comment (please limit to one sentence or less) or tweet your answer using the #MyDeathday tag. Everyone who participates before 5 PM EST on Monday, June 14th will have their names entered to win a signed copy of The Deathday Letter.

Be sure to check out Shaun’s blog for other chances to win copies, news about the book, and a special surprise video coming soon of Shaun doing something crazy as his #MyDeathday moment. And if you want to buy the book, it hits stores June 15th!

[Today's post comes via the dizzyingly sharp Jennifer Ung, who once upon a time interned for one of us here at Upstart Crow (albeit at a different company). Jennifer has just returned from a season in England, and we thought her observations on the two markets well worth sharing. Especially fascinating are explanations of how, though united by common language, American and British teens are so different that teen novels in each market don't "translate" to the other.]

I’m an intern.

By MTV-reality-show standards, that probably means that I’m the go-to person for coffee, bagels, and general mind-numbing office work. I entered the interning realm thinking I’d end up doing tedious, unpaid work I didn’t care about but did only for the sake of furthering my barely fledgling career. Much to my complete and utter surprise, every single place I’ve interned at so far has treated me like a princess. And who am I to complain? I love being a princess. Especially one who gains valuable experience in possibly the best industry in the world (!).

Hyperbolic metaphors aside, interning at two literary agencies in New York City has given me valuable insight into this super cool, ultra close-knit community known as children’s books. I particularly fell in love with all things YA. I became the kind of person you’d find staying up all night reading the latest Hunger Games novel (ahem, ican’twaitforaugust!), or stalking the stories in the Publishers Weekly Children’s Bookshelf to discover new debut titles worth reading. I absolutely adored (more…)

If you’ve seen me speak at a conference, read my online interviews, or follow me on Twitter, you’ve likely heard me mention Jacqueline West’s THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE VOL I: THE SHADOWS.

The truth is, I love this book. Jacqueline’s story was the first project I ever signed as an agent, and I’ve been anxiously waiting two long years for it to come out so that everyone else could see what made me fall so hard in love with this story, these characters, and this remarkable writer.

I’m thrilled to share that the fine folks at Publisher’s Weekly loved the project enough to give it a starred review. They write:

The Shadows
Jacqueline West, illus. by Poly Bernatene, Dial, $16.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8037-3440-1
Poet West’s debut novel is a quirky and clever beginning to the Books of Elsewhere series. The Dunwoodys, “a pair of more than slightly dippy mathematicians,” and their 11-year-old daughter, Olive, have just moved into an old Victorian house. Olive has learned to be independent, given her parents’ aloofness (”Her persistently lackluster grades in math had led her parents to believe that she was some kind of genetic aberration”). She explores the house’s eccentricities and discovers that, by donning a pair of spectacles, she can enter the house’s many unsettling paintings. Inside one, she encounters nine-year-old Morton, who brings to her attention the secrets that the house and its late owner are keeping. With the help of three talking house cats, Olive works to patch together clues to save the painting-dwellers from their dark fate. The house is as much a character as are Olive, Morton, and her family, and a wicked sense of humor tempers the book’s creepiness. A suspenseful plot and insight into childhood loneliness–handily amplified by Bernatene’s moody and dramatically lit b&w illustrations–will have readers anxiously awaiting the next book.

(more…)

When I first read Angie Frazier’s debut, Everlasting, I knew I had something special in my hands. Together, we worked diligently to revise and shape the manuscript prior to submission. To this day, I am still struck by what a phenomenal writer Angie is, and how she was able to transform an already fantastic manuscript to an even more glorious one. And this was all before she had guidance from her phenomenal editor at Scholastic!

Books are hard work. Everlasting is a prime example of a novel’s journey, from its initial draft to sale to finally hitting the shelves. It has been a long wait, but I could not be more thrilled that this novel is now available for readers to fall in love with as much as I have.

From the back copy:

Sailing aboard her father’s ship is all seventeen-year-old Camille Rowen has ever wanted. But as a lady in 1855 San Francisco, her future is set: marry a man she doesn’t love in order to preserve her social standing.

On her last voyage before the wedding, Camille learns (more…)

I am beyond excited to congratulate Danette Haworth on the release of her second novel, The Summer of Moonlight Secrets.

Aside from being a phenomenal storyteller, one of the reasons I admire Danette so much is her drive as an author—she constantly pushes herself to tell new stories and for each one of her novels to involve arresting settings, introduce different sorts of characters, and infuse her writing with a real sense of joy for the middle grade reader.

The Summer of Moonlight Secrets is a magical story that I know readers will love just as much as her acclaimed debut, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning.

Here is the story from the back cover:

At the Meriwether, Florida’s famous antebellum hotel off of Hope Springs, nothing is quite as it seems. Secret staircases give way to servants’ quarters and Prohibition-era speakeasies make for the perfect hide-and-seek spot. Allie Jo Jackson knows every nook and cranny of the Meriwether—she’s lived there her whole life—and nothing surprises her, until the first time she spots the enigmatic and beautiful Tara emerging from the springs. Tara’s shimmery skin, long flowing hair, and strange penchant for late moonlight swims disguise a mysterious secret, and once Allie Jo and her friend Chase discover Tara’s secret, nothing will ever be the same.

Not only is the novel absolutely wonderful, the cover is truly delicious. Already, Kirkus has said: “the mix of fantasy and light mystery makes for an entertaining read.”

So, go out and pick up your copy today! And visit Danette online at www.danettehaworth.com.