http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog Upstart Crow Literary's Blog and NetCasts Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:59:24 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en My complaint is a simple one. Look at the picture there on the right. See the stack of books to the right? See the stack of books on the iPad? Which one reminds you of the stories still to be read, the books you want to reread; which one literally occupies a ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1597 September—ah, September! The hot haze of summer has blown away, and along with it our laid-back summer ways. The publishing industry, which has been snoozing away these last few weeks, is back from its vacation, and editors are at their desks and ever-anxious to discover that One. Perfect. Novel. There’s something ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1587 Well, Labor Day is past and so we here at the Crow hope you all are settling down to some serious work. We certainly are. Among the many helps we've found during our off time is this memo from the mighty David Mamet—the profane, too-often-too-thinky, shamelessly wordy (and so close to ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1579 We preach patience so often in this business, but I've been foaming at the mouth for months in anticipation of the release of Matt Myklusch's JACK BLANK AND THE IMAGINE NATION with Aladdin Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Is it rabies, you ask? Probably not (although I have ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1565 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 ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1546 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 ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1539 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 ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1527 Although I typically blog about my authors’ books, today I am actually writing about my own. On June 8th, 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 ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1517 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 ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1508 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 ... http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/?p=1501