I'm thrilled to show off the brand spanking new title and cover for Book I in Matt Myklusch's Jack Blank Adventures, now titled The Accidental Hero. If you didn't have a chance to read the story in hardcover, fear not, for the book hits the shelves in paperback TODAY!I'm planning a later post on books for boys, but in the meantime, if you're interested in reading the sort of book that immediately caught my eye and serves as a solid indication of the sort of story I'm interested in representing, do yourself a favor and pick this story up! I love this story and think you will, too.Here, for your clicking enjoyment, are a few useful links:
Here at Upstart Crow, few events make us happier than when our clients' books appear out in the world. That really is the ultimate triumph—when the book is on shelves, awaiting the fancy of a passing reader. Making that debut all the sweeter is when the reviewers recognize the genius of the talent involved (for if the talent involved didn't partake of genius, we wouldn't be working with him or her, right?
Next month marks the publication of Kurt Cyrus's picture book The Voyage of Turtle Rex, and its first two reviews are in—both starred raves that recognize Kurt's singular talents as a writer and illustrator. The first is from Kirkus Reviews:
In a life-cycle arc paralleling the one in Cyrus’ Tadpole Rex(2008), a tiny prehistoric ancestor to modern sea turtles hatches from a buried egg, scuttles across a beach into the sea, survives multiple hazards to grow into a mighty two-ton Archelon and then in season returns to shore to lay a clutch of her own. Injecting plenty of drama into his beach and sunlit undersea scenes with sudden close-ups and changes of scale, the illustrator vividly captures the hatchling’s vulnerability as she passes with her sibs beneath a towering T. Rex only to discover a world of toothy predators beneath the ocean’s rolling surface. And even full grown, though she can glide unheeding past sharks and even plesiosaurs, an encounter with a mosasaur “massive and dark: / muncher of archelon, / gulper of shark” sends her sliding hastily down to concealment in the billowing bottom sands. Like its subject, the rhymed text moves with grand deliberation, carrying the primeval story line to a clever transition between that ancient era and ours: “Gone is that sea and the creatures it knew. / Archelon. Mosasaur. Pterosaur, too. / Gone is the plesiosaur’s clam-cracking smile… / but full-body helmets are still in style” as “shells of all fashions continue to girdle / the middle of many a tortoise and turtle.” Never has time travel been so easy or so immersive.
The second rave will appear in Publishers Weekly. They write:
In this companion to Tadpole Rex, a prehistoric turtle hatches on a "primeval beach" and slips beneath the waves. Cyrus's illustrations incorporate dramatic scale, movement, and majesty: the spreads are a marvel of lighting and texture, as swirling ocean and sky symbolize the passage of time ("The hatchling who hid in the seaweed was gone.../ grown to a two-ton archelon"). As the turtle treads the starlit sea after laying her eggs, Cyrus comments on species loss: "Gone is that sea and the creatures it knew./ Archelon. Mosasaur. Pterosaur, too./ Gone is the plesiosaur's clam-cracking smile.../ but full-body helmets are still in style." A moving and truly epic journey. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)
We couldn't be happier with the reception of Turtle Rex, and we think when you pick up the book you'll see why: This is a picture book creator at the top of his form as both a writer and an illustrator. Perfect for the young marine paleontologists in all of us.
Here at Upstart Crow, few events make us happier than when our clients' books appear out in the world. That really is the ultimate triumph—when the book is on shelves, awaiting the fancy of a passing reader. Making that debut all the sweeter is when the reviewers recognize the genius of the talent involved (for if the talent involved didn't partake of genius, we wouldn't be working with him or her, right?
Next month marks the publication of Kurt Cyrus's picture book The Voyage of Turtle Rex, and its first two reviews are in—both starred raves that recognize Kurt's singular talents as a writer and illustrator. The first is from Kirkus Reviews:
In a life-cycle arc paralleling the one in Cyrus’ Tadpole Rex(2008), a tiny prehistoric ancestor to modern sea turtles hatches from a buried egg, scuttles across a beach into the sea, survives multiple hazards to grow into a mighty two-ton Archelon and then in season returns to shore to lay a clutch of her own. Injecting plenty of drama into his beach and sunlit undersea scenes with sudden close-ups and changes of scale, the illustrator vividly captures the hatchling’s vulnerability as she passes with her sibs beneath a towering T. Rex only to discover a world of toothy predators beneath the ocean’s rolling surface. And even full grown, though she can glide unheeding past sharks and even plesiosaurs, an encounter with a mosasaur “massive and dark: / muncher of archelon, / gulper of shark” sends her sliding hastily down to concealment in the billowing bottom sands. Like its subject, the rhymed text moves with grand deliberation, carrying the primeval story line to a clever transition between that ancient era and ours: “Gone is that sea and the creatures it knew. / Archelon. Mosasaur. Pterosaur, too. / Gone is the plesiosaur’s clam-cracking smile… / but full-body helmets are still in style” as “shells of all fashions continue to girdle / the middle of many a tortoise and turtle.” Never has time travel been so easy or so immersive.
The second rave will appear in Publishers Weekly. They write:
In this companion to Tadpole Rex, a prehistoric turtle hatches on a "primeval beach" and slips beneath the waves. Cyrus's illustrations incorporate dramatic scale, movement, and majesty: the spreads are a marvel of lighting and texture, as swirling ocean and sky symbolize the passage of time ("The hatchling who hid in the seaweed was gone.../ grown to a two-ton archelon"). As the turtle treads the starlit sea after laying her eggs, Cyrus comments on species loss: "Gone is that sea and the creatures it knew./ Archelon. Mosasaur. Pterosaur, too./ Gone is the plesiosaur's clam-cracking smile.../ but full-body helmets are still in style." A moving and truly epic journey. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)
We couldn't be happier with the reception of Turtle Rex, and we think when you pick up the book you'll see why: This is a picture book creator at the top of his form as both a writer and an illustrator. Perfect for the young marine paleontologists in all of us.
A great article to add to your weekend reading pile: An interview in Poets & Writers, in which Gabriel Cohen talks to John B. Thompson about this book (titled Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century) and his views of the publishing industry today.The article touches on everything from technology to chain stores to the roles of the key players in the industry, but my favorite part was probably the one in which Thompson discusses the technological fallacy, or the assertion that technology—not people—is the driving source of change in the publishing industry. Here's what Thompson had to say about it:"What they miss is that publishing is a complex field of actors and players and agents who are human beings actively involved in content—and that readers are human beings who have their own tastes and preferences. Technology isn’t just an independent variable that drives through all that come hell or high water. It’s part of a complex social process."I also loved his thoughts on whether authors "publishing" their books online will somehow bring about the downfall of the jobs of publishers, agents, and editors:"There’s a very big difference between “publishing” in the sense of making something publicly available, on the one hand, and publishing in the sense of getting readers to notice it, read it, buy it, discuss it, and so on. Any author can post anything online, but that doesn’t mean that anyone is going to pay attention to it. That’s where the role of publishers remains absolutely vital—they play a fundamental role in bringing content to the attention of others, of publicizing it, of marketing it."You can read the full article here. And feel free to share your thoughts. Anything about the article you loved? Anything you disagreed with? Anything in particular that scares you about the fate of the future of book publishing?Happy reading, and have a great weekend.
Great news! We learned today that Jacqueline West's THE SHADOWS has won a Cybil in the category of favorite middle grade fantasy & science fiction. What are the Cybils, you ask? From the official Cybils website (where you can view all the winners), "The Cybils awards are given each year by bloggers for the year's best children's and young adult titles... [that] combined literary merit with kid appeal." We're so happy bloggers chose to give this great award to Jacqueline's book!We must also acknowledge Sandra Stiles, a blogger who runs the website The Musings of A Book Addict; Sandra nominated THE SHADOWS and posts loads of great reviews on her site. Thanks so much, Sandra!And there's more BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE news, too! THE SHADOWS is also a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award in the Young People's Literature category, and was named to the Texas Bluebonnet Award master list for 2011-2012. We're so, so excited!
One last thing: As many of you know, Olive & company's adventures don't end in THE SHADOWS. There will be at least five volumes, starting next July with Vol 2: SPELLBOUND. Here's a look at the cover. Isn't it just gorgeous?Stay tuned for more exciting news!
I have to be honest: I always breathe a huge sigh of relief when we close our query lines in December. Finally, I think, a chance to catch up! But after a couple of weeks in a query-less world, I get twitchy with anticipation and anxious to dig in once again. Thus, I always approach the re-opening of our query lines with a sense of hope and a certain amount of nervousness. Not unlike, I suppose, many writers who are about to submit their work to agents feel as they pause, scanning their query letter one last time before clicking “send.”
As you probably know, we re-opened our query lines last week. Perhaps you’ve just sent out your first-ever round of queries to agents. Or perhaps you’re on your second or third round of queries, having made tweaks and revisions to your query letter and novel based on previous feedback from agents and writers. Whether you’re a first-timer or a veteran, you most likely log into your email each day, nervous yet hopeful that you’ll get a response or two from the agents you’ve queried.On my side of things, I log into my query box every day (or every couple of days), nervous yet hopeful that I will find the project—the one that will keep me up all night reading, the one that is so beautifully written that I will follow my husband around the house reading it aloud to him (as I am apt to do when I really love something), the one that I can pitch to editors with the utmost confidence and enthusiasm—basically, a project I can shout to the world about (and I’m happy to report that I’ve signed several such projects lately).That said, in order to find that one project that I can’t live without, I have to read—and let go of—plenty of manuscripts. How many, you ask? At last glance, I had just over 150 queries in my inbox. Out of those queries, some will show great potential, but will need more work before I can consider signing them. Some will be great, but just not right for me. And some of them just won’t be very good.Once all is said and done, about three out of the 150 queries in my inbox will excite me enough that I’ll request a full manuscript. That’s right—three.Look, I know this sounds dismal. I know that rejections are an unpleasant part of the submissions process (hey, don’t forget—agents get rejections, too!), and I know it’s discouraging to receive several rejections in a row, or not to hear back at all. And after awhile, it’s difficult for a writer not to take it personally. But as you go about your submissions process, remember that I’m not reading through queries looking for reasons to reject you; I'm reading with the hope that I will find a project I love. And that’s what other agents are doing, too.So what can you do while you’re waiting to hear back? Keep writing (every day, even if it’s only a couple hundred words). Keep networking. Keep researching and querying more agents. And keep asking questions. If you have any questions about the querying process, the reading process, etc., shout ‘em out in the comments section.Finally: Don’t give up. I’ll see you in the query box!
This week saw the debut of Vesper, the constantly surprising, un-put-down-able first entry in Jeff Sampson's thrilling new paranormal teen trilogy, Deviants, from HarperCollins Children's Books/Balzer + Bray. It's got a sexy cover, a spiffy design, and the stewardship of a great editor. A happy ending all around.But this novel has had a long route to publication, and so its appearance on bookshelves is especially sweet. In a much different form—as a novel entitled, I believe, Wildeside—it was purchased for the Mirrorstone imprint of Wizards of the Coast. It was revised, edited, and scheduled. But before it could be published, Mirrorstone was folded and WotC became again focused on Dungeons & Dragons. (Roll those polyhedral dice, Nina!)Then Jeff found a new agent, and the novel was again revised and edited. And then it sold at auction and was again revised and edited. During those years it went from being called Wildeside to The Savage Files to The Vesper Files to The Life and Death of Emily Cooke, until at last it was retitled Vesper, and Jeff again revised to more seamlessly work the title origin into the text, and now it is there, in stores, waiting for you to go and buy it for the teen in your life (or for yourself—go on, it's okay).I've already written about this novel on Goodreads, where I described it as "a kind of mix of Westerfeld and Heroes (when it was good) and Veronica Mars, but entirely its own beast." And then I got all philosophical-like. To wit:"Of late, the teen genre paranormal romances announce themselves as such, with the single element the author is playing with brayed about on the cover. Bored by Wolves! or Fairy Tail or Angel Boy or what-have-you. Such books are all about cashing in by being as obvious as possible. Want paranormal romance? Here's a vampire angel zombie you can really love! You know you're reaching the nadir of a trend when mere labeling is enough to make a book a success.""Which is one of the most refreshing things about Vesper. There are genre elements in here, but they're not the ones you expect, and they're not being used in a manner you'll expect. Sampson has bigger aims than mere sort-of-boy-meets-sort-of-girl, and one of the novel's many joys is just how often you realize that you don't quite know what in tarnation is going on.""And the book is written with a crispness that is increasingly rare in this genre—Sampson isn't one to linger forever on a boy's steely gaze, the line of his jaw, his rock hard head (er, abs), etc.—those sorts of calculatedly gooey details that basically make so much of today's teen paranormal romance come off as soft porn for thirteen-year-olds. Instead, he's got a story to tell. And it's a doozy of a page-turner. The only disappointment is that when it is over we realize it is only the first entrant in a story that is much larger."Congratulations, Jeff, from all of us here at Upstart Crow Lit. It's nice to at last see Emily Dub out in the world, fighting the good fight and winning over readers coast to coast.
Some web work is better left to the experts. That is, people with skills and understanding. That is, people other than me.
We are back—not just from vacations and working holidays, but from the netherworld that is 404 status for the blog. In a heart-breakingly comic series of mishaps, I managed to delete both the company blog and, in trying to restore that, the entire desktop from my computer (where I'd unwisely stored thousands of files), and my Time Capsule backups of same were no longer recognizing his computer. Much weeping and gnashing of teeth.Enter the tech monkeys at Apple, the friendly folks at our web hosting service, and the snarky genius who is Symon Chow, and it is all back up and running. I've aged a few decades in the past couple of days, and I lost two weeks' work on a couple of books, but you know what? That feels like a small price to pay considering the alternative.All of which is to say only this: Backup early and backup often. Your work is more fragile than you suspect.
I have at last come around to the beauty of the e-reader.
Back in the long ago of 2008, I bought the first Kindle to use as an aid to reading manuscripts. It was nearly four hundred dollars, which boggles the mind even now. Why? Because Kindle 1 had serious problems: it was a poorly designed, clumsy device with page flip buttons in all sorts of weird places; it had problems with poor contrast and refresh rates on page flips; and it broke just after its year-long warranty expired. The latest iterations look pretty spiffy, but Kindle 1 was so awful and the customer service so terrible that Amazon forever lost my business.After it broke down, I bought an iPad, but I never really used it for reading books. Wasn't keen on the iBooks interface, with its silly animated page flips. Wasn't about to give Amazon the satisfaction of downloading more books to its Kindle app.Then I went on a work retreat/holiday, and I downloaded some books to the Nook app for the week. I read three of them. And now I don't want to read books on anything else. In fact, I came home to find four books I'd ordered waiting. I returned them to the seller and downloaded them instead. This is how it will be from now on: I plan to get rid of many, many physical books. First big haul to sell at the Strand will be this morning before lunch. And you know what? I won't miss 'em.I completely sympathize with those who fetishize physical books. God knows I do: I have a collection of signed first editions that I will never part with, and other books that I just feel some strange sort of cathexis for that goes beyond all reason.But most other books I don't need in physical form. For example, most nonfiction. I am a political junkie and consume books like Game Change and The Bridge like butter-slathered popcorn, but such books are topical and quickly outdated. Why keep an actual copy? And journalism such as the great David Grann's collection of essays The Devil and Sherlock Holmes? I can't wait to read it, but I don't need to own it.Sadly, this is true of most novels, too. Most novels are disposable unless they truly touch me in some way. In those cases, I'll buy a hard copy of the book. (That's how I operate now when I read a book in paperback and adore it—I end up tracking down a hardcover to add to the library.) But good as most novels are, few are so great that I want them lying about forever.And now I can carry twenty books with me easily, and choose between books depending on my mood. I can switch from Patton Oswalt's collection of essays Zombie Spaceship Wasteland to the most recent Newbery winner, Moon Over My Hammy—er, Manifest. And then I can reread William Gibson's Pattern Recognition just for fun.It's amazing. My digital reader is making me read more and buy more books.* And I am never going back.Has anyone else out there experienced a similar Saul/Paul conversion?*Though not True Grit. I returned the physical copy I'd purchased and dragged along on vacation, where it went unread. But when I went to download it, discovered that the nookbook version costs more than the paperback on line. Really, Overlook Press? Is that how you want to play? Well, fine: I'll read something else before I'll pay more for a virtual book than I pay for the paperback. For shame.
Some web work is better left to the experts. That is, people with skills and understanding. That is, people other than me.
We are back—not just from vacations and working holidays, but from the netherworld that is 404 status for the blog. In a heart-breakingly comic series of mishaps, I managed to delete both the company blog and, in trying to restore that, the entire desktop from my computer (where I'd unwisely stored thousands of files), and my Time Capsule backups of same were no longer recognizing his computer. Much weeping and gnashing of teeth.Enter the tech monkeys at Apple, the friendly folks at our web hosting service, and the snarky genius who is Symon Chow, and it is all back up and running. I've aged a few decades in the past couple of days, and I lost two weeks' work on a couple of books, but you know what? That feels like a small price to pay considering the alternative.All of which is to say only this: Backup early and backup often. Your work is more fragile than you suspect.