Updates from the Texas Library Association

I'm just wrapping up an awesome week at the Texas Library Association meeting. These Texas librarians rock! On Tuesday, I was on a panel of YA fantasy authors, entitled “Strong Voices, Other Worlds” with fellow authors Libba Bray, Suzanne Collins, John Flanagan, Jacqueline Kolosov, and moderated by Rick Riordan. Such smart, witty people—I just wanted to sit back and listen myself.

Rick asked us why we write fantasy fiction and Suzanne had an interesting answer. She said that sometimes an author can address issues in fantasy fiction that are too intense to deal with in YA realistic fiction. The element of fantasy provides a bit of a buffer, in a way.

We were asked about series vs. stand-alones. Series novels are common in fantasy. After going to all the trouble to create a fantasy world and magical system, we authors want to work it for awhile. My Heir series takes place in Ohio, so I didn’t exactly have to create a world, but some of us also don’t like to let go of our characters. That was what happened to me when I finished Warrior Heir. It would just be a lot more convenient if I planned things out more. By the time I get to Book 3, I’m thinking, “Well, if I’d known when I wrote Book 1 that this was going to happen in Book 3, I’d have set it up better. But Book 1 is already in print. I want to go out to bookstores and put sticky notes in The Warrior Heir.

Libba discussed how she created the strong female characters in her Victorian fantasy series, set in a time when women had little power. I could listen to John Flanagan’s Aussie accent all day. And Jacqueline discussed her dual role as college professor and fiction writer. Rick did a fantastic job as moderator. He was clearly a home-town favorite among the librarians in the audience.

Wednesday morning I attended the opening session, with Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. I just kept thinking, Thank God I don’t have to keep up with them! Dave Barry could read the phone book and it would be hilarious. I looked around the auditorium to see thousands of librarians in black pirate eye patches. I think I’m going to adopt Dave Barry’s method of disciplining teens through the strategic use of embarrassment.

I passed by the hundreds of librarians lined up for Dave and Ridley’s signing on the way to my own, in the author area of the exhibits. I had lots of fun, meeting librarians from all over Texas, including Nancy McGinnis from Killian Middle School near Dallas. I’ll be visiting Killian at the end of May for a One Book, One School event.

Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, I visited 3 different middle schools in Coppell, Tx. More on that in my next entry.

The Demon King

Wondering how I'm spending my time now that Dragon Heir is in final editing? Am I watching a Lost marathon, scraping sludge from my kitchen floor, or cleaning out my To Be Filed folder?

Oh, no. Get the young ones inside, fill the cistern and bar the doors. I'm writing again.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I'd sold a new 3-book series to Hyperion. Since then, my agents, the wonderful Christopher Schelling, Ralph Vicinanza, and Chris Lotts have sold German, Italian, and Dutch translation rights. So I've been doing the butt-in-chair thing. I'm 300 pages in, and here's a teaser on Book 1.

The Demon King

When 15-year-old Han Alister and his Clan friend Fire Dancer encounter three underage wizards setting fire to the sacred mountain of Hanalea, Han has no idea that this event will precipitate a cascade of disasters that will threaten everything he cares about.
Han takes an amulet from one of the wizards, Micah Bayar, to prevent him from using it against them. Only later does he learn that it has an evil history—it once belonged to the Demon King, the wizard who nearly destroyed the world a millennium ago. And the Bayars will stop at nothing to get it back.
Han’s life is complicated enough. He’s the former streetlord of the Raggers—a street gang in the city of Fellsmarch. His street name, Cuffs, comes from the mysterious silver bracelets he’s worn all his life—cuffs that are impossible to take off.
Now Han’s working odd jobs, helping to support his family, and doing his best to leave his old life behind. Events conspire against him, however. When members of a rival gang start dying, Han naturally gets the blame.
Meanwhile, Princess Raisa ana’Helena has her own battles to fight. As Heir to the throne of the Fells, she’s just spent three years of relative freedom with her father’s family at Demonai Camp—riding, hunting, and working the famous Clan markets. Now court life in Fellsmarch pinches like a pair of too-small shoes.
Wars are raging to the south, and threaten to spread into the high country. After a long period of quiet, the power of the Wizard Council is once again growing. The people of the Fells are starving and close to rebellion. Now more than ever, there’s a need for a strong queen.
But Raisa’s mother Queen Helena is weak and distracted by the handsome Avery Bayar, High Wizard of the Fells. Raisa feels like a cage is closing around her—and an arranged marriage and eroded inheritance is the least of it.
Raisa wants to be more than an ornament in a glittering cage. She aspires to be like Hanalea—the legendary warrior queen who killed the Demon King and saved the world. With the help of her friend, the cadet Amon Byrne, she navigates the treacherous Gray Wolf Court, hoping she can unravel the conspiracy coalescing around her before it’s too late.

Newbery-Caldecott Banquet

ALA – Sunday, June 24, 2007

We went back to the exhibits again (there is no rest for the greedy). Cecil Castellucci was signing in the Candlewick Booth. I’d been meaning to pick up some of her books, so stood in line to have her sign Beige and Boyproof. When I introduced myself, she said, “Oh, yeah, you wrote that Warrior book.” I nodded, pleased that she’d heard of it, and she said, “It’s on my reading pile.” I brilliantly told her I had a reading pile, too. Then she pulled out an autograph book and asked for MY autograph! One of those unique ALA moments.

And I thought, that’d be cool to do at my book signings. Because readers are as important as writers when it comes to story.

I asked Laurie Halse Anderson to sign Speak, which I’d read but didn’t own. Her editor, Sharyn November, was sitting with her in the Penguin booth. I introduced myself because I knew she and my agent, Christopher Schelling, were friends.

Martha and I had lunch in a tapas restaurant on 7th Avenue, then back to the hotel to chill before the evening’s festivities and to sort out the takings.

VOYA had invited me to their awards reception at the Grand Hyatt from 4 to 6, because The Warrior Heir made their Perfect Tens 2006 list. So I put on the polka-dot dress and my black wrap and cabbed up there. I chatted with Nancy Werlin, (Rules of Survival) and Paul Acampora (Defining Dulcie) whose books made the same list. The party also honored the Top Shelf winners and several other lists.

Then back to the Hotel Monaco to meet Hyperion staff and on to the Newbery-Caldecott-Wilder awards banquet. Saw Cindy Lord collect her Newbery Honor for Rules. Yay! Susan Patron delivered a very funny acceptance speech for her Newbery for The Higher Power of Lucky, referencing the whole scrotum controversy. She said a 6th grade class emailed her and said they’d found the word “scrotum” in the dictionary, so if they banned Patron’s book, they’d have to ban the dictionary, too. Sometimes the young ones are the wisest of all.

Hyperion Books for Children was well represented, because Hyperion illustrator Kadir Nelson received a Caldecott honor. I sat with Jonathan Yaged, Hyperion’s new U.S. publisher, author Roland Smith, Alessandra Balzer, Donna Bray, Angus Killick, Scottie Bowditch, and others from Hyperion’s editorial and marketing staff.

Met up with YAckers Martha Levine and Jody Feldman, all glitzed up for the party. Jon Yaged introduced us to Mo Willems.