rgz Newsflash: Charlotte Church and the Demoralization of Women in the Music Industry

Did you all see this article from Charlotte Church on Digital Music News from her lecture? What do you think? Any crossover to YA? Literature in general?

Story Secrets: ENCHANTED IVY by Sarah Beth Durst + Giveaway!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm very happy to be hosting Sarah Beth Durst to hail the arrival of her fourth amazing YA fantasy novel, ENCHANTED IVY (and you may remember that she was my very first Story Secrets post last January for ICE).

Sarah Beth and I go way back...all the way back to the SCBWI Conference in New York the year before I signed with my agent and sold Tell Me a Secret. She had just come out with her first book, Into the Wild, and I was almost finished writing the first draft of mine. It didn't take long to become fast friends!

Sarah Beth, welcome back to Story Secrets!

*****

Enchanted Ivy is about getting into college. You know, taking the campus tour, talking to the gargoyles, flirting with the were-tigers, riding the dragons... Essentially, it's about magic at Princeton. (read a first chapter excerpt here)

Holly Cupala: Hi, Sarah Beth! Tell us about Enchanted Ivy.

Sarah Beth Durst: Junior and senior year of high school, I was absolutely obsessed with the whole college application process. I saw college as this huge Life Turning Point (with all capital letters) that would determine the shape of the Rest of My Life, and I was desperate to do everything "right," i.e. choose the right school, write the right essay, etc.

Of course, after all of my neurotic obsessing, I choose my college because I liked the trees and wrote my essay about the trials and tribulations of having curly hair...


Find out more of Sarah Beth's secrets and enter to win ENCHANTED IVY here...

~Holly Cupala

Story Secrets: FREEFALL by Anna Levine

Today I'm welcoming Anna Levine, author of FREEFALL, to Story Secrets to share some of the secrets of her second YA novel. Her first, RUNNING ON EGGS, was a NYPL Best Book, and FREEFALL was chosen as a Sydney Taylor Honor book.


I found FREEFALL fascinating, as an in-depth look at a completely different way of life than mine as well as a portrait of a strong girl who faces her fears with wit and courage.


Welcome, Anna!


*****


Freefall (Greenwillow/HarperCollins) is about an eighteen-year old girl, Abigail Jacobs, who has reached the age when all Israelis are drafted into the military. Aggie decides she wants to be a combat soldier. She’s under weight, but that doesn’t hold her back. She gains the weight and faces the grueling physical, emotional and mental challenges of pre-army training. Her family, her friends and her then boyfriend think she’s out of her mind. She proves them wrong.

I came to Israel on my own when I was eighteen. It was right before the First Lebanon war. I know what it is to feel alone, frightened and forced to find the strength within yourself to push forward. Running to bomb shelters, hitching rides across the country (now the bus system is more efficient) to visit my sister, giving aerobics lessons in a bomb shelter in Jerusalem while wearing a gas mask (at the time when Saddam Hussein was firing Scud missiles into Israel) are just a few of my experiences living here...


Read more of Anna's secrets here...

~Holly Cupala

Story Secrets: IF I STAY by Gayle Forman

I'm very excited to welcome author Gayle Forman to Story Secrets today to talk about IF I STAY, in anticipation of the sequel, WHERE SHE WENT. (In fact, Gayle just finished up the sequel's Teaser Tour.)

I had the pleasure of meeting Gayle in person at the wonderful Teen Author Carnival this last May, still to be recorded as one of the coolest events I've been to yet! Gayle was generous and lovely and charming.

Welcome to Story Secrets, Gayle!

*****

On a day that started like any other… Mia had everything: a loving family, a gorgeous, adoring boyfriend, and a bright future full of music and full of choices. Then, in an instant, almost all of that is taken from her. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an unknowable future, Mia spends one critical day contemplating the one decision she has left—the most important decision she’ll ever make.

Or, I suppose another way to put it is: it's the happiest, most uplifting book you'll ever read that contemplates death.

Or, try this: A story about memory, music, living, dying, loving.


Holly Cupala: I love to hear the stories behind the story – from where did the idea for IF I STAY come?

Gayle Forman: Well, part of this story is a secret and remains so. But I'll be vague and say there was a tragedy that left me with a question: If something catastrophic happened to your family and you yourself were hovering between life and death and knew what had happened to the rest of your family, could you choose to go with them? Would you choose to go with them? So, I'm obsessing about this for years and years when this totally fictional 17 year-old cello player pops into my mind to answer the question...

Learn more about Gayle and her story secrets here...

~Holly Cupala

Story Secrets: LOSING FAITH by Denise Jaden + giveaway!

I'm so excited to get to host debut author Denise Jaden today, author of the brand spanking, on the shelf as of Tuesday, LOSING FAITH!

I had the priviledge of meeting Denise when I went to NYC for Book Expo America and landed at the Class of 2K10 event at Books of Wonder! Denise read a bit from LOSING FAITH, and I was hooked. Then I found out she only lives a couple of hours away from me. So I not only gained a friend, I gained a YA neighbor!

Please help me congratulate Denise on her debut...all about sisters and secrets, and a story I can't wait to chat with Denise about!

*****

After Brie’s sister, Faith, dies in a mysterious accident, Brie uncovers her sister’s role in a dark and twisted religious cult…a cult that now wants Brie as a member.

Where did the story idea originate?

I wanted to write an unusual story about sisters, and I came up with the idea of one sister realizing how little she really knew her sister after her death. From there, I talked it through with my critique partner until I discovered Faith’s secrets. I lost a close friend of my own when I was sixteen, and I think that also, in part, was inspiration for the story...

Learn more about Denise's secrets and enter to win LOSING FAITH here...

~Holly Cupala

Story Secrets: THE EXTRAORDINARY SECRETS OF APRIL, MAY & JUNE by Robin Benway

Have you read AUDREY, WAIT! by Robin Benway? If you haven't, go pick it up - it's the hilarious story of Audrey and her life after her ex's song about their breakup becomes a runaway hit. And I think of it every time I wear my (now infamous) arm warmers!

What does Robin have up next, you ask? Well, she's here to chat about THE EXTRAORDINARY SECRETS OF APRIL, MAY & JUNE...and even share a few secrets of her own. Welcome, Robin!

*****

THE EXTRAORDINARY SECRETS OF APRIL, MAY & JUNE is about three sisters who discover that they have superpowers soon after their parents divorce. They find themselves trying to figure out what's happening to themselves while also trying to salvage their relationships as sisters.


Holly Cupala: So what's the story behind the story, Robin? Where did April, May, and June come from?

Robin Benway: I actually saw a tattoo on a male model that read "April May June"and I immediately thought, "Those are girls' names." It didn't occur to me until later that they're obviously also months of the year, so I took that as a sign that I should be doing something with those names. I knew that they were sisters, and that they were each a year apart in age, but it took several days before I realized that they had something...special....

Read the rest of Robin's extraordinary secrets here...!

~Holly Cupala

In the blogosphere: Gayle Forman, What is YA, Exactly?

Hey rgz,

Don't miss the awesome post "What is YA, Exactly?" over at Gayle Forman's blog. It's spot on, and I have to say I was raising my fist in agreement. She blows away Suite 101's definition. Clearly.

So here's a quote from her essay:

"Lev Grossman said it best in a Wall Street Journal article on why adults are reading YA novels. They have plot. To some literary snobs, this is like saying they have poo on their shoes, but Grossman meant it as a compliment. YA novelists don’t usually spend paragraphs upon paragraphs gratuitously describing scenery or the contents of a refrigerator or backstory that doesn’t matter. Plots are streamlined. If something doesn’t push the story forward or illuminate a character detail, it’s gone."

Go check it out, and let her and us know what YA is to YOU!