We Moved to LiveJournal!

Because of the better community-building tools over at LiveJournal (read: We want more commenters people!), we’ve moved our address. We’re now at:

http://thefiverandoms.livejournal.com

We officially launch May 1 with an agent interview and hook contest; over the next week, we’ll be giving more details about both of these fun things. Until then, we’re talking about the SCBWI conference that took place in Nashua, NH, this past weekend. Come over to add your two cents and to see some of the A-Ha Moments from the conference.

Random News: Teen Literature Day

Did you know April 16 was Teen Literature Day? Me neither.

Read more about it here.

Random News: Charles de Lint & YA

A great interview with fantasy writer and YA writer Charles de Lint appeared today. Here’s a quote from it:

“I don’t write differently for different age groups,” he says. “In fact, I never even thought I was writing Young Adult stories until I was approached by Viking. They wanted to do a collection of my Young Adult short stories. And I told them I didn’t have any Young Adults stories and didn’t have time to write any.

“They said, `Well, you already have.’ And they pulled out a list of all the stories I’d written with younger protagonists.

“So that’s kind of the way I look at it now. It’s the age of the characters that defines the genre.”

To read more of the story, visit here.

Random News: Auctioning Off Stephenie Meyer

This past weekend, a dear acquaintance of mine, Faith Hochhalter, ran Project Book Babe, where authors such as YA authors Stephenie Meyer and Janette Rallison attended. Tickets–at a cost of $300 in some cases–were sold out in minutes. At the event, the epilogue to Meyer’s never-published Forever Dawn was auctioned ($5,100), as well as lunch with Meyer herself ($6,500). All proceeds went to Hochhalter, who was uninsured when she found out she had breast cancer.

Hochhalter is credited for helping Meyer launch her career when Hochhalter spread unbelieveable word of mouth about Twilight when she was a book buyer for Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ.

Lots of warm fuzzies going Faith’s way!

For more on the event and Faith, click here.

Random News: Two YA Books Being Petitioned

In the April 6 Orlando Sentinel, a mom of a 13-year-old girl is petitioning to get Maureen Johnson’s The Bermudez Triangle and Cecily von Ziegesar’s Only in Your Dreams: A Gossip Girl Novel yanked from the Leesburg Public Library.

The mom told the Sentinel: “I’m optimistic because it’s such common sense,” she said. “It’s not a gray area. It is black and white. It’s so distasteful for youths. It’s so farfetched that we would allow this to happen in the first place.”

Johnson’s book has been challenged twice, both times in Oklahoma, and von Ziegesar’s has been challenged 13 times, including in Arizona and Florida.

For more on the story, visit here.