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.

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

Read more about it here.

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.

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.

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.

There’s a new review out for What I Saw and How I Lied. In a time when reviews are scarce, it was great to see the Seattle Books Examiner doing its part to support the literary arts. Here’s a great quote from that review:

“It kind of reminds me of Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself.  Although it isn’t as funny, the prose is just as tight and Evie is every bit as likeable as Sally.”~Reviewer Danielle Dreger-Babbitt

For more of the review, click here.

Hi all!

This week, we Randoms take a breather to work on deadlines and life matters. I think I may even work on taking down some Christmas decorations (oh relax, people–I leave up the Snowmen around here until it’s time to put up Easter crap. It’s not like I left up the Christmas tree–it came down February 1st, thank you very much).

Check out our archives if you’re needing a Random fix!

~SC

This week, we talk with Nora Raleigh Baskin, author of ANYTHING BUT TYPICAL (Simon and Schuster, 3/24/09). Read on to learn more about short stories, tantrums and resurrections.

1) What is your typical writing day like?

I definitely do not have a typical writing day. When I m working on a book, either first draft or revision, I could write all day long, break to eat and run, maybe make dinner. That could go on for weeks. But there are days and weeks I don’t write at all. When I am teaching I find it hard to write. I get very involved with my student’s work and being there for them.

2) Why did you decide to write YA?

I started out trying to write for adult short stories but I found I was always writing about children. When I wrote my first children’s story for my son’s second grade class, I got the best response and I found the most satisfaction. When I began sending out my children’s stories and got the nicest, personal rejections, I knew I had found where I belonged.

3) What is the biggest surprise you’ve experienced when it comes to  book publishing?

That I don’t make any money… Ha! Just kidding. Sort of. Maybe the biggest surprise was how many books are actually published out there–and even when you get good reviews it takes a lot to stand out in this market. I haven’t figured it out yet, but it takes something. Big.

4) Do you ever have any “dark days,” when you wonder why you’re a  writer? What are those like, and how to you get through them?

Never. I wanted to be a writer since I was in fifth grade and most of my young adult life I spent trying to get published. I am grateful every single day of my life…seriously.

5) Authors talk about “the call.” Usually, it has to deal with  getting an agent or getting published or getting an accolade. What  was the best “call” you ever received in terms of your writing, and  how did it go down?

I certainly remember the “call” from my first editor when my first manuscript was bought. She was the first one to read it. I remember my older son was having some kind of tantrum and I was terrified that she would hear him in the background and that she would change her mind about the book. I also remember the call from Publisher’s Weekly that I had been chosen a Flying Start.  I felt like a star for a brief moment or two. That’s nice.

BONUS QUESTION: This week, we talk about the heroines that got away. Do you have one that you want to write about one day?

I don’t think any of my heroines have gotten away because they are always resurrected in one form or another. For example, I wrote three books in a series called The Life and Times of Natalie Appleby that was never published. More than ten years later, she reemerged as Natalie Gordon, a fifteen year old in ALL WE KNOW OF LOVE (Candlewick, 2008).

For more Nora, visit her here.

I have quite a few untapped heroines in my future.  They are either half finished, or they lost their mojo part way into their WIP, but someday they’ll flesh themselves out and be the focus of their own story.

1. Klepto-girl: I wrote a few chapters that I loved and then the story went nowhere fast.  What was the focus?  She stole because… why?  Was she a bully, a kleptomaniac, was it just a phase?  The scenes were cool, I thought, but I never figured out what her back story was, so I went on to something else.

2. Rocker girl: This girl was the daughter of a washed up rock star.  I got into this and then I realized I didn’t like half the characters.  It needed too much of my time for repair, so I moved on to another WIP.  I still love the idea I started with, but I need nicer people.

3. Dream state girl: I have a series idea that I really want to write NOW.  That’s a problem because I’m writing something else, but that what happens when I write: writing generates writing, ideas generate ideas.  This story is a paranormal, I guess.  She learns things from the dream states she falls into.  This is good and bad.

4. Sister 1: This story, LSH, is yet another WIP.  It’s about a sister–which sister is still a question mark.  While I think it can be about their relationship and not one girl’s story, I feel like it would be stronger if it was told by just one of them.  One is older and a bit of a golden child.  Sound cliché?  That’s why I stopped.

5. Sister 2: I told LSH from the little sister’s POV because it was more interesting, but I didn’t want her to be bad.  Did I say cliché?  But it seemed cliché no matter what I did so I stopped.  Now, as I write this, I have another idea: they both tell the story and it centers around a specific event that they see, but from different points of view—much like real life.

~RMM

This week, I’ve been trying to flesh out a new heroine for my WIP–Lane “Don’t Call Me Laney” Anderson. As I wrestle with making her character match her motivations and actions, I think about some of the other heroines I’ve wrestled with and that are waiting for me to get back to them when I’m ready to Frankenstein ‘em to life.

1) No-Nonsense Chick. I’d love to write about a heroine who has the brains of Hermione, the moves of Buffy, and the arms of Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 as she leads her class to defend themselves (a la Buffy against the Mayor or Patrick Swayze et al in Red Dawn).

2) I Ain’t ‘Fraid of No Ghosts Chick. I would love to write about a heroine who isn’t scared of the ghosts she can see everywhere, a la Anita Blake in the Laurell K. Hamilton vampire series. The twist? Don’t know yet. That’s why I haven’t written her yet. ;o)

3) Mean Girls Chick. I would love, love, LOVE to write an anti-hero, like a girl bully who starts seeing the error of her ways, a la Crash in Jerry Spinelli’s Crash. After all, a bully has a backstory, too.

4) I May Boil Your Rabbit Chick. I would love to write about revenge, a la John Tucker Must Die. C’mon, how many high school girls do you know who would like to make a boy or two pay for standing them up/not calling/hitting on them to get to their best friend.

5) Damsel in Distress Chick. I would love to write a character like Bella in Twilight. The damsel in distress has a place in literature; you’ve just gotta make sure you got a sympethetic, motivated DID. And when you do? You, too, can be a bajillionaire like Stephenie Meyer.

~SC