B. A. Binns - Author

Boy Book Review - Revolver

2011-12-26T16:21:00.000-06:00

Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Easy to tell why Revolver is highly honored. it's a thrilling historical story of adventure and survival for boys that girls and adults will also enjoy. It takes readers to a place most have never been before, the other side of the arctic circle. I spent some time in took me right back.

We start in 1910 in Giron, Alaska inside a lonely cabin, with 14-year-old Sig and his father's corpse. The story question, what made his father, a veteran of the climate, try to cross the lake at a time and location where the ice was thinnest, and where he fell through and froze to death. The answer comes with a knock on the cabin door, and a man who has been chasing the family since they left Nome ten years earlier, looking for gold he claims Sig's father owed him, and that Sig knows does not exist.

The story moves back and forth between the events of 1899-1900 that sets a killer on the family’s trail, and 1910 when Sig has to face a man ready to kill for the gold he thinks the family has. We get a picture of the history of the Alaskan Gold Rush, where the only people who really made money after the original discovery were the service providers, saloons, and men like Sig's father who worked in an assay office. We learn about the Colt revolver in the lessons Sig’s father taught him about the way guns work and why they are sometimes the only answer to problems. We also learn lessons Sig's murdered mother tried to teach him, about Faith, Hope and Love. And finally, we learn the lesson Sig has to teach himself about survival as the boy struggles to save himself and his older sister from the invader killed his mother and intends to continue killing and raping until he finds the gold he believes this family living a subsistence life in the middle of emptiness has hidden.

The beauty, simplicity and total justice of the ending should appeal to young readers of all ages. Not to mention the real secret Sig's father worked hard to keep from taking to his grave with him.

Boy Book Reviews

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The end of NaNo 2011

2011-12-01T21:48:00.000-06:00

I am one tired writer.

BUT, thanks to NaNoWriMo- I managed to finish a damned book. Leah is complete in draft format!!!

The LEAH story existed only inside my head on Nov. 1, I didn't even have an outline, just a vague idea about he girl and her family and their problems.

Now I know, and I have a beginning, middle and end, all in 51,000 words.

Let the editing begin.

To be honest, I've been editing since about the mid-point. I changed the ideas a couple of times, and my inner editor screamed at me until I went back and fixed some of the issues. But I am now about to begin the wholesale edit.

Cast of Characters:

Leah Webster, aged 14, lives with her mother, Olivia Webster and older brother Jerome, an ex-gang member turned youth counselor (its a cliche, but only because it really does happen. And I needed him to have been in a gang.) At the beginning of the story she's in 8th grade, and just narced on her boyfriend when she discovers him selling drugs to the high school kids. By the end of the story she is a high school freshman. She is one of the two point of view characters, and needs to find out who is killing off witnesses to the fire that killed Madison Hammer ten years ago before the list of dead includes her brother, and maybe even herself.

Damani Ramsey, age 16, Leah's former boyfriend (before the drug arrest) begins the story in juvie, but returns and ends up back in school with Leah. He wants revenge, after all, he was only trying to raise money for his girlfriend. Besides, those weren't even real drugs, just placebos the doctor prescribed for his hypochondriac mother. Damani is the other point of view character, who quickly descovers that he has bigger problems than revenge on Leah if he is going to keep his family intact. Besides, underneath it all, he really wants to get the girl back.

Marcus Hammer, age 13, the son of the infamous George Hammer of Scorpion and Hammer fame. When Marcus was three, his older sister Madison died in a fire at a crack house where their father had taken her. Were she still alive, she would be 17. His father George has recently been released from prison, and Marcus lives with him, and hates him. Marcus is obsessed with fire and the idea of dying in a fire like his sister. When Leah is assigned to tutor Marcus, even Damani can see there's something between the two.

Anthony "Flake" Bradwell, Damaini's cousin and still a member of the gang. He testified against George Hammer at his trial, and now worries about his future after the man's release. He also councils Damani on the ways of revenge against Leah, the snitch.

George Hammer, deals with a rebellious son, the memory of a daughter he inadvertently killed, and the anger of the gang-leader who remains in prison for their crimes. Witnesses who survived the night of the fire been turning up dead since his release from prison.

Olivia Webster, Leah's mother, sunk into a deep depression after driving the car when her husband and younges son was killed, and her daughter critically injured. Now she finds herself falling for George Hammer and trying to find a way to tell her son and daughter that she too knows their secret.

Pastor Evan, anothe former gang member and a good friend of the Webster family, as well as the minister of hteir church. He is one of the few people who knows's Leagh's secret. He also testified against Mr. Hammer at his trial.

Jerome Webster, age 26, who left the gang after the death of his father and five-year old brother Terrell when he was sixteen to care for Leah, Terrell's twin, and his mother. He is under the protection of imprisoned gang general Tyrone "Scorpion" Johnson, so no one is allowed to do anything to him or any member of his family. He is also a survivor of the fire. He Leah and Pastor Evan share a dark secret about that night.

As long as I've mentioned him, Scorpion Johnson spends the book in prison, but he still wields considerable power on the outside world. He's the villan whose hatred for George Hammer moves the story forward.

These are the main characters. We also have Latoya, a rival for Damani's affections, Martha Ramsey, Danmani's mother who has her own little problem, and Bakari, Damani's little brother.

Wish me luck.

BTW, I would love to hear about any other NaNo novels. Hope everyone who tried had a really productive month.

NaNo Day 8

2011-11-08T19:46:00.000-06:00

13,500 words. I'm on schedule to complete. Now I just have to worry about the plot.

HaHa.

Did I mention that Mr. Hammer and leah's mother are going to have a romance. Well, they've met, and Leah is less than pleased, although her Cousin Carl thinks its a big joke that she and Marcus might end up being brother and sister. Thank God big brother Jerome doesn't know what's going on between that ex-con and his mother, but he will find out soon. He didn't even want Leah and Marcus ever seeing each other, at all.

Leah has already discovered that Marcus has a thing about fires, he gave her a much too detailed description of what happens when a human being is burned at the stake when they tried to study history together (and no, that was not the subject they were supposed to be going over) Now she needs to find out that he likes to set fires, and he has the burn scars on his body to prove it.

I know, it churns my stomach too, but he's still dealing with the death of big sister Madison in a fire, and it was all dad's fault.

P. S. Breaking News

I will be part of a panel discussing unconventional romances in YA at the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents workshop as part of the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) on November 21, 2011. I’m excited to be part of a panel with authors Stephanie Perkins, Sara Zarr, and my personal idol, Simone Elkeles.

NaNo Day 7

2011-11-07T21:08:00.000-06:00

By hook and crook I'm at 11,000 words, almost up to where I should be by this time.

BUT, things get better. My intent for NaNo had been to concentrate on the new book, LEAH, and then, after I finished my daily word count (God willing) find the strength to continue editting my WIP - BEING GOD. But on Saturday, Day 5 of NaNo, a miracle happened. I realized exactly what I had to do to finalize the novel that could not come to a successful conclusion. No more knocking my head on the wall, or snatching hairs from my head - I knew exactly what to do. So I put my nose to that grindstone and did it, including ripping out two subplots that were more trouble than they could ever be worth and rearranging the ending, as well as changing the way the protagonist's brother dies - you have to be there to understand why that was crucial. And now it's done. In 260 pages, 68,000 words, Malik's problems have been examined and resolved - at least as much as problems can be resolved when you're eighteen.

Now I'm full time on Leah.

I've arranged for Mr. Hammer to meet leah's mother, and romantic sparks are flying. Trust me, neither Leah nor Jerome are thrilled. And Leah has discovered that her protege, Madison's little brother Marcus, is a fire starter. He not only lights fires, he burns himself. Explains why he couldn't find a foster situation to keep him for long, most people aren't keen on coming home to find their house in flames of the police at their door accusing them of abusing the little boy they agreed to take in. He's trying to recreate the fire that Madison died in seven years ago. I'm not sure if this counts as mental illness or not, but Leah's mother is definitly dealing with depression and Mr. Hammer looks a little OCD to me.

More will be revealed.

NaNo Day 2

2011-11-03T21:37:00.004-05:00

The good news, I have over 5000 words. The bad news, already I feel the flame going dim. Which is odd, considering that fire has a major role in the story of LEAH.

And oh does it hurt not to start editting.

Anyway, Leah and Marcus have met, they now share a classroom. She's been asked to help tutor him, a task she doesn't dare tell her brother about, he's too worried about them even being in the same school. His father is out of prison, but so is the major villain, Big Snake.

I still have to mix in Leah's cousin, the only relative other than Jerome that she ever trusted with her secret. Turns out her cousin is Carl, one of the players from my published novel, PULL. He needs more face time, and since he has his own problem, it felt good to put the two of them together as the only people they dare share their secrets with.

I also have to introduce Mr. Hammer, who went to prison for his role int he death of his daughter.

A NaNoing we will go

2011-11-02T18:36:00.000-05:00

This is my sixth time doing NaNoWriMo. I'm going to keep a diary of progress.
Nov 1 - I began a new YA/MG novel, title LEAH after the main character.
I don't yet have a formal outline, but I know what I want to do with her - and does she have a backstory to die for, almost literally.

CAST of Characters

Leah, age twelve, a precocious seventh grader (or is she?)
Jerome, Leah's 26 year old brother, a former gangmember, now youth counselor
Mother, 39, still emotionally crippled over the death of her husband and younger son in a car accident she caused
Marcus Hammer, a self-styled tough guy, age twelve, someone from Leah's past
Darnell Hammer, Marcus father, recently released from prison following his sentence for the fire that caused the death of his then seven year old daughter Madison
"Big Snake" Johnson, also recently released from prison, also involved in the death of Madison

NaNo diary, Day 1 - 1752 words
Leah and Jerome refuse to accept accolades for turning in a schoolmate dealing drugs. Leah admits that she remembers "everything," including how her brother returned home late the night of the fire that killed Madison Hammer, and that his clothes smelled of smoke.

Men like YA books too

2011-10-23T19:22:00.001-05:00

Last Tuesday my local library, the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, sponsored me as their guest at the Illinois Library Association conference in Rosemont Illinois. While there, one of my readers came up to me and told me he was almost finished with my book and he loved it. Part of my goal in writing PULL was to attract boys back to reading, so the gender of my fan wasn't a surprise.

His age was. He was an adult male.

This is the third time this has happened to me. I have been told, by adult MEN, that they enjoyed the book, did not find it childish or "young adult" (the protagonist is a 17 year old African American male living in Chicago's inner city) and felt that I accurately captured what it meant to be a boy. BTW - all three men were middle-aged and white.

I have heard some negative comments--mostly from mothers--about the language, the sexual situations and, especially, the ending. None of the men had a problem with either of these. Nor have teens, although one girl wrote that she couldn't do what David, PULL's hero, did herself, but she fully understood why he did it.

I find it interesting, unexpected, and strangely exhilarating to think that my book has crossed-over from the YA shelves into the hands, and hearts, of adult males.

What made this most interesting is that a week earlier I gave a presentation at the Ohio Educational Media Library Association, on Attracting Teen Boy Readers. One of the attendees mentioned how difficult it was to find male role-models who would admit to reading, and that even the Principal at her school seemed proud to announce that he "did not read."

Maybe she could think about a father-son book club, armed with male-oriented YA books.

Obviously, PULL should be first in line.

Doing The Happy Dance

2011-10-16T16:28:00.000-05:00

Last week I discovered something about my novel, PULL. Somebody out there really likes it. And, they have nominated the book for two really big honors.

PULL is a nominee in the Cybils Awards Young Adult Fiction category. This is the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards, and some blogger or fan liked the book enough to enter it. (I promise I did not enter it myself, I did not even find out until after I was nominated) There were over 1100 nominees in ten different categories:

Book Apps
Easy Readers/Short Chapter Books
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Fiction Picture Books
Graphic Novels
Middle Grade Fiction
Non-Fiction Picture Books
Non-Fiction Middle Grade & Young Adult
Poetry
Young Adult Fiction

Just as my heart rate returned to normal, I got a second piece of news. PULL has been nominated for the Fiction category of the 2012 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers List. This is especially gratifying, because when I wrote PULL I set out to reach reluctant readers, and it's great to know that someone feels I was a success.

While it will take months to know if I make the finals in either area, I'm just happy knowing that my work is being recognized.

Now, on to finally finish the sequel, Being God. (Formerly BAMF, Downside Up, and a host of other titles. I can't even name it, no wonder I can't seem to make this story end.)

Blogging with Romancing the Genres

2011-10-12T00:02:00.001-05:00

Today I'm blogging about blogging, would you believe it? I'm over at Romancing the Genres Blog, and telling why I blog, and revealing a piece of me inside. This month I and my sister genre-istas are going over the whole blogging experience, looking at what it means to us to reach out and reveal ourselves to you. Hope you'll join us.

Yes Boys Do Read

2011-10-06T18:33:00.000-05:00

Advertisers will tell you, it's always easier and more cost effective to keep an existing customer than to go out and find a new one, or try recapturing a lost one. So it is with readers.

No, I'm not talking about my readers (well, yes I am, but only as a tangent) I'm talking about so-called reluctant readers.

I've visited a number of schools, and have personal experience with the recognized phenomena of boys falling behind female readers as they move through elementary school. In all too many cases the boys declare themselves Non-Readers, and shut down. On Oct 13 I will be talking to educators and librarians in Columbus Ohio, speaking at the Ohio Educational Library Media Association conference on this subject. Because we don't want to keep loosing readers.

2011-09-30T19:45:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I posted on the problems with prologues. I admit I’ve seen some awesome prologues in published works. I’ve also seen some great ones written by unpublished writers. Even the best have problems. I remember a prologue set in the past that was so well written and so vivid I fell in love with the place and situation and wanted to know what happened next. What did happen was chapter 1, present day world, with a different voice and situation that I couldn’t care about because I loved that darned prologue setup so much and chapter 1 tore me away from it. Had this been a book instead of a contest entry I would have tossed it in frustration.

Published prologues don’t do that to me. I think part of it is the writers have more experience and knowledge of how to use the prologue to pull a reader into the present instead of leave them hanging. Or they use them for something other than supplying backstory.

One of the best prologues I’ve seen in ages is the one in Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon. That is characterization and stage-setting at its best (I promise I get no royalty for saying this) and whether you are a die-hard Dark Hunter fan (and I am) or a newbie to the universe, that prologue works.

Another prologue that left me unable to put down the book started with an unforgettable scene – a woman awakens in a strange bed in a strange house. She is groggy, confused, naked and its obvious her body has been sexually assaulted although she remembers nothing. She staggers from the bed and looks out the window. Below her is a swimming pool with a dead man floating in it. She collapses. And I HAD to read that book. That prologue set up a load of story questions and I could not rest until they were answered.

My third prologue wasn’t a prologue at all. The author skillfully took the events of six months earlier, events that forever changed the hero’s life, and made them chapter 2. Nor did he use something as trivial and ordinary as a flashback. Following chapter 1 where we meet the hero in his normal life and get to know him and understand what we think is his problem, the reader turns to a very short chapter 2 where he awakens from a recurring nightmare. And we watch as he struggles with the emotions that nightmare brings. In the space of two pages we learn his inner torment, what he hides from everyone else, and his motive for doing everything he does on the following pages. It could have been done as a prologue. But letting us get to know him first made the revelation more powerful.

As I said before, I’m not against prologues. But here’s my own personal experience. I had a prologue in one of my manuscripts, convinced it was necessary both to explain the hero’s horrific past and provide an aura of dread behind his first meeting with the heroine. My first letdown came when a critique partner said she had no feeling of dread at all, the events were too far in the past. Then I entered the MS in contests, sometimes with the prologue, sometimes without. Shock city, I got pretty much the same scores and comments either way. So I took the prologue out and entered the MS in the 2010 Golden Heart where it became a finalist. The information I once thought was so vital readers had to know it up front is now buried in chapter 8 as part of the hero’s reminiscing about the past with his brother. Not that important to know about up front after all. My lesson – readers do not need to know the entire history of the universe on page one.

Losing Friends

2011-08-02T16:18:00.000-05:00

Growing old means growing in wisdom, I guess. But it also means loss, and I have lost a dear friend--again.

His name was Ernie Swirles, and many years ago we agreed to disagree about the Chicago Cubs. He ushered at my Church, Trinity United Methodist in Mt. Prospect, and was the kind of character everyone loved, especially his passion for the aforementioned team and anything related to Capone. Yeah, that Capone.

He was 69, and died on July 30 after a long battle with cancer. He went in for surgery a few months ago, and never came home, spending time in and out of nursing facilities and finally hospice. I didn't realize when he went in I would never see him again. His pain was so bad he couldn't have visitors or phone calls right until the end.

For the last few years my old pal and I had a not necessarily friendly bet on the finish status of the Cubs and Sox. Only a dollar and no matter what their records, we always battled about who really won. I don't want to win this year. I'd give anything to be able to hand him that dollar come fall. For the one and only time in my life, I have to say, Go Cubs.

Those that can...teach

2011-07-20T11:07:00.000-05:00

Maybe I should have been a teacher the way my high school instructors claimed. I enjoyed teaching my on-line Man Talk class with the Low Country RWA chapter. And last week I loved being part of the guest faculty at the DePaul University Summer Writing Workshop. (As the new kid on the block I got the Sunday slot for the weekend workshop, but even though that meant driving into downtown Chicago at an ungodly hour, I still loved every minute) All you introverts out there, there is hope, I am a bona-fide member of the top three percent in introversion, and yet I've learned to do, and love, the public speaking thing.

I was part of the YA writing tract, along with fellow authors Jim Klise (I own a signed copy of his book Love Drugged a story about a gay teen struggling to go “straight,” and Trina Sotira. I enjoyed their lectures. Jim discussed Nuts and Bolts for Revising a First Novel for Teens and Tina lectured on Make Your Fictional Characters as Complex as Their Readers.

My topic was Writing for Young Adults and New Adults and I'm happy to say some people dropped in because they wanted to hear about the New Adult market. My students even gave me new ideas, including working with an improve group to help grow new characters.

It’s true, the best way to really learn something is to teach it…and to listen to your students.

DePaul University Summer Writing Workshop - Day 1

2011-07-17T21:06:00.000-05:00

Friday was day 1, and my first time there as an instructor. The opening speaker was electric. Alex is the author of "There Are No Children Here" and other non-fiction works where he gives people's life stories. SOme of his excerpts had people crying in the seats.

Book Review - Viscious Little Darlings

2011-07-16T09:09:00.000-05:00

Vicious Little Darlings by Katherine Easer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sarah and her three friends adopt a fawn, name it Hope and hid it in their college dorm room - sounds like a comedy, right? But all three girls have secrets - and for one of them, the secret means life and death.

Sarah wants to feel like she belongs to someone, maybe anyone will do after a mistake with Brad--who totally wasn't worth it--makes her angry grandmother send her to a far away all-girls boarding school. There she meets Agnes and Maddy who let her and the fawn into their group as they move off-campus into a house paid for by the very righ Agnes. They give Sarah everything she wants, including the feeling she belongs. But the fawn's death is a herald of bad things to come as Sarah notices a cold undercurrent. Everything comes with a price, because someone is going to die, and that someone is willing to make a sacrifice to avoid her own death.

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Romancing The Genre's

2011-07-13T16:16:00.000-05:00

Did you ever want to just be in charge - be the god or goddess of your own world?

I decided to be a goddess and in the process learned that those who say absolute power corrupts absolutely must know a writer or two, because more...

Lazy weekend

2011-07-09T14:41:00.000-05:00

I'm attending a writer's workshop hosted by Illinois SCBWI at Villa Maria in Lake Springfield. I'mmeeting a great group of people, and had an exciting critique session with a group of other YA and MG author. The food is good, the people better, and I'm getting some work done. I'm hoping to finish Being God (formerly BAMF) at long last.

Off now to relax in the sun and get a little more sleep. Maybe Malik will have his final crisis while I do, and then we're finally complete.

PULL Wins the National Reader's Choice Award - part 2

2011-07-07T15:23:00.000-05:00

PULL's 2010 Reader's Choice award for it's first place in Young Adult books arrived in the mail today. I understand why it is affectionately known as a tombstone. Since I could not be in both New York for the RWA conference where the award was given, and in beautiful, if muggy, New Orleans for ALA and a booksigning, my Chicago North RWA chaptermate Jennie Carney stepped in to pick up the prize and attend the Champagne breakfast I missed.

Jennie mailed the tombstone to me and the package arrived today. My fumbling hands undid the tape so I could find my prize.

Here I am, tombstone in hand

Now my friends here at the library where I volunteer are oohing and aahing and doing the happy dance with me

Just holding the thing is inspiring me to finally finish the darned sequel, which has gone through so many metamorphoses I don't know how to handle it. (The title along has changed from B.A.M.F. - if you're a teen you know what those initial stand for - to Being God. Go figure)

Tomorrow I head off to a weekend writing retreat hosted by the Illinois SCBWI in a resort by Lake Springfield. Here's hoping the atmosphere will bring that story to a close.

P. S. I missed the RWA champagne, but not the beer and fun at ALA. Here are some of the pictures from the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) get-together and bourbon street.

The fountain caught fire during the YALSA reception

Bourbon street - no, it's not Mardi Gras time so I could actually move

And of course, I have pictures of my friends and fans.

A fan

More fans

And friends

YA books and censorship

2011-07-06T16:21:00.000-05:00

Early in June I went to Chicago's Printer's Row book festival, an annual weekend celebration of the printed word. I shared a booth with Barbara's Bookstore - totally coincidental - and the Chicago Writer's Association. I spoke to a family about PULL, and as I talked to the parents their son picked up a copy and started reading. My opening hook did it's job and he quickly interrupted us to tell his parents, "I want this book."

When they turned to me to purchase it a small feeling of responsibility jumped in, he looked very young. I asked, then told me their son was eleven. I mentioned that PULL was intended for 8th grade and up, and that there was language and sexual innuendo. They smiled. Their son reads voraciously, if he wanted it, that was enough for them. They intended to read the book as well--after he finished with it.

No censorship in their house.

I contrast that with a recent experience I had in a library. I was in the paperback section, where multiple genre's are jumbled together. A girl was with her father, looking for a book. She looked to be twelve to fourteen, although you can't always tell just by looking at a kid. (At least I can't) She picked up a book, and her father immediately told her to put it back. The cover, while not racy, made it clear this was a paranormal romance. Dad's comment, "Your mother wouldn't want you reading that." They eventually left without getting any books.

I won't fault any parent for what they do and do not let their child read. They know their individual child best, and have every right to decide about the age appropriateness of material. Where I would find an issue is someone deciding that no child should read something. And that undercurrent keeps turning up in discussions and blogs.

I myself moved from the children's section to the adult section around 7th grade. Somehow I made it through books laden with sex and violence and mass murder without ever become a killer or drug user myself. Go figure.

My return to reading YA came when my daughter was a teen and brought some into the house. I learned that today's YA has depth and theme and a passion that is sometimes missing in adult books. There is sex, violence, drug usage and mayhem. Should every child read about books including these themes? Absolutely not. But should they not even be written, as one source tired to claim recently - again, absolutely not.

I hope many of you feel as I do, that no matter how edgy the theme or voice, books that touch the reality of young lives need to be written. And there is an audience out there that needs to read them to find hope.

Book Review - Robopacalypse

2011-07-01T08:10:00.000-05:00

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I looked at the cover and thought about the movie A.I. I read the prologue and thought about Terminator. But this book is its own entity. It reads a lot like Asimov's robot stories (not the I, Robot movie, but the actual set of short stories about humanity interacting with robots). After staring at the cover for severalmonths and passing over it for other books, I finally picked it up - and could not go to bed until I had finished it.

In Robocolypse things go horribly wrong when a scientist creates Archos, a machine brain that is self-aware and interested in studying life, but without the messy interference of humankind. Thus begins a war that most humans aren't aware of until they are trapped by the machines that turn against them on what became known as Zero Hour.

This novel is told in vignette’s, short stories of the Hero's, a little girl who's doll threatens to hurt her brother unless she gets her Congressman mother to vote down a robot control bill, an old Japanese bachelor who sincerely loves his robot girlfriend, even after she literally takes a bite out of him, a teenager who gets so incensed when a prank he stages fails to get the news coverage he thinks it deserves that accidently uncovers the head of the robot conspiracy and is forced to flee for his life. In the end all of these people become heroes in a resistance they don't yet know humanity needs to survive.

This is a very mechanized future, where all but a few grandfathered vehiclesinclude computer brains that enable them to talk to each other to avoid accidents - and that let them trap helpless drivers once the war begins. Where robots encourage the return of animals while they create new and better machines to kill human beings. Where human survivors are herded into camps to serve the machines as cheap workers and experimental subjects. And where some human beings come together to become more than they ever dreamed possible.

Make no mistake, this is a science fiction war story, some scenes are both violent and emotional, and characters we come to care about disapppear into the camps or die, sometimes in horrible ways.

One thing I liked most about Robocalypse is that it doesn't take place just in the United States. In addition to pockets of resistance in America, this novel highlights efforts and heroes in Japan and Afghanistan, and acknowledges efforts and fighters and sacrifices in the Middle East, China and Russia. And in the end, some humanoid robots side with humanity and make their own sacrifices for freedom. In what seems to be a tradition in books like this, it leaves several openings for possible sequels, including the future of humanoid robot and human relationships, and the possibility that Archos is not really dead.

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PULL Wins the National Reader's Choice Award!!

2011-06-29T17:00:00.002-05:00

I just returned to Chicago from the American Library Association meeting in beautiful--and incredibly hot--New Orleans. When I arrived I was greeted by the news that this morning, at the OK RWA breakfast during the Romance Writers of America contest in New York City, PULL was awarded first place in the National Reader's Choice Awards.

I wish I could have been in New York at the reception, but I had to make a choice and ALA and librarians won. I had a friend aaccept my award (and my wonderful breakfast) for me. This is a major honor that I hoped for, but didn't dare expect. It's just great to know that there are people who believe that books about teen guys can be just as wonderful and enjoyable as those about teen girls. PULL features a multi-cultural cast and two gay boyfriends, and themes involving both domestic and sexual abuse. I am so glad the book is finding an audience that appreciates it.

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PULL moves on in Nerds Heart YA contest!!

2011-06-27T11:45:00.000-05:00

PULL has made it through the first round of the Nerds Heart YA contest!! Special thanks to ARI from the Reading In Color blog who interviewed me for the contest. My judge, The Rejectionist reviewed PULL and its competitor, Efrain's Secret, and gave the final nod to PULL in what was termed The Agony of Indecision.

The next round will be in July. Right now I'm doing the happy dance.

Plotting vs. Pantsing

2011-06-24T15:51:00.000-05:00

I am a plotter. I've tried pantsing it, and I get lost every time. I need to understand my beginning, middle checkpoints and ending before I can write word one. Especially I need that end, something for me to aim toward.

That said, things change a lot between word one and the time I can write THE END.

Truth be told, I think I'm more of a "puzzler" as I've seen it called on another thread. I have the big picture, my beginning checkpoints and end as I said, and then I write individual snippets of the story, not even remotely in order, and spend the rest of my time stringing those snippets into working scenes. I have never actually written a book that conforms to the original outline or synopsis, although the checkpoints are almost always solid. Just another reason why I don't bother with a synopsis until after completion. I generally need to be around the 40K word mark before I'm really sure of the structure. I would love to be a writer who can, as they say, begin at the beginning, go all the way to the end and then stop. But it's never happened so far and I have no reason to believe that will ever change. It's my process and I've learned to accept it.

This too shall pass

2011-06-22T17:11:00.000-05:00

Part of me knows how vulnerable I am, but all the modern conveniences have dulled the idea that I too live on the edge. We had a storm last night. Not one of the huge disasters that leave thousands dead, than God. The sky went dark, trees fell over, and a transformer blew, plunging my neighborhood into darkness.

I admit to being petty enough to envying the people on the other side of the street that still had power. How unfair, I thought, that I live on the wrong side of some boundary line I didn't know existed.

This too shall pass, I realize that even as I cope with a day of no electricity. By tomorrow at the latest things will be back to normal. So many people around the world have suffered worse disasters, so I've already left my pity party behind. No electricity just means an inconvenience to me, no air conditioning, no TV or radio, no automatic garage door opener. But it's also a reminder of how fragile my world is, and how little it would take to plunge my life, and the lives of my neighbors and friends, into real trouble.

Book Review - Evenfall

2011-06-20T08:43:00.000-05:00

Evenfall by Liz Michalski

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I loved the premise, a ghost, Frank, not giving up on his love for the woman he did not marry, Gert. Gert is unmarried and in her eighties and dealing with Frank's recent death. Her thirty-something niece Andie has come back home to nurse her wounds after the end of a three-year relationship with Neal and to help her aunt. She stays at Evenflow, Frank's old farmhouse where his ghost now resides. The story is told round-robin from the points of view of Frank, Andie and Gert.

I loved reading this women's fiction story that involved two mature women. And I really the heat between Andie and twenty-three year old Cort ("little Cortie" the boy she used to babysit). Cort loved her back when he was eleven and watched her go out on dates with the older boys. Twelve years later, he's man enough to do something about his feelings when she comes home.

I enjoyed watching Andie and Cort, saw the love and felt both their pains when they fought. Of course, her old boyfriend turns up right at that vulnerable moment. This book unfolds slowly and deliberatly, as I rooted for Cort to fight for Andie and for Frank to find some way for a ghost to interfere with the living.

The biggest problem for me was the ending. It was flat, sudden, unpredicted, and, for Gert and Frank, at least, left issues unresolved. Unfortunatly the back cover information does not match what I found in the pages. If this book hadn't been touted as the story of the ghost trying to win her back I don't think I would have found the ending so unfulfilling. As much as I enjoyed reading about Andie and Cort's steamy relationship, I kept waiting and hoping for more between the Gert and the ghost. I wanted to see their development and character arcs (as much as a ghost can have one). I just didn't see that in this book.

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I've been interviewed

2011-06-17T10:48:00.000-05:00

I have been interviewed by Jo Ramsey about my writing journey on her blog, Where Fantasy and Reality Collide. Join me there, and read an excerpt from PULL.

I hope you'll visit ... and comment - it's lonely out there.

Book Review - Amelia O'Donahue

2011-06-14T03:04:00.000-05:00

Amelia O'Donohue Is So Not a Virgin by Helen Fitzgerald

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is so not about Amelia O'Donohue.

It is about secrets, and the danger of keeping them too well hidden.

Rachel keeps secrets. Not her own, she keeps everyone else's secrets. She knows who had an abortion, who sneaks out in the middle of the night, who throws up to keep thin, and which teacher is messing around with which student. People tell her their secrets because she never tells. Once, years ago, she shared a secret that resulted in personal tragedy. Now, no matter what, she will not tell and secret, for any reason.

Until she opens a cupboard door and finds the biggest secret of all.

Now she struggles with what to do, because this secret is alive and needs his mother. This time the owner of the secret has to come forward. Someone has to reveal the truth.

Rachel just can't be the one to do it.

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Your chance to win big

2011-06-12T21:38:00.003-05:00

The clock is ticking - The Nerds Heart YA blog is featuring a reader contest where one of the prizes includes an autographed copy of PULL. There are only a few entries, and the contest closes at midnight June 13, so anyone entering has a huge chance of winning. - see contest rules at http://nerdsheartya.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/nerds-heart-ya-2011-giveaway/

Characters - Part 2

2011-06-08T14:30:00.000-05:00

Today I am doing my once a month blog post at Romancing The Genres. I'm going deeper into the subject of creating characters readers love--and love to hate. Come join me and tell me about your favorite characters. This is a follow-up to my first blog last week as a guest at Gemstate Writers

Book Review - Long Drive Home

2011-06-06T07:19:00.000-05:00

Long Drive Home: A Novel by Will Allison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those stories that reminds us that we are all interconnected, and every decision we make can have far-reaching, and sometimes tragic, consequences.

Glen, an ordinary man, drives his daughter home, flips off a cop, succumbs to a moment of road rage, and changes his life and the lives of his family and of strangers, forever. He never intended to hurt anyone, just to vent a little frustration. But after one thoughtless deed his life moves forward on a course he cannot correct. The law never finds him guilty of a crime, but over the next few years everything he holds dear, including his wife and daughter, is stripped from his life.

The story is a true page turner, it moves fast and I found myself both blaming and sympathizing with the protagonist. No one is a real villain in this story, not Glen, not his wife, not the young man who dies. Glen is not the only one who suffers for his misdeed, and when he almost gets away blameless, I felt a mixture of relief and pain. The one true feeling is his determination that his daughter never suffer any feeling of guilt for his actions that night on the empty street.

The Long Drive Home is an emotional journey for the reader, and one that may make the reader stop and think every time he or she feels herself giving in to the temptation to act first and worry about the consequences later.

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BOOK Review - The Doomsday Box

2011-06-06T03:09:00.002-05:00

The Doomsday Box: A Shadow Project Adventure by Herbie Brennan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book first, before it's predecessor, The Shadow Project. It's the first time a book sent me on a mission to finds it's prequel. Turns out this is even better than the first book, all the suspence and pace with none of the confusion.

The three teens from the first book are joined by a new member, Fuchsia, with a new power, one she is still developing. The four British teens working for MI6 find their way from Britain to New York where they are to investigate a long-forgotten CIA experiment in time travel, one that never really died. Seems you can rip a hole in the space-time continuum, but you can't put it back together again even when you shut off the power.

Just as the teen Shadow Project crew determine there is no danger at the site of the rip, danger appears, in the form of a box a military man opens to unleash a virulent plague, one that kills in less than a day and leaves billions at risk unless the kids, who have been vaccinated, go through the rip into 1962 to stop the man who will eventually unleash that plague on the 21st century. The catch - that man is a CIA agent who doesn't know what he will do in the future. The other catch - if they can't persuade him they have to kill him.

The kids end up back in the height of the cold war, travel to Russia, and end up captured and interrogated by the KGB and a pair of torturing twins you never want to meet in a dark alley. Young readers will see the height of the Cold War for the first time, older readers will revisit the dark days before the Cuban Missile Crisis, and see an alternate scenario that would have plunged the world into nuclear war before those dark days in October. One member of the Shadow Project team is an African prince, and he gets to see a touch of 1962 racism as well. Fuchsia’s developing power reveals that the 21st century plague they were sent to stop has to take second place to a nuclear holocaust due to begin in weeks and plunge the world into an alternate future in which they and billions more are dead.

It’s a high-stakes story, a true cross-over book, one that middle grade, young adult and adult readers will all enjoy.

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Characters - Part 1

2011-06-03T21:48:00.000-05:00

Todat I'm doing double duty - attending the Love Is Brewing In Milwaukee conference, and guest blogging at Gem State Writers.

My post there is the first of two blogs I'll be doing on ways to make characters walk and talk and act real.

Please stop by and tell your own tactics.

Book Review - The Shadow Project

2011-06-02T15:09:00.000-05:00

The Shadow Project by Herbie Brennan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first in a series, and highlights Danny, a teenaged thief in Britain, who steals to take care of himself and his grandmother and handle his self-esteem issues rising from being jeered at by snobbish schoolmates, and ends up in the wrong house where a sum of errors allows him entry into a top secret MI6/CIA facility in time to see a paranormal agent being prepped for a mission.

Turns out he has a few paranormal abilities all his own.

The story line was confusing at times, too many people with too many powers, including Danny's capabilities as a natural born Sohanti or with doctor who can fight and destroy demons. But I enjoyed the cast, and the idea that the intelligence agencies had to use teens to combat terrorists because only the young have brains malleable enough to allow them to literally control out-of-body experiences. Turns out the terrorists are using demons to accomplish their ends. Or is that vice versa.

The pace was fast, the premise strong, and I thoroughly enjoyed the story. And don't let me forget the interracial romance between the young African teen and the daughter of the projects leader.

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Young Chicago Authors - the Area 17 ceremony

2011-05-25T15:20:00.002-05:00

May 25, 2011, the culminating ceremony for the Area 17 Chicago Young Authors celebration was held at the Dr. Alexander Bouchet Math & Science Academy, and I was there as a guest of the coordinator, Tina Franklin-Bertrand.

Author B. A. Binns and Area 17 Youth Authors Coordinator Mrs. Franklin-Bertrand

Many of the winners were stories I judged last Friday.

	Primary, Intermediate and Middle school students arrived early to read each others books and get their well-earned rewards. It was my pleasure to see all the Area 17 students, Honorable Mentions, Excellent and Outstanding, in the audience and marching across the stage.
Students, teachers and supporters of the young authors.

For the Primary grades,
Trip To The Zoo by C. Patterson took home the Excellent prizeThe Return of Super Marcus by M. Frazier the Outstanding prize.
For the Intermediate grades,
A to Z Math Terms by C. Tareef took ExcellentI Wish Horses Were Blue by A. Burks the Outstanding prize.
For Middle School,
Why Me? by K. Cruse took ExcellentTimes Get Hard by L. Anderson won the Outstanding prize.
Times Get Hard, the Middle School Outstanding book, is a group of poems that I had the pleasure to judge. Having read it already, I was not surprised when it won the top Middle School honor. In spite of the title, many of the poems contained in the slim volume showed hope.

After reading this and a number of the other Honorable Mentions, Excellent and Outstanding stories, I can honestly call all the writers in the room winners, along with their parents, teachers and supporters. Everyone deserved their medals. As I was able to tell all the students in the room, welcome to the world of writing. I consider all of them my hard-working companions in this endeavor we call writing.

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Things I learned from being a contest coordinator

2011-05-24T18:57:00.000-05:00

I'm in the final stages of being contest coordinator for my RWA chapter's writing contest - I know, I did it before and you'd think I would learn, but for some reason I agreed to do it again.

We have an all-electronic contest now - last time we tried to allow people to submit either electronic or paper because it was the transition year. I remember the conversion year, and every time I hear people say the RWA Golden Heart, with over a thousand entries, could easily convert, I cringe.

Judging isn't easy - and never unanimous
For 2011 we had 120 entries, everyone found at least one pubbed judge per our rules. I did see some strange things, we have a system to allow for an extra judge in the face of discrepancies, such as one judge giving a manuscript a 95 and another a 50 (I kid you not, we had that kind of differences in opinion). Thanks to the system, that entry went on to become one of the finalists because our rules require the opinion of a third judge in those situations.

Contest Results
We had a number of requests from the agents and editors who served as final judges. And that's where I learned most. As the coordinator exchanging emails with these judges, I became privy to something that doesn't often happen with generic rejection emails. Several of the judges provided reasons for their ratings. One had excellent writing skills but the work did not feel like a Romance. Some felt a particular manuscript had little market potential, or that the dialog was unrealistic. No one seemed to worry about the dreaded prologue, but they did have problems with too much backstory up front.

ALL-IN-ALL
I've kearned that the things we're told about in workshops and discussions, meeting reader expectations, keeping up the pace and good dialog. It's not the occasional comma or type; it really is all about the writing and having a strong theme. And recognizing that agents and editors are people too.

What do you think, should I do this again?

Book Review - On These Silken Sheets

2011-05-23T06:59:00.000-05:00

On These Silken Sheets by Sabrina Darby

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My guilty secret - this is one of the books that taught me to enjoy erotic romance. There are four inter-related novellas about the goings on at Harriden House, ont of Regency England's most exclusive gentlemen's clubs run by the secretive Madame Rouge. She, and three of her friends meet men, have sex and fall in love -- in that order.

In Harriden House every possible sexual act between consenting adults can be purchased or observed or both. But its not only about body parts as the men discover when they meet the right woman. Even Madame Rouge herself finds a soulmate. And in the fifth and final vignette, readers get an epilogue that shows that Happily Ever After doesn't always have to mean love and marriage.

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Young Chicago Authors are GREAT writers

2011-05-20T20:52:00.001-05:00

I spent today in Chicago judging at the annual Young Chicago writers competition, that includes poetry, fiction and instructional stories by kids from first grade through 8th. I am amazed at the quality of some of the writing there. My very first read - a book of poetry of all things (I am not usually a poetry fan) blew me away. I would have paid money for that book, the author was that good, and I hope to see her at Printers Row in June as one of the winners.

The competition is divided into three groups, 1-2 grade, 3-5, and 6-8. Every manuscript was a finalist at the local level, what we read were the best of the best. I joined other authors, educators, and administrators in reading and judging the stories. My hat is off to the students of Chicago, and the great writing they exhibited. I have judged adult contests where the writing did not pull me in as deeply as some of these entries did. Congratulations to all the students who entered and showed they could write interesting and compelling works. Not to mention cover and interior artwork.

It was nice to see something good coming from today's youth, and I've already marked my calendar to participate again next year.

My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

2011-05-19T20:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my day for stardom. I was a guest on the Laura Dion-Jones Radio Show, WRMN 1410 AM broadcasting from Elgin, Illinois. (Someday I will have to put a radio program in one of my books). Naturally I alerted all my friends in the area - both of them (haha) - so they would listen in while I promoted myself and my book, PULL.

The people at the station were gracious. I arrived early, good thing because I needed time to catch my breath after climbing the long flight of stairs to the studio. The Green Room where I waited - well, it wasn't green. It was the employee lunge, that wasn't a lounge, more a combination mail room and kitchenette. I'm detail oriented, always thinking of the next book.

The minute the show began everyone became professional. Laura had a script that she didn't need to use, looks like it was there more to mark off topics as they were covered, probably just something to use "just in case." She never needed it. Only the guy doing the commercials read from his paper - have to get the names and facts exactly right.

I never stuttered once, even with the microphone right next to my mouth. I swear I used to be an introvert, and somewhere deep inside I still am, but I've learned to hide it well.

And I even got a fan email afterward.

What's wrong with bookstores

2011-05-15T14:37:00.000-05:00

I h ave a friend who wanted to buy my book. She doesn't like Internet shopping, so don't tell her about Amazon or other online venues - yes, such people still exist. I sent her to the local Barnes and Noble. The didn't have the book in stock and told her to go to the Internet and order it herself. She went to a second store and got the same answer, no we don't have it, no we won't order it, do it yourself.

In the end I sold her one of my copies, because she wanted the book and I wasn't going to let a fan down. She's an old-fashioned type doesn't purchase online - such people do still exist in droves. She was willing to drive to not one but two different stores to make the purchase, and both stores failed her.

Is it me, or is something wrong with the world? I just can't understand why a brick and mortar Barnes & Noble didn't want to make the sale themselves. Has the world of book selling changed that much?

Book Review - My Invented Life

2011-05-15T05:58:00.000-05:00

My Invented Life by Lauren Bjorkman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Roz decides to pretend she's a lesbian because she's in love with her sister's boyfriend. There's a lot to like about this story, but a lot is anit-climatic too. As she dips into her pretend world she, and the reader, learn something about being homosexual. She even finds a gay best friend - these guys are all over the place in books these days. The good news is she manages to help him deal with his family issues because of his gay status, and she helps her sister, the real lesbian in the family.

There's a lot of humor in this story involving a drama group and their attemps to put on a show in the midsts of Roz's shenanigans.

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Do you remember your first time?

2011-05-11T10:15:00.000-05:00

That's what I'm blogging about today on Romancing the Genre's. No, it's not what you think, but yes, I hope you will enjoy reading about Young Adults and what it takes to write for them, so come over. Added bonus, you get a chance to win a huge blog launch package of prizes.

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Book Review - I Am J

2011-05-09T09:45:00.004-05:00

I Am J by Cris Beam

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I went to this book at the recommendation of a friend. The beginning was slow, without that recommendation I would have put this aside. I'm glad I didn't. I am J deals with a boy born into a girl's body by mistake. He has no doubt what he is and bristles at being called a lesbian. That may be the one big fault I found, his homophobia which he does overcome after spending time with other GLBTQ people. J is clear that he is a boy, and has realized this since he was two or three. It's his body that's wrong. He goes to great lengths to push aside traces of femininity, binding his breasts and studying how other men walk and act so he can be more himself.

He is lucky to have friends who accept him, and are willing to help his journey toward getting T - testosterone, the hormone that will allow him to be more himself. His family poses a continued problem along his journey. I found myself hurting for him, and rooting for him to find himself and for his family to come around and accept him.

In many ways this reminded me of Luna, a book about a girl erroneously born into a female body. That story, told from the POV of the girl's younger sister, is an interesting contrast and companion piece to this one. Crossing Lines would form the third part of the transgender triangle, a story of a transgender girl fromt he POV of a homophobic boy who can't understand the boy dressing in girl's clothing. Having read all three and their very different approaches to the issue, I feel I understand things better now.

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Book Review - Time Traveling Fashionista

2011-05-09T09:45:00.001-05:00

The Time-Traveling Fashionista by Bianca Turetsky

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a cute book with a cute premise, a girl with a taste for vintage clothing and dresses that take her back to the time when they were made. I had a hard time buying Louise as a seventh grader and an even harder time beleiving that she could spend time in school studying the Titanic, then wake up in the body of an actress on board a White Star Line boat amid a crowd of famous people who died on the Titanic and still spend a day not realizing where she was. Instead she marvels at the fashions, and gushes over one of her favorite historical designers. She finally finds a ticket for the Titanic, recognizes the famous staircase from having seen the movie and even wishes Leonardo (di Carprio) was there with her and attempts to get people to listen to her and change course before it's too late.

This book will appeal to girls who gush over clothing, and includes numerous full page spreads of vintage outfits.

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Chapter one of the sequel to PULL

2011-05-06T17:13:00.001-05:00

This only took forever. But I finally have things on a roll. Take a look at how it begins.

Chapter 1:
The trip home from prison always lasts forever. After spending Saturday with robbers and killers and the man who murdered my mother, the chartered bus can’t get me back to Chicago soon enough. I have four weeks until I head back downstate for another fun-filled visiting day inside the walls. I’ll need every second to recover from today.

“Did daddy say anything about me?” my eleven-year-old sister Linda asks as I push our Aunt Edie and her wheelchair into the house. She’s careful to keep her eyes on her coloring book. Not even her voice cracks. The teeth biting her lower lip is the only crack in her mask.

“Not a word,” I assure her before our aunt can answer. The old woman sighs but doesn’t reveal my lie. We both remember what happened after the first visit, when we returned and told Linda the truth about what Father said.

Linda puts down her crayon and stares at the floor. Her fist tightens and she nods before jumping from her chair and heading upstairs to her bedroom.

My aunt reaches up and touches my arm as I push her wheelchair into her first floor bedroom. “I still think it’s wrong to keep her from her father.”

“There’s no way I’ll ever force my sister to sit through visiting day inside prison, I told you that already.” Aunt Edith makes me go with her when she visits her little brother, isn’t that enough?

“Linda’s so young, I understand why she hasn’t forgiven him. But you forgive, don’t you, Barnetta?”

No way. Never. “Of course I forgive him, he’s my father.” I take a deep breath. “Can you manage now, I need to get to work.”

It feels almost as good to leave the house as it did to watch the gray stone walls vanish in the distance. Lucky for me, Franks’ Place where I waitress three times a week is a big hangout for students at Farrington High School. Even late on Saturday afternoon the restaurant will be filled. The owner is understanding and accepted why I had to come late today.

I pull my jacket collar tight around my neck and lower my head as I head into the chill November wind. Walking helps me push aside the memory of the bumpy bus, the sad-faced visitors, tired prisoners, and vending machine coffee. And the grim faced guards who look at prisoners and visitors alike as if we were bugs they ached to squash. One of the few virtues of being a six-foot tall fourteen-year-old is that my legs cover distance quickly.

Cars rush down the street, speeding through yellow lights as if their drivers can’t spend an extra second in a part of the city where nearly every block is dotted with vacant lots and abandoned buildings. Christmas lights hang from trees, although Thanksgiving remains weeks away. Even in the so-called shopping district. Sale signs in brightly decorated windows beg passers-by to enter and spend. Darkened stores with boarded up windows warn what will happen if they don’t. Foreclosure signs in front of houses explain why they can’t.

A bus rolls past spewing dark exhaust that makes me cough. When I look up I see a man in my path, so close I have to jump to the side to avoid a collision.

“Sorry,” I say and start walking around him.

“Sorry don’t cut it, man,” he says in a voice that sounds like pieces of gravel rubbing together. He steps into my path.

I raise my head and see a guy only an inch or two shorter than me. He’s older than the usual high school crowd, maybe in his twenties, although his dark skinned face is as leathery as my father’s. His thick lips open into a grin revealing yellowed teeth. Two silver studs gleam in one of his ears, an unlit cigarette perches behind the other, and a silver chain holding a large crucifix hangs around his neck. He wears a red jacket with black markings, but I don’t need those colors to recognize a member of the Devil Dog gang, not after months living in this strange part of Chicago where people talk about blood and pain like it’s nothing. I’ve only been in this neighborhood a couple of months, but I’m not stupid nor a little girl. I know Double D is not just a bra size. I also know I need to get away from this guy as soon as I can.

He looks me over and smacks his lips. “I didn’t know you were a girl. You make one giant-sized shorty.”

I’ve heard that line a hundred times since I grew five inches and two big breasts in sixth grade. I hate guys staring at my chest. Don’t show fear, I remind myself. I have every right to be here. That’s what my therapist tells me.

“My name’s Darnell.” The rocks continue cracking against each other. “What should I call you, miss tall, dark and uhmmm tall?”

Let me pass and you can call me gone. I take a deep breath and try to appear confident as I start walking around this guy.

“Rude not to answer when a man talks to you, girl.” He moves into my path again, forcing me to stop. “Didn’t your momma teach you manners?”

When she lived, my mother taught me a lot. But she couldn’t teach me how to escape creeps because she never learned how to escape from the wrong man herself. The breeze brings the smell of alcohol and my mind flashes back to the long-ago months when my father came home every night soaked in beer or wine or whiskey and looking for an excuse to fight. I try remembering the things I’ve been told since moving to Chicago’s south side. One gang member alone isn’t too dangerous, not out in public, even if the sky is dark and gray and the sidewalk almost empty. One will just look and make a few crude comments and then let you pass. Two might be a problem, but things don’t become real scary until you have to deal with three. With numbers they enjoy that I-Am-God feeling and everything-I-want-I-take kind of power.

“I’m going now.” My voice shakes, but I take a deep breath that fills my nose with eau-de-bad-guy and continue forward.

Darnell grabs my arm, jerking me close. I hit at his hand without thinking. His grip tightens and his lips twist into something that might pass as a smile among his friends, but to me he’s a mangy alley cat waiting for the mouse trapped under its paws to stop kicking.

“Yo, Darnell,” a man’s voice calls from behind me.

From the corner of my eyes I see two men weaving through traffic to cross the street and reach us. Two plus one makes three; the dangerous number.

Three can kill you.

The newcomers come close and I recognize the taller one in spite of the reflective wraparound sunglasses that somehow don’t look out of place on him even on this gray day. Malik Kaplan, a senior at my school. He’s six foot four, with broad shoulders, all the muscles in the world, a killer grin, and an ugly heart.

His companion is several inches shorter and appears older. He and Malik share the same coffee with a touch of cream skin tone. He wears a moustache that makes him look like he’s laughing. They slow as they approach.

Malik’s movements radiate energy, as if he prepares to attack the way he does his opponents on the basketball court. I can’t tell if he’s after me or Darnell. Malik stops a few feet away and stands with his legs in a wide stance, arms crossed over his chest and head held high. He wears his grey and green camouflage jacket, the one he never takes off except when he’s on playing. It covers his body like indestructible armor.

“Hollah, Big John,” Darnell says to Malik’s companion.

“What brings you to our turf?” John replies with a solemn nod. The two men appear about the same age. They start one of those intricate handshakes I see guy’s use but don’t understand.

“That’s right,” Malik says, and the cool menace in his voice makes me shiver. “You have no business in my territory.”

“Your territory?” Darnell drops his hand and leans closer to Malik. The two are barely spitting distance apart, and I wonder whether spit or fists will fly first.

John touches Darnell’s shoulder and gestures with his chin. They move to the side.

Malik turns to me and puts his hands on his waist as if trying to make himself bigger. The little I see of his face below the glasses reveals no hint of his emotions. His head moves just enough to show he’s watching me from behind the lenses. It’s creepy, looking at the guy I once crushed on and seeing only my own distorted features reflected back.

“You don’t know much about the gang,” he says. “Life in the hood lesson number one: don’t mess with a Devil Dog.”

“If he doesn’t mess with me I won’t.”

“That’s not what I said and you just failed the lesson.”

“Is he supposed to be scarier than you?” My heart still pounds, but I won’t let Malik know how frightened I was.

“Nothing’s scarier than me, Barney.” Malik laughs, but his eyes remain cold as he says, “What are you doing out here?”

“Are you accusing me of something? For your information, I’m on my way to work. You know, that thing most people do because their family can’t toss them money and anything else they want.”

The wind picks up and I shiver. Strands of black hair pull free from the braid hanging down my back and fly across my face. I look across the sidewalk at John and Darnell who seem to be arguing about something and wonder why Malik doesn’t go over to join them.

“Shouldn’t you be over there helping your friend?” I ask after glancing at the two men as they stand talking. “Who is he?”

“My cousin John, and he doesn’t need help. Any Kaplan can handle a gang member or two.”

“I suppose I should say thank you.”

Malik’s thumbs hitch into his belt and he makes a suggestive move. “You know how you can pay me.”

There’s the Malik Kaplan I know and hate. He hasn’t changed. This was no rescue, he’s not here about me. This is about ruling the streets, pit bulls snarling over the same burial plot for their bone, while the bone itself didn’t matter. He’s still the pushy braggart and I can’t understand how I could have crushed so hard on a guy who only cares about himself. He’s a spoiled boy who gets whatever he wants handed to him, including the hot girls in school ready to give their all if he lifts an eyebrow.

“You’re smart enough to know that’s never going to happen,” I say and turn to leave.

“How’s that brother of yours?” he asks.

That brings my attention back. I don’t know why Malik mentions my older brother unless he wants me to remember just how scary he can be. I grit my teeth and answer, “David’s just fine. I’ll tell him you sent your love.”

Before Malik can say anything more, John returns. Over his shoulder I see Darnell moving on toward the end of the block.

John touches his moustache and bows. “I’ve cleared up the mess for you young lady.” He’s a definite step up the quality side of the Kaplan gene pool.

“Thank you, Mr. Kaplan.”

“Henley,” he corrects me with a grim tone. Then he squares his shoulders as if shaking off a heavy burden and takes my hand. His voice grows smooth. “Helping you was all pleasure. I’d love an opportunity to show you just how much.”

“John, she’s fourteen.” Malik’s lips curl, as if my age ever stopped him from hitting on me.

John drops my hand but the teasing note in his voice deepens as he says, “She’s still a very fine looking young lady.”

My heart jumps. I’m six feet tall and a size sixteen and I get so few compliments from guys that John’s words send a spark down my spine. He looks sincere and I’d like to believe, only Malik looked sincere too when he pretended he liked me. There’s a million miles between eighth grade and high school, especially after months of therapy to stop me from spent trying to follow my mother. When you’re a nerdy, oversized freshman horse other kids snicker about, and the school’s badassed homecoming king says you’re the beauty he dreams about…well, I wanted to believe him.

But it was all a pretense, a way for Malik to score points against my brother.

“Look me up in a few years,” John says.

“She’s a giant, you must mean look down,” Malik says.

“I never hold a few inches against a pretty girl,” John says while I blink back angry tears.

What do you think?

Book Review - Fallen Graces

2011-05-06T16:06:00.001-05:00

Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fallen Grace is a wonderful historical YA story involving a strong heroine, fifteen-year-old Grace. We begin watching her struggles in Victorian London as she tries to find a way to get a decent burial for her stillborn child. Her grandparents disowned the family when her parents married, her father disappeared before her birth, her mother died when she was five-after charging Grace with the care of her sister Lily. Lily is older chronologically, but her mind is forever a child, leaving her prey to everyone and needing Grace's constant care.

Grace's attempt to bury her child puts her into the path of a conspiracy as people pretend to befriend the girls while trying to defraud them. The story shows the stratified London society. History oozes from this novel, and the death of the Prince Consort plays a major role in the story. We see what life is like in Victorian orphanages and workhouses, the sacrifices people have to make just to survive on a daily basis, and gain an in-depth look at the funeral business as Grace becomes desperate enough to accept employment as a Mute - a paid mourner for high-priced funerals.

The reader is told a secret early on, that Grace's child was not stillborn but instead given to a wealthy family that has suffered numerous miscarriages. At first we think this will be a story of how Grace is reunited with her son. But her journey is more convoluted than that, as people attempt to defraud her and her sister of a fortune left them by their late father, and she uncovers the identity of the man who raped her and fathered that child while she was in a workhouse.

Grace needs all her wits and determination to search for her missing sister, thwart the villains who seek her inheritance, and seek vengeance for all the girls who have been attacked by the villain. And to decide on the right future for her son.

I worried about both Grace and Lily, loved the devotion the sisters had for each other, and appreciated Grace's strength and determination to survive and care for the sister she loved no matter how big the burden was. Most of all, the ending was satisfying, and left me feeling hopeful for all their futures.

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Where are those New Adult books?

2011-05-03T13:03:00.015-05:00

I hear people saying they are interested in reading books about the 18-20 somethings, set in life after high school. Here are a few I've found dealing with romance, mystery and adventure int he world of college, the workplace and beyond involving older teens.

Kindred by Tammar Stein The heroine starts in college, then leaves during her freshman year after a visit from an archangel (who is not the love interest, this isn't that kind of paranormal romance) and begins working for a newspaper in a small town. It deals with college, independence and seperation from parents. She finds a love interest in the form of the owner of the local tattoo parlor who displays his craft on his body. She also deals with health issues that she attributes to failing the mission handed to her by the archangel, and a conflict that puts her in direct oposition with her twin brother (a student at another college) who has been visited by the devil.

Spring Break by Kayla Perrin- This is a suspence story about three co-eds who head off to an island paradise for a spring break filled with sun, drinks, sand, boys and more boys. Until one disappears and all those boys morph into suspects. Technically they are not at college, but this does deal with college-aged kids and is good solid suspence.

We'll Never Tell - (by the same author as Spring Break) This is set on campus, as a prank leaves one girl dead and the survivors swear to remain silent to hide their guilt and feelings of responsibility. Life in college is raw and frigtening as the killer works to evade discovery by any means necessary.

Vicious Little Darlings by Katherine Easer Maybe college works better with mystery/suspence. This book deals with the heroine forced to go to an all-girl's school, her grandmother's alma mater, after an incident with a boy. She teams up with two other girls from a wealthy background and the three freshman move from the dorm into a private house off campus. A major mistake, because as their lives become embroiled we realize that at least one of the three is insane, one is suicidal, one determined to survive no matter who she has to kill to do so, and one ready to do anything to win the love of one of the others. The question facing the reader right up to the last pages is which girl is which, and who, if anyone, will survive the insanity.

Zero Point: Bond by Jordan BecketThis one not only puts the heroine in college, it also gives her the kind of family problems that go along with this time in a New Adult's life. It also gives an 18-year old a soulmate who happens to be 218. This paranormal romance features a college freshman who bonds with a mysterious crystal that gives her superpowers to help save the world from those who want to use the crystals for their own ends, while she tends her absent-minded professor mother and makes plans to ressurect the father who died when she was three.

The Adventures of Guy by Norm Cowie I haven't read this one, but I've heard that, while it was originally written for and published as an adult book, the cover led YA readers to it in droves. This is about a bunch of college boys, Guy and his roommates.

So, books involving the 18 and up protagonist, set in life after high school, do exist. As I mentioned in an earlier post, apparently college is a dangerous place, and serve as fodder for mystery and suspence.

Do you have any to suggest?

Click here to View my earlier post on the New Adult genre

Book Review - Love Sucks

2011-05-02T09:44:00.000-05:00

Love Sucks! by Melissa Francis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a good, fun, quick read. Although I have not read the first book in the series, Bite Me, I had no trouble following along with the plot or characters. We have a vampire teen fighting off her unsibling-like feelings for her stepbrother who is a wizard, and dealing with the development of her own powers. She teams up with a sexy vampire trainer while her mother prepares to give birth to a witch/vampire hybrid and her evil father reenters the picture and tries to use her as a key to something horrible. Somehow the author manages to make this not just another vampire story as the Ashe and her look-but-don't-touch stepbrother learn to trust and work together to save the baby and the world. And prepare for the "Love Sucks" prom.

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Here Come the Genre-istas!!!

2011-04-29T18:01:00.001-05:00

Look Out! Look Out!! Here Come the Genre-istas!!!

May 1st marks the launch of Romancing the Genres group blog. Come check us out! as each of our twenty-one Genre-istas from nine states introduces herself (no men yet).

Our monthly May topic: what our sub-genre is, how you can tell it apart from another sub-genre, and why we love to write it. Each day (Monday through Friday) you can read a new post from a different Genre-ista talking about her take on a different romance sub-genre. May’s guest bloggers (Saturday) will be Reviewers.

CONTEST ALERT:

Comment on one or more of our Introduction posts and be eligible to win a “basket” of twenty-one prizes from the Genre-istas. - NOTE: A free spot in my May 5 Man Talk Class - learning to make your male characters more beleivable, is one of the prizes, just for coming and commenting.

Check out our guest reviewers and be eligible to win a prize. Our May 7th Reviewer is Night Owl Reviews so the prize will have something to do with owls.

Follow us through the month of May and be eligible to win a basket filled with books, candy, jewelry, and much, much more.

PROMOTE YOURSELF

If you’d like a great place to promote yourself and get additional visibility consider donating to Romancing the Genres May Basket (drawing on 06/01/2011). Remember RTG is made up of 21 writers from 9 states with 20 FB pages, 9 Twitter and 7 LinkedIn accounts, and 21 additional blogs. If you’re interested or have questions, please contact Judith Ashley at JudithAshley@comcast.net for details.

Romance Slam Jam Conference

2011-04-28T16:55:00.000-05:00

Today I'm in Baltimore Maryland at the dazzling Romance Slam Jam conference. This conference of African American romance writers included workshops on Creating Memorable Characters by Marilyn Tyner, and Sexy Banter from the awesome writer Gwyneth Bolton, and What's the Hype about Romance from Denise Jeffries. I also spent time on a panel talking about my novel PULL, along with authors Altonya Washington, A. C. Arthur, and Iris Bolling. Its great being close enough to touch so many of my idols, an to be asked questions by Wayne Jordon and Gwyneth Bolton, romance authors I adore.

The next two days of the conference will include sessions on

Writing interracial/multicultural romances
Sex scenes from His Perspective
Writing with Passion
Building your brand
and more.

Tonight I'm off to a 70's theme party. Tomorrow we tour Baltimore and the Emma Awards.

New Adult classification for books

2011-04-27T19:32:00.002-05:00

This idea has knocked around for a few years now, a seperate classification for books aimed at the 18-20 something reader. Many YA authors would like to move beyond high school and set their stories with protagonists in college, or just entering the work force - or still living in Mom and Dad's basement after HS graduation. I have heard people say they are dying to read this kind of book. Others who say they already live this life and would never read about it.

18 to the eqarly twenties. These are the years when we finally hit the independency we dream of as teens - or do we secretly dread it? Are we flush with freedom, or do we whine and complain and take laundry home to mom?

Is this age a time that deserves to be importalized in book form? This inquiring mind would like to know your thoughts.

Click here to Read about some examples of recently published New Adult books

I'm a contest finalist, again!!

2011-04-26T19:03:00.003-05:00

My debut novel, PULL (a young adult romance from the teen boy's POV) is a finalist in the 2010 National Readers Choice Awards contest in the Young Adult category. PULL was my 2008 NaNoWriMo novel, edited in 2009 and sold and published in 2010. The National Readers Choice Awards is run by the OK-RWA chapter. Last year PULL won that chapter's Finally A Bride contest in the YA category. (And no, I don't have that chapter rigged.) I am honestly thrilled to be one of the three finalists, and to know that the readers and librarians they picked as judges loved my teen boy voice.

Yes, I am dancing, even if you can't see me.

Book Review - Trickster's Girl

2011-04-25T08:54:00.000-05:00

Trickster's Girl by Hilari Bell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a paranormal/science fiction story with a twist, as if blending the two genre's isn't enough. The protagonist, fifteen year old Kelsa, is trying to deal with her father's recent death from cancer in the not too distant future. And while science has given us many new labor-saving and entertainment devices, including flying cars that do need a road, we also have more sickness, more government controls and more terrorism. Including a botched attempt at eco-terrorism that is destrying trees in the Amazon rainforest and moving north toward the forests of America.

Kelsa meets a strange yound man who calls himself Raven. At first she takes him for a stalker, especially when she finds he has dug up the plot where she placed her father's ashes. Over time he convinces her that magic is real, that he is a shapeshifter who can ustilize magic, and that he needs her in a quest to heal something broken in nature to save both the forests and humanity itself. It's delightful to see a heroine engaged in a quest to save the world.

Raven is the Trickster from American Indian legends. This story blends legendary creatures from across histories and cultures with science fiction (they are actually from other dimensions that touch and interact with Earth). Raven claims that she is one of the few humans living, perhaps the only one, who can use magic to cure the damage mankind has done to the Earth. She reluctantly takes up the cause and finds herself a pawn in a battle between Raven and the other dimensional creatures who have decided mankind deserves to die and do not want the damage repaired in time to save the Earth. They are willing to do anything to stop her, including destroying both her and Raven.

I was pulled into the mythology and the future world where people have learned to accept being tracked by their DNA and needing permission to move from state to state. (I really liked that Canada did not have as many hang-up in that area as the United States did). I loved the shape-shifting trickster and how the author blended different legends, and I realized before Kelsa did that the Trickster had more secrets up his sleeve than he revealed. The tension grew when we learned he was long-lived, but not immortal, and that if his enemies managed to stop him, humanity was doomed. I also loved her determination, and her feelings for her father and how that played into her quest.

My problem with this book came at the end. Tension built as I watched themmove across North America, one step ahead, or sometimes behind, their enemies. And then, suddenly, Raven ran out of energy. The explaination for why this happened felt weak, and led to a let-down ending where Kelsa passes on her quest to another and returns home. This is another book that is obviously crying for a sequel. Unfortunatly Kelsa's story is gone. The trickster has to move on to find another unlikely human to continue the job of saving the Earth.

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Eighth grade school visits

2011-04-20T16:55:00.001-05:00

In honor of National Library Week I did a bunch of school and library visits last week. I'm finding these visits a blast, and loving the witty repartee with the students. At least I was, until I walked into an 8th grade class. These kids are different. They stare at you. Even the second graders I visited had questions and even gave me advice, and the high school students were all over me.

8th graders stare. And have no interest. And left me feeling lost.

I walked out of that school feeling like I had hit rock bottom, a failure, never connected with even one of the dozens of students in the room.

Except ... today I got an email. They want me back next year.

SIGH.

Boy Book Review - Storm Runners

2011-04-18T16:50:00.001-05:00

Storm Runners by Roland Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The only way this Middle Grade novel disappointed is that it ended, I wanted more and I'm holding my breath to see what happens next in this cliffhanger series. I loved young Chase and his relationship with his father. He is at the age where he feels his own strength, knows what he should do, and is willing to sacrifice himself for people he cares about. His father is a contractor who chases storms and helps people repair damages in the storm's aftermath. Chase has grown used to moving from school to school as his father criss-crosses the country. He has an innate source of time and a TGB - The Gut Barometer.

Most of the time people ignored their gut gauge, 
and most of the time it was okay to ignore it, 
until the one time it wasn't okay.

Tonight is that one time, and it will likely be the longest night of Chase's life, if he lives through it. He ends up trying to lead two girls to safety after they are trapped in a hurricane aboard a sinking school bus. What should have been a two-hour journey goes on and on through alligator infested waters through gale winds to a place that is far from safe. As they reach the eye of the storm he has to gather all his knowledge and training from a lifetime of dealing with disasters to keep the three of them alive.

And readers have to wait out the next book in the series to find out if he can succeed.

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High Schoolers don't get all the fun

2011-04-17T16:12:00.001-05:00

On Friday I spent a day with members of the Service Over Self (S.O.S) students from John Hersey High School. This group of students reaches out to members of the community. I participated in the Senior Olympics with some of them last year for a day of inter-generational fun that included games like pool, Wii bowling, and Jenga. As the school year draws to an end the school held a morning gala featuring many of the organizations the students worked with over the year. This year the event theme was Vegas, and featured entertainment from their gymnastics team, music from the school's award-winning Jazz band, and Vegas-style games of chance.

Me and two SOS students

This is my third year of involvement, and I continue to look forward to spending time with the students as they spend time helping their community.

Best of all, it's all research for the next book. Writing YA keeps me young.

If they want you, they will find you

2011-04-13T08:56:00.001-05:00

Not long ago one of the writers email loops I belong to had a discussion on pseudonyms. I prepared to chime in and say anyone can find you if they really want to, when I received proof of that statement. A letter addressed to B. A. Binns arrived in my home mailbox.

The reason that bothered me was because I use a P. O. Box for all my correspondence related to my writing, including anything and everything under that BABinns name. I pay extra for domain name privacy, even though the domain is registered to that PO Box. Not because I wanted secrecy, or so I told myself, but because I wanted organization. BABinns has her own email and her own address - and no phone number.

A few weeks before I received this letter I gave a talk about writing to my local library. The library advertised their guest as B. A. Binns with the title Local Author. Inside the envelop I found a letter saying, "Sorry I couldn't attend your talk..." It went on to request that B. A. provide feedback to a story they had written.

And so it began. I didn't know what to do. Should I ignore them? Write back and say no such person at this address? Or run for the hills?

Book Review - Something like hope

2011-04-11T07:13:00.001-05:00

Something Like Hope by Shawn Goodman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was interesting, a sort of female version of Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers, involving Shavonne who has been in and out of juvie for years. She has a child in foster care, and a younger brother she hasn'tseen in years, both circumstances leave her filled with guilt. Her consolation is a counselor who sees through her attitude and offers her hope and a chance to move past her guilt. Her world is filled with abusive guards and the posibility that her stay behind bars will be extended again and again.

Shavonne learns to deal with her inner demons as well as outer enemies in this story of how a troubled young woman can deal with her problems and reconnect with the life she deserves to live.

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A visit to the Chicago Public Schools

2011-04-09T16:31:00.000-05:00

I visited with Langston Hughes Elementary school on Chicago's south side yesterday. I spent the d ay there, speaking with 2nd, 4th, 5th and 8th grade classes. Talk about the need to be versatile! What works for one group leaves the other yawning, so I had to be able to change on a dime as I kept watch over my audience. But by the end they were all wanting more, with the 8th graders late for their own lunch periods because they kept asking me questions instead of heading for the door, and the 2nd graders reluctant to follow their parents home because they kept wanting to give me advice.

Every group had different questions. Many of the students are interested in careers in art and writing, so I received tons of questions on both subjects. In every class except the 2nd graders the girls did most of the questioning. Of course, with the second graders they were mostly telling me what to do, so maybe that's why the boys were so eager to speak. The value of the day for me was in meeting with these kids and connecting with their enthusiasm, even the teachers seemed astonished by how interested they were in hearing the good, the bad and the ugly about writing as a career. I gave out books and PULL bracelets, and a promise that any question they sent me would be answered. I hope I helped a few be inspired in creativity and belief in their capabilities, whether as authors, artists or any other endeavor they want to pursue. And I will be happy to return to their school, or any other Chicago Public School if I am issued an invitation.

Sometimes kids just get it better than adults do

2011-04-07T17:49:00.000-05:00

Several fellow authors have told me not to read my book's reviews, but I can't help myself. And frankly, most of them are favorable, so it's usually a boost. But by reading them I have discovered an interesting trend in the difference between the way adults and kids view the book and its realistic deptition of teens and the stresses they face.

PULL is a contemporary YA. I tries my best to make the characters realistic, rather than impossibly noble and heroic. Really, if the typical guy on the street was a hero all the time what fun would that be? And at seventeen, the age of my protagonist David and his arch rival Malik? Those things are bundles of contradictions and hormones who act before they speak and are still working on the whole heroic thing.

So its interesting how adults vs kids talk about my characters and how they handle different situations.

The latest issue was a woman who reviewed my book and pounded on the section where Malik and two girls head off, ostensibly for sex (whatever, it all happens off the page). She went on about that and how appalled she was by the idea that kids actually did things like that. She disliked the idea of reality and therefore disliked my book.

Kids tend to look at other aspects. They're comments focus on things important to them. One tenth grade boy raved on about the friendship between the hero and another boy and how that helped the other boy's self-esteem. Kids accept David's choice while agreeing they could not follow it, and several have voiced concern over his future. The younger readers also voice concern for Yolanda, the rape victim, and understand how her trauma leads her to make bad choices about guys.

But the parents focus on the young men's sexuality. These guys are 17 already! They are going to notice girls. Even if we wish teens were different, they do care way too much about the opposite sex. But these are also the years when their brains are making the big push towards maturity, when they learn to think before acting, to control themselves and grow up to be the better for it. That's what I wanted to show. At least the kids get it.

Book Review - Zero Point: Bond

2011-04-04T08:49:00.001-05:00

Zero Point: Bond by Jordan Becket

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I loved the last hundred pages of this book. This is one of the "New Adult" books, the seventeen year old heroine begins in her first year at college in New Mexico and becomes part of a secret organization working to keep the world from self-destruction. It is a Sci Fi sorty that includes the use of crystals to convey powers to those humans genetically capable of bonding with them. The crystals come in a variety of sizes and colors - with red conveying vampirism on those bonded to it, all the way up through green that conveys healing. And then there are the black crystals, the one our heroine ends up being bonded with. So few humans have ever bonded with Black crystals that only the arch-villain really knows the power that color conveys.

The end of this book is well paced, with a wonderful hero to go with the heroine, and a quest to save her father who died in Peru when she was three after discovering a large cache of the crystals. It involves time-travel, a power-hungry villain creating designer diseases so he can make money curing them, and a 218 year-old handsome, Latin and wealthy hero (who happens to be engaged to another women)

The problem is the first hundred pages. The move ponderously, laying on so much backstory it was difficult to continue turning pages. We learned about the heroine and her hystory as the child of geologists and her mother moving across the country from job to job with her daughter being as much caretaker to the absent-minded professor as child. There was also an attempt to build a love triangle that for me failed. The writing felt uneven, and I had to fight to keep from putting the book down. I would have loved it more had the book started in the middle and moved forward from there.

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Living in a PG age

2011-04-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

What does PG-13 mean these days, anyway? When my book came out and people asked me how they rated it, I said PG-13 for a little language and sexual innuendo. (OK, maybe a lot of innuendo) I've spent the last two years immersed in the pre-teen and teen culture, and I now have the opinion I was too hard on my book. Now I would call it PG. My book hasn't changed, but I fear the world has.

One of today's popular songs, one that middle-school kids sing along with, is S&M, with a banned music video so you know everyone watches it, and lyrics that feature a woman moaning and the acknowledgement that "pain is for pleasure."

That's the music industry, I tell myself, and they have often gone over the edge. Some of the YA books I've read have alos been over the top. I agonized over scenes where some of the kids in my book drank beer and headed off to an obvious sexual rendevous.

This year I found two books with covers suitable for attracting the juvenile audience and contents that are definitly geared for older teens. One features a cute pair of kissing bunny rabbits on the cover, and a protagonist whose acknowledged goal is to give up the big V as soon as possible, only none of the boys in her small town is worthy. She does find a so-called worthy male before the end and achieves her goal, numerous times. The other cover shows a cartoon figure of a girl reaching out to touch a lightining bolt. This girl spends a number of pages in her underwear exploring her newfound boyfriend who is similarly disrobed.

I don't object to the themes or content in these books. I've read a number of YA books that feature much more. My issue is the PG (or even G) covers that geared to attract younger readers and lull a parent's suspicions about the content.

Or maybe it's me. Maybe PG isn't what it used to be.

Confirmation or Critique

2011-03-30T18:10:00.001-05:00

Not long ago I did a school visit that involved small group sessions with five or six dedicated writing students to field their in-depth questions. It was great, they gave me flowers, and there were cupcakes (mindful of my weight I managed to say no) and juice – my throat needed that. I brought books and wristbands to give away to the small group attendees.

The questions were great, including the ever present “how much of PULL is real.” I always get that, and it always comes from a guy. And several of the people in the small groups brought writing samples they wanted me to look over.

I am part of an online critique group, my RWA chapter does critiques so I have given and received the things, I judge contests and do beta reads for other writers. I thought I could handle reading the first chapter and giving a little encouraging feedback to an eager student.

First of all, I loved her voice, it was really fresh and interesting. I like the character she created. It was a dystopian novel following an invasion of Earth, and she filled the first three pages with a huge backstory dump about how this happened and what our relationship with our new masters was like. Although it was well told, there was so much information I had to read the pages twice to begin to understand all that past history. When I finished I told her there was a lot of information there and she should look into spreading it out in several chapters.

She told me her friends thought the first chapter was wonderful.

I agreed, but mentioned that so much information about the past on three pages was confusing.

She reminded me she wanted to use a documentary style.

I’m a slow learner, so I tried again to explain that I loved he writing but it was difficult to untangle so much information delivered so quickly.

But her friends thought it was exactly right.

Finally the light bulb came on. There is a time in our writing careers when all we really want is validation. She wanted to hear this author confirm her friends statement that this was good, not hear suggestions on how it could be improved. I remember that feeling myself, in the days BC (before computer – swear to God, I wrote my first novel on a typewriter and used carbon paper to make copies and white out for corrections.) I handed my opus over to a reader expecting heartfelt praise. Needless to say she and I were never as close again. After gathering a few dozen rejection slips I put my child away. Like a time capsule, I uncovered it a few years ago, started reading and realized just how kind my friend had been. At that point in my career I only thought I wanted a critique. Hearing the truth put me off writing for decades, years when I could have been honing my skill. And it cost me a friend.

I subtly changed my comments and agreed that her story worked well exactly as written, that the documentary style of telling was appropriate and that I saw her talent. And I did. I hope I handled it right at the end, because she does have talent and a future, and I really loved her writer’s voice.

But my next contract with a school will include a stipulation that I not read any student manuscripts for fear I forget that I’m not in my critique group, and that beginning writers need confirmation first.

Boy Book Review - Lockdown

2011-03-28T08:08:00.000-05:00

Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reese Anderson is locked in juvie, and just wants to get by. They call the place Progress, but neither the officials nor the inmates seem concerned with making any. Reese is part of a pilot work-release program that allows inmates to do public service, he works in a home for the elderly. For him it’s a few hours away from the joint, worth even the handcuffs and humiliating body searches he has to put up with every time he returns. Inside Progress the word fair does not exist. When Reese witnesses officials turn their backs when one of the older boys decides to beat on a 12-year-old, a sense of morality he doesn’t know he owns prompts him to intervene. As he expects he is punished and almost loses his right to continue in the work-release program. But this and other incidents teach him things about himself. Things that enable him to hang on when the police come after him for a current death with roots back to his two-year-old arrest and that could earn him twenty-years in the big house unless he confesses. This is a story about a boy who has everything against him, somehow manages to persevere.

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Boy Book Reviews

Boy Book Review - Compulsion

2011-03-21T03:25:00.000-05:00

Compulsion by Heidi Ayarbe

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was difficult for me to read and difficult to like but it did pull me into its world. I've given it three stars because of the reason I found it difficult. This is an in-depth portrayal of the life of Jake, a young man with OCD. Heidi Ayarbe brought me deep into a disturbed mind that knows his life is not normal and feels his only hope of becoming normal is "magic." The magic of prime numbers and the hope that winning his third soccer championship will break their control over his life. Keeping himself a secret grows harder every day, as does his fear of what will happen if anyone figures him out.

I don't have OCD, I don't know anyone who does. Compulsion truely took me to a foreign state, and I totally recommend this book to anyone trying to understand this insidious illness. Watching Jake was uncomfortable for this so-called "normal" person. I knew his belief in magic was wrong but prayed with every page I turned that maybe in his case I was wrong. That is the power of this book, I had to root for this boy compelled to do things I could not understand and hope he would succeed.

Jake is compelled to look at clocks, knowing that some time were good - those he could manipulate into a prime number like 7:31 where 7-3-1= 3. Other times were bad and left him literally frozen in place while friends and family complained until the clock changed. This is not MONK, Jake needs more than just to have the shampoo and conditioner equal. One of the most compelling scenes occurred after well-meaning friends disturb his morning ritual and he is forced to risk loosing his spot in the all-important game because he has no choice. He MUST leave school and go all the way home and back to bed so he can start his day over again correctly.

The story also covers his best friend Luc, a young man suffering anger issues after living with an abusive father. We also meet Jake's younger sister who is sometimes forced to assume the role of mother because their own mother has her own form of OCD but really just wants to beleive that jer brother "has her back". When his father tells Jake he needs to help keep the family together and promises he won't ask the impossible of his son, it was hard not to cry as Jake thinks,

"You already have."

The weakest part of the book was an attempt to go into the past and offer an explaination for Jake's OCD and obssesion with clocks and time. I didn't care why. it simply was, and as a reader I was content with that. I just wanted to know what would happen to him and his family next.

This book comes out in May, 2011. It does not contain the conventional "happy ending." But it does offer hope, and for that it deserves to be read.

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Boy Book Reviews

Can't Run Without You

2011-03-15T14:38:00.000-05:00

In my so-called spare time I volunteer with the Senior Center in the village of Arlington Heights. Today they held their annual Volunteer Appreciation day luncheon. This local author who does a lot of her writing at the center in-between bouts of volunteering for the Library branch situated in the building, was invited to sit up front with the dignitaries. I autographed copies of PULL for Mayor Arlene Mulder, Senior Citizen Commission member Maureen Seleski, and the Village Manager, Bill Dixon. The Mayor wanted to know how much of the book was true, and we discussed the impact of domestic violence on young people and how the hero, David, deals with the loss of his parents and his own feelings of guilt.

Village of Arlington Heights Mayor Mulder, PULL and author B. A. Binns

Lunch involved three types of pasta, all good and no one grumbled about the absence of corned beef and cabbage. The theme of the event was Can't Run Without You! Former Senor Center Volunteer Coordinator Becky Hume, a personal friend who recently took the position of Village Clerk, reminded us how much we give to the community.

Becky Hume

She and Mayor Mulder presented awards to many volunteers who have put in long hours over the years, some as much as 6,000. I don't have nearly that many, but I and several other members of the Library staff got together after the event for a final shot.

Yes, there's that pesky book stealing a spot in the picture. PULL just seems to turn up wherever I go.
(P. S. The lady with the rose is MaryJo Lepo, my boss)

31st Annual Children's Literature Conference

2011-03-13T14:58:00.001-05:00

I spent Friday at the 31st Annual Children's Literature Conference as part of their YA Panel. I had the opportunity to talk to area teachers and librarians, listen to featured speakers Laurie Anderson, Jon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, Sara Prineas, and Thom Barthelmess. The conference was held out in the cornfields - almost literally. Northern Illinois University, the host site, is out in DeKalb Illinois, over an hour's drive into nowhere. Lucky me, I only got lost twice. The conference theme was Literature 3.1: The Book & Beyond and the day long program featured a wealth of information on using technology to reach young readers. After Sara Prineas deomonstrated its power, I am now a SKYPE convert. I plan to get with it and plan to move into the 21st century asap.

Best of all, at least for me, was the opportunity to chat with one of my own personal heroines - Laurie Halse Anderson. She shared a lot of writing advice with us - including not to publish book one of a trilogy until you've finished book three, because your public will hound you you come up with a release date. (They even get mad at you for wasting time on useless things like shopping or even blogging) I found her a dynamic speaker who readily shared herself with her audience. We learned that her husband was also her first love (and gave her her first kiss). And that writer's should always marry carpenters - and she has the cottage to prove why - and why she calls herself the "mad woman in the forest."

Me and Laurie - a major moment for me!!

Until I heard her I had no idea that SPEAK was not only a controversial book, it iwas also a personal one for her. She talked at length about a teacher who helped her over a trauma that left her considering suicide by looking her in the eye every day and reminding her she was a real person. Her story reminded me to thank all the people in my life who helped me over rough spots, as she was able to publically thank him on the eve of his retirement. As many people still move to ban SPEAK and consider it pornography, she reminds us of the importance of reaching out to the young because you never know what they may be experienceing. Her emails and letters from readers show how many understand and need the lessons of that book. The best part of this is that she and I will share the same venue again in November when we both speak at NCTE Annual Convention in Chicago.

Thanks to the audience who attended the YA panel that included myself, Kathi Baron (another author with my publisher, WestSide books), James Klise, James Kennedy, Claire Zulkey, and Adam Selzer.

This group of librarians and teachers were attentive and interested in using the works of local authors in their classes and libraries.

My book-signing location. (Notice how they mispelled my name on my sign, showing that nothing in life is perfect.

There's nothing like meeting a personal heroine. This was not a day - or a conference I will forget anytime soon.

Romance for Guys??

2011-03-10T20:19:00.001-06:00

I few weeks ago I read a portion of a WIP to a small group of men and women, many of them writers. The section I read involved my hero in an E/R wearing that horrible hospital gown that leaves a portion of his thigh uncovered. The heroine looks at a scar on his thigh and remembers...

The muscles under the scar sometimes tightened up and produced a stabbing pain. Once it had been her pleasure to massage that pain away. Once he’d welcomed her touch. She placed a hand on his thigh. His skin was warm and the hairs in his flesh tickled her palm.

He froze. “I said my leg was fine.”

She stepped away and clasped her hands behind her back to prevent Kyle from seeing them tremble.
When I finished reading, one of the men in the group informed me that I wrote erotica well. As other men nodded agreement I took a deep breath and tried to explain that I had not written erotica. Another man informed me that I wrote the kind of erotica a man could read, not like that stuff Harlequin prints. A female friend of mine and I left laughing at the differences between men and women.

In the words of Bill Cosby, I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

This weekend I went to the movies and saw a good romance flic. Not the one you're thinking of, I saw the Adjustment Bureau. I know, that's not a romance, at least its not being marketed as one. But it is, and its a romance for guys. (I know, Matt Damon, I have to admit I get a little heart palpitaions myself)

Yes the movie is science fiction, about an up-and-coming politician who discovers that there are forces guiding the human race and that free will is largely a myth (although we are allowed to pick the kind of toothpaste we want). This bureau is grooming him to be a future president of the United States, and while he may not like the idea that his life is being controlled by others, he isn't out to fight too hard, and the movie would be over after about fifteen minutes except - he meets a girl and falls in love. That love is outside The Plan so the adjusters go all out to keep them apart. Matt Damon spends the rest of the movie fighting for free will, a.k.a. the right to love. And if that means giving up the future presidency, and even risking his own sanity when they threaten to wipe his mind clean and leave him in a mental institute, he's willing to risk it for love. The only think he can't risk is her safety. (Sigh)

Seriously, in spite of the chase scenes and political rhetoric, this is a romance told from the guy's point of view. BTW, the chase scene does last a bit too long, but I'm willing to forgive that. Men may never call it a romance, ditto for marketing, but without the Cute Meet (in the Men's bathroom of all places), the romantic Kink, and the Moment of Despair, not to mention the Happily Ever After, there is no movie.

My take on this is simple, that guys do like to see and read romance - they just don't want to use that word.

Book Review - Inside Out

2011-03-08T09:42:00.001-06:00

Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This starts out well and catapults us into a totally different world. I loved the clash of cultures and slowly unfolding what and where we really were. Most of all I loved tha characters. And that's where the problem came. Because the author kills off one of my favorite characters. I won't say who, how or where in the book it happens, I don't want to spoil things. Other readers may not feel the same way. I just wish there had been a reason this character had to die, maybe then I could have accepted it. The deathe was sudden, and, to this reader's mind, unnecessary to the plot or character development. So I was stunned and hurt instead of intrigued.

The story ends on a cliffhanger, I do wonder what will happen next. But the final ending is so far in the future, and I'm still reeling from the loss of someone I had begun to think of as a friend, that I feel no desire to look at the sequel.

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Guest blogging today

2011-03-04T07:27:00.008-06:00

Today I'm blogging about why I write YA Romance and why the genre appeals to both the young and the young at heart over at the Lady Scribes. I talk about YA, and especially YA for boys.

Stop by and say hello and remember again what it felt like to find that First Love. (You can also discover some of the secrets of my college days..)

Boy Book Review - FLIP

2011-02-28T11:26:00.001-06:00

Flip by Martyn Bedford

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You wake up one morning in the wrong bedroom, in the wrong house, being greated by the wrong family using the wrong name. Add in a stranger staring at you from the mirror and six unaccounted for months and you have the first few pages of FLIP. Fourteen-year-old Alex awakens to find himself inside Philip (Flip) and no way to convince people that he is who he knows he is. Flip is everything Alex is not, healthy (Alex has asthma), athletic, good looking and popular. But Alex is desperate to return to his own life and the book tells his determination to find out what happened to him and to reconnect with his past, a determination that is only fueled by the discovery that his real body is in a persistant vegitative state and doctors are considering turning off life support.

Add in the setting, England, and this became an adventure in learning a new culture for me, as well as being a story about identity and family. It's about how much of us is body and how much soul. It's about what it means to want to live so much that Alex is willing to sacrifice Flip to save himself--or is he?
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Boy Book Reviews

Problem with Prologues

2011-02-24T19:21:00.000-06:00

The topic comes up a lot among writers. Especially beginning writers. “Agents don’t like prologues.” they lament. “But what if a prologue is right for the story?’ They read published novels with prologues and love them and use that to justify using one in their own writing.

I’m not an agent or editor, but I have to say I've judged a lot of contest entries and seen a lot of prologues. I think it’s not that agents and editors don’t like prologues as a concept. I think they don’t like misused prologues. They have seen so many bad ones that when they look at their slush piles and see a prologue, they begin by thinking it’s unnecessary, didactic, and a sign that poor writing will follow.

Too often beginner writers use prologues for the wrong reason – to dump backstory. They believe the reader needs to know this information right at the beginning. Before they know the hero/heroine or the situation they will find themselves in. They forget or discount the reader’s need to see the so-called “ordinary world” right up front, and then the disaster that takes them out of that ordinary world and starts their hero’s journey. And then, history that can help understand why they do what they do. BTW – as little of that history as possible.

Think of your submission as setting off for a speed-date. Speed-dating is an awful phenomenon, but a great metaphor. You sit in a chair opposite someone and have three minutes to make enough of an impression that they request another meeting. In this case, your manuscript has a few pages in which to capture enough interest that someone decides to read more.

How do you begin that first date? Do you tell your partner the circumstances of your birth, or maybe your family tree? Discuss that first relationship that left you bitter, so they will understand and sympathize? Not if you want a second date. (Now, if you want to tell him you inherited a fortune when your dear cat-loving aunt died and you’ve doubled the money since so you’re quite the catch – that could be the kind of backstory that should be told up front. Ditto if you murdered your first three husbands and he happens to enjoy dangerous liaisons, but I really won’t go there.) If you want that second date you talk about yourself as you are now. How you feel, what you do, your future aspirations. You give out just enough of your goals and motivation, to leave them curious. Save the history lesson for later.

Do the same with your manuscript. A prologue for the sake of spilling history is a waste of your three minutes. Start with a good solid hook and enough mistery to make a reader curious. Everything else can wait.

Boy Book Review - Crossing Lines

2011-02-21T11:13:00.002-06:00

Crossing Lines by Paul Volponi

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This story deals with a high school football jock, named Adonis (and getting away with that name), faced with a new cross-dressing student, Alan and his homophobic teammates. Adonis is determined to keep his spot in the high school hierarchy and gain the beautiful girl. When Alan becomes friends with Adonis' sister--President and Vice-President of the school's fashion club--Adonis fears he will be tainted by association with the boy everyone thinks is gay. As the bullying of Alan, now nicknamed Alana by other members of Adonis' team, escalates, Adonis faces a line that could lead him or Alan into disaster.

This is a story with a good message, but the treatment seemed forced. Too many 2-dimensional characters: Alan's career soldier father, Adonis' gruff but well meaning father, the cute girl who expects Adonis to do the right thing. Even Adonis himself is a stereotypical jock to whom image is everything, even if maintaining the image requires that he lie about bagging the girl. I liked how the members of the fashion club banded together with Alan, but even that seemed forced, as in girls are good, it's those boys that are the problem.

My real problem with this book was the ending, it just fell flat. This has a good message on being a reluctant bully and the cost that can have to both the bully and people around him, but the message is too in-your-face. I wanted more into how the events effected Adonis and family members, and even Alan. Instead the book just presents things and then stops cold.

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Boy Book Reviews

Book Review - The Legacy

2011-02-14T13:00:00.000-06:00

The Legacy by Gemma Malley

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

First I admit I never read the first two books in the series, but I found it hard to accept the characters as real and as young adults. The premise is good, in a world where people never age there is little or no room for children. And the man who owns the anti-aging formula, Richard Pincent, becomes almost godlike. So when people start dying from a mysterious illness and he blames the resistance for it, even long-time supporters drop away, leaving the resistance movement in trouble. As illegal "surplus" children are being rounded up, and the leadership of the resistance is captured, two young men, half-brothers and Pincet's grandchildren, continue their efforts to free the world from his dominion.

It's a great idea, but the execution of the book is sometimes stodgy and slow, and the wealth of minor characters that appear for a few pages and then disappear were confusing. I also wanted more of the relationship between the two brothers, one of whom was raised in luxury as Pincet's legitimat heir, the other raised as an unwanted Surplus. While I understand that much of their relationshop weas hashed out in earlier books, I still felt something missing here when they met.

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Snowmaggedon claims a friend.

2011-02-08T20:27:00.001-06:00

Today I received news no one wants to hear. Snowmaggedon claimed a long-time friend of mine. I first met Kent Bergren when I started working at Illinois Bell. He and I were fourth-floor buddies, me in General Applications, he in Payroll. Our careers crisscrossed over the years, we moved to different departments, different buildings, different cities, but always seemed to come together again. I went to his wedding and his eldest son's christening. We were in the same department when I decided to retire in 2008, and he helped throw the farewell party, complete with a homemade game for me to use to remember all the years with Illinois Bell, Ameritech, Ameritech Applied Technologies, Ameritech (again), SBC and finally AT&T, all without ever having to polish up a resume or head on a job search, through the wonders of divestiture and merger.

He went out to shovel snow. Felt pressure in his chest and died. He was fifty-five. I hadn't seen him in years, but he was always fun, enthusiastic and friendly, upbeat and ready to work on any problem.

It's hard to think of the world continuing without him.

Book Review - Kindred

2011-02-07T09:32:00.003-06:00

Kindred by Tammar Stein

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Miriam, a college freshman, is given a task by the terrifying archangel Raphael. Thanks to her background-her father is a rabbi and her mother a former nun-she is able to translate the assignment given to her in Hebrew. Unfortunatly she garbles the task. Even worse, she doscovers that her twin brother, Moses (known as Mo) has received a task from the opposite end of the good-evil spectrum, and he passed with flying colors.

That begins this book, where religion and familial love battle in an ordinary small town. The weight of her failure takes its toll on Miriam, and she vows to succeed when she receives a second and more difficult task. She has to, because this time failure could cost her own life. Unfortunatly Mo also has a second assignment, one that puts the siblings on a collision course.

This book is a change from the fallen angel or angel-falls-in-love-with-his-human-charge type of romance I've seen too much of. In fact, Miriam has the definite feeling Raphael does not like her. While Mo becomes enamored with the devil, she falls for the shaved headed owner of the local tattoo parlor. The book is also a study of good and evil; the wrath of God, the Devil's punishment and even blind chance all play roles in this book. Just as there are no easy answers in life, there are no real answers in this book, only questions. I hope there will be a sequel, because I want to know what happens to Miriam and Mo next.

This book is being released Feb 2011.

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Snow Day

2011-02-03T18:55:00.000-06:00

Usually I try to put out a piece on the craft of writing for the middle of the week. Sorry folks, two feet of snow took too much out of me. It wasn't just the drive home Tuesday afternoon - I left work at 3:00 PM when the boss said run for it. And not just the stories of drivers stranded for hours on Lake Shore Drive literally fearing for their lives, or people actually complaining that the blizzard was all the city's fault and the wondering why the government didn't do something to fix the problems (I will have to write that into a story someday.)

A day and a half spent shoveling a tunnel so I could exit my house did something fierce to my writing skills. My craft comment for this week lies buried under a mound of white. Come summer when the glacier retreats I'll retrieve it, I promise.

P. S. My appearances at the Chicago Principal's conference has been postponed, the principals have to be at their posts on Friday. That's actually a good thing for me, because I was double booked Friday and would have spent hours shuffling between the suburbs and Chicago and then back again. Guess even city closing blizzards can have a silver lining.

Boy Book Review - Leverage

2011-01-31T18:46:00.001-06:00

Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

2011 is going to be such a great year for books. I went to the ALA meeting in January, and just the sight of this cover reached out and grabbed me. The book did not disappoint. Gut-wrenching drama aptly describes this coming-of-age story about bullying and fear and two young men, opposites in so many ways except for their need to uncover the courage inside themselves.

Kurt, the football player, has ugly scars on his face, a debilitating stutter that leaves people questioning his intelligence and him preferring to keep silent, and a desire to be big. Big enough so that no one can hurt him the way he and his friend had been hurt by the man he calls "Crud Bucket," the man in charge of the boys home he once lived in. Kurt's desire to be big and strong is fed by a high school football coach who freely dispenses steroids in the quest for a winning tram.

Danny is a sophomore gymnast still waiting for puberty so he won't keep being mistaken for a lost kid from junior high. His future plans include being team captain by his junior year and getting a full-ride to college to prove to his father that his "recitals" aren't child's play. His major event is the high bar where he has perfected a gravity-defying move that leaves even his coach (and the fifteen or so spectators that come to the gymnastics meets) shaking.

People fear the football team co-captains with good reason as their steroid induced rages grow more cruel and violent. After the gymnastics team faces them down over their treatment of one young boy, things escalate until a member of the gymnastics team pays a horrible price.

Kurt, the boy who can't talk, and Danny, the boy whose only real weapon is his voice, become targets of death threats. Kurt struggles to find the courage to trust that Danny won't let him down when his own bulk cannot save him. Danny struggles to believe that sometimes courage means forgetting that what you are about to do feels like suicide, but you have to do it anyway.

By the end they learn that it's not about how many muscles you have or how big you are or how fast you talk. It's about trust and a belief that with the right leverage you can indeed change the world. Oh yes, there is a girl. And both guys need to learn that "Girls Rule." Especially in the smarts department.

You don't have to care about sports to love this young adult story that comes out in February.

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Boy Book Review

Traffic School

2011-01-29T09:06:00.000-06:00

I decided to kill the proverbial two birds with this post. I belong to a writing group that puts out regular writing prompts and for February the prompt is ... traffic problems. For me, that means writing about my day in traffic court.

Let me admit that I did break a rule. And everthing the instructor said during the four hours of traffic school was good information. But does it change anything for me? No.

The instructor was shocked to find that less than half of us were there for speeding. While one woman did use a cell phone in a construction zone, most of us were ther providing the state with additional revenue for more minor offenses. Mine involved a bonehead mistake, I tried cutting through a vacant lot to get around the "traffic control device."

I already classify as one of the old, fuddy duddy drivers. Maybe five miles over the posted speed limit, but ten - no. And when someone tailgates me, I slow down, I get nervous seeing those cars too close to me rear. But I sat through the lectures and videos, discussed the scenarios with the other unfortunates present, took my certificate and left.

Actually, it ended up being a relaxing way to spend an afternoon. I even picked up some personalities and tidbits of information I'll use in my writing. Best of all, we started exactly on time, took frequent breaks and the instructor sped through the last section to make sure she gout out early.

What more can one ask?

Boy Book Review - YOU

2011-01-24T19:43:00.000-06:00

You by Charles Benoit

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

YOU should have been an impossible book. Second person, present tense, "book noir" YA novel. Give me a break.

That's what I thought when I first heard the author describe his book last summer. I looked at the cover and saw nothing that interested me, so I passed it by. I saw it again on a shelf last week, and on some whim I picked it up and read the first line:

"You're surprised at all the blood."
I was immediatly bonded to fifteen-year-old Kyle Chase. Different from any other YA I have read, the second person narrative somehow worked. Second person is more likely found in advertising, text books and training manuals - "You do this" and "You do that". Somehow the use of second person blended with the dark, suspenseful atmosphere fit with this work of fiction. I felt like I was deep inside the head of an all too normal teen hurtling toward self-destruction. I felt his doubts and fears, his every emotion anc crisis became mine. And by the time I joined him in the unexpected end that is as bloody as the beginning, I, Like Kyle, could only wonder, when did it go wrong?

Surprisingly, nothing felt contrived or forced. This book hit me at a visceral level. Kyle was likeable even while being annoying (typical teen boy) and felt each of his triumphs and disappointments I rooted for him, which made the final pages gut-wrenching. That second person writing made me feel like Kyle's co-conspirator.

YOU is not a walk-away-feeling-happy kind of book. It will have you rethinking your own life and your own choices and the consequences those choices can bring. Following Kyle from the beginning to the unexpected and yet inevitable ending left me wondering just how free free-will really is.

If you like happy, light-spirited endings, this may not be your book. But readers of any age looking for suspense, and twists-and-turns, and peering deep inside a characters soul to uncover both the good and the bad, may find this book gives them that, and a lot more.

Final note - I did not understand the cover until after I read the book. Once I had finished the story it was easy to see that the cover was appropriate, but when I did not know the book the cover actually turned me away. This is another "don't judge a book by" type of cover.

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Overblessed

2011-01-23T13:40:00.000-06:00

It is possible to have too much of a good thing, including books. Earlier this month I returned from the American Library Association Midwinter conference in San Diego with boxes of books. I now have books on the sofa and in the kitchen, more books than I could read in a year while I still struggle to find time to write the sequel to PULL. Just as I congratulated myself on having no problem finding a book to review every week this year, another package of books arrived. Six books that I have to read in as many weeks as part of a commitment I made last year to judge in the 2011 RWA RITA® contest.

The, yesterday came the coup de grace. I attended the ALA Booklist & Book Links Editor's Review event sponsored by the The Center for Teaching through Children's Books. Twenty-five lucky attendees had yellow stars under their chairs. Wouldn't you know it, I found star #24 which entitled me to ... drumroll please - another ARC. I now have an autographed copy of Rotters by Daniel Kraus, a book about a boy who discovers his father is a grave robber.

Surely my cup runneth over.

I'd love to hear your comments about anything you've been overblessed with lately.

What I learned from querying

2011-01-20T16:21:00.000-06:00

Here’s the bad news: agents and editors are looking for reasons to reject your query. Not because they are bad people, far from it. I’ve met a number of agents and editors over the years. They are great people, personable, likeable, businesslike – and horribly overworked. Like any other business man or woman, their first loyalty has to be to their existing clients. They make deals, negotiate contracts, read requested manuscripts, forge relationships with editors and other agents…and then look through the huge haystack of queries and partials that arrive daily in the hope of finding a glowing needle. Most of it is unusable. They know that from experience. And the time they have to spend with the pile is limited. So yes, the truth is they look for reasons to reject quickly, because if this is not something they are going to want to represent, why spend a lot of time on it?

If that sounds cold, spend a few minutes imagining opening your email to see 300 new messages in your inbox each and every week. Even at a minute each that’s five hours of work. You too will want a way to work through the pile as quickly as possible. Hence you look for reasons to reject as soon as possible to give you time to devote to the one or two that show something you want to see more of.

When we send off that query, lets not give them any obvious reasons to reject.

Nothing addressed “To Whom It may Concern.”
No Historical novel sent to someone who only reps Paranormal (because no matter how good yours is, they have no way to fit that into their overfull agenda), or other genre mistakes
No typos, because if they see problems with the one-page query they will have difficulty trusting the quality of your manuscript.

And be sure you have a full manuscript ready. Agents hate spending time looking over a project and deciding it’s wonderful and then learning that it doesn’t really exist. The author who tells them to hold on and wait is the author soon forgotten about.

Book Review - Cyborg

2011-01-17T09:53:00.009-06:00

Confessions Of A Cyborg by Patricia C. McKissack

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although I have not read book 1 of this series I didn't need to to enjoy this fast-paced story. This MG/YA book quickly plunged me into an alternate future filled with fun characters and a suspenseful dilemma, all in about 100 pages.

The future includes human beings - Wholers, Cyborgs and Clones. Wholers are considered the only true human beings with no artificial parts. Cyborgs are former wholers who have three or more artificial parts like the hero sixteen-year-old Houston Ye turned into a cyborg after a childhood boating accident. They are also considered uncivilized and only 3/5 of a human being. Clones are considered the lowest form of humanity, and believed to be incapable of emotions, reasoning or abstract thinking. Thirteen-year-old clone Leanna Beberry is poised to prove them wrong. These two, along with their Whole friend, ten-year-old genius Carlos, and the AI spaceship RUBy, become the rallying point for clones, cyborgs and wholers who believe people are people.

This fast and easy read pays tribute to both Dr. Martin Luther King and the Dalai Lama as it examines prejudice and the quest for non-violent change and a chance for people to live in harmony. I was sucked in to the point where I almost wished I could get one of those cyborg "biofe" eyes and ears.

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YALSA Quick Picks For Reluctant Readers

2011-01-14T15:16:00.002-06:00

I am proud to be published by WestSide books, especially now, when books by two of my sister authors have been selected by YALSA for special honors.

Scars by Cheryl Rainfield (ISBN 978-1-934813-32-4) was named the #1 book on the 2011 Top Ten YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers! And Hope in Patience by Beth Fehlbaum (ISBN 978-1-934813-41-6) was also named to the full list of 2011 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers! Congratulations to both the authors and to my publisher, Evelyn Fazio.

Both of these books deal with the effects of sexual abuse on young girls.

My life as a romance writing contest judge

2011-01-12T14:41:00.000-06:00

I just read an interview of Lisa Cron, a story consultant and agent, in the January 2011 issue of The Writer. She recommends reading bad books, and I thought, why on Earth would anyone waste their time on that?

Then I read her reason. "Because you don't really know what your expectations are until they aren't being met."

I realized I agreed. As a writer, I need to understand my own expectations and those of my potential readers. In fact, that's a big reason why I judge in writing contests. I've been a contest judge since I first begn writing over three years ago. I judged in eight different contests in 2010, including the Golden Heart. I can truthfully say that ever time I judge I learn something, sometimes it's something I should be doing in my writing, mostly it's things I must be sure never to do.

When judging an entry, I read it for enjoyment first. Then I do a second read while asking myself what did and did not work, and why. I look for the impression left on me as a reader and don't go around with a checklist of the so-called rules of writing and grading like some accountant.

If the first page yanks me into the story, wonderful, even if they manage to do it with backstory.
There is no magic number about POV's or how often they change. If an author switches POV a dozen times in as many pages and it works for me, then it's good.
If he or she can make me feel the setting I don't care which senses they used or didn't use.
if a prolog fits and actually enhances the story instead of distracting or just being a history dump, that's excellent.

When a story is good, I am happy. I only worry about the rules of writing when I find problems and want to give feedback that could help the author improve. I know judging horror stories exist. Mine include being told by a judge that she would never let her child read my book (and if her child is young enough to need Mom to pick out his or her reading material I agree, they are too young for a book intended for YOUNG ADULTS).

If you have any horror stories that you would like to share, feel free to leave a comment.

Return from ALA

2011-01-10T18:31:00.001-06:00

Today's a big day for me. First, I've just escaped the warm, balmy land of San Diego, Ca following my book signing at the American Library Association (ALA) conference (where I met some really cool teen readers), and now I am back in the land of living cold, Chicago, where a storm is set to begin soon. What more could I ask for?

Second, I picked up dozens of new books there, trust librarians to get all the best stuff, so my reading and reviewing cup runneth over. Some real gems are coming out this year, especially in the YA book realm.

Third, I met a great bunch of teen readers at the conference, including one I'd swear was a dead ringer for PULL's heroine, Yolanda Dare. The conference was a major experience.

Members of Teens Read at the book signing for PULL

I finally had a person-to-person with PULL's Editor - Evelyn Fazio at the ALA

Last, but absolutely not least, I am guest blogging today at http://kyliegriffinromance.blogspot.com/ I hope you'll stop by, learn a little more about me and PULL and leave a comment. One lucky commenter will receive a $10 border's gift card on Friday, so if you stop by include a way I can reach you.

P. S. I did not forget to report on my challenge, but this week has been a blur - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. I did make it to the gym twice, and I spent a lot of time at the hotel hot tub trying to ease muscles sore from walking the exhibit floor at the ALA so that has to count for some exercise. But with both Friday and Monday being airplane days, I did not get to do everything I wanted. But I'll be back on track this week, and that's a promise to myself.

ALA Midwinter conference

2011-01-07T10:23:00.002-06:00

This Saturday, January 8, I have been invited to be a guest at the San Diego, CA chapter of Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I'm looking forward to making new friends among other Children's book writers.

On Sunday January 9 at 10:00 I will be at the ALA Midwinter conference, also in San Diego signing copies of PULL.If you are there, stop by the WestSide Books booth #2024 to get one autographed. I'd love to see you.

Boy Book Review - Yummy

2011-01-05T18:21:00.001-06:00

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my first foray into both reading a graphic novel and reviewing one. Although I grew up in Chicago and spent part of my childhood in Roseland, the neighborhood where this story occurred, seeing the title struck no bells at first. But the cover did what all good book covers should and made me look. Once inside the pages I found myself remembering the Chicago of 1994 and the neighborhood I both loved and was eager to escape. A picture really can speak a thousan words, and the powerful illustrations showed me the reason behind the popularity of graphic novels.

Even without the personal connection, this book is compelling. Yummy could be classified as creative non-fiction, with an invented classmate who narrates the last days of the real-life "southside shorty." Yummy's real name was Robert Sandifer, a killer...and a victim. The nickname came from the eleven-year-old's addition to candy. The fictitious narrator begins by showing his love for his family and pride in "Chi-town," even though Roseland is a virtual war zone. The pictures in this book show Rose-hell and a Yummy who is sometimes old-man hard and sometimes eleven-year-old sweet. When not eating candy and sleeping with his teddy bear, Yummy joins a gang, gets a gun, aims at an enemy gang member and kills a 14-year-old girl he once sang with in the church choir. Four days later police find his body. All this is history. In the book, the youthful narrator tries to uncover the events lthat made Yummy the contradiction that he was, and how he spent those last awful days.

A graphic novel is the perfect format to diplays this child's short, troubled life. We see the victim, the families, the neighborhood's grief, and the talking heads on TV news playing the blame game. We also feel the narrator's worries about his own older brother, a gang member and his struggle to understand what could have caused this tragedy.

Todays's youth may not feel the story in their guts the way this reader did, but I defy anyone to escape being enmeshed by the story of the boy who loved his teddy bear and the girl who wanted to be a hairdresser and the summer they both had to be buried. Thankfully the author understand the true virtue of Young Adult literature and privides a reason for hope at the end of the book, a light at the end of a very large, very dark tunnel.

Yummy is a page turner in every sense of the word, an easy read that makes the reader think.

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Not a Resolution - week 2

2011-01-03T15:46:00.022-06:00

Here's my first keep myself honest post. Since last Monday I have visited the gym every day except Thursday and Sunday. The real test comes this week, when all the resolution people crowd in and take up the parking spaces around the gym and the class slots. My weight - gulp - no change. I suppose it's too much to expect a dip after only one week, but still, I hoped for something.

I'm still writing, I've done thirty pages of edits in the last week, I'm determined to finish my next YA, tentatively called BAMF (I really need a new title, but the teens I've spoken to about it seem to love it as is - and so do I) The hero is Malik Kaplan, the really bad bad boy from PULL. I need to explain him and make him see the error of his ways. BTW - I woke up Sunday and realized something about my main character - his recently deceased older brother tried to kill him. That explains a lot about why Malik is the way he is.

Like I said, my continued writing and my trips to the gym are my challenges to myself, and have nothing to do with any all-too-breakable New Years resolutions.

How are you guys doing? Anyone want to share?

Writing contest

2011-01-01T06:00:00.084-06:00

Today I am going to shill for a contest. Don't worry, I won't be offended if you stop reading right now.

Still here? Good.

A few months ago I did what people always tell me not to do, I voluntered for something. Now I need to follow through. I am the 2011 contest coordinator for the 13th annual Chicago North RWA Fire and Ice romance writing contest. [13 - isn't that the unluckiest number?]

Anyway, starting today, January 1, 2011, and continuing until Feb 16, unpublished writers can submit up to the first twenty (20) pages of a romance manuscript to the F&I contest. Finalists will be announced in April and winners announced at the RWA National Convention in June. The F&I contest has six categories and the finalists (top three point getters in each category ) will be submitted directly to the Editor or Agent who has agreed to be the final judge and determine the winner.

So, as we say at Chicago North:

Does your novel light a FIRE in the reader’s heart?

Do the pages sizzle with enough heat to melt ICE?

Then take a look at what the 13th annual Chicago North Fire and Ice Contest has to offer you!!

If you think your story has what it takes, I'd love to see you as one of our contestants. All the information on submitting, eligibility and costs can be found at Chicago North RWA Fire and Ice contest webpage.

Just remember: The decisions of the judges are final.

Book Review - By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

2010-12-29T10:46:00.001-06:00

By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book about Daelyn Rice typifies all the victims in the jungle that is the American school. I felt for her, bled for her, and int he end stayed up until well after midnight to finish this book and find out what happens to her as the calendar winds down on the last 23 days of her life. She has failed at suicide numerous times in the past, this time she intends to succeed with the help pf a suicide website. The book takes us through the atrocities (and I don't use that word lightly) committed against her over the years for the sin of being overweight and carrying that invisible "victim" sign that bullies know so well.

I don't choose friends. Which works out great because they don't choose me.

Those are Daelyn's words. She sees no sign that life gets better and hates that the suicide website dictates that she must wait at least 23 days before she can kill herself. In the meantime she's out to sever all connections with the world. But even the act of resurrecting the horrible memories from her past forges bonds with this life. The website forces her to answer questions about herself, her life, and life after she is gone. A geeky neighbor in his own battle for life and the school's new fat-girl victim leave her asking questions of her own.

As the calendar approached her final days I could not put the book down. This is about the bullicide and the victims of bullies. How kids can be driven to believe there is nothing for them except a future of continued torment, why they believe friends and family will be happier once they are gone, and why platitudes do more harm than good. The big problem I had was her near clueless parents. Daelyn can't talk and her food has to be pureed before she can get it down a throat damaged by her last suicide attempt, and she has scars on her wrists from previous tries. Her parents have her own suicide watch and seeing a therapist. Still, they don't seem to have any clue of what her life has really been like. But they are so busy giving her space they never come close to seeing the trauma she dealing with. I can understand her thinking that its her survival that troubles them and once she's dead they will be content.

Needless to say I could not stop reading until that last page.

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Not a resolution - a challenge

2010-12-27T19:49:00.000-06:00

Last year I did a post on what I called the Weight Gaining Lifestyle that is the life of an author. I won't tell you how many pounds I've gained since then, but it is A LOT. So I have decided to issue a challenge to myself. It is NOT a New Year's Resolution, because those things are just doomed to failure. They are made to be broken, hence I ceased making them a few years back. No, this is not a resolution, it's a challenge. I'm going to (gulp) post my weight and my exercise quotient. Since I've already started (remember, its not an N. Y. R.), here are my numbers from last week (OK, I only started Sunday, but Christmas Eve and Christmas were busy).

Anyway my starting stats.

Weight - 250 pounds. Please don't all laugh at once.
Exercise - an hour on the treadmill (slow speed, but still, it's the thought that counts) another hour on the exercise bike, and fifteen minutes on upper body weights. Then the lovely steam room and sauna.
Oh, and I started out the day by shoveling my driveway, that counts too.

I'll keep these posts going. And any and all words of encouragement or suggestions are welcome.

May 2011 be my thinner year.

Better Than Cable

2010-12-21T15:47:00.000-06:00

There is strong language in PULL, it is not rated G or PG. I understand that there are concerns about the use of this book in some classrooms and I was asked for my feedback when I visited a classroom recently.

First, no kid who doesn't use curse words will start because he reads this book. Pull will not send any kid out for his or her first drink or talk them into engaging in sexual activities for the first time. Movies, cable TV and video games, not to mention peers and parental example, are the powers in those areas.

But many kids who suffer from self-esteem issues may find themselves on the pages. Kids who have lost someone they loved may find their pain is not unique and that help exists. Kids and adults suffering from the effects of domestic violence will get a glimpse of what that can lead to and decide to seek help and change their future. And everyone can get a really good story and see how people who appear different are really very much like themselves.

Yes, the protagonist is an angry seventeen-year-old male and his vocabulary reflects that. But as one student told me during a recent school visit, "it wouldn't feel real without that."

I recently spoke with a Middle School Librarian and I was ready to tell her not to put PULL on her shelves for fear of 6th grade readers. She's the one who pushed back. Her argument, "If all we have are books safe for 6th graders, what will the 8th graders read?" If PULL can be a valuable asset to 8th graders, it is even more valuable to high schools.

Booklist called PULL a "Good discussion book," and so it is. The teacher's guide being put together covers items related to a number of curriculum areas.

My final comment comes from an 8th grade boy in New Jersey, a young man described by his teacher as a reluctant reader. When given a copy of PULL as his reading assignment he actually asked for more time to keep reading. Then, he not only told his teacher the book was "better than cable" he asked for another one like it. If I were the parent or teacher of a reluctant reader, I would fight form any book that could inspire a kid that much.

Point of View

2010-12-18T14:23:00.044-06:00

I have been seeing a lot of chatter on various writing loops lately about Point of View and picking the right one for a scene. Unfortunatly a lot of the chatter involves criticizing contest judges and editors who just don't understand that just because a writer changes POVs inside a chapter or scene it isn't head-hopping because they left blank lines on the page to signal the change.

Huh?

As a reader, blank lines don't keep me from feeling jerked around when I am taken from one POV to another, not for my benefit, but to make things easy for an author to explain something to me. And all too often it's something I am intelligent enough to have figured out for myself if the author had SHOWN me rather than decided to TELL me.

Editors don't care how many times you change POV, as long as it is for the reader's benefit. Neither do I, whether I am reading a book or judging a contest entry, if the transition is smooth and enhances my reading experience I may not even notice it. If I do notice, it's usually because the change hurt my relationship with the story.

As a reader I get involved with the POV character. I care about him or her and their goal, and the inner and outer conflicts they deal with during the scene. Especially their Inner Conflict. So I want to stay with t hem until the scene ends, I don't want to be yanked away or pulled away or even blank-lined away into another character before that happens.

I know there are techniques like cutting where the reader is deliberatly yanked around to increase the level of suspense. And I know there are authors like Sherillyn Kenyon who are often sited as examples of why POV changes should be allowed. And the intimacy scenes where moving between the hero and heroine is almost a requirement. But those are special cases. (Yes, I love Sherillyn's work and use her as my own personal text book, analyzing her to figure out how she makes it work when so many other authors, myself included, can't. And I do see her as another of those special cases)

I would like to ask why writers (usually beginning writers) think they need to change POV inside a scene. A scene is a unit of conflict, best told from the POV of the character that has the most emotional conflict and not ending until that character's conflict is resolved (either things are made better or worse - and I admit I like it when they end up worse off than ever) At that point, a switch to anothe POV, often done in the sequel to the scene to set up the next scene, doesn't damage my reading experience.

For this reader, give me one POV until the conflict is the scene comes to a head. Let me stay with the character I care about and I'll finish the book and run out to search for your next one.

Book Review - Jazz In Love

2010-12-17T19:30:00.001-06:00

Jazz in Love by Neesha Meminger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Loved this view into a world the same as, yet very different from, the one I grew up in. Jazz's parents launch a Guided Dating Program for her once she is seen hugging an unknown boy. It happens to be her neighbor and friend from childhood, but she fears her parents are so old-word (India) and caste-bound that she can't tell them it was him and meant nothing.

Or did it?

She especially can't tell them about her relationship with Tyler, the new uberhunk in school, who calls her Baby J and leaves her trembling when he smiles. Not even the fear that her parents will send her to live in India can keep her from sneaking out to date him.

Inevitably her lies catch up with her. But not before she reunites her aunt-the victim of an abusive ex-husband-with a lost love on television and gets in major trouble for her effort, gains a boyfriend of the right family and caste that her parents think is perfect, loses him when he comes out as gay (but Indians can't be gay), uncovers Tyler's shameful secrets and discovers that maybe love isn't really what she thinks it is, and that the boy next door might mean more to her than she first realized. If this sounds complicated it is, and the author admirably pulls all the threads together. My one regretis that I wanted to see more of some of the supporting cast, including the aunt and her daughter and Tyler who turns out to be more than just the 2-dimensional player he seems to be in the beginning. No, he's not right for Jazz, but I wish he had done more than just fade away from the pages as the book drew to a close. At least her parents aren't exactly the dragons she paints them and she learns some important lessons about herself, her family and the value of the truth. As for love...she still has plenty of time for that. After she's done that India thing.
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My day in jail

2010-12-13T14:04:00.000-06:00

I went to jail last week.

Unlike most people who enter those walls, I arrived as a visitor and had an escort to the multi-purpose room where I was to be a speaker. But I still had to pass through gates past tall fences with rolls of barbed wire at the top, pass through the metal detector, answer questions and leave my personal belongings behind in a locker. There was no way to even imagine I was anywhere but in a secure facility, namely the Illinois Youth Center (IYC) in Joliet, part of the state's department of juvenile justice. The facility houses young males, most between the ages of 15 and 21.

Students shuffled into the room, one cell block at a time in an orderly fashion, required, because their guards kept them single-filed and properly spaced out. I faced a room of disinterested faces, from vacant to scowling, silent young men staring at walls, floor or maybe inner memories. And then I read the first chapter of PULL. No, they didn't suddenly sit up straight and clap, or morph into a typical high school assembly. But they listened. Heads busy contemplating the floor or counting ceiling tiles moved to focus on me as I explained my writing process and told them the story of how I came to write a book about a teenaged male like themselves, for teenaged males like themselves. Once the first question was asked—admittedly by a teacher—many began raising their hands to speak.

I heard the typical questions.

• Could I publish one of their stories? No, I had to explain my own relationship with my publisher.

• Was PULL a true story? It’s a compilation of real episodes that have happened to many different people. All the things that happen to David did not happen to any one boy I know, but nothing in the book has not happened to someone.

• How much does a writer make? I reluctantly admitted that if you count all the hours spent writing, editing and revising, not to mention promoting, it amounts to sub-minimum wage. At least no one laughed when I explained it had all been a labor of love.

Mostly the young men in the audience wanted me to read more. Like children hungry for a little more of a new bedtime story, they listened as I read about the teen bad-boy. I wonder if he became a hero in their eyes after they heard a scene about him and his many girlfriends. They also listened to the scene where the hero fights him to defend one of the girls.

I donated an autographed copy to the school library and the guys were claiming dibs before they were dismissed. The principal and I wanted to get copies for the boys. Unfortunately they can’t have hardcover books in their cells for a variety of security reasons. Since there are no plans for a paperback edition until the far future, I am left with no way to meet the needs of the kinds of young people I wrote this book for.

I don’t regret going to Joliet. I just regret not being able to do more.

Later this week I will visit another school. The kids there may be just as receptive as their counterparts in the IYC. If so, they at least will be free to get copies of the book. But that won’t lessen my regret for what I can't do for the boys in Joliet.

Book Review - Huntress

2010-12-10T19:11:00.001-06:00

Huntress by Malinda Lo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was at the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association)conference in November and was NOT one of the pucky people to obtain a pre-release copy of Huntress there although I heard the author speak and lusted after on. Two weeks later I went to the NCTE (National Cozuncil of Teachers of English) and snarfed up a copy the second I saw it available. I like books that are outside th normal fare. Huntress is not only different from Ash, it is different from any other paranormal or fantasy. It is only loosly a prequel to Ash, they are both set in the same universe where fairies and other creatures co-exist with humans in a not to easy alliance. Several hundred years seperate the two books, and the relationship between the species is different, but you lose nothing by reading them in either order, there is no true connection.

BTW, I enjoyed Huntress even more than Ash. This book took me to a world where the fate of humanity rests on the shoulders of two extraordinary teenaged girls, one in training to be mystic, the second a huntress. Although they had been in school together, neithe had paid much attention to each other until they find themselves on a quest to answer the call of the Fairy Queen and try to overcome the mysterious blight that is devistating the human world. And in the course of this quest, the two girls fall in love.

Theirs is not a world where being a lesbian is considered a fate worse than death or cause for being ostricized. In one scene the king's son who accompanies them on their quest to find the Fairy Queen, asks the huntress if he will need to fight her for the love of the female guard traveling with them. The big issue between the huntress and her family is not that she is a lesbian, but that her father has already set up a politically advantagous marriage for her, just as he did her brother. Her mother explains that politically advantagous marriages involving two women are rare, and she will just have to obey her father. So she jumps at the idea of this quest to keep her away from her father and the unknown future husband he has chosen for her, at least for a time. The mystic has another problem. If she is to fulfill her destiny she desperatly wants she must remain celibate. But she also wants a future with the huntress she now loves. She has a vision of something terrible happening to the Huntress, and, as one member of the party after another dies or is injured she fears she will lose the girl she loves.

This sets up the final conflict between the two. Huntress doesn't have the traditional happily ever after ending, but once the ending arrived I realized it was inevitable. There was nothing else the author could have done and retained the integrity of the world she created. And that is the mark of an excellent storyteller, that she gives the ending a reader can accept as the RIGHT way to end the book.

I truly want to see more of this world and hope there will be more books coming.

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First Sale blog

2010-12-03T12:39:00.002-06:00

This weekend I'm guest blogging with Barbara White Daille, about my first sale. Come over and check things out. One lucky commenter will get an autographed copy of PULL!!

Rejections

2010-11-20T17:29:00.000-06:00

Agents and editors are not our writing coaches. They’re not there to teach us how to fix mistakes we should have learned in craft classes and writing groups.

If our manuscript is close, if it’s getting there but still needs work, that’s our issue, not theirs. Hence the form rejection. Any kind of personalized rejection means they see something of value in the work and they want to encourage us to keep on writing. Congratulate your self on each of those efforts, because some agent or editor thought you were good enough to deserve the extra time in their already overfull schedule for that little encouragement. The form rejection takes a few seconds. That note meant they spent long minutes composing a note specific to you and your effort. Read it, treasure it, print it out and frame it. And then get back to writing more things. Because, unless they specifically ask to see a revised version, they don’t want you to send that piece back to them. So don’t antagonize someone who likes your work by by handing them the same piece they already rejected after a few unasked for revisions.

Boy Book Review - all the broken pieces

2010-11-15T18:17:00.000-06:00

All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The story of 7th grader Matt Pin is told in verse, a format I usually dislike (I'm not a poem person). But this book, one of many I learned about at the YALSA conference on diversity, gripped me from page one and never let me down. The tight writing enabled me to feel what the boy struggles through. Matt and his Vietnamese mother were abandoned by his American soldier father before he was born. At the age of ten he was airlifted out of Viet Nam and adopted by an American family, leaving his mother and crippled half-brother behind. Three years after being adopted by an American family he's dealing with enemies in school, a beloved coach facing cancer, a new baby brother who might take his adopted family's love away, and injured Vietnam veterans who force him to confront his feelings about the past. Now his family has their own child, and he's left worrying about his future. Will there still be a place for the boy who looks different from everyone else, the boy who cannot forget his past?

This book brought back the Viet Nam era in a way no other book I have ever read did for me. The wounded vets help Matt understand that his mother had to have loved him to give him away. His adopted father deals with guilt over his medical school deferrment. And a schoolmate who hates Matt because "my brother died over there because of you," helps Matt overcome his own guilt over the accident that crippled the brother he had to leave behind.

This is more than a book for middle school and more than just a boy book. Young people and adults of all ages will be pulled into this world and time that many of us tried to forget, and that Matt cannot forget. In the end I know it's not IF Matt heads back to Vietnam to find his mother and brother, its WHEN.

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Return from YALSA

2010-11-12T12:48:00.000-06:00

I came back from the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) conference earlier this week. Rest assured, I'll blog about that event soon. But today I want to talk about what happened when I left.

The conference ended Sunday at noon with a great keynote address from Ellen Hopkins and Lauren Myracle, two often banned YA authors who spoke on their experiences to the appreciative audience of librarians. I stayed in Albuquerque until Monday for a little sightseeing and then took a 10:00 shuttle to the airport. My 1:00 flight left me with almost three hours to kill, so I approached the snaking security line without concern. No worries, not even when I realized I was about to have my first full-body scan.

I'd like to tell you I got zapped and felt the radiation surge through my body. No such luck. It was an anti-climactic experience - step on the mark, hold your hands over your head, big whoop. I passed.

My suitcase didn't.

With threat level orange, the man eyeing the x-ray machine saw something he didn't like inside my bag, so I needed to unpack for things with a TSA monitor. And that's where things got to be fun. Bet you never thought you'd hear anyone say TSA and fun at the same time, but the lady was a joy for this little introvert to talk to.

She chatted about the number of books in my suitcase - librarian's symposium = lots of free books to bring home which was probably most of the problem. As we spoke she picked up one of my two remaining ARCs of PULL (every other ARC had been distributed to conference-goers). I told her she was holding the book I had written.

Suddenly I was a celebrity. She even called her nephew and fellow TSA employee over to introduce him to her author friend. I gave her some of the promotional chachkas I've learned to carry with me at all times as we continued unloading my suitcase. (Seriously, I even carry a supply when I go to the bathroom because you never know.) She gushed, talking telling her librarian friends that she knew an author, and her church group and her book club and...and a voice inside my head said, "Just give her an ARC."

Sometimes you just have to listen to those voices.

She swore to read it and pass it on, promised to email me and we even discussed the possibility of an invite to town to visit her book club, too. By the way, my bag passed it's second scan, and she helped me repack before picking up the book and promotional literature like it was made of spun gold and heading to her locker to put them safely away.

Ohmigod, I think I have another fan.

See the Pull Book Trailer on YouTube.