mary e. pearson

Our own sarazarr kicks off a new series of interviews over at Bitch Magazine. Check it out!

Cara Haycak's new novel, Living on Impulse comes out tomorrow and I had the opportunity to interview her over at the YA Authors Cafe.  Stop by and say hi to Cara.   Also, check out a review of Living on Impulse over at A Chair, A Fireplace, & A Tea Cozy.

Libba Bray has a trailer for Going Bovine that will make you snort coffee out your nose.  You have been warned.

And speaking of fun trailers, kmessner has a cool one that asks the question, which tree are you? to celebrate her forthcoming The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z.

Jen Robinson has information about the Kidlitosphere Conference for book bloggers and why, if you are a book blogger, this is THE conference to go to.

And finally coming to a town near you is the Smart Chicks Kick It tour with a gaggle of YA authors.  I will be at least one of the stops but I don't know which ones yet.  More info soon.  Check it out and weigh in with your choice for a city!

Oh, and really, who cares if Michelle Obama is wearing shorts?  It is summer for crying out loud.

Now, back to work . . .

I haven't had much of a chance to walk around blog town lately, so it was kind of cool to discover:

Pimp My Novel - This is a blog written by someone who works in  the sales department of a major trade book publisher.  He gives you the inside scoop on all the mysterious workings of sales, bookstores, and lingo you never heard of before.  Skipped?  Let me just say, it ain't a happy-go-lucky kind of thing to do when it comes to books.

There is an ongoing and interesting discussion over at Chasing Ray about ethnicity in literature, and the blandness or homogenization of white culture in books.  Still mulling over that one.

Brenda Bowen posted a blog about her first day  wearing her hat as an agent.  She also posted a picture of a totally girly fun frilly hat that I SO wanted to try on, and it made me wish that fun flashy hats would make a comeback for the everyday person like me (my mom used to wear them!) or that someone would invite me somewhere where I could actually wear one.  My baseball cap, sigh, just doesn't seem to cut it after seeing that.  Come on, someone have a hat party.

An interesting discussion of ARCS at A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy.  I've visited several book clubs this past year, where guests show up with ARCS they ordered on Amazon and they had no idea when they were purchasing them that they  were not the finished books.  I think when you are in the book world you assume that everyone knows what an ARC is, but the vast majority of people do not. 

An interview with Alex Flinn about her new book A Kiss in Time is over at the YA Authors Cafe.  I love the cover.  There is something mesmerizing about all that emerald green satin.

Kelly Herold has a new blog, Crossover, about books that cross age boundaries, in particular YA books that appeal to adults and adult books that appeal to teens. 

Over at d_michiko_f she has an interview with Jeanine Garsee and a chance to win a free signed copy of Jeanine's new book, Say the Word.  Get on over there!

Even as we speak,  Jeannie Stith is recording the audiobook for Brilliance Audio for The Miles Between.  I had the chance to hear a voice clip and she sounds like the perfect Destiny.  I can't wait to hear it.  Wish I was a mouse in the studio.

oh!  And the "wallpaper" I mentioned yesterday.  Wish I could include the tropical breeze too.

Thank you all for the cheers and comments on my new cover yesterday. Glad you think it is "trippy." Me too. And in this case, that has the perfect double meaning.

Now, around blog town . . . .

Over at the Readergirlz blog learn about Operation Teen Book Drop which is coming in April!

Also TOMORROW NIGHT, March 19th, at 6pm Pacific time/9ET . . .  I am chatting on their blog!  A live chat!  Please come!  They are testing out a new software so it might be a little crazy, but that's okay, because we're all a little crazy, too, right?  So pleeeeze come by and chat or ask a question!  Any question!  Or I will ask YOU one!

The brilliant Sara Zarr has an equally brilliant post that must be read.

Melissa Wyatt is very generously setting something free!   (Hint: her new book!  I got a sneak peek and trust me, it is fabulous! Go try and grab it.)

See you tomorrow night!

A few places in Blog Town I've visited lately.  Check them out:

Kimberly Willis Holt's A Pen and a Nest  blog is a fun one.  Her dream bed has me, well, dreaming.

Bunny Eat Bunny is the new name for Brenda Bowen's blog.  As she says, they're "changing things up a little."

Aussie YA Alliance is a cool blog to catch up on books down under.

And of course I have to mention Kidlitosphere Central, an ambitious new blog of children's and teen lit bloggers.  A great resource from some bloggers you are probably already familiar with.

And I have been dabbling with Facebook and Twitter for a while now trying to figure them out,  which I haven't but what the heck.  Stop by and say hi.  And now that Facebook has reverted to their old TOS I will probably be feeding my blog to it. 

Off to scratch out a few more words . . .  (Literally.  I swear I delete more than I write.  It is sheer magic that a book gets written.)

My Australian publisher, Allen and Unwin has a new blog, Alien Onion.  Fun conversation going on over there about words and their sounds.  Bucolic.  Now does that sound serene?  I don't think so.  I think it would be a better word to describe the hacking, coughing sound my uncle used to make.

Over at Mother Reader she has 105 gifts to pair with books which I thought was a cool idea--and helpful one.  Rolls of duct tape to go with a duct tape art book.  How fun is that?  She paired The Adoration of Jenna Fox with a Starbucks card.  She even said she would share her card with me. I am so there.  Order up my latte.  Let's drink and talk! But it got me to thinking of other pairings of YA books too.  Impossible by Nancy Werlin with a CD of Scarborough Fair.  Or Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins with a MacDonalds certificate (all those ketchup packets, ya know?)  Or Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith with a certificate to your favorite trendy restaurant.  Or Storky by DL Garfinkle with a game of Scrabble.  Or . . . I could go on and on!  This is kind of fun.  What else?

slayground just posted about the end of year celebrations for Readergrlz. I am totally amazed at what these writers have accomplished for books and literacy in such a short amount of time.  Hurray for them!

And speaking of amazing . . . To celebrate her third blogoversary, Jen Robinson has posted a collection of favorite posts from the blogosphere from various bloggers over the past year.  Happy Anniversary, Jen!