Wednesday, March 19, 2014

NoVa Teen festival, Gilded Winner and other news...

Hi everyone! Sorry for being out of the loop for awhile. I caught a terrible cold that apparently didn't want to leave me. Ever cough so bad you bruise your ribs? Yeah, this is not fun. It hurt so much that it even hurt to eat! I find that unforgivable! But in any case, I'm on the mend and can actually focus on things like writing a blog post - which takes more brain power than I have had these days!

All right, first things first! The winner of my Gilded contest is Patrice Caldwell! Congrats Patrice!

Secondly, wanted to post up some pics of my fabulous time at NoVa Teen Festival.
The day before the festival, Jessica Spotswood, Lamar Giles and I had an event at a local high school. It was a lot of fun, plus I got to hang out with Jess (who is always wonderful to be with) and meet Lamar in person for the first time! Lamar and I have the same brilliant editor, Phoebe Yeh, for our first books, and we've been talking online for years now! Lamar is just as great in person as he is online! Plus, don't miss his new fantastic book Fake ID!!

Lamar and I got to be on the first panel of the festival (about Identity) with Sarah Guillory, Diana Peterfruend and Meg Medina. This was a fantastic panel and we had a great discussion and I would love to do this again real soon!

I have to take a moment to say that meeting Meg Medina was like meeting a long lost friend! Meg is the winner of the 2014 Pura Belpré Award for her excellent book Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass! I have wanted to read this book for a long time and I now have a signed copy to cherish for myself! Meg is also a huge supporter of diversity and so like minds started rocketing through all the things we should, could, and would do to keep diversity on everybody's minds.

 
 Next up was my Breakout Panel with my dear friend Marie Lu, who I adore and who you all know I'm a big big fan of! There's something very comforting about having a discussion with someone you really love and admire a lot. It makes for a great and stimulating discussion. Plus, it helps when you have a huge crowd of eager fans (mostly Marie's) with lots of smart questions.

And then it was time for the signing!
Here I am with Lamar, Sarah and Meg at the signing part of the day! I was grateful and so appreciative of everyone who came and bought Prophecy and/or Warrior! It was exciting to have such a great turnout! In fact, I underestimated and didn't bring enough SWAG, which I was sorry about, but what a great problem to have!
 

 I met some really lovely teen readers who were super sweet and smart and I just wanted to hug them all!

I got to see another teen reader who, btw, is going to be a big author one day in the near future! She's got the drive, the determination and some amazing story ideas! I got a good feeling about her.

Ok, last picture and an important one! Because this is with Danielle Ellison who is not only an author and an editor (for Spencer Hill Press) and a bookseller and YA event coordinator, wow, right?, but she came up with the whole NoVa Teen festival idea! Along with Nico Piro, Arlington YA librarian extraordinare, and Lelia Nebeker, YA book buyer at One More Page, these 3 amazing women put together one of the best events I've ever attended. I have so much respect for them. Even Marie Lu, who has been too many many events, couldn't get over how great the festival was for a first time event! There were tons of teens and authors and volunteers and books!! So to Danielle, Nico and Lelia, and all the wonderful volunteers that helped make Nova Teen festival happen, thank you very much. It was truly a splendid event.

I think there was one more thing I was supposed to blog about but my cold medicine has worn off and my brain has turned to goo. So here's me signing out for now!

Saturday, March 1, 2014

GILDED By Christina Farley


So my very dear friend, Christy Farley, has just released her debut book GILDED and I seriously couldn't be more excited!!! I love love love this book! Because it is set in Korea and has a Korean MC!!! Here's the summary:

When sixteen-year old, Jae Hwa, is uprooted from her home in L.A. to Korea, she thought her biggest problem would be fitting in with her classmates and dealing with her dismissive grandfather. But she was wrong. A Korean demi-god, Haemosu, has been stealing the soul of the oldest daughter of each generation in her family for centuries. And she’s next.
Jae trains with a Korean master, confident her taekwondo will be enough to fight Haemosu. But she’s wrong again. Desperate, Jae delves into the ancient arts of metamorphism and uses her growing power in the Spirit World.
And then there’s Marc. Irresistible, charming, and mysterious, Marc threatens to break the barriers around Jae’s heart. But Marc has a secret of his own. One that could help destroy Haemosu. As Jae grows closer to him, she must decide if she can trust him and whether putting his life in jeopardy is worth the risk.
Jae thought she knew all the answers. It turns out that she’s been wrong about a lot of things: her grandfather is her greatest ally, even the tough girl can fall in love, and Korea might just be the home she’s always been looking for.
I've been  so happy and excited about Gilded and now that it is out, I want everyone to go read it. So I'm doing a giveaway for a copy of Gilded!!! All you have to do is tweet or tumble back to me or leave a comment on the blog! The giveaway will be open for one week!!!


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