Borders (the bookshop) has a Facebook page for teens and teen-books called Borders Ink. It’s has lots of updates and links about all things YA-book-related. You will (of course) need to be a member of Facebook to read it.
Borders also has a blog devoted to science fiction, and it’s really rather good. Read it here, sci-fi fans! They also have some YA booklists; even one called Banned Books You’ve Gotta Read, many of which we have at the library (I’ll add it to our fantastic booklists at some stage).
Further to this post, and this one, here are some more author blogs that might interest you:
Meg’s Diary. Meg Cabot’s blog (after crashing my IE, for which she is basically forgiven) is updated regularly. She sticks incidental-life photos up, plus she includes some YouTube clips she’s done that are amusing and enlightening.
This is My Secret (Kristin Cashore). The author of Graceling and the soon-to-be-published Fire keeps her readers up to date about her life as a writer. She’s also included some advice on writing and publishing recently. Her blog’s got a Margaret Mahy quote, which is a good start.
Cassandra Clare’s Blog. Oh my. Being a fan fiction person it’s hardly surprising that Cassandra Clare is so Web 2.0 savvy. Her blog’s a cornucopia of information, competitions, prizes, chapters of upcoming books, clips of upcoming books, photos of people who are in love with Jace wearing tshirts and much more. She is now promoting her new trilogy (Infernal Devices) rather heavily, so if you want to know about that then visit her blog.
Do you Tweet? If you’re a Twitter user then you could follow some of these (from Mashable plus a couple of extras):
@stephenfry. Ever since he got stuck in a lift (but probably before then) Stephen Fry’s been one of the most popular people on Twitter.
@doctorow. Cory Doctorow wrote Little Brother.
@megcabot. Meg Cabot, who is rather attached to her cat, tweets very regularly, so you’ll get a very good idea about what she’s up to.
@sarahdessen. Sarah Dessen keeps people up to date when she’s out and about. Makes you feel like she’s your friend.
@sockington. Sockington isn’t an author but a cat, but his tweets are an excellent example of good writing in 140 characters or less.
Plus there’s heaps more. But note the following from Stephenie Meyer’s website (dated 4 June 2009): “I do not have a facebook page, and I have never had one. I don’t do twitter. So if you’re communicating with someone online that you think is me, it’s not.” So there you go.
If you read loads of websites and blogs that update regularly (like this one), and you think, “gosh, if only all these sites’ contents could be stuck onto one handy page,” then consider using an RSS reader. Rather than opening many websites at once, an RSS reader grabs the newest content from them for you. So handy!
There are several RSS readers available. If you’ve a Google account then Google Reader is good and reliable. Bloglines is another of the more well-known ones.
(RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which sounds simple but probably is quite complex.)
Anyway, the Teen Blog’s RSS feed is here.
We’ve got a blog running for New Zealand Music Month here. Check out the reviews, the music news, and get info on the events we’ve got happening. Take a look!
ps: If you’re interested in music don’t forget the NZMM events at the Central Library – there’s ‘Dr’ Lee Prebble on the 26th of May and The Phoenix Foundation on the 28th (find out more).
5.06 – and the winners were… Team AXD! Well done! (Sorry, we’ve been too busy trying to tally scores!) We’ll be sticking up some more photos next week. Second place went to The Bananaramas. We’re going to check out now and go clean up.
3:37 - If you’ll notice this next video only took 20 minutes to edit and upload. I like technology again. This is from the compulsory stop.
More later.
- Jack
Last year I did a post about authors who blog (regularly). I’ve dredged up some more, which are rather enlightening (to varying degrees).
John Green, author of Paper Towns, published last year (which we quite liked), writes in a chirpy, humorous, self-deprecating fashion, and even reads comments and comments on them.
Megan McCafferty of Sloppy Firsts fame, has an interesting take on blogging. She’s called hers a (retro)blog, and she includes writing assignments and essays she produced in school (going back to the 1980s). You’ll also find articles she’s written on the Twilight saga, containing a hint that Marcus Flutie (from Sloppy Firsts, not Twilight) is based on a real person (or persons).
Susan Beth Pfeffer, author of the horribly harrowing (really, really) stories about what happens to the earth when the moon is knocked out of orbit by an asteroid (The Dead and the Gone, and Life As We Knew It).
Brent Hartinger updates his regularly (the key to keeping a good blog, that).
Robin McKinley, author of Beauty and Sunshine (for those vampire fans). I love what she’s called her blog.
Ysabeau S Wilce, author of two of the coolest-titled books ever. Her website is pretty flash, too.
William Kostakis, who kindly responded to our questions last year.
And for those Bear Grylls fans, keep up with what the Bear is up to: http://beargrylls.blogspot.com/
Incidentally, the wonderful Neil Gaiman is going to win the 2008 Weblog Best Literature Blog Award, unless people start voting for Samuel Pepys (actually, I find Samuel rather dull).
If you’re a blogger and an aspiring author then this article might interest you. Lim May Zhee is a Malaysian teenager whose popular blog has been instrumental in her publishing two novels (her blog is here - warning: it’s rather pink). Not bad for a 17 year old.
We were thinking if she can do it, then so can you! All you need is some talent, perserverance and a willingness to spend a large amount of time at your computer (remembering ergonomics and the importance of micropauses (and other things like NCEA we suppose)).
If you’re a blogger leave a comment about your blog so we can check it out.
Don’t forget – we’re still looking for guest contributors for the Teen Blog. You can review books, CDs, films or games; or write about anything related to local teens and the library. Email us at teenblog@wcl.govt.nz if you’re interested. We’ve already been joined by Zach – the more the merrier.
Post Part One:
It had to happen: novels in email form are so last year. Something to Blog About* by Shana Norris is about Libby Fawcett, who starts a secret blog to vent her frustrations after her life gets complicated and annoying and embarrassing. Libby’s blog entries are interspersed with her first-person narration throughout the book, so you get two perspectives from the same person. See what you think.
Post Part Two:
And on the subject of blogging and writing… do you like writing? Are you interested in being a guest contributor on the teen blog? If you’re keen to have a go at writing about book, library, internet-related topics then email us at teenblog@wcl.govt.nz to begin discussions.
* I’m guessing the title is inspired by the country song ‘Something to Talk About’ by Bonnie Raitt.
So you kind of like this author, right, and you want to, you know, get to know them a bit better…
Some writers have surprisingly good websites and blogs (and some have sites with flashy buttons and bright colours from the nineties…), and reading them can give you a good insight into their writing and what they’re up to and all that.
Here are some good examples:
Stephenie Meyer’s site has got lots of info (if you can see past the Arial font) and a countdown to the publication of Breaking Dawn (65 days, 9 hours, 27 minutes and 7 seconds when I last checked).
You can buy Scott Westerfeld-ish T-shirts from scottwesterfeld.com. Plus he calls his blog Westerblog, which I kind of like… and the header image is great.
E. Lockhart (who wrote The Boyfriend List and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks) has a blog that she updates daily, and sticks photos on. It’s quite chatty and, well, blog-like.
Neil Gaiman’s blog is great. He is a very clever man, plus there’s a link to a teaser for the Coraline movie, which is out some time soon.
Robert Muchamore (CHERUB Campus)- there’s a helicopter that flies across the top of the header. Cool. Also, join CHERUB and you also get monthly newletters and… missions!
I tried to look at Darren Shan’s site, but got a message about bandwidth. I’m sure that means it’s really flash (no pun intended).
And finally there’s *another* countdown at alagaesia.com… Christopher Paolini’s counting the days until Brisingr (3 months, 22 days, 9 hours and 48 seconds, I saw).
There you are.
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