The Stork Brought Shamelessness!

Our first announcement has nothing to do with publishing.  Kate Milford has a new debut, only it's not a book.  She has a new addition to the family, not the bookshelf.  She welcomed Griffin Walter Milford to the family on June 13th.  Yay!  A new (potential) Inkie!!!

We have another launch, of the more tradition book variety.  P.J. Hoover's SOLSTICE hit shelves this month, and she has a blow out party to celebrate!  Man, I wish I could have been there.

And in just five short weeks, we have another Inkie book launch: Dawn Metcalf's INDELIBLE!  For now, we have this amazing trailer:

In celebration, Dawn is running a battery of contests including a giveaway of an annotated, cartoon illustrated copy of Indelible arc to celebrate the book trailer launch, a Show Me Your Ink contest for temp tattoos and downloadbale surprise, and Win A Shiny Copy of Indelible contest.  Not enough?  Well, there's also a Goodreads Giveaway going on via Harlequin Teen.

In addition to all the wonderful Inkie books out there, we've had another just announced! From Publisher's Marketplace:

Martina Boone¹s Southern gothic trilogy‹with a dash of magic‹following Barrie, a teen sent to live with her dead mother¹s twin on a decaying plantation where she discovers a centuries-old feud and dark secrets that require making peace with the local spirits, who may not be as welcoming as the sunlit boy who steals Barrie's heart, to Annette Pollert at Simon Pulse in a pre-empt by Kent Wolf at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin (World).

YAY MARTINA!!! To celebrate, she's got her Friday Giveaway over at Adventures in YA & Children's Publishing, so be sure to check it out!

No joke, we've got a metric ton of book cover reveals today!  Let's start with Leah Cypess's DEATHSWORN!

RIGHT?  HOW AWESOME IS THAT?????

And if her awesome new cover isn't enough, her Nightspell prequel e-novella, BURIED ABOVE GROUND will be published on July 2 by HarperImpulse, selling for $1.99 on all platforms.''

Here's the summary from the publisher:

"In the kingdom of Ghostland, every murdered soul comes back as a ghost, and every ghost has only one desire—vengeance. Emilie had everything she’d ever wanted—beautiful dresses, a perfectly decorated room, a party every night, and the eye of a nobleman. But then she’s killed. And now she’ll stop at nothing to find out who did it. No one in the palace of Ghostland is above suspicion—not even the people closest to her. This haunting fantasy novella is filled with supernatural thrills and surprising plot twists.

HarperTeen Impulse is a digital imprint focused on young adult short stories and novellas, with new releases the first Tuesday of each month.

And we have YET ANOTHER cover reveal!  It's for THE SHADOW THRONE, the third book in Jennifer Nielsen's acclaimed Ascendance series, on sale March 1, 2014!

Speaking of the Ascendance series, THE FALSE PRINCE, Book 1in the series, is a finalist for YALSA's Teen Top Ten List. Voting will take place this fall.  Also, James Patterson lists THE FALSE PRINCE as one of his summer reading recommendations for Barnes & Noble.  How cool is that?

Adding to the list of "things that are cool," Nancy Holder also has a new story out in the world, this time in THE LIVING DEAD anthology from Orbit, UK.

Here's how she described her story to me:

Zombie gets crucified during the Oberammergau Passion Play. God is displeased. Black Plague ensues.

Must read. Must read now.

Phew, I think that's it!  What a wacky week of wondefulness, yes?  Yes.

Shameless Oopsie!!!

I think I totally forgot to post last week.  My brain is...old.  :)

Portlandians and Horror fans! Our very own Nancy Holder will be one of the Guests of Honor at the 2014 World Horror Convention in Portland, Oregon, May 8-11.  Make your travel arrangements now!

Dawn Metcalf's INDELIBLE is available for pre-order.  You should probably just order it now. You know you want to.

We have some fabulous award and reading list news this week, starting with Leah Cypess, whose short story "Nanny's Day" (Asimov's 3/12) was nominated for a Nebula Award.  HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

Not to be outdone, THE FALSE PRINCE by Jennifer A. Nielsen has made yet another awards list, this time earning the 2012 Cybil Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy!

Speaking of short lists, Kate Milford's THE BROKEN LANDS is on the Locus Recommended Reading List in company that makes me want to pass out cold. Way to go, Kate!!

In foreign rights news, P. J. Hoover's The Forgotten Worlds trilogy has sold in Hungary!!! THE EMERALD TABLET, THE NAVEL OF THE WORLD, and THE NECROPOLIS, sold to Fonix by Lex Copyright Office, on behalf of Taryn Fagerness Agency and Laura Rennert of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Oh yeah.  I had a cover reveal.  HA! TOTALLY FORGOT THAT ONE!!!!  Here's the cover for 3:59, my sci fi parallel universe dopperganger horror novel due out September 17th from Balzer + Bray.  :)

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD SHAMELESSNESS!!!

We're starting out with ridiculously exciting news!!!  This year's winner of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature is...

WILLIAM ALEXANDER 

for 

GOBLIN SECRETS!

Plus there's an amazing interview with Will in Publisher's Weekly.  We pretty much couldn't be more excited.  You should have seen the email chain that went through the Inkies group.  It was epic.

But that's not all the news we have today. The new YA edition of Lena Goldfinch's fantasy novella, THE LANGUAGE OF SOULS, is now available as an ebook (print forthcoming). And yes, there's a cover reveal!!!

Nancy Holder has accepted a position as writer in residence at Odyssey, a six-week intensive science fiction and fantasy workshop held at St. Anselm college in New Hampshire. The workshop runs from June 10-July 19, 2013.

She will also serve on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program at their campus in Dingle, Ireland, in July of 2013. For those of you who haven't been, the Dingle Peninsula is one of the most beautiful places in the world.  So yes, I'm ridiculously jealous.

Hilari Bell's first four novels have been re-released as ebooks! You can look for SONGS OF POWER, NAVOHAR, A MATTER OF PROFIT and THE WIZARD TEST, wherever ebooks are sold. And if you check out her Facebook page, you can get a Smashwords coupon to get any one of those books free.

And that's it!

"It."  WILL WON THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD!!!!  *flails*

:)

Two & Twenty Dark Tales: An Interview with Georgia McBride

Two and Twenty Dark Tales is a YA anthology of Mother Goose retellings edited by Georgia McBride and Michelle Zink, and published by McBride's own Month9Books. Some of the stories read like secret histories, as though the familiar nursery rhymes are eroded fragments of something much older and darker. Some play with the actual history of the rhyme; Nancy Holder's "The Lion and the Unicorn" offers new and sinister explanations for the witchy obsessions of King James. Other stories shift the rhymes into contemporary settings and entirely new layers of meaning; Gretchen McNeil's "Tick, Tock" has cell phones, pop culture references, and imperiled babysitters.

The Inkpot: Last year the critic Meghan Cox Gurdon complained of "Darkness Too Visible" in the Wall Street Journal. Notable responses to that pearl-clutching editorial include Maureen Johnson's in The Guardian and Sherman Alexie's in the WSJ. Can you recap for us how Two and Twenty Dark Tales came out of that controversy?

Georgia McBride: I have always thought fairy tales and lullabies were dark, especially Mother Goose Rhymes. When I was asked to respond to the article, I talked about how dark Disney stories are, and yet, parents don't seem to mind dark cartoons or fairy tales so long as there is a happy ending. I listed themes like death, servitude, blackmail, starvation, imprisonment, abduction, poisoning, murder and more in these stories. I began to think then that we had it all wrong, that YA hasn't become dark. That lullabies sung sweetly can soothe and relax us, but just beneath many of them is a hint of something... dark. We grow up with these stories as the foundation for our imagination. YA literature is the natural extension of this dark foundation. And that is how my idea to do dark retellings of Mother Goose rhymes came about.

Define darkness. What is a "dark retelling"?

GM: I asked my writers to take the rhymes they were most fond of and imagine the darkest motivations behind them. Why is Wee Willie Winkie running through the town in his pajamas in the middle of the night? Why would Humpty Dumpty, so frail a being, climb so high atop a wall? And why would Jill push Jack down the hill? We all know that is what REALLY happened.

Talk about the importance of unhappy endings. 

GM: Painting happy endings to tragic and worrisome stories does not always allow for the reader to calm the unsettling feeling of some stories--because the reader knows it isn't authentic. Some stories are supposed to end badly. Some stories are supposed to be told at night, with all the lights on, or around the campfire. Some stories are meant to be dark.

The protagonist in Leah Cypess' "Clockwork" learns courage from years of living as a mouse, and she faces down a predatory witch because she's used to that kind of fear by now. She draws power from her mousey powerlessness. What other sorts of power are explored in these tales? What sorts of power do you want your readers to notice and take away with them? 

GM: That is one of my favorite stories from the anthology. It sends a powerful message indeed. There are themes of powerlessness throughout the anthology, but it is that feeling that often forces the characters to act. Sometimes the acts are heroic and courageous and, at other times, in the case of Humpty Dumpty, readers will be left in tears. Other important themes in the anthology are love, loss, fear, and, of course, magic! Wouldn't we all love to have a bit of magic?

What's your own earliest memory of Mother Goose rhymes? Which rhymes have continued to haunt you into adulthood and parenthood?

GM: My parents always sang Mother Goose Rhymes to us like “Ring Around the Roses,” and read rhymes such as Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty. I continue to be haunted by questions surrounding Jack and Jill's possible sibling rivalry and the troublesome Humpty Dumpty. It sparked me to tell Humpty's story in poem format in the anthology. Every time I think about poor Humpty, it brings me to tears.

This unique collaboration’s proceeds (from the first 5,000 copies sold) will be donated to YALitChat.org, an organization that fosters the advancement, reading, writing and acceptance of young adult literature worldwide.  

Day Late and a Dollar Shameless

I apologize.

Last week, I completely forgot the Shameless Saturday post.  This week, I'm a day late.  Ugh.  My brain is leaking like a sieve these days!

But it's okay.  I'm here.  Now.  And I've got some awesome news to share!!!

Starting off with books that are new on the shelves, the amazing Nancy Holder has a new book in stores. VANQUISHED, the third book in her YA dark fantasy Crusade series, is on sale now!

I love that we get to do cover releases here on the Inkpot and Amy Butler Greenfield is thrilled to finally be able to share the cover for CHANTRESS (McElderry, May 2013). Seriously, people, this cover is freaking GORGEOUS! Cannot wait to get my hands on it!!!

We've got two three set of Inkie appearances coming up.  Laura McCaffrey will be joining Tanya Lee Stone, Sarah Aronson, and Laurie Halse Anderson as faculty for the Children's Writing Intensive at Stone Spirit Farm, offered through The Learning Collaborative of Bethany, CT, on Oct 18-22, 2012.

Bay Area residents, be sure to check out the SF in SF reading with Malinda Lo and Cindy Pon next Saturday, September 15 at 7pm at The Variety Preview Room 582 Market Street at Montgomery (1st Floor of the Hobart Building). Malinda will ready from her latest YA Sci Fi Thriller ADAPTATION and Cindy will read from SILVER PHOENIX and FURY OF THE PHOENIX. Signing following.

I'll also be in SF, in my first official signing for TEN, at Books Inc. Opera Plaza Friday, September 21st at 7pm.  I'll be joining by Michelle Gagnon (DON'T TURN AROUND) and Jessica Shirvington (ENTICE.)  The next day, Saturday, September 22nd, I'll be on a contemporary YA panel at the Sonoma Book Festival with Corrine Jackson (IF I LIE) and Dana Einhardt (THE SUMMER I LEARNED TO FLY) and 11:30am.  Then on Sunday, September 23rd I have my Los Angeles launch event for TEN at 2:30pm at Mysterious Galaxy, Redondo Beach.  Yeah, I'm a slacker.  :D

You can check out these and all my fall appearances on my blog.

Grace Lin is back with a new book.  Her October release STARRY RIVER OF THE SKY has gotten not one, not two but three starred reviews! Check them out on her blog.

In foreign rights news, Korean rights have sold for Jennifer Nielsen's THE FALSE PRINCE, making it the eighth language licensed. THE FALSE PRINCE was also named as one of the Best Books of 2012 on both the Middle Grade and the Young Adult lists at TheBestBooksOf.com.

And last, er, I always get embarrassed talking about my own news.  But I'm finally able to share the book trailer for TEN (Balzer + Bray, September 18.)  Warning: it's creepy.

See? I WARNED YOU!!!!

In addition, I just launched my guerrilla street team The Army of Ten, where you can sign up and win some amazing prizes, including books, swag and a meet and greet with me!  :)

Rolling with the Shamlessness

One of the things I love most about being the official Enchanted Inkpot Ambassador of Shamelessness (I feel like I need a badge or something...) is that I get to bring you news like this:

The cover for my friend and fellow Inkie Ellen Oh's debut PROPHESY.

Not only that, but I get to bring you the two FANTASTIC blurbs!

"What an adventure! I fell in love with the lush, richly woven world of PROPHECY. Kira is truly a force to be reckoned with. When I finished my journey with her, all I wanted was more. Spectacular!" - Marie Lu, author of the LEGEND trilogy

"Filled with ancient lore, political intrigue, non-stop action, and a fiercely determined heroine, PROPHECY is a rich and thrilling read—my favorite kind of book!" - Robin LaFevers, author of GRAVE MERCY

I love my job.

Meanwhile, Nancy Holder has a whole flurry of news this week. First, she sold Bulgarian rights to POSSESSIONS, her YA horror series.  Next, she sold the short story "Love and "War" to THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF ER ROMANCE.  And then she'll be the keynote banquet speaker at Slayage 5: Conference on the Whedonverses, July 12-15 in Vancouver, Canada.

Yeah.  She's boring like that.  ;)

In review news, early reviews are coming in for Grace Lin's STARRY RIVER OF THE SKY, with Fuse8 rounding the bend in first.  Spoiler: they loved it.

And lastly, my newest horror title TEN has been included in the Junior Library Guild book club for fall.  WOO HOO!

Okee.  That's all for this week!

Pour on the Shamelessness

You know, us Inkies get around.  Last weekend, we descended about New York City for BEA 2012, with signings, meet and greets and cocktail parties galore.  I had an amazing turn out for my signing of TEN, and Grace Lin's upcoming middle grade novel STARRY RIVER OF THE SKY was part of the middle grade buzz panel!  Which is pretty rad.

Next week?  It's Anaheim's turn for ALA 2012!

Cindy Pon has both a panel AND a signing at ALA.  The Not Another Boring Vampire Romance: Going Beyond the Norm in YA Paranormal Fiction will be led by the fabulous librarian, Angei Manfredi where Cindy will be joined by Kendare Blake, Jackson Pearce and Kenneth Oppel.
Saturday, June 23, 8-10am in the Anaheim Convention Center, Room 209B.

Then from 12.30-1.30pm, Cindy will be signing along with Tahereh Mafi at the HarperCollin’s Booth 2558. Cindy will be signing BOTH Silver Phoenix paperbacks as well as Fury of the Phoenix hardcovers.

Nancy Holder is also signing at ALA: 1:00 – 2:00 PM, in the Simon & Schuster (Booth #2600-2601).  And don't forget Robin LaFevers,1pm Saturday at the Houghton Mifflin Booth!

I'll be at ALA as well, roaming around the convention floor Saturday June 23rd.  No signings for me (boo hoo) however, I will be doing a special TEN giveaway.  BUT YOU HAVE TO FIND ME AT ALA TO WIN!  Details coming on my blog next week.

We've got a huge cover reveal coming up next week.  Ellen Oh's PROPHECY reveal will be hosted by the YA Book Central on Monday, June 18th at noon EST.  Don't miss it!

A couple of weeks again, we announced that William Alexander got an amazing blurb from Ursula Le Guin for his upcoming release GOBLIN SECRETS, and now Ursula herself is blogging about the book.  Yes, that scream your heard just now?  Inkie fan girl/boy screams from around the country.

Speaking of blurbs, Miriam Forster has two to share for her upcoming debut CITY OF A THOUSAND DOLLS:

"A truly unique treasure, Forster's debut is storytelling at its best. With a chilling mystery, a forbidden romance, and delightful characters I fell in love with, I wanted to spend more time in the City of a Thousand Dolls." —Elana Johnson, author of Possession

"With fantastic world building and a wonderful heroine, City of a Thousand Dolls intrigued me from the first page. Forster took me on a fascinating journey full of twists and turns--I can't wait for the sequel!" --Cindy Pon, author of Silver Phoenix

Lastly, Lisa Gail Green has two short stories out in the new anthology JOURNEYS OF WONDER on sale only at Amazon.com now! $.99 or free through the Amazon Prime lending library.

Shameless Celebration!

YAY!  Lots of news this week.  I love weeks like this.  :)

Starting out with a bang, Lena Coakley's WITCHLANDERS is a SCBWI Crystal Kite Award winner!  Chosen by SCBWI members, this is like being voted prom queen by your peers!  Such a huge honor.

We have another book with honors this week: Dawn Metcalf's LUMINOUS was picked as a Top 40 Pick for the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association.  What an awesome line up of books!!!

In foreign rights news, Nancy Holder sold Polish rights to WICKED, the NYT bestselling YA series she writes with Debbie Viguie. Copies of WICKED: WITCH, the first novel in the series, arrived on Friday.

In blurbage news (hee), William Alexander landed an amazing blurb for GOBLIN SECRETS from none other than Ursula K. Le Guin!

"It was hard to stop reading Goblin Secrets, and I didn't want the book to end! The author's imagination is both huge and original, taking us to a truly new place, rich with lively, vivid scenes, fascinating people, and marvelous inventions. He doesn't explain things, yet everything is clear. And he tells his fast-paced story in language that's a pleasure in itself -- subtle, tricky, funny, beautiful. More, please, Will Alexander!"

And perhaps most excitingly of all this week, long time Inkie P.J. Hoover has not one, but TWO book deals to announce!

P.J. Hoover's SOLSTICE, about a near-future global heating crisis and a Texas teen who uncovers the strange untold ending of the Persephone myth, only to find that she is part of the story -- and that her choices in love, in family, and in friendship will determine the destiny of her world, to Susan Chang at Tor Children's, for publication in Spring 2013, by Laura Rennert and Lara Perkins at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (NA).

P.J. Hoover's TUT, in which a young immortal King Tut, who has been stuck in middle school for over 3,000 years, must defeat an ancient enemy with the help of a dorky kid from school, a mysterious Egyptian princess, and a one-eyed cat, to Susan Chang at Tor Children's, for publication in Winter/Spring 2014, by Laura Rennert and Lara Perkins at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (NA).

Excuse me while I squee all over myself.  :D

Hmm.  There's something else.  Something I'm forgetting...  Oh yes, winners in the Tu Book drawing!  I gots them:

Natalie Aguirre
Julia@ThatHapaChick

Congratulations!

The Shameless Side of the Moon

It's just barely still Saturday here on the west coast, so I feel justified in slipping this Shameless Saturday post in under the wire!  And it's a good thing I did because we're got some awesome stuff this week!

Whenever I have news, I usually save it for the end of the post.  But this time, I'm being all...um...shameless and putting it first.  Why?  Well (a) it's pretty awesome and (b) it involves our very own Nancy Holder.  Because I've got two shiny new blurbs for TEN!

Also, they're FREAKING AMAZING.

"Gretchen McNeil's TEN is my new number one! I jumped at every creaking floorboard in my house and on the page. This is sure to be a teen thriller classic!" (Nancy Holder, Bram Stoker Award winning author of THE SCREAMING SEASON)

"TEN is a real page turner! Gretchen McNeil knows how to plot a thriller: Her setup is flawless and the suspense kept me on the edge of my seat." (Christopher Pike, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the THIRST series and REMEMBER ME)

I know, right?

And on the heels of these blurbs, I found out TEN will be published in Spain by Maeva. It was an awesome week!!!!

Speaking of Nancy Holder,participated in one of the thirty events held in thirty days about Edgar Allan Poe. Together with an acting team from Read Out Loud, she talked about Poe and his connection to horror. She and the team also passed out copies of Poe books for World Book Night. Also, Blonde Ambition, a hardback collection that includes stories from her Domino Lady comic books, went on sale. The cover is pretty awesometastic.

Nancy's not the only one with a new book out. Sybil Nelson's fifth Priscilla the Great book is out May 1st. That's next week!!!!  WOO HOO!!!!

Plus, Lena Coakley's paperback of WITCHLANDERS will be out this fall and Scholastic has licensed it for their fall book club.

And last but not least, Kate Milford's Kickstarter campaign we mentioned two weeks ago?  Yeah, it got a massive write up in Publisher's Weekly.  Go, Kate! Go!

That's it. "It."  Hahaha.  So much good news this week!  *dances*

Congratulations Nancy Holder!

In a special edition of Shameless Saturday, we at the Inkpot have a huge announcement to make!

Our very own Nancy Holder has won the Bram Stoker Award for THE SCREAMING SEASON.  It's her fifth Stoker, her first win in the YA category, and we're just guessing Nancy won't stop until she's got a dozen of these babies laying around the house.

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Faux Fantasy! (For all our April Fools)

Ah, April. Such a wonderful month, time for spring flowers...and tricks, pranks, and jokes of all kinds. In honor of April Fool's day, I urged the intrepid authors of The Enchanted Inkpot to tickle our funny bones. And I have to tell you, they're a pretty funny bunch. I'm still smiling. :)

Check out these (faux, tongue-firmly-in-cheek) fantasy books, coming soon to a bookstore near you!! Or maybe not. Perhaps they'll appear in another realm entirely, one full of magical, lightning-fast printing presses and wizardly editorial types with ink-stained fingertips. Whatever. I'm sure these are all destined to become instant classics.

"A story about a girl wizard who infiltrates a school for vampires, only to find out that only one student gets to graduate alive. It's a combination of Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Hunger Games! Plus, if there is any new huge success between now and this book's publication, I'll figure out a way to work that in too."
Leah Cypess

“Plucky youngsters create small golems out of belly button lint. They wear fuzzy sweaters all the time to generate enough lint, and develop powers of static electricity as a result. But their powers are tested when an army of bullying booger-golems attacks the school. Buffy meets Captain Underpants!”
William Alexander

"CSI meets Pretty Little Liars meets Disney when Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel and Cinderella go on a girls’ weekend and one of them is murdered. Luckily, our protagonist, a mind reading detective is also staying at the resort, and she must solve the crime, before she's next!"
Erin Cashman

"Mary Sue discovers she is the Chosen One and must attend the Chosen One Academy with five thousand other Chosen Ones. When she and she alone discovers that all the Chosen Ones must battle to the death to really become the actual super-chosen Chosen One, she meets her one true love and together they embark on a fascinating journey of the heart."
Nancy Holder

“A troupe of princesses are on their way to a ball when a portal opens beneath the carriages and drags the hapless damsels into a post-apocalyptic world where their Prince Charmings never had their Happy Endings and all the kingdoms fell under a corporate merger. Now the princesses have been sorted into districts run by KingdomCorp and find themselves the unlucky contestants in a beauty pageant to the death; the winner will have massive merchandising rights on all the products in the pink-colored toy aisles and the chance to choose her own Prince Charming on the reality TV show, 'Princess Bridal.' Who will win the ultimate challenge or will the princesses overthrow KingdomCorp to change their pasts and their world's future?”
Dawn Metcalf

“Sam Alex Price has always felt out of place in her high school, where everyone is conventionally attractive and mostly just downloads songs you hear all the time on the radio anyway. Sam Alex, on the other hand, has to suffer from an acutely cool musical sense (punk rock + Flamenco), while her radiant emerald eyes, fiery hair, and gorgeous birthmarks in the shape of Celtic dragon-rune tattoos for some reason make her the last girl anyone would ever take to the prom. And why does her nervous mother always insist on keeping a juniper branch (sprinkled with Holy Water) above the front door? All is explained when the most gorgeous dark-eyed dude shows up in pre-calc: Blade is a demon-angel-vampire hybrid, who just needs to assassinate Sam to get the equivalent, in demon-angel-vampire circles, of his GED. Sam's secret identity as a Nephilim-Seelie-warriorgirl-with-slight-phoenix-tendencies is betrayed when a swarm of demons kidnaps Sam's mother (see?! She was RIGHT to be nervous!), leaving a portal open to the magic library where Sam's mother's all-revealing diary has been mis-shelved all these years. Fortunately, Sam, due to her Flamenco training, turns out to have serious battle skills and to be very good with a dagger. Blade is impressed. The assassination is delayed. Kissing is involved.”
Anne Nesbet

"An orphanage, overcrowded with kids destined by prophecy to perform heroic deeds, becomes the headquarters of a fierce resistance. The orphan's mission - to rid the world of fantasy novels that kill off parents and bind kids to futures full of scary things and near-death experiences. Will their dastardly plot to kill of all fantasy writers succeed, or are they doomed to fail, to live out their own preordained destinies? And just how do they plan to squelch all that uncomfortable inner angst and romance brewing under the surface? One orphan holds the key, but that orphan, Goober Tickletrunk, lowliest of them all and guardian of the keyring, won't reveal its location!"
Pippa Bayliss

"Kafka meets Celebrity Apprentice when young Sam's mother breaks it to him that his father was a cockroach. Threatened by nuclear extinction, humanity must learn survival skills from the roaches. Sam undertakes a perilous journey through the silverware drawer to find Trump, a wise old cockroach who runs a school for half-roaches and holds the key to his species' longevity. Hair gel becomes a factor. And antennae. Also (apologies to Anne) kissing."
Ellen Booraem

Too funny!! Thanks, everyone!

If you have a faux fantasy pitch, please feel free to share it in the comments section. :-)

Lena Goldfinch is the author of The Language of Souls, a short-but-sweet tale that will "appeal to teens who enjoy fantasy with a side of sigh-worthy romance". She lives in New England with her husband (born on April Fool's Day--happy birthday, hon!!), two teens, and a very spoiled black lab. You can visit her online at www.lenagoldfinch.com.

Far-Reaching Shamlessness

There's a lot of exciting news this week.  Um, I even have some for a change.  But more on that later...

New on shelves this week, Ellen Booraem's SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS is out in paperback, with a slightly modified cover. (But still with sparkles!). Official pub date was Feb 16. If you haven't gotten a chance to read this fantastic fairy novel, GET ON IT!

We're lucky here in the Inkpot to have some amazingly talented authors, and we always love it when one of them earns the recognition they deserve.  Grace Lin is just one example.  Her award-winning middle grade fantasy WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON is #26 on Scholastic Parent and Child Magazine's "100 Greatest Books for Kids."  She's in amazing company, too.  SO COOL!!!!

Grace isn't the only Inkie getting recognition. Nancy Holder's horror novel THE SCREAMING SEASON, is a Bram Stoker Award nominee. Winners will be announced at the World Horror Convention. How awesome is that??? Meanwhile, she sold a piece to ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: FIGHT BACK!, the second in a trilogy of mosaic novels about a zombie pandemic, edited by Stephen Jones.

And not to be outdone, William Alexander's GOBLIN SECRETS received a starred review from Kirkus this week:

Alexander’s world, blending steampunk and witchy magic, is impressively convincing and evocative in its oddities. Though highly textured, it’s tightly woven and reassuringly seamless.

The result is wryly humorous and bearably yet excitingly menacing: Even while much is left unexplained, Rownie’s triumph is both gripping and tantalizing.

Steampunk goblins? WIN!


I have a review to share as well! POSSESS got a fabulous review in the School Library Journal's March issue, that called it a "fantastic YA debut":

This tale of possession, duplicity, angels, and demons is set in foggy San Francisco and is a wonderful addition to the field of paranormal romance. It's also a mystery and a tale of teenage outcasts and bullies, and loss of a parent. While some of the story is predictable, the humor and occasional twists will keep fans of the genre hooked and wanting to finish this book in one sitting.

*dances*

Which leads to the last piece of shamelessness for this week...

I was finally able to reveal my cover for TEN this week! To celebrate, there's a huge contest going on at Me, My Shelf and I - an online scavenger hunt for ten clues (see what I did there???) and the grand prize is a signed, annotated copy of the unbound galley of TEN!

Are you ready for the cover?

And yes, I totally freaking LOVE it!  :)