http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NathanBransford/~3/Tl3bmdLehgE/whats-in-name-all-about-pen-names.html

Aside from fiddling with fonts, contemplating acknowledgments sections, and/or finding the perfect quote to precede the start of the book, dreaming up pen names is a favored procrastination tool for many aspiring authors out there. As a result, I receive a whole lot of questions about them: should I include my pen name in the query? Do I need a pen name? Can I use "Dan Brown" as a pen name? What about "Stephanie Mayers?" See what I did there?

This post will hopefully answer all these questions.

But before we get to the pros and cons of pen names, whether you do or don't decide to use a pen name is something that can and should be figured out on down the line in consultation with your (future) agent. When I receive your query I don't want it to be from your pseudonym. I want to know who I'm really going to be working with. Even for authors who have established pen names: I want to hear from the real you (though of course mention your writing name).

If you're considering using a pen name or have a pen name: mention it if you feel it's really necessary and just put (w/a Mr. Pen Name) below your real name.

Now. As for whether you should or should not use a pen name, again, this is something that should be contemplated with your agent. Circumstances are inevitably different for every author, so generalizing will not capture all the ins and outs.

But here are some rough pros and cons:

Pro Pen Name:
- In this day and age of Google Searches, if your name is John or Jane Smith or something very common, a pen name can help you with SEO. What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization. If someone Googles "Jane Smith," the author Jane Smith with the book out might be on page 47. Jane Jingleheimerschmidt, on the other hand, will probably be closer to the top. (Up until Google I never appreciated having a weird last name. Hooray for Bransford!)
- You want to avoid the attention of certain foreign governments to avoid complicating future travel. (Honest!)
- Your previous books didn't sell as well as you had hoped and you/your publisher want to have a fresh start.
- Your publisher or agent feels your book might do better if the author's name soundedmore male/female/gender neutral to appeal to either a male/female demographic (let the professionals decide this one, don't overthink it)
- You want to avoid complications at work

Con Pen Name:
- You're defaming people and want cover. Not gonna fly in this day and age: The Internet will figure you out. And defaming people, even in novels, is extremely risky and costly business. Also it's illegal.
- It's not easy. Many authors find it extremely annoying to have a pen name in the Internet age. In the past you just had to learn to answer to your pen name at readings and in interviews and otherwise you could go about your business. In the day and age of the Internet and Twitter and Facebook, constantly being another person gets exhausting, what with switching between e-mail accounts and remembering your alternate persona's likes and dislikes, etc. etc.
- With a fake name it's more difficult to utilize your personal real life network to help sell a book. Regular non-book type people out there find pen names pretty confusing and difficult to remember.
- You just like the other name better.

In general I would recommend against using a pen name unless there's a really good reason for it. In other words: don't use one just to use one.

But if you really really need one:
- First check to see if the Internet domain is available. It will make your life much, much easier to have the FirstnameLastname.com domain.
- Don't try and mimic another successful author. Be yourself.
- Many people find it helpful to stick with your first name at least so you don't have to remember answer to a new name or accidentally call yourself your actual name.
- Make sure it's memorable. If you're going to get a new name, make it a good one!

This is from a totally serious advisory given by an employer to employees - tips on how to deal with being held hostage:

"Manage Your Personal Environment.
To the extent possible, treat the space in which you are confined like a home:
• Consider personalizing it by rearranging things as much as you can.
• Designate specific places for your various activities.
• Keep the place clean.
• Add to the furnishings. If possible, display photos of the family, which you may have in your wallet.
• Ask for things you need, without appearing to demand anything, but do not expect all promises to be kept.
• Where possible, avoid eye contact, which tends to be provoking and emotionally arousing. However, when being directly spoken to, the hostage should look at the captor, as this tends to establish rapport. Care should be exercised not to stare at or look down upon captors, as this tends to cause the captors to feel threatened."

I'm not exactly sure what kind of job these folks had - all I know is I wouldn't want it!

I've been a fan of Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus since The Nanny Diaries was published, so I was thrilled to learn they were taking on the Young Adult Fiction world with The Real Real (available in paperback December 22/HarperCollins)!

Jesse O'Rourke is selected to be one of the stars of "The Real Hampton Beach," a reality show that promises to offer viewers a glimpse into "the lives of real New York high school seniors dealing with the real world and real issues." Becoming a reality television star isn't exactly something she wants to do, but the $40,000 tuition check isn't something she can turn down. Especially when she's got her mind set on Georgetown.

Soon she finds herself pretending her co-stars, who happen to be five of the most popular kids from her school, are her best friends. Worse, XTV is now in control of her life, setting up situations and manipulating people for ratings. Jesse is hanging out with people she'd never hang out with in places she ordinarily wouldn't spend her time.

But filming the show is only the beginning of the craziness. Once the show airs, things spiral out of control. Some people love Jesse, creating fansites and gushing about her on message boards. Other people hate her, screaming nasty things at her as they drive by her house and leaving nasty messages on her voicemail.

The only consolation is that Drew--the boy she's crushing on--is also in the cast, but the producers even find a way to mess that up by creating tabloid-like headlines about Jesse's private life.

All the fame and designer clothes in the world cannot make up for losing privacy and control over her life, missing her best friend Caitlyn, and dealing with her shocked and confused parents. It's not long before Jesse decides to take matters into her own hands, get her life back on track, and reconnect with the people who really matter.

I found this book to be more entertaining than any of the "reality" shows that are on television now. The Real Real offered an interesting perspective on the behind-the-scenes antics of television networks and producers while dishing up juicy details about product placement, secondhand designer clothes, and filming locations.

I hope a sequel is in the works!

♥ ♥ ♥

Friday Night: Just like courtneywrites predicted there was a long line of cabs waiting for me at JFK. Since I have mad street skillz I ignored the plain-clothed car drivers who were calling me over.
Got in the legit yellow taxi. Alternately texting jonnyskov and Laurel who were traveling on two separate no-internet busses from DC area toward The Best City in the Whole World about our plans and Courtney (a NY'er in LA for the weekend) the cab driver chatted with me the whole way. He suggested I have four kids instead of two. I said, "How many do you have?" He's like, "One." I'm like, "Dude. Try and convince me once you've caught up."
He was also the first cab driver to score a Sea bookmark. But sadly not the last. ;)

So our purple, retro, fish-tank in bar hotel was righteous. I'd tell you its secret location, but I don't want word to leak out. Proof below:


George Washington/Beethoven bust lamp, retro JFK art, and moi. Blue cowboy boots asked to sit on the left of GW, and yes, I'm wearing my *perfect* winter coat (both weather-proof and warm.)

That's me and Laurel Pilar my #1 entourage gal going on 15 years now. And yes, that's a purple couch.

Like good tourists we headed straight for Times Square.

Goal: Finding Food. Heading on to restaurant row in the crisp holiday air, we were lured into one of the first joints we saw.

Awesome old Italian guy: Ladies, ladies, come! This has the Best Italian food in ALL of New York!
Me: Really? Is it really the best Italian food in ALL of New York?
A.O.I.G.: Of course!

I was convinced. (I'm easily convinced by phrases like The Best _______ Ever)
Snarfing down "the best gnocci in ALL of New York (it was good), I got a bit wiggly and elbowed an entire basket of bread onto the floor (not so good). They forgave me, fortunately. As we thanked the owner on the way out he pulled me into a grizzly hug---the kind of thing that would have been disturbing if any other stranger would have done it, but with him it was perfectly suiting.
(I'd give you its secret location, but you'll know it when you see it.)

Off we went to Rock center and the Christmas Tree. You've all seen it. Big. Green. Bright lights? That's the one.
We were swept up in the NYC scene. Singing NYPD guy. Dozen drunk Santa's. Children bundled up in mittens and floppy-ear hats. Blasting Christmas music, spinning ice skaters, flecks of snow beginning to fall. (Okay, the last bit didn't happen. YET.)
Next, we hoofed it to NBC studios where we talked to the most awesome security guard EVER who suggested, if we wanted to get tix to the SNL taping that we, "Hang out at de bar all night and get in da line in the mornin'."
Joked around with him for about 20 minutes reveling in the outgoing NYC holiday revery. A group of kids in sleeping bags were already waiting outside in line--planning on spending the night outside to get tickets. It was tempting and I probably could have been convinced but we both innately knew we must get some sleep.
Somehow predicting the next "day" would be about 36 hours of pure, unadulterated NYC magic.

I'm writing this on the plane listening to ColdPlay on my headphones. Virgin American is pretty much the Best Airline and The Scientist pretty much The Best I'm-So-Sad-to-Leave-NYC- Song Ever.

Does the cabin look like Space Mountain or what?

Stay tuned for part 3 where we have writers! carriage rides! candle lighting! Blondie records! and yes, Jude-freaking-Law.

So I was just at a VERY important part of my book. Joe comes in and asks, "Do you have time to help me go through these shoes in the laundry room."

I said, "No, I'm writing."

He said, "Fine, I'll pitch them all."

WT? I told him the next time he's at work and I'm cleaning out a closet I'm gonna call him and say, "Drop everything and come home and help me. If you don't, I'm going to throw all your crap away."

He was like, "I was just kidding."

No he wasn't. He was being a smart aleck.

Now, the moment's gone. POOF. Just blown away. I can't very well put myself back into that horribly sad and delicate scene when I'm so pissed.

I would like very much to be able to punch something right now!

I want to get back to blogging regularly - I have missed this community tremendously! So, even though I have nothing to say, here I am. Basically, I'm going to use the time I would have used to post to catch up on all of my LJ friends' blogs. (If I don't comment, I apologize, but I'm reading!) :)

I admit, I haven't been reading LJ for awhile now, so if you're so inclined, tell me the funniest or best thing that's happened to you this past week!

As promised over HERE, I'm posting one more Chapter of RADIANT SHADOWS.

WHY?

Call it an early Solstice present (bc gods know I tend to prefer giving presents early) or proof of my impatience OR use it as a way to enter to win an early copy of the book :) Details on the contest(s) follow the excerpt.

In March, Harper will do the Browse Inside thing, where you can read prob 4 more chapters. In April (prob the 20th in the US, Canada, UK, AUS/NZ, & anywhere Eng lang books are exported) you can read the whole thing. In Oct/Nov, it'll release in Italy. For now, here's the second chapter.

NOTE: Pls note, my lovelies, that this is pre-copyedit (ie what it looks like in the ARC, before a proofreader points out places I may've missed a word!)


Chapter 2
( Read more... )

TO ENTER THE CONTEST to WIN ADVANCED READER COPY:

1. Read (Prologue, Ch 1, Ch 2, & the flap copy).

2. Make RS teaser/trailer video--deadline for entering is Dec 18th (voting day).

3. Upload to YouTube with THIS text: "This video is part of a contest for http://www.rathandruins.com , to win an ARC of Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr. To see the other videos in the contest, check out the Rath and Ruins YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/RathandRuins#p/f If youve already seen the others and think mine is the best, vote for me! Comment vote to have your vote tallied but remember you can only vote for one video."

4. Email your URL to Rath Admin
contests@rathandruins.com

5. OPTIONAL: Lobby for votes

6. BONUS: IF you want to post them AFTER Dec 18, I will also send 6 winners signed finished copies of the book on May 1 when I get my author's copies

7. If you DO upload one, please tell me too so I can post it at my YouTube page too http://www.youtube.com/user/MelissaMarrAuthor

OMG it is raining.
And raining.
And raining.

And I know I should be using this forced-indoors time to order Christmas presents, but I'm totally sitting here at the computer and eating chocolate croissants and pretending I'm being productive when I'm really just looking at YouTube and checking my email over and over.
Author FAIL.

Improv Everywhere WIN:






Um...back to regular life now. Yep. Oh look, more youtube...

Anne Osterlund's EXILE, the sequel to AURELIA, the continuing story of Princess Aurelia as she travels her kingdom while in exile after refusing the arranged marriage her father orchestrated; and SALVATION, the story of a Mexican American teen and a Caucasian teen, who strike up an unlikely romance which is put to the test when one is involved in a car accident that causes the fatality of another teenager, to Angelle Pilkington at Puffin/Speak, in a nice deal, for publication in Dec 2010 and April 2012, by Kelly Sonnack at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (world).

Bridget Zinn's debut POISON, in which a teen girl finds herself a would-be assassin, hunting down her former best friend, the princess of the realm, via the aid of an enchanted piglet, to Tamson Weston at Disney-Hyperion, at auction, in a two-book deal, in a very nice deal, by Michael Stearns at Upstart Crow Literary (NA).

http://pimpmynovel.blogspot.com/2009/12/stealing-page-from-bransford-playbook.html

The holiday season is upon me in full force, friends and fans, so today is an open thread. I'll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime: have at it!

1. If you weren’t able to make it to the NYC Books of Wonder event on Sunday, never fear — you can still get a signed copy of GIVE UP THE GHOST! Just stop by the store and pick one up. Sorry to have missed those of you who couldn’t make it. We had a ton of fun! You can see a few pics over at Kate Messner’s blog — hope to have more to share soon.

2. My author spotlight is now up at Author’s Now! and you can win a signed copy of GHOST just by commenting!

3. My end of 2009 giveaway is accepting entries for another week, so if you’d like to win a pack of great books or a 3-chapter critique, check it out!

4. Our new house is officially ours in less than a week! I’ve gotten everything sorted out (I think) and can’t wait to move in come January.

5. I’ve been given permission to share — GHOST has gone into 2nd printing! Many many thanks to everyone who’s picked it up, blogged about it, or otherwise spread the word. I’m so grateful to all of you.

What’s new with all of you?

Originally published at Megan Crewe - another world, not quite ours. You can comment here or there.

Hey Y'all!

I'm doing a signing in my hometown this weekend! Just in time for the holidays!

When: Saturday, December 12th from 2pm-4pm
Where: Barnes & Noble on Haywood Road
What: me signing, perhaps reading from The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead-Tossed Waves (I'll have the ARC of DTW there if anyone wants to flip through it), and of course giving out zombie finger puppets and candy!

Stop by and say hello! And if you don't live anywhere near Greenville and would still like to purchase a signed/personalized copy of my book, you can find out how to order it here!

Thanks and I can't wait to see y'all there!

How clueless an author am I?



Oh, pretty clueless, but not soooooooo clueless that I do that with my gum.

Anyway, it turns out the NEED paperback comes out today!
This is NEED.
YAY!

*nervous nail biting*

It's kind of embarrassing not to know this, actually. Luckily the awesome Deb Shapiro (the director of publicity at my publishing house) emailed me and told me.

Yay for Deb!

I am so scared that it won't do well. I mean, I know that the hardcover did well, but I am super scared that the paperback won't. Is this normal? Have I been actually repressing the fact that it's coming out in paperback so I don't have to be nervous.... Hm....

Maybe I could just time travel back to the 1980s and not have to worry about anything other than Flashdance pants and stuff.

Whew. The last two days have been very, very sketchy. Like, 28 DAYS LATER SKETCHY. As we entered Oregon at around 3:48 this morning, I was glancing at the map, and lo and behold, i saw how close we were to George, Washington. A few hours, really. I pointed it out to Rhonda.

And that was when the lightbulb went on. The real one, inside the van, because Rhonda had flung open the door on the freeway and was going to leap out. The three of us finally realized: we could have organized our trip better. I mean, check out this map:



See how close #2 and #5 are? I mean, I know it's hard to see, but if you look really close can you tell how the whole tour criss-crosses America? We could have totally done them in GEORGRAPHIC ORDER. Amazing, right? I totally GET why people hire travel agents now!

So anyway, Rhonda has been wallowing ever since, becuase she has to drive next. She's a real pouter.

But don't worry Rhonda! I found this guy on the side of the freeway while you were sleeping and he's going to drive for the next leg!!

He keeps talking about the rules of fight club and it's TOTALLY ANOYING, so there's no guarentee I won't toss him out the door soon, but at least I have a back up plan, right? And he's wearing a tie, so that means he's legit and not a serial killer.Hopefully he proves more reliable than the monkeys and Paolo.

So, anwyay, onto the stop in Half.com, Oregon.


As you can see, Saundra is off by herself. Rhonda and I are still mad at her because she kept bragging about how her ghosts would kick cupids ass, and when I came to Rhonda's defense, Saundra punched me in the nose. Totally uncalled for. Don't you see that smug little look she's giving you guys? You're next. Just sayin. Beware o' Saundra.

Don't miss the rest of our tour!
Friday, December 11th – Statue of Liberty, NYC, NY (Rhonda Blogs)
Monday, December 14 – Toad Suck, AR (Saundra Blogs)
Wednesday, December 16th- Giant Cow at Wilkes Barre, PA (Mandy Blogs)
Friday, December 18th – Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, CA (Rhonda Blogs)

Well, I had a one-on-one with The Universe yesterday, and confirmed her answer to my dilemma. Yes, keep going with the WIP, she said, and "while you're at it, get your other books out there! Have a holiday giveaway."

So who am I to ignore my new bff? She even wrote the blurb for me, and here it is, straight from Universal Press:

BOOK GIVEAWAY!
Give A RECIPE 4 ROBBERY
to a budding young heirloom thief.
All you have to do
is go to marybethkelsey.com
and enter.


And that's it, folks. Hope to see you there. :)

Sara Nelson, the books director for O magazine and the former editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly, was asked a number of questions in a wide-ranging interview.

In part, she said, “I have seen in the last six months, the beginning of a sea change that probably should’ve started years ago, that publishers are starting to understand they can’t pay $3 million or half a million dollars for a book of short stories, however great the short stories are, because those books are never going to sell, and then that writer’s never going to get published again, and the whole system falls apart. Plus the publisher’s going to take a bath.

“So I think that publishers are learning that they have to look at other business models. I mean, there are some examples within the larger publishing community. Harper Studio is one that people talk about a lot that is a smaller advance and ahigher percentage of royalty to the author. There’s been a lot of grumbling about it, because their smaller advance is a $100,000, and I know people who work at Farrar Straus and say, well, big deal, I don’t pay $100,000 anyway. But at least it is the beginning of thinking about a different way of publishing. And one of the things that Harper Studio and that I see smaller and medium sized publishers doing much more than the big guys is understanding the author – and agent – but the author’s role in publicizing and distributing the book.”

Read more of her thoughts here.

Kristina Springer is the debut author of The Espressologist (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009)(read her LJ). From the promotional copy:

What's your drink of choice? Is it a small pumpkin spice latte? Then you're lots of fun and a bit sassy. Or a medium americano? You prefer simplicity in life. Or perhaps it's a small decaf soy sugar-free hazelnut caffe latte? Some might call you a yuppie.

Seventeen-year-old barista Jane Turner has this theory that you can tell a lot about a person by their regular coffee drink. She scribbles it all down in a notebook and calls it Espressology.

So it's not a totally crazy idea when Jane starts hooking up some of her friends based on their coffee orders. Like her best friend, Em, a medium hot chocolate, and Cam, a toffee nut latte.

But when her boss, Derek, gets wind of Jane's Espressology, he makes it an in-store holiday promotion, promising customers their perfect matches for the price of their favorite coffee.

Things are going better than Derek could ever have hoped, so why is Jane so freaked out? Does it have anything to do with Em dating Cam? She's the one who set them up! She should be happy for them, right?

With overtones of Jane Austen's Emma [1815] and brimming with humor and heart, this sweet, frothy debut will be savored by readers.

Could you tell us the story of "the call" or "the email" when you found out that your book had sold? How did you react?

For me, "the call" happened in a blur. I had been querying for an agent for my first book for a long time. I had always had the number 100 in mind for when I'd stop querying agents. And I was getting really close to that.

Then I started querying the second book I wrote (The Espressologist) at the same time, and within the first ten queries, suddenly I had two offers of representation.

I talked to both agents, chose one, and she submitted my book that same night. Wow right?

Next thing I know we have an offer within the week. I was ecstatic! But then it didn't stop there.

My agent notified the other editors looking at the book that we were moving toward a close, and the next thing I knew there was an auction with four publishers. Four really great, I’d love to go with any of them, publishers!

It was completely unbelievable to me. I kept thinking how the heck is this happening so fast? This is really weird right? I was home with my kids the day of my auction (at that time there were only three of them, and they were ages four, two, and one). My agent was forwarding me offers and calling me throughout the day to talk about each one. It was pretty wild.

We narrowed it down to the two best offers, and then I talked to both editors on the phone to see what their vision for the book was and whom I clicked with the best. It was a small miracle that my children were letting me get away with all this talking on the phone that day.

I think I was letting them have a movie marathon and filling them with treats to keep the commotion down to a low roar.

I really liked the two top editors and their publishers, and I struggled for the next several hours, trying to decide who to go with. I felt bad that I was taking so long to decide and that people were waiting on me and I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

It was actually pretty tough. I kept wishing my husband or another person over the age of four was there to help me decide what to do. I paced my living room a lot. I talked to my agent of course, but she didn't want to sway me one way or the other.

I finally just went with my gut and chose Farrar, Straus and Giroux for my publisher for a two-book hardcover with paperback follow-up deal. This was two and a half years ago, so while the sale happened in a blur, the process of bringing it to a book took awhile.

I couldn’t be happier with the final product, though, and working with my editor and FSG has been absolutely wonderful.

As someone who's the primary caregiver of children, how do you manage to also carve out time to write and build a publishing career? What advice do you have for other writers trying to do the same?

I started writing fiction after I had my second child, about four years ago. At that point, I had a two year old and an infant and I was teaching technical writing at DePaul University in the evenings (I had been a technical writer prior to having kids, and I received my Masters in Writing from DePaul). I was also writing freelance articles for magazines and Web sites and doing online tutoring. So I guess I was the sort that liked to be busy.

I had an idea for a young adult book, but I had never written a book and also had no confidence in my fiction writing abilities whatsoever so I was leery of trying.

I told my husband my idea one day when we were in the car, and he said, "you have to write this."

I did the whole no, no, I have no time to write. I have two kids, I'm busy, etc.

But he insisted and said just do it, take time for yourself.

So I guess I started looking at writing like that. One or two nights a week after my husband got home from work, I'd pack up my laptop and head for Starbucks. And it was a total de-stresser. It was like my yoga, my relaxation. These sessions only lasted two or three hours, but in four months, I had my first manuscript completed. So I did it again. And again. And it just became routine.

I’m working on my seventh manuscript now (the first two being published are the second and sixth ones that I wrote). And I have four kids (ages six, four, three, and one). Even though things are more hectic with school and activities and play dates now, I still go to Starbucks to write one or two times a week.

I’ve never been the kind of writer that wrote every single day. And I find this works out better for me actually. Because the days I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. And jotting down a few notes here and there. So when I have time to get out and write again I’m really plowing through some pages.

I've been through many rounds of edits with my first and second book, and while there have been deadlines, I’ve never found them to be tough to make.

If I know there are going to be some tight ones, then I just go out to write every night that I can for awhile. This has only happened to me a couple of times.

I have to also add, after I sold my books I did drop the other evening jobs (teaching, freelancing, tutoring) to concentrate more on writing.

Really, I find being an author to be a fantastic career while raising children. I get to spend the days with my kids and then do my thing when my husband gets home. I would tell other authors trying to do the same thing to accept help from a support system (husband, grandma etc.) and don't feel badly if you need to take a Saturday afternoon here and there to go write.

Cynsational Notes

Kristina's next release will be My Fake Boyfriend Is Better Than Yours (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010).

The New Voices Series is a celebration of debut authors of 2009. First-timers may also be featured in more traditional author interviews over the course of the year.

(originally published on 3/17/06)

***

I'm busy planting...

Seeds of motivation.

Hints of what's to come.

More personality for each character.

Sometimes it rains hard and I can hardly see if I'm making progress.

And then, the sun shines for a brief moment, and I smile.

I move forward along the rows.

Then I go back, where I missed a spot here and there.

Forward and back.

Sunshine and rain.

Forward and back.

Sunshine and rain.

I'm in the garden of revision.

It's hard work.

But hopefully by spring,

the flowers will bloom

and the story will finally be

complete and full of color!

Bid to win manuscript critiques with authors, editors, and agents as well as limited edition, signed letterpress broadsides from the Vermont College of Fine Arts' Hunger Mountain Holiday Fundraising Auction.

This auction features a 250-page manuscript critique with editor Stephen Roxburgh (interview); a 250-page manuscript critique with children's-YA author Tim Wynne-Jones (interview); and the chance to name a character in YA author Nancy Werlin’s next novel.

Items also include partial critiques by children's-YA author Susan Fletcher and YA author Micol Ostow (interview) as well as full-manuscript middle grade or young adult novel critiques by YA authors Carrie Jones (interview) and An Na (interview).

In addition, a 50-page critique or full picture-book critique is offered by agent-author Ammi-Joan Paquette of Erin Murphy Literary (interview).

All purchases are charitable in support of Hunger Mountain’s non-profit mission to cultivate engagement with and conversation about the arts by publishing high-quality, innovative literary and visual art by both established and emerging artists, and by offering opportunities for interactivity and discourse.

Again, all items are available at The Hunger Mountain Store. Bidding ends at noon EST Dec. 12.

About the Auction

Author and editor critiques of poetry, play, and fiction manuscripts for adults also are available.

About Hunger Mountain

Hunger Mountain is both a print and online journal of the arts. The journal publishes fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, visual art, children’s and YA writing, writing for stage and screen, interviews, reviews, and craft essays. The print issue comes out annually in the fall, and online content changes on a regular basis.

The Hunger Mountain editorial offices are located at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in historical Montpelier, Vermont

About Vermont College of Fine Arts

"Vermont College of Fine Arts is the first college devoted entirely to low-residency, graduate fine arts programs, offering an MFA in Writing, MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and MFA in Visual Arts."

From the Best of Me

“I went to see Austin,” I said as the final notes faded. With the wind picking up momentum and my heart thudding at a comfortable beat, I laid my head against his chest and held on, letting it all wash over me. It took several minutes before I could speak again. He didn’t pry, but waited patiently.

“I think I’m crying again.”

“Hush now,” he whispered, wiping one of my tears away with his thumb.

“It’s relief,” I got out between sniffles. “Not sadness. It’s been a long and painful fight.”

“Did you win?”

“I don’t think this is the kind you can win.”

“Know what you mean, qt. Exactly what you mean.”

I let out a watery breath. “I know you do. He was supposed to tell his lawyer about his dad today.”

“What about Lesley?”

“She doesn’t hate me anymore. Or him.” A fat raindrop landed on my arm, another splashed across my cheek. Seconds later, the rain, no longer flirting with the word maybe, started in earnest. We both laughed as its dams burst open, probably the first hint of true humor either of us had felt in days. Unable to stop myself, I scooted up and put my lips against his, starting what ended up being one of our longest and deepest kisses.

As I pulled back, I noticed someone headed our way. They had a hood on, their chin tucked into their chest. Dragging their feet along, they didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry, even with the storm kicking up.

I squeezed Jason’s arm, silently suggesting that we leave. The person looked lonely and that clenched at my heart, filling me with pity. I’d had enough of gloom and doom lately so the rain wasn’t the only reason I was suddenly in a hurry to leave.

None of this stopped me from taking a final peek at the stranger on the sidewalk. They lifted their head at the same moment and I recognized the square jaw beneath his scruff. He looked haggard, his skin a grayish blue, his eyes haunted.

I sucked in a breath then grabbed Jason’s shirt, yanking him down to my level. “It’s him,” I hissed

“Who?” Jason, eyes wide, whipped around.