What would happen if the world ran out of water? Would our societies survive? Would our technology? The more I thought about this, the more complex the situation became. Without water, humans and animals would get sick, cities crumble, and the way of life we know would disappear. At first I set the book in the real world. I started doing research about how people would survive in a dystopian land, which technologies would last, and which would not, but I soon got bogged down in the details. What I needed was an alternative world and a history which is based on ours, but is nevertheless a fiction. This was my starting point, but the book took off when I found my main character. As is usual for me, she came in one vivid image -- a girl standing on a rock looking down on a line of wagons carrying water to a distant town. So precious is their cargo that the wagons are guarded day and night. Mouse wants to be a guard. She wants to leave the narrow confines of The Town and go out in...

Short answer: I don’t. Longer answer: I first got the idea for A Dead Guy at the Summerhouse when I was a young adult, before young adult was even a label. Very long answer: A friend had given me some books in the genre that was known then as Gothic. Remember Gothics? Young girl goes to large house filled with wealthy eccentrics, usually with a threatening figure and a helpful figure (often romance is involved), the threatening one turns out to be Good and the helpful one turns out to be Bad, much fear and emotion, happy ending. The covers usually featured the house with the young girl (usually in her nightdress) running away under a full moon, looking back over her shoulder in terror. I thought it would be fun to write one with a young man instead of a young girl. I thought it would be fun if, instead of trying to winkle out the house’s secrets, everybody would be trying to share them with him and he would be all, “I don’t want to know. I don’t want any drama or excitement....

Jane Yolen , acclaimed author of over 300 works across a wide spectrum of genres  - everything from board books to Nebula Award-winning Science Fiction - spends several months of the year working at Wayside, her home in Scotland.  Here she heads up a group of Scottish-based Young Adult and/or Fantasy writers.  Earlier this month, Jane became the first woman in the history of St. Andrews University to deliver the prestigious Andrew Lang Memorial Lecture.  This being the case, it seems only appropriate to do a feature on Jane and the members of her “Wayside Circle”. Who are the Wayside Writers?  First and foremost, of course, there is Jane Yolen herself, who is perhaps best described as sui generis .  Jane has  written a number of books on Scottish themes.  Several years ago she invited my husband Robert Harris 1 to be her writing partner for The Queen’s Own Fool (click on the title to read an excerpt ) , told from the point of view of N...

Today we welcome Michelle Gagnon, a former modern dancer, dog walker, bartender, freelance journalist, personal trainer, model, and Russian supper club performer. To the delight of her parents, she gave up all these occupations for an infinitely more stable and lucrative career as a crime fiction writer. Michelle has four bestselling and powerful thrillers under her writing belt, and now has written a young adult novel in the same genre, which was just released a few days ago. Switching from adult to YA of course got our editorial antennae twitching. So we’re going to bombard her with a few questions. Dani: Welcome to the Blood-Red Pencil, Michelle. I first have to ask you why, why, why? Why the switch to YA? Are you the parent of teens? What made you jump genres? Michelle: One of the reasons I switched to YA for this series was that a friend pointed out that I’ve had a strong teen character in nearly all of my adult thrillers, and he suggested I try writing an entire thriller f...

Thank you to Dani for inviting me to talk about my self-publishing experience. Going the self-pub route had not been my original choice. I had what I thought was an awesome idea for a young adult novel—two kids realize they’ve been living inside To Kill a Mockingbird for the past five years, and they undertake an adventure through great literature to find their real home and parents—and I wrote it. My agent loved it, I mean dropped the “F” bomb on the phone with me she loved it so much, but she couldn’t find a home for it. Publishers gave us positive feedback but said that ultimately, they couldn’t sell teenagers on classic literature. Now, I’ve traditionally published seven mysteries, with the eighth coming out in October. I also serve on the national board of the Mystery Writers of America. I’ve got some hard-earned publishing knowledge, and I’d been hearing the same buzz as everyone else: self-publishing is big. It’s huge. It’s the future. You can write a book and quit your job c...

Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak , visited our local writers’ group via Skype this month. She’s one of the nation’s most successful and respected YA and children’s authors, so we were grateful for the opportunity to chat with her. One of her many great responses to our questions included: “It’s okay to pull back... You can just let the door swing shut.” She referred specifically to sexual abuse in YA books, but I think we can apply this to horror, mysteries and thrillers as well: You can just let the door swing shut . Essentially, this lets us put the gore on the back burner and concentrate on story and character. It sounds elementary, but I’ve tried to read a lot of work recently by writers who clearly don’t get it. Couldn’t finish the stuff. I’ve been spoiled by good horror, and I can’t go back. Anyway, it’s not a reactionary idea. I’m not suggesting that we can or should return to simpler, less gory work. I’m saying it’s okay to sweep the gory details off your workben...

Jane Yolen and Debby Harris Today, please welcome Debby Harris. She edits for the marvelous author, Jane Yolen , who has written over 300 books in various genres, but is perhaps most famous for her award-winning children's and YA books. I asked Debby to share with us what it's like to work for such a prolific and accomplished writer, and here is what she has to say: 1.  Debby, how did you meet Jane Yolen? I first met Jane Yolen in person in London in 1989, at the 14th World Fantasy Convention. I had recently read her short story anthology, aptly named Tales of Wonder , and having been bowled over by the experience, was agog to meet the tale-spinner herself. I begged my friend and writing mentor Katherine Kurtz to introduce us, and she very kindly obliged. Ironically, Jane and I might easily have crossed paths much sooner and much closer to home. Our geographical nexus was the ancient Scottish burrough of St. Andrews, home of golf and birthplace of Scotland’s olde...

With Harry Potter’s coming of age series and the advent of Twilight , et al., we are witnessing a resurgence of reading among young people. Add to that the novelty, convenience, and technology of Kindle, Nook, etc., and authors of young adult fiction are finding new readers in an otherwise challenging market. Yes, opportunity knocks, but with opportunity comes responsibility. And that is the real issue. Too many children have little guidance beyond the classroom, friends, television . . . Are we, as YA writers, responsible for providing that guidance? An old African proverb says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” And that raises an interesting point—particularly since youngsters are often predictable products of their environments. Are we the keepers of the village’s children? Through our stories, can we offer something positive that inspires them to reach beyond the confines of that environment to be more than they ever thought they could be? Great YA books result from dee...