Wanderlusty Wednesday: Jersey

And I’m not referring to the state in which I was born…

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MK’s Book Reviews: Looking for Alaska

With this uber-popular John Green novel (that was redundant) set to become a movie, I thought I’d add my own book review to the undoubtedly dozens out there…

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You Can’t Rest on Good Writing

So I’m taking a writing class this summer at this fine institution. (It’s awesome. I highly recommend it.) The structure of the class is that each week, some students hand in writing submissions, and the next week you’re “workshopped”, meaning everyone tells you what they thought. When it was my turn, the teacher of the […]

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Friday Things

Happy Friday! I love summer. It’s the season of getting invited to go beautiful places for free.

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Learning from the Masters: Voice

I’ve written about voice in YA contemporary (twice), I’ve written about voice in YA historical, and today I’m going to talk about the voice of a writer who’s not YA at all. Because while it’s absolutely crucial as a writer to read within our genres, there is a tremendous amount to be learned from other genres, […]

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Wanderlusty Wednesday: South of France

Wishing you a day filled with sunshine (and sunflowers)! Photo taken by me, June 2011, somewhere on a road in France

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MK’s Book Reviews: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

I’m back after a long, amazing weekend at Lake Sacandaga in upstate New York. I missed a few days due to no wifi at all (which can be quite nice) but now I’m back and it’s Tuesday which means it’s time for a book review. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is one […]

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Learning from the Masters: Voice

So last week I said I wanted to talk about something super-important in novel-writing: voice. This week I’m talking about the same thing, and showing an example of a completely different kind of voice. In YA, you can sometimes read several books in a row all with similar voices. That’s why I love The Spectacular Now–the […]

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Wanderlusty Wednesday: Big Sur

I’ve been thinking a lot about camping lately, mostly due to this post on one of my favorite blogs (the first part of which I disagree with, by the way–there is nothing wrong with camping at campgrounds), and also due to the fact that it’s coming up on that time of year–my favorite camping experiences have […]

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MK’s Book Reviews: I’ll Give You The Sun

Today I’m going to be talking about Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun. You have to read this book. Why?

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