- Yes, yes, I still owe you an extra; tomorrow, my pretties. Today, let's clean out some hangovers. I'll try to get back on a regular schedule of posting at least a couple of times a week, but it's busy times so that may not always happen. I definitely owe an I Heart post soon as well.
- Foz Meadows' brilliant Mainstream YA Article Bingo Card.
- Daniel Menaker's hilarious insider account of the loopy nature of the biz we call pub. Snippet: "Publishing is an often incredibly frustrating culture. If you want to buy a project—let’s say a nonfiction proposal for a book about the history of Sicily—some of your colleagues will say, “The proposal is too dry” or “Cletis Trebuchet did a book for Grendel Books five years ago about Sardinia and it sold, like, eight copies,” or, airily, “I don’t think many people want to read about little islands.” When Seabiscuit first came up for discussion at an editorial meeting at Random House, some skeptic muttered, “Talk about beating a dead horse!” "
- Speaking of which, Alison Cherry has a post worth your time "Nine Things I Wish I'd Known About Publishing." I managed to avoid the depression, but certainly there are the pre- and release-month (and other sporadic) publishing crazies nonetheless, and it's impossible to avoid those. (It probably did not hurt that I had watched so many people go through it, and there's also my patented philosophy of always expecting the worst. Because: Usually reality is better. Plus, writing really is the best. Hard, but so worth it.)
- A great piece about Terri Windling, where she says lots of smart things about fairy tales: “The original fairy tales were far more violent than the ones we know today, and the bits of darkness that still linger in them comes from that time,” Windling said. “But I think kids like the darkness — I know I did. Particularly if you are a child that comes in any way from a battled household, or are being bullied at school, to read about the fact that there is hardship in the world but that if you’re plucky and brave, you can overcome it, I think that’s an important thing for kids to read about.”
- Jennifer Lawrence: Kick-ass Kentuckian, and Class Act.
- A great interview with Patrick Ness: "My advice about writing is always, Write with joy. People might not be able to tell that that's the thing they're responding to, but I believe that if you write with joy every day, that rubs off. It's an intangible thing, but if you do something joyously, it's going to attract other people like mad."
- Nicola Griffith at Tor.com on whether Hild is fantasy, but really on the overlap between historical fiction and fantasy. Fascinating stuff.
- R.I.P. Charlotte Zolotow. Loved this brief remembrance by Roger Sutton at the Horn Book. And Laurel's.
- Lev Grossman talks to Suzanne Collins and the director Catching Fire for Time, in installments.
- Also, always necessary: pygmy hippo baby.