Snippets

"She has a duty as a writer, she added, to make the world more accessible to children by explaining it to them." Britain's former children's laureate, Anne Fine has written a book about a Russian boy sent to a Siberean labor camp in order to open a discussion with young readers about politics and the 'slippery slope' that war, denial of freedoms and lies can lead to. The Guardian has a short piece on it this week, and will follow up with a longer one later on.

I am really intrigued by this - I'm not sure that my writing makes anything accessible to young adults except to validate their own findings about the world... and to prove that it's survivable. I'm intrigued by the idea of bringing politics to that table.

Jenna Bush's ARC of Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope has the traditional 'decapitated girl's head' cover that many YA books seem to sport, and an optimistic first print run of 500,000. Wowza. Coming October 2 to a bookstore near you. AND, I'm ecstatic to discover that the UK Amazon has listed Terry Pratchett's next Ankh-Morpork book Making Money as being released on 24th September 2007. Another zany little something to look forward to in the fall.

I may be making a mistake.
Well, here goes.
I asked about the Class of 2k8 and the lovely people who run it say, "Oh, sorry, no room, only fourteen spaces and fifteen minutes after we said we were doing it, it was full." I thought, Okay, no problem, and starting thinking about other things I could do - with people I know (a little, from blogging) whose books are also coming out in 2008, or whose books are maybe at least close in topic or audience to my own... or something. I forgot all about the whole thing.

This week, they said they had an opening.

This week, I turned them down.

It may have been one of the most colossally stupid things I have ever done. It has a low buy-in amount, the 2k7 people have all apparently had a great time and great results, people are lining up to get into the group, AND my editor suggested I run, not walk, to get involved. And I am completely doing something else.

(If my book only sells four copies, you'll know why.)

Seriously, though ~ as I've been working through things like covers (and big props to Mitali on her cool cover choices! - go help her choose the one that goes to print!) and a concept for a website, and thinking about overseas PR visits (my agent came back from Bologna with some "nibbles" for next year from five or six countries, congratulations Jay on the cool languages in which his book will be published), I've been realizing that it might be the best thing for me to just figure out what I'm doing on my own, as I really do have my own ideas. (Okay, so nobody is surprised. I'm opinionated. Why else do I have a blog?) I wish The Class of 2k8 the very best -- but stand or fall, I think I gotta do this on my own.

Or have I just messed up?