Apologies for the radio silence. Here are some snippets as to why I’ve been quiet lately.

1. AWP Boston 2013 — I was extremely lucky to attend several panels at AWP this year. I met Jane Yolen, Arthur A. Levine (editor of Harry Potter!), David Levithan, Lucy Christopher, and many others. Because of this unique opportunity I was able to ask them for their definitions of the YA genre. Yolen paused, Levine was silent, and Levithan and Christopher took a beat before answering. All essentially said the same thing: a novel about a young adult protagonist experiencing first encounters on an amplified level.
2. Fine-tuning my graduate thesis idea — I’ve finally narrowed down my thesis idea and my program director loves it. It’s a very unique idea, with probably very little research in the field, so it’ll be fresh and new (and hopefully published!). I won’t go into details, but it’ll involve: YA, gothic, and classic literature.
   
3. Distracted by movie/TV casting — Did you hear?! Delirium, Divergent, and The Fault in Our Stars have been cast!
4. Distracted by publications — CASSANDRA. CLARE’S. CLOCKWORK. PRINCESS.
5. Graduate coursework in general — It’s quite consuming.

You have a lot to look forward to once I get some down time. Are you interested in learning what panelists had to say about the publishing industry, agents, and YA literature at the AWP conference? News on the industry (independent bookstores on the rise, chapter books, ALA awards, etc) will be up soon as well, and some book reviews too.

I’m not dead. 🙂