Winter Blog Blast Tour Presents: CONNIE WILLIS!


And here begins the tally: Thirteen novels/novellas, four short story collections,three anthologies, fifty-eight short stories (and counting!), fourteen essays, nine Hugo Awards, nine Locus Poll Awards, six Nebula Awards, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves…

You’d think she’d have been on Oprah at least twice by now, but that’s not the way the world works for science fiction writers. Sometimes it seems that the best are only honored by the world posthumously, and in life, only by their communities, by the legions of readers (like Sara!) who eagerly await their latest Christmas novella or short story in Asimov’s.

Connie Willis is a brilliant science fiction writer — one so brilliant that readers are only gradually aware that they are reading Hard Science. Though she has only recently written an ‘officially’ young adult novel, many of us as young adults sought out her collections like Firewatch, Bellwether or Even the Queen looking for a good story first — and boy, did we ever find it.

And so it is with immense pleasure — my GOSH, we are so honored!! — that Wonderland presents the WBBT interview with Connie Willis, my all-time favorite science fiction writer in the world.



Wonderland: Polly Shulman’s 1999 article at Salon.com quips that you write “science fiction for humanities majors.” Definitely the heroes of many of your books are brilliant librarians and history lovers, but in D.A., the heroine is essentially a slacker who doesn’t want to get with the high-stress, highly academic program. What was the inspiration behind Theodora?

Connie Willis: Theodora isn’t a slacker! She’s just somebody who thinks for herself and doesn’t want the same things everybody else wants. She’s got a mind of her own.

I got the idea for D.A. when I was the guest of honor of the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles last year. The theme of the convention was “Space Cadets,” and everybody was asked to write a story based on either the old 1950s TV show “Space Cadet” or the Robert A. Heinlein book, Space Cadet, that it was based on. I love Heinlein’s books, but when I read Space Cadet, which is about teenagers going to the space academy so they can be astronauts, again, I was really annoyed at how “gee whiz! isn’t this great?” attitude all the characters had. I mean, being an astronaut is a really dangerous job and living on a space station is downright uncomfortable. I mean, you can’t take real showers, and there’s no room, and I don’t even want to think about how unpleasant zero-gravity toilets must be. But everybody in the book was just thrilled to be there, and I decided it might be fun to have somebody who wasn’t thrilled be stuck at a space academy.

Thinking for yourself and going your own way is always a big thing with my characters. When I wrote my book Bellwether, which is about where fads come from, and why everybody suddenly decides to start playing with hula hoops or start collecting Beanie Babies, my heroine had to be somebody who didn’t automatically go along with fads, who thought things through for herself. I think both characters are a lot like me. Whenever everybody just loves a new movie or book or idea, especially when they say, “I just loved it, and I know you will, too!” I always think, “Well, maybe I will or maybe I won’t.” I guess it’s the stubborn streak in me. But thinking for yourself has got to be a good thing, right?


Wonderland: D.A. was excitedly pushed into my hands by a friend who constantly bemoans the lack of science fiction for young adults. Did you read science fiction and fantasy through your teen years? What were you able to recommend to your daughter during her teen years? What, if any, young adult science fiction do you read now?

CW: I was crazy about books from almost the moment I was born, and I read everything I could get my hands on when I was a kid. The first books I read were the Oz books, so I guess I was always interested in fantasy and science fiction, but I read all kinds of things, but then, when I was thirteen, I found this book in the school library called Have Space Suit, Will Travel, and I got totally hooked on science fiction. Have Space Suit, Will Travel was by Robert A. Heinlein, and after I finished it, I read all the other Heinlein books (The Star Beast, Time for the Stars, The Door into Summer, and Double Star are my favorites) and then everything I could find by Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury and Zenna Henderson.

I especially loved stories about time travel, and now that I’m a writer, that’s my favorite thing to write about. My books Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog and my novelette “Fire Watch” are all about historians who go back to different periods of history, and the book I’m working on right now is about time travelers who go back to World War II. It’s called All Clear.


I also loved short stories–especially longer short stories, like D.A.–which is my favorite thing to write. Science fiction has always had terrific short stories, and all of its best writers have written short stories. I’ve listed some of my favorites below, and also some science fiction and fantasy books I think young readers might like. If you want to read some of my short stories, they’ve been collected in Fire Watch, Impossible Things, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, and The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories.

CONNIE WILLIS’ FAVORITE SHORT STORIES:
(Note: I haven’t told you what books you can find the short stories in, but you can usually find that out by googling the title, and lots of science fiction stories can now be found on the net.)

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury
“Homecoming” by Ray Bradbury
“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
“The Menace from Earth” by Robert A. Heinlein
“One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts” by Shirley Jackson
“Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov
“Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler
“Surface Tension” by James Blish
“Vintage Season” by C.L Moore
“Mimsy Were the Borogoves” by Lewis Padgett
“A Saucer of Loneliness” by Theodore Sturgeon
“Computers Don’t Argue” by Gordon Dickson
“We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick

SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS
=====================

Douglas Adams–THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
Isaac Asimov–I, ROBOT
Hilari Bell–A MATTER OF PROFIT
Ray Bradbury–THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, FAHRENHEIT 451
S IS FOR SPACE, THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, R IS FOR ROCKET

Lois McMasters Bujold–BARRAYAR, FALLING FREE
C.J. Cherryh–CYTEEN
Robert A. Heinlein–TIME FOR THE STARS
HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL, DOUBLE STAR,
THE DOOR INTO SUMMER, CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY
THE STAR BEAST, SPACE CADET

Zenna Henderson–HOLDING WONDER, PILGRIMAGE
THE PEOPLE, NO DIFFERENT FLESH
Daniel Keyes–FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON
Nancy Kress–YANKED!
Lois Lowry–THE GIVER
GATHERING BLUE
Andre Norton–BLACK TRILLIUM
Alexei Panshin–RITE OF PASSAGE
Daniel Pinkwater–LIZARD MUSIC, BORGEL, FAT MEN FROM SPACE
William Sleator–INTERSTELLAR PIG
Jane Yolen–THE DEVIL’S ARITHMETIC, ARMAGEDDON SUMMER, 2041
Paul Zindel–RATS

FANTASY NOVELS
———————
Joan Aiken–THE FAR FORESTS, THE YOUNGEST MISS WARD
Natalie Babbitt–TUCK EVERLASTING
Hilari Bell–WIZARD BORN! THE GOBLIN WOOD
Ray Bradbury–DANDELION WINE
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
Mary Chase–THE WICKED PIGEON LADIES IN THE GARDEN
G.K. Chesterton–THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY
Madeleine L’Engle–A WRINKLE IN TIME
Ursula LeGuin–THE EARTHSEA TRILOGY
Andre Norton–WITCH WORLD
Philip Pullman–THE GOLDEN COMPASS
J.R.R. Tolkien–THE HOBBIT,
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Jane Yolen–BRIAR ROSE, SISTER LIGHT, SISTER DARK



Wonderland: Many (stupid) uninformed people don’t expect women to really dig into hard science, and reading Bellwether was exciting because I felt like I was in there, me, an English major, connecting to real scientific stuff. Has researching hard science been as interesting to you as it is to us as readers? What’s the most exciting thing you’ve learned?

CW: I love science. I didn’t like it that much in school ’til I started reading science fiction, though. The first SF books I read were Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel and The Star Beast and Time for the Stars, and they were full of really interesting scientific things, from how to figure out which planet you’re on while trapped in a prison cell to how to grow plants on board a spaceship to what it would feel like to look at our galaxy from the outside.

I’ve been interested in science ever since. I even married a physics teacher. And, no, he does not do my research for me. I do it all myself, though if I’m confused about something, I’ll ask him. I’m especially interested in quantum theory (“At the Rialto”) and black holes (“Schwarzschild Radius”) and in chaos theory, which I’ve written about in regard to how history works (Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog) and how the silly world we live in works (Bellwether.)

I think people are sometimes afraid of science–it’s the math, I think, or the graphs and formulas–but there are lots of terrific authors and books out there that make science understandable. Isaac Asimov could explain anything, and so could Carl Sagan. I love Stephen Jay Gould’s The Panda’s Thumb, John Allen Paulo’s Innumeracy, and Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Everything.

Wonderland: Many writers now flinch from the words “science fiction.” By some definitions, what you write isn’t science fiction because it does not include: a) monsters, b) robots, c.) spaceships, d.) gadgets, e.) galaxies far, far away, etc. Do you consider yourself a writer of the preferred “speculative fiction?” What does the term “science fiction” mean to you, and what do you make of this trend to avoid the phrase?


CW: I love science fiction, and I can’t imagine calling myself anything but a science fiction writer, but I know people sometimes have a very odd idea of what it is. “Oh, you write science fiction,” they say, sort of wrinkling up their nose as if they smelled something bad, laugh nervously, and ask, “So, have you ever been abducted by aliens?”

Fiction!” I want to yell at them, “I write science fiction.” I think the problem is that when you say science fiction, people think of Star Trek, or Star Wars, both of which are science fiction, but they’re only one part of a very big and varied field that includes funny stories by William Tenn and Fredric Brown, high-tech futures by William Gibson and Corey Doctorow and Nancy Kress, space adventures by Arthur C. Clarke and Lois McMasters Bujold, elegant and bizarre and heart-rendingly sad stories by Ray Bradbury and Howard Waldrop and John Collier, political stories by George Orwell and Ursula LeGuin, and great literature by authors like Walter M. Miller, Jr. and Octavia Butler and Philip K. Dick.

But science fiction is so big and complicated, it’s hard to explain it to people. And to further confuse things, authors like Michael Crichton and Margaret Atwood write about cloning and future societies and then say, “But my book isn’t science fiction!” when it obviously is. I suppose they’re worried people won’t take them seriously either.

But I always call myself a science fiction writer. Who wouldn’t be proud to be one when all those great authors I just named are science fiction writers, too? I’m thrilled to be part of their company.

P.S. I do sometimes write about all the things you listed:
My newest short story, “All Seated on the Ground,” is about aliens.
D.A. and “Spice Pogrom” are both set on space stations.
Uncharted Territory is about exploring a new planet.
“The Sidon in the Mirror” is set on the surface of a dying star. (Yes, it is possible.) And I’m currently writing a story about a robot who wants to be a Rockette in the big Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall.

Wonderland: You’ve been simply festooned with honors–nine Hugos and thirteen nominations, six Nebulas and eight nominations, not to mention numerous other lesser known awards. This must be both exciting and scary, yet as a writer you are not as well-known as, say, Isaac Asimov was in his lifetime, even though you are one of the most awarded science fiction writers since the 80’s. Do you think your being a woman writing in a genre dominated by men makes the difference?

CW: I have gotten a lot of awards, for which I am very grateful. As to why I’m not as famous as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein wasn’t as famous as Isaac Asimov either, and yet he certainly deserves to be. He influenced the entire field of science fiction with great books like Citizen of the Galaxy and Tunnel in the Sky and Space Cadet, and he’s one of the best writers science fiction ever had.


There are lots of writers who deserve to be more famous than they are, like Thornton Wilder (Our Town) and Rumer Godden (An Episode of Sparrows) and Nick Hornsby (About a Boy.)

Fame doesn’t have much to do with anything except luck and a knack for publicity. Do you know who the most famous writer during the Victorian era was? No, not Charles Dickens. Charlotte Yonge. And the composer Bach was almost completely forgotten until Mendelssohn came along and made him famous again. And Britney Spears and O.J. Simpson are a lot more famous than all of us writers, which proves what exactly?

Wonderland: (Ooh. Good point!)

Though Fire Watch and The Doomsday Book are often classed for older young adults because of their younger protagonists (and To Say Nothing of the Dog was even shelved as YA in one library we visited) your work is not really specifically for children. After your many years of writing for adults, what inspired you to write for young adults?

CW: I don’t ever really think about whether I’m writing for adults or young adults or kids (even with D.A.), I think because as a reader I never though of myself as any of those. I just thought of myself as a reader, and I think that’s how most readers think of themselves. Lots of fifth and even fourth-graders have read my books Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog (and they ask much better questions about those books than the adults ever do), and I knew a fifth-grader who read Moby Dick and loved it.

Most so-called “children’s classics”, like Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows and The Water Babies are loved by adults and kids alike, and I read young adult novels all the time and love them.

Cynthia Felice and I wrote two books which many people consider to be YA books. Water Witch is about a young girl on a desert planet who may or may not be a princess and who has the special ability of being able to find water. Light Raid is about a young Colorado girl living during a future war between an alliance of Canada and the western United States and their enemy Quebec.


Wonderland: D.A. has some really cool photographic illustrations. How closely did you work with J.K. Potter on those? Do you feel that the illustration captured the Theodora you “saw” in your work?

CW: I’m afraid I didn’t have anything to do with the illustrations for D.A. Most of the time writers don’t see their illustrations until the book is already done, and sometimes the illustrations look exactly like you envisioned the characters. Other times, they don’t. When I wrote my novel, Lincoln’s Dreams, there were three cats in it–a yellow tabby cat, a black cat, and a Siamese cat–but when I saw the cover, there was a gray tiger cat on it. I have nothing against tiger cats (I have two of them right now, plus an English bulldog), but there wasn’t a gray tiger cat in my book. So I asked my editor about it, and she said, “Oh, that’s my cat. I thought he’d like to have his picture on a book.” I personally thought that if her cat wanted his picture on a book he should write his own book, but that’s the way things go with illustrations. I loved the illustrations for D.A. I nearly always love my illustrations. I even liked the tiger cat.

Thanks for asking me these questions and for asking me to be part of your blog blast. It was great!


Through all of the interviews, the podcasts, and the articles I’ve read, Connie Willis has emerged as an engaging and funny person with a lively wit. She is an icon, but from her friendliness, her openness and lack of pretension, you’d never know it.

Were you taking notes on her booklist? I was! (How’d I miss her books with Cynthia Felice?!) Some of those short stories she mentioned brought back a ton of memories! (The Veldt I read for English. Yikes!!!) Robert Heinlen’s writing is amazing. Have you read Heinlen’s books for the YA set? You should! If you ever need a stocking stuffer, one of Connie Willis’ holiday short story collections are exactly what you need — a touch of Christmas mirth that cuts through the badly recorded Christmas carols and the endless shopping.



We are deeply honored to have “met” Connie Willis, and are grateful to have had her “visit” us. Find more information about her appearances and book tours on her official website, ConnieWillis.Net. You’ll find more amusing, unusual and creative author interviews along the Winter Blog Blast Circuit. Today’s authors include Nick Abadzis at Chasing Ray, Carrie Jones at Hip Writer Mama, Phyllis Root at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Laura Amy Schlitz at Fuse Number 8, plus Kerry Madden at lectitans, and Tom Sniegoski at Bildungsroman.

The Winter Blog Blast Tour: more fantastic authors all week long!

Winter Blog Blast Tour Countdown…!


Coming Soon to the Blogosphere Near You: Your favorite young adult and children’s authors and illustrators, revealed! All in one fabulous week!

The full schedule is with our organizer, Chasing Ray. We’ll be linking to all of the interviews throughout the week. Last time this was loads of fun — join us again!

Poetry Friday: Painfully Bad Math

I blame this Bad Poetry episode of Poetry Friday quite thoroughly on Read, Write, Believe, who started digging out her high school poetry.

I didn’t actually write much in terms of poetry that was for public consumption in high school, but my journals show the bizarre span of my influences. Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer nestle against the poetry of Dorothy Parker, Judith Viorst, William Penn (Really? When did I read Fruits of Solitude?), George Herbert and Roberts Herrick and Hayden. My own bits of derivative drivel have such exalted company as Shakespeare (Hamlet, Price of Denmark, Act I: Scene ii), Longfellow’s Psalm of Life, and random song lyrics, pieces of articles taped in from magazines, and polite thank-you notes from boys with illegible handwriting (notes I obviously read tons into, since for the life of me I can’t figure out why I kept them!).

I’ve chosen two poems from a particular moment in my life, written a few months apart (And dear readers, I beg you remember I grew up to be an humanities major. I like math — I just didn’t actually know it until year past high school, when I remembered how much I’d loved long division in fourth grade. It really is very soothing…). Thanks, Sara, for giving me a reason to actually look back at all of my poetry. All I can do is shake my head and say, like one of my high school male friends once said in complete bewilderment, “Man. Girls.”

equations

I. x≥+1+1=3

x is greater than or equal to
the sum of one plus

(one, two?)

me plus you

equals three

(we?)

or

is the equation balanced?

is the sum of the quotient
greater than – (us?)

or
is the end result
always three:

pain+you=me?

(You will be amused to find another of my poems in this vein [there are, in fact, three, astonishingly bad poems in the equation series] has the equation [# of ♂ in a room is ∝ 1/I.Q], that is, the number of boys (in a room) is inversely / proportionate to their average I.Q.! Somebody was feeling bent out of shape and rejected! [And crushing on their math tutor?])

II. ∅ Null
an empty set

as void of life
as an urn of
(ashes, ashes
we all fall down)

as empty as a silent desert
waste
As dark and
(the earth was without form &)
void
And he breathed.
Into his mouth, the breath of
Life and I
began to live.


Yes, do go ahead and vomit.

Fortunately, accomplished poets have written, and are being read elsewhere. Find them at Mentor Texts this week. Not all of you may have your high school scribblings — but the person still exists under a delicate patina of age. Go forth and write more.

Congratulate Minh: The Bottom Shelf Is Booked!


After a seriously complex plan with multi-layered deceit and maps, it looks like our little Minh’s getting hitched.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

Operation Happily Ever After is a go. Joy to you, Minh. And may the Punk Farm play at your reception.

Could Shawna Tenney be any more adorable?

I am just loving this little glimpse into the ordinary lives of the extraordinarily generous and blessed illustrators that the hosts of the Robert’s Snow Blogging for a Cure folks are giving us. Today I’ve seen the fabulously vast range of Rolandas Kiaulevicus, the Lithuanian illustrator whose snowflake is featured at a wrung sponge. Rolandas came to Connecticut to marry the girl he loved, with only his brushes, his bachelor’s degree, and his talent — and no English. He’d studied German in school, not thinking he’d go to America. But we do many things for love! How fabulous that his generous heart has made room to support the fight against cancer, too.

Kate Messner’s blog is where you can see pictures of the adorable Shawna JC Tenney and her family, which includes her graphic designer husband, and two chewy-cheeked little cherubs who must keep her super busy. You will LOVE her work — and let me tell you, I can’t WAIT to see her quirky, whimsical, detailed illustrations in more books. I can just imagine all kinds of fractured fairytales and the like spilling from her accomplished pen. (Just LOOK at those sheep. They’re a scream!) Blessed with all that talent, and could she BE any more adorable?

Don’t miss the mega Monster Mo’ Love at MotherReader’s, and the inimitable J.Lo — in space, no less — at welcome to my tweendom. Lots of talent from lots of generous souls. A good ending to a great month.

Fun for Kids With an Interest in China

Sacramento Chinese Culture Foundation 沙加緬度中華文化基金會

Families with children from China, or those who have an interest in Asian languages and cultures are invited to the Northern California Wisdom Chinese School and World Journal Children’s Book and Gift Faire, November 3, 2007, from 11 a.m. – 4 pm, at the Bethany Presbyterian Church, 5625 – 24th Street in Sacramento (at Fruitridge Rd. and 24th Street, about .8 mi. west of Hwy 99).

Join us for a exciting multicultural children’s program. Highlights include:

12:30: Children’s author Oliver Chin reads from his newest book, Julie Black Belt.

1:00 pm: Join in a fun, spontaneous dramatization of Adventures of the Treasure Fleet: China Discovers the World, directed by the author of the book, Ann Martin Bowler.

2:00 pm: Hear Li Keng Wong, 81, author of Good Fortune: My Journey to Gold
Mountain
, talk about her memories of her journey to and her experience living on Angel Island, CA. She will also speak of the hardships and challenges her family faced as immigrants in California. (This, to me, would be the highlight of the day!)

3:00 pm: Free books and games raffle drawing.

Bilingual books, CDs, DVDs and other educational things in Asian and South Asian languages (including Vietnamese, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Thai, Hmong, Farsi,and Tagalog) are available from Asia for Kids, Asian American Curriculum Project, and Our Chinese Daughters Foundation. Dolls, toys and games from these cultures will be available as well. This is a great resource for teachers and home-schooling parents as well as multicultural children’s lit aficionados, as there are also resources available on teaching immigration history, diversity, tolerance, and racial awareness as well. If you’re a Bay Area person interested in learning about growing up in different cultures, and researching family traditions around the world, this is the place for you.

(*courtesy of Ann Martin Bowler, SCBWI NorCal member*)

History, MEM's, Odds & Ends

“So why do we teach history to our children? Is it for the glow of pleasure we get when we hear their cherubic little mouths repeating the names and dates of all the kings and queens since Edward the Confessor, each battle they fought, every treaty they signed and every head they (personally) struck from renegade shoulders? Or is history principally about humanity? Understanding when leadership becomes tyranny and why holocausts and genocides happen?”

Beth Webb, author of the fabulous Star Dancer series talks about fiction having just as much importance as fact when children select books on historical fiction. Is there a such thing as misleading children with the fictional aspects of historical fiction?


OH. MY. Can you spot the SINGLE correct usage in this window?!




Harper Lee has been known for years as one of the most reclusive writers in our modern world. Her book was so timely a reminder of the realities of segregation and the equal rights struggle that she seems almost magical, or prophetic – she appeared when she was needed, and has virtually kept her silence ever since. Her Presidental Freedom Award means that she will soon get a chance to meet George Bush, and have a moment in the spotlight once more. Wouldn’t it be something if she found something else timely to say to the nation again?


DON’T miss the great cynsations interview with the very complex and thought-provoking Pooja Makhijani. She is, reportedly, “slowly working on a YA novel.” Much squealing here!


Oh, yeah, everybody’s excited over the tree-topper at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast — but do YOU have a Hanukkah bush? This would go with it perfectly.

History, MEM’s, Odds & Ends

“So why do we teach history to our children? Is it for the glow of pleasure we get when we hear their cherubic little mouths repeating the names and dates of all the kings and queens since Edward the Confessor, each battle they fought, every treaty they signed and every head they (personally) struck from renegade shoulders? Or is history principally about humanity? Understanding when leadership becomes tyranny and why holocausts and genocides happen?”

Beth Webb, author of the fabulous Star Dancer series talks about fiction having just as much importance as fact when children select books on historical fiction. Is there a such thing as misleading children with the fictional aspects of historical fiction?


OH. MY. Can you spot the SINGLE correct usage in this window?!




Harper Lee has been known for years as one of the most reclusive writers in our modern world. Her book was so timely a reminder of the realities of segregation and the equal rights struggle that she seems almost magical, or prophetic – she appeared when she was needed, and has virtually kept her silence ever since. Her Presidental Freedom Award means that she will soon get a chance to meet George Bush, and have a moment in the spotlight once more. Wouldn’t it be something if she found something else timely to say to the nation again?


DON’T miss the great cynsations interview with the very complex and thought-provoking Pooja Makhijani. She is, reportedly, “slowly working on a YA novel.” Much squealing here!


Oh, yeah, everybody’s excited over the tree-topper at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast — but do YOU have a Hanukkah bush? This would go with it perfectly.

Just a Little Annoucement…

Have you learned to write ‘Chill’ in Japanese? Well, why the heck not? The flake fairies today have brought us really pretty lighthouses, gorgeous seabirds, fragments of heartfelt poetry and insouciant penguins. Check the schedule, see the snow.


People! Do you remember the awesomeness that was THE SUMMER BLOG BLAST TOUR? We rocked your socks with the likes of National Book Award winner Gene Yang, newcomer Ysabeau Wilce, graphics guy Kazu Kibushi and such intense YA authors as Chris Crutcher and Julie Anne Peters. We gave you interviews with the phenomenal talent of Justina Chen Headley, and Svetlana Chmakova, and people — we’re doing it again!

And not just us, of course — the whole gang has been working hard and fast on interviews since the end of the summer, to bring you…

Coming soon to a blog near you!