News and Upcoming Conference

My big news is I'm super excited to be a part of the new Skyscape imprint at Amazon Children's Publishing. For more details, you can check here where it was announced on Publisher's Weekly.

Tomorrow, I'll be flying out to New York City. It's going to be a whirlwind trip and I can only imagine how cold it will be. But I can't wait!

Friday my plans include meeting my editor, Miriam Frank, and all the amazing people at Skyscape. I'll be having lunch with my agent, whom I'm so excited to finally meet him in person. That night I'll be meeting a bunch of the OneFour members, a group of debut authors for 2014 that I recently joined.

Saturday and Sunday will be packed with the SCBWI conference as well as meeting the Lucky13s for lunch and Blueboarders for drinks.

But what I'm really excited about is hanging out with the MiGs all weekend. We promised each other two years ago to do this conference. At that time, I didn't have an agent or a book deal, but I knew I was committed to our group and to making this dream of mine to get published a reality. And now it is. Kind of wild and exciting all mixed together.

I'm sure after the weekend is finished I'll crash. I'm planning on taking plenty of pictures which I'll post next week. If I don't freeze to death in the meantime!

Winner of Prophecy!

PROPHECY by Ellen Oh has hit the shelves and it's time now to announce the winner of the hardcover I'm giving away!

The winner is Ruth Schiffermann!

Ruth, please email your address to farley dot christinaL at gmail dot com

Congratulations to My Crit Partners!

This has been a BIG week in my world because amazing things are happening to my very dear writing friends. I am so excited to announce:

Beth Revis' released SHADES OF EARTH this week. Her final book in an incredible trilogy.

And due to her amazing pre-order sales, as promised, Penguin sent SHADES OF EARTH into space! Check out the Entertainment Weekly video clip here.

Beth's got more incredibleness up her sleeve. But that's all still super secret stuff right now.

Debbie Ridpath Ohi announced the next book she will be illustrating with Michael Black called NAKED. Oh what a title! I can't wait to see how this book comes out. Here's the Entertainment Weekly announcement. Many of you are familiar with I'M BORED, her last project that she worked with him on and received that won the Notable Children's Book Award for 2012 .

Carmella Van Vleet also announced her first middle grade book sale of ELIZA BING IS NOT A BIG FAT QUITTER to Holiday House. This is such a great book and the main character takes a taekwondo class. As soon as the pre-order link is up on Amazon, you'll be the first to know.

Finally, Susan Laidlaw's YA, INFIDEL IN PARADISE, will be launched into the world in less than a month! I can hardly believe it. If you haven't preordered it, do so here.

So as you can see, lots of amazingness all around. I'm thrilled to be working with such an amazing and talented group of writers.

Creating Unique Details in Your Setting

There is nothing that kills a story quicker than when it's set in the same old setting. Like the school cafeteria or the locker scene. Don't get me wrong, you can use those settings, but my challenge to myself if I'm going to use those settings is to find something unique.

For instance, I have the cafeteria scene, but I pull out the unique details of Korea using thumbprint scanners to deduct from student's accounts. Or I have the locker scene, but then something (Sorry! No spoilers today!) very unusual happens.

When I was at the Hohenzollern Castle in Germany, I was overwhelmed by all the details that the builders put into the design of the buildings. I couldn't resist chatting about how important using unique details creates a unique story.

You can check it out here:



What are ways that you incorporate details in your settings?

PROPHECY Hits the Shelves

It's finally here! PROPHECY by Ellen Oh. I am beyond excited for this book and I have so much love for it and Ellen herself.

I read an early draft of this book way back when Ellen and I manuscript swapped. She read GILDED and I read PROPHECY so it's kind of an amazing thing to see our books debuting in 2013.

What I love about PROPHECY:

1.  The setting- Hello, ancient Korea. It doesn't get much better than that. So automatically, it hits my winner category.

2. The premise- Fighter girl who saves her people. My type of book.

3. The Korean mythology- After writing  GILDED, I find it intriguing to see how other authors pull the ancient myths into their own stories and Ellen does such a great job with this.

4. The cover- Tell me that's not gorgeous.

5. The fight scenes- If you're looking for a good action-packed quest with thrilling fight scenes, you really need to read this book.

To stalk Ellen, you can find her on website, Twitter or Tumblr.

Don't forget to add PROPHECY to your Goodreads list! And get your own copy here to add to your bookshelf collection.

Or make a comment below and WIN a copy for yourself. Tweet this post for an extra entry.

Bring the YA2U Book Tour to Orlando!

Have you ever wished that a big YA book tour would make a stop in your hometown?  

Well, I have and here's the chance to make my wish to come true! YA2U is a program that features five award-winning and best-selling authors who are holding a contest to see what city they should visit in an exclusive tour stop!

 

The authors are collecting votes from January 1 to February 15, and any city in the continental US or any Canadian city that has an international airport can win an exclusive visit from all five authors, including an author panel and book signing! Entering is super easy--and if you help spread the word about the contest, you can also enter win a signed copy of all of their books (TEN signed books in total!)--and the book contest is open internationally!

The authors in the program are:

• Marie Lu, the New York Times best-selling author of Legend and the upcoming Prodigy
• Marissa Meyer, the New York Times best-selling author of Cinder and the upcoming Scarlet
• Beth Revis, the New York Times best-selling author of Across the Universe, A Million Suns, and the upcoming Shades of Earth
• Victoria Schwab, author of The Near Witch and the highly-anticipated upcoming The Archived
• Megan Shepherd, author of the debut novel The Madman's Daughter

And they want to have an event in your home town! To participate, just got to the YA2U website and let them know what city you want them to come to. And while you're there, help spread the word about the contest and you can be entered to win all of their books--TEN signed books in total! 

Here's why the YA2U Team should come to MY hometown! 

1. Orlando is has everything: Disney, Universal, Sea World.
2. Orlando is centrally located. It's like smack middle of the state. People can come from everywhere.
3. Often, Florida often gets overlooked on book tours.
4. Great weather year round.
5. Beaches- Your choice, gulf or Atlantic- on either side. 
6. The shopping- Malls and outlets. It's a shopper's paradise.
7. We've got a great Barnes & Noble by University of Central Florida.

 

Why should the YA2U Team come to your hometown? Why not join in the fun today and share with others about this program and your hometown. The more votes your town gets, the closer you are to having your very own personal tour stop! Vote for YOUR town here!

And if you help spread the word, you can also participate in the book giveaway. Tell them that you learned about YA2U from me and we both get extra entries in the contest! 

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A Lucky 2013!

It's here! 2013. The year my YA, GILDED, will launch into the world. I'm beyond excited. I don't even know how to tell you other than pages and pages of exclamation marks which would be annoying and you'd never want to visit my blog or read my book again. So I won't succumb you to that.

Instead, I'm excited to tell you that the The Lucky 13ers are celebrating 2013 by having an awesome contest to kick off the new year. And I'm participating. One lucky winner will win a giant swag pack from 20 debut authors! Check it out here.

Or you can head over to the MiGs where we're talking about our writing goals. I've a long list that I'm hoping to acheive. Wish me luck.

And if you get a chance, you can vote for GILDED on any of these Listopias over on Goodreads.

So what are you most excited about for 2013? It's going to be a lucky year and I'm wishing you all the luck that this upcoming years has to hold.