How are some of our favourite YA authors spending the holidays? We got the scoop about traditions, resolutions, and family from Kelley Armstrong (KA), James Dashner (JD), Jamieson Findlay (JF), Marthe Jocelyn (MJ), Y.S. Lee (YL), Patrick Ness (PN), Susin Nielsen (SN), Shane Peacock (SP), and Moira Young (MY). Feel free to add your own answers in the comments!

Which holiday(s) do you celebrate at home?

• We celebrate Christmas. Both my husband and I grew up with that. – KA
• I celebrate Christmas with my family – my mother, father, brothers, sisters and all the kids. It is a bit chaotic, to say the least. My brother-in-law has six dogs (yes, six ), which adds to the conviviality. – JF
• Christmas and New Years. They’ve got Boxing Day here in England (which I didn’t have growing up in the US), but mainly by that point, I really just want to sleep and read the books I got as gifts. –PN
• We celebrate Christmas. To this day I love Christmas. I confess I am not particularly religious, but it’s the spirit of the season (as long as I’m not in a shopping mall) that I love. My son, who is 15, loves it, too. My husband is more curmudgeonly, but it’s two against one. We have a million Christmas traditions – we always see a Christmas play, we always watch Elf on Christmas Eve, we always go cross-country skiing on Christmas Eve day, and we always do a 1000 piece Ravensburger Christmas puzzle! When I was growing up my mom and I would drive to my grandparents’ farm near Kingston, Ontario, for Christmas. Oh, how I loved it. It would always snow. It was magical.  And of course we’d always have a big turkey dinner. –SN
• While my children were growing up in a mixed household, we celebrated Christmas and a sort of half-Hanukah. –MJ
• Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving … and we kind of celebrate the summer holidays around our house too, since we have three kids and they are very happy when that time of the year arrives. We have American relatives and sometimes go to the U.S. for their Thanksgiving in November – they really go at the eating … and shopping! – SP

What’s your favourite holiday story?

• My favorite Christmas movies are It’s a Wonderful Life and How the Grinch Stole Christmas – EW
• The Gift of the Magi Indian Giver, by Steve Martin (from ‘Cruel Shoes’) – MY
• Probably the movie actually called A Christmas Story. Irreverent and funny and taught me once and for all never to stick your tongue on a frozen lamppost. -PN
• Elf. Going a little further back, I also adore Miracle on 34th Street with a young Natalie Wood. -SN
• I don’t know if there is one in particular, but I remember being SO excited every Christmas eve as a kid. It was just beyond thrilling, the greatest night of every year! – SP

What are your family traditions for the holidays?

• We always open one present each on Christmas eve and the rest in the morning. –EW
• Cheating at Pictionary and playing childish tricks with smoked oysters while waiting for real life to resume. –MY
• We celebrate Christmas, and our main tradition is to eat a lot. It starts in late November, when we bake a traditional fruitcake for my husband (he’s British; Christmas isn’t Christmas, for him, without a brandy-soaked doorstop that he calls “cake”). Then there’s the usual Christmas frippery (cookies, candies), the family dinner, the gingerbread house (which I designed in the shape of our house, and which always sends us into sugar overload), our friends’ parties, our neighbours’ open houses… you get the idea. It’s so outrageously overindulgent that I tend to start the new year craving spinach. But that’s another story. – YL
• My family have Scandinavian roots, so we tended to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, which I still do. The big meal is then and all presents get opened. Christmas Day then tends to be for visits from friends. It’s nice. Plus, Norwegian Christmas desserts are unbeatable. -PN
• We have lots–from baking to decorating to gift giving, they all come with little traditions that we either carried over from our childhoods or started fresh for our family. With our extended families, we have traditions, too. We host Christmas eve for my husband’s side, then Christmas brunch with my mom and my siblings’ families, then dinner with my father. – KA
• I love movies, and my family loves movies. Quite often we will go see a movie on Thanksgiving and Christmas day. I also love some of the Christmas movies that we always make sure and watch at home, like A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation. – JD
• Many years ago we stopped using a real tree for Christmas, so we decorate an oversize tomato frame with antique cookie cutters. That’s Christmas. We also have a beautiful silver menorah that we remember to light about five of the eight nights. That’s Hanukah.  Our main tradition is still having stockings on Christmas morning, even now that we don’t have a traditional meal or presents. – MJ
• I grew up in a family that was very close, and not just our immediate family, but our extended one too. We used to have huge family get-togethers at Christmas and Easter, where we all gathered around very long tables with LOTS of food. Many, many excellent pies! Then we’d all head out for a massive family hockey game on a pond afterwards. They were great fun! – SP

What is your favourite holiday meal or recipe?

• Our traditional treats are homemade Perogs which are Latvian buns filled with ham and bacon and onion. -EW
• I have a list of “must make” Christmas baking. The kids notice if I don’t make everything on it, every year. For Christmas brunch, some things change, but I always make stuffed French toast. –KA
• I love Christmas pudding, even though we were (and to some extent still are) non-drinkers and there was never an ounce of rum in it! – SP

What was the best gift you ever received?

• My favourite gifts are always books. A book is like a perfectly packaged miracle: affordable, yet far more than the sum of its parts. The intellectual intimacy of the gift is often a revelation, and that’s why I cherish it so much. –YL
• My wife surprised me with a full drum set, that now sits in my office. I can release stress and anxiety and nerves by beating those things whenever I feel like it. I love it! – JD
• My other half got a rhino named after me on a nature reserve in Kenya. I’m a big fan of rhinos – I even have a tattoo of one – so knowing there’s a black rhino called Patrick running around east Africa makes me happy. I’ll bet he’s bookish. –PN
• I would like to mix this up a bit and give you my best and my worst. My best was a doll’s house that my Grandpa built me. It wasn’t the fanciest, but oh how I loved it. I didn’t grow up with my dad, and my Grandpa was really my father figure. He was a wonderful, gentle, loving man. I remember I cried when I opened that doll house, knowing how much love and work had gone into it. He was a great carpenter.
  The worst gift I ever received was from my Great Aunt Jean. I wound up loving my Aunt Jean and getting to know her well as an adult, but we didn’t see eye to eye when I was a kid. One Christmas, when I was about 9, she gave me a doll – flat, one-dimensional – made of about 8 J-cloths. “So you can help your mom with washing the dishes,” she cackled. In that moment I loathed her. (to reiterate, we grew to really like each other!). –SN
• I remember getting a subscription to The Hockey News when I was a little guy, and being just over the moon about it.-SP

What gift would you get your (latest) main character? Why?

• Well, since I took away Savannah’s powers and she really wants them back, I could say that…except that I think she’s temporarily better off without them. Instead, I’ll give her an indestructible cell phone, able to withstand pits of water, bomb blasts and hell beasts. She’s gone through too many phones in the last couple of books. – KA
• I know you said “latest”, but I’ll answer for two of my characters. For Ambrose, the protagonist of Word Nerd, I would get him a new pair of pajamas.
  For Violet, the protagonist of Dear George Clooney: Please Marry My Mom, I would get her another pair of Converse running shoes. I love that Violet is not at all a girly-girl, and wears jeans and t-shirts – but expresses her individuality on her feet. I’d get her a really wild pair. -SN
• Well, Sherlock could use a new coat … and a magnifying glass.-SP

What is your favourite thing about winter?

• Holing up by the fire with a hot chocolate and a good book. – KA
• The clothes. I love layers and jumpers and tights and boots. I hate summer clothing. Loathe it. Particularly the footwear. – MY
• I love being warm, so I didn’t really enjoy winter until we installed a wood-burning stove in our house. Now, I’m deliciously warm all winter long, and simple things like having a glass of wine by the fire or coming in from snowshoeing feel like indulgences. – YL
• Fox tracks in the snow in the back yard, which apparently – while I sleep – is a total fox playground. They go crazy in the stuff.-PN
• My favourite thing is the colour of the sky at twilight – on a clear cold day it can be a deep blue-violet, the colour of a tropical lagoon. But actually I love everything about winter; it is my favourite season. I love playing hockey outdoors; I love cross-country skiing; and I love walking on snowy streets when cars are spinning their tires and getting stuck. – JF
• I love snow and ice and cold. I grew up in Georgia where we didn’t get much of that, so now I’m making up for it by living in the Rocky Mountains. I love working on a cold day, bundled up and warm while it’s stormy and white outside. – JD
• Hockey. Hockey. Hockey. And that’s about it. – SP

How do you plan to celebrate New Year?

• My whole family is going down to Vermont to ski.   We’ve rented a gigantic chalet and we’ll spent New Years eve together – my wife, my oldest daughter Christina and her husband Marc, my son Nick and his girlfriend Emily, my youngest daughter Julia and our relatives from Latvia.  –EW
• At my brother’s house; he always has New Year’s Eve party and we play boot hockey on his swimming pool. He has a huge pool that he doesn’t use for swimming; it is a frog-and turtle pond in the summer and a rink in the winter.  That’s my brother, the biologist. – JF
• Usually I boycott New Year’s Eve, but this year I am going to a wedding.-MJ
• We usually spent it together at home. We used to go to a friend’s amazing house on a hill in the country, and run outside at midnight and bang pots and pans … lots of noise and lots of fun! -SP

What are your New Year’s resolutions for 2012?

• To travel less in 2012. I said the same thing in 2011 and ended up traveling more. Let’s see if I can do better this year! – KA
• I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. Any day can be a day where you change things, do that thing you’ve always wanted, try to have a different outlook. Why does it have to be the first of the year? Start now, life is difficult and challenging and beautiful and glorious. It’s yours for the grasping at any moment. Even this one. –PN
• To be more of myself. – MJ
• I want to exercise more, work harder, and have the best year of my life. I will have two new novels out in 2012. I’ve never doubled up like that before. One is the final Boy Sherlock, which should be a big deal, and the other is one of seven novels seven amazing Canadian writers are creating, separate stories but slightly connected. I am really looking forward to both of those publishing events. Both come out in the fall and there will be a great deal of promoting going on … so, that’s why I have to get in shape! – SP

To celebrate the exciting day, Random House of Canada and Indigo Books & Music brought a six foot tall ice sculpture carved in the shape of 3 dragons to Indigo Manulife on a rainy Tuesday morning. There were even two copies of the book embedded in blocks of ice! Luckily, no one tried to chisel them out. (Click the images to enlarge.)

Many came up to the sculpture, bewildered that it was actually made of ice, but alas the water dripping from the dragons nose was all the proof they needed. Adults, teenagers and children all came out to take pictures with the sculpture and send their tweets to @indigogreenroom, the Indigo Events twitter account, for a chance to win a copy of the coveted book.

Many fans also tweeted their pictures to the author himself at @InheritanceCP, who happily tweeted back exclaiming that he loved the ice sculpture idea. The fun continued the following Saturday at Chapters Queensway where a second sculpture was showcased in the afternoon.

Are you reading this series?

“Not only will it satisfy the cravings of Hunger Games fans, but it is—dare I say—better than The Hunger Games. . . . This book will blow you away. . . . Blood Red Road simply delivers. The story, the writing, the characters and the narrative voice are stunning and completely original, setting this book apart from the crowd of dystopian novels.”
—Hollywood Crush, MTV.com

With all this excitement about the book, I thought I would share not one, but TWO trailers for Moira Young’s debut – the North American version, and the UK version.

Which do you prefer?

Hi, my name is Anabella and I’m ten years old. I really like the Penderwick books and as you might know the third book is coming out on May tenth. I was just wondering if you are doing or could do something for the coming out of the book? I would really love it if you did! Sincerely Anabella age ten.

For those of you who haven’t read the books, they are a series of books for young people about a family called the Penderwicks who believe in truth and honour, yet can’t seem to stay out of trouble. There’s oldest sister Rosalind, responsible for the rest; stubborn, feisty Skye; dreamy Jane; and shy little Batty, whose best friend is Hound, a large dog more loyal than obedient. The third book in the series, The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, has just been released. Jeanne plans to write two more books about the Penderwicks.

When Phyllis read Anabella’s letter, she got right on the phone to Random House, and discovered that Jeanne Birdsall was touring to Seattle and had time in her schedule for a trip to Vancouver. It turns out that there were lots of fans of the Penderwicks in Vancouver and the event quickly sold out. Thanks to Anabella for making it happen! We hope you had a great night.

Martyn was a hugely likeable, well-rounded, fun and thoughtful author, who charmed everyone with his genuine interest and enthusiasm.  This isn’t his first book – Martyn has written five novels for adults, but he told us that writing for young adults is his new passion and something he wants to concentrate on now.  Here are some pics from our fun but exhausting day – of Martyn signing the author wall at Mabel’s Fables book store, and signing books after being treated to tea and scones at The Flying Dragon book store.

Martyn summed up his trip to Canada in a blog post entitled “Not the Royal Wedding”, stating that he had a good time, but:

“Of course, as a Brit abroad, I fielded plenty of questions about The Big Day back home and had to rein in my republican antipathy to the wedding (and to the monarchy as a whole) for fear of coming across as the grumpy, unpatriotic curmudgeon that I am.”

Didn’t I say he was a charmer? You might also enjoy reading about how he was dragged into the world of websites and tweeting on online self-promotion by his publishers in “Not the Home Page“.

The pictures and words in a graphic novel are equally important and as such, both should be treated with the same amount of attention and care. Not used to working with images or artists? That’s where your friendly neighbourhood Graphic Designer can lend a hand. Designers have a deep appreciation for the language that is created through the relationship between carefully selected images and minimal text. Our ability to analyze and communicate with other visual thinkers makes Designers valuable assets when it comes to graphic publishing.

While a steep learning curve may be involved, with the right team members, even a house that has little experience with graphic novels can produce successful titles. Take for example Scott Chantler’s Two Generals, McClelland & Stewart’s first foray into originating a graphic novel, which has earned two prestigious Eisner nominations. (The Eisner Awards are the Oscars of the comic world). This WWII story based on the author’s grandfather’s war diary, has also become many readers’ first graphic novel experience. Its appeal stretches from middle schoolers, where the book is included as part of the curriculum, to their grandparents.

Lesley Fairfield’s Tyranny was Tundra Books’ first attempt at a graphic novel. Tyranny is a very personal account about eating disorders. It is a very valuable story for all women, but especially women who struggle with body image. Tyranny’s many accolades include being selected for the New York Public Library’s Stuff for the Teen Age List, a YALSA selection and a GG Finalist for Children’s Literature.

Graphic novels are a high art form and enriched story telling experience. Do not let fear of the unknown stand in the way of reading comics.

There are a few events coming up for those interested in learning more about graphic novels.

April 30, 2011 – For those curious to learn more about working with graphic novels, the Toronto branch of the Editors Association of Canada is offering a course that will send you in the right direction.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival — May 7-8, 2011 @ The Toronto Reference Library. FREE to attend.
There won’t be any attendees dressed as superheroes here! Know as TCAF, this world class event focuses on literary comics. This is a great opportunity to meet high profile comic creators from around the world, discover a hidden indie gem or purchase some original art.

Free Comic Book Day – 7 May, 2011.
Just as the name states, comic shops world wide offer a sampling of free comics to their patrons. Visit the FCBD site to find participating stores.

As a 30-something who reads widely, including a chunk of YA lit, I can’t help but take notice of this debate. I have read some really thought-provoking novels that were intended to be read by young people – RAGE: A Love Story and No and Me are prime examples. And I fail to see the difference between an adult reading a popular adult book, like The Da Vinci Code, and a popular young adult book, like The Hunger Games. In fact, I had more personal engagement with The Hunger Games, trying to imagine myself in a similar setting and how I would have handled the life-or-death choices facing those characters, than I did with The Da Vinci Code.

Since BookLounge.ca is a community of avid readers, whose loves include both literary and commercial fiction, I wanted to bring the debate in-house and ask you what you think. Do we all need to “grow up” and move past the YA shelf at the bookstore? Or should we pride ourselves on being able to enjoy and engage with books for all audiences?

My Thoughts on “Scribbling Women”

I really enjoyed exploring the lives included in Marthe Jocelyn’s "Scribbling Women". This book was interesting not just because of the rare writing that it explores, but because of the adventures portrayed. Real women – wives and mothers, sisters and slaves – who struck out in new and unconventional ways, and managed to write about it. The fact that many of them were literate at all is impressive for their eras.

One of my favourite "Scribbling Women" was Mary Hayden Russell in Chapter 3. She’s a bit like a real-life Elizabeth Swann, sailing the high seas and being entertained at various seaports in the Atlantic Ocean. Through Mary’s accounts, we get a glimpse of what life was like for other adventurous women – the wives and daughters of colonial governors. Perhaps for the same love of Pirates, I was also intrigued by Mary Kingley, who made a similar voyage to the Canary Islands and spent her life exploring and recording.

To me, "Scribbling Women" is the kind of book you want to put into the hands of any young woman who is destined for great things. It proves over and over again that life can take you anywhere. In a world where we record pretty much everything about ourselves and share with the public, the significance of a book like "Scribbling Women" could easily be lost. I hope it finds more readers like me who will treasure the life stories with in.

20 Writerly Questions for Marthe Jocelyn

How would you summarize your new book in one sentence?

Profiles of eleven under-known writers and how their writing illuminates their lives.

How long did it take you to write this book?

Including the “reading around’ phase and the selection process, it took about three years.  

How did you choose your characters’ names?  

The women in my book were real so their mothers picked their names.

How many drafts did you go through? 

Non-fiction is not like fiction, where you gallop through to the end and then start over to revise. It is built slowly, in patches, like a papier-mâché model. Short answer, no idea.

Who was the first person to read your manuscript?

The first reader was the editor at Tundra Books, Kathy Lowinger, to whom the book is also dedicated.  

If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it? 

Since this is not a novel demanding a single star, I can’t really answer this question. But I am working on a short one-woman play about one of the ‘scribblers’, Mary Kingsley, and I’d cast Emma Thompson.

What’s your favourite city in the world?  

Ask me again on my death bed.

Did you always want to be a writer?  

No, it just kind of happened.

What was your very first story about?

A polar bear.

When did you write it? 

In first grade.

What was your favourite book as a kid?

I refuse to choose a favourite.

If you could be any character from any book, who would you be? 

Hmmm… How long do I have to be the character? Can I slip in and out of different books and snatch the best parts from each? Or do I have to move in and commit to one set of pages? Clearly this question needs a lot of thought.

If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?

Isn’t this kind of a repeat of number 11? I’d like a body of work like Joan Aiken or Ann-Marie MacDonald, deep and wide and funny and bold. 

If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask? 

I’m not sure I want to talk to any writer – I just want to read what they’ve written. Real people – especially writers – are often disappointing!

How do you organize your library? 

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

What’s on your nightstand right now? 

Two short story collections – A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and That Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche.

Where is your favorite place to write? 

Bed, hammock, or train.

Do you have any writing rituals?   

No, but I like to have tea nearby.

When do you write best, morning or night?

Morning. 

What is the best gift someone could give a writer?

Supper out.

What is the best advice someone could give a writer?

Read – your own work aloud. And other people’s all the time.

For more information about “Scribbling Women”, for the rest of the “Scribbling Women” blog tour schedule, and for details about how to enter an amazing giveaway where you could win a giant collection of Marthe’s books, visit Talking with Tundra.

[Editor's Note - This post also appears in Bookurious - A reading community just for teens! If you are a teen who loves books of all kind, then you might just be Bookurious. We'd love to see you there.]

As a publisher and life long reader, I have to say that this scene brought joy to my heart. Just before the event, I was standing in line with oodles of readers aged 11-17, and all they could talk about were books! What they were reading, what they wanted to read. Recommendations were flying back and forth, followed by squeals of delight when someone mentioned a favourite title.

Once we got inside the club, there was music, yummy food and prizes! Emily Osment opened the show with a great set before Jessi Cruickshank and Dan Levy took the stage as hosts.

There were 10 awards given that night, and I am so excited to share that we picked up 2 of them! Right off the bat, Lauren Kate was announced Best New Voice for her novel Fallen. The crowd erupted with cheers, which just grew as other categories were announced. (flip over to www.teenreadawards.ca for a full list of winners) Our second win came at the close of the show as Smart Chick Kelley Armstrong picked up Best Canadian Read for her third Darkest Powers novel, The Reckoning! Kelley took the stage to accept her award and the entire building began to chant her name. A rockstar moment indeed!

I think the only real surprise of the night was the winner of Best Villain. “He who shall not be named” (Harry Potter’s Voldemort for all you muggles) was the clear crowd favourite, but the award went to Alice from Michelle Zink’s Prophesy of the Sisters.

I had a fantastic night cheering on our authors. I’ll leave you with one of the Monster Factory videos developed for the TRAs – this one a synopsis of The Reckoning.

WHOOSH! That sound you just heard? That was February rushing by. And the thump? That’s me, landing on my butt in March, thinking “did that just happen? Did I just do that?”
Do what, exactly? Everything. Seriously:

1- Launch Rhythm and Blues (a teen comedy of ambition, identity and Auto-Tune!) with my favourite Montreal writer friends, at Babar en Ville.

Reading and mingling with guests, including authors P.J. Bracegirdle, Monique Polack and J.L. Scharf, and illustrators Susan Mitchell and Suana Verelst.

2- Keep the party going all month with SweatFest, with my dancing buds at Studio Sweatshop, where we all did twenty eight street dance classes in twenty eight days.

3- Finish a whole manuscript draft for a future project of unknowable fabulousness.

4- Read 5 1/2 books, including C.K. Kelly Martin’s I Know It’s Over, Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun, Chris Cleave’s Little Bee and Gayla Trail’s Grow Great Grub.

5- Do fun authory things like go to writers union workshops, and speak on a panel for Yes Oui CANSCAIP, to help other writers figure out how to get their books out there.

The Babar en Ville party was warm, and fun, with lots of food. I got up and did a reading, and there was plenty of time to chat with new friends and old, and sign a few books!

At the end of SweatFest, there was a prize draw, and two intrepid SweatFesters, Janice and Julio, won copies of Rhythm and Blues, and Break on Through.

SweatFest Winner, Janice

And here’s a hot tip: February is over, but the winning is not! If you’re in Montreal, and want to pick up a copy of Rhythm and Blues or my first book, Break on Through if you go to Babar en Ville between now and March 17th, you still have time to enter our contest to score dance classes and Reebok, shoes!