Calling All YA Authors

We just ran an interview with the incredible Rebecca Mahoney over at my YA site, YA Outside the Lines.

YA has a special place in my heart–and Mahoney’s book is a perfect example of why. It’s just so incredibly innovative and cool and smart.

I’ve always loved how YA pushes at boundaries–loved the possibilities that YA offers. So much so, my first published book was a YA.

I’m anxious to feature more YA voices, cool YA books, to discuss what’s happening in the genre.

Are you a YA author–new or veteran? A YA booktoker? A high school English instructor or librarian? I’d love to schedule an interview. (All handled by email, super simple.)

Get in touch with me at hollyschindlerbooks (at) gmail (dot) com.

Calling All YA Authors

My YA authors’ blog, YAOTL, has been going strong for the past ten years. But it was time for a bit of a dust-off and update. Same address, new look: yaoutsidethelines.blogspot.com.

I’d love, love, love to get more guest posts or tour posts from YA authors (or editors, etc.) at the site. The more voices, the better.

Got a book coming out soon? Heck, got a book that released some time ago that you’d like to get more eyeballs? Hit me up here or at yaoutsidethelines (at) yahoo (dot) com.

The Ultimate Fear

The absolute worst fear of all is that I would stop, at some point, hating older work.

Okay, so maybe hate is a strong term. But I would hate, hate, hate to get to a point where I read something I’d written several years ago and didn’t see a million things I would do differently if I were to write it again.

It would mean I hadn’t grown. I hadn’t changed my mind a hundred different times about what a story was supposed to do. 

A while back, I got the rights to the very first book I ever published: A Blue So Dark. Blue gave me my first starred review. It won awards (silver medal in Foreword Reviews INDIES Book of the Year and gold medal in the IPPYs). 

And yet…

Sure, there are things I’d do differently. But should I? 

In a way, this book captures a moment in time–and in my life. It was a real struggle to figure out what would stay and what would go.

In the end, I didn’t change the plotline or characters, none of the major points. But I did change it up quite a bit as far as the line edits went: I changed the language Aura, the main character, swears. I mean, she swears a lot.

People swear. they do. Especially when things get difficult. But in Blue, I think it’s used to the point that it takes readers out of the story. 

I’m in the midst of typing the epilogue now–which means the next step will be formatting the ebook and print versions (I’m going to do both hardback and paperback editions). 

Be sure to sign up at my YA newsletter to find out when the book is available (I’m planning a super affordable ebook upon re-release): Holly Schindler’s YA News.

Aaaand–drumroll, please–my official cover reveal: