YA Guy Participates in... The Spring 2018 YA Scavenger Hunt!

YA Guy's super excited to participate in this year's SPRING YA SCAVENGER HUNT! This is my fifth Hunt, and I've got a new book, the YA fantasy ECOSYSTEM, due out on April 22. So I'm totally ready for the Hunt, and I trust that you are too! (I mean, why would you be here if you weren't?)

As you can probably tell by all the purple lettering in this post (not to mention the banner at the top), I'm on the PURPLE TEAM, along with the other awesome authors you see below:

The YA Scavenger Hunt is a bi-annual event first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and a chance to win some awesome prizes! Add up the clues on each PURPLE TEAM page, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive one signed book from each author on the hunt in our team! There are SIX contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! But don't delay: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will be online only until noon Pacific time on APRIL 8! (My personal giveaway, though, will run a little longer, through April 11.)

HOW IT WORKS

Directions: In the author biography below, you'll notice I've listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the purple team, and then add them up (don't worry, you can use a calculator!). 

Entry Form: Once you've added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form to qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.

Rules: Open internationally. Anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by Sunday, April 8, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered. For more information, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.

Personal Giveaway: In addition to the prizes named above, readers who enter my personal giveaway will have a chance to win a signed copy of my forthcoming novel ECOSYSTEM! Like the Hunt itself, this personal giveaway is open internationally. Use the Rafflecopter form below to enter!

Got all that? Then let's meet the author I'm hosting, EVA POHLER!

Eva Pohler is the USA Today bestselling author of The Mystery Book Collection, The Mystery House Series, and four series for young adults: The Gatekeeper's Saga, A Gatekeeper's Spin-Off Series, The Purgatorium Series, and The Vampires of Athens Series. (That's a lot more than 22 books, if you're counting!) Her books have been described as "thrilling" and "addictive." A Kirkus reviewer said of The Gatekeeper's Sons that it was "sure to thrill Hunger Games fans."

To find out more about Eva, go to her website.

About THE GATEKEEPER'S BRIDE: Unrest brews among gods and mortals alike when Hades makes a deal with the Fates to end his loneliness in the Underworld. But when Persephone proposes to conspire with him in a plot against Demeter, things get out of hand.

Find out the truth of how Hades and Persephone met and fell in love and the impact it had on the rest of the pantheon during these tumultuous times. Learn how their children--Hypnos, Thanatos, Megaera, Tisiphone, Alecto, and Melinoe--came into being. Discover why they were assigned their respective duties as Sleep, Death, the Furies, and the goddess of ghosts. Find out the real reason why the Olympians possessed such profound disdain for these Underworld gods.

This prequel to The Gatekeeper's Saga is more than a retelling of the Persephone myth. Many more of the ancient myths are woven together to reveal the conflict, tension, and relationships among the gods in one of the most beloved pantheons in human history. The Gatekeeper's Bride can be read before or after The Gatekeeper's Saga.

To buy the book, follow this link!

*********************************************************************************

But wait, there's more! Enter below for a chance to win a signed copy of my forthcoming YA fantasy novel ECOSYSTEM! This personal giveaway runs through April 11 (which also happens to be the day a cover reveal for the book runs on YA Books Central)!

About ECOSYSTEM: Seventeen-year-old Sarah is a Sensor, gifted with the ability to survive within the sentient Ecosystem that swept away human civilization centuries ago. While the remnants of humankind huddle in small villages of stone, Sarah uses her psychic connection to the Ecosystem to travel freely in the wild in search of food, water, and fuel. Sarah doesn’t fear the Ecosystem—but she hates it for killing her mother when Sarah was a child. When she hunts, she hunts not only for her people’s sustenance but for revenge.

Then Miriam, an apprentice Sensor, is lost in the Ecosystem, and Sarah sets out to rescue her. Joining Sarah is Miriam’s beloved, Isaac, a boy who claims to possess knowledge of the Ecosystem that will help their people survive. The harrowing journey to find the missing apprentice takes Sarah and Isaac into the Ecosystem’s deadliest places. And it takes Sarah into the unexplored territory of her own heart, where she discovers feelings that threaten to tear her—and her society—apart.

A thrilling fantasy adventure from the author of Freefall and the Survival Colony series, Ecosystem is the first book in a YA trilogy that includes The Devouring Land (2019) and House of Earth, House of Stone (2020).

a Rafflecopter giveaway *********************************************************************************

The Spring 2018 YA Scavenger Hunt is over! Thanks for playing, and happy reading!

YA Guy... Visits Schools!

As YA Guy has said before, probably the coolest thing about writing for young people is that I get to visit schools (and libraries). And probably the coolest thing about those visits is answering questions from students, who always challenge me and give me a new perspective on my own writing.

Recently, I visited Shaler Area Middle School (close to the city of Pittsburgh) and talked about FREEFALL, science fiction, and social justice to a group of young readers who'd just finished a unit on segregation. Here are some of the great questions they asked me, with my reconstruction of how I answered them:

Charlotte: Do you believe the society represented in FREEFALL is likely to occur in the future?

YA Guy: Actually, I think it's happening right now. Not only nationally but internationally, we're a people divided by race and class, and in some respects those divisions have worsened despite legislation that was meant to shrink them. That's one of the things with science fiction: though it's typically set in the future, it comments on events that are happening right now, sometimes tweaking those events just the tiniest bit for the purposes of fiction.

Jamin: When you're writing a story, how do you know if your idea is good or not?

YAG: The short answer is that you don't. Or at least, if you mean "good" as in "lots of people will want to read it," it's hard to gauge that while you're writing. So my best advice to writers is to write what YOU think is good--the story that you want to tell (or that you'd want to read). You can't really control whether others will think it's good, so you probably shouldn't waste time worrying about that.

Taylor: Have you ever based a character off your own personality?

YAG: In the largest sense, every character I create is based (at least in part) off of me, because I'm the person whose thoughts and feelings I know best. But sometimes there's an even closer connection. For example, Cam Newell, my narrator in FREEFALL, is a guy from a relatively privileged upbringing whose viewpoint is changed when he comes into contact with people from very different backgrounds. His process of development is quite similar to what I experienced when I went to college, where for the first time my eyes were opened to people, perspectives, and issues that I'd never been exposed to before.

Tiffany: Where did the title FREEFALL come from?

YAG: Sometimes, I don't have a title for a book until I'm about halfway through, when I've finally figured out what the book is about. Other times, a word or phrase just pops into my head, and I decide it would make a good title--but then I have to figure out how it's relevant to the story I'm telling. That was the case with FREEFALL. I liked the word, partly because I knew I was writing an outer space adventure, and I was playing with the ideas of gravity and being grounded (or being thrown out of one's accustomed ground). But I also started to think about how being in love is kind of like being in freefall; it's scary and exhilarating and unpredictable all at once. So since the book has romance elements too, FREEFALL seemed like a good title. Eventually, to make it even more relevant to the story, I named one of the starships the Freefall.

Shahaan: Do you write books to inform or to entertain?

YAG: Many authors will say that the only purpose of writing is entertainment, and I do agree that entertainment is primary. But with a book, we're not talking about random light shows or clown acts, which might be purely entertaining; we're talking about language, which means that there's also going to be information conveyed from author to reader. I don't believe in hitting the reader over the head with a "message," but at the same time, I see nothing wrong with the author having information s/he wants to convey to the reader, so long as s/he leaves it up to the reader to receive and process that information.

Chris: When you use first-person point of view, what's the best way to describe your narrator?

YAG: Well, you probably want to avoid the overused device of having your narrator look in a mirror (or other reflective surface) and describe him/herself. You might ask whether you really need a physical description of the narrator, or you might drop little nuggets of physical description here and there. But if you want a single, sustained description, you should try to find an original way of doing it, such as I tried to do in FREEFALL, where Cam reads his own physical data on the screen of the life pod where he's been in suspended animation for 1000 years.

Logan: Where do you get the names for your characters?

YAG: Lots of places. I'll meet someone with a name I like, or I'll hear something on the news, or I'll create a name from scratch. In the manuscript I'm currently working on, everyone has names from Greek myths, so it was fun researching those names. For FREEFALL, I named the three male leads after my son's favorite NFL players.

Sammy: What was your inspiration for the Upperworld?

YAG: I honestly looked around at the real world and thought about wealth disparity, segregation, and oppression in the here and now, and then said to myself, "What if current trends get worse and worse in the next hundred years?" I'm no prophet, but there are very troubling signs that the world's wealth is becoming more and more concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the global population, and if that keeps happening, we might literally have an Upperworld and a Lowerworld in the next century: an elite 1% with all the wealth and a remaining 99% with none.

Candace: How do you stretch a short story into a novel?

YAG: First, I'd point out that if you're writing short stories right now, there's no need to stretch them into anything other than what they are. Short stories are the perfect length for young writers: you can complete them in a week or a month, and thus feel a great sense of accomplishment, whereas for most teens (including myself forty years ago), tackling a novel is an exercise in frustration--it's just too much, and the likelihood that you won't finish it tends to produce feelings of failure. That being said, I've found that the key difference between a novel and a short story is that in a short story, the narrator or main character has ONE challenge s/he has to face and resolve, whereas in a novel, there will be multiple such challenges, each one yielding to a greater one. But I do want to repeat that for young writers, I think short stories are the best way to go: they give you a chance to hone your skills, and possibly even to gain some publishing credits.

Alexandra: Do you plan your novels out first, or figure things out as you go along?

YAG: I'm what people call a "pantser"--that is, I don't plan much, and so I kind of fly along by the seat of my pants. I'll have a basic idea for a novel--such as in FREEFALL, where the idea was to write an adventure/romance having to do with outer space colonization--but I'll let the rest unfold as I write. The reason I like to do it this way is that I feel as if I make my best discoveries as a writer "in the moment," where one idea will lead to another that I hadn't foreseen. But other writers like to plan out more than I do, and I think it's important for each writer to find the method that works best for her or him.

Maddox: How did the plot of FREEFALL develop?

YAG: This is a perfect example of the process I just described, where one idea leads to a wholly unexpected one. I'd created my main characters, Cam and Sofie, but I felt that something was missing--they were too similar to each other, and thus there wasn't enough tension and conflict in their relationship. But then the idea of Upperworld and Lowerworld popped into my head, which led me to the obvious conclusion that one of my teens would be an Upperworlder and the other a Lowerworlder. Once that idea was in place, the story took off: if they were from different parts of the planet, they'd have to meet somehow, and there would be some kind of conflict when they did, and each of them would have to learn from the other, and so on and so on. I didn't plan any of that when I started writing, but all of it unfolded in a series of discoveries during the writing process.

Emma: What's your favorite part of FREEFALL?

YAG: I think my favorite part is a scene where Cam and one of Sofie's Lowerworld friends are working together to rescue her from the book's villain, and they have a conversation where Cam realizes that, though they have the same objective, they have drastically different motivations. That was an important scene for the story, not only because it leads Cam to question his own motivations, but because it raises the question of whether it's possible to understand the life experience of someone whose circumstances are very different from one's own. I personally think it's possible to respect someone's position even if one doesn't fully understand it, and I hope that's what Cam learns too.

Dante: Have you had any hardships while writing?

YAG: Many. For example, with FREEFALL, my first draft was so horrible I almost gave up on it, but fortunately, I had the experience to know that if I set it aside for a while, I'd come back to it with fresh eyes and be able to make an objective assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. Writing is hard work--though nowhere near as hard as many of the jobs that people perform--and you have to be strongly motivated to persevere in it.

YA Guy Releases... FREEFALL!

That's right, folks: today is release day for YA Guy's deep-space adventure FREEFALL!

It seems like forever ago that I first conceived this book--and in fact, I originally drafted it back in 2013, the first time I participated in NaNoWriMo. Then there was the year I set it aside to work on other projects, then the year of revising, then the acceptance by my publisher in early 2016, then the interminable wait for the actual publication.... But it's here now, and I hope you'll agree it was worth the wait!

To celebrate the release of FREEFALL, here are some things you can do:

BUY THE BOOK

Amazon buy link

Other buy links

READ SOME REVIEWS

Kelly Vision

Other reviews

ENTER GIVEAWAYS

Jean Book Nerd

Adventures in YA Publishing

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER

Littsburgh

WATCH THE TRAILER

YouTube

You can also take a picture of the book and post it to social media, or help spread the word by tweeting, reblogging, chatting with friends, or whatever. If you post a picture of the book online and tag me to make sure I see it, I'll send you one of these cool prop-replica packs as a thank you!

I hope you enjoy FREEFALL, and thanks for helping me launch it to the stars!

YA Guy Creates... A FREEFALL Glossary!

It's less than two weeks until the September 26 release of FREEFALL, and YA Guy's getting excited!

Since FREEFALL takes place in the twenty-second century, lots of things have changed in terms of politics, culture, technology, and media—and the language has adapted to reflect those changes. Here's an alphabetical list of some of the terms that have arisen in the world of Cam Newell and Sofie Patel. (Italicized words can be found in the list.)

Adjournalist: a paid propagandist who circulates falsified news accounts in the financial interest of one or more of Earth’s corponations.

CanAm: an Upperworld corponation, responsible for administering the former nations of North America.

Catastrologist: a combination of meteorologist and mystic who predicts future outcomes, typically of a catastrophic nature, at the behest of one or more of Earth’s corponations.

Centurion: a biomechanical soldier employed in outer space by JIPOC.

Chatshow: a talk show on the worldlink, offering viewer interactivity through selfone interface.

Classification: a corponational training program for all Upperworld children, taking the place of the banned public and private educational systems.

Close supervision: a euphemism for military attacks on Lowerworld sites believed to harbor dissidents.

ColPrep: an abbreviation for Colonization Preparation, the physical and mental training regimen required of Upperworld residents chosen to depart Earth on a mission to colonize outer space.

ConGlo: a Lowerworld corponation, responsible for administering the former nations of Central Africa.

Cons Piracy: a rogue group of computer hackers who attempt to leak top-secret data held by one or more of Earth’s corponations.

Corponation: a corporate entity that has taken over the functions of government (territorial management, population control, distribution of wealth, etc.) and that operates on a for-profit basis.

Data Recruitment Specialist: an Upperworld technician who performs the functions of a scientist, engaging in corponation-funded research to support profitable initiatives.

Deepsleep: a form of suspended animation, developed in part by Cam’s mother, that enables deep-space colonists to survive voyages much longer than the span of a human life.

ExCon: an Upperworld corponation, responsible for administering the former nations of western and northern Europe and Russia.

Frackia: a Lowerworld corponation, responsible for administering the former nations of southern Africa.

Funding Fathers: the revered ancestors who established the underlying principles and secured the original financial security of the Upperworld.

INTERCOLPA: the Intercorponational Colonization Protection Agency, responsible for overseeing security surrounding the deep-space colonization mission and for deporting or incarcerating perceived threats to the mission.

JIPOC: the Joint Intercorponational Panel on Otherworld Colonization, the Upperworld conglomerate that pursues and finances the mission to colonize space.

Lower-life: a derogatory term for a resident of the Lowerworld (plural Lower-lifes).

Lowerworld: the 99% of the world’s population that lacks access to wealth and basic resources, geographically separated from the Upperworld.

MediTerri: an Upperworld corponation, responsible for administering the former nations of southern and eastern Europe and North Africa.

Megazine: an entertainment site on the worldlink, offering paid access to media content, tabloid news, and consumer products.

MexSanto: a Lowerworld corponation, responsible for administering the former nations of South and Central America.

MicroNasia: a Lowerworld corponation, responsible for administering the former nations of the far East.

Nanoroids: injectable nanotechnologies that build muscle mass and bone density while enhancing endurance, balance, agility, and nerve conduction velocity.

Nanoserum: any of a number of nanotherapies delivered through injection.

New York CITI: New York Central Intercorponational Telecom Interface, the hub of the worldlink, located at the site of the former New York City.

Peace Corp.: a private paramilitary force employed by Earth’s corponations to suppress individual liberties and political activism in the Upperworld and Lowerworld.

Plutocrats and Publicans: two defunct political parties from the waning ages of the old world, when governments rather than corponations ruled the planet.

PMP: Primary Medical Personnel, an Upperworld technician who performs the functions of a physician (often aided by an AMP or Auxiliary Medical Personnel).

Privacar: a privately owned vehicle, extremely rare due to its financial and environmental impacts and thus the prerogative solely of the super-rich.

Selfone: an advanced version of a cell phone, providing instant access to the worldlink along with other functions.

SubCon: a Lowerworld corponation, responsible for administering the former nations of southern Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

Techgame: a video game played on the worldlink, with full immersive VR and interactivity among multiple players engaged with each other either synchronously or asynchronously.

Terrarist: an individual or member of a group who engages in violent political resistance, ostensibly in the interest of preserving the planet Earth (Terra).

Terra Tank: a slang term for Centurion.

TranSpeaker: a hovering device that enables speakers of different languages to communicate.

UniVers: an Upperworld corponation, responsible for administering the former Australia.

Upperworld: the 1% of the world’s population that has monopolized access to wealth and essential resources, and that plans to abandon Earth to colonize outer space.

Worldlink: the twenty-second century equivalent of the internet, providing entertainment and indoctrination on public channels, and strictly regulated to prevent unlicensed content from being viewed by the general population.

YA Guy Launches... FREEFALL!

YA Guy's newest science fiction novel, FREEFALL, hits the shelves next month (September 26, to be exact), so I'm celebrating a few days early with a launch party on September 24. If you're in or near the Pittsburgh area, please stop by--there will be good conversation, signed books for sale, food and drink, and cool giveaways (I promise).

Hope to see you there!

YA Guy Gives Away... FREEFALL Swag!

YA Guy's got some very cool FREEFALL swag I'm just dying to give away to readers! This includes an item modeled on a scene in the book where the narrator, Cam, dons a backpack imprinted with the logo of JIPOC, the company that finances a deep-space colonization mission that goes horrendously wrong. Here's an image of the replica bag:

Pretty cool, huh?

From now until I run out, I'm giving away this bag, filled with other FREEFALL goodies, to anyone who tweets a picture of the book. Here's what you have to do to claim your swag:

--snap a picture of FREEFALL in a bookstore, a library, your own bookshelf, or wherever else you like

--tweet the picture, using the hashtag #Freefall and making sure to tag me so I see it @TheYAGuy

I'll DM you for your mailing address and mail your bag right out to you, so you'll be able to carry your copy of FREEFALL (and anything else you want to carry) wherever you go!

YA Guy Wants You to... Sketch a Skaldi!

The e-ARC for my forthcoming YA science fiction novel FREEFALL is newly available on NetGalley, and physical ARCs have arrived as well, which means the published book will be out in a matter of months. (September 26, to be precise.) Which further means I'll soon be running out of space on my bookshelves.

So from now until the end of June, I'll be giving away a signed copy of SURVIVAL COLONY 9 or SCAVENGER of SOULS, free of charge, to anyone who asks.

But there's a catch: to get your signed copy, you have to draw a picture of a Skaldi and send it to me (electronically). I'm calling this the "Sketch a Skaldi" giveaway, and here's how it works:

• The giveaway runs from this instant until June 30, 2017.
• Each entrant can receive no more than one book (either SURVIVAL COLONY 9 or SCAVENGER OF SOULS, not both). If you want to send me multiple drawings, that's fine, but you won't get extra books.
• Your drawing can be hand drawn or computer drawn, but it MUST be your own artwork. Grabbing an image off the internet and passing it off as yours is a big no-no.
• You don't need to be Picasso--any drawing of a Skaldi, so long as it's your own, is fine with me.
• Drawings must be of a Skaldi as described in Chapter 17 of SURVIVAL COLONY 9 or Chapter 6 of SCAVENGER OF SOULS. No fair drawing a picture of a regular person and saying, "Well, s/he was taken over by a Skaldi!" (For an example of an awesome Skaldi illustration, see the picture above, by fan Desiree Schreiner.)
• Submitting your drawing gives me the right to feature it on my website, on this blog, or on any of my social media. However, I will never sell your artwork, and I will always give the artist proper credit.
• Signed books will be sent to U.S. addresses only. I will honor international entrants, but books will be delivered via Book Depository (and thus won't be signed).
• You should send your drawing (in jpg format) to: joshuadavidbellin@gmail.com. In the body of the message, please include your name, your complete mailing address, and the title of the book (SURVIVAL COLONY 9 or SCAVENGER OF SOULS) that you want.

Okay, I think that's it! Now start drawing!

YA Guy Researches... History!

Years ago, in the days before YA Guy was YA Guy, I wrote a number of works of literary criticism. (That's what you do when you have a doctorate in English and teach at a college.) Eventually, I decided I'd rather write my own literature than write about it--but I'm still very proud of my academic books, which I think are well-written in their own right. I don't recommend them to the non-scholar--they're written for an academic audience, full of language and concepts only specialists fully appreciate--but I had fun writing them, and I'm glad they're out there.

One of the things I loved most about academic writing was the research that went into it. For each of my books, I spent years reading, filling up my file cabinets with photocopies of obscure seventeenth- through nineteenth-century documents, many of them accessible only on microfilm or microfiche, some of them available only at specialized archives. I found that, though technically I was a literary scholar, I ended up doing as much historical research as literary research; I wanted to know as much as possible about the time in which the works of literature were written in order to understand them in their own context. At a certain point, in fact, the line between "historical" and "literary" research blurred; much of what we know about history we know through written documents, and when you're reading the journal of an eighteenth-century traveler among the southeastern Indians or the spiritual autobiography of a nineteenth-century Ojibwa convert to Christianity, are you reading "history" or "literature"? To me, history and literature have always been intertwined if not inseparable, and I loved exploring the many ways in which they come into contact with each other.

Which is also why I'm so excited about my new work-in-progress, a historical novel called Polar. Based on Commander Robert E. Peary's final North Pole voyage, which took place in the years 1908-1909, Polar is speculative history, not straightforward; I take considerable liberties with the facts in order to tell the story I want to tell, a story that includes some paranormal elements. But I'm still having to do a ton of research to understand the world of the time, the biographies of the real-life people involved, the details of Polar exploration, and more. And I'm coming across a lot of great historical material in the process.

For example, check out this cover page to the New York Times from September 7, 1909, the date on which the paper first reported Peary's ostensible (though now disputed) discovery of the geographic North Pole:

Or take a look at this photograph of Peary dressed in full Eskimo (Inuit) garb on the deck of the steamship Roosevelt, named after then-President Theodore Roosevelt, who sponsored Peary's final voyage (and who plays a walk-on part in Polar):

There's much, much more, but that'll do for a start. I can't wait to see what other gems I discover as I continue the research process.

Writing science fiction, as I've done for my first three YA novels--including the forthcoming Freefall--involves a degree of research; I've had to learn about parasitic organisms, deep-space travel, and more. But it's especially fun to be doing the kind of sustained research a historical subject requires.

I guess I could say it's great to be back home.

YA Guy Reveals... The FREEFALL Cover!

YA Guy is ecstatic to let the world see at last what I first saw a couple of months ago: the cover to my forthcoming deep-space adventure/romance FREEFALL! You can check out the reveal on Riveted, but you can also take a look at it right here:

I totally love this cover: the colors, the layout, the representation of the main characters, the outer space backdrop, the everything. I think the folks at Simon & Schuster did a tremendous job, and I hope you agree!

Here's the blurb for the book:

In the Upperworld, the privileged 1% are getting ready to abandon a devastated planet Earth. And Cam can’t wait to leave. After sleeping through a 1,000-year journey, he and his friends will have a pristine new planet to colonize. And no more worries about the Lowerworld and its 99% of rejects.

Then Cam sees a banned video feed of protesters in the Lowerworld who also want a chance at a new life. And he sees a girl with golden eyes who seems to be gazing straight though the feed directly at him. A girl he has to find. Sofie.

When Cam finds Sofie, she opens his eyes to the unfairness of what’s happening in their world, and Cam joins her cause for Lowerworld rights. He also falls hard for Sofie. But Sofie has her own battles to fight, and when it’s time to board the spaceships, Cam is alone.

Waking up 1,000 years in the future, Cam discovers that he and his shipmates are far off-course, trapped on an unknown and hostile planet. Who has sabotaged their ship? And does it have anything to do with Sofie, and the choices—and the enemies—he made in the past?

FREEFALL is due out on August 29, 2017. It's not yet available for pre-order, but you can add it to your Goodreads TBR list.

I'd love to hear what you think about the cover, so feel free to drop me a comment!

YA Guy Talks about... Diversity in YA Literature!

YA Guy originally planned this post for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but then I decided to celebrate the holiday with my family instead of blogging. So….

The movement for diversity in YA literature is going strong, with readers, authors, and publishers searching for stories that feature characters representing various racial and ethnic groups, sexual identities, physical and mental abilities, and more. That’s great, and YA Guy hopes the movement continues to grow.

Lots of questions remain contested, however. Can writers from one racial/ethnic/other group write about (or from the perspective of) characters from another group? Should books that play into stereotypes (about Muslims, for example) be published—and when they are, should they be protested? What about when reviewers, as in the recent scandal involving VOYA magazine, reinforce stereotypes about non-dominant groups? Must all YA books strive for diversity?

I was thinking about this when I read a Kirkus review of S. L. Duncan’s latest book in the Gabriel Adam series, a YA fantasy trilogy about teens who discover they’re reincarnated angels, just in time to save the world from demonic forces. The reviewer, clearly missing the fact that one of the teen archangels is Iranian and another African, sniped that the cast consists solely of characters who are “apparently white.” I found a similar misconception in a Kirkus review of my most recent novel, Scavenger of Souls; writing of the biracial character Mercy, the reviewer opined that Mercy is “notable for her dark skin in an otherwise predominantly white cast.” Clearly, this reviewer missed the fact that Mercy’s mother is African, and her brother and sister biracial; that the character Wali is described as bronze-skinned and curly-haired; that the character Soon has an Asian name; that the character Nekane has a Hispanic name; and so on. I was striving for a multiracial, multiethnic cast in this novel, my reasoning being that, after the wars that decimated much of the human population, the few who survived would likely represent a spectrum of races, ethnicities, and nationalities. I had hoped that readers would pick up on this, but this reviewer, at least, did not.

The issue here, clearly, goes beyond careless reviewing (which, to be fair, is a function of how many YA books industry reviewers have to keep up with). Readers schooled in dominant traditions and aesthetics often assume that all characters are white, heterosexual, able-bodied, etc. unless these characters are overtly “marked” otherwise. But if a character's "difference" isn't essential to the story, should such characters be so marked? If the writer doesn’t call attention to the skin color of white characters, should the writer invariably do so in the case of nonwhite characters? I wrestled with this question in the case of Scavenger of Souls, and eventually I decided that in Mercy’s case, I needed to “flag” her racial ancestry so that readers wouldn’t miss the fact that she and my protagonist, the blond-haired and blue-eyed Querry Genn, form an interracial team. In other instances, though, I left it to readers to draw their own conclusions. In my forthcoming novel Freefall, a science fiction story with a multinational cast including a central relationship between a white teen from the industrial West and an Asian teen from the developing world, I’m reasonably confident that no one will mistake the characters’ racial or cultural backgrounds. But readers were confounded—and in some cases outraged—to discover that Rue from The Hunger Games is black, so you never know.

I personally believe that writers have a responsibility to present the world in its actual diversity. But I also believe there’s an equal responsibility on the side of readers, who have to be willing to read against preconceptions and discover the diversity in the author’s invented world. Working together, authors and readers can help move us toward an acceptance of difference. I get the feeling we’re going to need this more and more in the coming years.

YA Guy... Looks Back at 2016!

It's been an exciting year for YA Guy, writing-wise and otherwise. Before moving on to 2017, I thought I'd review some of the highlights from 2016.

Writing stuff. The big news this year was the publication of Scavenger of Souls, the sequel to Survival Colony 9. This novel completes the two-part Survival Colony series (though in the back of my evil little brain, I'm thinking of writing a prequel). If you're a teacher or librarian, you can still enter my great Scavenger of Souls giveaway, which runs throughout 2017. And if you're a reader of any kind, you can get pumped for the release of my new novel, the deep space adventure/romance Freefall, which comes out in 2017.

Other writing stuff. In addition to visiting schools and book fairs, I attended several very cool YA conferences this year, including YA Fest in Indiana and the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) conference in Pittsburgh. It was great meeting other YA authors, librarians, and fans!

Family stuff. I did a lot of vacationing this year, including a trip to Austin to see the X Games with my daughter, a family trip to Niagara Falls, and another family vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands for a week of snorkeling, snoozing, and sunning. Plus, as research for a novel I'm planning, I drove down to Maryland to visit the Kennedy Farmhouse, where John Brown trained his troops prior to his assault on Harpers Ferry.

Random stuff. I went to some cool concerts this year, including the Who and Bruce Springsteen, which I attended with my son (his first rock concert). I also read exactly 50 books, many of them YA, the best of which are featured in this post.

I'm sure I did some other stuff too, but that's enough for now. Happy New Year to everyone, and YA Guy's looking forward to seeing you in 2017!

YA Guy... Takes a Break!

YA Guy's been writing novels for over forty years.

Well, that's not entirely true. I started writing novels when I was a bit under ten, and I'm a bit over fifty now, but I didn't complete a novel until I was sixteen, and I took a major break from novel-writing between graduate school (when I was in my early twenties) and my mid-forties. Plus, you know, I take the occasional break to eat, sleep, spend time with my kids, and so forth.

But my point is, I've been writing for a long time. And particularly in the past five years, from the completion of the first draft of Survival Colony 9 in 2011 to the publication of Scavenger of Souls just last week, it sometimes feels as if I've been writing nonstop. No sooner have I completed one project than I've moved on to another. That's the writing life: you're either working on one thing or promoting something else (usually both at the same time). It's relatively easy work physically, but it can be exhausting mentally and emotionally.

So I've decided to take a little break. Roughly four months, to be precise. From now until the beginning of 2017, I won't be writing anything new.

The timing is actually quite good. My daughter's a high school senior, so we'll be driving her around to visit colleges and so forth this semester. I'm teaching five classes (one more than usual), so there'll be a bit of a time crunch there. Plus I'm traveling some to promote Scavenger of Souls, so that's another time commitment. I've heard back from my editor about my forthcoming YA science fiction novel, Freefall, and she wants only minor changes, not any major rewriting. And I'm scheduled to have a sabbatical this coming spring, so for a solid four months I'll be able to devote the full workday to my current work in progress, the YA historical horror novel I'm calling Polar.

When I resumed writing novels five years ago, I had no idea how much work it would be. How could I? Like many novice authors, I had the illusion that I'd write a book, it would become an instant bestseller, and I'd be able to sit back and collect royalty checks while leisurely producing my next classic.

Well, live and learn.

When I told my agent, with some trepidation, that I'd be taking a little break from writing, she had this to say:

I support this 100% and am here whenever you are ready. Writing ebbs and flows and I totally respect that you need time to revitalize. Do what you want to do – take your time – write when the mood strikes and know I am always here!

So now you know, for one, why she's my agent. But you also know why I needed this break. Writing does ebb and flow; authors do need time to revitalize. Much as I respect those writers who seem able to work pretty much nonstop, I'm not one of them. Each writer needs to recognize his/her own strengths and needs and limitations; otherwise, you run the risk of burning out for good.

I'll still be blogging from time to time--when the mood strikes--and you'll probably see me around on Twitter or Facebook or live and in person. I hope you'll read Scavenger of Souls, and I hope you're looking forward to Freefall. Down the road, I'm sure you can expect more from me, starting with Polar and moving on from there.

But for now, YA Guy's taking a break.

YA Guy... Gets All Excited!

It's been a pretty good year for YA Guy.

SCAVENGER OF SOULS is due out in August. (You can preorder a copy from any online bookseller or from your local indie; if you preorder a copy from one of the booksellers listed below, I'll sign it and it'll be sent out to you when it releases.) And on Wednesday, the deal for my next YA science fiction novel, FREEFALL, a deep space action/romance, was announced in Publishers Weekly. The book's due out next summer.

So yeah, I'm pretty excited! And also grateful to my agent, my editor, and my readers for all the support over the past few years. What started as a dream now seems like it's turning into an actual career, and that wouldn't have been possible without all you folks.

So thank you! And let's stay excited!

To preorder a signed copy of SCAVENGER OF SOULS, contact one of these Pittsburgh-area booksellers:

Mystery Lovers Bookshop (412) 828-4877 or this link

Classic Lines (412) 422-2220 or diddings@comcast.net

Or check to see if I'm making any appearances near you!