Y’all know I’m a fan of the dystopia right? Like seriously….one of my absolute favorite genre/sub-genres ever. So when a bunch of us were chatting on Twitter a couple of days ago about this one you know I’m going to point it out to everyone. It’s a long ways off but frankly it’s so piquing my interest I’ve gotta post about it now.

The book in question? The Passage by Justin Cronin published by Ballantine Books. It’s due out in June of 2010 and there isn’t even a blurb about the book to provide you yet.  All I know about it is what I’ve heard in conversation, which is that there is government experiementation gone awry whereby humans are turned into vampire. I know it all sounds very I Am Legend and all but since I loved that I can only imagine I’ll love this too.

Oh and what is out there about the book?  An endorsement by Stephen King:

“Every so often a novel-reader’s novel comes along: an enthralling, entertaining story wedded to simple, supple prose, both informed by tremendous imagination. Summer is the perfect time for such books, and this year readers can enjoy the gift of Justin Cronin’s The Passage. Read fifteen pages and you will find yourself captivated; read thirty and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night. It has the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. What else can I say? This: read this book and the ordinary world disappears.”

‘Nuff said.

In observance of SeriesPalooza this week I’m extremely honored to have Lauren Baratz-Logsted here to share how her Sisters 8 series came to be.  Please join me in welcoming Lauren!

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I NEVER SET OUT TO WRITE A SERIES

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

The idea that I’d wind up having my name associated with a series is a bit of a shock – not that there’s anything wrong with writers who series! It’s just that my entire career has been devoted, for the most part, to not repeating myself, to trying new things. Of the 15 books I’ve had published since 2003, I’ve done comedic adult fiction, literary adult fiction, a short story anthology which I edited as well as contributed to, YA and middle grade. Even within YA, my books published and forthcoming have been so diverse – Angel’s Choice, an earnest contemporary novel about a surprise pregnancy; Secrets of My Suburban Life, a seriocomic sort-of mystery about a cyberstalker; Crazy Beautiful, a contemporary re-visioning of the classic fairy tale Beauty & the Beast; The Education of Bet, a Victorian novel set in London about a girl who impersonates a boy in order to get a proper education – probably no one would believe it’s all the same author were it not for that same improbably long name on each and every spine.

And yet the author of a series I have turned out to be.

Or at least one of three authors of a series.

In December 2006 my YA novelist husband Greg Logsted, our then six-year-old daughter Jackie and I were visiting friends in Crested Butte, Colorado. Our friends had no TV nor any kids in the area. This would have been fine for the intended length of our visit, but a monster blizzard closed down Denver Airport, extending our stay to 10 days. Jackie was a wonderful kid then, and she’s still a wonderful kid now, but 10 days without TV or other little people is a very long stretch for almost any modern child. So by the end there we were looking for fresh ways to entertain ourselves.

That’s when we began brainstorming the idea for a book, just for the fun of it. Jackie thought there should be eight sisters. I thought they should be octuplets. We all thought their parents should disappear on New Year’s Eve, leaving the Eights as they’d be known to solve the mystery behind their parents’ disappearance while struggling to keep the rest of the world from realizing that eight little girls are living home alone. Greg of course thought that they needed a talking refrigerator. And he was right.

Thus was born The Sisters 8.

We kept brainstorming all the way home on the plane and when we finally arrived back in Danbury, like Curious George, I sat down and started to write. This was still supposed to be just for our own amusement, but when I completed the first volume, Annie’s Adventures, it occurred to me that others might enjoy it as well. This, that and the other thing then happened, and before I knew it, we’d sold Annie’s Adventures plus three other titles as the first four in a projected nine-book series for readers aged six to ten to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (There will eventually be nine books because we need to do one for each Eight and then one to resolve all the mysteries.)

What I never thought I’d do in my life – write a series – has turned out to be pretty much the greatest joy I’ve ever had as a writer. How lucky am I that I get to create a series with my husband and my kid? How lucky am I that I get to do book signings with Jackie, and open fan mail with her?

And oh that fan mail. In a year it’s generated more letters than all my other books combined. We hear from grandparents and parents, saying their grandkids and kids never liked to read before they discovered the Eights. We hear from little girls all over the country, more than one of whom has declared herself to be “Your #1 fan!!!” There was the girl who wrote, “I would love to meet you, but I know I would FAINT!” A lot of these girls write in enthusiastically screaming caps, like the letter recently from a girl who’d just seen the cover for Book 5, not due out until May: “WOW! O MY GOODNESS THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!sorry I haven’t been able to check my e-mail for awhile. WHEN I READ THE MESSAGE I ALMOST SCREAMED! thank you so much for sending that to me! almost every night I thought about the book,what it would be about, what Marcia’s gift and power would be,but most of all what the cover would look like! and now that I’ve seen it, I’m even more excited about it!!!! THE COVER IS AMAZING!!!!!!!(my little sister likes it too!!) so,once again THANK YOU!!!!!!! i’ll be SURE to get the next book!!!!!!!!!!!!!” And then she signed it, “your biggest, number 1 fan,” clearly having realized on her own that she wasn’t the only #1 fan so at least she could still lay claim to being the biggest.

Really, it’s not the quantity of the fan mail we receive about The Sisters 8 so much as the quality. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing books for adults and books for teens – I love all the writing I’m privileged to get to do as part of my career – but it’s daily astonishing to think that something my family did just to amuse ourselves has turned into something that has given so much joy to so many little girls, even turning nonreaders into readers.

Thank you so much, Galleysmith, for inviting me to discuss The Sisters 8 here.

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Thank you Lauren for joining me for SeriesPalooza this week.  I can’t wait to get my hands on The Sisters 8 series it sounds like great fun!

Hooray! Hooray!  SeriesPalooza is here!

The time has finally arrived where we’re all going to have a good excuse to take the time to dedicate ourselves, and reading, *only* to the books in a series (or multiple series).  For this week starting today  December 14 through December 20 (Sunday at midnight EST) Seriespalooza will be in full effect.  How does it work?  Well, participants will read only books in a series they are either currently reading or are wanting to start. It’s a relaxed affair where you can read at your leisure so there isn’t any pressure. It’s just a great excuse to dip into the pile of books you want to read instead of those you may have scheduled to read as a result of other obligations.

As part of the fun, over the course of the week I’ve got a couple of awesome guest posts and anything I have to say will be exclusively about series books and authors. Not only that but you can follow all the fun using the Twitter hashtag #seriespalooza. Oh and because no party is complete without presents I’ll also be dipping into my bag of tricks to award prizes for people who are participating!

Because of my move and the fact that all my books are tucked away in boxes at the moment my reading plans have shifted a bit.  I’m still hoping to dig out a few books that I originally listed but thankfully I have recently acquired a copy of Susan Beth Pfeffer’s The World We Live In, the third in her moon series, via NetGalley so I’ll be starting there.  I still hope to get to the fourth in Marsden’s series as well.

If you’re participating I’d love to hear what you are going to read, how you’re doing over the course of the week and just general chatter about SeriesPalooza.  If you happen to post please come on back and add a link to the comments here so all of us participating can come on over to chat and cheer you on. Of course posting is *not* required to participate only encouraged

Welcome to SeriesPalooza!  Let the fun commence!

Happy Sunday everyone!

I’m dropping in for a quick drive by post as I try and decompress and catch up on a little reading and social networking after my move.  It was a long weekend of packing, moving, waiting for various service technicians and delivery companies, then building all sorts of stuff while I started to unpack.  But I’ve finally made it to the new place and it’s starting to take a little shape.  I’ve got loads more to do but honestly I’m not going to do it all tonight so I thought I’d pop in, say hello and show you a few pictures of how productive (or not) I’ve been.

Bedroom

I’m almost completely done here minus laundry and putting up artwork.

Dining Room

As you can see, I’m not even close to done but I have started constructing my chairs, the table will have to wait until next weekend.

Guest Bedroom

Or as I like to call it the place where everything is going until I put it in its rightful place.  The red blob on the left is my empty bookcase **sobs** and the ten boxes you can’t see because they are behind me and the camera hold my books.

Kitchen

It’s kinda sorta done. I’ve got to put dishes away and grocery shop still but in general it’s progress I hope.

Living Room

This one’s almost done, I’ve got one more side table to construct and a little work to do on the tv stand so that everything fits right but you know that I had to do this room as much as possible so I could have a place to be lazy later.

Of course I still have a few trips back to my sister’s house to get some smaller stuff and all my artwork to put on the walls but I’ll do that next weekend.  At any rate now you know where I’m blogging!  LOL

Speaking of blogging….tomorrow starts Seriespalooza!! Don’t forget to join in if you’d like.  I’ll be digging out a few books from my boxes to get started with, most specifically Marsden’s Tomorrow series.  I’ve got a couple of great guest posts scheduled this week too.  Make sure to check it out! I’ll be gabbing it up on Twitter with the hashtag #seriespalooza so come hang out!

Good morning my friends!

The Book Blogger Convention 2010 planning committee is hard at work trying to brainstorm and put together a fabulous event.  As part of this process we’ve been debating start times and sessions.  Knowing that these two issues directly affect attendees we thought we would pose the questions to you.

A couple of issues to note as your contemplating your responses:

1.  The start time for the day directly influences how many sessions we’ll be able to provide.  We will be building in breaks and an hour for lunch so please keep that in mind.

2.  As you likely know, your answers don’t guarantee selection of your preferred start time or inclusion of suggested sessions.

We’re trying to be as fair as possible but in the end majority rules!

Please take a moment to provide us some feedback by participating in this form we want to hear from you!  The form will be open until Sunday, December 13 at midnight EST at which time we’ll assess the responses and continue to plan based on that feedback.

Please click the link below to participate in the form:

Book Blogger Convention Logistics Feedback

Thank you!