My Interview with Harper Collins Canada Editor, Hadley Dyer
My first interview as Canadian corruspondant for Cynthia Leitich Smith’s fabulous Cynsations blog posts today! It’s an interview with the wonderful writer and editor, Hadley Dyer. Have a...
Read MoreA Query Dissected
A number of people have been asking me how I got my literary agent, and it occurred to me that I have amassed quite a bit of knowledge about how to find the right representation. In upcoming posts, I’ll tell you about how I went about my agent search, but for today I thought I’d start by posting about that all-important query. A query is a single-page letter introducing you and your book. If you have finished a novel and plan to search for either an agent or a publisher, you are probably going to have to write one. I won’t lie: It’s a daunting task. Agents and editors see many, many...
Read MoreWhy Fantasy?
When I was a child, people told me so often that I read fantasy for escape that I started to believe them. I did like to be transported to other worlds. And people did seem to think my life was something I should want to escape from. I don’t talk much about my childhood. This is because, in my mind, it was a good one, but when I start to give people the details—my mother’s s schizophrenia, my father’s death, living with a number of different families—they tend to want to sit me down and make me a cup of tea. Maybe I read fantasy because the problems in contemporary novels of that time...
Read MoreWere the Brontës Science Fiction Authors?
Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It An Exhibition at the British Library (20 May – 25 September 2011) Were the Brontës science fiction authors? The British Library includes some of their juvenilia, along with Branwell Brontë’s map of the Glasstown Confederacy, an imaginary land he and his famous sisters invented when they were children, in its current exhibition, Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It. To be honest, when I first heard about it, I thought it was a bit of a stretch. I’m interested in the Brontë juvenilia and have probably read more of...
Read MoreMaking My Witchlanders Book Trailer–Part 2
Last week I posted some of my favourite book trailers in hopes that they would inspire me to make my own. This week I’ve been madly writing a script and gathering photos, music and video clips. Here are the steps I’ve taken so far, along with some of the great sites and programs I’ve found to help me make my very own Witchlanders book trailer. Step One: Draft a Script Keep it short: As a general rule, I find book trailers too cheesy and too long. I’ve tried to think of my trailer as an elevator pitch with images. Be Flexible: Remember that you might not find the exact photos you want. If...
Read MoreMaking My Witchlanders Book Trailer–Part 1
I adore book trailers. I was speaking to a writer yesterday who audibly moaned when I told him I was making one. “We have to do that, TOO?” No, writer friends, we don’t HAVE to make trailers to promote our books. In fact, of all the many online promotion tools—blogging, social networking, etc.—a book trailer is one that I’m not entirely convinced has a big effect. Many of the big readers I know, teen and adult, tell me they’ve never seen one. But I think that’s changing. Teachers are using them more and more in the classroom, and savvy authors and publishers are learning to use...
Read MoreAbout Me
Hi! I'm Lena, a young adult fantasy author from Toronto.