I am beyond thrilled to be hosting my agent sister, YA author Lana Wood Johnson, on the ball today! Lana was born and raised in Iowa in the time before the internet but has spent the rest of her life making up for that. After years working in wireless communication for companies of all sizes, she now works doing the same for a local youth shelter. Lana lives in Minnesota…
While researching for ALLEGEDLY, I interviewed girls raised in group homes or spent years in juvenile prisons. Some I talked to over the phone, some I met in person. I needed to fully absorb their experiences in order to accurately portray the main character Mary’s realities, subsequently forcing her to endure some horrific experiences. There is one encounter that Mary experiences in her jail cell, a story told verbatim by…
Laura Goode’s interracial gay hip-hop love story for teens, SISTER MISCHIEF, was released by Candlewick Press on July 12. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Rumpus, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Faster Times, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Dossier, Slope, Fawlt, and other publications. She received her BA and MFA from Columbia University and now lives in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @lauragoode and visit www.lauragoode.com for total…
Happy Hump Day, Everyone! I’m pretty sure if I were a romance writer, I wouldn’t be allowed to talk about Hump Day in a public forum, but luckily I write for young adults, where we just giggle and roll our eyes a lot. I didn’t embrace the greatness of Hump Day until I went to college in Iowa. (And yes, I’m going to keep saying Hump Day until you giggle….
