If you’re a librarian, you might be interested in attending the Booklist SFF webinar coming up, where I’ll join editors and marketing people from Tor, Baen, and Galaxy Press to talk about books. I’ll be talking about how Tu got started, introducing all of my books, and you’ll even get a sneak peek at this fall’s upcoming Tu titles (plus a special offer just for webinar attendees).
The webinar is next Tuesday, May 7, and is free for attendees.
If you didn’t see me hyping this up on pretty much all social media on Thursday and Friday, here’s your chance to know about a sweet deal for all my books, this week only (ends Friday)—the Tu Books Friends & Family Sale.
This is our way of saying thank you to our supporters over the years, and to celebrate the release of our fourth season of books. Not to mention the 1-year anniversary of the publication of Cat Girl’s Day Off and Vodnik. Whatever you’d like to celebrate (the 1 1/2 year anniversary of the release of Tankborn!), celebrate with us by using the coupon code and by sharing the sale on to your friends and family.
Feel free to share this on with anyone who might be interested–it’s a great deal for librarians and teachers! Use the code FAMILY at check-out.
FYI, we seem to be having some trouble with the international ordering, but if you call the office at 212-779-4400 with the coupon code FRIENDS, we can still give you the 35% off your order for international customers (no free shipping, sorry).
Side note: I just realized—thanks to a congratulatory email on LinkedIn, of all things—that I’ve now officially been at Lee & Low Books for 3 years, almost to the day (I believe I started on March 5, 2010, but my memory is fuzzy). YAY for Tu Books! Yay for diversity in science fiction, fantasy, and mystery for young readers!
And to celebrate that—diversity in books for young readers, that is—we’re starting a Twitter chat that we’ve dubbed #diverselit. Tomorrow—Thursday, March 7, 2013—will be our first #diverselit chat on Twitter, and I hope you’ll be able to join us, in which I and my coworker Hannah, who is Lee & Low’s marketing manager, will be talking about Diversity 101, which covers all those frequently asked questions such as:
If you’re an expert, join in the conversation and give us your perspective. If you’re a newbie to all of this, come to learn. Everyone, come to discuss! I will be tweeting from Tu Books’ twitter, and Hannah will be tweeting from Lee & Low’s twitter, so be sure to follow us both.
If you don’t know how a Twitter chat works, check out this handy guide to hashtag chats. Not on Twitter? You can follow along by searching #diverselit on Twitter itself or on http://www.tweetchat.com, but to participate in the chat, you need a Twitter account, which is pretty easy to set up. Hope to chat with you tomorrow!
Tu has had several cool things happen lately, which I’ve tweeted and shared on Facebook, but I’d like to round them all up here. First let’s start with a cover reveal and some insight into the design and illustration process for Hammer of Witches! And I linked this later in the last post, but just in case you missed it, here’s also the cover reveal for Awakening, which is the sequel to Karen Sandler’s Tankborn. Both books are coming out this April!
Here’s the awesome Kirkus review for Hammer of Witches, which will be posted on their site soon:
An engaging, magical adventure set against the historical backdrop of Columbus’ westward voyage.
Young Baltasar, a converso (a Spanish Jew converted to Catholicism), relies on his wits to distract the village bully by telling an amusing tale. Soon after, Bal discovers his storytelling has magical properties when he summons a monster to ward off the Malleus Maleficarum, witch-hunting Inquisitors after Bal’s father. Intent on escaping and finding the father he thought dead, Bal is hired as translator on none other than the Santa Maria, captained by Columbus himself. The voyage takes Bal on the uncharted seas of Columbus’ famous voyage and into adventures that include sea beasts and secrets from Bal’s own past. Though keeping track of all the Spanish-named seamen can be a challenge, Mlawski’s central characters—Jinniyah, a genie Bal summons, and Catalina, a fellow storyteller, in addition to Bal himself—are imaginative and well-developed, and her swashbuckling pace and intriguing plotting keep readers at seat’s edge. This story is told entirely from Bal’s perspective, but by placing him on the Santa Maria and inside the Caribbean villages the expedition visits, Mlawski invites young readers to see the familiar Columbus story from another perspective—and to consider the power of stories to shape perception in everyday life. Backmatter includes a helpful author’s note and pronunciation guide.
Though set in the 1490s, this provocative blend of fantasy and history offers loads of contemporary appeal.—Kirkus Reviews
And you’ll see several of the blurbs for this book on the cover reveal post, but here are a couple more great quotes we got from Victoria Strauss and Lesley Livingston:
“This rollicking historical fantasy has it all—nail-biting adventure, exciting mystery, fabulous magics, and characters you can really root for. I enjoyed every word.”—Victoria Strauss, author of Passion Blue and co-founder of Writer Beware
“Hammer of Witches is everything I crave in a story—magic, adventure, danger, depth, a rich historical setting, and an irresistibly charming hero. What a fantastic voyage!”—Lesley Livingston, author of Wondrous Strange
As I said, you probably have already seen the cover reveal, but in case you missed it, here it is again! We’ve also got a good Kirkus review to share, as well as some Tankborn news.
[T]he second Tankborn entry presents exciting new mysteries about genetic engineering, illness and rebellions.
As a GEN (Genetically Engineered Non-human), Kayla ranks lowest in this caste-based society. The slightest insubordination on her part could prompt a trueborn to reset her—wipe away her soul and give her body a new personhood—or recycle her body for DNA. Driving around by lorry under the authority of a lowborn named Risa, Kayla uses her genetically strengthened arms to haul goods in and out of warehouses; she and Risa also carry information for the Kinship, a secret rebel network. This information travels inside Kayla’s annexed brain, a section inside every GEN’s brain that is accessed by hooking a datapod (painfully) to the tech-tattoo located on every GEN’s face. Sandler’s strength is suspense, elements of which include the medical mystery of a disease striking only GENs (Scratch is fatal and has bizarre properties), explosions in warehouses storing GEN food, wispy hints of a second revolt (even farther underground than the Kinship) and the web connecting it all. . . . [F]ans of genetic engineering and shadowy rebellions will find much to like.—Kirkus Reviews
In other news, I just found out that Tankborn was a finalist for last year’s Golden Duck Awards in the YA category (the Hal Clement Award). This is a good award that we don’t see very much coverage of—in fact, the award was given in September and I just heard about Tankborn being a finalist just this week. This one is given the same weekend as the Hugo awards. In addition, Galaxy Games: The Challengers by Greg Fishbone was a finalist in the middle grade category (the Eleanor Cameron Award for Middle Grades). I’d love to see more librarians and teachers paying attention to this award!
And let’s round up this good news report with some news about Summer of the Mariposas, which was just nominated for the Andre Norton Award! This makes me very excited. It’s actually a career first for me, to be able to have an author nominated for this award. And Guadalupe Garcia McCall is in some very good company for nominees. Whoever wins, what an honor to have Guadalupe’s wonderful work recognized.
*happy dance*
If you’re in the Arizona area, here’s your chance to meet Guadalupe and have her sign your book. She’s going to be in Tucson next month, March 9-10, for the Tucson Festival of Books on the University of Arizona campus. Check out the site for more information, such as schedule, etc. The festival is free and open to the public!
We’re finally going to have an official cover reveal soon of both of Tu’s spring titles—Awakening by Karen Sandler (the second book in the Tankborn trilogy) and Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski, who is a debut author. I’m so excited about both of them! We’ve gotten some great blurbs in from some really awesome authors, too, which I’ll share here when I link to the cover reveal for Hammer of Witches.
More on that soon! But here’s a little more about the books, to whet your appetite:
Awakening by Karen Sandler—sequel to Tankborn
EDIT: See the cover reveal here!
Once a Chadi sector GEN girl terrified of her first Assignment, Kayla is now a member of the Kinship, a secret organization of GENs, lowborns, and trueborns. Kayla travels on Kinship business, collecting information to further the cause of GEN freedom.
Despite Kayla’s relative freedom, she is still a slave to the trueborn ruling class. She rarely sees trueborn Devak, and any relationship between them is still strictly forbidden.
Kayla longs to be truly free, but other priorities have gotten in the way. A paradoxically deadly new virus has swept through GEN sectors—a disease only GENs catch. And GEN warrens and warehouses are being bombed, with only a scrawled clue: F.H.E. Freedom, Humanity, Equality.
With the virus and the bombings decimating the GEN community, freedom and love are put on the back burner as Kayla and her friends find a way to stop the killing . . . before it’s too late.
Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski
Baltasar Infante, a bookmaker’s apprentice living in 1492 Spain, can weasel out of any problem with a good story. But when he awakes one night to find a monster straight out of the stories peering at him through his window, he’s in trouble that even he can’t talk his way out of. Soon Baltasar is captured by a mysterious arm of the Spanish Inquisition, the Malleus Maleficarum, that demands he reveal the whereabouts of Amir al-Katib, a legendary Moorish sorcerer who can bring myths and the creatures within them to life. Baltasar doesn’t know where the man is—or that he himself has the power to summon genies and golems.
Baltasar must escape, find al-Katib, and defeat a dreadful power that may destroy the world. As Baltasar’s journey takes him into uncharted lands on Columbus’s voyage westward, he learns that stories are more powerful than he once believed them to be—and much more dangerous.
With new titles come new responsibilities, which means more to keep track of. I’m about to overhaul my desk and my task-management system, so before I really dig in beyond cleaning my desk, I thought I’d throw the questions out there:
space in a cubicle, in particular. I have some bookshelves I could repurpose, too, if necessary, but I’d prefer to be able to hang something from my cube wall. I’m looking particularly at things like this, but I’m wondering if I might be missing some possibility, particularly something that could hang above the computer and hold more than just paper. And for something that could hold large stacks of 11 x 17 paper (galleys) and such—piles of paper that I generally need in plain sight but not always right on the surface of my desk.
You might notice some changes happening in my bio below my posts, on my About Me page, and on my social media sites. I’ve already mentioned it on Facebook, but I thought I’d better note it here, as well. For the last three years, I’ve been editorial director of Tu Books, focusing on the editorial side. Now my responsibilities have expanded to include marketing and sales, and so my title has changed to publisher to reflect that change in duties.
What this means for writers: I won’t have as much time to accept new submissions, so from time to time our submissions guidelines will reflect that we’ve closed to unagented submissions. We did this over the holidays, and haven’t yet reopened those submissions; I need time to catch up on what we’ve already received, including a nice large number of New Visions Award submissions. So keep writing, and watch for when we open for submissions periodically. This will allow me to concentrate my editorial time on the books we’ve already contracted, with concentrated windows during which I’ll seek new voices.
While this is a big change for me, for the purpose of writers things shouldn’t change too much.
Hanukkah is in full swing, and Christmas is right around the corner. Thinking about getting a book for that teen or kid in your life? Or for the adult YA reader in your life (you are welcome in this no-judgement zone; we love YA too!). Don’t forget to include Tu Books in those plans! Here are a few examples of people you’re looking to find a gift for.
For the reader looking for comedy (sometimes light, sometimes a little morbid):
For the teen looking for something with an edge:
For the middle-grade reader or young teen looking for a “clean” read:
For fans of folklore and fairy tales:
For fans of science fiction, especially technology and space-related:
For fans of Twilight:
For fans of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Chicago:
Got any other kinds of readers in your life that need a Tu Book recommendation? Ask away in the comments!
Have you been waiting for the right time—for example, a holiday promotional event—to buy a Tu Book or two? We’ll be sending out a special holiday discount to all our e-news subscribers, so sign up for our e-news to be sure that you’ll be in on the action.
You’ll see on that link that there are four options on the e-news: one for everything, one that is targeted for authors and illustrators—including publishing advice and contest announcements, another that focuses just on the books themselves, and another for teachers and librarians that includes classroom helps and links to resources on our site. You can sign up for all of them, or just one or two.
And the discount coupons don’t just come during the holidays—each e-news comes with discount codes just for e-news subscribers.
I’m updating my dragon booklist today and putting it on Pinterest. Now that my nephew is eight, he’s into full-on middle-grade books, and STILL loves dragons, three years later. So what dragon books have come out in the last three years? What books did we keep off the list last time because they weren’t that great for readalouds? Let me know in the comments here, as I think the old post is old enough that the comments have closed there.