YA

Where Are They Now: Don Calame

Don Calame was featured on Creative Spaces five years ago when his YA novel Beat the Band was published. CLICK HERE to read his original interview. Let’s check out what Don has been up to since then!   What have you been working on since Beat the Band? Since Beat the Band came out I’ve written two more YA novels: Call the Shots and Dan Versus Nature. Call the Shots was the third installment of the Swim the Fly series, this one featuring Sean’s point of view. Now each boy – Matt, Cooper, and Sean – all have their own books and that series is complete.… Read the rest

A Peek at the Creative Space of Ann Jacobus

Joining us today for Creative Spaces is Ann Jacobus. Her debut YA thriller, Romancing the Dark in the City of Light, was published last fall from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Griffin/Macmillan. She earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in San Francisco with her family. To learn more about her visit her website, find her on Twitter as @annjacobusSF, or like her on Facebook. Now let’s take a peek and see where and how she works!     Describe a typical workday. Sometimes I get up at 6:00 to meditate until 6:50.… Read the rest

A Peek at the Creative Space of Angelica R. Jackson

Angelica R. Jackson is a freelance writer with numerous articles published (many feature her photographs as well), and also writes fiction for young adults, middle grade readers, and picture book fans. She is the author of the young adult novel Crow’s Rest: Avery Flynn arrives for a visit at her Uncle Tam’s, eager to rekindle her summertime romance with her crush-next-door, Daniel. But Daniel’s not the sweet, neurotic guy she remembers–and she wonders if this is her Daniel at all. Or if someone–or something–has taken his place. Her quest to find the real Daniel–and get him back–plunges Avery into a world of Fae and changelings, where creatures swap bodies like humans change their socks, and magic lives much closer to home than she ever imagined.… Read the rest

A Peek at the Creative Space of Maggie Hall

Joining us today for Creative Spaces is YA author Maggie Hall. Her debut novel The Conspiracy of Us was published this month from Putnam/Penguin: To fight her destiny as the missing heir to a powerful and dangerous secret society, sixteen-year-old Avery West must solve an ancient puzzle in a deadly race across Europe. Forbidden love and code-breaking, masked balls and explosions, destiny and dark secrets collide in this romantic thriller, in the vein of a YA DaVinci Code.  Avery West’s newfound family can shut down Prada at the Champs-Elysees when they want to shop in peace, and can just as easily order a bombing when they want to start a war.They… Read the rest

The Light and Round Project

There has been controversy rumbling this week in the young adult literature world. For those of you already following it, go ahead and skip down to the next paragraph to avoid the regurgitation. For those of you who aren’t, an “article” (really an opinion piece although it was never clearly labeled as such) was published in a major newspaper that denounced the current climate of YA fiction as being rife with explicit abuse, violence, and depravity, and suggested these topics are not appropriate for teenagers. I’m intentionally not linking to the original article because it’s been linked to enough already, and my personal annoyance with the piece was that the writer seemed to be more interested in drumming up attention and outrage than intelligent discussion about a topic she genuinely cares about (which she clearly did not or the article would have been better informed and researched).… Read the rest