Swati Avasthi's Blog, page 5

I am just thrilled with this new trailer, so I had to share.  Hope you enjoy!

At about midnight last night, I was trolling the web and looked at Brian Malloy's website.  He has a great page about the emotional roller coaster of the debut novelists first year of publishing.  Reading that plus knowing a few debut novelists has helped me decide that the DSM V should identify a new psychological disorder:   Debut Bookitits.

Symptoms Include:

1) Inordinate amounts of non-localized stress.

2) Repetitive Stress Injuries from googling one's own name.

3) Extreme Solipism that can r...

I announced too early.  The give away for a signed ARC of Split starts today. February 1, and goes through the 9th, one month before the  release.  Hope you enter.  Hope you win.

I have had the honor of judging in the MN Book Award for the last three years.  Over the years, I met great librarians and book sellers, got to read at least four books of exceptional quality, and then attended the Gala Reception in April, with the secret of the winning book battering around like a caged bird in my chest just waiting for the gate to open.  Sadly, I am not a judge this year, but at least I still have a list of books to read that are of exceptional quality.

...And the Nominees a...

Wanna a copy before March 9th?

Enter.  Win.  Read.

Signed ARC and you'll get a smidgen of Class of 2k10 swag as well!

Recently, I discovered that Stefan Petrucha's YA novel Split is coming out from Walker books one week after my Split is being released.  Other than screaming out for a database of some kind with in the publishing industry (which would, understandably fall on ears that are listening more and more for the chink of change in the bank than an expense like this), I just have to laugh.

Making me chuckle even harder was the extent of my title hunt.  When Gravediggers was rejected as a title from my p...

It took me three days to write about ALA because the experience has left me uncharacteristically speechless.  I've mentioned before that the publication process has been surreal for me from the auction of Split through the copyedits through holding the ARCs in my hands.  And, so I expected the same kind of thing with ALA.  After all, things that don't happen in real life were happening:  Knopf flew me out to ALA to go to a party where they were featuring four of their debut novelists...

Finally!  A first draft of BIDDEN.  Wow, this took so much longer than I expected.  I started writing something like BIDDEN about a year ago.  I had more than 100 pages of it that I threw out.  Twice.  I'm so thrilled to have a SFD ("sh*tty first draft", term is courtesy of Anne Lamont in "Bird by Bird"), or in slightly prettier terms, the skeleton.  Time to start building the muscle and sinew.  But I'd better build fast!  My May deadline is coming up!

Wish me luck.

Three fun things that happened last night.

Fun Thing No. 1:  A Name!  A Name!

My co-curator, Heather Bouwman, named our reading series!  (Drumroll, please... Pull the curtain... and...)




Yep!  The Second Story Reading Series.  Perfect (if a little blurry).

Here's why:  It has two meanings.  The Loft's performance hall is on the second story of the Open Book building (hence the staircase in the pix above), and of course, our reading series is designed to feature two writers: an emerging and an esta...

Not cold enough for you?  Come hear some chilling paranormal tales at the Loft!

For our next installment of the youth and teen reading series, we're proud to have Patrick Jones and New York Times bestselling novelist Lisa McMann.

When:  Saturday, January 9th at 7 PM
Where:  The Loft, The Open Book building at 1011 Washington Ave. S.

And, in case you need some bolstering after the reading, we'll have snacks before you head back out in the Minnesota winter.

More info about our readers and their...