This week! Books!
A quick programming note: there will be no new posts for the next two weeks as I do some summer traveling. I’ll still be checking email for editing inquiries, and if you’re thinking of booking a consultation call I’m now booked out clear through to August, so try to book early.
Now then! Links!
Little Brown Books for Young Readers Editor-in-Chief Alvina Ling and author/illustrator Grace Lin were kind enough to host me recently on their excellent Books Friends Forever podcast, where we discussed recent publishing controversies and the state of the industry. Give it a listen!
A group of students and authors, including the authors of the picture book And Tango Makes Three, sued Florida, arguing that its “Don’t Say Gay” law violates students’ and authors’ civil rights. Keep fighting the good fight, students and authors!
Cormac McCarthy was certainly a unique talent and individual, but could someone like McCarthy, who wrote idiosyncratic but acclaimed novels for nearly thirty years before finally breaking out commercially with All the Pretty Horses, exist in today’s publishing industry? Everyone who has ever been published is a product of their own era in publishing, but Dan Sinykin captures an interesting time capsule.
If you’re feeling stuck, Dan Blank argues that it may be time to look deeper. Really enjoyed this edition of his newsletter. (Here’s my own take on going deep to redesign your life based on your values).
“It’s dangerous to go alone” and other writing lessons from The Legend of Zelda, as relayed by Amber Sparks.
In writing advice circles there’s an increasingly common distinction between third person limited and third person “deep” POVs, leaving writers (including me) wondering: is there really a difference here? Tiffany Yates Martin gamely parses the differences. Personally, these still strike me as nuances within the catch-all third person limited and I’m not going to change my post on perspectives just yet, but I appreciate her deep dive.
This week in bestsellers
Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):
Adult print and e-book fiction:
- The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand
- Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
- Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
- Happy Place by Emily Henry
- It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
Adult print and e-book nonfiction:
- The Wager by David Grann
- Outlive by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford
- The In-Between by Hadley Vlahos
- Pageboy by Elliot Page
- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Young adult hardcover:
- Solitaire by Alice Oseman
- Five Survive by Holly Jackson
- Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko
- Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman
- The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera
Middle grade hardcover:
- Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars by Steven Rinella with Brody Henderson
- The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
- Refugee by Alan Gratz
- Wonder by R.J. Palacio
- Crowned by Kahran and Regis Bethencourt
This week on the blog
In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:
Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:
And keep up with the discussion in all the places!
And finally, Josef Adalian and Lane Brown have an indispensable look at the state of the streaming industry and the extent to which it broke previous Hollywood models, which huge trickle-down effects for writers, including the current WGA strike.
Have a great weekend!
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.
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Florida needs to be sued for all kinds of things, but the book banning is so awful and gross and scary.
Someday I really am going to read Blood Meridian.