S & S Launches Blogfest with 100 YA Authors

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SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 1/31/2008 2:05:00 PM

About 100 young adult authors will be ready and waiting for young readers' questions as part of a two-week "Pulse Blogfest" taking place March 14–27.

Sponsored by Simon & Schuster, the blogfest will feature Scott Westerfeld, author of the "Uglies" series; Kate Brian, author of the "Private" series; Ellen Hopkins, author of the novels Glass (2007) and Burned (2006); and Holly Black, author of the teen novels Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (2002) and Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale (2007), and coauthor of the middle-school series Spiderwick Chronicles.

Each of the 14 days will be devoted to a separate question addressed to all authors—queries along the lines of how they got into writing, where they seek inspiration, and whether their stories come from real life.

A Simon & Schuster teen advisory board is currently soliciting questions. "We're going to pore through the questions that have been submitted and pick 14 that we feel cover a wide variety of topics," says Matthew Schwartz, the company's online marketing director. "The point is to provide one place where all the authors and all their fans can come together and interact. It's a great way of allowing the fans of one author to be exposed to many other authors.

A kind of "give-and-take" environment will take place, Schwartz adds, via a comment space for each author. Authors will be able to respond to individual comments if they choose.

Each blog entry will include information about the author and his or her latest book. A contributor page also will feature the author's photo and biography.

The blogfest, which Simon & Shuster describes as a first, is being promoted to librarians and other educators through the publisher's educator/library newsletter.