Writer Fuel
This week I took a picture of dinner every night, and now I show them to you. THIS SUSTAINS THE WRITER BRAIN.
read moreBringing It On
The excellent women at The Book Smugglers asked me to round out their five week Young Adult Appreciation Month. ANA AND THEA: “We would like you to write about awesome female characters in YA fiction.” ME: “You know, I have an awful lot to say about that topic!” So I did. The post features eleven must-read books with excellent young ladies, my girlcrush on Teal Sherer, a question as to why “strong female characters” are still considered some sort of remarkable feat, my thoughts on prizing many kinds of strength, a link to this excellent vid on awesome women...
read moreDemons and Magicians and Dancers, Oh My
Internets, let’s talk about books, a subject dear to my heart. Specifically, let’s talk about a book dear to my heart, Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon’s Covenant. Sarah and I met over the internets via mutual friend and scary brilliant person, Justine Larbalestier. An admirer of Sarah’s work in fiction and non-fiction, especially The Demon’s Lexicon, I had sent her Guardian of the Dead. She liked it! (In fact, she blurbed it, which you can see on the US back cover) And she emailed me, in return, The Demon’s Covenant. I was in Oamaru at the time, and...
read moreIn Which I Talk To Books
So last time on Karen’s exciting poll of what she should write about next, being paralysed by her choices, the winner was That Massive Pile Of Books She Has Consumed Recently. You bastards. These are the books sitting on the bottom shelf of my lovely new bookshelf, which means I have read them since arriving in the US. Minor spoilers. *knucklecrack* READY? LET’S GO! Norse Code, Greg van Eekhout. BOOK: Action-packed Ragnarok as conspiracy theory, with MBA-student-turned-Valkyrie Kathy Castillo and perenially dumped on minor god Hermod trying to avert doom as it thunders towards...
read moreAdult Fic, I Read That Too
Oh, internets, it has been so long since I babbled at you about book related matters. And yet, books! They are the centerpiece of my life! So it is about time I did. I am a young adult fiction writer, and thus primarily a young adult fiction reader by both career and preference, but I also read adult books from time to time. Then I review them in dialogue style in a spoilerific manner that often renders in-depth, wonderful works nonsensical. Here are recent highlights of my adult fic reading: The Long Song, Andrea Levy. BOOK: Would you like to read a story of Jamaican slavery ostensibly...
read moreReading For Change
Last year I did a little something called the 48 Hour Book Challenge, where I read 15 YA books in – yes! – 48 hours, and wrote brief reviews of them as I went, and collapsed into a wrecked pile of wreckage at the end. It looked like this: It was awesome. But the most awesome part was that, thanks to sponsors and donators, we raised over a thousand dollars for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. The Alannah and Madeline Foundation is an organisation founded by a father whose two daughters and their mother were brutally murdered. The foundation is dedicated to helping children...
read moreAbout Karen
Karen Healey is a young adult novelist. She is the author of the urban fantasies GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD and THE SHATTERING, both set in New Zealand, and the forthcoming sci-fi adventure WHEN WE WAKE. GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD won the 2010 Aurealis Award for Best YA Novel and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award. Karen can tell you a lot about baking, covers of "Hallelujah" and superhero comics.
Recent Comments