Be More Bookish - Week 7, Assignment 3

I followed STACKED, a really interesting blog run by two librarians and an editor, and Squeetus, the personal website of author Shannon Hale of Ever After High and Austenland fame. STACKED is awesome, first of all, and one of my new favorite blogs to frequent. Not only is the writing clever, but the book reviews are very concise and informative. They also do themed series, like About The Girls, where they opened a dialogue about sexism within the YA industry. In the series they don't review books but they do discuss them within the context of the larger theme. Some other sections of their website include author interviews and a Readers Advisory Week where other librarians and bloggers wrote posts offering their own advice about RA. Really cool resource, needless to say I'm into it.

Squeetus has some similar themes, because it is the personal blog of author Shannon Hale and she writes a lot about how media is marketed for girls and what it's like being an author (and a woman) of books aimed at both genders but only getting recognized for writing books for girls.

But she also blogs about what its like being a mother, offers advice to schools and libraries about what makes a great author visit from the author's perspective, and provides updates and sneak peeks of her upcoming work to her fans. Also, and this is my favorite part, she has a SUPER comprehensive section of her website devote to offering advice to aspiring writers on topics beyond how to write compelling character or how to create a good story. She talks about how to get noticed and find a good agent, and has an article called "What I Wish I'd Known," which is just a list of things she wishes someone had told her when she was starting out. Honestly, I think this was my favorite assignment. These two websites are great and are immediately going in my bookmarks.