ALA Annual '12 Recap + Swag Giveaway (over)

Hello! I had a fun, exhausting, crazy weekend at the ALA Annual in Anaheim, California. In this post, I’ll be sharing a few photos as well as my overall impression of the exhibit hall.

Sign outside convention center (taken from car):

Marissa Meyer signing copies of Cinder and ARCs of Scarlet (book 2) !!! This was actually a surprise. I was waiting for another author, but it went fast. So I hopped over to the Macmillan booth right after and saw this huge line, which luckily my friend was already in. Marissa seemed excited to be there and I snagged a Cinder mirror as well as Scarlet. No picture with her though.

Disney-Hyperion ticketed signing: (from left to right) Alexandra Bracken, Rachel Cohn, Dan Krokos and Tamara Ireland Stone. I kept joking that this was cafeteria style - a little chat and sign with each of the authors.

Other authors I met throughout the weekend: Rae Carson, Ally Condie, Tahereh Mafi (3rd time in 7 months…she’s that awesome), Libba Bray, Gary Ross (director/writer of The Hunger Games), Sarah J. Maas, Leigh Bardugo (been Twitter friends for a while, it was so nice to see her), Jessica Khoury and Gennifer Albin. They were all very lovely and eager to chat.

5 books I'm most excited to read: Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi, Scarlet by Marissa Meyer, Outpost by Ann Aguirre, Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes and Black City by Elizabeth Richards.

I ended up with around 30 books from Friday night to Monday afternoon and hope to give many of them away after I read them. Indeed, very grateful to all the publishers, authors,  librarians, teachers, bloggers and readers I met or was given books by (whew, is that everyone?) and of course my friend Rachael whom I interviewed last week. It was a great weekend overall and gave me a new perspective on the publishing industry.
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Wait. You thought I was going to tell you all that, then leave you with nothing? No way. I have some very cool YA swag from my personal closet stash (pictured below) to give away!!!

HOW TO ENTER: Just leave a comment below with an email address! I’ll pick two winners* this Monday 7/2. US and Canada only please. Winners have been notified by email.

* One pile of swag per winner will be sent via USPS after email confirmation. Winners will be chosen randomly using a number generator. In the event that only one person enters this contest, the remaining prize will be kept and used at a later date. If no one enters, both swag prizes may be donated. *

Quick Interview: The Book Muncher

1) Hi, Rachael! Welcome to Cherry Tree Notes. It’s been pretty quiet around here, but we love to have people stop by. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your blog.

Hi all! As Kristi said, my name is Rachael, and I’ve been blogging at The Book Muncher for over four years. When I’m not reading YA, I go to school at Barnard College of Columbia University, where I’m majoring in Comparative Literature, and work at a small literary agency called Fox Literary.

2) What genres of young adult literature do you enjoy most? And which recently published (or soon to be) titles are you excited about?

I have rather eclectic taste when it comes to books, so I read a little bit of everything from contemporary and historical fiction to paranormal and high fantasy—it really just depends on my mood! I do find, though, that I’m generally a little more particular to certain themes or concepts within genres; for example, I’ve been really into stories with time travel and parallel universes of late, so I’ve been drooling over a fair amount of sci-fi: False Memory by Dan Krokos, All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill (which doesn’t come out until Fall 2013), and Eve and Adam by Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate.

In other genres, I’m greatly looking forward to Diviners by Libba Bray, Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes, Speechless by Hannah Harrington, and Burn for Burn by Jenn Han and Siobhan Vivian.

3) I know you are currently based in a big city and gaining work experience as a publishing intern. What is it that you do and how do you hope your role within the industry will evolve within the next few years?

As an assistant at a literary agency, I do a little bit of everything. Mostly, I do a lot of reading—in sorting through queries, of manuscripts in the “slush pile,” and of my boss’s clients’ projects. I’m also starting to do a fair amount of writing as well, by drafting rejection and revision letters. Since I aspire to be a young adult book editor, it is my hope that I’ll be hired as an editorial assistant at a publishing house soon after I graduate from college next year! When (not if!) that happens, I’ll likely be doing a lot of the stuff that I get to do now at the literary agency—but all the time!

4) Any advice for those who want to work in publishing, write, or something in between?

The best advice that I can give is very general but I’d like to think it’s very relevant to all aspects of the publishing industry, whether from the writer’s side or the publisher’s side: Don’t give up. Publishing is extremely competitive, because everybody wants to write a book and all those English majors out there want to get paid. Perseverance and patience can really make a huge difference; no matter how disheartening the present state of the publishing industry looks at any given time, your ability to stick things through while someone else couldn’t makes you that much closer to your end goal, whatever it may be!

Thanks so much for having me on the blog!

You can find out more about The Book Muncher and her reviews on her blog: http://thebookmuncher.blogspot.com/ or on Twitter: @thebookmuncher.


*SIDE NOTE* : I will be attending the American Library Association's annual conference Friday through Sunday (or Monday, not sure yet) and will post a recap with photos next week!  :) 

On Quotes

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. It's June, and I can relax, so here I am! Yay.

To be a good writer, you have to look at other people's writing. You have to read. You have to learn how to put together a good sentence, a good metaphor, a poetic line. Or, you can read them for inspiration, for truth, for the pure poetry of the words. So, I'm sharing some of my favorite quotes from other writers (and others).

"Spiteful words can hurt your feelings, but silence breaks your heart."
~C. S. Lewis

"In learning the art of storytelling by animation, I have discovered that language has an anatomy."
~Walt Disney

"If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?"
~George Carlin

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."
~Maya Angelou

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
~Albert Einstein

I love these quotes. They're so true, and they're stated in a simple way. It's just... staggering how true they can be.

So, how about you? What are your favorite quotes?

Camp Nano

June 1st started the June Camp Nano. It's just like the November Nanowrimo, but aimed at people who have more free time in June. If you happen to join, you get a shiny badge looking like this one...

Anyways, this is just a quick post to wish good luck to those who are participating and to encourage those of you who aren't to check it out. 

If you want to find out more, check out out the website here. Good luck to all your Nano-ers and to the rest of you, have a nice day!