Win a signed, hardcover copy of THE INQUISITOR’S APPRENTICE!

UPDATE: The contest has closed! Thanks for entering, and the winner will be notified shortly. Come back again!

With starred reviews from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly, Chris Moriarty’s debut middle-grade novel The Inquisitor’s Apprentice is one to watch.

You can win a signed hardcover of the book! It’s beautifully illustrated, and the endpapers–gorgeous:

All you have to do to enter is pick a number between 1 and 343 and post it in the comments. I’ll respond with a line from that page in the book. When we’re all done (12:00 midnight on Thursday), I’ll do a random number generator thingy and that person will be the winner. Be sure to include your email when you leave your comment so I can contact you if you win.

Come back and read all the comments, and you’ll get some awesome sneak peeks of this wonderful book!

[Oh, and if two (or more!) people pick the same page, that’s fine–if that page number is the winner, I’ll just do another random generator thingie for that page.]

Good luck!

Posted in Contests on 10/18/2011 at 9:25 am  |  77 Comments

An Asteroid

We writers sometimes talk about “pellets”–little rewards that keep us–like rats–happily running around our writerly treadmills. A good review is a pellet. An email from an enthusiastic reader is a pellet.

Last week, I got something so far beyond a pellet that one of my writing buddies called it an “asteroid.” And indeed, it is cosmic and out there, and really wonderful, too.

I live in Iowa City, which is known as a literary town–the world-renowned Iowa Writers Workshop is here, and we have this Literary Walk, which is a line-up of beautiful brass plaques with quotations from the works of authors associated with Iowa and Iowa City, writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Flannery O’Connor, and John Irving. Here is the website describing it.

My asteroid is that the Literary Walk has been expanded, and I’m one of the authors represented.

Usually you don’t get a brass plaque until you’re dead (in case you can’t see it, this is a quotation from The Magic Thief.)

“The old man was a wizard, clear as clear, and what kind of fool sits down to eat dinner with a wizard?”

And look, this is me: still alive, with my asteroid!


(photos by Kellye Crocker)

Pretty sweet, huh?

Posted in News on 10/11/2011 at 11:51 am  |  30 Comments

WIN an ARC of THE CABINET OF EARTHS!!

The contest has ended and the winner notified! Thanks for playing.

The Cabinet of Earths is a fantastic middle-grade novel from debut author Anne Nesbet. It’s coming from HarperCollins Childrens on January 3rd, and it’s beautifully written and compelling, with a terrific girl protagonist, Maya.

You can win an ARC–an advanced reader copy–of the book and read it before everybody else!

All you have to do to enter is pick a number between 1 and 256 and post it in the comments. I’ll respond with a line from that page in the book. When we’re all done (12:00 mid-day on Thursday), I’ll do a random number generator thingy and that person will be the winner. Be sure to include your email when you leave your comment so I can contact you if you win.

Come back and read all the comments, and you’ll get some awesome sneak peeks of this wonderful book!

[Oh, and if two (or more!) people pick the same page, that’s fine–if that page number is the winner, I’ll just do another random generator thingie for that page.]

Guys, I LOVED this book! Don’t believe me? Here’s the back cover:

And, so you can see what I’m talking about, a close-up of a line on the back cover:

Here’s the flap copy:

To protect her baby brother James, 13-year-old Maya has to take on the magical underworld of Paris, in which houses have bronze salamanders for door handles, the most beautiful people are all hooked on the sweet-smelling “anbar,” and a shimmering glass Cabinet of Earths has chosen Maya to be its next keeper.

Good luck!

Posted in Contests on 10/04/2011 at 8:24 am  |  77 Comments
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