Spread the Awesome: Author Spotlight: Carol Lynch Williams

I first met Carol Lynch Williams in 2007 at the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference she organizes every year. After the conference Carol and I continued our friendship via email and it’s still going strong today. She’s always there with a kind and encouraging word, or a joke. And now, by a stroke of luck or fate, we are agency mates, and call each other cousin. I’m looking forward to the next family reunion.

Carol is the author of more than twenty middle grade and young adult novels. Her most recent is The Chosen One (2009 St. Martin’s Press).

 The Chosen One grabbed me around the throat and wouldn’t let go. It’s an edgy, poetic, page-turning YA novel with a killer voice. It’s one of those books that keeps you up way past your bedtime. I read it in one fell swoop and then was sad that it was over. I wanted a sequel right away.

 From the jacket flap of The Chosen One:

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, without questioning them much—if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her.

But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle—who already has six wives—Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever.

Carol published her first book, Kelly and Me, with Delacorte in 1993 and is still going strong. She is a four-time winner of the Utah Original Writing Competition and winner of Nebraska’s Golden Sower Award, and a 2009 recipient of a PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship.

Her newest book, Glimpse, will be released in June by Simon & Schuster. Glimpse is about two sisters. One has tried to kill herself and the other is trying to figure out why.

To learn more about Carol, stop by her blog and say hi. Or better yet, attend her Conference.

I’m giving away a copy of The Chosen One. Leave a comment between now and noon est. on Thursday and you’ll be entered in a random drawing.

Amanda Bonilla over at Swords, Boots and Shadows is reviewing Silver Borne by Patricia Biggs. And, if you click on Recommended Reads you’ll get links to over sixty other blog reviewing books today thanks to Elana Johnson. But first remember to leave a comment so you’ll be entered in the give away!

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A very cool conference

A few years ago I went to my first writers conference: The Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference. This year it’s in Sandy, Utah at the Waterford School.

I walked in with twelve pages of my second young adult novel, and walked out five days later with a full manuscript request. That request didn’t turn into an offer, but the conference experience motivated me. It clued me in to a lot that I did not know, and supported me in such a way that I came out feeling that anything was possible.

Mornings were spent in a writers workshop critiquing each others’ work and receiving expert instruction. Afternoons had special sessions plus time set aside to talk with the agents, editors, authors. I spent my evenings writing because I was so energized by the buzz. The experience at the conference was one of the main factors that inspired me to pursue writing full-time. Flash forward a couple of years: I have an agent and my third YA novel is out on submission. 

I traveled from Alaska to Utah for that Conference and it was worth every penny. If you write YA, MG, or picture books, or you’re an illustrator, and you can make it to Utah in June, don’t miss it.

They have beginning, intermediate and advanced workshops. Just talk to conference orgainzer, Carol Lynch Williams. She’s a gem of a person–an amazing writer and writing teacher. She will make sure you get into the workshop that best fits your skill level.

 Here’s the information and the link.

 2010 Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Workshop

The Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Workshop brings together writers, illustrators, agents, and editors to explore craft, genre, and current publishing practices.

Full-day participants spend their mornings in small workshops led by award-winning faculty. Both full- and half-day participants enjoy afternoon plenary sessions by national children’s book editors and an agent, as well as breakout sessions by our workshop faculty and guest presenters. The keynote address and book signing are open to all conference attendees.

Join us June 14 – 18 at the Waterford School in Sandy, Utah for a better than ever conference experience.

Registration is now open!

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