About the Author: Cristin Terrill is a YA author and aspiring grown-up. She holds a BA in Drama from Vassar College and an MA from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon and has worked in the theatre on both sides of the pond. She now teaches creative writing to children and teens in Washington, D.C. Visit her at cristinterrill.com.


About All Our Yesterdays: Marina has everything. She’s got money, popularity, and a bright future. Plus, she’s best friends with the boy next door, who happens to be a gorgeous prodigy from one of America’s most famous families.


Em has nothing. Imprisoned in a small white cell in the heart of a secret military base, all she has is the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.


But Marina and Em have one big thing in common: they’re the same person.


Now Em must travel back four years in time in order to avert the terrible future from which she’s fled, and there’s only one way to do it. She must kill the person who invented the time machine in the first place: someone from her past. A person she loved.


But Marina won’t let them go without a fight.

We’ve got an abbreviated Twitterview with Cristin to share!


Pitch your book in 140 characters: 

A girl must travel back in time to kill the boy she loves before he destroys the world. Like TERMINATOR meets THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE.


Who will this book appeal to: 

People who like conspiracies, tough girls, snarky boys, secrets, kissing, and twisty-turny mind-bending time travel stuff.


Favorite moment or character in your book: 

The first scene, with the girl from the future, the military base, the drain, and the boy cracking jokes in the cell next door.


What’s your writing routine: 

Procrastinate. Go to library. Stare into space. Check Twitter. Weep silently. Actually write something. Proclaim it terrible. Repeat.


What’s your best piece of writing advice: 

Do a little everyday, because waiting for inspiration is for wimps.


What’s been the most surprising part of the publishing journey: 

How long it takes for things to actually feel real. I’m still pretty sure I’m hallucinating all of this.


What did you do when you learned your book would be published: 

Got THE CALL while at dinner with writer friends and couldn’t say anything. Tried to act casual. Laughed hysterically in the parking lot.


What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve received: 

Try to be honest, especially when it makes you uncomfortable. Give yourself permission to suck. Get your ass in the chair.


What are your top three favorite books: 

HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pullman (yes, I’m kind of a cheater), THE GIVER by Lois Lowry, and THE WESTING GAME by Ellen Raskin.


What’s next for you: 

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS #2! More time travel, more secrets, LOTS more kissing. After that, learning to cook and world domination.

Find out more about Cristin Terrill’s All Our Yesterdays on Goodreads.

About the Author: Mindy McGinnis is a YA librarian who lives in Ohio and cans her own food. She graduated from Otterbein University magna cum laude with a BA in English Literature and Religion. Mindy has a pond in her back yard but has never shot anyone, as her morals tend to cloud her vision. Mindy runs a blog for aspiring writers at Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire. She also contributes to the group blogs The Lucky 13s, Friday the Thirteeners, Book Pregnant, and From the Write Angle. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook, as well as Pinterest.


About Not a Drop to Drink: The story of a teenage girl surviving in a rural America where an ounce of fresh water is worth more than gold and death wanders the countryside as thirst, cholera, and the guns of strangers; when her mother dies in an accident, the girl must decide between defending her pond alone or banding together with a crippled neighbor, a pregnant woman, a filthy orphan, and a teenage boy who awakens feelings she doesn’t understand.

Today, we’ve got a short Twitterview with Mindy to share!


Pitch your book in 140 characters: 

In a world without water, Lynn’s pond is life, her rifle its guardian.


Who will this book appeal to: 

Anyone who drinks water and likes being alive.


Favorite moment or character in your book: 

Anytime the very secluded Lynn meets a new person it throws her. She has no idea how to interpret teasing or flirting.


What’s your writing routine: 

Mostly I write when I get a chance. It’s always evening. And I make sure I pee first.


What’s your best piece of writing advice: 

Don’t feel like you have to write everyday to be a “real” writer.


What’s been the most surprising part of the publishing journey: 

The fact that someone wanted me in the first place. I’d been writing and querying for ten years, so it was a bit of a shock.


What did you do when you learned your book would be published:
Honestly, I went into shock and scooped the litter pan.


What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve received: 

Trust your reader. Don’t try to control what they “see.”


What are your top three favorite books: 

THE STAND by Stephen King…after that — Really? Only two more??


What’s next for you: 

The sequel to Not a Drop to Drink, currently titled A Handful of Dust, is going through crit partners.

Find out more about Mindy McGinnis’s Not a Drop to Drink on Goodreads. 

About the Author:  Lydia Kang is an author of YA fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. She is a part-time internist and has a blog where writers can learn the most accurate way to maim their characters. She believes in science and knocking on wood, is an unapologetic salt addict and thinks Star Wars should have been Ewokless.

About Control: After the violent death of her father, 17 year-old Zelia loses her younger sister, Dylia, during an abduction at the foster home. It turns out her sister Dylia isn’t just pretty and sweet – she’s illegal.

In the year 2150, DNA must be pure by law, and anyone with enhanced genes face death. Zelia’s only allies are the freak-show inhabitants of her new, underground foster home. Along with the unexpected love of a very strange boy, she will need her flaws and their illicit traits to save the only family she has left.

We’ve got a shortened Twitterview with Lydia to share today!

Pitch your book in 140 characters: 

A 17 y/o girl aligns herself with a foster home full of genetic freaks to save a sister with a secret trait.

Who will this book appeal to: 

People who love adventure, a little sci-fi, lots of romance, a medical mystery, and some fun, new world building.

Favorite moment or character in your book: 

The club scene! It’s the first time you see the foster kids really come together.

What’s your writing routine: 

Check way too many social media outlets, turn on some music, and write. Oh, and drink something caffeinated.

What’s your best piece of writing advice: 

Never stop trying to be better at your craft. Read like crazy and write whenever you can.

What’s been the most surprising part of the publishing journey:
Destroying my preconceived notion that I could never write a novel.

What did you do when you learned your book would be published: 

I think I bit my fist and jumped up and down.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve received: 

Show, don’t tell.

What are your top three favorite books: 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Persuasion by Jane Austen, and LIttle Town on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

What’s next for you: 

The sequel to Control!

Find out more about Lydia Kang’s Control on Goodreads. 

About the Author: Geoffrey Girard is an award-winning dark fiction author. Born in Germany and shaped in New Jersey, Geoffrey graduated from Washington College with a literature degree and worked as an advertising copywriter and marketing manager before shifting to high school English teacher. Since then, he’s earned an M.A. in Creative Writing from Miami University and is the Department Chair of English at a famed private boys’ school in Cincinnati. None of his students, he believes, are clones. He also has two teenage sons, and suspects one of them could be. For more information, please visit www.GeoffreyGirard.com.


About Project Cain: This is a story about blood. The blood of family. And of science. And murder.


Fifteen-year-old Jeff Jacobson had never heard of Jeffrey Dahmer, the infamous serial killer who brutally murdered seventeen people more than twenty years ago. But Jeff’s life changes forever when the man he’d thought was his father hands him a government file telling him he was constructed in a laboratory only seven years ago, part of a top-secret government cloning experiment called ‘Project CAIN.’ There, he was created entirely from Jeffrey Dahmer’s DNA. There are others like Jeff — those genetically engineered directly from the most notorious murderers of all time: The Son of Sam, The Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy… even other Jeffrey Dahmer clones. Some raised, like Jeff, in caring family environments; others within homes that mimicked the horrific early lives of the men they were created from. When the most dangerous boys are set free by the geneticist who created them, the summer of killing begins. Worse, these same teens now hold a secret weapon even more dangerous than the terrible evil they carry within. Only Jeff can help track the clones down before it’s too late. But will he catch the ‘monsters’ before becoming one himself?

Geoffrey decided to offer up a guest post answering one of my questions. That question is . . .

If you could be the writer behind any novel, what would it be and why?

The poetry of 1984. The royalties and merited popularity behind Harry Potter. The legacy of Lord of the Rings. The courage and scope of The Fountainhead or Moby-Dick. The brilliant so-simple-why-hadn’t-someone-thought of-it-before concepts behind Lord of the Flies or Heart of Darkness or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And then books like A Prayer for Owen Meany or Shadowland or The Chocolate War which I read over and over and over because everything’s exactly where it should be…


But the game/challenge here was choose the ONE novel I wish I’d written. And for decades, it’s been one book: A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens. Not even in my top hundred favorite books, yet every time I read it or even think about it, I frequently proclaim out loud: I wish I wrote this damn book.


1] The concept is clever. So clever. And simple. So so simple. Three ghosts (past, present, future) will visit you tonight and teach you about yourself (a self that needs some teaching). Such a powerful tale wrapped in a plot less complicated than most fairy tales or shaggy-dog jokes. The anticipation of what the next ghost will reveal the uncluttered linear storyline… Some of our very best stories, the ones that last/resonate, can afford to be the most straightforward.


2] Christmas. I mean, wow. Smart. THE Holiday. And sure, you can dress up any plot by attaching it to a specific holiday, especially this one. But that’s not what Dickens is doing here. He’s doing specific things with the roles of tradition (on the holiday with the most traditions in a time (1840s) when tradition was flying out the door faster than you can say “Tiny Tim”) and promoting specifically Christian values on a major Christian holiday (in a time when Christian values were flying out… you get the point). This story HAS to happen on Christmas. Just like Michael Myers has to happen on Halloween.


3] Ghosts. (see #1 above). To my dismay, I remain unable to write a story without including something somewhere that’s a little peculiar, supernatural, fantastic, unexplainable… I try to write about “normal” people doing “normal” things and get bored with them all-too quickly. I spend the bulk of each day surrounded by normal people doing normal things; They’re also boring. As a reader and writer, I like a little seasoning in my fiction and incorporating ghosts as main characters and plot drivers adds just the right touch of fantastic to a story entirely about, ultimately, a normal man.


4] A CHRISTMAS CAROL has a point. It’s not written to be just entertainment. It was also written, during the greatest societal change in human history, to question/explore the rise of industry and its toll on social justice and the individual human spirit. I wouldn’t know what to write about if I didn’t have some underlying “point” to my tale. Not that you have to (or should) get up on a soapbox with theme, but to borrow a quote attributed to half a dozen brilliant authors: “ALL Art is propaganda.”


5] Scrooge is all of us. Ok, so maybe you’re no wrinkly pinchpenny but you’re here and human. So, it’s safe to say you also have a Past that includes some regrets and missed opportunities; a Future that you worry about; and a Present where you ignore/mistreat/misunderstand a lot of the people in your life. Good fiction is universal; it can speak to each of us. Make us look within ourselves. Regardless of any themes exploring the price/cures of the Industrial Revolution, this tale remains at its core a very human and familiar story. The ghosts, you see, haven’t just come for Scrooge…


6] Dickens’ writing. While this one’s a touch dialogue heavy, when Chuck takes a moment to work his magic, you see an absolute master at work. First line of the book: Marley was dead, to begin with. Readers are said to sometimes throw a book against the wall when it’s terrible. Writers, however, more often do it when the writing is so darn good, you wonder if you should ever bother writing again. One sentence can do that. Dickens has several in this little tale that endanger the walls.


7] 150 years after it was written, people still like this story. Proof of how well #5 and #6 were done. We still know these characters, their words, their struggles and joys. Yes, the story got plenty of help from countless plays and films over the years, but the actual book is still read, given as gifts, and enjoyed to this day. It will be on our shelves another 150 years from now. Hint: Not even people named Meyers will know who Bella and Edward are 150 years from now. For an Artist to create something that lasts and delights/touches generations is certainly a worthy goal.


A brilliant concept, skillfully written, a splash of magic, with social relevance and universal personal meaning, whose characters and story will keep readers entertained and thinking for, likely, a thousand years. Yes, that I would like to write.

Now… which book would YOU choose?

Find out more about Geoffrey Girard’s Project Cain on Goodreads.

About the Author: Nicole McInnes is a university writing and literature instructor, a mom and a horsewoman. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she now lives in northern Arizona. When not writing or teaching, she can be found exploring the national forest on horseback, taking pictures and playing with her kids and pets. Visit her at www.nicolemcinnes.com


About Brianna on the Brink: Sixteen-year-old Brianna Taylor finds herself lost, alone and with a major surprise in store after a one-night-stand. Just when she’s got nowhere left to turn, help arrives from the one person who is closest to her big mistake, but accepting that help will leave Brianna forced to choose between clinging to the ledge of fear and abandonment – or jumping into the unknown where a second chance at hope might just be waiting.


Pitch your book in 140 characters: 

It’s JUNO meets MEAN GIRLS meets WHERE THE HEART IS in the edgy, soulful BRIANNA ON THE BRINK by @Nicole_McInnes


Who will this book appeal to:  

Love edgy, soulful contemporary YA? You. 

Favorite moment or character in your book: 

Aside from Brianna, my favorite character is Earl, who’s modeled on my late grandpa – a true, old school gentleman with fantastic one-liners


What’s your writing routine: 

I generally wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy, drink strong coffee & then apply my butt to the writing chair for several hours.


What’s your best piece of writing advice: 

If writing is what you must do, don’t ever stop. If traditional publication is what you’re after, don’t ever give up. Support your library.


What’s been the most surprising part of the publishing journey: 

How flippin’ LONG everything takes. And how incredibly generous with their time & talent other writers & readers can be.


What did you do when you learned your book would be published: 

Ran down the driveway in my pajamas – barefoot, with bedhead, doing wild jazz hands – to tell a family member who was just driving up.


What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve received: 

Go out and live life, have jobs, make a family. Experience what you can. It’s the best way to gather material.


What are your top three favorite books: 

COLD MOUNTAIN by Charles Frazier, GILEAD by Marilynne Robinson, ALL THE PRETTY HORSES by Cormac McCarthy. Pure prose mastery, all three.


What’s next for you: 

More writing, reading & connecting with readers at libraries, schools, conferences, etc! http://www.nicolemcinnes.com/appearancescontact/

Find out more about Nicole McInnes’s Brianna on the Brink on Goodreads.