Bits & Bobs from the Blogs

Here's a scattering/smattering of blog articles I've enjoyed this week:

• Leila at Bookshelves of Doom interviews Kathleen Duey. Duey wrote Skin Hunger, the first in a pretty darn dark fantasy trilogy. I loved it, and it was short-listed for the National Book Award in 2007. The second volume, Sacred Scars is apparently off to the copyeditor, which means it will be on the shelves in only... wait... what's that? It won't be on shelves until Fall 2009? Evil, evil, evil snail's pace of publishing!
• Molly at Bowen Press notes the similarities in the marketing of The Phantom of the Opera and Twilight. The similarities are so glaring, it's a wonder no one's pointed them out before.
• Speaking of Twilight, Carlie at Librarilly Blonde calls Stephenie Meyer on her assertion that "no one was supposed to read these but me." I'm with Carlie. Writing itself is generally a highly personal endeavor, but once you start querying agents and editors, you're assuming (or, at the very least, hoping) other people will want to read your book, too. Maybe Meyer didn't expect the books to be such a blockbuster, but considering her mega-advances? I have to imagine she got a clue pretty early on.
• At the Carolrhoda blog, Andrew Karre discusses the importance of "naughty bits" in books for children and teens to make them appealingly subversive... or subversively appealing... whichever.
• Hosted by Cynsations, Gail Langer Karwoski gives children's authors and illustrators the ABCs of School Visits. This article is going in my file for that magical, miracle, maybe day I can call myself a published children's author.