by Jamie Chavez | May 24, 2014 | Miscellany
A friend of mine sent me this article from the New York Times, “Read, Kids, Read,” by author/columnist Frank Bruni, and it resonated so strongly with me that I had to pass it on to you. The lament is this: studies show young people are reading less and less. And Bruni...
by Jamie Chavez | Feb 17, 2014 | The Book Biz
Recently a young writer with whom I’d worked some time before entered a contest that changed her life (I wrote about Natalie here). Her success brought to my attention the phenomenon of the “pitch contest,” in which unagented writers are invited to pitch a manuscript...
by Jamie Chavez | Feb 3, 2014 | Books You Might Like
I’ve been publishing a recap, every January, of every book mentioned in posts during the past year. (Except—whoops—I missed January this year. But maybe you did too? Man, that month went by fast!) Mind you, this is not a list of books I read last year (although there...
by Jamie Chavez | Jan 23, 2014 | The Book Biz
One of the first manuscripts I turned in as a freelance editor caused a minor panic at the publishing house. “This novel is too long,” the managing editor said in an email. “It’s 90K words. We contracted 75K.” (Let me tell you just how many fifteen thousand words are,...
by Jamie Chavez | Sep 9, 2013 | Books You Might Like, Guest Posts
Natalie Knaub has—and while I’m getting ready to go to a writers’ conference, I’m going to let her tell you about The Scorpio Races, in a post she also ran on her own blog.* Review: The Scorpio Races (YA) There are books you read and think, That was pretty good. Then...
