This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

Greetings from the back of beyond, dear readers.

I love Deborah Kaplan's recent post called "Writing Homework for You, My Loyal Readers." Last fall, Deborah and Amy Stern co-taught the fantasy course at Simmons College's Center for the Study of Children's Literature. After they'd started the semester, they realized what the opening assignment should have been. Now that they're no longer teaching the course, they're sharing that assignment with us, and it's a great one. It involves learning to better appreciate the differences between all the many ways we can write about books. From the post:

Current students are so incredibly proficient at writing about reading, because what with blogs etc., they do so much of it. And yet at the same time, they are proficient in some very specific kinds of writing about reading (primarily personal blogs and Goodreads-style reviews, with some amount of professional blogs), and the process of showing people the req…

I am stupendously pleased today to direct you to Amy Stern's latest post at the YA Subscription, "The Disreputable Analysis of Frankie Landau-Banks."

Back in January, some friends and I spent two happy hours analyzing E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. We filmed it. Amy has now uploaded 15 clips from our conversation, and done an awesome job introducing each clip in her blog post. Amy, you rock.

Go watch, go listen. Join the conversation. All the participants in the conversation studied at the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College; if you're wondering what kinds of conversations can happen there, this is a good example.

The participants are:
children’s lit professor Deborah Kaplan; children’s lit critic Rebecca Rabinowitz; assistant agent at the Sheldon Fogelman Agency Amy Stern;and YA writer Kristin Cashore. (*waves*)
As a visual aid, here is my color-coded copy of Frankie. You know I got a LOT out of a…

Some favorite moments from the Simmons Summer Institute:

"Some books need to be spanked." -- Vicky Smith, Children's Book Review Editor for Kirkus Reviews

"Cool and I have never met upon the high road of life." -- M.T. Anderson

It was like someone squirted lemon on my brain. -- My paraphrasing of Blue Balliett, describing a moment of literary inspiration.

When I stand next to Kevin Henkes, I feel ashamed. If you cut open his brain, niceness would come out. What would come out if you cut open my brain? Centerfolds? -- My paraphrasing of the very funny and accidentally sweet Jack Gantos. :o)

So, I just want to say that there was a moment in my speech on Friday when I tried to express how grateful I was to Cathie Mercier, Susan Bloom, and everyone else at Simmons College's Center for the Study of Children's Literature, for the education they gave me and the path they sent me shooting down. I bumbled a little bit, and then I began to cry; and looking out in…

And now, a listy post!

In no particular order... YA fiction, except where specified...

Books that have been added to my TBR pile thanks to the Simmons Summer Institute this past weekend (in most cases, after hearing the author speak):
Lessons from a Dead Girl, by Jo Knowles, a sister alum of the Center for the Study of Children's Literature. I've been meaning to read this for ages, am halfway through, and am loving it.The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi. A bit embarrassed never to have read this one.A Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos (memoir).Chasing Vermeer, by Blue Balliett (middle grade art heist mystery), with illustrations by Brett Helquist.Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork.
Beowulf, a graphic novel by Gareth Hinds, who also has a graphic novel version of The Odyssey coming out that I'm psyched about.Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, Schools, and Other Scary Things, by Lenore Look, pictures by LeUyen Pham (middle grade).Black Stars in a White Night S…

My Finnish translator, Maria Lyytinen, has one gray eye and one brown eye. She's a Graceling! Kiitos for translating my book, Maria -- I can't imagine anyone more appropriate! :o)

The Simmons Summer Institute is this weekend; I speak Friday, which I'm very grateful for, because it means I'll be able to enjoy Saturday and Sunday events, rather than rattling around like a nervous wreck. The schedule is here.

And now, I'd like to try something new. Since I just moved, I am, of course, unpacking... and this gives me a new appreciation for my belongings. So I had this idea: why not subject my innocent readers to A Gallery of My Favorite Objects? BWA-HA-HA-HAHAHAHA! As I unpack them, I'll take pictures of them and post them here. Now, a couple things about my gallery. One, the only camera I have is on my iMac, and I like it that way, so that means there are limits to what I can photograph. For example, I'm rather fond of my couch, but I'm not going t…

So, this post answers FAQs about writing and getting published. If those topics don't interest you, I promise that this will be the most boring post ever. Well, okay, even if those topics DO interest you, chances are you'll get bored, because I wrote SO MUCH! I apologize up front for length.

1. When and how did you start writing?
I'm going to give you a sleep-inducing answer, but I have a reason for doing so.

I did critical writing for years, but didn't get serious about creative writing until 2003, when I was nearing the end of my master's degree at Simmons College's Center for the Study of Children's Literature. I took an intro to writing class, then finished my degree with a creative writing independent study, with the marvelous writer and teacher Liza Ketchum as my mentor. With Liza, I began a middle grade contemporary realistic novel. I started working on it in September of 2003 and wrote maybe a third of it during the semester. After graduating, …

I've received some questions recently about Simmons College's Center for the Study of Children's Literature in Boston, which is where I got my M.A. degree.
In a case of excellent timing, just last week on her blog, Cynsations, Cynthia Leitich Smith interviewed one of my favorite teachers ever, Cathie Mercier. Cathie is one of the professors who made my experience at Simmons so extraordinary. And the interview is all about the different children's literature programs Simmons offers -- which means that now I don't have to write about it myself! I can just send you all to Cathie's interview! BWA-HA-HA! Laziness for the win!
Seriously, though, if you have any specific questions for me about the Simmons experience, please feel free to leave me a question today in the comments, and I will respond. A number of my readers are Simmons graduates, actually, so they should feel free to chime in as well!
Finally, here's a three-minute video in honor of teachers. Yes…

There is a LOT of information on this page, including instructions for purchasing signed copies AND just about all the info I have about the books. Check out the red descriptors at the beginning of each paragraph.


If you'd like to purchase a signed copy of any of my books, please place an online order at my local indie, Harvard Book Store. Before you finish your order, a Comments box will appear. Please specify in the Comments box that you'd like the book signed, and to whom you'd like it personalized, if anyone. Kindly use the online ordering system rather than trying to order over the phone -- this will eliminate confusion at the store! All orders are pre-paid and non-returnable.
My agent is the goddess Faye Bender, sine qua non, one of the founding partners of The Book Group.

My American publisher for Graceling is the team of superstars at Harcourt Children's Books (September 2008).

My American publisher for Fire and Bitterblue is another team of superstars!, this tim…