YA Authors 2.0: The Simon Pulse Blogfest

I meant to blog about this weeks ago and the publicity materials got buried in my Stack O Stuff on my desk. Ack!

One of the things I love about the way Web 2.0 technologies has affected YA services is that it allows teens and their favorite librarians to interact with authors in ways they couldn't before. You can go to an author's MySpace and tell him/her how much you liked the book s/he wrote without cluttering an email inbox. Authors can talk about the progress they're making (or not) on a novel. The possibilities are endless. Simon Pulse, an imprint for often edgy teen books, has taken the 2.0 author world and made it huge with the 13-day Simon Pulse Blogfest, which begins March 14.

During the fest, popular authors who publish with Simon & Schuster will answer questions from teens about their books (and probably a few other things, too. Some of the authors I'm looking forward to reading? Kate Morgenroth (Jude was so underrated!), Alex Sanchez, Sonya Sones (bonus points if she writes all her answers in verse), Rachel Cohn, Chris Lynch, D.J. MacHale, Ellen Hopkins, Scott Weterfeld, and more.