Guest Post with Kirstin Cronn-Mills

I have a special guest post with Kirstin today on the blog. Kirstin is the author of many YA novel such as The Sky Always Hears Me: And the Hills Don't Mind , Beautiful Music for Ugly Children and Wreck, which released in stores/e-retailer everywhere Tuesday, April 15th. In today's post, Kirstin shares some memorable moments from her career as a published author.

Ten years of being a published author—WHO FREAKING KNEW?

 

Thank you for hosting me!

 

I had no idea I would write young adult novels—I’ve told that story in several places—and now I’m almost ten years (this fall) into being a published author. WHO FREAKING KNEW? Not me, friends. Never me.

And there is no bigger honor in my life (aside from being the mom to an awesome son) than being a published writer. I know the books that mean the world to me, and times I’d faint if I met particular authors. I can’t imagine someone feeling half as excited for my book, or for meeting me, so when that kind of stuff happens, it’s mind-blowing.  

Here are some of the most incredible things that have happened to me in the last ten years (in no real order). These are people-connection things, which are the best parts of being a writer:
• having my first book read on six continents (only missing Antarctica)

• seeing my book in a classroom, with students who are discussing it

• having a reader’s eyes light up when they find out it’s me

• having someone send me a photo of my book in Powell’s Bookstore

• the emails I’ve gotten saying “your book helped me” (so HUGE to me, SUCH an honor)

• seeing my book in a library

• seeing my book in a bookstore

 

 

My four individual favorite moments are as follows:
1) Immediately after Sky was published, I got an email from a woman who lives in Manhattan. She picked up Sky in a Midtown Barnes and Noble because she noticed my name was the same as one of her favorite teachers, back when she was growing up in North Platte, NE (about an hour from where I grew up). She opened the book and realized I had dedicated that book to her favorite teacher—my grandma. 

2) My stepmom was walking through one of her art classrooms (in Papillion, NE) and saw Sky on top of one of the student’s desks. Surprised and pleased, she said, “My daughter wrote that.”  The student said, “It’s my favorite book ever.” My stepmom was dumbfounded.
 3) In Beautiful Music, Gabe buys a prosthetic called a Mango. A therapist in Boston—who happens to be the partner of the trans man who helped me with my initial research for Beautiful Music—wrote me to say that one of her clients (another trans man) is the man who invented the Mango.

4) Some eighth graders in Toronto, Ontario, read Beautiful Music and then made projects about gender, with the help of some teacher candidates from a nearby university. Then some researchers from the same university made a film about the whole process. They invited me to Toronto to see their film and meet some of the kids. All of that was INCREDIBLE, but a mom told me her son’s life was saved by reading Beautiful Music. It helped him understand who he was. There are no words for that.

Career-building stuff (awards, nominations, reviews, stars) is important, but it’s not what I love about this work. My writing life has been one of the ways that I know the Oneness (my name for the Divine) is sending me love, and this work is way I send love into the world. I don’t think I can adequately express how much it means to me that people read my books—whether they adore them or hate them. Despite the bumps and bruises I’ve acquired from publishing industry itself, taking a book from idea to shelf is still a process full of magic, and one I am still surprised to be a part of. When I meet and interact with readers—even though they have no idea I think this way, and they wouldn’t believe it—the honor is, always and forever, all mine.

 

 

 

 

 

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Sometimes loss has its own timetable.
Set on the shores of Lake Superior, Wreck follows high school junior Tobin Oliver as she navigates her father’s diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

Steve’s life as a paramedic and a runner comes to an abrupt halt just as Tobin is preparing her application for a scholarship to art school. With the help of Steve’s personal care assistant (and family friend) Ike, Tobin attends to both her photography and to Steve as his brain unexpectedly fails right along with his body.

Tobin struggles to find a “normal” life, especially as Steve makes choices about how his own will end, and though she fights hard, Tobin comes to realize that respecting her father’s decision is the ultimate act of love.

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

According to geographers, the American West begins at the 100th longitudinal meridian. Thanks to the fact that this meridian is the main street of her hometown in Nebraska, Kirstin Cronn-Mills grew up six blocks east of the West. Yes, there were cowboys around.

Kirstin is a self-proclaimed word nerd. She learned to read when she was three (according to her mother) and she hasn't stopped since. Her grandmother and her father passed on their love of language to her, and that love became a love affair when she started writing poems in the sixth grade. She still writes poems, but now she focuses on young adult novels. She's pretty sure that teenagers are the funniest, smartest, coolest people on the planet.

In 1992 Kirstin moved from Nebraska to southern Minnesota, where she lives now. She writes a lot, reads as much as she can, teaches at a two-year college, and goofs around with her son, Shae, and her husband, Dan. Her first novel, The Sky Always Hears Me and The Hills Don't Mind (Flux), was a 2010 Minnesota Book Award finalist in Young People's Literature. A short story epilogue to Sky, "The First Time I Got Stranded in the Big Empty," appears in the e-anthology The First Time (Verday and Stapleton, 2011). She also published a middle-grade science book in 2009: Collapse! The Science of Structural Engineering Failures (Compass Point Books). Her short story "Header" will appear on the Young Adult Review Network (YARN) website sometime in the fall of 2012, and a nonfiction book about the lives of transgendered Americans will appear from Lerner in 2014. (via Amazon)

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Come November by Katrin Van Dam

Title: Come November
Author: Katrin Van Dam
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult
Series:N/A
Hardcover, 373 Pages
Publication: October 30, 2018 by Scholastic Press

Source: I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

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It’s not the end of the world, but for Rooney Harris it’s starting to feel that way. It’s the beginning of senior year and her mom just lost her job. Even worse, she isn’t planning to get another one. Instead, she’s spending every waking moment with a group called the Next World Society, whose members are convinced they’ll be leaving Earth behind on November 17. It sounds crazy to Rooney, but to her mother and younger brother it sounds like salvation. As her mom’s obsession threatens to tear their lives apart, Rooney is scrambling to hold it all together. But will saving her family mean sacrificing her dreams—or theirs?

Come November isn’t the type of book I normally pick up. But I’m so glad I did. Come November dealt with a topic rarely seen in Young Adult, cults. It highlighted the interworking of a cult and the aftermath of leaving a cult (voluntarily or otherwise). Sure, we’ve all seen stories in the news about it but I’ll be honest, I never thought much of what goes on behind the scenes; especially what happened to the followers after their leader is taken away or goes MIA. The novel is centered on seventeen-year-old Rooney, her younger brother and their mother. Rooney’s mother is entangled with the New World Society, a organization that believes the earth is dying but they can start over elsewhere. That on November 17^th, an alien race will rescue the believers/followers and take them to a different planet to start anew.

Without going into too much detail, the choices that Rooney’s mom took greatly impacted her and her brother’s life and everyone they knew or came into contact with. The book was separated into months, months leading up to “The Departure” and months “After Departure”. I loved seeing Rooney’s growth and transformation over the months, as she learned to take care of herself and her brother, jumping into the parent role after her mom checked out of reality. Despite the hardship Rooney faced at home, she never crumbled under all the obstacles thrown her way or bailed like her mother. Instead Rooney did everything in her power to scrape together any semblance of a normal teenage life like: getting a boyfriend, getting a job, attending school functions and applying to college.

The book is clearly split into two halves, cult life and life after cult. While it was great to see both perspective, I thought life after cult was far more interesting. It showed that no matter how bad things got, when you think it’s literally the end of the world…it eventually does get better. It may be a slow progress but as the saying goes, when you hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go but up. And that exactly sums up the last half of the book as we see the characters’ resilience and perseverance to do better, make the best of their situation, and ultimately forgive and heal. Overall an enjoyable and fascinating read. I highly recommend it.

Afterimage by Naomi Hughes

Title: Afterimage
Author: Naomi Hughes 
Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy
Series: N/A

Hardcover, 320 Pages
Publication: September 18, 2018 by Page Street Kids

Source: I received a review copy from the publisher/Saichek Publicity in exchange for a honest review.

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A horrific explosion levels part of the city and Camryn Kingfisher is the sole survivor.

Amidst controversy, conspiracy theories, and threats from government officials, Camryn longs for the truth. But the only person who she can turn to is a transparent boy in a lab coat named Quint. Unsure whether he’s a hallucination or a ghost, Camryn has no choice but to trust him as they become embroiled in a plot that is bigger than either of them realize.

In a race where the fabric of time and space is at stake, they must figure out who caused the explosion before the culprit comes back to finish Camryn―and her city―off for good

I had high expectations for Afterimage but it fell short when the story took a turn towards Sci-Fi. I’m all for Sci-Fi but the synopsis promised a Dystopian novel, and that was what I was expecting…I felt mislead. The book started with a bang, literally, when an explosion rocks a research/government facility wiping out the entire area within a 10-15 mile radius. The only survivor is our heroine Camryn and another boy, Quint, who may or may not be a figment of her imagination.

Everyone blames Camryn’s mother for the accident and she sets out to prove her mother’s innocence and investigate the shady organization that her mother worked for. The surprise twist, when things turned into a Sci-Fi was about halfway through the book and where we also find out why she was the only person able to see Quint. I thought it was a cool twist but the plot development seemed clunky and ill-defined. It could have been a great idea if it was executed better.

I also wasn’t feeling the characters. Camryn and Quint were pretty one-dimensional. I’m sure Camryn is supposed to be this beyond​ brave girl, breaking and entering buildings, fending off multiple attacks/attempts, and outsmarting the shady agency but it wasn’t the least bit believable…less believable than the Sci-Fi twist. I never felt invested in the characters and found myself caring less and less as the story progressed.

Afterimage had a cool concept but it never went further than that. It had potential though. I just wished I enjoyed it more than I did. However, there are way more positive and glowing reviews for Afterimage, and although I didn’t enjoy it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t. I’d recommend checking out a sample excerpt before reading and/or purchasing.

Everywhere You Want to Be by Christina June

Title: Everywhere You Want to Be
Author: Christina June
Genre: Contemporary
Series: N/A

Trade Paperback, 284 Pages
Publication: May 1, 2018 by Blink

Source: I received a review copy from the publisher/Saichek Publicity in exchange for a honest review.

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Matilda Castillo has always done what she was told, but when she gets injured senior years, she watches her dreams of becoming a contemporary dancer slip away. So when Tilly gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend the summer with a New York dance troupe, nothing can stop her from saying yes--not her mother, not her fears of the big city, and not the commitment she made to Georgetown. Tilly's mother allows her to go on two conditions: one, Tilly will regularly visit her abuela in New Jersey, and two, after the summer, she'll give up dancing and go off to college.

Armed with her red vintage sunglasses and her pros and cons lists, Tilly strikes out, determined to turn a summer job into a career. Along the way she meets new friends ... and new enemies. Tilly isn't the only one desperate to dance, and fellow troupe member Sabrina Wolfrik intends to succeed at any cost. But despite dodging sabotage and blackmail attempts from Sabrina, Tilly can't help but fall in love with the city, especially since Paolo, a handsome musician from her past, is also calling New York home for the summer.

As the weeks wind down and the competition with Sabrina heats up, Tilly's future is on the line. She must decide whether to follow her mother's path to Georgetown or leap into the unknown to pursue her own dreams.

Everywhere You Want to Be is a story of coming of age and self discovery. Tilly is expected to attend college come fall per her mother’s wishes but Tilly is stuck at a crossroad; debating if college is the right path or joining a dance troupe, her one and only passion. And she only has summer in New York to figure everything out. Follow her dreams or her mother’s.  

This book is said to be a modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, I could see some similarities but in my opinion it’s very, very loosely based. And honestly if it wasn’t part of the tag-line; I’d probably would of never made the connection. With that said I enjoyed June’s sophomore novel. She did a wonderful job capturing New York, I personally never been there but I can imagine it is just as she described. As for the character, Tilly was a pragmatic, kind and understanding heroine. In all profession, there is always someone who is willing to sabotage another to get to the top or to be noticed but Tilly was alway true to herself and did what she thought was right after being targeted relentlessly by another dancer in her class.

Another great thing about Everywhere You Want to Be is the strong and supportive female cast that surrounds Tilly from her Mother, Stepsister, Grandmother to Sage the dance director and roommate Charlotte. I absolutely loved that and it reinforces what type of person Tilly was or who she wanted to be. Tilly had a little quirk, she stress bakes as a type of release late at night. One scene I remember clearly was Tilly in the kitchen baking and then her stepsister Tatum and roommate came out to bake with her. They didn’t want to feel like she had to do anything alone; whether it was baking or what to do with her conflicted feelings about Sabrina, the other dancer. That scene perfectly describes this book: full of heart.

Overall an enjoyable, quick and light read about a young girl following her dreams and falling in love in the magical city that’s New York. Unlike most YA that are a bit too much drama borderline soap-opera, Everywhere You Want to Be found all the right balance for a realistic story of self, family and friends.