Malinda Lo

I’ve been blogging about what I learned about writing from an abstract painting class I took recently. Take a look at part 1 and part 2. In the fourth class we learned how to work with glazes. A glaze is basically a small amount of color mixed into a large amount of matte (or gloss) ... More→

In my last post, I wrote about a few things I learned from the abstract painting class I took recently. Here’s what happened next. During our third class, we learned about color and how to use it in narrative. We started out by painting seven gradations of color between yellow and red. This seemed initially ... More→

Recently I took a six-week class in abstract acrylic painting taught by Maria Nikl. My interest in painting arose from a meditation retreat about creativity that I went on several years ago at Spirit Rock. During this retreat, we painted every afternoon, and I discovered that it was an entirely transformative experience. Without that retreat ... More→

I have determined the three winners of my Ash Across-the-Pond Giveaway!1 They are: Kristine T from Australia Nicola from the U.K. Meg from Canada Congrats, ladies! I’ve emailed the winners, and as soon as they get me their mailing addresses, I’ll send the books out. There were 243 entries2 hailing from 33 different countries, including ... More→

Today I have a lot of great news to share! Lambda Literary Awards I’m very happy to announce that Ash is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category. Here are all five of the Children’s/YA finalists: Ash, by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown) How Beautiful the Ordinary, edited by Michael ... More→

The First Sentence Tour starring the 2009 Debutantes continues this week with Stacey Jay, whose novel Undead Much? (the sequel to You Are So Undead to Me) came out in January. What’s one of your favorite first sentences from one of your favorite books? SJ: From The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: A throng of ... More→