Malinda Lo

With startling regularity these days, the mainstream media publishes essays on young adult fiction, generally debating the question of whether or not YA is too mature or “dark” to be read by young adults. Recently, two more essays joined this growing body of opinion: Maria Tatar’s piece in the New York Times, “No More Adventures ... More→

I’ve been thinking about love triangles lately. It’s no secret that love triangles are a popular element in many young adult novels, from Twilight (obviously) to Carrie Ryan’s Forest of Hands and Teeth and Cassandra Clare’s Clockwork Angel. I know that lots of folks have very pointed opinions on love triangles, so I’m going to ... More→

Today I thought I’d answer a question that I often get from readers and aspiring writers: How do you stop from getting discouraged or losing motivation while writing? Answering this question1 requires thinking about writing at various different levels: 1. The idea stage 2. The drafting stage 3. The revision stage Ideas Let’s begin at ... More→

On Saturday at KidLitCon, there was a panel on diversity in blogging about children’s and YA literature. I was not there (bummer! sounds like it was a great panel), but author Brent Hartinger was on the panel, and via Twitter I learned that he said this during the panel: Brent handily encapsulated a whole mess ... More→

Since Huntress was published, I’ve noticed that some reviews mention that the reader didn’t realize that many aspects of the fantasy world in the book are based in Chinese and Japanese culture, or that they only realized that because of the cover copy or the cover itself. This is really interesting and makes me think ... More→

On Monday I finished the latest draft of my next novel, currently titled Adaptation.1 I say “latest” because it’s already been revised once before, but that was a very quick and dirty revise to get it in shape to submit to my editor. So what draft is this? Maybe the third? I don’t know, because ... More→