Smugglers’ Stash and News

Braziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil!!!! Ana here, taking a break from World Cup’s Concentration to bring you the latest Stash. First up:

Giveaway Winners

The 15 winners of Paper Towns by John Green are:

Paul Carroll (comment#5)

Ali (comment#13)

Laura Blakemore (comment#20)

Nikki Egerton (comment# 175)

Caroline (comment# 144)

Shy (comment# 163)

Hannah (comment# 15)

Alice (comment#18)

Rhiannon (comment#92)

Hannah (comment#79)

Gerd D (comment# 96)

Andrew (comment# 125)

Harry Markov (comment# 107)

Kim Ammons (comment# 66)

Gethin (comment# 146)

You all know the drill. Email us (contact AT thebooksmugglers DOT com) with your snail mail address and we will get your winnings out to you as soon as possible. NOTE: due to the increasing number of unclaimed prizes, winners have one week to contact us/reply to our email. After one week, we pick a new winner. Thanks again to everyone that entered, and congratulations to all of the winners!

And you still can enter the Simon&Schuster BIG FAT YA GIVEAWAY – with 8 upcoming titles in their fall lineup including: Passing Strange by Daniel Waters, Night of the Solstice by L.J. Smith, Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick and Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready.

Author news, Internets, etc:

We have excellent news for Juliet Marillier fans! It has been brought to our attention that the author will be publishing a new YA trilogy, the SHADOWFELL Trilogy, out in 2013, 2014, 2015. (via Publishers Marketplace). Since are both huge fans, Thea in particular, we are totally salivating over the news!

Malinda Lo, author of the FABULOUS YA novel Ash has written a series of helfpul posts for writers about LGBTQ stereotypes and how to avoid them when writing YA fiction. Each blog post has a subject like Major LGBTQ stereotypes, Gender, Word to Watch For, Secondary Characters and Gay Jokes and Resources. I think it is well worth a read even if you are not a writer.

Meanwhile, over at one of my favorite blogs, Things Mean a Lot, Ana (yes, another Ana) has posted an article entitled: “On Writing About Books” where she talks about different perspectives on reviewing or writing about the books, objectivism x subjectivism. The post includes loads of links to interesting articles on similar subjects at other blogs and they include even more links. I spent an entire afternoon reading all of them and two things came to mind then: whoa baby there are so many book blogs out there that I do not know about; and WHOA, there are so many inteliggent, articulate, bloggers! Makes me so proud to be part of this community.

And speaking of book blogs and community (how is that for a segue?):

Book Blogger Appreciation Week – September 13-17 2010

That time of the year is approaching again – the third annual BBAW will take place between 13 and 17 of September. Here is the rundown:

What: Book Blogger Appreciation Week is a week long festival celebrating the community of book bloggers and their contribution to preserving a culture of literacy through book reviews and recommendations, reading reflections, and general bookish chat. BBAW also includes an awards component. For more information on the BBAW 2010 Awards and how to participate, please visit the BBAW 2010 Awards Blog. BBAW events include daily blogging topics, blogger interview swaps, special guest posts, and so much more!

Who: If you self-identify as a book blogger, this festival is for you! We have been excited to welcome participants from all over the world for past BBAWs.

When: September 13-17, 2010.

Where: Right here at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week blog. You can participate in the comfort of your own home and the convenience of your own time zone.

Why: Because book blogging is a fun and time intensive hobby that has created communities around books and played a crucial role in the continuing evolution of what books mean in our society.

How Can I Participate?
You can participate by filling out the registration form for BBAW 2010. Subscribe to the blog’s feed and follow us on Twitter to keep up with all of the developments!

And just like last year, there will be awards although you do not have to take part in the awards to be a part of the BBAW. THE RULES HAVE CHANGED QUITE A LOT with regards to the process of registration and nomination. Everybody is invited to register their blogs for the Week (and everyone who does so, will be entered into the Book Blogger Directory) – the self-registration is also how you nominate your blog for a niche award (Best Speculative Fiction blog or Best YA Blog for example) but you can opt-out of the award when you are registering.

You can read all the details and explanations here.

It is also part of the new sets of rules, in order to secure transparency of the process that bloggers post their self-registration for the awards by listing the 5 posts that they think best represent their blogs in the category they wish to run for.

Thus, we now list the five posts we wish to enter for an award consideration in the Best Speculative Fiction Blog:

Review of Shades of Gray by Jasper Fforde
Review of Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
Joint Review of The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
Cover Matters Article – On Whitewashing
Chat with an Author: Interview with Karen Healey

Let’s see how this goes! Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, we invite everyone to take part – it is a great opportunity to get to know other blogs and bloggers!

This Week On The Book Smugglers

We kick off the week with Thea’s review (and giveaway) of Naamah’s Curse, sequel to Naamha’s Kiss the new trilogy by Jacqueline Carey.

On Tuesday, Ana reviews YA Superhero book The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea Campbell

On Wednesday, Thea is back with a review of the dystopian novel The Line by Teri Hall

Then, on Thursday we joint review upcoming title from the brand new Gollancz YA line Crossing Over by Anna Kendall

Finally on Friday, Ana reviews another Contemporary YA: A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler.

Aaaaand that’s it from us today. For now, we remain,

THEA ninjas in with her addition to the stash:

~Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers