Fiction Friday: SUMMER IN THE CITY & A "HOT" VERSE NOVEL

Spent 14 hours in NYC yesterday and was so exhausted that I didn't write my Friday post before going to sleep.  But, what a wonderful day!  Started with coffee at Simon & Schuster and a wonderful conversation about upcoming books from debut authors and some fun new directions more established authors are taking.  Then, lunch with my editor at Viking which was a true delight.  We both have arts backgrounds and it felt like I was meeting up with an old friend.  I am SO happy to be working on AUDITION with her and feel even more certain that my manuscript found the right home.  Finally, dinner with a friend from Tor Books (super-yummy Indian vegetarian restaurant to which I am definitely returning) and more fun book talk about writing series, online book publicity, and a million other fun topics.  Seriously, this post would be a mile long if I wrote about all this stuff now but I'll cover some of the discussions in upcoming Monday Book Biz posts. 

Meanwhile, today is Fiction Friday and so I'll recommend a weekend read from a very lovely writer.  When I tell people I write verse novels, one book I am frequently recommended is Karen Hesse's OUT OF THE DUST.  I read it on the train to NYC yesterday.  It is a beautifully researched and haunting verse novel set in the heat of the Depression-era dustbowl--an interesting read for summertime in our current economic situation.