Here we go - Day #1 of the Summer Blog Blast Tour:

Adam Rex at Fuse Number 8:"The big news is that Frankenstein is getting married, and anyone who's been through a wedding knows it takes a full quarter of a picture book to plan properly, so there are a number of nuptially-themed poems. They have to find a caterer who can deal with all the different monsters' food allergies and dietary restrictions, for example. Frankenstein has to meet his future in-laws, the Bride has to tell them she's not entirely dead anymore. That sort of thing."

David Almond at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: "I guess it comes from having a Catholic childhood. I struggled against the Catholicism for a long time, but there came a moment when I recognized that it would never go away, and when I also recognized that it was a kind of treasure house of language, imagery, ritual. So I just allowed it to influence my fiction."

R.L. Lafevers at Finding Wonderland: "When I was a kid, I could always tell if someone had been in my room while I was gone, even if nothing had been disturbed. I could walk into a room where everyone was cheerful and pleasant and would KNOW that there was deep animosity between them. I can feel when someone is looking at me, and 90% of the time I know who is on the phone when it rings."

Dave Schwartz at Shaken & Stirred: "Another pet peeve of mine is the "billionaire fights crime" thing. Seriously, how impressed are we supposed to be that people with unlimited resources are able to do good? Maybe if, say, Tony Stark was to put his money into job training and education for juvenile offenders he'd actually have less crime to fight in his shiny suit. It goes back to me not being able to relate. Maybe the money is part of the power fantasy, and that's why people want to be Bruce Wayne despite the murdered parents and the all-consuming obsession with punishing the criminally insane. WHO ARE YOU REALLY PUNISHING, BRUCE?!?"

Elizabeth Scott at Bookshelves of Doom: "Really, if young adult novels from now had been available when I was a teen--oh, I get all dreamy-eyed just thinking about it."

Laurie Halse Anderson at Writing & Ruminating: "The turning point for me was when I working on the early (dreadful) drafts of Thank You, Sarah. I was struggling to figure out how to combine the history of Thanksgiving with the significant details of Sarah Hale’s life. The early drafts were written in that dry, dull, old-fashioned tone. I hated it. I hated every word that I pinned to the page. I felt like I had killed my story before anyone got the chance to read it."

Susan Beth Pfeffer at Interactive Reader: "All right- when I read fiction, I favor suspense novels. I have a real fondness for American or British suspense novels from approximately 1946-1960, standalones where the wife is planning on murdering her husband or the husband is planning on murdering his wife. They're mostly by people I've never heard of and aren't that easy to find anymore."

[Post title from David Almond.]