News

I have been keeping track of sightings of Shelf Discovery because I am, you know, a new author, and it’s neat. (I love my book of poetry, but it gets shelved in a lovely bookstore called Paypal.) But I must share with you my absolute FAVORITE photo of the summer, which comes from the blogger Jackie W.:

I love this photo, but I love it especially because the poolside read is so central to my life it even makes it into the title poem of my collection, Check-In (PDF).

Jackie also wrote a wonderful remembrance of her own teen reading, AND made a hilarious observation about The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which should probably now be titled America’s Next Top Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Whether Skurnick is searching for common themes in Lois Duncan books or wishing she had a boyfriend straight out of Madeline L’Engle’s imagination, Skurnick is a champion of young heroines.  Strong, pretty, smart heroines.  Heroines that are hard to come by these days in the pages of “Gossip Girl” or “Twilight.”  Not to knock those books, at all, you should see my copies of them, I ADORE those books.  But the books from Skurnick’s young adulthood were more authentic.  Maybe the girls had ESP or could travel through time and inhabit other people, but they were girls that were normal until this other thing happened.  And the magic of that is that this girl in this book facing all these challenges could be you, the reader, sitting in the library or on your bed reading about her.

As much as I have dreamed to be as gorgeous as Serena or have a boyfriend as undead as Edward, I know it probably won’t happen for me.  I’m 26.  I’m not a teenager.

Read the rest here.