Blog Tour: Teen Author Boot Camp (+ Giveaway Of An Online Conference Pass)

Hello, blogosphere! This is somewhat of a different post from what I normally blog about. While I know there's a good chance you, dear reader, are an adult and not a teen, I was contacted by the Teen Author Boot Camp and asked if I'd be willing to do some promotion for them.

Since I'm a young adult myself and thought TABC sounded like a really cool event, I thought I'd jump onboard and spread the word. The TABC was also kind enough to offer to giveaway a pass to their live online broadcast (or $5 off the normally-$10 All-Pass, which gives you access to more than just the live broadcast) whose keynote speaker is Shannon Hale.

The Rafflecopter giveaway is below, after this guest post by writer Margie Jordan, of Writers Cubed.

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There is a famous line from a movie that says, “I was always a band geek. I just never joined the band.” I could relate. When I was in high school I was a president of the dance team, a singer in the choir, a hang-out-with-my-boyfriend-until-mom-and-dad-forced-me-home kind of person. But in my heart, I was a writer. This is why I tell people all the time, “I was always a writer. I just always hated English.”

Because I was a closet writer, I didn’t have anyone to bounce ideas off of, no one to tell me when I stank, no one to teach me how to craft a really great story. My teachers were the millions of books I read (not in a closet—but hidden away when my friends were around).  And I WISHED I could have had someone to talk to about my hidden obsession.

If this sounds like you…. Then I’m happy to say there is a solution.

The Teen Author Boot Camp, founded by the Utah-based group Writers Cubed and sponsored by Utah Valley University is one of only a few writing conferences nationwide geared solely for teenagers who have a love for the written word.  For the first time ever, Writers Cubed is offering the conference to anyone who wants to attend through Live Stream.

Interested? Here are the deets!

When: Saturday, March 16, 2013
From: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (MST)
Where: Worldwide via the internet
Who: Teens, teachers, librarians, book lovers
Cost: $4.99 for the Live Broadcast; $9.99 for the All Pass

The keynote address by Newbery Honor Winning Author Shannon Hale will be free for anyone to watch. It will be on March, 16th, 2013 at 9 a.m. MST. A subscription to the Live Broadcast costs $4.99 and includes the following:
9 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.—Writers Cubed: Welcome
9:15 a.m. to 9:55 a.m.—Keynote by Newbery Honor winner Shannon Hale (Princess Academy)
10 a.m to 10:45 a.m.—Tyler Whitesides (Janitors)  Class: Imagine and Create.
10:55 a.m. to 11:40 a.m.—Janette Rallison (My Fair Godmother)  Class: Bad dialogue can kill a story.
12:50 a.m. to 1:35 p.m.—NYT bestseller Kiersten White (Paranormalcy)  Class: Plot Like a Villain.
1:45 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.—J. Scott Savage (Farworld)  Class: Finding Your Voice.

2:50 p.m. to 3:25 p.m.—Journey to Publication Panel: Agent Amy Jameson & authors Chad Morris, Tess Hilmo, J. Scott Savage, Cindy Bennett
3:35 p.m. to 4:20 p.m.—NYT bestseller Aprilynne Pike (Wings)   Class: World-building is the invisible foundation to your book.
4:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.—Writers Cubed: Winner of the First Chapter Contest and closing remarks.

If you just can’t get enough of TABC, there is also an All Pass Subscription to the rest of the conference (including more than fifteen awesome presentations, including mine--haha). That only costs $9.99 and, as if it wasn’t a sweet enough deal already, you can watch the whole conference whenever you want for an entire year.

To register to watch Shannon Hale’s Keynote for free, visit www.teenauthorbootcamp.com and click on Livestream. It only takes a minute. While you’re there, check out the other presenters who will be teaching at the conference under the tab “Drill Sergeants.”

Stay tuned for details on how to win a subscription to the TABC Live Broadcast for FREE on this blog

Margie Jordan is a co-founder of Writers Cubed, a group of Utah writing activists who created
the Teen Author Boot Camp in 2010. In her spare time, like when she isn’t writing, she is a Literacy specialist for her local school district. Please visit her website at www.writerscubed.com.

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And here's the giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

-----The Golden Eagle

Book Review: For The Win

Title: For The Win (Read/download for free HERE)

Author: Cory Doctorow

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Genre: Speculative Fiction/Realistic Fiction/Science Fiction

Page Count: 475

Rating: 4.8 out of 5

Cover Rating: 3.8 out of 5. 

Inside flap:

At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer online games, questing and battling to win virtual gold, jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, millions of "gold farmers", trapped by abusive contracts and physical threats, toil in electronic sweatshops in the world's poorest countries, harvesting virtual treasure that their employers sell to First World gamers for real money.   Mala is a brilliant fifteen-year-old from rural India whose leadership skills in virtual combat have earned the nickname "General Robotwalla". In Shenzhen, heart of China's industrial boom, Matthew defies his former bosses to build his own gold-farming crew. Leonard, who calls himself Wei-Dong, lives in Southern California and spends his nights fighting virtual battles alongside his buddies in Asia. All of these young people, and more, become entangled with the mysterious woman called Big Sister Nor, who builds them into a movement to challenge the status quo.   Fighting pitched battles in the slums of Mumbia, in the red-light district of Singapore, in Sound China's enormous industrial cities, and in the virtual worlds of every MMORPG worth playing, Nor's network of gamers is so successful that it incurs ruthless opposition from organized crime, from Western corporations, and from the Chinese authorities. Ultimately, Big Sister's people devise a plan to crash the economy of every virtual world at once--a Ponzi scheme combined with a brilliant pack that ends up being the biggest, funnest game of all.

My expectations: I'd heard a lot about Cory Doctorow's books, mostly in the form of rave comments about Little Brother. I might review that some other time--I really didn't like it. However, at the time, I hadn't read anything else by him so my expectations were pretty much in the air.

About the book: In my opinion, this is one of the best, and one of the very few, Young Adult books on this sort of subject: inequality. There are not many books geared for teens that bring attention to workers' rights or macroeconomics or the virtual economy. I might not agree with everything said and done, but I have to admire the way it was put together and written. It is an original novel, and in a world where much YA is the same, it's a great change.


Cory Doctorow's writing style is not at any extreme. Not to much description, not too little description, the dialogue flows reasonably well. His writing cuts to the point, which makes his books fast and easy to read.

• Plot:

The plot moves fast. Things happen right after the other, and with all the varying viewpoints there are a lot of intertwining storylines; around the world, something is happening to and around the characters. I love the ending on this book--it left questions to be answered, but still managed to tie up everything well.

• Characters:

Wei-Dong, AKA Leonard Goldberg, was an interesting character. I found him too arrogant and irresponsible to truly like, but he did some noteworthy things throughout the story. It was also interesting to read the overall perspective on American teens (as he is one) and culture in the story.

Matthew was, again, not someone I was ready to fall in love with, but fascinating to read about. He was a real character, a teen forced into rather horrible working conditions and made to do whatever his boss told him to do.

I liked Jie. She had spunk and determination, and she really tried to change things by spreading the word about protests and rallies. She was also ready to risk her life for what she thought was right and had to be done--something I love to see in a protagonist, particularly a female one.

Mala was not Jie. She was tough and hard at the start, caring, mostly, only about herself and a certain group who stayed loyal to her. However, I liked the way she developed throughout the book and eventually turned out as someone much better than before.

There were a lot of other characters. Most of them had to do with the above-mentioned people, and most of them were the same kind: not characters to love, but to pay attention to and focus on because what they're doing and saying has its value.

• Setting/Elements:

The presentation of Western culture is not positive. Americans and others are shown as ignorant, blind, and mostly greedy people who will do anything for money and power--particularly those at the top who run the gaming companies and the virtual economies "gold farms" and other such things are based on.

Other: Violence (both virtual and physical), a lot of it having to do with protests/demonstrations/rallies; references; some language.

Do I recommend this book? Yes. This is a fascinating look at something not often covered in Young Adult--or in any other age group--and is very much worth the read.

-----The Golden Eagle