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Brandy Colbert is the Stonewall Award-winning author of Little & Lion , Pointe , and the forthcoming Finding Yvonne . Her essays and short fiction have been featured in several critically acclaimed anthologies for young people. Her work has been named a Junior Library Guild selection, a Book of the Month Club selection, and has been included on ALA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list, as well as best-of lists from Kirkus , Booklist , Publishers Weekly , Vulture , and more. ** Brandy's third book, Finding Yvonne , comes out Tuesday, and she speaks of the fears of writing the second novel, including not living up to the first book, or letting down readers, or having new characters feel too similar to the characters in your first book. She shares her tips for navigating these waters, including: Leverage the relationships you've built from publishing your first novel. and Remember that "each book is different, and each book will be written differently." and How it...

Stephanie Garber, author of CARAVAL , garnered wild, breakout success for her YA fantasy which has been on the NYT bestseller list. She's also a creative writing teacher who knows a thing or two about spicy endings. She knows at least five things, actually, but the blog will only share one exercise. First, Stephanie has us think about the sorts of books we love to read, and FINISH reading. She says you'll read a book with a slow beginning as long as the rest of it picks up, but you'll ask for your money back for a book with a bad ending. Or if not bad, a mediocre or forgettable ending you may not bother to finish, which is just as upsetting. A bad ending in this instance means it's got plot holes, or unanswered questions, or a nonsensical resolution or is overly tragic or is a combination of all of the above. Stephanie is a 'discovery' writer vs. being a 'plotter,' and she struggles with the adage that a good writer knows their story's ending before...