A Visit with YA Rising Stars!

This past weekend some writer-friends and I made a trek to "America's Oldest Children's Bookstore," Once Upon a Time in Montrose, California. A panel of YA authors called "YA Rising Stars" held the room spellbound, telling us about their current releases.


On her feet is Suzanne Young, who we recently chatted with here at YA Fresh about her novel, A Need So Beautiful. In addition to the stunning cover and great reviews, the audience really enjoyed the excerpt she read.

Beside Suzanne is Nova Ren Suma, whose debut novel,
Imaginary Girls, has received rave reviews from the Los Angeles Times.

Next to Nova is the effervescent Holly Goldberg Sloan, who is new to novels after many years of success as a screenwriter of such films such as "Angels in the Outfield" and "Made in America." She talked about her debut novel, I’ll Be There, which sounded delightful.

Far left, here is Cindy Pon, who discussed Fury of the Phoenix, the sequel to her popular novel, Silver Phoenix. Cindy has appeared here at YA Fresh before when we met at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrator's conference and posed for pictures!

Here is Cindy a little while later, delighting us with an excerpt from her book:


And here is a shot of Cindy, Suzanne and me, taken before the signing session, a photo I call "Hi, YA Freshers!" since we were all sending hello's to our readers. And take note of the cupcake pop in Suzanne's hand, just of many special treats made for the event.


On a final note, color me especially delighted to have won a book in their random event giveaway!

If any of our readers has heard good things or enjoyed reading any of these books, please tell us here. Or if you simply want to read them, well, jump on in, too!