For me, the last panel discussion of the day on Saturday at the Texas Book Festival was a discussion with four children’s/YA authors about writing series fiction. The title was something like “How To Write Characters That Go the Distance: Writing Books in a Series.” The authors were Derrick Barnes (Ruby and the Booker Boys), Ally Carter ( The Gallagher Girls, beginning with the book that gives its title to this post), Pseudonymous Bosch (The Name of This Book Is Secret and sequels), and James A. Owen (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica). The only one of the four whose books I had read was Mr. Owen, but I thought all four authors were interesting and some insightful things to say. Mr. Bosch was a bit, well, secretive. He wore sunglasses and looked like a sort of leftover hippie type with wild hair. I’ll let you know what I think about his Top Secret Book as soon as I get it from the library.

James Owen started out as an artist and comic book writer, and he illustrates the books in his seriesas well as doing the writing. I have enjoyed the first three books in the Imaginarium Geographica series (Semicolon review here), and I’m looking forward to reading the fourth book, just out, called The Shadow Dragons. Mr. Owen says there are seven books planned for the series, and he already has all seven (loosely?) plotted out and planned. He seemed to be a mild-mannered, stereotypical author type, very sweet, and and a bit bemused at finding himself at a book festival in Texas of all places. I was fascinated by his answer to an off-beat question posed by one of the children in the crowd: where did you go to college? He said that he took college classes while he was still in high school, but that when he was fifteen (or maybe fourteen?) he started his own art/design studio and as it was thriving when he graduated high school, he simply continued doing what he loved to do and never went to college. It sounded like a homeschool story, but as far as I know he wasn’t homeschooled.

Mr. Barnes said he learned a lot of his craft while working as a copywriter for Hallmark cards. He got a book deal, started writing the Ruby books, even though he has three sons and no daughters, and as of now he already has ten (or more?) of the series books written and waiting to be published. The fourth book in the series was published in March, 2009 and is one of the nominees for the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction category. I checked out the first book in the series a couple of days ago, and I’ll again let you know what I think.

And last but not least, I was so impressed with Ms. Carter and her coterie of fans who were there to cheer her on that I found the first book in her Gallagher Girls series at the library and read it today. I wish the second and third books had been on the shelf, too, because now I’m dying (get it, dying) to read them. Ms. Carter told the story of her agent calling her to say that YA chicklit was selling well these days and could she come up with any ideas in that genre? Ms. Carter, starving artist that she was, immediately made a list, but her agent said her ideas weren’t good enough. So the author proceeded to watch Alias. Something on the TV show gave her the idea for a spy school for girls, and the Gallagher Girls were born. I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You is pure fun. Lots of high-tech spy stuff, a girls’ boarding school, secrets galore, espionage at its finest. And it has no sex and no bad language that I noticed. There is a little kissing and a lot of boy craziness, but again it’s all in fun. The other two books in the series are Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy and Don’t Judge a Girl By Her Cover. The latter (book three in the series) is nominated for the YA Fiction category in the Cybils. Ally Carter said, by the way, that she writes for “immature teens” but I’m thinking that most teen girls would enjoy these as just low effort entertainment. Three cheers for fun!

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