Joined 4 other talented writers to form YA Beyond: Breaking Boundaries

I am very excited that I’ve joined with four other talented multi-published authors to form YA Beyond: Breaking Boundaries (www.yabeyond.com). This site will highlight everything teen related. We are a diverse group and our writing styles vary as much as our experience in the writing field. Like many young adult writers we’re all using pseunonyms. For me, Renee Pace, is a reclaiming of my maiden name and I couldn’t be happier writing YA under my birth name. I’m a mother of four children, three boys and then our girl and I’ll soon gab about how that little girl came to be but the journey to writing for all us began first with our love of reading.

I read a ton of books. I usually read at least three books a week. Books are everywhere in my house. Picture my night table by my bed piled high with books and that’s me. Magazines also fill my bathroom but books line my bath tub – nothing makes me happier than a long hot soak, glass of wine and a good book. This habit is something two of my boys have developed – minus the wine so far but I encourage reading at a young age and so what if I had to fork out $30 for the last book my 10 year-old dropped in the tub – he was in there for an hour reading – such a wonderful gift we can pass to our children. If I’m falling in love with a book I’ve been known to sit on the sofa all evening reading, somehow the children’s homework gets done and usually I’m oblivious that the TV was left on.

This brings me back to yabeyond. We’re going to be frank and honest and talk about teen issues, the joy of writing teen stories, how we do research, books we love, how to encourage healthy teen living, talking about those hard topics like sex and drugs with your teen, how writers get pulled in many directions but must learn to manage time and much more. I can’t wait to showcase some new and exciting YA Indie authors I’m discovering. I’m hoping we can get them to do guest blogs later on. And most importantly we’re trying to reach out to teens. The biggest question YA authors have is how do we get our books in teen hands? It’s not a simple question but I’m a firm believer in engaging teens in reading and the creative process.

My 13 year-old son is reading my first YA novel Off Leash and besides being a bit shocked at how much he’s liking it (again he’s my teen) one of his nicest comments was how my writing reminds him of Eric Walters – that would be his fav author and one I’m sure I’ve helped finance a trip somewhere considering I always go out and buy all his books asap for my teen. So saying that I realized I had never read an Eric Walters book. Since he has an entire bookshelf of his books I’m about to fix that.

So let me say a huge shout out to fellow www.yabeyond.com bloggers:

Cat Kalen author of Pride’s Run and debuting soon Pride Unleashed, an edgy paranormal

Tawny Stokes, author of Static, and Demon Whisperer, dark paranormal YA stories that will leave you breathless

PJ Sharon author of Heaven is for Heroes (so loved this book), On Thin Ice and debuting in 2012 Savage Cinderella

Anne Rose, who is a multi-published author under a name and the best writing coach ever – she recently launched TheRedPenCoach and Anne is working on her first sci-fi YA – which I have to say is great!

December 1 is out debut day on www.yabeyond.com. We’re also on twitter@yabeyond. We’re hoping to hear from many of you.