YA Discussion on Open Book

Sunday's Open Book (Radio4, 4pm) sounds great:

Mariella Frostrup presents a special edition exploring the recent boom in fiction for young adults. She speaks to young adult authors Marcus Sedgwick, Malorie Blackman and Gemma Malley, to help find out what distinguishes teen novels today and what challenges and possibilities they present for the writer.

It's repeated on Thursday at 4pm, will be available to listen again and should also be available as a podcast.

Lauren Laverne on Daily Bacon

Lauren Laverne, whose first YA novel Candypop came out in May, was on Richard Bacon's Radio 5 show last week:

Lauren Laverne tells us why she thinks 6 Music was saved and reveals how similar the character in her new book - Candy Pop and the Broken Biscuits is to her.

The programme can be listened online for two more days or you can download the podcast for later listening.

Join fabulously funny (undiscovered) rock chick, Candy Caine on a rollercoaster ride to the world's biggest music festival. A sharp, comic teen series from uber-cool presenter Lauren Laverne. Misunderstood musical genius Candy Caine - age fifteen - knows she's destined for a bigger life beyond her small-town existence. And now Mum is marrying The World's Dullest ManTM it's time to put plans into action and achieve world domination with her band, The Broken Biscuits. Oh - and find her real dad, who will most definitely be cool and, of course, will verify her own super specialness. With a battered old guitar and some supernatural assistance, can Candy get her life on track and her new band on the road to greatness? Candy Caine is the hilarious new creation of debut author Lauren Laverne - a writer who's been there, done that and customised the T-shirt.

Carnegie Classics on Radio 4

On Thursday at 11.30, Radio 4 will be broadcasting Carnegie Classics:

Anne Fine, OBE and former Children's Laureate, herself a winner of two Carnegie Medals, looks at the UK's most prestigious prize for children's literature. From its inception in 1936, through its trail by media in the 60s to the schools shadowing schemes today, the Carnegie Medal is 'the' award sort-after by children's writers. We talk to authors Melvin Burgess, David Almond and Meg Rosoff about their experiences of winning the award, what it means to them and how it influenced their careers.

Last week The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman won the 2010 CILIP Carnegie Medal.

2010 Shortlist

ANDERSON, LAURIE HALSE - CHAINS
GAIMAN, NEIL - THE GRAVEYARD BOOK my review
GRANT, HELEN - THE VANISHING OF KATHARINA LINDEN my review
HEARN, JULIE - ROWAN THE STRANGE
NESS, PATRICK - THE ASK AND THE ANSWER
PRATCHETT, TERRY - NATION
REEVE, PHILIP - FEVER CRUMB
SEDGWICK, MARCUS - REVOLVER my review

Maria V Snyder on Radio 2 tonight

Claudia Winkleman's show tonight on Radio 2 at 10pm will include an interview with Maria V Snyder about Sea Glass:

American author Maria V Snyder blends fantasy and fact brilliantly, and researches her subjects meticulously. Her approach to writing is similar to Robert De Niro and his acting - the method approach - which means total immersion in the subject and complete understanding. She reveals the lengths she went to write her new book.

Listen live, listen again via iplayer or download the podcast (which hopefully will contain MS) at Radio 2.

Her Fearful Symmetry on the Radio 5 Book Review Show

Yesterday's Simon Mayo Book Review show reviewed Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. You can download the podcast or listen to it at the Radio 5 website (I've not heard it yet).

Synopsis from amazon:
Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers - normal, at least, for identical 'mirror' twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn't know existed has died and left them her flat in an apartment block overlooking Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin ...but have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the twins' mother - and who can't even seem to quite leave her flat. With Highgate Cemetery itself a character and echoes of Henry James and Charles Dickens, "Her Fearful Symmetry" is a delicious and deadly twenty-first-century ghost story about Niffenegger's familiar themes of love, loss and identity. It is certain to cement her standing as one of the most singular and remarkable novelists of our time.