Amanda Lees » Cathy Hopkins http://amandalees.com Amanda Lees author website Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:29:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Great YA Author Sites http://amandalees.com/great-ya-author-sites http://amandalees.com/great-ya-author-sites#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:23:36 +0000 Amanda http://amandalees.com/?p=383 With that back to school feel in the air I decided it was time to take a look around at what my fellow YA authors were up to web-wise.  After all, you can always learn a few new tricks or, as most writers do, simply nick all the best ideas…

And where better to start than with Mr. Alex Rider himself, Anthony Horowitz?  Actually, this part of his site is my favourite – a very cool section on all things Alex.  You can check it out at:

http://anthonyhorowitz.com/alexrider/

Next up I paid a visit to the creator of Coraline, one of the best films I have seen all year.  Make that the past ten years.  As you would expect from the multitalented Neil Gaiman, this site is a visual feast full of quirks and surprises.  Do like I did and spend many a happy hour digging through all the amazing content on offer.  You can find it at:

http://neilgaiman.com

I know that the equally talented Eoin Colfer is keenly interested in all things technical and it shows at his whizzy site.  There’s an excellent online game,  The Artemis Fowl Inner Circle, and plenty of useful information alongside an eye-popping design.

http://eoincolfer.com

Before you think I’m biased, there are a couple of female authors with excellent, interactive sites that I enjoyed enormously.  Most of the fun at Cathy Hopkins’ site goes on within Cathy’s Club and it’s well worth joining:

http://cathyhopkins.com

Meanwhile, Michelle Paver has a devoted fan following and a buzzing forum at her Wolf Brother series site:

http://torak.info

Lastly, I had to mention the Maestro of the macabre and his equally chillling site:

http://darrenshan.com

It’s a gore fest par excellence and if it doesn’t scare the pants off you then  quite frankly nothing will.

]]> http://amandalees.com/great-ya-author-sites/feed 0 The Horrors of School Visits http://amandalees.com/the-horrors-of-school-visits http://amandalees.com/the-horrors-of-school-visits#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:43:03 +0000 Amanda http://amandalees.com/?p=329 I’ve been guesting on the Litopia After Dark writers’ podcast again, this time expanding on my theories about technology spoiling traditional plot devices (see A Cell Phone Ate My Plot).  My theories were borne out when my Skype connection kept dropping – I missed whole chunks of the erudite thoughts of my fellow panellists.   Imagine if that happened in a thriller and our hero/ine  missed some vital information that would have saved the world.  Then again, do you really think governments, the security services and supervillains would use Skype??

 

My Piccadilly stablemate Cathy Hopkins was another guest and startled us all with the revelation that she used to be a rock chick.   She did, however, strike a chord close to my own heart when she talked about the potential horrors of school author visits.   As everyone knows, adolescence can be a tricky time.  It’s ten times more tricky for an author when faced with rows and rows of them, all giving you that 15 year-old, dead-eyed ‘Am I bovvered?’ stare.  Frankly, I think we should get danger money although I hasten to add that I quite like a bit of attitude and every single pupil I have met has been lovely.  Well, most of them.

 

For more you can listen in to the podcast here:

http://tinyurl.com/d22r8p

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