Meagan Spooner
Absolutely brilliant. This is the sci fi I’ve been waiting for! Action, romance, twists and turns–this book has it all!

Beth Revis, New York Times best-selling author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T11:42:38-05:00

Beth Revis, New York Times best-selling author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Absolutely brilliant. This is the sci fi I’ve been waiting for! Action, romance, twists and turns–this book has it all!
"A literally breathtaking archaeological expedition. Spooner and Kaufman prove once again that no one does high-stakes adventure shenanigans like they do."

E. K. Johnston, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Star Wars: Ahsoka

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T11:44:34-05:00

E. K. Johnston, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Star Wars: Ahsoka

"A literally breathtaking archaeological expedition. Spooner and Kaufman prove once again that no one does high-stakes adventure shenanigans like they do."
One of the most intense, thrilling, and achingly beautiful stories I’ve ever read. Kaufman and Spooner will break your heart with skilled aplomb, and you’ll thank them for it. Absolutely incredible! If I have to, I will come to your house and shove this book into your hands!

Marie Lu, New York Times best-selling author of the Legend trilogy

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T11:48:19-05:00

Marie Lu, New York Times best-selling author of the Legend trilogy

One of the most intense, thrilling, and achingly beautiful stories I’ve ever read. Kaufman and Spooner will break your heart with skilled aplomb, and you’ll thank them for it. Absolutely incredible! If I have to, I will come to your house and shove this book into your hands!
With rich, complex characters and a dynamic—and dangerous—new world, THESE BROKEN STARS completely transported me.

Jodi Meadows, author of the Incarnate series

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T12:09:41-05:00

Jodi Meadows, author of the Incarnate series

With rich, complex characters and a dynamic—and dangerous—new world, THESE BROKEN STARS completely transported me.
Intense and absorbing, Skylark transported me to a world of magic and danger unlike anything I’ve read before. I loved Lark, and was riveted by her journey of survival and self-discovery. Dark, original, and beautiful, this is a novel you don’t want to miss.

Veronica Rossi, author of UNDER THE NEVER SKY

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T12:13:28-05:00

Veronica Rossi, author of UNDER THE NEVER SKY

Intense and absorbing, Skylark transported me to a world of magic and danger unlike anything I’ve read before. I loved Lark, and was riveted by her journey of survival and self-discovery. Dark, original, and beautiful, this is a novel you don’t want to miss.
Skylark's rich narrative and plucky heroine will transport you into a mesmerizing and horrifying world.

New York Times bestselling author Carrie Jones

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T09:17:02-05:00

New York Times bestselling author Carrie Jones

Skylark's rich narrative and plucky heroine will transport you into a mesmerizing and horrifying world.
With its blend of dystopian, steampunk, and generally fantastical elements, Spooner's follow up is even stronger and more gripping as the debut and is sure to ensnare further loyal readers.

Booklist (Starred Review)

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T10:01:57-05:00

Booklist (Starred Review)

With its blend of dystopian, steampunk, and generally fantastical elements, Spooner's follow up is even stronger and more gripping as the debut and is sure to ensnare further loyal readers.
This intriguing dystopian adventure's depiction of the stand this strong female protagonist takes against the horrors of her world is fast-paced, compelling, and un-put-downable.

VOYA

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T10:05:07-05:00

VOYA

This intriguing dystopian adventure's depiction of the stand this strong female protagonist takes against the horrors of her world is fast-paced, compelling, and un-put-downable.
Once again, the worldbuilding is superb, the characters fully fleshed out and intriguing, the battles riveting, and the edge-of-the seat suspense compelling. Teens looking for a well-written dystopian adventure with steampunk elements in the magical machines created by the Architects will enjoy spending time with Lark and her companions.

VOYA Magazine, starred review

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T10:27:43-05:00

VOYA Magazine, starred review

Once again, the worldbuilding is superb, the characters fully fleshed out and intriguing, the battles riveting, and the edge-of-the seat suspense compelling. Teens looking for a well-written dystopian adventure with steampunk elements in the magical machines created by the Architects will enjoy spending time with Lark and her companions.
An extremely entertaining tale of past, present and future leaving the question: where does humanity stand when the best laid plans backfire?

Children's Literature

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T10:29:04-05:00

Children's Literature

An extremely entertaining tale of past, present and future leaving the question: where does humanity stand when the best laid plans backfire?
A haunting and romantic exploration of love and what sacrifices come with freedom.


Marie Lu

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T15:17:04-05:00

Marie Lu

A haunting and romantic exploration of love and what sacrifices come with freedom.
Amazing. That one word describes the whole book.

VOYA

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T15:18:24-05:00

VOYA

Amazing. That one word describes the whole book.
Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner prove they are two living goddesses of writing, creating two compelling worlds with high stakes and gripping emotions.

Sarah Rees Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of the Demon's Lexicon trilogy and the Lynburn Legacy series

Meagan Spooner
2020-08-11T09:05:59-05:00

Sarah Rees Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of the Demon's Lexicon trilogy and the Lynburn Legacy series

Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner prove they are two living goddesses of writing, creating two compelling worlds with high stakes and gripping emotions.
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Meagan Spooner

December, 2013

I’m harder on female characters than I am on male characters.

I’m harder on female characters than I am on male characters.:

bookgeekconfessions:

I came to this realization while reading “These Broken Stars.” If you haven’t read my review of the book, know this…I LOVED IT, but not at first. When the characters first crash landed on the planet where the story unfolds, I must admit that I was annoyed. With Lilac.

Lilac was born of…

This is pretty cool… one reader’s reaction to THESE BROKEN STARS was to realize that she’s a lot quicker to judge female characters for showing weakness than male characters, and come to love a character she’d originally hated.

It’s funny, because I had to constantly resist the urge to make Lilac more competent, to give her secret (and wildly out of character) survival skills so that she wouldn’t be useless in the beginning, to make her totally wow Tarver with her awesome specialness. Amie (who, by the way, never once lost faith in Lilac) can vouch for the fact that I’d occasionally go “I can’t do this, I have to give her a crossbow!”

I loved Lilac, and wanted readers to love her too… and that’s the easiest, cheatiest way to make a reader like a character. It’s Fiction-Writing 101. Make the character good at something, and readers will like him or her. But creating a potentially unlikable character who transforms into someone likable… that’s what I wanted to do.

I knew that many (if not most) readers would judge her for her failings in the first 1/3 of the book. I knew that there were going to be plenty of people who’d make their decision about her character and stick to it to the end. And that was a really tough choice, believe me, and one I may not have stuck to without the support of early readers. (I’m not nearly brave enough by myself.) 

Willingly sacrificing some readers in order to provide others the arc you find more compelling is… rough. It involves committing to a level of trust in your readers that takes its toll on your confidence, especially when you can see an easier way out. 

But that’s actually what has kind of amazed me since THESE BROKEN STARS came out. Yes, you see people saying things like “OMG I just want to SLAP Lilac!” in that first third. And, of course, there are people out there, I’m sure, who hate her, hate the book, etc. There always are. But I’ve been hearing from more and more readers about how much she grew on them and how much she came to represent for them. In a way I value these transformations of reader opinion even more than the people who say they liked her from the start (though obviously, that makes me glee too!)

As an author there’s absolutely no feeling like doing something that was really, really hard for you to do… and then having readers get it. It’s like a mind-meld. For a few hundred pages, those readers and the author, no matter how much time and distance separate them, are thinking the same thoughts and experiencing the same things.

Which is its own kind of magic.


On Luck

So I’m going to talk to you guys about luck.

In this profession, as published authors, as women, we’re encouraged to smile modestly and duck our heads and say “Well, I got very lucky." I admit, I have done this many times when someone praised my work. I’m uncomfortable with praise like that, and my entire first year as an author was spent learning to just say "thank you.” But every time the words “I don’t know, just lucky, I guess” escaped my lips, I felt a little bit worse about myself, about my achievements. Citing luck made me begin to think it really was luck, and had nothing to do with the fact that I decided to be an author at four years old and have been working toward it ever since.

Because that’s the most insidious part of this particular societal expectation: we actually train ourselves to believe that we just got lucky.

As authors, but particularly as female authors, we’re expected to diminish our accomplishments and attribute our success to fate or luck. Just the right manuscript hitting the market at the right time, through an absolutely random series of events. It’s considered bragging or self-aggrandizement to admit to having worked your ass off for years to get where you are. 

Society prefers to view women as passive and receptive, not as ambitious people in their own right who have goals and set out to reach them. Girls should be modest and self-effacing. Masters of self-abnegation. Minimizing our accomplishments makes us seem more feminine, more demure. Sweeter. Prettier. Gentler.

Ambition is a masculine trait. Achievement is aggressive. Success, on a woman, isn’t sexy.

This is bullshit. 

Why is it arrogant to say that you overcame obstacles? Why is it bragging to admit that the reason you’re published and someone else isn’t is because you didn’t give up? Why does it make us less woman to tell the truth about how we got to where we are? Why do we cheapen ourselves for the sake of appearances?

Because saying “I was lucky” cheapens the work you’ve done, and it cheapens the work of other authors. You can’t claim your success was due to luck without implying theirs was, too. Citing luck cheapens the drive in your heart, that voice that continually tells you to do better, to be better. It cheapens the part of your soul that pushes you on to greater things.

Most of all, it cheapens the aspirations of those to follow you. Tell an aspiring writer that you got lucky, and they’re going to spend their days hoping that a blue fairy will come down out of the sky one night and whisk them away to fame and fortune. They’ll be waiting forever.

Tell them you worked hard. Tell them it was awful, a lot of the time, and that most days you felt like you’d never get there. But tell them that you kept slogging through because you knew this was what you wanted. Tell them that you were ambitious, and that you still are, and that this drive is what makes you better. Tell them you fought for what you have.

Don’t just smile coyly and say, “Lucky, I guess.” Let young girls see us taking credit for our hard work. Let them realize that it’s not only okay to work hard, it’s okay to talk about it. Let them see us being ambitious and pushing ourselves to be better all the time. Let them grow up watching women who aren’t afraid to say “Yes, I did that. That was me.”


HuffPo Best Overall YA Book!

The Huffington Post has named THESE BROKEN STARS their best overall young adult book for 2013! We’re so excited… come share in the partying!


The increase in requests for THESE BROKEN STARS swag has…

The increase in requests for THESE BROKEN STARS swag has fiiiinally made me get my act into gear and open a new PO box. Hooray!

So! Once more my deal with you guys is open: send me a SASE and I’ll send you goodies. (If you don’t know what a SASE is, click here. Very important part of the process.) Signed bookmarks, post cards, and, if you’ve written a letter, you’ll get a reply from me too. I do my absolute best to answer everyone!

For my address, click here. Remember, do not send me actual books to sign, as the PO box isn’t big enough to hold them—and you will get them back unsigned (or not at all, I’m a bit unclear on that!).

Please note that we do NOT have signed bookplates for THESE BROKEN STARS. In order to get signed copies, right now, you will need to order them from Malaprops, which has the added bonus that you’ll get a signed poster, too! 

I do, however, have bookplates for the SKYLARK trilogy available, so I am happy to send you as many of those as you require!

Unfortunately, posters and necklaces are not included in this deal… they cost too much to ship, and our supply is too limited! Keep an eye out for contests, on those.

<3


So I got a question in my inbox that is chock full of spoilers, so I can&rsquo;t answer it the…

So I got a question in my inbox that is chock full of spoilers, so I can’t answer it the traditional way. I’d still like to address the sentiment, though, so I’m going to block out the spoilery sections to make it safe for general consumption.

Why didn’t you explain what happened to [character] more? Now we don’t … even know if it’s a happy ending or not! I loved this book up until you did that. Tell me whether I’m suposed to be happy or sad!!

Well, first of all, I will say this: the thing, the event, the twist to which you are referring, is something that definitely divides our audience. Mostly we’ve had great feedback about it, which is lovely, to see people experiencing reading what we experienced writing it. We do occasionally get readers with your reaction, and that’s fine too. You’re allowed to feel however you feel about a book, just as authors are allowed to make whatever choices about their books that feel right to them as artists.

But secondly, and most importantly, this is science fiction. True science fiction asks questions of its readers. What does it mean to be human? How do we fit within this universe? What makes us different? What makes us the same? And while sometimes SF answers those questions, more often than not it leaves it up to you, the reader.

Science fiction WANTS you to struggle, and to ask questions, and to think about what you’re reading. If all books were easy, we’d never learn anything or change or be affected by what we read. We wanted people to ask the very questions you’re asking about [character]. It’s part of the experience.

Science fiction is very rarely black and white. If you want books that are easily categorized as “happily ever after” or not, if you want a book that spells out exactly how you’re “supposed” to feel, you might be reading the wrong genre.

So I’ll leave you with this: what do YOU think it means for [character]? Forget the words on the page, the black and white… does it feel like a happy ending to you? Because whatever you’re feeling… that’s what you’re supposed to feel. There’s no right or wrong response to a book, there’s only what you feel.


These Broken Stars Available now!

Today’s the big release day for THESE BROKEN STARS in the U.S.! We’re so excited, and so grateful for all the support and enthusiasm of our friends, family, and fans.


Signed copies: Australian edition!

 

So as some of you guys may know, I was recently in Australia for the launch there of THESE BROKEN STARS. And it was crazy fun—check out the crowd! In addition to having a blast at the party, Amie and I made the rounds to a number of Melbourne bookstores to sign stock with the help of our fabulous Aussie publisher, Allen & Unwin. So, that means that if you’re in Australia and would like a signed copy of THESE BROKEN STARS, these are the places to order from!

Just be sure to check with them that they’ve still got signed stock, when you order. (Read more…)


In Search of the Write Space: Melissa Landers


The week of the traveling dress!

TBSCoverSo, you know that cover? The one with the stars, and the red hair, and the green dress? Yeah, THAT dress? Well, that cover was created via an actual live photo shoot. And the gorgeous girl in that photoshoot was wearing a dress custom-made for the cover. So you know what that means, right? That dress exists. It’s a real thing. I can vouch for this fact—I have held it! I have stroked it lovingly. I can testify to its insane volume and length.

You do not want to be shipwrecked wearing this dress. (Read more…)