It was madness, but of the fun kind, when agents and editors offered their PITMAD or pitch madness contest on Twitter the other day. All we writers had to do was pitch our book ideas in 140 characters or less and add the hashtag #pitmad. If your Tweet was favorited by an agent or editor, that was an invitation to send your materials to them. Of course that meant doing some quick research on their submission policies, but most helpfully put that in a Tweet as well. It's a generous offer by those we ordinarily have to do quite a bit of research on to see if they are even accepting new submissions. But as one agent said to me, they want their query boxes to keep getting filled because each query has the potential to be "the next big thing." And that could be your book!

I've wanted to read Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park since last year when I bought it for my daughter. The buzz around the book was intriguing, and while I'm not one to follow trends for trends-sake, I do take seriously reviews of books in the category in which I like to write. I just devoured Eleanor & Park this week, and I must recommend it to all writers who hope that agents and editors will say yes to their manuscript. Here's why:

I just finished reading another amazing book for kids, Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan, written for middle grade readers. (Middle grade is considered to be for ages 10 and up or grades 5 and up.) This is the story of Willow Chance, a genius and misfit who loses her parents in an accident and then discovers an unexpected family. Her voice is so unique that you find yourself cringing at points for the way she interacts with those around her, but mostly because you want to protect her, and laughing at her cleverness at other points...

I’m sad that the 100th webisode of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries—a clever adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice—has aired. It was developed by Hank Green—brother of the award-winning YA novelist John Green (who wrote The Fault in Our Stars, also amazing!)—and Bernie Su. And they are pure genius (the creators as well as the product). I have been watching these twice weekly, 5-minute YouTube episodes since last April and I have been very impressed. At every turn the writers have created a modern twist to the classic novel so that you want to root for Lizzie, Charlotte, Jane and Lydia, all modern 20-somethings with graduate school projects, first-job stresses, and even, in the case of Lydia, an online scandal so big that Twitter and Facebook were on fire earlier this year as we fans all watched in horror. You think that George Wickham can’t possibly be updated for the 21st century? Pullease!