Celebrate International Women's Week With Me!

Hi everyone! Sorry about the crazy inconsistency of my posts over here at the YA-5 lately. I promise, I'm going to work hard to make my Mondays awesome! BAM. There, I said it -- I PROMISE!

Okay, so, there's this thing this week. It's INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S WEEK. Yeah, feminism is a dirty word to some. I know some women who don't even like to call themselves feminists because they associate the word with man-haters and bra-burners. To me, feminism just means being able to be who I want and do what I want and achieve what I want regardless of my gender. I believe in equality. I believe in fierce, fabulous ladies making names for themselves in a world that would rather they stay silent. I believe in stay at home moms and career women. I believe in girls who want to be quarterbacks and cheer captains. I believe in fashion models and rock stars and engineers and math teachers. And, DUH, I believe in women writers.

Author Cayla Kluver

So this week over at my personal blog, I'm celebrating women in writing. From LOTS of different angles. Today, the fabulous Cayla Kluver (whose debut novel LEGACY will be coming out with HarlequinTEEN later this year) is talking about writing "That Woman" -- the Mina Harker, the Buffy Summers -- the woman that every man and even a lot of the ladies want to write off but, you know, they sort of kick butt anyway?

I love Cayla's post and I am looking forward to the lineup I have for the rest of the week: Tess Hardwick on the sometimes limiting labels of "chicklit" and "women's fiction," The YA-5's own K.A. Holt on writing male-voiced middle grade, Tiffany Reisz on writing naughty novels WITHOUT a penname, Gretchen McNeil on being bold, and Jeanette Larson on literary awards. I'm so so so excited for this week, and I hope you'll join me in celebrating the literary ladies who make our bookshelves so much more badass. And, you know, go give some chicks a hug today, okay? The world would totally suck without women!