The Nerds Heart YA Tournament is coming up. I was lucky enough to be chosen as a first round judge, which is super exciting. (Disclosure: If you applied to be a judge and haven't heard anything yet, emails will still be sent out for the next week or so. Good luck!)
Right now, the nomination period has begun and we need YOUR help! It's easy to nominate a book. This entry has all the details. The actual nomination form can be found here.
Nerds Heart YA is in its third year and seeks to bring books rarely blogged about more attention. According to the site, "the contest focuses specifically on books that in some way represent groups of people who are typically under represented in YA fiction."
All YA novels published in 2010 with few blogger reviews can be considered so long as a character (or the novel's author) falls into one of the following seven categories:
•Person(s) of Color (POC)
•GLBT
•Disability
•Mental Illness
•Religious Lifestyle
•Lower Socioeconomic Status
•Plus-size
The YA novels that have previously won are:
•2009 -- My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger
•2010 -- Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Saenz