My Favorite Young Adult Authors to Follow on Twitter

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I’m going to approach this week’s Top Ten Tuesday from a different angle. It’s nearly impossible for me to list all the amazing authors I discovered this year, as this was a massive reading year for me. If forced, I’d probably end up repeating all the authors I put on my other Top Ten Tuesday lists, because I’m really bad at remembering everything I like.

So this week, I’m going to list ten of my favorite authors that I discovered on Twitter this year. Basically, here are ten awesome writer-ly people that it is a joy to follow. Authors who take the time to interact with their fans with humor and wisdom and the occasional Twitpic.

9. Leigh Bardugo @lbardugo

Anybody who frequents my blog knows I’m fanatically obsessed with rather fond of SHADOW AND BONE. But I’m also rather fond of its creator, who I got to the pleasure to meet once and who is always willing to interact with her fans, whether it’s on Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest. She answers a lot of fan questions and reblogs their fanart, especially when they are pretty, pretty pictures of the pretty, pretty Darkling.

PRETTY.

8. Beth Revis @bethrevis

Revis is not only an amazing writer, but she has an awesome Twitter presence. She hosts ridiculous giveaways (I’m still bitter about not winning that one with the fifty signed books), chats funny with other authors, and tweets about her latest Tumblr posts, which prove that she has mad geek cred (there’s a wonderful amount of Doctor Who love).

7. Tahereh Mafi @taherehmafi

Mafi may not tweet as often as some of the others on this list, but whenever she does, it’s safe to say I will usually be cackling. Somehow the majority of Mafi’s Twitter feed has become her quoting her mother, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Obviously, I have never met Mafi’s mother, but she is probably one of my favorite people ever now, purely because of her daughter’s hilarious tweets.

6. Neil Gaiman @neilhimself

Um, duh. It’s Neil Gaiman. While the man doesn’t chat with his followers that often (understandable when you have 1.8 million of them), getting to peek into the mind of Neil Himself is always a delight.

5. John Green @realjohngreen

There is much brilliance occurring in the twitter feed of the real John Green. He’s another one with over a million fans, and is always available to promote general nerdiness, literacy, and awesomeness.

4. Marissa Meyer @marissa_meyer

If you absolutely forced me to choose my top ten favorite reads of 2012, I can pretty much guarantee you Cinder would make the list. So I just love following its talented author on Twitter because she’s always giving us chances to win ARCs of Scarlet, blog about her influences, and reassure us rabid, drooling impatient fans that Scarlet will eventually come out.

 

3. 2. and 1. Sarah Rees Brennan @sarahreesbrenna, Maureen Johnson @maureenjohnson, and Cassandra Clare @cassieclare

I decided to list this holy triumvirate as… well… a triumvirate because I don’t dare separate these writing buddies. They are witty, hilarious, and self-depricating. I feel like I know them, in a totally non-creepy fashion, because of how active they are on Twitter. Sarah answers just about every fan question that comes at her, reblogs our fanart, and cackles like a supervillain at our readerly pain (not to mention give us little reader snippets of future projects that CLAW your HEART out). Cassandra Clare always takes time to talk to her fans and give them insight into her many amazing books. And Maureen loves nothing more than to hold hilarious and random twitter conversations with her followers anything and everything under the sun. They retweet funny things their readers tweet them, and of course they tweet to EACH OTHER, since they are all great friends (with SECRET ANNOUNCEMENTS and things). Even if you haven't read their books, which you should, they're always good for a laugh.

Of course, this is hardly a definitive list. I follow so many brilliant authors on Twitter that there really was an element of choosing a random ten. Like, once C.J. Redwine, author of Defiance, live-tweeted watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I got to follow along and tweet with her like we were watching it together. There’s an amazing transparency to Twitter, where you get to “meet” all your favorite authors without being creepy about it.

NOTE: Please do not get creepy about it. The amazing thing about Twitter is that most of us, generally, follow the rules of common decency. The reason most of these authors are able to converse so freely with their fans is that most of you guys are standup literary citizens. I hope this can go on forever and ever.

So which authors do you love to follow on Twitter? Are there any that I should be punished soundly for forgetting? Any new recommendations? Sound off! Also please do share links to your own (on topic) Top Ten Tuesday posts so we can all check them out.