Sticky Word Verification I'm very sorry, but as I've recently been getting a high number of spam comments, I'm using word verification for a while. I know there are a lot of people who don't like word verification - I'm one of them - but I'm hoping my regular blog commenters will still comment and bare with me while I'm trying to get rid of the spammers. Thanks for your understanding. Thursday, 1 March 2012 Mary Pauline Lowry Guest Post: I've Been Accused of Writing Smut Today, I have the pleasure of having Mary Pauline Lowry , debut YA author of The Earthquake Machine, guest post on my blog! More about Mary and her book at the end of the post. I was a little taken aback when I received my first email from a reviewer who wrote that while my novel THE EARTHQUAKE MACHINE is "well-written," it's also worse than "smut" and entirely inappropriate for teen readers because of its sexually explicit content. Once the initial sting of the school marmish reprimand wore off, I went straight to ONCE UPON A BOOKCASE and read a few choice posts from the SEX IN TEEN LIT archive. It was reassuring to read about other writers and readers who believe that it can be perfectly "appropriate" for teens to read about sex. (I especially loved Joanne's review of Joanna Kenrick's novel SCREWED). Reading about SEX IN TEEN LIT made me think about my own experiences as a young reader. I was a