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Recently, The Guardian asked several successful fiction writers to come up with a top ten list of their personal writing dos and don'ts. Since we've all got a secret novelist lurking within us (don't pretend you haven't fantasized about going on a book tour) here are some of the more interesting tips from the likes of Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson, and more.

Welcome to “YA Lit Bitch,” a new Page Turner series about my ever-so-slight (or ever-so-obvious) obsession with young adult literature that’s not only good, but represents a wide-open range of teenagers’ lives with a feminist heroine (or 2, 3) thrown into the mix. (Can you say Weetzie Bat?) The series will feature interviews with many YA authors about their work as well as feminism, gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and other issues.

We kick off the series with Sara Zarr, who’s part of a new generation of YA novelists considered the so-called heirs to grand dame Judy Blume. She is the author of Story of a Girl, (that is, a girl labeled the high school “slut”), which was a 2007 National Book Award finalist; Sweethearts, about the divergent paths taken by two social-outcast friends; and the forthcoming Once Was Lost, which chronicles a pastor’s daughter’s struggle with faith.

Page Turner talked with Zarr about teen sexuality, feminism, double standards in the YA world, and her own YA lit loves back in the day as a “smart-girl” teen. Read on for more (and please take two seconds to talk about a YA lit love that you want Bitch readers to know about or Page Turner to feature).

It’s hard to be a consumer of media these days and not encounter the work of author and multi-media journalist Farai Chideya. She founded the online journal Pop + Politics in 1995 (practically a lifetime ago in online years); authored three nonfiction books that chronicle some of the most pressing social justice issues of our time; appeared as a political analyst on CNN and other media outlets; and hosted NPR’s “News and Notes,” a daily program about African-American issues that ended too soon in a rash of budget cuts by the organization.

Now Chideya has published her first novel, Kiss the Sky, which is the story of Sophie Maria Clara Lee, a “book-smart black girl from blue-collar Baltimore” who graduates Harvard, achieves rock stardom, and then struggles with love, the music business, family, alcohol, and her own stubborn melancholy.

Page Turner talked with Chideya about her journey to publishing a novel, the autobiographical connections between herself and Sophie, feminism and personal accountability, her decision to talk more openly about her depression, and a crucial question for the next generation of feminists.