One of the things I’m most excited about with the new site and this blog is the ability it gives us to have you all help shape the topics we choose to put out books on, and the books themselves.

We’re working on an anthology on True Blood (to be released this June), and we wanted to let you weigh in on the cover. We have two gorgeous potential covers (designed by the lovely and talented people at Faceout Studio), shown below. Which one would you pick?

Blog Polls

(Feel free to tell us more in the comments!)

We’ll leave the poll open all weekend, and announce the winner on Monday.

If you follow Laurell K. Hamilton on Twitter, or read her blog, you may have seen her talking about the introductions she wrote recently for our anthology of essays on her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, Ardeur.

We were thrilled to have her on board for the anthology; her introductions give some fascinating insight into Anita’s creation and evolution, and touch on some corners of Anita’s universe that haven’t yet made it into the book themselves. They really cemented my opinion of Laurell as not just a great writer, but also a seriously first-class world builder.

A little preview—appropriately, about the source of the anthology’s title:

At first I, like Anita, was pretty horrified [by the ardeur]. We’re both control…

Another new feature at the Smart Pop blog is the introduction of YA Wednesdays, where our Essay of the Day will be from one of our YA-centric titles. (Go read today’s essay; a great one on romance in the Twilight series from the Smart Pop book A New Dawn.)

I’ll excerpt the essay here and occasionally talk news about the goings on in the YA world (and, hey, it’s not just a world for the under-18 bunch; it’s for us all, promise).

We can also talk about the latest and greatest YA series you’re enjoying. Basically, it’s all YA, all day. Hope you’ll stop by next week (and every week after that).

For today, I leave you with this:

The tensions between Edward

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Leah was nice enough to introduce me yesterday (thanks, Leah!), and you can read a little more about me on our about page if you’re interested. But for today, let’s jump right into the good stuff: what on earth are you watching this week?

I anticipate this blog becoming a great place for conversation, and one thing the Smart Pop team loves to talk about is what TV shows we’re addicted to. Once a week or so, I’ll ask our readers to share what they’re watching or what they’re most looking forward to watching. I think it’s a great way to talk about our favorite shows and possibly introduce something to the team we hadn’t thought to watch. We like to…

I’m pleased to introduce you to Jennifer Canzoneri, previously BenBella’s general marketing manager and newly in charge of Smart Pop’s marketing and online efforts. Jen and I have always spent a lot of time talking about television and books in the office, and it’s been a blast making those conversations an official part of our jobs!

As of this morning, she’s taking over chief hosting duties for our blog, Twitter account, and Facebook page. I’ll still be blogging, giving book updates, and sharing the occasional comment or link. But when you @message us or comment over on Facebook, chances are Jennifer will be the one answering.

I’ll miss getting my daily Twitter fix, but—as you’ll see over the next few days—having Jennifer take the reins is…

We’ve gotten a lot of great questions the last few weeks, and wanted to share a few that may have occurred to you, too.

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Q. The rules say essays should be submitted as a text document. Does that mean a .txt file?

A. We’ll take .txt, .doc, .rtf . . . pretty much, if we can open it with Word, we’ll accept it.

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Q. What do you mean when you say “alternate way to contact” me?

A. Phone number, mailing address, another email—basically, if we can’t get in touch with you using the email you sent your entry from, we don’t want to have to give up.

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Q. Can I co-write an essay with someone else?

A. Absolutely! Just make sure you…

The original Dollhouse essay deadline was February 1. The final episode of Dollhouse airs January 22. Seemed like a shame, not giving essay writers enough time to really take that final episode into account.

So we’ve extended the deadline two weeks.

Dollhouse essays are now due on February 15.

Happy writing!