Steelheart has been nominated for another regional award, the 2016 Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Readers’ Choice Award, the oldest children’s choice award in the U.S. and Canada. It was established in 1940 by Seattle bookseller Harry Hartman, who believed every student should have an opportunity to select a book that gives him or her pleasure.

News organizations are reporting that Carter Blanchard (of the new Independence Day and Glimmer) has been tapped by Fox as the screenwriter for the Steelheart movie adaptation currently under development for Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps. (Shawn Levy is the director/producer of Real Steel and Night at the Museum.) You can read one story at this link.

In this week’s Writing Excuses episode, Q&A on Middles, with Marie Brennan, Marie joins us again to help us field your questions about middles. Here are your questions that we collected from social media:

• How do you maintain interest without having something explode every other chapter?
• In short fiction, how do you prevent try-fail cycles from bloating the story?
• How do you prevent the introduction of POVs during the middle of the story from being jarring?
• How do you keep subplots from turning into side quests?
• In longer stories, how important are “breather” chapters that ease the tension?
• Do you have methods for weaving plot and subplot threads together? Do you outline this, or keep it in your head?

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Words of Radiance, Kaladin went out for drinks with the guys and met some decidedly problematic patriots. This week, in Chapter 47, Shallan continues her researches into Urithiru and Lightweaving, with dubious help from Pattern.

My assistant Adam has updated the Twitter post archive for July.