Other Stuff
More news, and massive three-part Cover Story, to come!
In the meantime, check out this thoughtful and insightful piece on bullying in Small Town Sinners and Lauren Myracle's Shine by Lyn Miller-Lachman of the Albany Times-Union!
This Wall Street Journal article on the “ever-more-appalling offerings for adolescent readers” gets it so wrong it almost feels like a parody. If you're on twitter, rebut this idea with the hashtag #yasaves and @wsj. I can't say it any better than you guys can, so here's a screen grab of some of your stories:
I love this coming Thursday, when I'm going to sprinkle NYC with YA novels to celebrate YALSA's Support Teen Lit Day! Brooklyn, the West Village, midtown, and the subway in between. YES!
Join me in your own town? Here's more info from Readergirlz (including how you can win a set of E. Lockhart's Ruby Oliver books, shown above).
Oh, and a video by Crissa Chappell and her niece Corie, who are both geniuses:
I Rock The Drop from crissachappell on Vimeo.
Happy Tuesday!
Remember when Jena Malone was all cool and cute and in Saved! (great movie, btw)?
And now, she's like a skinny femme-bot. It's making me sad.
I wonder if someone told her she had to lose weight to keep her career going, or if some internal pressure kicked in, or if she's just had the flu for like six months. But come on.
Come back to us, Jena!
Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. Share more cheery news here for a chance to win Across the Universe, and end this blog visit on a good note. Also, remember: love your real body. Being too skinny makes you look old (she's 26!).
You guys may have heard about the upcoming fall anthology Dear Bully, edited by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones. (The cover's creepy, right? But effective.)I have an essay in the mix of incredible authors who shared their own stories, which makes me really proud, and the book's back story is in Glamour this month. I had to share the article! Join the Young Adult Authors Against Bullying page on Facebook, too, for stories and anti-bullying strategies. Because haven't we all confronted this in one way or another?
Click below to make the pages bigger/readable.
In case you never got around to #3 in the Violet series, for a limited time Violet in Private is on sale at amazon for $4. I mean, $4, people. Skip your latte and buy a whole world! I am not even being dramatic. Ha!PS-Aren't you glad that they went with the college-campus cover rather than the original city cover (left)? (re)Read the Cover Story from back in the day!
I can't show the cover yet (and yes, this is a PhotoBooth-on-the-laptop shot, hence the backwards turn o' photo), but I'll be running a Cover Story of my own during the week of November 8th for my next book, Small Town Sinners (out in July). Any bloggers who want to help me do a cover reveal? Email me and I'll send you a jpeg of the cover and let you know what date I'm posting it, if you'd like to post it too!
I'm excited. You know how into covers I am. Oh yeah.
PS-I heart my Warby Parker nerd glasses, and WP gives a pair to charity each for each pair bought. Bonus!
Okay, so I got a Kindle. I read The Hunger Games on it, but that's the only book I've bought so far, and I kind of wish I owned the actual book so I could have the complete set on my shelf (I have hard copies of the other two).I purchased the Kindle mainly because sometimes I read author friends' books before they're published, and I like to download them to the Kindle so I don't have to read them on screen. I thought I'd be able to make notes on it -- and I can -- but then when I try to import the notes back to the computer, it won't do that. So any comments or edits I've made, I have to re-input. That is annoying.
Does anyone else have a Kindle? Are you liking it? I find myself still wanting to buy real books. As anyone who reads this blog knows, too, I cannot abide by the loss of the cover that happens when you get an e-book. Sad!
Thoughts? Oh, and anyone have an idea for a good Kindle case? I can't find one I like.
PS-Just read an essay on why paperbacks are better than e-readers, and I especially agree with the illustrations point. A children's book could never translate!
Two videos where I talk about writing got posted this week. There's one for the Complete You Draft 2010 Challenge, over at Lesley's blog (it's a super-quick writing tip).And there's a longer interview with Molly Horan, where I blather on for a little while as she asks me questions (she interviews lots of authors on her youtube channel -- Lauren Oliver, Rachel Cohn and Barry Lyga, to name a few!).
Happy Sunday. (I'm still sick, but almost better!)
PS-The pic? That's my very favorite writing advice book, Bird by Bird, By Anne LaMott.
I made this video last year for Stephanie Kuehnert's Ballads of Suburbia release party. Seemed a good day to post it again. xx PS-If you want an amazing what-it-was-like-in-NYC-that-day read, try this one.