Heidi R. Kling’s Author Chat: With…Jennifer Laughran, Famous Book Buyer/NYMBC Founder!

Thank you so much for agreeing to chat with us for our first ever cool-lit interview, Ms. Famous-Book-Buyer aka: literaticat, creator of Not-Your-Mother’s Book-Club, aka notyourmothers, and lj designer for one Sea Heidi Write.

No problem. I like to talk about myself.

So how are things now that you are the book buyer for the biggest independent book store in S.F.?

Hmm… are we the biggest? I don’t know if that’s true or not. But we are definitely big, that’s for sure. Anyway, it’s fine. Busy, but fine.

Heard you recently had Stephenie Meyer at your store. How was the event? Were you bitten by any teenage-vampire-wannabes?

Stephenie Meyer’s event was HUGE. Like, 500 people. But none of them bit me, they were all very well-behaved.

I hear you didn’t have hot water in your shower for 6 months. Did you take cold showers or just skip ‘um all together?

Well, you had a choice. You could take an ice-cold shower at full blast, or take a warmish shower in a literal drizzle. I sort of split the difference and took low-strength cool showers. Blech. But now it’s fixed and totally FABULOUS. In fact, I can’t get enough and am typing this from the shower right now.

You have a great line-up in the fall. How do you decide who to book for these events and who are you having?

It happens a couple of ways. Normally, the publisher will tell us who is coming on tour and we pick from the list. Sometime, though, the publisher may not be planning to send them on tour. But if we WANT them, we have ways of wheedling the publisher into it. Or, if they live close by, we might just plan the whole thing with the author personally. But of course, we have a very limited number of slots, so we’d only do that in special circumstances!

Coming up: Jerry Spinelli, Sherman Alexie, Chris Crutcher, Scott Westerfeld, Ellen Hopkins, Nick Hornby…. and more. Some surprises, like the cuties on the Random House Teen Voices Tour, all of whom are relatively (or totally) unknown, but their new books are awesome!

Here’s a link to our schedule for the next couple of months.

Also be sure to check out our LJ community, notyourmothers; I feature tons of author interviews, contests, book reviews and more.

This may be hard to answer without picking favorites, but who was your favorite visiting author ever and why?

That isn’t hard at all. Cecil Castellucci! She was our very first guest ever. She was also the inspiration for NYMBC — and she introduced me to all of her author friends and her awesome agent, which is how NYMBC got its real start in the first place. She is so full of energy and enthusiasm, I adore her!

I’m very lucky that we are now good friends, and she’s been nice enough to be a repeat guest.

If you could cast a movie about yourself who would play you and who would play me? (Okay, let’s say it’s a movie about a famous agent and a famous author. Just saying. Just for fun.)

I believe that our personalities can only be accurately portrayed by Muppets. I would be Statler, you would be that blonde from the Electric Mayhem Band.

Um. A little birdie told me you might be joining a certain fabulous literary agency. Care to respond?

Well, I am now and will continue to be a “reader” for agents, and I don’t think it’s any secret that I would like to be an agent myself one day. But that day is far in the future. Right now, I have a lovely job and plenty to do.

You created a WORDPLAY series that I’ve been fortunate to attend. One featuring a great YA workshop with the fabulous Rachel Cohn. How did you come up with the idea and what are your future plans for this popular series?

Lots of the people who come to NYMBC events are grown-ups who want to be writers — we always get a ton of questions about “craft” — and when we’ve done NYMBC writing workshops, grownups always want to come!

So these WordPlay events are specifically for aspiring writers. They are long-format, hands-on workshops led by professional authors. And it’s not JUST YA, we’ve done Mystery writing, Advice from Agents, and we have Travel writing coming up, too! It’s been great.

Our next class is September 9th — it’s all about Voice in YA Lit, led by bestselling author Ellen Hopkins (Crank, Impulse)

You sure do a lot and create a lot. Is there anything you can’t do?

I have no ability to knit. Seriously. Also, I have to use my fingers to count.

If you could only take five books with you to a desert island, which ones would you take?

Do you mean a deserted island, ie, one with no civilization, or a desert island, ie, one with no fresh water?

Either way, I wouldn’t take a bunch of novels, are you kidding me? For a deserted island, I would take a book on native flora and fauna of the region, a book on shipwrighting and navigation complete with star and sea charts, a bamboo-hut, raft & weapon construction manual, a book on hunting and cooking island game, and perhaps an anthropological study of any aboriginal peoples I might encounter (so as not to accidentally give offence to their gods, naturally).

For a desert island, I would take a book on “how to convert salt water into fresh water.” Then, I’d try to ride a sea turtle to a better island. One with a library.

(If I could take all those PLUS novels, I would bring War & Peace, Anna Karenina, Swann’s Way and Moby-Dick, because that’s the only time I’m going to read them, and Anne of Green Gables because I could read it over and over)

You’re a great book ‘blurbologist.’ Recently, your quirky and spot-on blurbs have got a lot of attention. My favorite one was the “love child of Woody Allen and…” can you tell us that blurb again (cuz I’m too lazy to look it up and plus I’m at my friend’s house and she’s making me pizza), and how you mastered this way cool skill?

LOL. I said that Jake Wizner’s book Spanking Shakespeare was “Bawdy, hilarious fun. Wizner just may be the love child of Judy Blume and Woody Allen.”

All I do is … I tell the truth about what the book is like in as few words as possible. I don’t think there’s any special art to it. The shortcut is using a simile that people will automatically, instantly “get”.

So saying “Jake Wizner is the NEXT Judy Blume” is bad, because hello! There already IS a Judy Blume, and we don’t WANT another one! But elements of the book are reminiscent of Judy Blume (or rather, of what Judy Blume represents, which is rather touching amusing realistic really well written YA), so it is totally appropriate to say that they are similar.

Saying “Spanking Shakespeare is like Annie Hall” would be crazy — obviously, it isn’t ANYTHING like Annie Hall — but Wizner’s delivery is very very like early Woody Allen stand-up — ie, a straight set-up and then an off-handedly perfectly hilarious punchline, with a lot of sex & masturbation references and a nebbishy voice. But it is still a rather touching amusing really well written YA. So. See? Done.

If you were on the Printz committee this year, which you aren’t, so you’re allowed to speak. Which book(s) would you vote for of the books you’ve read thus far. Honors?

I think it’s hard. Committees take things into consideration that the general public don’t know anything about, there are loads of eligibility debates and stuff, and I’m sure a lot the members change their opinions when they get into conversation with one another. Because it isn’t necessarily about what your FAVORITE is, it’s about what fits the criteria, and what is objectively “the best” — as objective as any of these things can be.

I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll be very surprised by the Printz winners this year. So I’m not really into making award picks this time around. My tune might change in January.

I do think that everyone should read:
INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick
ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie
BOY TOY by Barry Lyga

As an aside, non-YA related, my favorite MG book of the year is WILD GIRLS by Pat Murphy. I would go so far as to say that I think it’s a modern classic.

Did your landlord ever do anything about finding your cats?

No. Maybe he is biding his time. He is a very small man and I believe I could take him in a fight, so I think we’re OK.

Thanks so much coming to see us, Ms. Laughran. We think you rock the casbah, and can’t to see what you come up with next!

Thanks for having me, you are cute.

Ah, shucks. You’re cute, too. I gotta thing for Statler. =)