Friday FIVE!
1. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl are such BEAUTIFUL CREATURES. The event last night hosted by Not Your Mother’s Book Club was terrific. Their publishing story was so clever and funny, it made me wish I had a writing partner who I could be going through all this stuff with. I still have no idea how they co-wrote the book in the same voice though.
Mind-boggling brilliance, perhaps? Anyway, I took The Boy with me, and a blogger asked me to sign her ARC of SEA and I watched his eyes get VERY BIG, then Kami signed Beautiful Creatures over to him and he said, on the way home, “Mom, when you get your books will you sign one to me?” Me=melts. I’m so glad he’s old enough to sort of understand what’s going on. :)
2. Love the Bay Area Teen Lit Crew. Love them!
3. Finsihed Need by carriejones and started Captivate. Both are good, escapist fun! <3 Zara and Nick and Issi and Devyn (named after blog favorite Devyn Burton!) and Grandma.
4. Setting up a WHOLE bunch of events for this summer! Will post details when they come.
5. 1,064 (!) future readers have signed up for the SEA ARC Goodreads contest (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6482981-sea) , so I thought I why not raise the odds of winning by having a MASSIVE MASSIVE SPRING BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAY RIGHT HERE ON MY BLOG the week of March 11-18, which is also my birthday!
And guess what's even more awesome? I asked some friends to join me too!
Teaser: Which spring books rhyme (badly) with: BEX BALL, FEATHERLASTING, SINGER…
(and that’s just a PARTIAL PARTIAL list)
I KNOW.
It’s going be EPIC.
Have a great weekend, all!
Margie, Kami and me!
The Smoochies! The SMOOCHIES!
Thank you to everyone who participated in The Smoochies! All the voters and devoted appreciators of romance in YA as well as our wonderful “judges” (ie: vote counters and awesomely organized individuals) Mitali (http://alleyofbooks.blogspot.com, Kristi (http://thestorysiren.com), & Alicia (http://shootingstarsmag.blogspot.com)
*Note: the totals are from both the blog entries AND Twitter votes!
Even though he’s juggling launch parties and calls from Oprah, my partner in crime Josh Berk (http://www.joshberkbooks.com) is the awesome M.C. of what may be
THE MOST IMPORTANT AWARDS CEREMONY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD…without further adieu may we present…THE SMOOCHIES!
In case you couldn’t understand a word of what Mr. Berk was saying, here are the results:
*drum roll*
BEST OTHERWORLDY KISS:
1. Magnus & Alec from City of Glass by Cassie Clare (9)
2. Clary & Jace from City of Glass by Cassie Clare (8)
3. Daniel & Grace from The Dark Divine by Bree Despain (7)
BEST REALISTIC KISS:
1. Clary & Jace from City of Glass by Cassie Clare (6)
2. Peeta & Katniss from Catching Fire (3)
3. (TIE-we didn’t have the heart to break it!) Alex & Brittany from Perfect Chemistry (3)
Alex & Gavin from The Season by Sarah McLean (3)
BEST OVERALL KISS:
Sam And Grace From Shiver by Maggie Steifvater (12)
Jace and Clary from City of Glass by Cassie Clare (10)
Patch & Nora from Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick (9)
The subtle differences *wink* between ‘otherworldly’ and ‘realistic’ were a bit confusing for all. Don’t aim your poison darts at us. We’re writers, not demi-gods. Okay, fine. We’re demi-gods.
BONUS SMOOCHIES! to the fabulous Maggie Stiefvater (SHIVER) and Bree Despain (THE DARK DIVINE) for being especially SMOOCHILICIOUS! (They were not asked to accept via puppet. That was a coincidence. YA authors are weird. AND AWESOME. :)
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Hope you have a good one!
The Smoochies Award Ceremony has been moved to MONDAYin order the make the MOST AWESOME VIDEO EVER.
:)
Smoochies are OFFICIALLY closed and other items of possible interest
1.Thanks to everyone who nominated their favorite YA SMOOCH OF 2009! Several books have moved up a few notches on the old TBR pile. ;)
We will POST a VLOG of the WINNERS on Valentine’s Day!
2. I did my first high school class visit on Monday. Four actually. Lovely bostonerin was a visiting author for Writer’s Week as well. It was so much fun. I love chatting with the 9th and 10th graders about publishing and writing and life in general. They were terrific audiences and had a ton of good questions. They had copies of a short-story I wrote in college called Dear Mr. Moon and we discussed the themes in that as well as characterization and plot and they found examples of Show Don’t Tell. I’m going to post the story on my website one of these days.
3. My Smoochies co-host Josh Berk’s book came out yesterday! The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin. I can say more but his masterpiece “Release Day” says it better:
4. Writer’s Galore! We attended Erin Dionne’s event for this adorable book which is technically for “tweens” but I think teens would like it just as much. The voice is witty and smart and it was great seeing her.
And carriejones has not one, but TWO events this week. I’ll hit at least one (maybe both!)
5. Sea was Wow’d by a librarian and has received several more exceptionally kind and generous reviews. I’m so happy people are connecting with the story. Especially the two book bloggers who snagged ARCs in unconventional ways (winning a contest and borrowing one from an indie store employee!)
Here’s the WoW: http://theserpentinelibrary.blogspot.com/2010/02/waiting-on-wednesday-sea.html
THE SMOOCHIES!* *ARE NOW CLOSED! Award VLOG Ceremony on February 14! Thanks for playing!!!
The Printz, the Newbery and the Morris have been awarded, so let’s get down to less serious literary business: THE BEST YA KISS OF 2009.
The infamous Josh Berk (DARK DAYS OF HAMBURGER HALPIN) and I are hosting the 2009 SMOOCHIE AWARDS!
*Warning: some of the comments contain KISSING spoilers! But they are more like TEASERS. For me.
Eligibility: A YA novel published in 2009 with an awesome kissing scene.
Like this. Only from a YA novel.
That’s it!
You think that’s fun, wait for this.
There are THREE CATEGORIES.
BEST REALISTIC KISS (from a realistic novel either contemporary OR historical)
BEST OTHERWORLDLY KISS (from a fantasy novel–high fantasy or urban fantasy or dystopian)
BEST KISS OVERALL (best kiss involving a mix of humans/vampires/faeries whatever–EVERY KISS! )
Get it?
Good!
You can nominate ONE kiss in EVERY CATEGORY
So your nomination, in my comments below, will look something like this:
BEST REALISTIC: Heidi & Josh in the Banana Shack/THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN, SORRY RAD SHAUN/by Josh Berk and Heidi R. Kling
BEST OTHERWORLDLY KISS: Max the Martian and Uma the Half-Unicorn/WORST PREMISE EVER/by Rainbow Sharknose
BEST OVERALL KISS: Frank and Tinker Bell by the lockers/I USED TO HATE HIGH SCHOOL BEFORE I FELL IN LOVE WITH A FAERIE/ by Jon Battlebeam
Except, of course, your examples are from REAL BOOKS PUBLISHED BY REAL AUTHORS IN 2009!
OUR VOLUNTEER CELEBRITY JUDGES are all POPULAR TEEN reviewer/bloggers whose names I won’t reveal at this time to protect their privacy. NO AUTHORS are on the PANEL of JUDGES. We’ll go with MAJORITY RULES if there are a bunch of the same nom in one category. JUDGES will be used as TIE BREAKERS.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
THE WINNING AUTHOR will be announced via a SPECIAL AWARD CEREMONY on VALENTINE’S DAY!
Emma, Catcher, iPad and other Ramblings
What a weekend!
The big news, of course, is the community buzz about Amazon removing all the BUY NOW buttons from one of the *big 6* publishing houses. I won’t go into detail because you all know exactly what I’m talking about. But the whole business got me thinking about the merits/necessity of eBooks and Kindle and iPad (iTampon/iMaxi as they’ve been calling it on Twitter) and all these electronics in general.
Okay. I’m certainly not going to get all high and mighty here. I like my MacBook. I like the internet. I happen to love my DVR (by the way, new LOST on tonight!!! AND Ian S. is guest starring!) but man.
Do we really NEED All. This. Junk?
Do you really need to watch movies while you are walking around?
Or read books on a screen?
I’m not sure.
I picked up a new copy of The Catcher in the Rye this weekend. A stack of the small (tiny by today’s standards) paperbacks were sitting by the reg at my local indie and I grabbed one for nostalgia purposes first and foremost, but also because the copy we have is literally torn in pieces.
It’s a cute story. My husband bought a falling-apart copy for like 50 cents at a garage sale and when we were very young we passed the pages back and forth one night in bed. Literally tore through the book in one sitting.
How is this all tied together?
Well, you can’t buy a ragged copy of an iPad at a used book store and share it with someone you love.
You can dog-ear the pages or highlight favorite passages.
I have no problem with Kindle. They are great for business travel and some people swear by them–but as a writer, I spend enough time on the computer–I don’t want to read for pleasure on one. And I like people BUYING BOOKS. And having authors sign them. And passing them on to their kids, dog-eared, and falling apart. I don’t think real books will disappear, I just don’t think even considering the thought and I’m SO glad SEA is debuting this June in a hard cover package that me and my kids and their kids can cherish for always. Because in twenty years? Who knows. And I hate to guess.
Speaking of technology–or lack of—are you watching Emma on PBS?
LOVE Emma!
Remember the scene where Emma is convinced that Elton prefers her friend and Mr. Knightly is convinced he is crushing on Emma instead? Well, the two of them end up in the same carriage and, of course, when Elton confesses his deep admiration for her, Emma’s eyes go wide in panic as she shooshes his words and hand away, staring out the window wishing she had someone ANYONE to talk too instead of this tool, Elton.
I said out loud, “Man, I bet Emma wishes she could text Mr. Knighty: SOS!
But the fact that she couldn’t made the moment so much more painful and introspective and embarrassing. She was left alone with her thoughts. A thing we’re hardly left alone with anymore.
A study by Stanford University recently found that kids spend ALL OF THEIR MINUTES AWAY FROM SCHOOL WITH SOME SORT OF ELECTRONIC DEVISE. I know. ALL of their minutes?
Event the people doing the study were appalled.
And again, I don’t know.
We certainly don’t ban technology in our house–we have cable and an iMac–but we are careful about it. We don’t do the Wii and the iPods and all that jazz. My kid likes to play handball and all he needs is one of these:
a wall, and his fist.
I think there’s something to say about that.
And something to say about the beauty of a well-loved, classic novel–that may have paved the way for what YA is today.
I find it beautiful. Future dog-ears and all.