E. Lockhart's Blog, page 12

It gets better. To all of you teenagers struggling with being different, being lesbian, bi, gay, transgender or questioning, being bullied, hating your body, hating life -- it gets better.

I am proud to be a part of this video made by author Phil Bildner full of amazing YA and children's writers and illustrators, part of Dan Savage's It Gets Better campaign. 

Sarah Mlynowski is my good friend. She and I wrote How to Be Bad together with Lauren Myracle.

(Stay tuned for VERY EXCITIING How to be Bad news, coming up. Well, okay - -moderately exciting. But NEWS.) Anyway.

Sarah M's new book is flying off the shelves and it's Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn't Have). It is SOOOOOO funny, and racy and true, and I wanted you all to know about it. So I thought, in honor of her BOOK OF LISTS and my own Ruby Oliver BOOKS OF LISTS, I would make her write a list! Or answer questions in a list. Gah. Whatever. HEre it is!!

 Questions by me, answers by Sarah. 

1. You're from Montreal. What's Canadianism you still use, despite all your years living in New York City? I say "eh." A lot. 

2. Favorite snack while writing? Toasted Marshmallows. (I've only set fire to the toaster oven once.)

3. Favorite swear word? Tabarnac (Is French Canadian so you can't really get in trouble. Unless you're in Quebec.)

4. Tell me a book that gave you nightmares. The Witches. *shivers*

5. Tell me a sentence from Ten Things. "Why was I in bed with a guy who was not my boyfriend without any pants?"

6. A great teen book you read recently. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. Swoon.  

7. A word of dating wisdom. A watched phone never rings.

8. You just toured with Sara Shephard and Maureen Johnson. Describe them each in one word.  Sara: sweetheart. Maureen:  Tabarnac is she funny. 

9. What made you laugh this week? My toddler counting. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, eleventeen. 

10. Give me the movie pitch version of Ten Things -- ie. Jaws meets Great Expectations. Female RISKY BUSINESS.  

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In other news, the kerfuffle over the misinformed and inflammatory Wall Street Journal article by Megan Cox Gurdon continues. (Here's Gurdon's post-kerfuffle riposte, with like 400 comments.) I was interviewed recently for the Vassar Quarterly about the whole thing. Since like every YA novelist alive and dead went there, including me, they are publishing an article. But that won't be out for awhile. 

Today, you can work yourself into an irate frenzy by listening to archived radio from yesterday! Here is my pal and co-author Lauren Myracle, most banned/challenged author in the USA today and specific target of Gurdon's disdain for her new novel Shine, discussing the issue on NPR with Gurdon!  http://n.pr/os1Zr7 

Novelist Maureen Johnson, also my friend, had a pubic convo with Gurdon on Why radio, here: http://ow.ly/5y0Ha

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In still other news, I'm shacked up in Venice Beach, CA for a couple weeks,  kind of writing, kind of vacationing, etc. Right now I am in a chain coffee shop wtih a bunch of tan dudes with big muscles! 

A couple to catch you all up on. I will make a list!

1. My book Invisible Inkling (published as Emily Jenkins) got gushed over in Booklist and The Horn Book, so this bit is from The Department of Self-Aggrandizement.  

"With a mix of wild humor, fantasy, and sadness, this series starter offers a moving story about defeating bullies...what will pull readers most is the everyday realism." -- Booklist

"...hilarious and heartwarming. This would be a perfect choice for an early school year read-aloud: straightforward, zippy plot, likable characters, and believable family."  -- The Horn Book

2. Did you know Invisible Inkling is out on Audio? Narrated by the very funny Michael Goldstrom (who also did Gutman's The Genius Files). He gives Inkling a vaguely Indian accent! (I was surprised.) It's a really lovely production. 

3. My pal Andrew Cotto, who is super smart and an excellent writer, has a new book for teens: The Domino Effect. It's about a kid who's had it tough in Queens and his coming of age at Hamden Academy.

4. If you're not following me on Twitter you are missing  pygmy hedghogs, the great #YASAVES arguments, cat pee and more!  

5. Oh dear. My battery is at 12%. My editor is supposed to call me five minutes ago (Hi Donna), and the dude behind the coffee-shop counter is giving me the evil eye cause I have been here so long. I probably have a gazillion more things I should blog about but for now I will sign off. 

Happy Weekend!

E.

 

Today (or tonight, rather) I am going to tell you what to read! Because I have been reading stuff, and it has been good. 

Read these now:

White Cat by Holly Black. I liked Tithe very much, I loved Valiant, I adored Spiderwick. This is the best one. It's a con-artist noir wrapped up in a fantasy package with more plot twists than you can believe and you never know whom to trust. I read it on audio, where Jesse Eisenberg is the narrator. Also, a wicked cool trailer.  Also also, the sequel Red Glove is out already, so you can have instant sequel-type gratification. 

I got to hang out with Holly recently at the SCBWI conference in Washington state, and she is glam and intelligent and crazy-generous with her insights about craft and art and business. 

Strings Attached by Judy Blundell. More noir, but chorus girls and dangerous boys and mobbed-up dads and style style style. So good.

I was at a store event recently, and the bookseller was all, don't you hate Judy Blundell? She beat you out for the National Book Award. (JB won for What I Saw and How I Lied.) And I thought: wow, this person doesn't understand. No!  I do not hate her, or anyone else who wins awards that I don't. 

I am happy when there are good books, such smart and compelling books being published for teenagers. Sure, it would be nice to win awards, but
A) it is so not Judy's fault she beat me, she just wrote a stellar book  
B) it is actually kind of Holly Black's fault Judy beat me as Holly was on the committee that chose the winner and obvs I still like Holly. Why? Because I am a grown up!
C) I would be an idiot not to read a book I was pretty certain to love because of professional jealousy because who gets hurt besides me? Nobody. Just me. 

Anyway, sorry about that rant. My sleep has been messed up and I might be a teeny bit insane. 

What else should you read?

Divergent, by Veronica Roth.  Ooh, I stayed up late reading this -- and dystopian or futurist fiction isn't usually my first-choice read. I loved the main character, loved the complexity of everyone, loved the action action action. It's like Hunger Games with sex, tattoos and romance, plus less oozing puss. 

Happy reading!

xo

E

Booksellers! This post is for you, if you are going to Book Expo. 
Especially if you are a bookseller interested in my books for elementary schoolers, but also if you just want to come say hi at BEA!

I have two Fall books --
Toys Come Home (sequel to Toys Go Out and Toy Dance Party -- now a trilogy!) is published by Random House with illustrations by Caldecott-medalist Paul O. Zelinsky.  More info at the RH booth and here.

Small Medium Large is a picture book from Star Bright full of amusing vocabulary that's all about relative sizes -- good especially for the school market that has embraced Five Creatures. Pictures by Tomek Bogacki. If you're a bookseller who wants to see the book at BEA, ring Star Bright and ask for Kathy O'Heir.

If you want to jump on the Invisible Inkling bandwagon, go see the folks at Harper/Balzer+Bray. (Inkling came out in late April -- and the sequel is July 2012.)

Also -- I am not signing, but I am cavorting around the Javitz center, so please come say hello!  I love to meet booksellers. I really do.  I'll be at the Children's Book Breakfast and the Auction, and milling around getting up to hijinks. 

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Now, back to Lockhart stuff --  This article about Frankie Landau-Banks on the YALSA Hub blog is interesting and fun to read.  "Frankie Landau-Banks could go toe-to-toe with Katniss and who the victor would be, I leave that up to you."

Okay, sorry about all that practical stuff. Here, now, as a reward for slogging through it,  pygmy hedgehogs! (I know!  I know!)

 

 

A couple quickies:

Amazing blog from my friend Lauren Myracle about her terrifying and complex and emotional new book, SHINE.  Squee!!!  The blog has a photo essay, and a contest in which winners will get a song from LM's personal playlist for Shine. 

Also, over at Good Books and Good Wine you can win a set of my books AND watch two videos of me at Oblong books in upstate NY. Talky talk talk talk. 

Invisible Inkling is in stores. Go check it out!

Here is the fluffy bunny I painted on the pajants!  (If you don't know about the pajants, read this and click the links.) Now Melissa C. Walker has them. Can't wait to see what she does.

So: you know all about the Twitterhood of the Butt-Lifting Pajants, do you not?

If not, go visit the Facebook Page of the Twitterhood. Or, read my old post explaining EVERYTHING. Or, go on Twitter and read the hashtag #pajants.  

Okay. Are you up to speed?  Good. Now the pants have been rocked by: Julia DeVillers, Lauren Myracle, Sarah Mlynowski, Elizabeth Eulberg, Susane Colasanti, Courtney Sheinmel and Lauren Oliver. From me they go to Melissa Walker, then Tara Altebrando, Maureen Johnson, David MacGinnis Gill and WHO KNOWS HOW MANY OTHER YA WRITERS. 

But I have them. Right now!  I got them from Courtney Sheinmel, author of Positively, My So-Called Family and more -- today underneath a dino skeleton at The American Museum of Natural History. She wore them to a Passover Seder with Lauren Oliver, author of Before I Fall and Delerium. (I have never met Lauren, but her sister befriended MY sister all the way in Oxford, England, where they were both studying philosophy. Isn't that wild?)

Anyway, the pants were apparently clean and I PUT THEM ON right away in the primates exhibit. Yes, I put them on RIGHT IN THE EXHIBIT!  No one looked twice. Is New York Effing City, and people put pajants on next to the chimpanzee skeletons all the time, no doubt.  Also, I was wearing a dress, which looks like a tunic in the picture because I hiked it up for better pajants viewing.

It was too dark in there to get near any seriously big apes, I am sad to say. The pajants had to be photographed with some rhesus monkeys and I don't know what all else -- but little guys. 

I was then VERY overheated in the pajants, because ALL OF HUMANITY was in the ANHM, since it was about 1:30 pm of the fourth day of public school spring break. The human-type primates were running amok and generating way too much body heat. So I just pulled them off like the primate that I am, tucked them in the shopping bag Courtney provided, and went home with dignity almost in tact. 

I think I am passing them to Melissa Walker on Saturday. She wrote Small Town Sinners, Violet on the Runway, etc. 

But I have to decorate them first. I am thinking....fluffy bunny on the butt. Stay tuned. Happy Easter. 

xo

E

Win a signed copy of Invisible Inkling (my upcoming Emily Jenkins book about a kid with an invisible friend, with pictures by NYTimes bestselling artist, Harry Bliss). 

I'm having a Twitter contest. The hashtag is #invisibleinkling and details are on my Twitter page, but if you're seeing this kinda late, here's what it says (below). Come enter!  Spread the word!

xo

E

elockhart E. Lockhart 




As many entries as you want! #invisibleinkling RT @aprilcpeace: @elockhart are we allowed more than one entry?

7 minutes ago             







elockhart E. Lockhart 



Contest will go on for a week! Then I'll mail signed copies of#invisibleinkling to the five most hilarious entries.

11 minutes ago             







elockhart E. Lockhart 



Examples of what you might write: #invisibleinkling I'd go to a cake shop, sneak in the back, and eat the frosting off all their beaters.

12 minutes ago             







elockhart E. Lockhart 



Examples of what you might write: #invisibleinkling I'd lick the necks of clean and attractive gentlemen in the subway.

14 minutes ago             







elockhart E. Lockhart 



Some examples of what you might write: #invisibleinkling I'd run nudie-booty through the park singing Bohemian Rhapsody.

15 minutes ago             







elockhart E. Lockhart 



The details on #invisibleinkling: http://bit.ly/hLPNOc including art, excerpt and video goofiness.

16 minutes ago             







elockhart E. Lockhart 



What is #invisibleinkling? Is book by me (Emily Jenkins) about a kid with an invisible friend. Pix by Harry Bliss. Comes out next week.

17 minutes ago             







elockhart E. Lockhart 



Here is #invisibleinkling contest: in one tweet, with that inkling hashtag, tell me what you'd do if you were invisible. PG-13 please.

18 minutes ago             




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elockhart E. Lockhart 



Wanna win a signed copy of #invisibleinkling, new Jenkins book? Let's have a contest! @ABBalzer @DJBray @harpercollins@librarylovefest

19 minutes ago 

 

 

 

The Seattle Public LIbrary event was really fun -- thanks to all who came out!  The awesome SPL librarians and Random House got together for pumpkin and frog-themed cupcakes, and the library itself is famously designed by Rem Koolhaus -- you can see a pic below of their teen space. It's unbelievable. 

 

Now I'm at SCBWI's annual conference here in Washington, meeting great children's writers. Then I go back to my regular life and try to write a book.  

xo from Seattle (well, the greater Seattle area)

E