E. Lockhart's Blog, page 13

I am in Seattle. It is strange. I grew up here but don't go back very often. The Ruby Oliver books are all set here. It's like driving through Roo's life. In a town car, though. And also driving through my childhood, which was not really like Roo's, but which has some of the same settings. 

I drank two lattes, both made as if a latte is just what you are offering when you say "you want a cup of coffee?" -- whereas where I live, it's a pot you probably made an hour ago, and that's fine. But the lattes were really good. I was hyper! 

I went to
Mockingbird Bookstore, a charming children's shop in my old home neighborhood of Greenlake;
Third Place Books in Lake Forest, which is huge and has extremely knowledgeable kids book staff,
Elliott Bay, which wins the beauty pageant, it is so gorgeous and I shopped there all the time as a kid and they still have the castle you can play in!
and Secret Garden, which is really charming and I had so much fun there I had to leave before I'd properly inspected the children's area. 

All these stores have SIGNED copies of Invisible Inkling, yes, early! I also signed most Lockhart titles, some picture books and Toys books at all places. Thank you to all the great booksellers I met. 

Tomorrow (Wed), I am off the Seattle grid, cavorting with old high school pals, but you can read my ramblings about trying to be a good person and the Ruby Oliver books over at Readergirlz -- where they are also giving away a set of Roo books during their awesome Rock the Drop initiative. Read more about it here. 

Thursday, Seattle Public Library downtown!  Teen event, 4:30 pm. Librarians and other adult-type peeps, 7 pm. Please come. They promise cupcakes, in celebration of Treasure Map of Boys. 

Friday thru Saturday I'm at the (all sold-out) awesome SCBWI Western Washington conference, along with Joe Monti, Holly Black, Dan Santat and a host of other interesting writers and editors. Looking forward to it.

Then back to kind-of normal life. 

xoE

Reminder/Repeat:
Seattelites, I am rocking the downtown Seattle Public Library on April 14th and there will be cupcakes.  

Teens, your event is at 4:30.  Librarians, you're at 7:00.  Please come out and see me in my home town, where all the Ruby Oliver books are set!   Also, I will sign books, courtesy of University Bookstore, one of my fave bookstores ever, where I spent hours and hours of my otherwise misspent youth.

My newest book.* Out today!

YA MAFIA, a collection of short stories

compiled by E. Lockhart and John Green
The cool kids rule in this anthology of tales that leaves the losers behind.
And unpublished.

* Happy April Fool's day.  This awesome cover and flap copy, and the whole idea, brought to you by The Horn Book. 

Hi cuties.

I am doing a week of elementary school visits. I am in elementary land for a while, right now!  (Elementary land can be found here.)  That's me.  Also because Invisible Inkling comes out April 26! 

"The most truthful depiction of bullying I have ever seen in children's fiction..a great work of imagination." See the full review here. 

 "Invisible Inkling is charming, fresh and funny. Now I want an invisible friend of my own!" -- Sara Pennypacker, author of the best-selling Clementine series

Please come visit me in elementary land. It is seriously fun here. Harry Bliss and Paul O. Zelinsky do the pictures. 

Via Sarah Dessen's Twitter feed and apropos of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks: Basset Hounds in action!  

PAJANTS:

So if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you've probably heard all about the Twitterhood of the Butt-Lifting Pajants.  I was supposed to get them on Tuesday, but Sarah Mlynowski washed the sparkle unicorn off them by accident and she has to buy fabric paint and resurrect it.

Honestly, I don't really know how this got started. I do know that the awesome Julia DeVillers, author of the LIberty Porter books and  lots of other stuff, owns pajama jeans. She claims they were a gag gift, and yet, she wore them in public anyhow! They were so comfy! 

(I can not explain the existence of pajama jeans.)

Somehow, on Twitter, Lauren Myracle  signed me, David Mcinnis Gill, Courtney Sheinmel and LOTS of other people -- Lauren signed us up to do like the girls in Ann Brashares' novel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. We are to get hold of the pajama jeans (aka the pajants) and wear them, photograph it  -- then decorate them, then send them on. 

Why? 

(I can not explain why, exactly.)

Julia, who is living in Georgia (the country!) wore them to an embassy ball. Lauren wore them to pilates. Sarah wore them to the NYC Teen Author Festival sex panel. Everyone is leaving little gifties in the pockets, too. 

More authors have signed on. I don't even know all who. For sure Elizabeth Eulberg and Susane Colasanti, Katie Alender, E. Kristin Anderson. Maybe Maureen Johnson. Maybe Ally Carter. (I am too beat to make links to everyone. But you can google these people. However, you SHOULD know who they are already.) 

Then we hope we can auction them off for charity. 

Will any men besides Gill have the chutzpah to wear the pajants? Will they really butt-lift? Will they fit us all?  Stay tuned to the facebook page. 

EVENTS:

Friday at 6 pm I'll be at Voracious Reader (scroll to bottom of link for details) in Larchmont, CT. Please come see me!  

It's the last of my open-to-the-public tour dates until Seattle Public Library on April 14th:

Hey teens! Come meet E. Lockhart (author of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, the Ruby Oliver series, and many other awesome books), enter a raffle, and eat cupcakes.

If you want to read Disreputable History and you're a book blogger -- join First Book's blogger book club. DHFLB is their choice this month, and it's a chance to connect with other book bloggers and learn about all that First Book does!

Off this afternoon to the panel for the NYC Teen Author Festival.  Hope to see you guys there!

xo

E

A couple things:

I'm on best-selling novelist Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog today, talking about where fiction comes from. 

Come see me Friday at 4pm at the NYC Teen Author Festival -- part of a series of great panels. Plus I'll be at the mega-signing at Books of Wonder on Sunday!  Details here.

And have you seen me interview an invisible creature yet? 

I want to take the day off and watch Red Riding Hood with a bucket of popcorn and M&Ms. (Plain, not peanut.)  But I am forcing myself to work.  

People ask all the time how do you get your ideas? This is how. I sit in a coffee shop staring at my computer when I want to be doing something else. I make myself.  (Is it the panopticon at work? a little bit...)

Oh, one last thing!  Seattelites, I am rocking the downtown Seattle Public Library on April 14th and there will be cupcakes.  Teens, your event is at 4:30.  Librarians, you're at 7:00.  Please come out and see me in my home town, where all the Ruby Oliver books are set!   Also, I will sign books, courtesy of University Bookstore, one of my fave bookstores ever, where I spent hours and hours of my otherwise misspent youth.

xo

E 

So, maybe you don't know this yet, or maybe you do, but I write books under another name. For younger kids.

This is the trailer for my new book that comes out in April! Invisible Inkling, with pictures by NYTimes best-selling illustrator, Harry Bliss.

I encourage you to watch it, share it, link to it, etc. and most importantly, for teachers and librarians, to use it to booktalk Inkling with your kids.

Those of you who have no interest in books for younger readers, ignore this post. As you were.

Or, you can just watch the video anyway and wonder why I don't get my bangs trimmed and why I am wearing a Hufflepuff scarf (trivia: Judy Blundell has the same one!).