Yup. That extra hour of sleep. Waking up this morning before 7 and still feeling rested. Yahoo, I say. (of course, I spent my entire extra hour grading papers but whatever)

Getting ready for NCTE in Orlando. I am in deep love with my panel's topic: "The Other Happily Ever After: Transforming and Emp[owering Readers Through a Re-Tooling of the Female Hero Journey." Our roundtable topics will be: Boys, Sex and Other Bumps in the Journey; Happily Ever After Endings vs. Stronger After Ending Journeys; Strength via spiritual and emotional journeys in addition to the physical; Recognizing, Trusting and Empowering the Younger Female Hero's Journey.

I guess the NCTE folks thought it all sounded nifty, too; they listed us in the Sunday Highlights of sessions in the Council Chronicle mag that I received. In any case, if you're at the conference, come see us in the ballroom from 1 - 2:45 on Sunday 11/21. (me, Danielle Joseph, Janet Fox, Jen Dutton, Cheryl Herbsman, Lauren Bjorkman, Rosanne Parry, Sydney Salter, Edie Hemingway) And on Saturday 11/20 at 2PM, I'll be signing HAUNTED arcs! Possibly a bunch of them. Possibly giving away bookmarks.

Speaking of HAUNTED - methinks that I need to come up with an ARC giveaway. So be watching for that. I'll probably wait til after Thanksgiving, so that I can come up with a really great contest idea. Some kind of fabulolus holiday swagilicious package. Sounds good, right? So who would be interested in that?

And oh! Reading Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall. I am in love with this book. It is emotionally wrenching. Took me a bit to get into to it; the main character is at first largely unlikeable. Mean, shallow and far too real for comfort. But this doesn't last. Mean Girls meets Groundhog Day. But a lot more than that. And such spot on characterization that I'm in awe. The layers keep peeling back in this one. Brilliant.

Til next time, my dearies.