E. Lockhart's Blog

ALA

For librarians!

I'll be at ALA this coming weekend, starting Saturday afternoon. 

I don't know my precise schedule yet, but I'll be"

 

at the YA author coffee clatch on Sunday morning, 

attending the Newbery/Caldecott banquet (squee!)

signing I think for both Random House and Hyperion on Monday during the day (including ARCs of The Treasure Map of Boys, which comes out late July)

Printz Awards dinner Monday night

Come see me and say hello. That's what I'm there for!  And forgive me, in advance, if I am shy. 

E

Random Buzzers

Beginning Monday I'll answer ANY QUESTION YOU HAVE over at Random Buzzers. Actually, you can post questions now. The answering will just begin Monday.

Not only that, "Ruby Oliver" will answer your questions too.  I am dying to see what you all ask her.

To participate, just go to "join" at Random Buzzers, give them your email addy, 

and then click on the link to go to my message board -- also accessible from the home page.  

I'll be there until 7/10!

Stop by.

E

Michael Jackson

Could Michael Jackson have moved like that if it weren't for Bob Fosse before him? I don't think so.  

He's lipsynching, I'm pretty sure. But it's still made of awesome.

He may or may not have been a monster, but I am sad he won't perform anymore. The music meant a lot to me.

Thanks fo Lisa McCltachy for the link. She books all my school visits!

Moriarty

Jaclyn Moriarty, probably my favorite YA writer, tells about her new book! 

Badness

Apologies for the technical malfunctioning of the blog. Fixing it involves me dealing with HTML and my brain is exploding from it. Hopefully will be up and running in a more normal fashion soon.

xo

E

P.S. Have you all read Jellicoe Road?  read it read it!

Attn: Lit bloggers

Are you a YA book blogger? 

If you are, and you'd like to have an ARC of The Treasure Map of Boys (in stores July 25th) my publisher wants to send you one!

You're under no obligation to blog about it.

You're under no obligation to say you like it. 

They just want the extra ARCs in the hands of people who care about YA books and talk about them on the internet.

Alas: this is only an offer to AMERICAN bloggers, because my publisher is unable to ship internationally.

The Treasure Map of Boys is the third in my series of Ruby Oliver books. The first two are The Boyfriend List and The Boy Book, both out in paperback. The Treasure Map will be a lot more enjoyable if you've read the first two. 

What to do:  

Between now and June 20th, send an email to me at elockhart @ earthlink.net.  Give your name, snail mail address, and the URL of your blog. 

I'll forward everything to Random House PR, and they'll send you an ARC. 

More info on The Treasure Map of Boys, here.

Read the preview chapter, here.

Ally Carter's New Book

My friend Ally Carter has a new book out!  Watch the vid to learn all about Don't Judge a Girl by her Cover.

If you don't know the Gallagher Girls series that started with I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You, they are perfect summer beach reads and highly addictive -- with kick-butt lethal weapon heroines training to be spies. 

Vassar

Just came back from my college reunion. I went to Vassar.

Back in 2006, I wrote this post. It details all the YA writers I knew about then who went there for school. Eight people, including me. 

Which is quite a lot! 

Then today, on twitter, I promised a  ARC of the upcoming THE TREASURE MAP OF BOYS to the first person who could name four YA writers who'd gone there.

I got a ton of responses!  

Here is the list I have compiled. 

By the way:  I haven't vetted it!! In other words, this is the kind of thing that will get you in trouble if you cite it because all kinds of random misinformation is posted on the internet and this is probably just exactly that!!

But this is what people said, and I did check Jane Smiley and Curtis Sittenfeld, because I was curious.

Some of them are not precisely YA writers but their work appeals to young readers.  (Smiley has a YA book coming out next year, in case you think she's a mistake).  

The first eight are my original list.

1. me
2. Scott Westerfeld  
3  Cassandra Clare  
4. Lisa Papademetriou 
5. Dana Reinhardt  
6. Carolyn Mackler
7. Mariah Fredericks 
8. Aimee Friedman 

9. Melissa Walker

10. Megan Crane

11. Curtis Sittenfeld

12. Nancy Means Wright

13. Amy Kwei

14. Janet McDonald

15. Indira Genesan

16. Jeff Carney

17. Ester Friesner

18. Victoria Strauss

19. Elizabeth Williams Champney 

20. Jean Webster

21. Meghan Daum

22. Katherine Center

23. Jane Smiley

And if we're counting Meghan Daum and Curtis Sittenfeld, I think we might add

24. Thomas Beller

Strange, eh? 

If you know of others -- put it in the comments!  

Edited to add: 25. E.R. Frank

Review

"THE TREASURE MAP OF BOYS

(warning: spoilers if you haven't read The Boy Book)

"Ruby Oliver, the neurotic, lovable, and painfully believable heroine of two previous volumes (The Boyfriend List, 2005, and The Boy Book, 2006), returns. The relative stability gained in The Boy Book is fleeting: Ruby’s crushing on Noel but can’t admit it as Nora likes him, and her now-single ex, Jackson, is leaving her notes. What’s a girl to do? Run the best bake sale ever (while defying expectations and tradition), experience some panic attacks and slowly but surely come closer to figuring it all out, with some mistakes and lots of help from awesome friends. Replete with wordplay, footnotes and excerpts from The Girl Book (Ruby’s latest endeavor) as well as lists (“Movies in which a makeover facilitates love”) and lots of laugh-out-loud moments, this is a worthy follow-up for fans. Newcomers will be better served by starting with the equally fantastic earlier entries. Ruby is smart, confused and often foolish when it comes to love; few characters ring this true. As Ruby would say: complete and utter deliciousness. (Fiction. 13 & up)  -- Kirkus Reviews

The Department of Self-Aggrandizement thanks you for your attention to the above review, and hopes you will remember that the book will be in stores July 25th. 

 

BEA pic

Snagged off Sarah Dessen's blog, a pic of Ally Carter, Sarah Dessen, me and Sara Zarr at the Children's Book Auction party at BEA.  We were a symphony of black, white and teal. 

Our new books (coming out between July and October):

Ally:  Don't Judge a Girl By Her Cover

Sarah:  Along for the Ride

me: The Treasure Map of Boys

Sara: Once Was Lost

Proposition 8

The California supreme court ruling on gay marriage outrages and saddens me. Please go read author Libba Bray's wonderful and personal and insightful blog post on the subject.  LIbba wrote A Great and Terrible Beauty and the final book in her trilogy -- The Sweet Far Thing -- just came out in paperback. 

BEA

I'll be at BEA, but not signing. Come see me at the children's book breakfast, the auction, the Balzer + Bray launch, the Macmillan desserts thingummy, the Common Ground party... I will have a couple ARCs of Treasure Map, so if you want one, ask.

Distraction. Nom nom nom.

I am finishing Roo4. I am so close to the end!  

I am maybe writing the end AS YOU ARE READING THIS!

Meanwhile, this vid has amused me several times and the theme song is now well lodged in my head. Prepare for serious cuteness.  

Help me out

Help me out again!

Two more film lists for Roo4: Movies where the safe responsible boyfriend or husband turns out to be a closet jerk, thus transforming himself into the rotten boyfriend -- thus freeing the heroine to leave him for someone more exciting, guilt-free: Desperately Seeking Susan; The Wedding Singer; Moonstruck...

WHAT ELSE? 

I know there are a million things I am forgetting. 

And: Movies where a brooding, even sulky guy seems like really quite a good idea for a boyfriend: Twilight, Ten Things I Hate About You, Dirty Dancing, Sommersby, Edward Scissorhands, The Bourne Identity, Grosse Pointe Blank... (is Sommersby right? Maybe he is not brooding. Maybe he is handsome and jolly and just an IMPOSTER.) I use Box Office Mojo's genre lists to help me remember movies.But the mojo isn't working that well today. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/

Just what's going on

I have been lax about posting. Twitter is distracting me!  I feel like I've done my blog when really I've only written 140 characters. 

The other thing that is distracting me is the book known as Roo4 -- the fourth in the Ruby Oliver series. I have to turn it in June 1. It is already a bit late. And it is HARD TO WRITE because I have to complete the series. There won't be any more after this. 

Writer's life tidbits:  I am in one of the coffee shops I write in. This one has wifi and plugs. The same crossing guard is here every day doing word searches. Another guy is taking a nap. Two bohemian guys with laptops seem to be disussing a screenplay. There is a baby gurgling. Jazz is playing. I have peppermint tea and a brownie. When I'm done with my daily words I am going to read a new book in MS by Sarah Mlynowski, and give her feedback (not that she needs it).  I have a very nice job.

Also, I am racing Ally Carter to the finish. Ally has to finish her next Gallagher Girls book by June 1, too. Right now, she's ahead of me, but only by a couple thousand words. If she has a crappy day (or if my book is shorter!) I can still beat her. 

Not that a quickly written book is a goal. It's not. And we will both rewrite massively. But we are both under deadline and keeping each other company helps us stay alert. 

I am tempted to give you hints about Roo4, but I'm still working on it, so I'll give you hints about The Treasure Map of Boys instead (out July 25th). 

In it you will find: 

ninja brownies

a pygmy goat

jobs lost and gained

kissing

people getting caught kissing

violence involving carrot cake

chemistry experiments gone awry

Bye. Must go write now.

P.S.  Peace Love and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle comes out today!! It's a really funny and romantic and astute story about two sisters who compete with each other and love each other and make each other cry sometimes.   Lauren has all kinds of cool contests going on at her ning, so you should visit her there.

E

 

Treasure Map review

The Treasure Map of Boys comes out July 25th. First review is out:

"Written in the same fast and funny voice as the previous books... Heartbreak was never so much fun." ---  Booklist 

SLJ Tourney

The SLJ Battle of the Books is over and Hunger Games takes it!

Go read the interesting Lois Lowry post.

 All I could think when I read it was: did she read my book? did Lois Lowry really read my book?

But that is because I am a big egotist. 

It is also a very interesting essay. 

P.S. speaking of egoist, did you watch my movie yet?  

Is three minutes long.

P.P.S Are you going to BEA? I will be around and about at breakfasts and auctions and dessert parties -- but NOT SIGNING. That is because my new book, The Treasure Map of Boys (aka Ruby Oliver book 3) comes out July 25th and is therefore not a fall book. Same thing with Disreputable History paperback coming out in August with a hot new cover. Still -- I will be there and please come find me and say hello if you're there, too!

 

The B&O Espresso

For those of you who like the Ruby Oliver books, here is a picture of the inside of the B&O Espresso in Seattle, where Roo and her friends hang out. 

http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/Iux1vgl2OKi3Bg2X0grjGg?select=CLyqV69KDm_exmLffDZSFw

 

Update

A few quickie updates.

John Green won the Edgar award for best YA mystery for Paper Towns. Wooot!  I love that book a lot.

I got to hang out with him and Maureen Johnson (whose awesomely hilarious  book Suite Scarlett just came out in paperback), and Christopher Krovatin, author of Venomous and Heavy Metal and Me, at the New Jersey LIbrary Association conference. 

MJ and I strolled along the shore and hang out with a bunch of awesome and dedicated librarians, including Mistress Tea Cozy and the Queen of Pop. 

We had lunch and listened to John give a speech and watched the Garden State book awards. The teen fiction award went to Susan Beth Pfeffer for Life as We Knew It.

Then a Krovatin/Johnson/Lockhart panel. I tried to explain Krovatin the retro metal theme that runs through the Ruby Oliver books in a desperate attempt to seem like I rocked. But you know. I am EIGHTEEN YEARS OLDER THAN THAT GUY and obviously he rocks very seriously so it was clear that I was way out of my league. Otherwise we had quite an interesting discussion and people asked great questions. 

In other news, I have finally figured out (after 5 years) how to adjust my blog columns but there are various other things gone a little screwy with the blog site so please bear with me. I am not dealing with it because I am under deadline with Ruby4. Right now I am in a coffee shop drinking mint tea and eating cookies (yes, it's 9:45 AM -- you want to say something about that?) and sweating over a big Halloween scene that is nowhere as funny as it should be. Sometimes I wish I was Louise Rennison. I laugh every time I even think about Georgia Nicoloson wearing that pimento olive costume. 

Seattle

Another Roo4 question, for Seattlites. What's a Seattle coffee shop or similar type place where teenagers would hang out after school to do homework, eat, drink coffee, etc. 

My characters go to the B&O Espresso, but now they need a new joint. They have cars, so doesn't have to be near Broadway. Could be U. District or Montlake or anywhere, really. 

Your help so much appreciated!!! 

Help me out: Book for Roo

Help me out!

In each Ruby book, Roo is reading something for school that connects with her current situation.

She's read The House of Mirth  

and The Scarlet Letter  

both about women who are ostracized from their communities.

Now she is taking Contemporary American Literature. 

She is suffering from heartbreak (as usual). And interested in more than one guy (as usual). And has complicated friend issues (as usual). 

What should she read?   

Something that would be assigned accomplished high school students in their senior year. I imagine this class's reading list includes Beloved, Rabbit Run, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, The Color Purple, and stuff like that. 

Widget!

 

Here is a fun widget Harper Collins made for the release of How to Be Bad. It shows all their professional type videos of me, Sarah and Lauren on tour -- including footage of a CRIME! (my flip flops were stolen) Anyway, you can grab the widget and put it on your blog if you're so inclined. I'm going to go stick it on e-lockhart.com now.

Brooklyn Nine

My friend Alan Gratz, author of the just-out The Brooklyn Nine, has a new and extremely amusing video blog called "I Should Be Writing". Check out the latest entry.  

 

How to Be Bad

For the first time, I have made a youtube video! Check it out. Mock me if you will. And share it with your friends! --E

SLJ Tourney

Disreputable History vs. We Are the Ship - the results, and very interesting insights, from judge Rachel Cohn.  

P.S. Categories in typepad have gone wonky. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.