E. Lockhart's Blog: Justine Larbalestier takes the Dramarama Interview

Sadye's iMix

Click here for more Dramarama stuff -- including videos.
All the songs from Dramarama
are here, on an iMix. You click on the link above and iTunes will open straight to the mix. Listen before you read Dramarama to make sure you get every little musical reference. Listen afterwards to get a sense of Sadye and Demi's musical world. In any case, these are some of my favorite showtunes of all time. Songs from Rent, Wicked, Guys & Dolls, Cabaret, Chicago, Bye Bye Birdie, Oliver!, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Jersey Boys, Grease, Fame, Sweet Charity, Little Shop of Horrors, and more.

Things I Wish I Knew in High School

If someone tells you that you are oversensitive, that person is probably a jerk.
Always use protection. Yes, you. Yes, always.
Boys who say, “I’m kind of messed up,” probably are.
If someone asks for your phone number and that person
creeps you out, it's okay to give the wrong number.
When you don't want to talk to someone, you don't
have to pick up the telephone.

True and Embarassing Things about E.

I had a frizzy perm for several years.
I was voted worst driver in my senior class.
I wore light blue eyeshadow in high school.
Like Roo, I once let a boy feel my boob in a movie theater for the duration of an entire movie.
The movie was "Tarzan: The Legend of Greystoke."
I went to two different high schools; at one I was unpopular and
friendless; at the other, just the opposite.
I have two cats and one of them is a big barfer.
Orthodonture history includes three years of braces,
headgear, rubber bands. And I've still got an overbite.
My first kiss was at the age of sixteen.
The first record I bought was a 45 of AC/DC
singing "You Shook Me All Night Long"

About the Amazon Links

The thumbnail images of books and albums on this site connect you to Amazon.com -- but that's because Amazon and my web service provider have a partnership, so it's extremely easy to put images on my site.
However, I don't get any kind of kickback if you buy any of these items and I don't endorse any particular bookstore over any other.

Justine Larbalestier told me writing the last book her Magic of Reason trilogy nearly killed her. But it turned out great (I've read them all: they start with Magic or Madness, then Magic Lessons, then Magic's Child) and she's recovered enough to take the second ever Dramarama Musical Theater Interview, in which she reveals herself to have an inner Ella Fitzgerald, of a taste for tap dancing, and a fondness for fart jokes.

(She's also got one of the best blogs out there, and if you don't read it, you want to.)

The Dramarama Musical Theater Interview
questions by me, answers by Justine Larbalestier

1. You were in a play in high school, weren't you? Tell me all about it.

I was never in a school play. Nor did I want to be. I was one of the lucky few to escape the dread acting bug. I did write two plays when I was little though, but they were just so I could get into the Young Playwrights' Conference and muck around with like-minded writerly kids for a weekend.

2. Give me song lyric that makes you laugh. Preferably from a show, but I'll cut you some slack if whatever you quote is funny.

This is from the Gershwins' "Lorelei" which was one of the numbers in "Pardon My English". I love Ella Fitzgerald's rendition:

I'm treacherous, yeah-yeah
Oh, I just can't hold myself in check
I'm lecherous, yeah-yeah
I want to bite my initials on a sailor's neck

I'm also fond of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from Kiss Me kate. Especially the Coriolanus bit. What can I say. Fart jokes make me laugh, too.

3. If you've seen a show on Broadway, what was your first one? Whom did you go with, who was the star, what did you think of it?

Never been. All my musicals knowledge comes from the movie musicals with which, I confess, I'm obsessed. My current favourite is Broadway Melody of 1940 with Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire. Best competitive tap dancing number of all time. Fabulous!

4. What's your showbiz fantasy?

I've never had a showbiz fantasy, unless fantasising about huge scads of option money for my books counts.

5. Which Broadway diva are you, deep inside? And why? Ethel Merman, Carol Burnett, Nell Carter, Kristin Chenoweth, Bernadette Peters, Julie Andrews, Bebe Neuwirth, Audra McDonald, Carol Channing, Mary Martin, Barbra Streisand? Or someone else?

This is going to sound blasphemous but I really hate the Broadway singing style. The whole even temperament thing is chalk down a blackboard to me. Shudder. Can't stand Ethel Merman or Mary Martin or any of that lot. Give me Sarah Vaughn or Ella Fitzgerald---now THAT'S singing!

6. Write me a nice little song lyric for the book you're promoting right now. Please.

Trilogies will hurt your brain,
Trilogies will cause you pain,
Trilogies give a writer nightmares
Yet answer many a reader's prayers

I see now why I write novels for a living . . .

Thanks, Justine!/E

YA Authors on the Web

Alex Sanchez
(who wrote Rainbow Boys, etc.)
Amy Kaye
(who wrote The Real Deal)
Andrew Auseon
(who wrote Funny Little Monkey)
Bennett Madison
(who wrote Lulu Dark and other forthcoming stuff)
Brent Hartinger
(who wrote Geography Club, The Royal Order of the Poison Oak, and The Last Chance Texaco)
Carolyn Mackler
(who wrote The Earth, My Butt, & Other Big Round Things, etc.)
Cat Bauer
(who wrote Harley, Like a Person)
Cathy Hopkins
(who wrote Mates, Dates & Inflatable Bras -- and many others)
Cecily Von Ziegesar
(who wrote Gossip Girl and all its sequels)
Cherie Bennett
(who wrote Life in the Fat Lane, A Heart Divided, etc.)
D.L Garfinkle
(who wrote Storky)
Daniel Ehrenhaft
(who wrote Ten Things to Do Before I Die, Tell it to Naomi and The After Life)
David Levithan
(who wrote Boy Meets Boy, Realm of Possibility and Are We There Yet?)
Ellen Wittlinger
(who wrote Hard Love, Heart on My Sleeve and many others)
Gordon Korman
(who wrote Son of The Mob, etc.)
Gregory Maguire
(who wrote Wicked, etc.)
Hilary Liftin
(who wrote Candy & Me: A Love Story)
Holly Black
(who wrote Tithe and Valiant)
J. Minter
(who wrote The Insiders)
Jacqueline Woodson
(who wrote From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun, I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This, etc.)
Jennifer Anne Kogler
(who wrote Ruby Tuesday)
Jennifer Donnelly
(who wrote Northern Light and The Tea Rose)
John Green
(who wrote Looking for Alaska)
Jonah Black
(who wrote the series Diary of a Teenage Stud -- or did he?)
Joseph Weisberg
(who wrote Tenth Grade)
Judy Blume
(who wrote Forever, Deenie, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret)
Julie Anne Peters
(who wrote Luna, Far from Xanadu, etc.)
Justine Larbalestier
(who wrote Magic or Madness)
Katherine Paterson
(who wrote Bridge to Terebithia)
Katie Maxwell
(who wrote The Year My Life Went Down the Loo and much more)
KL Going
(who wrote Fat Kid Rules the World)
Kristen Kemp
(who wrote I Will Survive and The Dating Diaries, among others)
Lara M. Zeises
(who wrote Bringing Up the Bones, Anyone But You and Contents Under Pressure)
Laurie Halse Anderson
(who wrote Speak, Prom and Catalyst, among others)
Louise Rennison
(who wrote all those funny Georgia Nicolson books)
M.E. Kerr
(who wrote 'Hello', I Lied, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! etc.)
Mariah Fredericks
(who wrote The True Meaning of Cleavage)
Mary E. Pearson
(who wrote A Room on Lorelei Street, Scribbler of Dreams and David v. God)
Mary Hogan
(who wrote The Serious Kiss)
Maryrose Wood
(who wrote Sex Kittens & Horn Dawgs Fall in Love)
Maureen Johnson
(who wrote The Key to the Golden Firebird and 13 Little Blue Envelopes)
Meg Cabot
(who wrote The Princess Diaries)
Meg Rosoff
(who wrote How I Live Now, etc.)
Megan McCafferty
(who wrote Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings)
Melvin Burgess
(who wrote Smack, Doing It, Lady: My Life as a Bitch, and many others)
Mitali Perkins
(who wrote Monsoon Summer and Sunita Sen)
Nancy Werlin
(who wrote Double Helix, Black Mirror, and other teen thrillers)
Naomi Nash
(who wrote Chloe, Queen of Denial, You Are So Cursed, etc.)
Natalie Standiford
(who wrote The Dating Game)
Ned Vizzini
(who wrote Be More Chill and Teen Angst)
Pete Hautman
(who wrote Mr. Was -- one of the best time-travel books I know; plus Sweetblood, Stone Cold, and many others.)
Rachel Cohn
(who wrote Gingerbread, Shrimp & Pop Princess)
Rosemary Graham
(who wrote My Not-So-Terrible Time at the Hippie Hotel and Thou Shalt Not Dump the Skater Dude)
Sarah Dessen
(who wrote That Summer, Someone Like You, etc.)
Sarah Mylnowski
(who wrote Bras & Broomsticks, plus a number of books for adults)
Scott Westerfeld
(who wrote Pretties and Uglies, So Yesterday and Peeps)
Sonya Sones
(who wrote What My Mother Doesn't Know, and others)
Sue Limb
(who wrote Girl, 15, Charming but Insane, etc.)
Susan Juby
(who wrote Alice, I Think and other Alice MacLeod books)
Tanuja Desai Hideier
(who wrote Born Confused)
Tanya Lee Stone
(who wrote A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl)
Tracy Lynn, also known as Celia Thompson
(who wrote Snow -- and as Thompson, the Nine Lives of Chloe King series)

Teen Writers Who Blog

Maureen Johnson
Johnson wrote Suite Scarlett, Devilish, Girl at Sea, etc. A most hilarious blog.
Bennett Madison
Madison wrote Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls and I promise you his blog is very very amusing.
Tanya Lee Stone
Stone wrote A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl and lots of other books, too.
Scott Westerfeld
The man wrote Peeps, Midnighters, Pretties, and other stuff. His blog gets a million comments and it's always thought-provoking.
Megan McCafferty
McCafferty wrote Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings etc. She has a "retroblog" of journal entries from long ago.
Justine Larbalastier
Justine wrote Magic or Madness, and is married to YA novelist Scott Westerfield. Her blog's about publishing and Australia and fiction and fantasy.
Andrew Auseon
He wrote Funny Little Monkey. The blog is very orange.
Mitali Perkins
Perkins, who wrote Monsoon Summer etc., has a virtual "fire escape" where she relaxes and talks about life between cultures.
Tracy Lynn, also known as Celia Thompson
Lynn (author of Snow), aka Thompson (author of the Chloe King series), aka Liz Braswell, blogs about gaming, her family, the writing process, and more.
Jennifer Anne Kogler
Ruby Tuesday's author, on what she ate for breakfast and writing updates.

E. Lockhart's Blog

a frequently updated page of stuff from the author of The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, Fly on the Wall, Dramarama, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and How to Be Bad.

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Things I Wish I Knew in High School

Books I Loved Madly at Age Fourteen

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True and Embarassing Things about E.

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Justine Larbalestier takes the Dramarama Interview

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