Diana Peterfreund's Literary Boyfriend List
The Spell to Change your Life

Author Crushes

Abundancekatherines_1
How psyched am I to be Printz-Winner John Green's YA literary crush?
So psyched.
Green defines literary crush as:
"someone whose writing makes you wish you could hang out with them all the time. It's like when you meet someone and they're really cool and you think, 'God I hope I get to become friends with that person.'"

He also says it's his attempt to start a meme, so what can a crush do but do the meme?

My top 5 literary crushes -- by which I mean YA authors I HAVE NEVER MET and never emailed and just do not know AT ALL -- but have literary crushes on. This excludes Mr. Green, whom I have had a beer with.

1) Louise Rennison. I've seen her talk. There is no one you'd rather have at a dinner party.
2) Michelle Jaffe, author of Bad Kitty. It is just so fun and witty. And oh, the footnotes!
3) Polly Horvath. She won the national book award for The Canning Season. Her books are more middle-grade, but I love them. She seems like she'd be so charming and would always say something unexpected.
4) M.T. Anderson. I have met him for like two seconds but I don't think it counts because we didn't like, have a conversation in which I was even semi-coherent. * He has a very good fashion sense, among other reasons for my crush.
5) Kevin Henkes. Okay, I have not read his award-winning YA books. I have read all the picture books, though. And. I love that guy that I have never met.

So: Who are your YA literary crushes, per Green's definition! Meme away! Put the link in the comments if you're in the mood.

* Actually, what happened was I was with a bookseller pal at Cecil Castelluci's BEA party, and this woman (the bookseller) had just been told that she was to go to the M.T. Anderson dinner. Because there are these dinners, with authors at the centers of them, and then editors and booksellers, etc. And she was so excited, because she (like I) really admires him. But: We don't know who he is! WHo is he? We know he is tall and has brown hair and glasses. All the authors at the party are wearing roses. There is an M.T.-Anderson-ish guy wearing a rose. It is him! We are sure it is him! He is talking to someone we know!
We go over, we are so excited, we say, "Hello, bookseller here is going to your dinner, we are both so pleased to meet you, etc. etc." -- and the guy is very nice, and we talk to him for a bit and it gradually becomes VERY CLEAR that he is NOT M.T. Anderson.
Who is he?
We do not know.
We run away!
We never find out.
Later, we find M.T. Anderson, tell him what happened. He laughs, but probably thinks we are freaks.
The end.

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