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Make me laugh, win some stuff

IMG_0095 1. My awesome web designer, Theo Black, made me two cool Disreputable History t-shirts with the insignia of The Loyal Order.

2. I have a stack of Dramarama audiobooks, hot off the presses and read by a real live Broadway star. 
  
3. So:  I am having a contest!  A super easy contest that will last until MIDNIGHT FEBRUARY 14th, after which there will be two winners!

Each person will get a signed book of their choice (except Disreputable. I have no copies of that --  I gave them all away);  a Dramarama CD (or CD with mp3);  and a shirt. 

Here's all that's required. 
Make me laugh.  
IN THE COMMENTS TO THIS POST ONLY, tell me a joke or something that happened to you. Or point me to a link, or post an LOLcat. I am really pretty easy to please. Just nothing inappropriate for the readers of this blog who are YOUNG PERSONS, thank you very much. Filthy jokes make me laugh as much as the next girl --- but I need them left off this blog. 

If I laugh, your name will be entered into a drawing and there will be two selected at random from the piles of amusing items.  

I have no idea if anyone will enter. Maybe no one will. Maybe the long winter will sap you all of your amusing anecdotes, or maybe anyone who reads this blog already owns the Dramarama audio. 

But if people do enter, comments area will be just a festival of amusing amusing tidbits that can make every blog visitor have a better day. Eh? And two people will get Theo's awesome t-shirts plus some free Lockhartian reading experiences. 

Below, proof of how easy it is to make me laugh. 

xo
E

funny pictures of cats with captions


Dance!

 


I have never posted an ad for anything before, and I think this video is technically just a rehearsal for a t-mobile ad. But it makes me happy! 

Dance around in public today, if only for a moment. It is a celebration. 

Yours, 
E -- author not only of the more cynical and angry-type Disreputable History, but also of the music-loving camp fest, Dramarama

Zombie Books! Vote!

So you know Disreputable History is in the Morning News Tournament of Books, yah?

Well, they have this thing called the Zombie round, which gives books eliminated early in the proceedings a chance to rise from the dead and eat the brains of the top contenders. 
Zombie books are voted for ahead of time by the reading public. 
Which means, you could
um
vote for my book if you wanted. 

You have until  Friday to vote.
 
If reluctant, because, say, maybe you haven't read any of the other books, you could think of it as helping the only YA book on the list have a real chance when prolly the judges are adult book types.

Or, you could think of it as making a ZOMBIE out of a card-carrying member of Team Unicorn. (That would be me.)


Sarah Mlynowski's Disreputable History

Magic in Manhattan

By now you know Sarah Mlynowski and I wrote a book together with Lauren Myracle -- How to Be Bad
(Here we are. That's Lauren with the pink hair, Sarah with the awesome hair, and me showing my gums.)
How to Be Bad
But did you know her new book Parties and Potions is out? The fourth in the Magic in Manhattan series. You can become a fan on facebook

Anyway, I've read it, and it's my favorite in the series. Rachel goes to a WITCH DEBUTANTE BALL and learns there are boy witches. Hot boy witches. How will she stay true to Raf, when she can't even tell him the truth about her magic powers? 
Fun city. 

I got Sarah to tell me her Disreputable History, below. 
Even though I've been on tour with her and already know all her secrets!  
(sorry for weird spacing. This more high-tech version of typepad refuses to import text without doing crazy format stuff)

1.         Tell me the sneakiest thing you ever did.   

I backpacked in Europe with my boyfriend…but told my parents I was backpacking with my friend Shobie. I got caught too. Shobie was also in Europe that summer and left a message for me at home about meeting up in Florence. The next time I called my parents, my dad asked me who I was traveling with…unfortunately my answer was Shobie. 

2. Tell me the sneakiest thing that happens in your new book.  

Rachel, the main character, is always up to something. In Bras & Broomsticks she tries various techniques to sabotage her father’s wedding—like giving her future step-mom an ugly spell. In Frogs & French Kisses Rachel casts a love spell on her crush, except it lands on her crush’s boyfriend instead. In Spells & Sleeping Bags she tries to organize her camp cubby with magic, but ends up zapping her clothes away. In the new book, Parties & Potions, Rachel whispers to her boyfriend that she can’t talk because she’s at the dentist, when she is actually in the middle of a debutante-witch lesson in Arizona.

3.         Are you a prankster? Tell me a story.

In college, we stole a friend’s clothes and towels out of the dorm shower and she had to unhinge the disgusting shower curtain and wear it back to her room. Oh, wait…that was done TO me, not BY me. I still need to get Kevin back for that.

4.         Were you in any clubs or societies in high school? Did any of those club activities make it into your novels? 

I wasn’t. Some of my friends were in the fashion show in high school, and while not a club, it definitely felt like one. A very exclusive one. You had to be gorgeous, popular and be able to move your butt like you’ were a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. And the models took the show very, very seriously.  Zoolander seriously. I had to use that somewhere, and it’s in Bras & Broomsticks. Rachel gets her little sister to give her a rhythm spell so she can make it into the fashion show and hang with the A-list. Harlem shakes, the Macarena and chaos ensue…

5.         Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why, or why not?

Yes.  First, because women and men deserve equal opportunities. Second, because I think it’s important that women’s realities are valued in the same way men’s are. They may be different, but that doesn’t make a woman’s experiences any less valuable. For example, growing up I loved my Cabbage Patch Kids, Angelica and Bianca. I also loved my Star Wars figures. Should I not have loved my Cabbage Patch Kids because they were so… girly? Absolutely not. I celebrated them. They took rides on the Millennium Falcon.

6.             How does your answer to question 5 show up in your new book?

In Parties & Potions, Rachel learns to accept and be honest about who she is (a witch) and to feel empowered by her differences rather than inhibited. Also, the cover is hot pink. And I love it.

7.         The club in Disreputable History is called The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. If you were to found a secret society, what would it be called, and what would its mission be? 

Secret Society of Super Powers. It would be a lot like Spiderman and His Amazing Friends. I would be Firestar, aka Angelica Jones (yup, the namesake of one of my Cabbage Patch Kids).  We would use our powers for good—stopping evil, saving children, roasting marshmallows. 


HERE'S THE TRAILER FOR PARTIES AND POTIONS:


John made me do it

John Green keeps posting memes, which is bad of him because he knows I can't resist them. I am supposed to be writing!

Type your name into Google with the verb that comes after in the question. Answer with your favorites from the first page of google results. Have fun!  (I abbreviated -- this is a shorter list than John has -- because my name is not as common as John's so the results were not always so amusing...)

Q: Type in "[your name] needs" in the Google search.
A: E. Lockhart needs a bunch of people to answer some questions for her soon to be finished book Roo3.  (That was true. And you did!)

Q: Type in "[your name] looks like" in Google search.
A: (There were no results. I am an enigma!)

Q: Type in "[your name] says" in Google search.
A: E. Lockhart Says:. okay, I was in danger of buying a shrug sweater at the Boden sale, but now I am safe!  (This was in response to Justine Larbalestier's blog, in which she warned us of the horrors of shrugs)

Q: Type in "[your name] wants" in Google search.
A:  (No results. I am content, apparently.)

Q:Type in "[your name] does" in Google search.
A: E. Lockhart DOES rock!   and   Has anyone apprehend the admirer account by e. lockhart? does anyone apperceive if it's 1st person, 3rd person, all-seeing or 3rd being omniscient.  (No comment)

Q: Type in "[your name] asks" in Google search.
A:E. Lockhart asks J. Green if he is going to eat that bagel, or just let it is sit on the windowsill and get cold. (This from Maureen Johnson's blog.)

Q: Type in "[your name] likes " in Google search.
A: E. Lockhart likes to be as dignified as possible at all times.  (Lies Lauren Myracle told about me on tour!  :)  )

Q: Type in "[your name] eats " in Google search.
A:  (no results. But I do too, eat.)
 


The Tournament of Books

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks goes up against the big boys as a contender in the Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books

Ag!
Become a fan on facebook to keep track of the contest. And Powells is offering a 30% discount on all titles going to battle. Links below.
(By "big boys" I mean it is the only YA title on the list AND there are authors like Toni Morrison and Peter Mattheisson on there.)

It says on the tournament website: 
"Everyone knows that, behind the scenes, the National Book Award is both arbitrary and brutal, sort of like Keeping Up With the Kardashians meets Ultimate Fighting. The Tournament of Books is every bit as arbitrary, but we have simply lifted the curtain so the reader can actually see the caged octagon in which the books meet, barefoot and snarling."

Here are the other contenders:


Teen Choice and New Cover!

How To Be PB

HTBBfinalCoverMED












Check out the new cover for How to Be Bad!  Gator is new, girl is old. The paperback is coming out this summer, and along with the gator on the cover it'll have all kinds of fun extras: a playlist, top-secret emails we sent while working on the book, etc.  (Here, by the way, is the official How to Be Bad page, which has photos from our travel adventures, a video, and various other fun stuff).


Do you notice my name is now at the bottom, rather than the top?  That's because when it was in alphabetical order, as on the first cover,  all the bookshops were shelving HTBB only under my name, and not under Sarah's or Lauren's. And we decided that since the glorious Ms. Myracle is a NYTimes bestselling author, we'd rather be shelved under her name than mine!  Hence the change.
(Yes, for some reason it is impossible to shelve under multiple authors...)

Also: as Lauren points out here (a very amusing post) HTBB and Disreputable History and Bliss are nominated (with a gazillion other cool books) for the Teen Choice award. So you can go vote between now and January 31! 

I love getting cover art. It is one of my favorite parts of being a writer. So tell me: which cover do you like, and why? 

A meme! You've been missing them, right?

Gacked from John Green. Because it has been too long since I've done a meme!


What's the last TV show you saw?
I normally watch zero TV except Mad Men and 30 Rock on DVD, but last night I watched House. 
I was kinda bored by it, actually. So sue me.  It was so much psychodrama and too much overexcitement about the idea of women being together. Also, scrawny scrawny women. 
On the other hand, homosexuality on TV with a character who was far from stereotypical. That I liked.

Also I was just as annoyed by the commercials as I thought I would be. I hate them. They are toxic!

02. What are you wearing at the moment?
White peasanty shirt; jeans; orange wool slippers.

03. Favorite Song of the Moment?
All the single sadies, all the single ladies. All the single ladies, all the single ladies.
I have never liked a Beyonce song until now, but this one I love.

04. What is your favorite scent?
Vanilla.

05. What's your occupation? What do you do there?
I usually say novelist, instead of saying writer. I think it sounds more romantic. 
I write books. Today I did it at Libba's house and I ate bagels and we chatted and it was nice. But usually it's more of a lonely occupation involving coffee. 

06. What do you drink the most?
Tap water.

07. What is your favorite restaurant?
I love to eat out. Right now I am very enamored of Po. 
I also like any place where they make guacamole right at your table.

08. What will you be doing after finishing this?
I will go brush my teeth and take some vitamins.

09. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to write children's books when I was very young. But then I got derailed by wanting to be an actress.

10. Your favorite romantic movie?
Gregory's Girl.

11. What's the least favorite thing about yourself?
Anxiety.

13. What are your ideal qualities in a novel?
Hilarity and pathos. Together.

14. What time do you usually go to bed?
So early it will prove me desperately uncool, so I won't tell you. 

15. What's the meaning behind your LJ username/name/nicknames you go by?
It's just my name. 
And not. 
You know. 



Audio books: Dramarama is here

The Dramarama Audiobook is here! 

From the cool folks at Brilliance Audio.

A while ago I went to the recording, and for those of you who read the book, you will know that it is SUPREMELY IRONIC that the actress who plays Sadye, Kate Reinders, also played Glinda on Broadway!  She is fantastically Kristinish in person, and had to be as un-Kristinish as possible on audio.
But you know. 
She's an actress. 
So she nailed it. She was perfect to read the book, because she knew every Broadway reference, every name, every tune.
She also read Meg Cabot's How to Be Popular on audio, which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

Anyway, here she is at the recording session, and also being Glinda.

Kate Kate-reinders-as-glinda

 I love me my audio books!  I am listening to Flora Segunda and The Prize-winner of Defiance, Ohio right now.