This awesome trailer for Dramarama made by the folks at Not Required Reading.  I love it!

Recently read:

WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON, by John Green and David Levithan.  Yes, they're both my friends, and YES, this book is most seriously excellent. Alternating stories of two guys in Chicago named Will Grayson, and their relationships with the women in their lives, and with one huge force of a guy namae Tiny Cooper. It comes out in April and you should pounce on it.

AIRHEAD by Meg Cabot.  I am probably the last person on earth to read it, but it is very, very good fun, and there's a sequel called Being Nikki.  Smart geeky girl's brain gets transplanted into the body of a 17 year-old supermodel.  The perfect vacation read. 

LUV YA BUNCHES by Lauren Myracle. Yes, she is my friend too!    A good holiday giftie for your  3-5th grader pals, this is super fun and honest and touching, in LM's signature style. It's about four very different girls who all become friends.  And read all about how LM stood up to Scholastic when they asked her to change Milla's two mommies so as to get her book in all the bookfairs!  She is a hero of free speech, that Lauren.  

Oh, and on the adult front, I am also reading Conversations with Woody Allen, various cookbooks, How I Became a Famous Novelist (which Sarah Mlynowski promised me is the funniest book ever written), Broadway Anecdotes, Metropolis by Elizabeth Gaffney, and I keep starting Fingersmith but not reading it even though I know it will be awesome.  I seem to be slow to finish all of these books, but I am loving them anyway. 

Happy fall.

xo

E

It's Teen Read Week! Woohooot! 

I am going to be at Brooklyn Public Library with school groups in celebration -- and I'm glad to give you the YALSA top teen teens pics for 2009. I am on it!  Yay!!!! Here is link. 

• Paper Towns by John Green (Penguin/Dutton)
• Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
• City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare (Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry)
• Identical by Ellen Hopkins (Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry)
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
• Wake by Lisa McMann (Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse)
• Untamed by P.C. and Kristin Cast (St. Martin's Griffin)
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (Disney-Hyperion)
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Ruby is at it again. Answering people's questions, mostly advice to the lovelorn.  

Of course, she is a 17 year-old noboyfriend mental patient with highly questionable judgement.  But people seem to want her advice, anyway. 

In other news, Treasure Map of Boys is out in the world and Real Live Boyfriends cover art just showed up on my desk! That fourth Roo book will come out December 2010.  

Lee Wind's blog!  Has super-cool Banned Book Week Q&As on it!

And Book People in Austin Texas, most excellent bookshop, has interviews up on its blog about Banned Books Week, with a great roster of folks besides me: Maureen Johnson, Garret Freymann-Weyr and K.L. Going.

IN OTHER NEWS, VAMPIRE GLAMOUR!

I went to Melissa de la Cruz's vampire book-launch party last night for The Van Alen Legacy, book four in her NY Times best-selling Blue Bloods series.  I did not really look like a vampire but I had on insane amounts of very dark lipstick and a Mad Men cocktail dress.

Mel was extremely glam and gracious and I'm so happy her vampires are taking over the world.  Also spotted: the glorious Jenny Han, covered in fake blood. (Ok, that is an exaggeration. But only a small one).  It was one of the few moments when my job actually seems fantastically glamorous. Today I'm back in sweats, working in Prime Meats and eating a slightly strange kale salad and black coffee.

IN OTHER NEWS, RIP MY COFFEE HOUSE!

Speaking of my ordinary writing life: TEA LOUNGE CLOSED.  That is where I sat at least half of my working hours, eating mediocre banana bread and drinking iced green tea on filthy retro couches. I was in there the other day, typing away, and the barista walked into the middle of the coffee shop and announced they were closing for good and "everybody out."

I didn't even really like it there, but I am bereft. I needed warning. I needed closure!  It was my OFFICE! And now it is gone. Gone is the crossing guard with her book of word searches. Gone the tiny lady with bows in her hair and a notebook full of handwritten stuff. Gone is the large gentleman who stares into space, neither eating nor drinking. Gone the aging but good-looking redhead who flirts loudly with the guy behind the counter.

Maybe some of them miss me, too.