Sarah Mlynowski is my good friend. She and I wrote How to Be Bad together with Lauren Myracle.

(Stay tuned for VERY EXCITIING How to be Bad news, coming up. Well, okay - -moderately exciting. But NEWS.) Anyway.

Sarah M's new book is flying off the shelves and it's Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn't Have). It is SOOOOOO funny, and racy and true, and I wanted you all to know about it. So I thought, in honor of her BOOK OF LISTS and my own Ruby Oliver BOOKS OF LISTS, I would make her write a list! Or answer questions in a list. Gah. Whatever. HEre it is!!

 Questions by me, answers by Sarah. 

1. You're from Montreal. What's Canadianism you still use, despite all your years living in New York City? I say “eh.” A lot. 

2. Favorite snack while writing? Toasted Marshmallows. (I’ve only set fire to the toaster oven once.)

3. Favorite swear word? Tabarnac (Is French Canadian so you can’t really get in trouble. Unless you’re in Quebec.)

4. Tell me a book that gave you nightmares. The Witches. *shivers*

5. Tell me a sentence from Ten Things. “Why was I in bed with a guy who was not my boyfriend without any pants?”

6. A great teen book you read recently. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. Swoon.  

7. A word of dating wisdom. A watched phone never rings.

8. You just toured with Sara Shephard and Maureen Johnson. Describe them each in one word.  Sara: sweetheart. Maureen:  Tabarnac is she funny. 

9. What made you laugh this week? My toddler counting. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, eleventeen. 

10. Give me the movie pitch version of Ten Things -- ie. Jaws meets Great Expectations. Female RISKY BUSINESS.  

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In other news, the kerfuffle over the misinformed and inflammatory Wall Street Journal article by Megan Cox Gurdon continues. (Here's Gurdon's post-kerfuffle riposte, with like 400 comments.) I was interviewed recently for the Vassar Quarterly about the whole thing. Since like every YA novelist alive and dead went there, including me, they are publishing an article. But that won't be out for awhile. 

Today, you can work yourself into an irate frenzy by listening to archived radio from yesterday! Here is my pal and co-author Lauren Myracle, most banned/challenged author in the USA today and specific target of Gurdon's disdain for her new novel Shine, discussing the issue on NPR with Gurdon!  http://n.pr/os1Zr7 

Novelist Maureen Johnson, also my friend, had a pubic convo with Gurdon on Why radio, here: http://ow.ly/5y0Ha

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In still other news, I'm shacked up in Venice Beach, CA for a couple weeks,  kind of writing, kind of vacationing, etc. Right now I am in a chain coffee shop wtih a bunch of tan dudes with big muscles!