The Emily Jenkins newsletter is out. Click here to read it online. Click here to subscribe. (At bottom of page). It includes tour dates in October for Toys Come Home.

My good friend, bestselling author Lauren Myracle rocks on with her bad self for Banned Books Week at the LA Times. It is very funny and also very serious.

Check out this great list of books about bullying. The Boyfriend List is on it. (By the way, Invisible Inkling, under Jenkins, is about bullying too.)

And this excellent list of YA books for the theater lover -- which includes Dramarama. I want to read them all! (Well, I have read half of them already -- but I want to read the rest.) Jazz hands!

When I am not cleaning up cat barf and over-caffeinating and sweating through power yoga class that is really freaking hard -- I occasionally put on an outfit and go somewhere glam. Last week I went to Maureen Johnson's book launch party for The Name of the Star, which I am so psyched to read.  More about the event on the Figment blog. 

Anyway, I went with Sarah Mlynowski and David Levithan. It was author-packed, but also reader and librarian packed as well. We lost David pretty quickly to a hoard of nerdfighter Will Grayson Will Grayson fans, but Sarah and I tried to get snacks before they were permitted, and the nice Books of Wonder staff let us have wine. But NOT cupcakes. There were juiceboxes, too, natch. 

Maureen looked beautiful (picture snagged from here) and was extremely funny. What's more she gave out YA Saves T-shirts (which you can buy here  at my web-designer's awesome site -- and 100% of MJ's proceeds, about $8 a shirt, go to Reading is Fundamental) and you got MJ fridge magnets with every book purchase. The best kind of swag.

At one point, Maureen called out to me and said, "E. Lockhart, how bad was your writing when you first started?"  -- apropos of her advice to writers, which is essentially "Dare to SUCK"  -- watch the video here.

Anyway, I was taken aback and just yelled "Really really bad" -- which is true. I agree with Maureen's advice about suckage, completely. 

Anyway, it was a really fun night. Now back to, you know, cat barf and writing. 

xo

E