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August 2013
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November 2013

I have a book coming out in May.

 

LiarsMSphoto

I have a book coming out in May. It is called WE WERE LIARS. There will be a fancy pants cover REVEAL on Entertainment Weekly's website on November 1, and advance reader copies (ARCs) will be mailed out after that --  but before then my publisher had me sign about 100 manuscripts which were sent to top secret recipients.

Okay, they're not top secret. I just don't know who they were. So if you were one of them, tweet me and let me know!  

If you want to know more about We Were Liars, I answered questions on Twitter the other night so there are some clues there. Search hashtag #wewereliars and you can read the conversation.  

 


The National Book Award Finalists for 2013

We did it! We picked five National Book Award finalists for 2013, and they announced today, Oct 16. 

It was HARD to decide because we members of the committee adored all top ten books. But I am proud to share with you our choices, and a winner will be decided at a big fancy ceremony in late November.

The concrete info below is cribbed from the NBA's wonderful site -- but  you should click over to it because they have published a FREE EBOOK of excerpts from all 20 finalists in the four categories. So for free, you can read bits of all the contenders before the big event November 20. 

 

Book covers for the 2013 NBA YPL Finalists

FINALISTS:

Kathi AppeltThe True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp 
(Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)

Cynthia KadohataThe Thing About Luck (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)

Tom McNealFar Far Away (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)

Meg RosoffPicture Me Gone (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Group USA)

Gene Luen YangBoxers & Saints (First Second/Macmillan)

LONGLIST:

- Kate DiCamilloFlora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures (Candlewick Press)
- Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots (Philomel, A division of Penguin Group USA)
- Alaya Dawn JohnsonThe Summer Prince (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic) 
- David LevithanTwo Boys Kissing (Knopf Books for Young Readers/Random House) 
- Anne UrsuThe Real Boy (Walden Pond Press/an Imprint HarperCollinsPublishers)

JUDGES:

Deb CalettiCecil CastellucciPeter GlassmanE. Lockhart, Lisa Von Drasek

 


National Book Award Longlist, Sophie Blackall and more.

A lot is going on! 

First: WE WERE LIARS is my new YA book and the cover will be revealed on Entertainment Weekly's web site on November 1, 2013.  The book comes out in May, but when you see the cover you'll have a sense of what the book is about, what John Green had to say about it, and the like. 

Second: I am chair of the National Book Award committee on Young People's Literature this year.  The rest of our committee:  librarian Lisa Von Drasek, bookseller Peter Glassman, writer Deb Caletti, writer and editor  Cecil Castelluci. We announced our long list (top ten) on The Daily Beast, and they did a great job giving not only summaries of the books, but Twitter feeds, interviews, etc.   Below you can see the cover art for all our amazing choices.

130915-nba-tease

Then Galley Cat did this really cool link post to FREE samples of every single book, not just young people's literature but fiction, nonfiction and poetry, too. So go there and read your heart out. 

Third:  You know by now that I write under another name, yes? Picture books and books for elementary-aged readers. 

Well, the inimitable, amazing, super-creative Sophie Blackall, illustrator of the Ivy & Bean books, Meet Wild Boars, Ruby's Wish, Pecan Pie Baby and a lot of other beautiful books, has begun blogging about the process of illustrating a book we are doing together -- A Fine Dessert. It requires a lot of historical research and Blackall is showing sketches and inspiration. Fascinating for anyone who is interested in children's book illustration. She is a real master and is opening up her creativity to her readers.  Here is Part One. Part Two. And Part Three.  The project continues almost daily on Sophie's blog.

A trial piece of her work for A Fine Dessert.

Fourth: The National Book Awards short list (finalists!) comes out on October 16, 2013. The awards are on November 20, 2013.  I get to stand up and give the award. What will I wear?

Nice problem to have.

Hope yours are just as nice. 

xo E