Kelly Parra, on the GCC with me, is the author of Graffiti Girl and her new book is INVISIBLE TOUCH.  And it's a great Halloween read. 

Kara Martinez has been trying to be "normal" ever since the accident that took her father's life when she was eleven years old. She's buried the caliente side of her Mexican heritage and tried to be the girl her rigid mother wants her to be. Not even her best friend  has seen the real Kara; only those who read her anonymous blog know the deepest secrets of the Sign Seer.

Because Kara has a gift -- one that often feels like a curse. She sees signs, visions that are clues to a person's fate, if she can put together the pieces of the puzzle in time.   

Check out the trailer! Or buy it here. Also, this month Kelly is hosting a "secret fates" extravaganza -- where lots of authors share secrets and prizes -- so you might want to check it out before Halloween.

I got Kelly to answer the usual Disreputable questions:

Melissa Walker is on the GCC with me and I read her blog to find out about makeup and fashion and TV stuff that I've missed.  

Here's Melissa!

I'm excited to be guest blogging at the ...[compliments that E. cut out due to modesty]...  E. Lockhart's place today! I've started a Cover Stories series on my blog where authors tell the behind-the-scenes stories of their covers, and today I'm going to share one of mine:

   

A while ago, when I first saw the cover for Violet by Design, I blogged about how the original cover (top left) had a more, um, exposed look, and how I asked for a skirt to cover Violet a bit more. But the story I didn't tell is that I originally wanted Violet to be wearing a couture gown on the cover of Violet by Design. I just love fancy, fancy gowns. But the sales team thought a bikini on the beach would better. 

I fought that a bit--Violet's not really an exhibitionist--and besides, in this book she'd be traveling around South America and Europe. So we ended up with a cobblestone street and a casual outfit, and everyone was happy. Still, I wanted to share some of the inspiration photos that I sent as suggestions for the fancy couture Violet cover that never came to pass (I know some are a little out there, but that's what's fun about fashion). 

What do you think--is casual better? Come comment on my blog and let me know. (Also, which one's your favorite?)

 

 

PS-Stay tuned for the cover story of my latest release Violet in Private, out this month!

Booklist called Stephanie Kuehnert's first novel, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE, "...acidly incisive and full-out entertaining..."

 Anyway, you can tell by Stephanie's answer to the Disreputable History-related questions, below, that she is a sneaky woman, a Riot Grrl, a zine-writer and implicated in "drive-by fruitings" and other wild activities -- which really makes me want to read her book. 

Read her blog, here!

Or friend her on myspace. 

Tell Me Your Disreputable History, Stephanie Kuehnert:

1. Tell me the sneakiest thing you ever did.

Oh man, I was a pretty sneaky troublemaker in high school. I got away with a lot of stuff because I got straight A's. There was a lot of shoplifting until my friend got caught with a pocketful of lighters at Walgreens. I snuck around smoking cigarettes for over 3 years, telling my parents it was my friends' smoke they smelled on me. I snuck into my boyfriend's house (and got caught and driven home by his dad). My friend and I snuck out of her house and spent the night at her boyfriend's house (and didn't get caught). We stole cigarettes from her parents and booze from mine. I ditched school all the time and didn't go to detention and finally had to serve a Saturday detention like Breakfast Club-style and convinced my mom it was all a mistake... It's hard to put my finger on one sneaky thing, but I think I'm gonna go with the summer I turned 16 when my trusting parents agreed to let me and my best friend stay at the house and dog-sit while they went away for a few days. Of course the rule was no parties and of course we broke that rule and didn't just have a party, but had a band play in the living room. I can't believe we got away with it without a noise complaint. I think someone scuffed the wall and my dad noticed that, but I made something up to cover for it. I was not a good role model back then, so don't follow my example, kids!

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

It's not all that sneaky because they are kind of drunk when they do it, so it's not as stealthy as it should be. But Emily and her best friend Regan sneak in to Regan's crush Tom's bedroom window to invite him to join their band. It's one of my favorite scenes in the book.

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

I was only ever a prankster by association. I dated these two guys at the beginning of my sophomore year, we'll call them Keith and Alan (who were besties and of course me dating one and then dating the other was a little awkward, but that's what high school is all about) and they were the biggest pranksters. They used to do "Drive-by Fruitings" where they would get rotten fruit from a grocery store dumpster and drive around throwing it at other cars. I was a passenger for this. They'd go "lawn ornament shopping" where we'd jump out, steal lawn ornaments and then ditch them on some other lawn. We especially did this with the Christmas decorations. Oh and for some reason around here it is really popular to light up your sidewalk with candles in paper bags at Christmas time, which seems really unsafe in general, but if there are bored teenagers about. We piled those on top of one kid's car (carefully so no real damage was done because he was a sort-of a friend, a bit of a frienemy at the time) and we piled an entire block's worth on one lawn, which caused a bit of a bonfire, but it was on top of snow, so again, no real damage.

The one really bad prank I was witness of to and let occur in my living room was when Alan and Keith decided it would be funny if Keith called Alan's mom and told her Keith was dead.  Yeah, I know, not funny at all really. And Alan couldn't really follow through with it. He called pretending to be a doctor and did the whole I'm sorry your son is dead thing and when she immediately freaked out (she was kinda crazy), he went "Oh no, I mean, he has a broken leg. I mean.... Just kidding!" and hung up. Well, though it was the early days of Caller ID, Alan's mom had it at work and she called back screaming repeatedly. Keith or Alan would answer and just hang up. But after the sixth time my mom picked up. She was not pleased. Not at all. She came downstairs and screamed at us all and made Alan call his mom back. He appeased her with, "Mama, I bring you home some peanut butter and some milk," which my best friend and I still laugh at to this day. Peanut butter and milk? What?

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

No, I wasn't. I was too busy running around with troublemakers. My first year of college, the girls on my hall were kind of like a club.... A club of pranksters. We purposely caused controversy at our overly politically correct school by putting up a porn wall in our common room just to be offensive. We also moved all the furniture in the boy's all upstairs into their showers. And we set a chair on fire and threw it off the fire escape. We stole toasters and silverware from other halls and hid them in the ceiling tiles of ours and then brought them back weeks later. Yes, the Randall Girls we were trouble.

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

Yes. I was raised by a feminist mother and got heavily involved with the Riot Grrrl scene when I was in high school, which was my generation's wave of feminism. I wrote a 'zine called Kill Supermodels, which focused on things such as the unhealthy body image that the early 90s "heroin chic" supermodels caused in girls. I petitioned my high school to start a Women's History class since female roles in history were so overlooked (and they did start the class... the year after I graduated). And I work hard to support my fellow woman artist now by featuring an amazing female writer, musician, artist, filmmaker, etc on my blog every Wednesday for Women Who Rock Wednesdays.

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

I actually wrote my book in response to the macho backlash I saw in music in the late 90s and early 00s when bands like Limp Bizket got big. I wanted a woman to save rock 'n' roll so I created her, my character Emily Black. It's not a preachy book or overtly political because I don't like to write stories to "get a message across" or anything like that. But the book does bring to light the double standards women and girls face in life and particularly in the music industry and I do hope it shows the world the women can rock just as hard as the boys.

7. The club in my book 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?

It would be the Order of the Marmoset. Why? Because my best friend is going to have a boat called the Marmoset someday and we are going to be modern day pirates. She's actually taking sailing lessons as we speak. Once she's got that down, I'm hoping she draft me as her first mate and the Order of the Marmoset will officially begin. We'd be like the Robin Hood of pirates. Steal from the rich to give the poor, bring justice, that kind of thing.

 

August 9th, that's this Saturday, TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET from the novel by Lola Douglas (AKA Lara Zeises) airs on Lifetime TV!  At 9 pm! Here are all the details. And here's an interview with JoJo, who's the star.

Shanna Swendson is the author of Enchanted, Inc., Once Upon Stilettos, Damsel Under Stress -- and now the fourth in the series, Don't Hex with Texas. Booklist calls her work “one of the best romantic-fantasy series being written today." Which is saying a lot.

Shanna's on the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit with me and has been visiting my blog for ages. Check out her very amusing boyfriend list. You can visit her blog here, or buy her books here. Below, she answers my usual questions related to The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Find out why Don't Hex with Texas is her sneakiest book yet, her complicated definition of feminism, and her penchant for extremely subtle pranks.

1. Tell me the sneakiest thing you ever did.

I’m trying to think of something, but I’m not really a sneaky person. I dream up a lot of revenge schemes but then I have a very short attention span and forget about them before I can actually do anything. There are a lot of people who’d be in huge trouble if I weren’t so easily distracted by shiny objects, but I think I have more fun dreaming up the schemes than I would carrying them out. Planning is so satisfying that by the time I’m distracted, I no longer need to carry them out.

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

My characters do a lot of sneaking around because they have to deal with magical stuff happening at night without my heroine’s parents figuring out — and she’s living with her parents. So there’s a fair amount of crawling in and out of windows late at night and then hiding from cops on the town square.

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

I’m not a big prankster, but at one place I used to work there were a lot of pranks, and I thought it was fun to be in on them. I only initiated one, though. One of my co-workers had a lot of desk toys, and he was very precise about everything, practically lining things up with a ruler. Once when he was out of the office, I thought it would be fun to move a few of his desk toys by about a quarter inch and see if he noticed. The idea was to make a change so small that most people wouldn’t notice, but that might start eating at him throughout the day until he figured out what was different. But then another co-worker saw what I was doing and missed the point, and she just rearranged everything in such a huge way that he noticed the moment he came through the door, so that ruined my subtle prank.

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

I went to a pretty small school, so there weren’t any clubs or societies other than the usual official school activities like sports teams, the band, newspaper staff, drama club, yearbook staff, etc. I did all of the above except for sports. I know a lot of schools have “band geeks,” but in my school at the time I was there, you couldn’t be cool unless you were in the band. Band was the big thing, and it was the most consistently successful organization in the school. We won just about everything, and were state honor band my senior year. Most of the cheerleaders and a lot of football players were in the band, but they didn’t march during football season. The drum major my freshman year is now the director of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (after having been one of the top cheerleaders for years). So, yeah, band was cool at my school.

I did incorporate the band into the new book in a really fun way that involves using the high school fight song for working magic. I’ve been out of school for a very long time, and I can still play the school fight song from memory, so my much younger character could, too.

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

That’s become such a loaded term that has totally different meanings depending on who you’re talking to. I think that women deserve an equal shot at trying to achieve whatever they want to do. I dislike the fact that we even need a term like “women’s fiction” since we don’t have to have “men’s fiction” and that things written by women seem to be treated as second class because books about things like relationships are considered less “important” than typical male subjects like war and power. But I also don’t have a problem with the idea that women are biologically and psychologically different from men — not lesser, but different — and I don’t like trying to pretend that they’re the same. So I guess that’s a complicated answer to a complicated question.

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

I don’t know that it does, other than that the women all apply their unique skills to resolving the problem, and one of the characters is chafing under the restrictions her traditional culture tries to keep her in.

7. The club in my book 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?

If I told you, I’d have to kill you.

Sarah Hantz is on the GCC with me and her new book is The Second Virginity of Suzy Green. (You can check out her blog here.)

After the death of her sister, former Goth Suzy moves to a new town and tries to be as perfect as her memory of the late Rosie. The new Suzy Green makes straight As, hangs with the in-crowd at her new school, and dates the hottest guy around. And since all her new friends belong to a virginity club, she joins, too. So what if she’s not technically qualified? Nobody in town knows . . . until Suzy's ex turns up.

Chicklish said: "This is a fabulous feelgood book, full of humour and engrossing twists."

Anyway, Hantz is much more like good Suzy than Goth Suzy, from what I can tell from her Disreputable History interview, but she has an awesome idea for a club and pretended to be a store mannequin on a regular basis! Read on.

DISREPUTABLE HISTORY Q&A

1. Tell me the sneakiest thing you ever did.
Gosh…… well I’m not really a sneaky person…. though when I was a teenager I’d take the bus to town and pay child fare, and then go into an 18 rated movie (is that sneaky, or does it make me a good manager of money??)

2. Tell me the sneakiest thing that happens in your new book.
Suzy lies about being a virgin so she can join the Virginity Club

3. Are you a prankster? Tell me a story.
Hmm…… I remember when I was sixteen I worked in my fathers shop. He sold children’s clothes. When I was bored I’d stand in the shop like a mannequin then suddenly when people were looking in the window I’d move. It sure made them jump. And kept me amused for hours.

4. Were you in any clubs or societies in high school? Did any of those club activities make it into your novels?
No, I was too naughty to be in any…… like Suzy in her previous life.

5. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why, or why not?
Yes…. I believe women and men should be treated equally in all aspects of life.

6. How does your answer to question 5 show up in your new book?
Suzy sorts things out for herself. She doesn’t rely on a guy to help her out.

7. The club in my book 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?
The Chocolate Club. It’s mission would be to invent the most perfect tasting, zero calorie, chocolate in the whole world, of which there was a never ending supply.

What names do you call your sister?
A) Adopted
B) The lesser loved child
C) Wicked Witch of the West
D) Sister? What Sister? I pretend she doesn’t exist ever since she stole my prom date.

Take the What Kind of Sister Are You? quiz on Facebook.

Names My Sisters Call Me is the new book by Megan Crane, author of Frenemies and frequent visitor to this blog. Go here to read our 2006 mutual Beatrice interview which confusingly starts with the conclusion but which is interesting anyway because we went to the same college at different times and went to grad school in the same subject and ended up with very similar careers. And go here to my blog from long ago to read her boyfriend list!

Names My Sisters Call me (buy it here) is a "beach read" about a newly engaged woman who tries to use her engagement party as a way to reconcile her estranged sisters. After all, they're all grown-ups now, right? But it turns out that family ghosts aren't easily vanquished, and neither are first loves. Reconnecting the sisters also means reexamining every choice Courtney has made in the past six years, right down to the man she's about to marry.

Here, she submits to my Disreputable History-based questions, in which she reveals the secret to walking in extremely high heels:

1. Tell me the sneakiest thing you ever did.
I went to summer camp for years, which honed my sneaky skills. I was a master of getting in and out of the cabin in the dark of night, and while I was not the ringleader of rule-breaking missions to raid the camp kitchen (that would be my infinitely more sneaky friend Holly), I definitely held my own.

2. Tell me the sneakiest thing that happens in your new book.
Courtney, the main character, tells her fiance a lie to sneak off and see her ex-boyfriend sing in a club.

3. Are you a prankster? Tell me a story.
Most of my pranks involved camp shenanigans; the ones that didn't I'm advised not to speak of without benefit of counsel...

4. Were you in any clubs or societies in high school? Did any of those club activities make it into your novels?
I was in student government, and Chorale. I don't think either of those have made it into any of my novels. That's probably because I don't exactly have fond memories of high school; coincidentally, neither do my characters!

5. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why, or why not?
I absolutely consider myself a feminist, with great pride. Feminism is about thinking women should be equal to men. I think we should be; therefore, I'm a feminist.

6. How does your answer to question 5 show up in your new book?
I think feminism allows us to imagine all kinds of different women doing different things, instead of just a few shopworn stereotypes. There are four intriguing women in my new book: Beverly Cassel and her three adult daughters. They couldn't be more different from one another: an office manager, a concert cellist, a professor, and a bartender/artist. They're all feminists, too, because if it weren't for feminism, none of them would have the professions they hold.

7. The club in my book 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?
It would be called the Society of Stilettos and it would be dedicated to teaching women everywhere that they can, in fact, walk in high heels if they would only lean back and walk on their heels. (Seriously.)

P.S. Here's Megan's blog!