Barbara Vey's luncheon.

Last week was one of my busiest ever!!

Things started in Milwaukee at Barbara Vey's 1st readers luncheon. I was there Monday night for her library event, and then for the Tuesday luncheon.  I especially thank the lovely, hardworking WisRWA ladies who greeted everyone when they entered. 

I shared a table with another YA author, Erica O'Rourke. She and I presented the young people at our table with copies of our books. Doesn't this look like the happiest table around, including the parent who came to sub for her sick child and Leah Hultenschmidt, SourceBooks YA editor, who came to join us. I also managed to find a new beta reader for my next book, Being God. He and his mother both intend to give the story a try.

My publisher was the only one who did not get my book to Barnes and Noble in time for the sale. This is the third time in the last year I've gone to an event and 'look Ma, no books.' The rep was sympathetic and handed me a stack of bookplates that I could use for people who ordered the book - and yes, two people still did.  I don't understand why Everbind can't get the book into booksellers' hands. I'm being driven to distraction when they say the book isn't selling - maybe it would sell better if it was out there? (hint, hint)

I came back to Chicago Tuesday  night, just in time to get a little sleep and re-pack for my next venture - Romance Slam Jam in Little Rock Arkansas.
More about that next time.

FYI -  I've put a host of pictures on facebook. 

Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award

A number of my friends in various writing groups received word yesterday that they are finalists in RWA contests - either the Golden Heart for unpublished authors, or the Rita for books published in 2011. Being ineligible for either (I am published, but my book is from 2010) I was surprised and pleased to get another unexpected, but totally delightful, message.

Students in my neighboring state of Indiana have nominated my book PULL for the 2012/13 Eliot Rosewater Indiana Hoosier Book Award (a. k. a. the Rosie Award).  Of course, I'm up against an awesome list of books, including Five Flavors of Dumb, Ship Breaker, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Yummy - all of which I read and loved. But it's great to be in such awesome company.  The Rosie Award is chosen annually by students across Indiana in grades nine through twelve. The winner will be announced in May. Obviously I have my fingers and toes crossed. I just consider it an honor that the students nominated PULL. PULL has acheived a number of honors:

• 2010 Golden Rose winner - Oregon
• 2011 National Readers Choice Award winner - Oklahoma
• 2011 Children's and Young Adult Bloggers Literary (CYBIL) Awards nominee
• 2011 Best Books for Youth in Detention list - School Library Journal
• 2012 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list - American Library Association

The sequel, BEING GOD, will be out later this year. Who knows what next year will bring.


BTW - Eliot Rosewater is a recurring fictional character in Kurt Vonnegut's novels, including God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Vonnegut is a famous Hoosier author who grew up in Indianapolis. This award was named to honor him and all Indiana writers. I feel like I'm an honorary Indiana writer.

Illinois Reading Council

I presented a workshop at the 2012 Illinois Reading Council in Springfield on March 15, to a room full of teachers and librarians, all interested in the subject of attracting reluctant teen boy readers. I feel i've come full circle from 2008 when I attended a discussion about the same subject at the AWP (Association of Writing Professionals) conference. That session, that featured a panel of teens (five girls and one brave boy) showed me the issues and problems involved in getting boys back to books.

I am very pleased that the research I did on the subject, including inverviews with psychologists, socila workers, teen boys, teachers, and fathers, left me prepared to realistically portray teen boys in my novel, PULL. PULL has earned a spot on the 2012 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list, and School Library Journal's 2011 list of Top Choices for Youth in Detention. It also gave me the information to help the cause of getting boys back to books. You can check out a copy of my presentation, Attracting Reluctant Teen Readers.

Many of my listeners remained after the session with their questions. One in particular made sure she sat at my table during the Local Author's Luncheon, because everyone there got a free, autographed copy of PULL.  Every copy at the Anderson's Booksellers booth sold out, and I spent the evening autographing copys at the SCBWI booth.  One of my best moments was when one of the hotel servers at the luncheon asked if he could purchase a copy for his teen son. I sold him one of my own at cost and signed it for the boy there.

I'm already looking forward to next year in Springfield.

P. S. On April 10 I will be at Barbara Vey's Reader Appreciation Lunch in Oak Brook, Wi. The deadline to sign up to attend is March 31. Everyone signing up for my table will receive a free copy of PULL.

Pull was named a 2012 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers at the 2012 ALA Mid-winter meeting.
It was also named by School Library Journal as one of 2011's Top Ten Picks For Youth In Detention.

School visit to Oswego East High School

On February 15, I visited the Oswego East High School's Reading Club where I did a book talk with members of the club and other individuals.  There attentive audience watched the Book Trailer for PULL, listened to a reading from the book and learned some inside secrets on how the book came to be. There were questions about my writing process, and I found another future author who, like me, is a "sort of" plotter.

I donated a copy of PULL to the school, and kids took dibs who who would get it first.  Students also receiveds tchotchkes, like PULL wristbands, postcard copies of the cover, the first chapters of PULL and the first chapter of the up-coming sequel, Being God.

Boy Book Review - Revolver

Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Easy to tell why Revolver is highly honored. it's a thrilling historical story of adventure and survival for boys that girls and adults will also enjoy. It takes readers to a place most have never been before, the other side of the arctic circle. I spent some time in  took me right back.

We start in 1910 in Giron, Alaska inside a lonely cabin, with 14-year-old Sig and his father's corpse. The story question, what made his father, a veteran of the climate, try to cross the lake at a time and location where the ice was thinnest, and where he fell through and froze to death. The answer comes with a knock on the cabin door, and a man who has been chasing the family since they left Nome ten years earlier, looking for gold he claims Sig's father owed him, and that Sig knows does not exist.

The story moves back and forth between the events of 1899-1900 that sets a killer on the family’s trail, and 1910 when Sig has to face a man ready to kill for the gold he thinks the family has. We get a picture of the history of the Alaskan Gold Rush, where the only people who really made money after the original discovery were the service providers, saloons, and men like Sig's father who worked in an assay office. We learn about the Colt revolver in the lessons Sig’s father taught him about the way guns work and why they are sometimes the only answer to problems. We also learn lessons Sig's murdered mother tried to teach him, about Faith, Hope and Love. And finally, we learn the lesson Sig has to teach himself about survival as the boy struggles to save himself and his older sister from the invader killed his mother and intends to continue killing and raping until he finds the gold he believes this family living a subsistence life in the middle of emptiness has hidden.

The beauty, simplicity and total justice of the ending should appeal to young readers of all ages. Not to mention the real secret Sig's father worked hard to keep from taking to his grave with him.

Boy Book Reviews


View all my reviews

The end of NaNo 2011

I am one tired writer.

BUT, thanks to NaNoWriMo- I managed to finish a damned book.  Leah is complete in draft format!!!

The LEAH story existed only inside my head on Nov. 1, I didn't even have an outline, just a vague idea about he girl and her family and their problems. 

Now I know, and I have a beginning, middle and end, all in 51,000 words.

Let the editing begin.

To be honest, I've been editing since about the mid-point. I changed the ideas a couple of times, and my inner editor screamed at me until I went back and fixed some of the issues. But I am now about to begin the wholesale edit.

Cast of Characters:

Leah Webster, aged 14, lives with her mother, Olivia Webster and older brother Jerome, an ex-gang member turned youth counselor (its a cliche, but only because it really does happen. And I needed him to have been in a gang.) At the beginning of the story she's in 8th grade, and just narced on her boyfriend when she discovers him selling drugs to the high school kids. By the end of the story she is a high school freshman. She is one of the two point of view characters, and needs to find out who is killing off witnesses to the fire that killed Madison Hammer ten years ago before the list of dead includes her brother, and maybe even herself.

Damani Ramsey, age 16, Leah's former boyfriend (before the drug arrest) begins the story in juvie, but returns and ends up back in school with Leah. He wants revenge, after all, he was only trying to raise money for his girlfriend. Besides, those weren't even real drugs, just placebos the doctor prescribed for his hypochondriac mother. Damani is the other point of view character, who quickly descovers that he has bigger problems than revenge on Leah if he is going to keep his family intact. Besides, underneath it all, he really wants to get the girl back.

Marcus Hammer, age 13, the son of the infamous George Hammer of Scorpion and Hammer fame. When Marcus was three, his older sister Madison died in a fire at a crack house where their father had taken her. Were she still alive, she would be 17. His father George has recently been released from prison, and Marcus lives with him, and hates him. Marcus is obsessed with fire and the idea of dying in a fire like his sister. When Leah is assigned to tutor Marcus, even Damani can see there's something between the two.

Anthony "Flake" Bradwell, Damaini's cousin and still a member of the gang. He testified against George Hammer at his trial, and now worries about his future after the man's release. He also councils Damani on the ways of revenge against Leah, the snitch.

George Hammer, deals with a rebellious son, the memory of a daughter he inadvertently killed, and the anger of the gang-leader who remains in prison for their crimes. Witnesses who survived the night of the fire been turning up dead since his release from prison.

Olivia Webster, Leah's mother, sunk into a deep depression after driving the car when her husband and younges son was killed, and her daughter critically injured. Now she finds herself falling for George Hammer and trying to find a way to tell her son and daughter that she too knows their secret.

Pastor Evan, anothe former gang member and a good friend of the Webster family, as well as the minister of hteir church. He is one of the few people who knows's Leagh's secret. He also testified against Mr. Hammer at his trial.

Jerome Webster, age 26, who left the gang after the death of his father and five-year old brother Terrell when he was sixteen to care for Leah, Terrell's twin, and his mother. He is under the protection of imprisoned gang general Tyrone "Scorpion" Johnson, so no one is allowed to do anything to him or any  member of his family. He is also a survivor of the fire. He Leah and Pastor Evan share a dark secret about that night.

As long as I've mentioned him, Scorpion Johnson spends the book in prison, but he still wields considerable power on the outside world. He's the villan whose hatred for George Hammer moves the story forward.

These are the main characters. We also have Latoya, a rival for Damani's affections, Martha Ramsey, Danmani's mother who has her own little problem, and Bakari, Damani's little brother.

Wish me luck.

BTW, I would love to hear about any other NaNo novels. Hope everyone who tried had a really productive month.