Small Damages: the cover story and a blogger's thoughtful response

How does a book get a cover?  How does a story emerge as a bright concentrate of itself?

Melissa Walker has been asking authors this question for a long time, and I'm lucky on two counts—Melissa (an author supreme) is my friend, and she has kindly asked me.  I tell the story of the Small Damages cover (and lessons I learned before the Small Damages cover) over on the Barnes and Noble Community Blog, with all thanks to dear Melissa.

I was just about to post this when Cynthia Pittman, a Facebook friend, pointed me toward another act of supreme generosity on this warm July day.  That generosity comes from Sarah Laurence, a so-intelligent, thoughtful reader who is also a writer who is also an artist who is also a woman who has learned to live a magnificently balanced life as a creative artist, mom, wife, and lover of the world beyond.  Sarah read Small Damages lately, and she had this to say.

Melissa and Sarah:  thank you.

Read more...

Character or Plot? Part 2 of the YA Roundtable with Elizabeth Mosier, Siobhan Vivian, and Melissa Walker

Part 2 of the Philadelphia Stories YA Roundtable continues here, as Elizabeth Mosier, Siobhan Vivian, Melissa Walker, and I talk about character, plot, and the advice we give to other writers. Our great thanks to Michelle Wittle!

Read more...

Talking YA With Elizabeth Mosier, Siobhan Vivian, and Melissa Walker (at Philadelphia Stories)

What a thrill to be joined by my friends Elizabeth Mosier, Siobhan Vivian, and Melissa Walker in a two-part conversation about favorite young adult books, writing influences, and process.  A big thanks to Michelle Wittle who pulled this all together for Philadelphia Stories.

Please visit this link to 'hear' us talk (Part 1).

Read more...

carried by friends to Los Angeles and Texas and back again

I don't get out into that book world as much as I'd like to; my work keeps me here at my desk.  But I get to travel vicariously through people I've come to love, and last week, I was gloriously carried to or remembered at two major book events.

I'd begged the fantastic bloggers (and women!!!) Danielle, Amy, and Florinda to take me to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books—a running joke we had among us.  But I didn't really expect them to, you know, take me there.  I'm agile, perhaps, and I can still bend, but I don't fit into any suitcase.  Still, being the inventive and loving women they are, they found a way, and here's the photograph to prove it.  That's one bright happy moment, the three of them with this part of me.  It put a tear in my eye when I saw it late last night.

Melissa Walker, whose new book, Unbreak My Heart, is due out in May, also found me in her travels last week.  She was in Texas at the Texas Library Association meeting.  She snapped this picture and sent it my way, with a note, Great to see you at the TLA.  The thing is, though, that I really do want to see Melissa.  In person.  Some day.  We're working on it. 

Read more...

Don't Breathe a Word: the words have power video

Holly Cupala should be a movie star.  Click on the frame above; you'll see what I mean.

But I digress.

Because Holly Cupala also has a brand new book out—a second young adult novel called Don't Breathe a Word that has lit up the blog-o-sphere with high praise from enthused Holly fans.  I can't wait to read this book about life on the Seattle streets myself.  Holly puts her gorgeous heart into every sentence she writes.

In the meantime, I'm delighted to join Justina Chen, Melissa Walker, Stephanie Kuehnert, Sarah Stevenson, Denise Jaden, Lish McBride, Lisa Schroeder, Cynthia Jaynes, Tara Kelly, Joelle Anthony, Stasia Ward Kehoe, Janet S. Fox, Tina Ferraro, and Janet Lee Carey in this video celebration of a theme that runs throughout Holly's book and is so important to us all:  words have power.

Happy book launch, Miss Cupala! And thank you for including me among your friends of considered and special young adult authors.

Read more...

Cover Stories: The story behind the YAMO cover

Melissa Walker is not just a fiendishly talented author, kindhearted fashion maven, and brand-new mom who knows how to strap her pretty baby on.  She's the creator of (among countless other things) a regular feature series called "Cover Stories."

Today she shares a story I told about how the cover of You Are My Only got made. 

Sometimes (no, often), I think these thoughts:  Where would we be without Melissa?

Read more...

Melissa Walker Earns Her Place in New York Times Book Review

Melissa Walker is adorable.  She's the author of five YA books, a sometimes guest on big TV shows, a name you'll find in the Times Style section, a magazine writer, a voice on NPR, and an observer of our times.  She is also out there on a daily basis telling the stories of how other writers' novels came to be, how they settled in with their jacket art.  A few years ago, when I knew few souls out here in the Land of Blog, Melissa made a video log after she read my second young adult book, House of Dance.  It made me cry.  Later, she gave me room to tell the cover art stories of several of my novels.  Melissa, moreover, is part of the reason that I had the good fortune to serve as the Readergirlz inaugural author in residence.  Melissa reaches out, is what I'm saying.  She reaches out all the time, even as her own career and fame and family grow.

For many reasons, then, I am here today celebrating Melissa's debut in the pages of the New York Times Book Review—a Carlene Bauer review of Small Town Sinners, Melissa's fifth book, debuting Tuesday.  It's a glowing review, noting, among other things:

Walker has written a credible and tender evocation of the moment when a young person’s beliefs begin to emerge and potentially diverge from the teachings of a family’s religion. Lacey’s blind faith may not be entirely understandable to those who have never believed as she does. But for teenagers raised in more evangelical homes, as I was, the character’s spiritual life will ring absolutely true. 

"YOU SO ROCK!!!!!" I wrote to Melissa, when I saw the review at 4:30 this morning.  And that's because she does.  A big blue ribbon to Melissa, then, on this happy day.

Read more...

Spotted.....

This is to say thank you to my friends—Mandy, Kathye, Melissa, others—who have been sending me photos of Dangerous Neighbors on shelves in stores around the country.  I myself have not seen the book in an actual, breathing, humming store as of yet; my few forays in that direction had been met with the news:  But we just sold our last copy.  So I live vicariously through all of you, and this morning, through Melissa Walker, who wrote, as a caption to this photo she took:  Great placement for you on the lead shelf at B&N in Union Square! 

Thank you, B and N, and thank you, Melissa!  And what a great season of books in general.  What a time to be part of the chorus telling stories.

Read more...

A cover story, an interview, a giveaway, and unrecordable emotion

Today I am in debt to the many who have embraced Dangerous Neighbors and made today, its launch day, alive and so beautiful, in so many ways.

Thank you, Amy at My Friend Amy, for doing so much, so quietly, so dearly — for finding the energy, for working (with Nicole Bonia) toward the ideas and the ideals, for coining the phrase The Beth Effect, for believing in the power of hope, and finding it.

Thank you, Melissa Walker, for asking me to tell the cover story of Dangerous Neighbors for your Barnes and Noble blog at Unabashedly Bookish. 

Thank you, Holly Cupala, for inviting me to share some of the secrets behind Dangerous Neighbors (and to conduct a book giveaway) for your own wonderful blog. 

Thank you, Deborah at Books, Movies, and Chinese Food, for your gorgeous review and for so kindly posting your thoughts on Amazon.  What a kindness.

Thank you, Anna Lefler, beloved comedienne and faithful Twitterer.

Thank you, Mandy, for more than I can ever tell or say.

Thank you, Karen Mahoney, for this incredible blog nod (and a fantastic list of other blogs you cannot live without).

Thank you, Elizabeth Mosier, for your party-hat wearing (even if it did unsmooth your enviably smooth hair).

Thank you, Jay Kirk, Sy Montgomery, Katrina Kenison, J.C. Castner, Kate Moses, Hipwritermama, Erin McIntosh, Lorie Ann Grover, Melissa Middleman Firman, Jill Santopolo, Rody Gratton, Paul DiLorenzo, Andra Bell, Ivy Goodman, Nate, Laura, Kelly, Tirsa, Caroline Leavitt, Steph Su, Serena, Jenny, Staci, Ed Goldberg, Meg, Novel Novice, Richard, Liz, Jan, Barbara, Jerry, Rosellen Brown, Allie, Kathye, and Alyson Hagy.

Thank you, all of Egmont USA, and thank you, Amy Rennert, for calling, and thank those of you who encourage champagne and a little private reflection on a day that so much corporate work calls, and thank you phenomenal, good-hearted bloggers, and any that I have inadvertently missed. I don't mean to miss goodness.  Ever.

For so many reasons, this book feels like my first, ever.

I have all of you to thank for that.

Read more...

HEART Day

A dear soul from a Colorado bookstore sent me this image yesterday—a gift of many proportions and a reminder that today The Heart is Not a Size is officially launched on the market.

Those who know far more than me—about how to share word of a book in a bookstore, about how to throw a book party, about how to create a Facebook fan page, about how to design a blog tour—are helping me in countless ways with this release, and I'll be forever grateful. Heart is my eleventh book. My second was the memoir, Into the Tangle of Friendship. Were I to return to Tangle after all these years, you better believe I'd be making room for a few new chapters.

Today the cover story for Heart is posted over at Melissa Walker's blog. Today Anna Lefler, that wild and crazy, smart one over at Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder informs us (which also means me) that there will be a Heart contest in her neck of the woods. Today I learn that there's a badge for Heart Facebook fans and a big blog tour planned. Last night I learned that Elizabeth Mosier has not just planned a Children's Book World party (in the Haverford book store, April 20, 7 PM), but like a party party. With watermelon juice and a pinata and salsa and Mexican chili-chocolate cookies (did you know there was such a thing?) and even a Beth Kephart trivia quiz as designed by her two brilliant actor/singer/writer daughters. (I hope I know at least two of the answers.)

Like I said, and I mean this:

I need to write a long addendum to Into the Tangle of Friendship. For now, this blog will have to serve as its proxy.

Additional thanks of the day to NomadReader, an aspiring writer and future librarian, for her review of Heart.

And even more thanks to Priya and the good souls of Readergirlz, for posting Priya's review today. Priya was one of the very first to read this book, and I will always be so grateful to her for her early words.

Read more...

The Boy in the Yellow T-Shirt, Pulled Free

And then, last night, in the dark, they liberate a brother and his sister from the rubble of a store. They have survived the weight of what must have seemed the entire world for seven days. They have lived—what?—in darkness, in silence, in stopped time, in forever time, in the ultimate not knowing?

He is wearing a yellow T-shirt; he is a lantern of light. He opens his arms wide. I am alive.

Today, in an update letter from the International Rescue Committee, one of the organizations to which I've contributed following a lead from my novelist friend Melissa Walker, I read this:

IRC Team leader Gillian Dunn reports, "People are gathering in any public space, including parks and the sides of roads. At dusk, families place cinder blocks in the road to prevent traffic from coming through. Then they lay their bed sheets down so they can sleep."

What is it, to lie beneath the moon and to wait for the crack of sun that is tomorrow in Haiti?

Read more...

What readergirlz sound like when readergirlz are talking

We readergirlz girlz tore up the keyboards last night talking everything from writerly schedules (thank you, Little Willow, for offering to make me breakfast); TV shows ("So You Think You Can Dance" rocks supreme); the joint appearance by Erin McIntosh and Melissa Walker in the newest six-word memoir book (oh, baby); certain showcase dance number videos that will never be aired (thank you, Mercy, for keeping our secret our secret); the emergence of Priya as a readergirlz street girl; favorite bands (yes, mine is still and will always be Bruce Springsteen); landscape as character (thank you, Nicole, for the question); favorite editors, past and present; how I stink at the samba (just ask Jean Paulovich); whether I will every write fantasy (thank you, Maya and Hipwriter Mama for your faith in my abilities); whether I've watched "Glee" (I'm so sorry, Lorie Anne); and why Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River was perhaps the most challenging and most rewarding book that I've yet published, though 2010 and beyond is filled with books and potential books that were probably even harder. All along Dia Calhoun and Holly Cupala were tossing out not just literary questions but riotously funny—and unexpected—images.

Which is all to say that if you haven't participated in a readergirlz chat, you really ought to. They happen twice a month or so. They will keep you at the edge of your fingertips.

Read more...

A Lovestruck Summer and Books that Connect

This past Memorial Day Weekend, I took the short trip down the road to the local bookstore and spent some meandering time. At the high school reading list table (love those tables) I pondered classics I hadn't yet read and picked up Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. At the popular paperbacks I found and collected a book long on my list—Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog. My agent, Amy Rennert, had suggested Marianne Wiggins' The Shadow Catcher (about the American West and photography, among other things; how could I resist?) so I went and hunted that down. Next I asked the sales clerk what literary book is currently selling well, and she suggested Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos. I like to be in the know, every now and then, and so I added that to my pile.

Finally, I went to the YA shelves and collected Melissa Walker's newest, Lovestruck Summer. I have a thing about owning all of Melissa's books—she's so cute, to begin with, but also, just as important, I learn a lot from her each time I curl up with one of her teen novels. This time was no exception, for Lovestruck Summer isn't just a compelling tale of summer romance and indie music. It's also a novel that showcases Melissa's tremendous ear and her ability, from the first sentence on, to juice a book with momentum and voice.

Listen, for example, to the book's first paragraph: "I live my life in headphones. That way I can control what I let in. If kids at school are being idiotic and perky, I put on a mellow track and tune out their spirit rally. If my parents are nagging me, I play a fast song and rock out in my mind while smiling and nodding at them."

That's good. That's very good, and here are some reasons why. First, rhythm. This book is about music and from the start, Melissa's language has jazz. From the start, too, the words surprise. Kids being idiotic and perky? Clever coupling. Tuning out a spirit rally? Wait. A spirit rally? Let me take another look, you think, at that. And do we not, in just a paragraph, get who this narrator is? Can we not already picture her, caught up in the medleys she's got tracking through her mind?

There is a reason that those who have big followings have garnered that affection. In Melissa's case, she knows her audience, she knows what they think (Sex and the City characters are old, for the record, and there are just some things that people shouldn't wear), and she knows how to write a credible romantic tale that will keep teens on the edge of their seat.

Read more...

Nothing but Ghosts and The No Such Thing Contest

On Melissa Walker's big week (Lovestruck Summer is now out in stores!), Melissa is being utterly Melissa, which is to say supremely generous. Today I'm over at her blog, telling the story of the Nothing but Ghosts cover, with additional photos of Chanticleer, the garden that inspired this novel. Thank you, so much, Melissa. I can't wait to drift away into your own Lovestruck space.

In the meantime, Jill Santopolo has informed me that the No Such Thing short story competition details have now been officially posted on the HarperTeen site. You can find them here.

Read more...

Goodness (again), a Contest Update, and Kudos to Melissa Walker

Forgive me for being a tad emotional this morning. The last time I posted a world-goes-streaking-past photograph, it was the morning after the evening that we'd left our son at school—a freshman at a college hours away, a young man on the verge.

Yesterday, downpours and client pressures couldn't keep us away from that guy. His finals were done, and his room was in order; freshman year is done. Our son comes home with broader shoulders, boundless stories, and a multitude of friends—engaging, truly beautiful young people who were chanting his nickname as they made the trek to say goodbye while we boxed things up, Windexed the mirrors, and ran an old vacuum cleaner over nubby, well-worn rugs.

In my absence, goodness happened. The kindness of Little Willow, Holly Cupala, Readergirlz, Alea, Jen Robinson, and others, who made it a point to spread the word about the Undercover poetry contest. Meanwhile, the uber-kind Ed Goldberg, of the fabulous Young Adults (& Kids) Books Central, posted a glorious review; I thank him, deeply, for taking an interest in these books that I write.

For those of you interested in the Undercover contest, you'll see that I have now posted the official judge of the competition: Jill Santopolo. I have worked with Jill at HarperTeen since my earliest introduction there; together with Laura Geringer, Jill shepherded Undercover, House of Dance, and Nothing but Ghosts to their respective finish lines. Jill then took on The Heart is not a Size, due out next March, in Laura's absence, and as an author herself, Jill absolutely knows books and words. I can't wait to share your work with her.

Today my dear friend Melissa Walker celebrates the debut of Lovestruck Summer. She's a force and a presence in this blog world; I've learned a lot from her kick, her poise, her smarts. Congratulations, Melissa, on your fourth book. We (and the spring's entire bounty of daffodils) are cheering you on. (And I can't wait to read it.)

Read more...

The 2008 Winter Blog Blast Tour (and a tribute to hipwritermama)

Fourteen months ago, when I first went blogging, I knew nothing, I knew no one, I scratched about and made my way. I'd fall through the rabbit hole of GoodReads, for example, and trip up against some smart reviewers. I'd find a comment on one of my postings from, say, Miss Erin, and travel over toward her blog, only to encounter others about whom I would sigh to myself, Oh, wouldn't it be nice to know a little about them.

Hipwritermama was one such force. She seemed so smart. So, well, hip. She thought a lot about books—the ones she was writing, the ones she was reading. She took her time to say precisely what she thought and how she felt. When she disappeared at summer's end for a brief vacation she returned—refreshed, rejuvenated, ever thoughtful. I noticed this.

I dared, at last, to reach out to her. She took the time to come my own blog's way. She was generous, encouraging me on with a passage I was writing, or commenting on something I'd openly been struggling with.

http://hipwritermama.blogspot.com/

I learned, about her, that she lives where I once did. She helped me locate (for my memory was fuzzy) the pond where I taught myself to skate (a memory I borrowed for UNDERCOVER). We talked about cooking, about expectations, about raising children, and recently, hipwritermama, who is also known as Vivian, took the time—she really takes the time—to read my books and to ask me questions for the Winter Blog Blast Tour.

I'm not the only one on whom she has showered such attention. I stand in the privileged company of Melissa Walker, Mark Peter Hughes, and Wendy Mass. All of us together being featured among many other wonderful writers over the course of this coming week.

I'm looking forward to reading these interviews. I invite you to take a look at the full line up, which is posted on the fabulous Chasing Ray.

http://www.chasingray.com/archives/2008/11/2008_winter_blog_blast_tour_sc.html

Read more...

The End of Publishing?

The story is called "The End," its author is Boris Kachka, and there it sits—a mega feature in New York magazine, heralding the news (the news?) that "the book business as we know it will not be living happily ever after."

http://nymag.com/news/media/50279/

"... pretty much every aspect of the business seems to be in turmoil," Kachka writes. "There’s the floundering of the few remaining semi-independent midsize publishers; the ouster of two powerful CEOs—one who inspired editors and one who at least let them be; the desperate race to evolve into e-book producers; the dire state of Borders, the only real competitor to Barnes & Noble; the feeling that outrageous money is being wasted on mediocre books; and Amazon .com, which many publishers look upon as a power-hungry monster bent on cornering the whole business."

Across an-already vastly partitioned landscape, more fences are being thrown up, the skies are growing darker, and we writers, we readers, we lovers of ideas are—well, what? What are we supposed to be doing? What sort of future waits for us?

Does a future wait for us?

Call me crazy (others have), but I'm still going to bet on a future enriched by books. I'm going to remember that I never was one of those writers who earned a mega advance, or even a big advance, or even, well, you get the point. Indeed, one of my books earned no advance at all (the new "model" of publishing that New York magazine makes reference to); but, heck, that advance-free book went onto sell in several foreign countries, went on to get some bloggers talking, went on to sell out most of its print run. Another book netted me something like $800 after all was said and done—$800 and so many new friends, so many exquisite new opportunities, so many chances to get involved in the life of a city I love, not to mention, the chance to write a book in precisely the way I wanted to write that book, quirky point of view and all.

Writing books gives me an excuse to dwell—with ideas, with language, with research, with people who know more than I do, in places I wish to celebrate. And yes, I'm sad that Barnes & Noble has so much control over my future (literary YA not being high on its buy list at the moment, sad to say). Yes, I wish Amazon wouldn't leverage its power the way that it does, wouldn't insinuate itself so thoroughly into the making-books side of things. Yes, I wish that it were easier, at times, to spread the word about books.

But I'm not giving up on books quite yet. I'm not giving up on writing them, and I'm not giving up on talking about them, or rooting for them. I'm looking up to people like Melissa Walker, who takes three fine books into her own hands, surveys the virtual world, MySpaces and Blogs and Vlogs and FlipBooks and GoodReads and Throws Competitions and Goes ReaderGirlz and gets a lot of people talking about important things in an utterly charming fashion.

The old rules might not apply in publishing anymore. We're going to need some new hiking boots for the trek ahead. But I hope you'll take the journey with me. I hope that we won't ever stand on a hill (or in a valley) and see The End.

Read more...

Betty Boop, Jill Santopolo, Phoenixville, and the (famous) Melissa Walker Blog

Yesterday, post storm, the air shimmered, and Bill and I set off for Phoenixville, a former steel mecca that fell on hard times and has lately begun the long process of dusting itself off—fitting out old thick-walled buildings and cute Victorian structures with book stores and urban barber shops and trendy restaurants. It's the same town that Alice Sebold chose to skewer (along with human nature in general) in Almost Moon (she chose to see its ugliness; many of us prefer the sunny side).

The point is, Bill and I walked along in the shimmer and stopped at the windows and then we came to Betty Boop, who goes back with me a long, long time. My dancing maternal grandmother called me this (she also called me Rosie, hence the protagonist's name in House of Dance) and whenever I see Betty, I think of her. I have Betty Boop Christmas ornaments and Betty Boop cards and a little Betty Boop light-up, laser-into-glass replica, sent to me by my dear friend, Andree (you might have met Andree in my second book, Into the Tangle of Friendship).

Seeing Betty made me happy yesterday. Being in the shimmer always does. And when I woke this morning, I was in that happy mood all over again.

Which just got even happier, because the amazingly talented, perpetually generous Melissa Walker just posted the cover story that I wrote for her blog. This story talks about the genesis of the Undercover cover (what it might have been, where it might have gone), and a little bit about the genesis of Undercover itself.

http://www.melissacwalker.com/blog/2008/09/cover_stories_undercover_by_be.html

The story also mentions Laura Geringer, the editor who invited me to start writing young adult books in the first place and set me off in this new and unfathomably fulfilling direction. Sadly, Laura left Harper just three days after I finished the all-day, all-night-for-days-and-weeks marathon that yielded the second draft of my fourth YA novel, The Heart is not a Size. I have, as you can imagine, been living in literary limbo ever since.

(Note to self: Best not to combine your only child's flight to college with the loss of your editor with the loss of two major client projects (due to internal client issues) all in the same week; it can do damage. It can set you off doing all kinds of odd things like, say, vlogging.)

Late last week I learned that I do have a future at Harper with Heart. Jill Santopolo, also mentioned in the story on Melissa's blog, is taking me forward under the Harper imprint Balzer & Bray. She's whip-smart, reliable, funny, and promises me a night out on the town, if only I'd drink mojitos.

Who knows. If anything else happens here, I might just have to drink mojitos.

(For the record, you can meet Jill in my third novel, Nothing but Ghosts. Or you can meet the character she inspired — a good-looking, curly-headed blond guy named Danny Santopolo.)

For now, I'm raising my literary glass to Miss Melissa Walker, who has promised me an interview for my blog soon. Can't wait for that!

And I'm raising my glass to Jill. Yes. Absolutely. We are kicking butt with Heart.

Read more...

On Books Just Read

I read the final chapters of The Soloist this weekend. You've heard of it, I'm sure; maybe you'll see the movie version come November. This is the true story of a former Julliard musician who suffers schizophrenia and lives as a homeless man making music in the streets until he is discovered by the LA Times reporter, Steve Lopez. I loved this book on many counts; I read it slowly. But this weekend the book had me thinking again about memoir, a form I am perhaps too familiar with, having written five such books myself.

With memoir you have two choices. The first is to recall something that happened once and to try to make sense of it (and if you were truly living that once, you weren't recording it as it happened; hence you will have lost pieces along the way, you will have to imagine yourself back to some aspect of the truth, you will have to stretch). The second is to record something that is happening right this instant which means, necessarily, that the moment will get manipulated for the sake of the story—that the moment cannot be lived without it being somehow framed by the expectation that it will be lived again on a page. There are no two ways around this, and while I loved Mr. Lopez's book, I also began to wonder just how much of the story had to be precipitated by Mr. Lopez himself, so that the story might rise to a powerful close.

I turned, after The Soloist, to a historical novel which I'll leave unnamed, for I didn't like it nearly as much as I hoped I would, and there's no point in sending out daggers. What I want to mention here is what the story reminded me of, and that is this: History cannot rule in historical novels. It is touchstone, it is mood, it is ambiance, but no novel benefits from textbook-sounding prose, nor from plots that feel dictated to by an author's exuberant research. An author might know a great deal, say, about a certain 19th c. riot. But if that riot doesn't fit into the emotional scheme of things, we readers are going to sense (and mind) the wrong-ness of the fit.

Sunday afternoon I read (like most of the world has already read) Nancy Horan's Loving Frank. Ever since I was a girl wandering around my great uncle's studio (that would be Uncle Lloyd, who designed the Waldorf Astoria, The Pierre, the Boca Ratan, and others), I was determined to marry an architect, and I did. I worked for architects for years, I hang out with architects, I live with one, and therefore I did enjoy learning more about this famous, ill-fated affair that Frank Lloyd Wright conducts with a client's wife. As an author, though, I wondered why the story didn't feel quite as rich as I imagined it might, and then I realized this: In Loving Frank, dialogue carries the plot and discloses most of the facts. In dialogue, there's far less room to reach with language, to let it soar.

By last night, I was able to turn the lamp on over Melissa Walker's Violet in Private. Melissa herself is such a dear, and Violet is by now a familiar friend. Violet is also in college when this story, the third in a trilogy, begins, taking a class much like the one my son is now taking as she wends her way through the fashion world. Curled up, smiling, I realized that I wasn't reading Melissa's story to critique it; I was reading to enjoy it. Which says, I realize at the end of this long blog, all the right things about Violet.

Onto The Book Thief (and then to SarahBeth Carter).

Read more...

Gratitudes

Some words of thanks on this gorgeous, nearly breezy day (the skies want to yield the breeze; they do, I can just feel it):

To Dr. Judy Evans, for being a physician and shrink and friend in one, seeing me through a five-day bout of insomnia.

To Jean Paulovich, for not giving up on me and my samba, until yes, I could dance it; I did. Okay, so it's not nearly perfect and will never be. But it's better than it was.

To my kid, for being one of the most truly noble and upstanding people (our children surpass us, oh, how quickly they do). His words tonight: "Sure, there'll be aspects of people that frustrate. It's just hard not to see the good parts first."

To Amy Rennert, for being gloriously honest, every time. And for taking my call.

To Alli, for her posting on YPulse: http://books.ypulse.com/

To Jill Santopolo, for sharing the news about UNDERCOVER's selection as a 2008 Capitol Choices for Children and Teens book and as a nominated title for the ALA's Best Books for Young Adults.

To Melissa Walker, for being the harbinger.

To Aideen O'Malley, who extends as a friend as magnificently as she extends as a dancer (how does she do both?).

If I go on, I'll just cry. So I'll stop.

Read more...