Posts for category ‘day in the life’

I am back from New Orleans, and I’m going to tell you the worst-kept secret in children’s publishing: librarians know how to have them a good time!

After a couple years of working more or less quietly away and staying behind the curtain, it was nice to get out and be Author Sara Zarr and introduce How to Save a Life to (and have a blast with!) so many of the people who will help get it into the hands of readers. And, it was great to get a chance to meet some blog and twitter friends; thanks so much for coming by the booth to say hi.

Watching Paolo Bacigalupi receive his well-deserved Printz for Ship Breaker was a thrill, as was getting to hear all the honor book authors speak. And I got to meet and hang out with relentlessly fabulous Little, Brown compatriots Karen Healey and Daniel Handler – authors of The Shattering and Why We Broke Up, respectively, which both sound terrific.

Actually, everyone at Little, Brown is pretty amazing, and it was good to see some of the people who make my books happen (you know, after I labor for a couple of years…) and I’m happy to say I just signed on for another book with them. Right now it’s called The Lucy Variations and tentatively slated for early 2013.

And then it was all over! And I failed to take a single picture. Wait, no, I used my cell phone to snap a photo of a chicken crossing St. Charles Avenue, but it didn’t turn out. Yes, a live chicken, walking around downtown. Possibly putting some distance between it and Herbsaint, where I had seared chicken confit that was maybe the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Anyway, as much fun as I had and as much as I miss air conditioning, I’m tremendously happy to be back in my own (un-air-conditioned) home. I traveled 20 days in June and it felt good to put the suitcase away this morning and know I’m staying put for awhile.

P.S. I did end up reading that Wall Street Journal article after all, and my latest Good Letters is sort of in response to it, and sort of not, and definitely not the whole of what I think, but it is one slice of what I’ve been stewing over since this issue and the YA Saves response first began to simmer. (That was a lot of cooking imagery. Time for dinner.)

1. I am soooooooper duper excited to be able to announce that I’ll be joining the Smart Chicks Kick It Tour 2.0 this fall, masterminded by the fabulous trio of Melissa Marr, Kelley Armstrong, and Jennifer Lynn Barnes. I’m confirmed for Portland and Vancouver, with a very likely Seattle immediately following. You can follow the Smart Chicks tour on twitter (@smartchickstour), by liking the Facebook page, and watching the web site. (Warning: I did not have to take an IQ test to be part of the tour, so my actual smartness is not guaranteed.)

2. My latest Good Letters post, about words v. presence, is up.

3. Is the royal wedding over yet?

4. A couple of recent good interviews for those of you interested in the connections between arts/faith/culture in the movies: Jeffrey Overstreet interviews one of my creative heroes, Tom McCarthy (Win Win, which is great, btw). And Relevant Magazine interviews one of my favorite actors, Mark Ruffalo, about his directorial debut, Sympathy for Delicious.

5. Last night while driving over to the King’s English for Emily Wing Smith’s event, I passed what looked like a house party given by high schoolers, or maybe young college kids. I caught them somehow at a moment of mass happiness. It was warmish last evening, springlike, and they were in front on skateboards, or hugging one another, laughing, a pure-joy-smile on each of their faces. And I thought, yeah, in spite of it all, life–or living, anyway–truly is good. Better than the alternative.

Have a great weekend.

I had hoped not to be writing a post like this. YA author L.K. (Lisa) Madigan, has passed away after a battle with pancreatic cancer. If you didn’t see her blog post last month about this, I hope you can take some time to read it now.

Lisa was a colleague and special comrade. I first met her in 2005 or 2006, I think, at an event for Chris Crutcher at Books, Inc. in Laurel Village, San Francisco. We’d been friends on LiveJournal, part of a community of published and aspiring YA writers. Afterwards, we went out for some food and drink with Jennifer Laughran, who was then a buyer and events person for Books, Inc. That night, if you had told the three of us how our lives would look only a few years later, I think we would be skeptical. Now I know how it went down:

I was blessed with a writer career I never dared imagine for myself. Jennifer became a successful literary agent. Lisa was one of her first clients, and Flash Burnout was Jennifer’s first sale (I think). I had the pleasure of blurbing Flash Burnout, a book I dearly loved. It won the Morris Award for a YA debut.

But that night, Lisa and I walked back to our cars in the dark, talking about our dreams and goals, alcoholic families, the particular joys and complications of having male friends, and the writing life.

Years later, Lisa drove me around Portland and took me out for an amazing South American breakfast. We talked on the phone once about Second Book Psychosis. She showed me the beach near Half Moon Bay where she imagined her mermaid lived. We did an event together at Books, Inc., organized by Jennifer. This time, we were the authors. Our friendship had come full circle, and I’d expected to have her as a peer throughout our careers.

I know that Lisa was reconciled to the idea of her death, if not to having to leave her husband and son, whom she loved so very, very much.

I will miss her presence in the community, which was always graceful and supportive and honest, and funny. And I will miss the work she would have done, the words she would have put out into the world as she continued to refine her craft and vision.

With love and prayers for all who loved her.

October, merely days away, is not only a time for cooler weather (well, not in Utah, apparently), pumpkins, and candy, and, for some of us, turning 40, it’s also National Domestic Violence Awareness month. Here’s a little something I’m participating in and will be reminding you about a few times over the coming weeks:

To honor National Domestic Violence Awareness month, author Swati Avasthi has combined a blog tour for her debut novel, Split, with a charity auction. Over 40 authors, agents and editors have donated manuscript critiques, personalized books, and more to an online auction that anyone –reader, writer, booklover — can bid on and buy.  All proceeds go to the Family Violence Prevention Fund. In addition to the auction, Avasthi is donating $1/comment on her 26-stop, month-long blog tour, coordinated by Kari Olson at Teen Book Scene. If she reaches her goal and cap of $250, she will double the donation.  Follow the tour, get stuff you want, and make a difference.

I’m donating a critique of the first 35 pages of a YA manuscript. (And after all, if you can get 35 good pages, the rest is cake. Ask anyone.) Please help spread the word about this auction and cause. There are some great items up for bid. (Click on the icon to check it out.)

Apparently my recent posts are scaring a few of you. Am I leaving writing? Am I going to start a band? Become a competitive snowboarder? An African Dwarf Frog herder? A performance artist, like Joaquin Phoenix? (By the way, I totally wanted to see I’m Still Here until I read the little rating summary and it said something like, “Rated R for nudity, language, and excrement.” Excrement?)

Don’t worry. Most likely you won’t even be able to tell I’m doing anything different. I’m just taking stock, a wee breath, and making sure everything I do is intentional rather than, “This is what people do at this point in their careers.”

I do love my froggies, though. (I rescued them at the Avenues Street Fest, from potential ownership by five-year-old boys. I almost similarly rescued a pygmy goat at the state fair, but that posed some logistical challenges.) It’s very relaxing to watch them swim about during the “staring into space” part of my days. Also, they sing. More like a low buzzing, really, but it’s pretty cool how you can hear them through the water.

*If I did start a band, that’s what it would be called. It also happens to be the name of a band featured in my next book…