Posts for category ‘once was lost’

- Many, many congratulations to all the National Book Award finalists and winners. You can watch the ceremony and scroll through a whole bunch of pictures at the National Book Foundation’s web site. There is one of me and fellow judge Hope Anita Smith in there somewhere if you are patient. It was an exciting night, memorable in many ways. I mean, Elmo was there! For real. My favorite part was meeting the judges I’ve had so much interaction with over the last six months, and, afterward, when I could finally, finally, finally talk to finalists about their books!

- I’m thrilled to share that Once Was Lost made the Texas Tayshas High School Reading List for 2011. So did a lot of my recent favorite books, which I’ll be talking about starting on Friday! Black Friday! Because hopefully you will be buying some of these books as holiday gifties.

- My second post at Good Letters went up last week. Not long after, this post by my comrade Allison Backous went up, and is a perfect example of why I think Good Letters hosts some of the best creative nonfiction and spiritual writing out there. Do people still use blog readers? Or do they just wait for someone to tweet a link? I don’t know. So I will probably keep talking about it, both here and on twitter. (And I would like to update my “Something for the Pain” post to talk about the pain of the bill I got today from the physical therapist…)

Happy Thanksgiving, all. Back on Friday to TALK BOOKS!

My mother emailed last night in response to one from me in which I mentioned that Once Was Lost won the Utah Book Award. She said she’d go check out my blog for all the details. (Which is kind of sad in itself—realizing my own mother has to read my blog to find out what’s going on. Must fix.) Later, I got an email with the subject line: “nothing there.” The body read: “Hey, there’s nothing on your blog since October 7!”

Good heavens, she’s right…

I’ve been taking a rest. Life has been going at a pretty relentless pace all year, and especially since May when reading for the National Book Awards started to gear up. October 1 had been circled on my calendar for a long time. LIFE BEGINS AGAIN is what I wrote in the box for that day. And it did.

I turned 40, I completed and turned in Zarr Book #4, the National Book Award Finalists were announced (congratulations, everyone!), G. and I took a profoundly relaxing trip to Whidbey Island with dear friends (and I came away with a bunch of possible new author photos, taken by one-half of the aforementioned dear friends, Jeffrey Overstreet, and can finally now put this whole harrowing experience behind me), had a brilliant night with students from Two Rivers High School and other local authors, and won the Utah Book Award. October, you have been very good to me.

Oh it ain’t over yet! I can now officially announce that I’ve joined the dozen or so writers who blog for IMAGE Journal’s blog, Good Letters. It’s a blog about arts and culture and, well, pretty much anything, and connections between those things and faith. Today my first post went up. I’ll be blogging there about every two weeks and will always try to tweet links when I do, though of course you should just put Good Letters in your blog reader forever. It’s a privilege to be part of what I think is one of the best blogs out there, if arts and faith is your thing (or, honestly, just good creative nonfiction).

And, to end the month on an even higher note, this Saturday is the very first Teen Book Fest at the Provo City Library. Rock star author Scott Westerfeld will headline, with the support of a passel of Utah authors, myself included. The whole schedule is here. (Though it appears as though you may need tickets, which seem to be sold out.)

Four days left to bid on great stuff to benefit the Family Violence Prevention Fund.

A possible new author photo:

Or maybe this one:

(Okay not really, but I was exceptionally happy here and this is how it feels when LIFE BEGINS AGAIN.)

I hope you are all entering the new season well and with joy.

I’m very proud to let you know that I’m the Artist of the Month over at ImageJournal.org. Among other things, Image writes, about Once Was Lost,

“In the midst of a series of traumatic events “Sam” develops a fascination for xeriscaping, the art of creating a garden that needs only a bare minimum of rain to flourish. The metaphor is apt, not only for this novel, but for all of Zarr’s deeply affecting young adult novels: how can the heart flourish and grow when the circumstances of life seem to dry up what we most need?”

May of Zarr continues locally, as well. Here’s a heads up on some stuff I’m doing around town this month:

Saturday, May 15: Provo Children’s Book Festival – Provo City Library – Noon-5 p.m.

Thursday, May 20: Deseret Voices at Murray Library – 7 p.m. (speaking & signing)

I’m doing some private gigs, too, like speaking to local teachers and doing a Skype visit with a high school in Kentucky. If you’d like to know how to have me do such a thing with your group, see my booking page. (I am getting ready to enter a period of unavailability, FYI, June 14 – August 11.)

It’s about to get bananas up in here, y’all. Forgive me if I become scarce for the next couple of months or take longer than usual to deal with my various in-boxes. The Great In-Box of Life & Work calls.

Meanwhile:

- Over at Teen Fiction Cafe we are celebrating our third anniversary. To kick it off, I posted a reflection on the last three years of my career, including some Stuff I Have Learned. Today, Wendy Toliver posts, and there are going to be such posts every day between now and the 13th. Prizes, too, people. As in: free stuff.

- Good news for Once Was Lost: It’s been named to the CBCC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center) Choices list—their best of the year. Thank you, CBCC! And, a lovely five-star review from a teen reader at TeensReadToo. Thank you, Melanie.

- Wow, that was a good Olympics. So much epic drama! (If you were fascinated by the Vonn/Mancuso story arc, you will love Sara Bennett Wealer’s book Rival, coming out next year.) But man, we watched every minute of prime time coverage and it was exhausting. Back to 9:30 bed times.

- Huge thanks to Jacksonville Much Ado About Books for taking such good care of me at the Fest. Sometimes it’s hard to believe my “job” involves being served hors d’ouvres and forcing my own personal party escort (hi, Cindy!) to take pictures of me pretending to talk on the phone in a prop phone booth. It was especially great to meet the teens at the Mandarin Branch—many thanks to librarian Donald Carpenter for setting that up.

Author and Readergirlz diva Holly Cupola graciously invited me to participate in her Story Secrets series, and I put together a video blog about how the story of Once Was Lost developed from real life events. (No spoilers, don’t worry.) Thanks for having me, Holly! Don’t have your copy of Once Was Lost yet? Find it at a local independent book store, or ask for it at your school or public library.

Congrats to the PEN/Faulkner fiction award finalists—a blessedly diverse group in light of the white-male-ification this season among the bigger awards. I’m especially pleased to see comrade Sherman Alexie honored for his wonderful collection War Dances. Congratulations also to L.A. Times Prize finalists; I love how comprehensive the categories are. The only book from that entire roster that I’ve read is Dave Cullen’s Columbine, which is definitely a worthy selection.

See you back here next week, or in Jacksonville this weekend!