BOOK GIVEAWAY CONTEST: KATHERINE PATERSON'S MEMOIR, "STORIES OF MY LIFE"

    

     If you read my blog every so often, you probably already know that my friend Michele and I were fortunate enough to meet the one and only Katherine Paterson on an afternoon in September.  Also, that afterward we were disappointed - horrible ingrates that we are - because she clearly didn't want to talk with us about her books while we were there.  Moreover, that Michele and I afterwards put our heads together and came up with a belated list of questions to ask her, which I emailed to her.  Additionally, that I received no response for weeks.  And finally, that KP ended up responding to my email after all, telling us she didn't have time to answer our questions, but that she would try to send us "something" instead.  Which turned out to be two copies of her recently-published memoir, STORIES OF MY LIFE.

  I've finished reading my copy now, and here's my review: many stories, much life.  I thought I knew my fair share about KP before, having been more-or-less obsessed with her and her books for many years, and now HAVING BEEN TO HER HOME.  (Okay, I confess: when I used her bathroom I was sorely tempted to rifle through her medicine cabinet and steal a KP-purchased Q-tip or something.  But my conscience won out.  Barely.)

     Well, it turns out that I didn't know much about her before after all, and I know a lot more now - all of it G-rated (she was a minister's wife, not a Hollywood starlet), much of it frank nonetheless and tinged with self-deprecating humor.  There's quite a bit of old-Southern-family history; quite a bit more of globetrotting-missionary-parents history, including her own early childhood in China; a very satisfying collection of family photos; and a respectable dose of her four years living as a missionary in Japan and her ensuing 50 years of married life, children, pets, and writing career.  And the book ends with a deeply poignant description of her beloved husband's final illness and death, and what she learned from living through those experiences.
     And now I want to give this book away, and I can't really explain why except to say that I think KP would want me to.  If you look at her Facebook page, you'll see immediately that she is (at 84) a fully engaged citizen of the world, and that sharing is what she does and what she approves of.  I don't think I'll read KP's memoir again unless someone decides to give me a pop quiz on her life, which seems fairly unlikely, so I will happily share my read-but-pristine copy with a lucky winner and fellow Patersonphile.  Here's the deal:  leave a comment on this post naming your favorite Katherine Paterson book, with a brief explanation as to what makes that book stand out for you.  I'll choose my favorite comment and ship the book to the commenter, no matter where he or she lives. The contest begins now and ends next Sunday, the 29th, at 11 p.m. Eastern time.  Please enter, and tell your friends about it!  I hate running giveaway contests and getting only a handful of entries!!
     GO.

A.S. KING'S GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

     Some novelists serve you the literary equivalent of comfort food.  They tread familiar territory, create characters that aren't that different from everyone you know.  During the course of the story they'll shake things up a little bit, because that's what novelists are required to do, but in the end they focus on reassuring you that the world is pretty much the place you always thought it was, and that everything is going to turn out okay.
     A.S. King is not that kind of novelist.  Is there such a thing as discomfort food?  Because if there is, that's her specialty.  All your go-to dishes are off the menu at this restaurant.  In fact, there is no menu.  You just walk in, sit down, and assume that whatever food you've never even considered trying is what the waiter is going to bring you.  And that once you've swallowed your squeamishness, you're going to eat every bite on your plate and then lick off all the sauce that remains.

    
     Glory is mere days away from her high school graduation, and has made no plans beyond that event: no college, no job, no waiting period, no nothing.  Since Glory's mother committed suicide 13 years earlier, Glory has been stuck in the present tense, as has her father.  Both of them seem to believe that by having allowed Darla O'Brien to slip away from them, they have both forfeited the right to a personal future.
     Glory's friend/not friend Ellie isn't in a great situation either.  Her mother, who has never been known to take no for an answer, decided years ago that Ellie would be homeschooled by her, but now doesn't seem interested in declaring Ellie ready to graduate.  So Glory and Ellie do what any teenagers would do under similar circumstances.  They mix  mummified bat powder into beer and drink it.  I wish they would have talked to me first, because every time I've done that, strange things have happened, but teenagers are just so impulsive, aren't they?  So next thing Glory and Ellie know, when they look at someone (a stranger, a classmate, anyone) they can see (sometimes) that person's past, and (sometimes) that person's future.  Except that, oddly, they don't seem to see the same kinds of scenarios as each other.  The things Ellie sees mostly involve the sex life of the person she's looking at, while the things Glory sees mostly involve war.  She sees past wars through the eyes of long-dead participants in them,  but increasingly, she sees glimpses from what she gradually comes to understand is a very specific future war- a second American Civil War, fifty years in the future, waged by men against women and set off by a backlash against increasing progress in women's rights.  And ironically, it's her ability to foresee this nationwide catastrophe that will furnish Glory, at last, with a future all her own.
     This is not my favorite A.S. King novel, in part because her focus here seems so intensely single-minded: all women in the United States are in danger from some men, and woe to us if those men are able to seize more power than they already have.
     The statistics about sexual assault against women in this country are appalling.  Colleges routinely protect assaulters rather than victims, lest the truth get out and hurt their application numbers.  A young woman walking down the street in New York for 10 hours dressed casually in jeans and T-shirt receives more than 100 unprovoked leers, catcalls, and angry comments when she ignores the men who are crudely trying to get her attention.  And over the course of several decades, how many men knowingly covered up Bill Cosby's hobby of drugging and then raping women?
     And yet...  there is a rule of law in this country.  It's terribly flawed, but it's there.  As opposed to, say, El Salvador, where a poor, uneducated woman can get sentenced to prison for 30 years if she has a miscarriage and cannot disprove that it was the result of an attempted (illegal) abortion.  Or Afghanistan, where marriages to much older men are commonly forced on barely-pubescent girls who are beaten, or worse, if they try to escape.
     I don't think America's second civil war will be fought over the rights of women.  I think if it comes, it will be about race, much as the first one was, because in the past 150 years we just haven't  evolved enough to understand the consequences of continuous mass oppression.
     Not that the merits of this book depend on my views of whether the scenario it depicts is likely to occur.  I do feel, though, that King gives some of her characters and their development unchar-acteristically short shrift as she lets herself veer toward didacticism.
     Still, A.S. King remains A.S. King: wildly inventive, entirely original, with no speck of sentimentality but oceans of big, generous heart.  Every word she writes is worth reading.
     So.  I would like to pass my copy of GLORY O'BRIEN on to someone who has just read my description of it and now desperately wants to read it.  I'm doing this by way of a contest, and to enter, all you have to do is leave a comment telling me why.  What about this story speaks to you?  What do you hope to find in it?  I'm not going to post a deadline; that's going to depend on the quantity and quality of responses I get.  But I will say that once I declare the contest over, if I choose your answer over all others, I'll send you my copy of the book no matter where you live.  Do you see any down side to this?  No, you don't, because there isn't any.  I can't wait to read your comments.

JODY CASELLA INTERVIEW & BOOK GIVEAWAY

COME MEET JODY CASELLA, AUTHOR OF THE DEBUT NOVEL THIN SPACE!

     According to Jody's official bio:

     Ohio-based Jody Casella has been writing stories since the age of seven. She majored in creative writing at Rhodes College and has an MA in English from the University of Memphis. After many years teaching and raising children, she's thrilled to be making her debut with THIN SPACE (Beyond Words/Simon & Schuster), a paranormal YA mystery about a boy coming to terms with his twin brother's death.

    

THIN SPACE debuted in September 2013, and has garnered some excellent editorial reviews, as I've noted in my previous post.  Jody has graciously agreed to be interviewed here and answer some of my (and, I hope, your) most burning questions.  Here's our interview:

 

1.         Jody, congratulations on the publication of your debut YA novel, THIN SPACE, and on all the wonderful reviews it’s gotten!  What was your first germ of an idea for this book, and how long ago did it invade your brain?

 

Thanks for the congrats! Let me tell you, this book was a long time coming. The germ of the idea was really two germs that wormed their way around in my head over many years. First, I came across an article about Celtic "thin places" --places where the wall between our world and the world of the dead is thinner. I thought that would be a cool premise for a story and I tucked it away--literally--I ripped the article out and folded it up and stuffed it in my purse. Around the same time, I was picking my son up from school one afternoon and noticed a teen boy stepping off the bus barefoot. It was winter, so that was disturbing, and my son informed me that this kid walked around everywhere barefoot, including at school. I'm not exactly sure what the alchemy is behind the creation of a story, but those two seemingly unrelated ideas, the Celtic thin places and the Barefoot Boy, mixed together when I began writing the first draft of Thin Space six years ago.

 

2.         Your protagonist’s circumstances rank pretty high on the extremity scale:  not only did his identical twin brother die a few months earlier in a car accident, but he himself was the one driving.  Were you ever afraid while you were writing this book of the depths of pain you would have to plumb?  What techniques did you use to keep yourself going when you didn’t want to?

 

When I started writing the book I didn't know what my main character's conflict was. I knew he was walking around barefoot. I knew he was hiding something and acting crazy, but that's about it. By the time I did figure it out, I was sucked too far into the story to pull back, but it was tempting. I heard an editor talk at a conference once about how many writers pull back in their writing just as the story is getting closer to the core of what it is about. In other words, they chicken out. They don't write the climax the story has been surging toward all along. I had the editor's words in my head when I was writing Thin Space, and thought, you know what? THIS time I am going all in. I am letting this book go where it wants to go.

 

3.         You’re an Italian girl!  How did you first hear of thin spaces?  Do you know a lot about Irish myths and legends (I am a HUGE fan of them), or did you just stumble on this one accidentally?

 

This question makes me laugh because I don't think of myself as Italian. Okay, I can make a decent spaghetti sauce. If you read my blog, you will know that I have confessed about my lack of what I call the "Italian Cleaning Gene." I am working on making peace with this! As far as Celtic legends go, I mentioned earlier how I had stumbled upon the article about thin places. I did do more research later, but in no way am I an expert. (Now, I am filing away the fact that you are...)

 

 

4.         In case there is anyone reading this interview who thinks that “debut novel” is synonymous with “first novel,” would you like to comment on the difference between the two, both generally and specifically with regard to your own experience?  (You’ve done such a great job on your own blog interviewing published authors about their successful “pathways to publication.”  I thought I’d turn the tables on you!)

 

One of my favorite questions to ask authors is how many books they wrote before getting their first publishing deal. I was sitting next to Jerry Spinelli at a conference and he told me four, which made me feel immensely better. Thin Space, for the record, is my sixth book. Most writers I've asked have similar responses. In fact, I have only met one person who answered that her first published book was the first book she had written. No one wants to hear this when they are starting out, but it may take writing a novel (or writing several novels) to learn how to write a novel.

 

 

5.         What were some of your favorite books when you were a kid/teen?  Who are some of your favorite current YA authors?  How have your tastes changed, and how have they stayed the same?

 

The YA pickings were slim when I was teen. I read Judy Blume, of course. Also, Ellen Conrad and Marilyn Sachs. I devoured the VC Andrews books, like most girls I knew. At age twelve I jumped into adult books--Stephen King, my mother's Sidney Sheldon books. I read anything and everything and was probably the only student in my English class who loved the classics we were assigned. Now my favorite authors are Sara Zarr, John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, Meg Rosoff, and Courtney Summers. I'm a little pickier about what I read and I have a harder time shutting my writer/editor voice up and simply falling into a story, which bugs the heck out of me.

 

6.         You’ve written in your blog about your discomfort with taking long road trips alone, but about how you’ve faced it down in order to travel for school and library visits to publicize your book.  Are there other ways you can think of in which having a book out has helped you on a personal level?  Are there any other ways in which it’s made your life more difficult or more complicated than it was before?

 

Yes, I think I have finally gotten past my solo driving phobia. I just got back from a 1200 mile+ trip a few weeks ago and the other day I drove 3 hours and thought it was nothing. I was almost annoyed at how little of my audio CD I could listen to in that short period of time.

 

Having a book out--which was my life long dream--has been a pretty gratifying experience. But now I am realizing that it is only the beginning. I started my blog On the Verge because I wanted to chronicle what it felt like to be on the verge of publication. When my book came out, one of my friends said, "Well, now you're going to have to change the name of your blog." The funny thing is I still feel like I am on the verge. I have a book out, but I want to have MORE books out. I am still learning about my writing process and about the publishing and promotional side of this business. It's hard--the writing, the revising, the promoting--everything. And it doesn't get any easier the longer that I do it.

 

7.         Can you talk a little bit about what you’re working on now, and how far along you are with it?  How do you divide your time between current projects, marketing of THIN SPACE, and popping up on social media?

 

I am working on the fourth draft of a novel that I started about five years ago. I'm never good at describing projects while I am in the middle of them, but this one is a fantasy--very different from Thin Space--with multiple POVs. Sort of a mash up between environmental disaster and Greek mythology. It's a big mess that keeps getting messier but something about the story won't let me go.

 

I still haven't got the hang of how to balance writing time with promoting. So, if anyone has advice, I'd love to hear it!

 

8.         What’s the best thing a kid you’ve met on your tours has said to you, either about THIN SPACE or about anything else?  And on the flip side, what’s your favorite thing to talk to kids about on your stops?

 

I've gotten the nicest responses from kids and each class I visit I am blown away by the level of discourse and engagement. These kids--even 10 year olds--are asking me things like: "What happens when you introduce a character in the first few chapters and later realize you've forgotten about her?" Or: "What's your strategy for dealing with writer's block?"

 

My favorite thing to talk about with beginning writers is revision. I know this sounds like a boring topic, and typically, kids--and most adults too--HATE revision. But I love it and I love sharing revision tips I've picked up along the way. I think some people are under the impression that books just plop out, perfectly. They compare their first drafts to a professional writer's finished copy (which could be a tenth draft!) and the comparison is always going to make them feel bad. They have these complicated, beautiful ideas in their heads, and what ends up on the page doesn't match that, and it's discouraging. I like to tell them that all writers struggle with the process, and each time you go back into your story you are getting closer and closer. It's your story, I say to them, and you are the only one who can tell it. So, don't give up.


     THANK YOU, Jody, for being so generous and informative!  I love that Jody is refreshingly open and honest about her journey to publication.  For an embarrassingly long period of my life, I believed that authors sprang fullblown out of adolescence and onto the writing scene.  Only in recent years have I become aware of the often-long, often-arduous process of perfecting one's craft day by day - or, in Ann Lamott's perfect metaphor, "bird by bird."  It helps me so much to be able to get a glimpse of how the whole thing actually works.  I hope it helps you too.

     Jody's social media contacts are as follows:

Website On the Verge: Jodycasella.com  http://www.jodycasella.com/

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jody-Casella/191539730927143

Twitter https://twitter.com/jodcase

Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6625104.Jody_Casella

 

 

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                                                 BOOK GIVEAWAY CONTEST    

 

And now for Part II of this post!  Jody is sending me an autographed copy of THIN SPACE, which I will be giving away to a lucky contest winner.  Here's the deal:  Leave a comment telling me a little bit about someone you've lost in one way or another, and whom you wish you could contact in order to complete some unfinished business between the two of you.  I'll accept entries any time between now and next Saturday, February 16th, at midnight Eastern time.  I'll then choose my favorite entry and send out the autographed copy of THIN SPACE to said entrant, wherever he or she lives.  Good luck, and may the thin spaces be ever in your favor!

 

UPCOMING INTERVIEW WITH JODY CASELLA

     Jody Casella's debut YA novel, THIN SPACE (Simon Pulse/Beyond Words), was released in September 2013 and has garnered some stellar reviews.  Kirkus Reviews (not known for excessive gushing) called it "a creepy supernatural chiller [that] sets up a gut-punch of desolation and loss...  Brutal and brilliant."  The School Library Journal deemed it "a spooky story of the highest order."  And Jody, who blogs regularly at On the Verge and periodically at YA Outside the Lines, has kindly agreed to answer some of my interview questions about THIN SPACE, her writing life, and what's next on her drawing board.  Please stay tuned here!  I expect to be able to post the interview within the next few weeks, and I also expect that it'll be a supernaturally good one!

p.s.  To add another dimension (mwooohahahahaha), there will be a book giveaway too....

NEXT BOOK GIVEAWAY IS ON DECK!

     Yes, I've acquired an autographed first edition that I'm going to (1) read, and then (2) give away to some lucky contest winner.  Just got back an hour ago from my jaunt into Manhattan to hear co-authors Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando read from and talk about their new YA novel, ROOMIES (Little, Brown, December 2013) at McNally Jackson Bookstore.  (I didn't get a photo, but Farrin Jacobs did; see tweet @farrinj.) Here are some things I learned about the novel and the process that produced it.   There are two main characters, both of whom have just learned that they've been assigned to share a dorm room two  months hence when they'll be starting their freshman years at Berkeley. Authors Sara and Tara (doesn't that sound like a pair of twins whom their mother dresses identically, virtually ensuring that they'll end up in therapy?) each assumed responsibility for one of the characters.  Elizabeth in New Jersey (Tara) and Lauren in San Francisco (Sara) narrate alternating chapters, and each chapter includes at least one side of an ongoing e-mail exchange between the two.  What I found fascinating is that the _ara Sisters did not really collaborate while writing the book.  Instead, one would finish writing her own chapter, email it to the other _ara, and then wait for the next chapter to be emailed back.  They didn't really discuss the process along the way.  Each trusted the other enough to follow wherever she might lead.  Each had other "front-burner" book projects going the whole time, and they were having fun writing ROOMIES and didn't take this back-burner project too seriously until it was done.  That's when they sat back and appraised it and lo, they saw that it was good.  So they revised, and then sent it to their respective agents.  And lo, the agents saw that it was good, and Little, Brown saw that it was good.  And the rest of the story isn't history yet, because the book has just been released.
     I've reviewed Sara's THE LUCY VARIATIONS here, and I mentioned her again here.  I'm a great admirer of her writing.  I'm sorry to say I'd never heard of Tara until tonight, but as I've now learned here, she's the author of quite a few well-received YA novels.  Her most recent, THE BEST NIGHT OF YOUR (PATHETIC) LIFE, was published by Dutton in 2012, and her next out will be THE BATTLE OF DARCY LANE (Running Press Kids, April 2014). 
     So this is a teaser.  Now there are two fabulous events to watch out for here: the ROOMIES giveaway, after I've finished reading it, and on January 25th, the Holly Schindler vlogstop.
    
HEY, KIDS!!  DO WE HAVE FUN HERE AT TAONGP, OR WHAT????

IT'S A POST and A BOOK GIVEAWAY!!

     It's definitely time for me to do another book giveaway (I have a sixth sense for such things), and I know just the book. Maureen Johnson's second Shades of London YA novel, THE MADNESS UNDERNEATH, is coming out next week. So if you haven't yet read Book #1, THE NAME OF THE STAR, isn't it high time you did? Exactly. Here is the deal: I follow Maureen Johnson on Twitter and find her so snarkily hilarious that I've developed a serious girl-crush on her. As a result, I recently bought, and read, TNOTS (surely it's obvious that those are the title's initials) despite knowing full well that paranormal is not my thing. Well, I'm here to report that the book is clever and fast-paced and well-written and atmospheric, but paranormal is still not my thing. So it seems to me that there is no sense in my holding on to my copy of TNOTS (which is in excellent condition) when someone other than me could win it, and read it, and love it, and then go out and snatch up the sequel.
     Which brings me to: the rules.  If you want to enter, leave a comment on this post describing your top three literary associations with the city of London. They can be authors, or individual books, or characters in books, or a combination thereof. Do your best to make me feel what you feel, both about your choices and about London itself.  I will choose, in my own purely subjective method, my favorite comment, and I will immediately send my copy of TNOTS (yes, I really like those initials) winging its way to you, wherever you live, at my expense.  You have from now until this Friday, March 22nd, at midnight East-coast time, to post your comment. Okay? GO!!!