I Will Not Mention Dorothy or Toto (Other Than Here)

On Thursday, I arrived in Wichita for the Kansas Association of Teachers of English (KATE) conference. While saying "Kansas Association of Teachers of English" may sound awkard, I'll assume it's grammatically correct.

When John and Bryan picked me up (they're both English teachers...I mean, teachers of English), they took me straight to the Cosmosphere.


All three of us are space nerds, and when they found this out about me, they made sure to include this in my visit. And it was, for lack of a better English word, awesome! First of all, the museum has a moon rock. This little lunar nugget was protected by several sensors and flashing lights, so I even felt a bit nervous getting this close to photograph it.


Something I had never heard about, or just don't remember being taught in American History, are USSR pennants that reached the moon a decade before we stepped on it. When one of these hit the moon, it scattered the tiny metal plates all over the surface.


Maybe you've heard of something called Apollo XIII. But have you ever wondered where you could see the Command Module Odyssey for yourself? Well, it's in Kansas, of course!


And now, here's a picture of the Spacenutz.


The hotel where we stayed, and the location of the conference, was having a pumpkin contest between the different staff groups. This is only a sampling of their very creative pieces...





But I wasn't here for Kansas'/Kansas's (whatever!) spacepumpkin goodness. I was here for the conference, which involved meeting the 2011 Newbery Medal winner, Clare Vanderpool, a native Kansan, Kansian...person from Kansas. (These people who teach English make me nervous.) And I got my copy of Moon Over Manifest signed!


After lunch, it was my turn to speak...


...and sign books.


Well, I'm heading downstairs for KATE's Centennial Celebration Reception, and then a few teachers promised to take me out for some great local ice cream.

Oh, but guess what else I saw in Kansas. An actual NASA disposable absorption containment trunk.

But I like to call them astroboxers!

Book Tour 2011: Austin

The Texas Book Festival was a great way to end my weeklong tour. Even though I've been averaging 4.5 hours of sleep per night since last Sunday, being surrounded by both readers and other authors gave me plenty of energy to sprint through the day.

On the stage of a church, I was a part of panel titled To Ban or Not to Ban: What Is the Question?


Here I am with moderator Judith Platt, and co-panelists David Levithan, Ellen Hopkins, and Jessica Lee Anderson.


We each wore those pink microphones that clip around the ear, run down the cheek, and point to the mouth. For a couple questions, Ellen's microphone didn't work, so I leaned my head next to hers so everyone could hear her. We share an agent, so watching each other's back is much more important than personal space!

Then Ellen and I hopped onto the back of a golfcart (always wanted to do that!) and headed to the hotel where a lot of authors were staying.


There, we bumped into Sarah Dessen.


Do you see why I love literature festivals?

In the evening, teen authors at the conference came together at the beautiful Texas State Cemetery for an event called A Convergence of Souls.

(The cemetery isn't actually painted purple, but I thought this looked creeper!)

It was there that I finally met James Dashner. When Carolyn Mackler and I recorded our videos in Seattle (was that really just last Monday?), Mr. Dashner recorded right after us. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay until he was done. But our paths crossed in a different state only five days later. Crazy!


While I have waited in line to get a couple of books autographed by Louis Sachar, it would've brought up a lot of questions to know that the first time I actually got to talk to him, we'd be standing in a dimly lit cemeterey.


A whole bunch of teens and parents listened to the authors play a couple rounds of story-building, where we were given a genre and the first sentence, then we each went to the microphone and added a sentence. The stories we came up with will never be published, which is a very good thing! A librarian also played a round of Mad Libs using audience suggestions, and another librarian read a story she wrote using titles of books from every author there.


Then I went to one final afterhours bash with several people from Penguin and Joe Schreiber.


In the morning, after another 4.5 hour sleep, I'm finally heading home.

Book Tour 2011: Colorado

For the past two days, I've been running around Colorado. It's my first time in this state, other than a quick layover, and it's absolutely beautiful. Next time, I hope to get more time to stare at those mountains (several hours a day would be nice).

My first stop was Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Collins, which was a very impressive campus to explore.



That night, I spoke at Council Tree Library, with Old Firehouse Books selling the books.


After my presentation, I headed to Old Chicago with my longtime pals, Eric and Anna.


Knowing people around the country means I get taken to the yummiest spots where the locals eat. Check out these nachos!


The next day, I spoke at two schools in Loveland. Loveland High School (with books provided by Anthology Book Company)...



...and Mountain View High School.


I rounded out my trip to Colorado with a signing at Barnes & Noble in Boulder. Upcoming YA author (and sister-in-agency), Emily Hainsworth is seated on the far right.


Today, I'll be in Austin for the Texas Book Festival, which is the last stop on my book tour. It looks like it should be a very fun day.

And then, I'm heading home!

Future Friday #9: Winner

Congratulations to YA Reader for being randomly selected to win the ninth round of Future Friday giveaways! To claim your goodies, send your mailing address to EmmaNelson4Ever@aol.com. If you don't know who Emma Nelson is, you will when you start reading The Future of Us!

If she could experience any week in history, she would go all the way back...to Thursday.

Yes, of this week.

That way, she could let her St. Louis Cardinals know that the 9th inning is going to be rough.

See ya next Friday for another chance to win an Advanced Reader's Copy of The Future of Us!

Future Friday #9: One Week

[To keep the Future Fridays rolling on schedule, I'll highlight both of my Colorado book tour stops (Fort Collins & Boulder) in one post on Saturday.]


To countdown the release of The Future of Us (November 21st!), Carolyn Mackler and I will give away one autographed Advance Reader’s Copy every week. Along with the autographed copy (signed by both of us), we’ll toss in another goodie that's book-related.

For our ninth giveaway, the bonus item is a box of 28 wooden dominoes. Metaphorically, our book is very much domino-related. One character even mentions The Domino Theory while sitting in a pizza restaurant (but not Domino's Pizza, cuz that'd be taking the domino-thing too far). Do you remember the last time you set up a line of dominoes and then watched them all fall? Don't you think it's about time to do it again?


We'll randomly select one person who comments on this Future Friday post to receive both prizes. There’s no need to leave your email address, but do check back on Saturday to see if you’ve won.

This week, we want to take you time traveling. In our book, over one week, Josh and Emma glimpse their lives fifteen years in the future. But we want to know, rather than glimpse your future (which you've already told us about), if you could physically spend one week at any time in history, when and where would it be?

Here are our answers:

JAY:
In the mid-80s, a lot of bands I later worshiped in high school were relatively unknown, playing small clubs in L.A. I'd love to find one week packed with their shows and live out my teen fantasy of seeing them before they got big. But I'd feel so cheesy wasting a time travel opportunity on that. Instead, I'd travel to Philadelphia, beginning on July 2, 1776, and finishing on July 8 when the Declaration of Independence was first read aloud to the public, with bells ringing across the city all day.

CAROLYN:
I would say it's a toss up between a week with Laura Ingalls and her family on the prairie, the summer of 1969 (during the moon landing or Woodstock), and a week of myself in junior high. I would pull myself aside and tell myself who to ignore, what to actually care about, and - for the love of god - scrounge together your allowance and buy real estate in Manhattan!

Book Tour 2011: Minnetonka

In most cities on this tour, the person driving me from event to event is a 'media escort' who's driven a whole bunch of authors/actors/singers around when they're in town. It's fun to hear about the people who once sat in the very same passenger seat as me. But on this stop, I was lucky enough to have my good friend Jessica Freeburg driving me around. Between events, she took me to all the cool spots in the Twin Cities. (At least, they're the coolest spots to me!)

For example, the Mall of America. That place is huge! If you've never heard of it, check out these facts. Yes, they have an amusement park in the mall.


The highlight for me was a place I've been reading about since I was a kid. Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, used to live in an apartment above his dad's barbershop. There's a bar there now, but I've wanted to visit this spot for years...and I finally got the chance!


My inner-child did The Snoopy Dance as I toasted the comics on the wall with a glass of Snoopy's favorite drink. Root beer!


So far on this tour, the Minnetonka public library brought out the biggest crowd, which always translates into more energy (making it harder to fall asleep when I get back to the hotel).


And a big thanks to Wild Rumpus for handling the book sales.


Well, now it's finally time to force myself to get some sleep. Tomorrow is my stop in Fort Collins, where I'm hoping to have dinner with one of my favorite people (who just happens to be an author).

Book Tour 2011: Cincinnati

I've never had this much fun on so little sleep. Last night, I took a red-eye flight from Seattle (11:40pm) to Cincinnati (8:50am) with a brief layover in Chicago. With the three hour time difference, that meant I began the very full day with very little sleep. But the adrenaline kept me movin'!

First stop, Gamble Montessori High School. That place had some of the coolest teachers I've seen, and the students asked some of the best questions. I started by speaking to a group of 7th graders...


...and then a class of seniors.


At the main branch of the Cincinnati & Hamilton County library, which has an awesome waterfall out front...


...I attended a pizza party with members of their reading group. It's not a book club where everyone reads the same book, but everyone talks about their favorite latest reads. And I came away with a few great titles to check out.


Based on consistent recommendations by my Facebook friends, I grabbed a second bite to eat at Skyline Cafe. Chili-covered spaghetti is so yummy!


While my hotel didn't have signed books by authors who've stayed there (like the past two) or funky robes (like the last one), it did have Tent City from the local Occupy Movement (Occupy Cincy) right outside.


Then it was back to the library for the main event.


Joseph-Beth Booksellers handled the book sales, and here I am with Annette from JBB.


Once again, I had a great time speaking to and speaking with everyone who showed up.


And now it's off to bed, because I have to get up a little before 5am.

You're up next, Minnetonka!

Book Tour 2011: Seattle

On the way to catch my flight in the Portland airport, I noticed a great display of original Looney Tunes art. One drawing in particular caught my attention because of its relation to Josh's character in The Future of Us, which (in case I haven't told you lately) I can't wait for you to read!


My hotel room in Seattle, similar to yesterday's hotel, was full of books autographed by authors who had previously stayed there. But this hotel, unlike the other one, also had very funky robes in the closet.


There was a special guest on this leg of the tour, and while she apparently had the same robes in her room, she (for some reason) didn't think of photographing herself in one. Carolyn Mackler flew out from NYC so we could visit the Amazon headquarters...


...and film a video that should be posted on their website soon (I'm sure you all know the address).


After grabbing lunch with local author Kristin Halbrook and coffee with Cat Patrick (where I got an advance copy of her next awesome book!), it was off to the Greenwood Public Library for the main event! (Thanks, University Book Store, for handling the book sales.)


Kristin and Cat were both in the audience, along with my very special co-author. But few people knew Carolyn was also in the audience until near the end of my presentation when I began speaking about our book and introduced her. Then she walked up front (to great applause) to continue the presentation with me, and we each finished about a dozen of the other person's sentences.

Next stop (by myself)...Cincinnati!

Book Tour 2011: Portland

My flight up to Portland was a bit rocky, but it's hard to mind (too much) with views like this...


When I got to my hotel room, there was a copy of Thirteen Reasons Why on the table for me to sign. The Heathman Hotel has a library of books signed by authors who've stayed there. With over 2,000 autographed books that guests can check out during their stay, I added one more.


I went out to brunch with my niece, nephew, and sissy-in-law (Genevieve, Ellory, and Gypsy), then chilled out at the hotel for a few minutes before my first stop on the book tour, Powell's in Beaverton. If you weren't able to make it, shame on you! But...I did sign a bunch of books before I left, so go grab one.


It was a very fun crowd, and they asked great questions (a couple questioners even got an advance reading copy of The Future of Us), which made it a perfect event for my family to attend. Every time the audience laughed, I wanted to turn to my family and say, "Did you see that? They think I'm funny!"

But I played it cool.

As a special bonus, though I was far away from home, one of my friends from high school came out to the event. Great seeing you again, Ron!


This was a wonderful way to kick-off the tour.

You're next, Seattle!

Book Tour Reminder

The first stop on my weeklong book tour is today!

I'll be speaking/signing in 7 cities around the country over the next week, with a few more stops in the weeks to come. So click the Speaking Schedule tab beneath the blogheader to see if I'll be near you. If so, you'd better come and say hi!

And I'll be posting pics throughout the tour, so stay tuned...

Future Friday #8: Winner

Congratulations to YA Book Queen for being randomly selected to win the eighth round of Future Friday giveaways! To claim your goodies, send your mailing address to EmmaNelson4Ever@aol.com. If you don't know who Emma Nelson is, you will when you start reading The Future of Us!

Here are the songs from 1996 that most stand out to Ms. Queen, along with her excellent commentary:

One Headlight by The Wallflowers – I love the lyrics for this one, they always seem to evoke different possible meanings.

Any of Sublime’s songs – always somewhat twisted, but intriguing.

California Love by Tupac – It’s pretty much a law for all Californian’s to love this ;)

King Nothing by Metlallica – the music in this is awesome! :D

And the song that stands out to the most number of commenters is...



See ya next Friday for another chance to win an Advanced Reader's Copy of The Future of Us!

Future Friday #8: Songs

To countdown the release of The Future of Us (November 21st!), Carolyn Mackler and I will give away one autographed Advance Reader’s Copy every week. Along with the autographed copy (signed by both of us), we’ll toss in another goodie that's book-related.

For our eighth giveaway, the bonus item is Sleepover Party Mad Libs. Our main characters, Josh and Emma, probably played Mad Libs during many of their childhood sleepovers. (And yes, the sleepovers stopped long before they became teenagers.)


We'll randomly select one person who comments on this Future Friday post to receive both prizes. There’s no need to leave your email address, but do check back on Saturday to see if you’ve won.

This week, we want to know which songs, good or bad, stand out the most to you that were released in 1996. If you were too young (or too old) to be into music then, you'll still probably know at least a few of these songs.

Here are our answers:

CAROLYN:
As Cool As I Am by Dar Williams because that is such a fun and empowering song. No, it's not a song. It's an anthem!
Crash Into Me by The Dave Matthews Band. I love it. Emma loves it. We all love Dave.
One of Us by Joan Osborne because it's just deep. It is.

JAY:
I Want You by Savage Garden: If this came on, no matter what I was doing, I had to sing the “Chicka-Cherry-Cola” line.
Right Hand Man by Joan Osborne: Just rocks. Her voice is so deep down sexy!
Wannabe by The Spice Girls: My little bro did this in a Mock Rock competition with his friends. He was Posh Spice. You almost couldn’t hear the song over the screaming audience.

The Danish Edition!

The Indonesian Edition!

Future Friday #7: Winner

Congratulations to Grace Amanda for being randomly selected to win the seventh round of Future Friday giveaways! To claim your goodies, send your mailing address to EmmaNelson4Ever@aol.com. If you don't know who Emma Nelson is, you will when you start reading The Future of Us!

Grace's favorite movie featuring time travel is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.



And the movie chosen by the most number of commenters (as it should've been!)...



Wouldn't you know it, both Back to the Future and Harry Potter get referenced in The Future of Us. Speaking of which, we'll see ya next Friday for another chance to win your own Advanced Reader's Copy!

Future Friday #7: Time Travel Movies

To countdown the release of The Future of Us (November 21st!), Carolyn Mackler and I will give away one autographed Advance Reader’s Copy every week. Along with the autographed copy (signed by both of us), we’ll toss in another goodie that's book-related.

For our seventh giveaway, the bonus items are Bigfoot and Penguin breathmints. No, none of our characters have bad breath. In fact, our fictional world is full of minty fresh mouths. But there is a passing Bigfoot comment in the book, and Penguin is a very cool (pepperminty cool!) publishing house.


We'll randomly select one person who comments on this Future Friday post to receive both prizes. There’s no need to leave your email address, but do check back on Saturday to see if you’ve won.

This week, we want to know your favorite time travel movies. Here's a fairly thorough sampling of those movies from the past. Of course, there will be more great titles added to that list...in the future.

Here are our answers:

JAY:
Back to the Future: Heck, my first skateboard was a Valterra splatterboard, just like the one Marty McFly rolled around on. That's how much I love this movie! Groundhog Day: Everytime I see it, I'm shocked at how perfectly it blends sweet and funny. A Christmas Carol: I can watch and love almost any version of this timeless (HA!) story at any time of the year.

CAROLYN:
Back to the Future because it was completely awesome and we discussed it practically daily while writing The Future of Us. Peggy Sue Got Married because the Nicholas Cage character was such a freakin' mess as an adult, and yet so endearingly cute as a teen. Midnight in Paris, which I haven't seen, but I've been going crazy all summer and fall because I haven't seen it and I know I'll love it. Does that make sense? It doesn't to me either. I should go see it tonight. Unless it's left the theaters.

Backstage to the Future: The Codename

[First in a series of posts about collaborating on The Future of Us with Carolyn Mackler.]


Last year, on April 5, Carolyn sent me a very simple email:

I have a semi-crazy idea to run by you. Now a good time?

I’d given a quote for Carolyn’s latest novel, Tangled, but other than that, we didn’t know each other. Still, she was one of my favorite authors, so of course I wanted to hear her crazy idea. Even though neither of us had ever tried writing a novel with someone else, that was her crazy idea. And since I love crazy ideas, I thought we should give it a shot!

We both knew the collaboration could fall apart. Just because we were fans of each other’s books didn’t mean we could write well together. We wanted to come up with a premise and write a few chapters before letting anyone know what we were up to. If we couldn’t agree upon a premise, or didn’t mesh well creatively, no one would have to know we’d even tried.

To go along with the clandestine feel of the operation, we needed a codename. So we jumbled up the combined letters of JAY ASHER and CAROLYN MACKLER and began referring to this as a project of the…


Carolyn’s Two Cents: My first cent is a question, Jay. Should I read into it that in your first paragraph you wrote Carolyn once followed by crazy three times? Three times! And hey, you have to admit it wasn’t such a crazy idea after all. We had a blast (but more on that later). My second cent is the whole Harmony Alley Carjackers thing. Remember how I originally thought that you scrambled the letters of our names by yourself and I chocked you up as some kind of genius? But then you told me you used a web program to do it. Not that you’re not a genius, of course.

Future Friday #6: Winner

Congratulations to Jasmine for being randomly selected to win the sixth round of Future Friday giveaways! To claim your goodies, send your mailing address to EmmaNelson4Ever@aol.com. If you don't know who Emma Nelson is, you will when you start reading The Future of Us!

If she could re-experience any birthday, Jasmine would go back to her 13th. That year, she got an electric guitar and her parents took her to Radio City Music Hall to see Alicia Keyes and John Legend as a surprise.

And now, for my birthday, you won this contest. Surprise!!!

See ya next Friday for another chance to win an Advanced Reader's Copy of The Future of Us!

Future Friday #6: Birthday

To countdown the release of The Future of Us (November 21st!), Carolyn Mackler and I will give away one autographed Advance Reader’s Copy every week. Along with the autographed copy (signed by both of us), we’ll toss in another goodie that's book-related.


For our sixth giveaway, the bonus item is Tuck Everlasting. Not only is Ms. Babbitt's novel one of our favorites, it even gets mentioned within our own novel.

We'll randomly select one person who comments on this Future Friday post to receive both prizes. There’s no need to leave your email address, but do check back on Saturday to see if you’ve won.

This week, because today is my 36th birthday (Oh, thank you!), we want to know which birthday you'd like to re-experience or pre-experience (yes, pre-experience). If you had a memorable birthday in the past and want another go at it, let us know how old you were and why you want go back. If you're curious about a birthday in the future, let us know how old you'll be and what you hope to learn.

Here are our answers:

CAROLYN: I would time-travel back to my 16th birthday. And not because it was perfect. No, it was anything but. On my 16th birthday, I was in the Bahamas with my dear friend and her mom. Her family had a time-share condo that we were staying in for the week. The night before my birthday, we went out to dinner and I ate something completely non-memorable. But when I woke up in the morning - the morning I turned 16 - I was puking. I puked and puked and puked for my entire 16th birthday. When I wasn't puking I was laying in a dark room with a cool washcloth on my head. At some point, my friend's mom brought out a chocolate cake and maybe put candles in it, but I couldn't even look at it. And that was that. I went to bed for the night. Basically I want to go back to the night before my 16th birthday and not eat that meal and not get food poisoning and then have, yes, my non-puking sweet sixteen.

JAY: I'd love to look fourteen years into the future. I assume my 50th b-day bash will be a biggie, so it'd be nice to see who shows up for the party...and see if I recognize them. (But if someone isn't there, what does that mean?) I'd also like to get a sense of what's going on career-wise at 50. Unfortunately, having spent so much time discussing the issue of future-peeking with Carolyn to write our book, I know the repercussions can totally backfire. But I still want to know!

October Tour Dates

During the 2011 Teen Read Week, I'll be speaking and signing books across the country, flying to six different states. If you live anywhere near one of my stops, I would love to meet you!Location and time specifics are posted at the Thirteen Reasons Why Facebook page, so be sure to Like it to receive all updates. And you can always learn about my upcoming events by clicking the Speaking Schedule tab near the top of my blog.


(If one of you can see an image in the constellation above and give it a good name, I'll use that as the nickname for this tour and send you a signed paperback of Thirteen Reasons Why.)

On Your Mark, Get Set...

Isaiah's 9.5 months old today. Last night he took three steps toward a footstool, which made me about the proudest I've ever been of anyone (after the whole JoanMarie-giving-birth thing).

But then I grabbed the camera and he suddenly felt the pressure because he knew you'd all be watching.

So for now, there's this...