Look what I got today . . .
And as you can see, I ignored the label. Bwah-hah-hah! (But seriously, don’t try this at home, or especially at your bookstore. I’m what you call an expert, with years of training that keeps me safe.)
Now, some of you have been asking in the comments of my tour details post exactly what my appearances will be like. That is an excellent question!
Here’s roughly how they go:
1) The events are in a bookstore and somewhere between 30 and 100 people show up. These numbers seem to be completely random. (Sometimes at book festivals or other large venues, hundreds appear.) Those who come early sit closer, but no one is turned away! You can always buy my books at my appearances.
2) First I do a half-hour talk about how Leviathan came to be, and how Keith and I work together. This presentation has many slides of his boo-tiful art, which allow me to make hilarious visual jokes! Later in the tour, my schtick is smoother, but it is always stirring.
3) Next I answer all your burning questions about everything—the Leviathan series, the Uglies books, the Midnighters and New York trilogies, my adult books, writing advice, or whatever you want to know. Pro tip: Raise your hand early on when everyone else being a weenie, and your question will be answered.
4) I sign stuff. This can take a while, but your patience is rewarded by me signing pretty much anything put in front of me. I pose for pictures too. In case of very long lines, some stores have rules, like, two things signed for every book you buy there. And I would strongly encourage you to buy at least one book at the store hosting the event. I mean, it’s in your interest to keep them in business! (But please come up and say hi, even if you are penniless.) And please assume I don’t how to spell your name, even if it’s “Rick.”
5) Sometimes Justine is there. If you like her books and say so to her, she will not harm you. She may even sign things or amuse you in other ways. But there are no guarantees!
That’s it, really. So if you live in or near . . .
Exton, PA
West Chester, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Glen Rock, NJ
Houston, TX
Allen (near Dallas), TX
Austin, TX
New Orleans, LA
Alpharetta, GA
Decatur, GA
Raleigh, NC
Cincinnati, OH
Ft. Thomas, KY
Naperville, IL
Novi, MI
Ann Arbor, MI
Provo, UT
Paris or Nantes, France
Miami, FL
or Vancouver, Canada . . .
then please check out my Appearance page for when I’ll be there.
See you on tour!
Here are the long-awaited details of the Behemoth tour!
NOTE: This only goes through the end of October. In November I’ll be going to Miami, FL; Vancouver, Canada; and Nantes and Paris, France.
ALSO: Behemoth comes out in ONE WEEK in the US. And in THREE DAYS in the UK. And on the 12th in Australia!
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5
7:00PM
Barnes & Noble
301 Main Street
Exton, PA 19341
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6
7:00PM
Chester County Books
975 Paoli Pike
West Chester, PA 19380
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7
7:00
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8
4:00PM
In-store signing at Books, Bytes and Beyond
197 Rock Road
Glen Rock, NJ 07452
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10
1:30 – 2:30PM
New York Comic Con
Javits Center
655 West 34th Street
New York, NY 10001
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12
5:00 PM
Blue Willow Bookstore
14532 Memorial Drive
Houston, TX 77079
October 13 in Jackson, MS is canceled.
SORRY!
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14
7:00PM
Allen Public Library
300 N. Allen Drive
Allen, TX 75013
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16
2:30PM
This is me presenting Behemoth, all alone.
The Sanctuary at First United Methodist Church
1201 Lavaca Street
Austin, TX 78701
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16
8:00PM
This is me in a Zombies Vs. Unicorns debate.
Austin Bat Cave
AAMP Building, 411 West Monroe Street
Austin, TX 78701
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18
4:30PM
Octavia Books
513 Octavia Street
New Orleans, LA 70115
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20
7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble
Mansell Crossings Shopping Center
Alpharetta, GA 30022
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21
7:00PM
The Little Shop of Stories
133A East Court Square
Decatur, GA 30030
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22
5:30PM
Quail Ridge Bookstore
3522 Wade Avenue
Raleigh, NC 27607
MONDAY, OCTOBER 25
7:00PM
Joseph Beth Booksellers
2692 Madison Road
Cincinnati, OH 45208
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26
4:30PM
Blue Marble Bookstore
1356 South Fort Thomas Avenue
Ft. Thomas, KY 41075
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27
7:00PM
Anderson’s Bookshop
123 West Jefferson
Naperville, IL 60540
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28
7:00PM
Borders
43075 Crescent Blvd.
Novi, MI 48375
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29
7:00PM
Ann Arbor District Library
343 South Fifth Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30
12:00PM
Provo County Library
550 North University Avenue
Provo, UT 84601
Check it out:
In case you didn’t already know, Zombies Vs. Unicorns comes out September 21. It’s a collection of short stories—half zombie, half unicorn—by some YA authors you may have heard of, including me!
Team Zombie: Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Carrie Ryan, and me.
Team Unicorn: Meg Cabot, Garth Nix, Kathleen Duey, Diana Peterfreund, Naomi Novik, and Margo Lanagan.
There will also be a LIVE ZVU DEBATE here in NYC, at Symphony Space on September 23. Here are the details.
In Other News, Uglies fans might want to check out the free-this-week essay over at SmartPop. It’s called “Team Shay,” and is by Diana Peterfreund.
That’s it from me, except to say send in some fan art! Don’t let another Fan Art Friday go by in sadness!
Back in the US for two measly weeks, and already I’m getting back on a plane. To Chicago!
On Monday night I have a public event at Anderson’s Bookshop in Napierville with D. J. MacHale, author of the Pendragon series.
Here are the details:
Monday, April 26
7:00PM – 8:30PM
Scott Westerfeld & D. J. MacHale Joint Event
Anderson’s Bookshop
123 W. Jefferson • Naperville, IL 60540
Anyone can come to this event!
On Tuesday, though, I’m headed to the International Reading Association’s annual do, where I’ll be speaking on a panel and signing. You must have an event pass to get in to these next events (which means you’re probably a librarian or English teacher or something cool like that).
Tuesday, April 27
9:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Symposia: “The Illustrated Teen: An Intersection of Text and Image in Contemporary Young Adult Literatureâ€
Featuring Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black, Henry Neff, Stephen Emond, and Elizabeth Patridge
Educators: Lisa Morris-Wilkey and Susannah Richards
Location: McCormick Place South Building • Room S403b
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Signing at the Simon & Schuster Booth (#1725)
Hope to see some of you Chicago folks there!
Update:
I’ll also be at Books of Wonder in NYC tomorrow, with Sarah Mylonowski, Justine Larbalestier, and D.J. MacHale!
Saturday, April 24
Noon-2PM
Books of Wonder
18 W. 18th St
New York, NY
BONUS Update:
Just got a sneak preview of the Italian cover for Leviathan. Non è molto
bella?
A Russian fan recently directed me to this site, which gives a full accounting of books by my Russian alter-ego, Скотт ВеÑтерфельд. (Technically, Скотт is not an alter-ego, given that he is, in fact, me. But I prefer to imagine him as an actual other person, reading this post and chuckling as he consumes champagne and caviar, surrounded by all the author’s copies that my Russian publishers never bother to send me.)
I’ve always enjoyed Скотт’s covers, which have a pulpish fabulosity that makes my own covers seem restrained, almost priggish, in comparison. So I thought a series of posts examining his work would be fun.
Let’s look first at Скотт’s Midnighters series. These books have had no fewer than three separate sets of covers. Whether this is because Скотт is astonishingly popular or simply because this series has never gained traction, I have no idea. (Someone would have to send me some royalty statements in order for me to take a guess. Hint, hint.)
Anyway, here are the first two Midnighters covers, published in 2006:
These covers are fairly true to the books in their details (13-pointed stars, small-town buildings, all sort of metal weaponry) but the central figures are somewhat bizarre. First note that Jonathan Martinez (um, Hispanic) and Jessica Day (textually a red head) are both blond and blue-eyed here. That’s whitewashing in its most aggressive form—Aryanization.
Also odd is the subway train looming up behind Dess in Book 2. Note to Russian artist: there are no subways in Bixby, Oklahoma. The stimulus bill wasn’t that big.
But it turns out that these covers have been replaced, so let’s move on. This is what they looked like in 2008:
Holy guacamole, that’s a different look. The whitewashing is pretty much over with Jonathan, and Jess has arguably reddish hair. Of course, everyone is suddenly in bondage leather, which might not be strictly canonical (or even purchasable in small-town Oklahoma). But the energy in these covers is lovely.
I also like that Dess is on Book 1, while Jessica and Jonathan have been moved to Book 2. Because everyone likes Dess better. Plus, this Dess is much more awesome than wimpy oop-I-fell-over Dess from the first set of covers.
But this take on the series didn’t last either. A little book called Сумерки came out, which was about some dude who sparkled, and there was a sudden call for everything to look a bit more . . . vampire-y.
So these are the books in their current form:
A little more urban fantasy, and apparently a bit more successful, given that we finally have a cover for Book 3 in this style:
So . . . Buffy. And yes, Jonathan has been white-washed again, but without blond hair at least.
It’s worth noting that these three covers have the least to do with the books. The 2006 and 2008 covers could be stared at after reading the books, and you’d find lots of little easter eggy details from the text. These are more generic.
Which brings me to a broader point: Everyone in marketing says that the most important thing a cover can do is sell the book to someone who knows nothing about the novel. In other words, a cover is merely advertising space, and doesn’t need to be true to the text, just eye-catching. But this notion misses what happens over the longer term.
If we readers can return to the cover after we’ve bought and consumed the novel and find new connections between word and image, it strengthens our bond with the book and the series as a whole. And the most important advertising for any novel is, after all, a satisfied reader. I wish publishers would get over the whole first-impression thing and think harder about long-term relationships. (Indeed, it would probably be nice if everyone would do this about almost everything. But that’s a bigger issue.)
In other words, I like the second set of covers best, pulp-tastic and yet mostly true to the story, and full of details from the text. Midnighters is, after all, more about kicking darkling ass than sparkly romance.
One day, my Russian publishers may send me royalty statements, and I can tell you whether or not this theory is full of bosh.
And for those of you who don’t know the Midnighters series, here are the current US covers:
I’ll be blogging the Russian Peeps, Uglies, and other covers soon. There are also a new set of UK covers for Midnighters in the works, and I’ll be touching on those as well.
Till then, enjoy.
I just got a new telescope. It’s happily snoozing in the guest room at the moment, and doesn’t wish to be photographed, but here’s a picture of the moon I took with it last night. This was with my iPhone camera held up to the eyepiece, so you’d think it would suck. But my telescope makes even this silly procedure AWESOME.
Observe:
That’s a tiny bit of the moon, because from now on I am magnified. Must now learn the names of all the craters and snack bars on the moon.
Here are Four Other Things of possible interest:
Thing 1
The Uglies series is launching in Brazil this week, complete with a really cool website:
I love the look and feel of it, and hope it does well for my publisher there, Editora Record. If you speak any Portuguese, check it out here.
Thing 2
Just noticed that Behemoth has an Amazon page now, but no cover. (Amusing reviews for some other book are there at the moment.)
Thing 3
Justine are about to head back to NYC, where we have an event for Read This, a charity that collects books for people who need them, including schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, troops overseas, etc.
Justine Larbalestier, Bennett Madison,
Scott Westerfeld, & Cecily von Ziegesar
Reading and Q&A
12:30PM-1:15PM, Saturday, 10 April
Center for Fiction
17 E. 47th Street, Second floor
(between Madison & Fifth Ave.)
NY NY
The price of admission? Your donation of two or more new or gently used board books through grade 12. Cool idea, huh?
Thing 4
The next New York Review of Science Fiction Readings features three awesome YA authors!
Barry Lyga, Marie Rutkoski, & Robin Wasserman
curated by Carol Cooper
Tuesday, 6 April, Doors open 6:30 PM, event begins at 7:00 PM
SoHo Gallery for Digital Art
138 Sullivan Street (between Houston & Prince St.)
Admission is by a $5 donation. (If circumstances make this a hardship, let them know and they will accommodate you.)
I sort of missed it, but yesterday was Ada Lovelace Day!
Ada Lovelace, of course, is the patron saint of Dess, the hypernumerate character from my Midnighters series. She’s also one of the towering figures in the history of computing, given that she wrote the world’s first computer program . . . back in 1843. This achievement is as amazing as it sounds, given that the computer didn’t exist back then, except in theory. But that didn’t stop Ada.
It’s stories like this that make me realize that history itself can be quite steampunk. That is, ideas and technologies don’t all appear in a neat, predictable order. Sometimes theory gets ahead of practice in ways that are profound and mysterious, and imagination is never limited by the engineering capabilities of the present.
That’s a good thing to remember, so happy belated Ada Lovelace Day.
Also thanks to everyone at Marrickville High School, where I had a great visit yesterday. About 40 students (mostly Year 9s, or what us USians call freshmen) were stuck with me for about two hours. That’s a long stretch, but they all stayed focused and smart and full of brilliant questions.
Thanks for a great day, Marrickvillians, and good luck with your NAPLANs.
The Alpha Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Workshop for Young Writers is an annual retreat for twenty young writers (ages 14-19) who spend ten days working with professionals to improve their craft. It’s an awesome workshop, especially this year, because Holly Black and Tamora Pierce are two of the tutors.
Now, you may be thinking, I’d like to do that some day! Indeed you can, but not this year, because applications are already closed. However, you can support those who have been accepted this year, a few of whom need financial aid. The organizers are trying to raise a modest $2500 by selling a delightful zombie book called Ned and Zane Jane.
Zombies. Young writers. Brains. What more could you ask for?
Click here to learn more, chip in, and help spread the word. And here to learn more about Alpha.
Make sure to bookmark the spot. Maybe it’ll be you going there next year.
In other charity news, check out Maureen Johnson’s recent post on the work the Harry Potter Alliance is doing. Very awesome stuff.
All times USian. In Australia, we’re talking Thursday, noon Sydney, 9am Perth.
And don’t forget I’ll be hanging out at Readergirlz all month.
In other news, check out the cover of Uglies in its Brazilian Portuguese version.
Starting today and for all of March, Leviathan will be the featured book on Readergirlz.
For those of you who don’t know the site, Readergirlz is a YA and middle-grade book reviews, chats, and inside scoops. Read their manifesta page for more.
For the whole month the site will have features about me and Leviathan, and I’ll be doing a chat there on March 17 (US time):
Hope you get a chance to check it out.
In other news, Leviathan has been short-listed for the Andre Norton Award for outstanding young adult science fiction or fantasy book published in 2009. w00t, and congrats to all the other nominees:
Hotel Under the Sand, Kage Baker
Ice, Sarah Beth Durst
Ash, Malinda Lo
Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev
Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi
When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland, Catherynne M. Valente
Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld
And breaking news: Leviathan has also been short-listed for the Indie Next Book Award for 2010. Let the w00ting be redoubled!
Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Going Bovine, by Libba Bray (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
If I Stay, by Gayle Forman (Dutton Juvenile)
Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, Keith Thompson (illus.) (Simon Pulse)
Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson (Viking Juvenile)
Reminder: Don’t forget, Sydneysiders, that I’ll be launching Foz Meadows‘ debut novel, Solace and Grief this Sunday, March 7. Click here for details.
Shay's Story, a graphic novel version of Uglies, is OUT NOW!
The Uglies series has been adapted into graphic novel form, with the events of the trilogy told from Shay's point of view in three volumes.
The first one comes out March 6, 2012!
Click here to contact Scott Westerfeld.
Jill Grinberg
Jill Grinberg Literary Management
info@grinbergliterary.com
