Hey, sorry it’s been so long between posts. Justine and I were at Conjure up in Brisbane over the weekend. It was the Australian national sf convention, and a great time was had by all.
The most hilarious thing was the Juvenalia panel, in which Justine, Kim Wilkins, Sean Williams and I all read from our childhood and teenage writings. And oh, my, god was it funny. For the audience, at least. A friend of ours later said, “You guys’ body language got all teenagery as you read, as you madly shifted in your seats and rolled your eyes.”
And with good reason. Maybe I’ll post some of my juvenalia here some time. For any of you young’uns writing now, it will be eye-opening as to how much better you can get.
Kim’s stuff was very sweet and earnest, including a traffic safety guide penned when she was seven(ish). Sean, of course, had planets blowing up (his excellent novel Geodesica: Ascent also won the Ditmar Award at the convention—it is highly recommended). And Justine’s 15-year-old work was eerily like her current stuff.
It was a cool experiment. Yay to Kim for having the idea.
Upon our return to lovely Sydney, we discovered a cover mock-up for the Italian version of Uglies! Here it is in very rough form:
What’s interesting is that the face is pulled around from the back of the book, so there are two eyes instead of one. The face is also flipped, and, of course, the title’s on top now. Hmm. What do you guys think?
In Bologna, our Italian editor said she was having trouble with the title. She didn’t think that Brutti was as sonorous as Uglies, but couldn’t think of anything else that would make sense in Italian. But like I said, this is still a rough draft.
By the way, can anyone translate the tag line? Something about “Two rebels, two heroines . . . “?
Due ribelli, due eroine
in lotta per la liberta
in un mundo dove
essere belli e “legge”
According to http://www.freetranslation.com, it roughly translates to:
“Two rebels, two heroines in struggle for the liberta in a mundo where to be attractive and ‘law.’
So now you kind of have an idea of what it means… two brave rebels stuggle in a world where its the law to be attractive.
Two rebellious ones, two heroins in fight for the liberta in a mundo where to be beautiful is law”
Thats is pretty much what I got
*points to first post*
Just said the exact same thing…
yea, i dont really have time to translate right now, but i do want to say that I WOULD LOVE YOU TO POST UR JUVENALIA! JUSTINES WOULD ROCK TOO! please please please please please! ok i think i begged enough, lol, but that would be totally bubbly to the maximum capacity (sorry, i have been dabbling with slang since the previous post, lol). so yea, that would be great, but i have to go, so thanks for posting, im glad u had fun! bye
the cover is cool, it kinda funkafied her lips tho.
i got ‘Two rebels, two heroins battles about it for the liberta in a mundo where to be beautiful and “it reads” ‘ mine is way off. i mean ‘it reads’?? what is up with that? dont use babel fish translator, it sucks.
You mean ‘mondo’, not ‘mundo’, where mondo is indeed ‘world’. 🙂
Mundo is Spanish. I think.
yes it would definitely be awesome to read some of your juvenalia, so please do post some.
Ohh… some of your early work would be awesome. About the cover, something in the picture seems off… I think it’s the mouth. Whatever it is, it makes it uncomfortable to star at the cover… maybe this will encourage to open it and read it so they don’t just stand there staring at it?
I could translate French, but I dunno about Italian… “mondo” should be world, because in French it’s “monde” and they’re both romance languages, while “liberta” would be like “libre,” or “free”. And “belli” should be belle or beau, beautiful. I wonder if “lotta” is related to risk and lottery.
I’d love to read some of your juvenalia. I think mine is pretty funny, and I’m sure even my recent stuff will seem lame when I’m older.
Due ribelli, due eroine
in lotta per la liberta
in un mundo dove
essere belli e “leggeâ€
Two rebels, two heroines
struggle for their freedom
in a world where
to be beautiful is law
Wow, I never noticed with my copy, but her face really is asymmetrical. I think it’s a pretty (pun noticed and not intended) good cover with a cool tagline.
“Maggie Says:
April 21st, 2006 at 12:16 pm
According to http://www.freetranslation.com, it roughly translates to:
‘Two rebels, two heroines in struggle for the liberta in a mundo where to be attractive and “law.”‘ ‘”
Well mundo is world in Spanish, so I supposse that’s what that is… liberta must be freedom or liberty of some kind… but that’s all I can add…
btw I like that cover, but I like the American one better…
Just if everyone doesn’t get it, the lips are wierd because the picture is half of her face, the other half a mirror image of that side of the face. Something to do with stress in childhood is why your face isn’t symetrical. And that explaination was for people who don’t get what was meant by “asymmetrical” in an earlier post.
Hey, Scott. I have recruted a new Westerfan at Barns+Noble. Well, mybe not fan (yet!) but I got her to buy Uglies.
To add to what ambereyes said, I’ve got all of my friends reading these books and dying for Specials.
Same.
This woman who I’ve never met asked me what my favorite books are. Nothing to “intimate” as she put it. But anyway, I was all “Yeah, your kid should read Uglies. It’s really good. Even some of my friends (who don’t like sci-fi) like it” I sounded just like a commercial. It was pretty funny. I
lol same here, i recommended uglies, pretties, and so yesterday to a friend for his daughter…and she’s really excited about reading them. That’s how word gets spread. tell ur friends, and ur friends tell their friends….got our own little advertising circle going on….lol.
The cover looks good, but I like the American one better. And I would love to read some of your junvenilia!
Is there any chance you could come to Oklahoma?
Oh, oh, I am having a GREAT idea!!! What if we got a bunch of authors to post their juvenile/teen writings at a website? Diary entries…. first poems…. first short stories… Game?
I think that the Italian cover is cool but i like the us and uk ones better.
I agree, having the whole fave takes away some of the mystery, and the emotion is felt stronger when you can only see half of the face. I think the title on the top is good tho!
I got it! it translates to:Two rebellious ones, two eroinein fight for libertain a mundo to have beautiful and “read”
When I translated Brutti is was Ugly, not Uglies like our book.
i dont lyk that version of the book it looks weird. i lyk the regular 1
yeah, i like reguar.
i don’t know but the way
how it is sort of changes
her eye colour.
unless they just made them brighter green.
and her face looks sort of dimented
Pulling around the cover ruins the effect. Before it had the whole ‘two different sides of the face’ thing going for it, which alludes to some content in the book about the doubling each side for the basis of the makeover program, but now it’s just a slightly distorted photo of a, to be honest, pretty girl hiding amongst some greenery. The half face had much more impact and was far more visually pleasing.
Two rebels, two heroins in fight for the freedom in to world where you are to be beautiful and “?â€
that’s what i got
by the way, on the cover of Uglies is it Tally or Shay?
Two rebels, two heroins in a fight for freedom in a world where beauty is law
i tried again and that’s what i got