Boston Appearance

Posted on by scott

UPDATE: This event has moved, and is only open to members of the Boston University community!

Something that’s been missing from my appearances page: I’ll be in Boston next Tuesday!

It’s not my usual yakking and signing at a bookstore. Instead, I’ll be one of four in a roundtable discussion of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. The discussion is hosted by the Luce Program of Scripture and Literary Arts at Boston University. The other panelists are Donna Freitas, a BU professor of Religion, Christine Hutchison-Jones, a PhD student at the department, and Jason King, the Chair of Religion at St. Vincent College.

Must think of smart stuff to say.

It looks like it’s going to be fun, and an interesting brain-extension to the Pullman anthology I just edited. But now I must go study for it.

Or maybe I’ll just watch video of toy maglevs.

102 thoughts on “Boston Appearance”

  4. i’m here!! i have no idea what time it is in australian time, but it’s 2:21pm here now, and since i’m homeschooling, i can comment right now!! we spent all day cleaning and cleaning and cleaning to earn money, and i’m really dusty now…i should go wash my hands…

    -u know my sig! :mrgreen:

  5. o yah!! comment 4 and 5!!! come on serafina zane!! where are you?? u just commented like 10 minutes ago!!

    -blah blah blah :mrgreen:

  6. hmmm…i’m alone. i’m sad. 😥
    -blah blah blah 😥

  7. well, since u guys don’t like me, i’ll just leave. goodbye.
    -blah blah blah 😥

  8. (i’ll be back in like 5 minutes cause i’m just cool that way. 8] )
    -blah blah blah 8]
    ps: i hope the 8] thing works…not really sure how 2 make it…

  9. URGH!! IT DIDN’T WORK!!!!
    oh well…
    -blah blah blah :mrgreen:

  11. HEY! GREAT! Too bad I don;t live in Boston!

    Is there any info on auditioning for the Uglies Movie as the part of Tally??!!!???!! ummm for people without agents? Please?

    thanks so insanely icely bubbly mucho much!

  13. oh, now ur back? right after i left?? i’m insulted 😥 😥
    jk!
    -blah blah blah :mrgreen:

  14. ohhhh said in your other post about his dark materials my brother loves them and hes like who is this author your obsessed with(hes a noob) can’t wait to tell him!

  16. haha thats so funny not that your not totally briliant but it must feel strange to be the lowly ya author in a room filled(3) with people with such fancy names but you are on the top of the list 😀

  18. oh nooooo! evil scott, reminding me of studying, which i should be doing for spanish and dont feel like it. grr!

  19. interesting…very…um…interesting?

    yeah, i am clueless as to who those other people are.

    too bad i live to far away from boston for that.

    and i agree with the youtube idea.

  20. oops, used the wrong “to,” it should be “too.” i never use spellcheck on the internet, but the other day i turned it on, and before i had even typed anything this window popped up the said like “your language is set to English (US), but the language at this location resembles Portuguese. would you like to change language to Portuguese?”

    so congratulations, people! apparently we are all from Portugal. or we can at least speak the language.
    :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

  21. Oh darn it! Who can get into Boston at 5 PM on a weekday (I mean, besides the masses of people who work there, and not us poor slobs who work out in the suburbs)?! I’m so bummed I’m going to be missing your Boston appearance. Scott Westerfeld and His Dark Materials…what could be better?!

  23. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Scott-las name is first! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! hehe.

    hey! on here, it says that it shood be my birthday. but really, its not for another 49270 seconds! thats a multiple of 13 for all of you reeeeaaaalllllyyyy sssssllllllooooowwww PEEPS! thats also 13 hours!!!!! boy am i feeling lucky!

    -Lizzy-wa OUT! 😀

  30. you’re finally coming to boston and you’re not even signing?

    we massachusett people are seriously deprived. 🙁

  31. What do they mean by, “A Roundtable Discussion On Religion.” Yes we all know the affliction but is that what its about?

    Well, at least hes going there Emily-wa. I didnt see one tour saying soandso, Texas

  32. Oh ya and for you people who want to know is Elsewhere is good. Uh, let m say, its not like it has a certain point. And it has an aqward plot.Basically, girl dies and in 16 years she will be reborn into another life. The end. And it tell you that in the second chapter. the rest of the book is just her life. Yeah.

  34. Oh w/e something to do with a fight. does it really matter that i barely passed spelling gin 5th grade……
    I’m really bad at spelling, i was writing on the board for class and people were like, you misspelled that and that…..
    Thats why spell check was invented, ME!

  42. Hi BOB! is that your really name?
    O and i really don’t want to read Elsewhere. i haven’t read it in 2 days and i don’t plan to. I already no what going to happen. And like Serafina said. Its nice when the character does something interesting. Ya she does stuff, but tis not interesting!
    I might read twilight but before i do im going to try to read So Yesterday.

  43. Yeah, I know how you feel Kadie-wa.

    So Scott’s been to the west/midwest, right? And then in New York City…and now in Boston. But He hasn’t come to the southeast! What about Texas? and Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, etc? Next time Scott does a signing-tour-thing he needs to choose a new path. hehe.

  44. So Yesterday is a good book! i started it one day, and I was up til 12:00 that night finishing it! hmm…the fact that I was watching Boston Legal may also have played into that a little.

  45. I think your right Allie-wa, scott-la needs to choose a new path. in the back of a book it said scott was a native Texan. Ya well if your so native y didnt you visit us 🙁

  46. so yesterday is pretty awesome. it was one of those books i picked up after school, sat on the couch all afternoon, was like 10 pages from finishing at dinner time, sat through dinner in odd daze, and finished.
    actually, i was talking about Twilight, Bran-la. Elsewhere was actually pretty good. if cry-making. i can see how it would get dull though—i read it in like one day over the summer. but more than one sitting, i can see what you’re saying.
    actually…..i read mostly every book in a single sitting. unless it’s really bad or i’m way busy. then maybe three sittings.
    i read really fast. and ignore boring things like chores and homework and sleep in order to finish.

  48. Do any of you take AR tests at school to
    “determine your reading level” ??

    I am in 9th grade and it said that I was at a 7.6 reading level ????? What the HELL I felt so brain-missing.

    There are only like 25 questions– all vocab.

    In 7th grade though I got a 11.4 or something.
    SO unreliable. I mean– it’s not like I got really dumb over 2 years. Just like thoes stupid standardized tests– lame.

  49. laura-la: i don’t have to take those…in my school we haven’t had skill-based reading groups or anything since like elem school. and at that time i guess they figured it out by the ELAs (english language arts). it’s some NY state testing system…

    what does AR stand for? ❓

  50. yeah. im trying to avoid finishing twilight. otherwise id be done rite now. it stinks. not very good. at all. but my friends want to no what happens without reading it. so they nominated me to read all three books and tell them what happens. how much does that suck?

    -Lizzy-wa OUT! 🙁

  51. and AR stands for Accelerated Reading. or reader. cant remember.

    my levels 13+ rite now. but my teacher doesnt make us do it. luckily. but i take tests anyways and get 100%s and get tons of extra credit. cause im foolio like that. but i dont take tests in my level like im supposed to. cause all those 13+ books are like, in frech an stuff.

    -Lizzy-wa OUT! :mrgreen:

  52. I’ve heard about them, but I had this friend who said there were really gruesome parts. And I couldn’t really handle gruesome, but I’ve read gruesome before, and so I’m fine with it.

    But now I’m so busy, and it’s next on my list of books to read. There’s a movie coming out as well, and I love comparing books to movies…well…criticizing movies after books =]
    <3

  53. Lizzy-wa, is twilight good? What is it about?
    I don’t take the AR? ya i don’t take it. I did at my old school but ever since i moved school i didn’t. I remember when i use to take it. I sucked!

  54. You know that awesome saint i was talking about the other day. his name is St.Padre Pio. He had the Stigmata (wounds of Jesus) and given the power to read souls and minds for sins. Fawesome! Although the wounds would be painful.

  55. OMG today in school we did the coolest lab ever! We took a strawberry DNA out. It totally was fool. And i was like wow we acculy get to use the test tubes and we had to poor achol in it (our teacher suggested we didn’t drink it, it killed a lot of brain cells) and it was totally cool!

  56. Ok I ust fnished Blue noon it was soo good i loved it! Scott-la you HAVE to write chasing mightnight
    *SPOILER ALERT*
    they need to end up all together back in Bixby just the 5 of them. I loved the frozen lightning and the connection to Rex and Melissa always looking for it. Melissa leaving Rex was soo sad all the couples were getting separated. Beth was bugging me but she was fine in the end. What heppened to Maddy to make her all crazy? And if Jessica isn’t frozen during daylight then she lives 25 hours a day not just one.
    *END OF SPOIL*
    please please please give us another midnighter book to read!!! Have them go off on there adventures but they have to end up with just the orphan midnighters back in Bixby one last time. 😆

  57. there is a blue noon spoiler thread, you know. join the HQ now!

    dude, twilight isn’t gory. or good.
    twilight is boring. about people who do nothing. and lame vampires.
    with the least personality of any vampires, like ever.
    they wear TAN! tan TURTLENECKS!
    and that, kids, is why i hate edward cullen.

    i voulenteered to get the Stigmata if they’d let me leave CCD before we had to sing Calling All Angels, but they turned me down and reccomended me to a therapist.

    we don’t take those….i’d probably do really good, my vocab is freakishly good. we just take stupid benchmark tests and they make us come in during the SUMMER to take tests. so bogus….

  58. At least your parents let you read it, Serafina. I’m stuck w/ reading bogus books over and over and over.

  61. What is Tithe about?

    Wow. now my mom’s official name is duct-tape mom. I’ll have to tell her that in case she ever decides to make that cult…

  62. the duct-tape overprotection borderline religious fanatic cult?

    tithe is about some of the most badass faeries ever, and a really awesome emo knight dude, and this great punked-out highschool-dropout jersey girl stuck in the middle of it all.
    it’s one of my (five or six) best books ever.
    valiant is good too, and the tithe sequel, ironside, is even better than either/both.

  63. hehe. yeah that one.

    Umm…yeah. Tithe sounds like another one on the “Bad books” list I just know is somewhere around here…

    I changed my email address! To the chasingmidnight@ gmail.com one! Finally!

    ooh, speaking of gmail, does anyone else use it? And has any people using it discovered how to make group chat work?

  67. what book did u finish? wait, or r u talking about writing?
    Elsewhere is strange, but also pretty good.

    as i have said multiple times before, and i quote “twilight is boring. about people who do nothing. and lame vampires.
    with the least personality of any vampires, like ever.
    they wear TAN! tan TURTLENECKS!
    and that, kids, is why i hate edward cullen.”
    lots of people love it though. just not me. or people who like protaginasts with personalities.

  68. Well im not done with Elsewhere but the time where she sat there like watching Zooey and stuff it was just weird.

  70. allie-wa: i have gmail too, but none of my friends do so i haven’t tried to make the group chat work. i just use windows live messenger, b/c a ton of my friends have hotmail.

    and amazon gave me Tithe as one of the suggested books based on what i’ve viewed or something. i still have to read it though.

  72. Ya its not bad just weird. I dont care. I is far into the beginning but im reading more a day. Its getting better.

  73. Have you ever watched a commercial and went, “No way SAND!!!!” And knew that you were being really sarcastic and then thought how stupid the product was.

  76. she means like when you see the commercials for moonsand or some other crap and are like “wow. big deal.” but personally, i’ve never actually said it out loud. just changed the channel.

    at least that’s how i comprehend it.

    help? 😕 😕 😕

  77. haha like EVERYONE here is using “confuzzles” now! fexcellent…i heart that word. i say it all the time at like school andhere and stuff.

  79. hehe. yeah. i love the word confuzzled. i started using it in like…second grade. hehe. strange looks.

    i dont like twilight. your rite. Edward does dress all boringlike. its pretty boring. and its all mushy gushy an whatnot. its boring.

    now Tithe. THATS a good book. i still have to read the other ones…

    -Lizzy-wa OUT! :mrgreen:

  81. I have said it out loud before. I always do. And i hate stupid commercials like when hey think here all funny but acculy its is like really stupid.

  82. Lizzy-wa! post graduation!
    (disclamer, haven’t checked HQ, might be there)

    confuzzled has so many z’s. it’s fun.

    twilight is full of conformists. Tithe is not.
    oooh, read the others! Valiant is (in my opinion) not *quite* as good, which is still excellent. and Ironside is, quite simply, the Best Book Ever. but read Valiant first, it’s so much more fun that way.

  84. Moonsand — Ah, thoes cheesey commercials — expecially the ones that sell art crap.

    Some commercials are fawesome but some are just so psychotically dumb. Then the fawesome ones are just so over-used so they are… not… anymore / — yes.

  85. some commercials are so stupidly not funny, that they’re really funny.One time there was this commercial for like chips or something, and me and my friend could tell that they were really trying to be funny, but it was so stupid, we both like fell on the floor laughing. Stupid commercials. there are also those extremely innopropiate {i meant to spell that wrong…} like that d&k watch commercial.Has anyone seen that one??oh well. hmm, im getting into king arthur stories, they’re really interesting. Ok then…I have like three projects to do over the weekend so I better start. Night night!!heehee. {im not gonna do my hw} o forget it.

  87. ha ha i have no homework this weekend.
    and no matter how stupid they are, commercials are over-played.
    i always see like twelve million of the “optimum triple play” crap commercials, and i’m just like WE ALREADY HAVE THAT. i am watching my iO tv, sitting next to my Optimum phone, and using my Optimum Online powered laptop. i already have what you’re selling! quit advertising it to me!

  88. lol…where i am there’s these time warner cable all the best package commercials like every 5 seconds. we already have all three too, and it gets really annoying b/c all of the tv spots are equally idiotic. i wish that there was some way to bypass that since like i have DVR, all of the 1000s channels, roadrunner internet, and home phone service.

    i like skittles commercials tho. especially the one with the singing rabbit. :mrgreen:

  90. i guess not, b/c every once in awhile there’s a directv or dish network commercial. but you’d think that with all of the new technology that they have they could come up with something for that.

  91. All i have for homework is study to classes, test monday and we have to no something for math and do 9 questions fors science. now thats what i call no homework. considering i proubly wont study for what we have to no in mth and i probly will end up reviewing for my test on monday and doing my worksheet in 10 min. Its omly another part of my day.

  92. The only homework I have is study for a math test I’m gonna fail anyway, do 2 projects, and do stupid reading of bogus books that I’ve read at least 10 times.

  93. In m school, we have summer reading books were we have to read a book, over the summer. “Nah, really?” You might say, but i would respond. “Why, yes, really, a summer reading book you read, during the summer.” you would then nodd your head in amazment and spend your day in shock. The books they pick are all really stupid and educational. My teacher is trying to change it. GO LANGUAGE TEACHER. you may ask “you dont no her name?” an i would respond “Yes, yes, i do.”

  94. We have a list to choose from. It is the state book award nominees list. Some of them are good (I think Uglies was on one of the lists this year) but some of them really suck. I usually – no, ALWAYS – hate school books. We had to read books like The Golden Goblet (boring) and Homecoming (long, boring, pointless) last year…don’t forget The Lottery Rose (really depressing)

  95. Well we read ‘When Zachary Beaver came to Town’ and the year before that we read ‘Roll of thunder hear my cry’ all pointless and boring.

  98. i never study.
    for anything.
    i just don’t.
    not sure why.
    but hey, my report card came today and my lowest grade was a B+ (in math! yeah! highest i’ve gotten in math since sixth grade) and all my classes are honors. so i think i’m good.
    similarly, i never do my math homework, except at lunch, even when i have no homework and nothing to do. wierd.

    yeah, in middle school we got lists and we were sort of allowed to read whatever, which was awesome because i could just sort of reread stuff. and i’d always be done before school was even over, because they’d assign them early. like, one year i read some werewolf book i forgot the title of, oh yeah The Wolving Time, and City of Masks, the first Stravaganza book. wow, i remember those. they were pretty good. *reflection*

    yeah, but last summer i had to read Animal Farm and All Quiet on the Western Front. Animal Farm was actually good in a forced-reading way, and i read that like the second-to-last week in august (right after i finished my summer math packet—i HATE those!) when driving to Ohio. All Quiet, on the other hand, i started (and finished the whole thing) on the second-to-last day of summer.
    that was fairly hellish.

  100. I missed the update, so I got to the event a few minutes late and they wouldn’t let me in…are you doing any other appearances while you’re here in Boston, or was that my only chance?
    -Sarah

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