My twenty-city, three-country, back-breaking tour for Afterworlds is done! Now I can go back to that other job I have. Which is, um . . . writing. Yeah, that’s it.
A few notable things:
My next graphic novel project has been announced on io9! (More on this here soon.)
The New York Times gave me a great review, which contained this marketing-department-happy-making pull-quote:
“‘Afterworlds’ is a wonderful book for any young person with an interest in growing up to be a writer.”
Though I would add the words or who is already a writer. Because it’s November, and real writings are underway.
Of course, we can forgive the paternal tone here. We all know that YA reviews in the NY Times aren’t targeted at actual teenagers. (I mean, the review also compares Darcy Patel to Mary Tyler Moore and Cary Bradshaw, as opposed to any characters created in, say, the current century.) And trust me, I fully comprehend that it’s churlish to take issue with one’s positive coverage in the New York-frickin’-Times. So I’m not so much complaining as thinking aloud about who the imagined audience for this review is—not teenagers, pretty clearly—and what that says about the overall relevance of the Paper of Record to the greater project of YA lit.
But please, all you Times-reading adults with credit cards, go order my book for the writerly young people in your life! They’re the ones with dark circles under their eyes muttering “word count, word count” at the breakfast table this month.
They aren’t just growing up to be writers; they are writers right now.
Other stuff:
My first flight in the second leg of the tour was delayed, which left me in DFW airport at almost exactly midnight. If you’ve read Afterworlds, you know that this is pretty hilarious.
In Dallas, a model-making fan named Jon-Luc showed me his diorama of the death of the Goeben, which was pretty amazing:
The kind students of Alvin, TX gave me this amazing gift basket:
And at the Texas Teen Book Festival, I learned that there is a tortoise named Deryn.
Had a lovely time at Changing Hands, as always. And at Hicklebee’s Books in San Jose, CA, where visiting authors sign the walls, doors, and columns, I did something naughty:
Had a great time at the NaNoWriMo fund-raiser at Books Inc. in San Francisco. Even though we were up against the Giants in the World Series, we pulled a big crowd. Way to put books before sportsball, SF!
Boston Book Festival was the bomb, as was Toronto last week. And the tour finally wrapped up at the amazing YALLfest in Charleston, SC, where I met the very smart and terribly poised 16-year-old author of Popular, Maya van Wagenen:
And then, with Varian Johnson, I conspired to photobomb the crap out of noted rappers V-Roth, S-Dess, E-Hop, G-4, and D-Paige.*
All in all, it was too much fun.
To all who came to my events, thank you! I hope it was as fun for you as it was for me. For those of you who missed me, I’m sorry we didn’t connect. Maybe next year.
Yes, I will be touring again next year, though for an entirely new series. (TOP SECRET!)
*Veronica Roth, Sarah Dessen, Ellen Hopkind, Gayle Forman, and Danielle Page. Duh.
New Series!? FAWESOME! (*crosses fingers and hopes you come back to Vancouver next year*)
When I saw new graphic novel, I got all excited for Shay’s story 3. Now I’m all sad again 🙁
So I waved Afterworlds around at a GSA meeting once about two weeks ago…. And then a few days ago at GSA Movie and Game Night, we were talking about our favorite queer books and guess which book came uuuuuuuuppppppp. ^^ Both of our club presidents read and loved it! 😀
Your talk in San Francisco was easily one of the top three experiences for me as a wannabe author/novelist myself. Thanks for the entertaining, insightful get-together. The Giants ain’t got nothing on you.
I’m about a third of the way through Afterworlds (had to finish Evolution’s Darling so I could return it to my friend who lent it to me, with the addition of your shiny autograph within it, and then there was that little thing called NaNoWriMo all last month…). Really enjoying it so far. Lizzie’s story (particularly the parts when she gets back home to San Diego near the beginning of the book and meets Mindy) have shades of the Midnighters Trilogy all over it to me.
Good luck with your next series. I can’t wait to hear what it’s going to be about.