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Teen Author Festival

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It begins.

This afternoon Justine and I join Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Alaya Johnson, David Levithan, and Diana Peterfreund at the Juvenilia Smackdown. We’ll be reading from our childhood and teenage writings. (OMG I spent the day looking at them and they are worse than I thought.) The immoderate Libba Bray will be moderating.

Monday, 3/16, 4-6pm, Tompkins Square Park branch of the NYPL, 331 E. 10th Street

We’re also participating in a tribute to Joe Monti on Wedneday, where I’ll be reading from Leviathan for the first time in public. And revealing art!

Wednesday, 3/18, 6pm, Mulberry Street Branch of the NYPL, 10 Jersey Street (Between Lafayette & Mulberry Streets)

And we’ll be at the giant Books of Wonder mass signing on Sunday.

But there’s much more stuff than that.

Here’s the mighty schedule.

teenauthorfest

Update: For all you Italiano-phones, here’s an interview with me on the Italian Marie Claire website, about Midnighters.

Virtual Hoverboard

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First, Justine has revealed her paperback cover for How to Ditch Your Fairy. It is generally considered to be the best cover of ALL TIME.

Click here to see it.

Second, this Wii Balance Controller hack is hoverboard-tastic! These German guys use the Wii data to navigate Google Earth, so it’s like your hoverboarding at about 10 kilometers altitude.

Check it out:

Obviously, this is a fairly crude hack, and Google Earth is too satellite-scale for hoverboard-like action. But imagine a smaller-scale version, where you could board through a cityscape or whatever-scape, whipping around buildings and through trees.

Then imagine a bit of role-playing thrown in, with Specials and Cutters and Smokies and smuggling in the Cure and Rusty Ruin environments, and I think you can see that it would be REALLY COOL.

I’m just saying.

NYC Teen Author Festival

Posted on by scott

teenauthorfest

In exciting news for those of you in the New York City area, the first-ever NYC Teen Author Festival (March 16-22, 2009) has just announced its schedule. And this schedule is VAST! So vast, in fact, that I must pause before pasting it into this post to tell you what I’m doing.

(See the full schedule below for times and places.)

To kick off the festival on Monday, March 16, Justine and I have put together a Juvenilia Smackdown panel. It consists of us two, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Alaya Johnson, David Levithan, and Diana Peterfreund reading from our childhood and teenage writings. (Spoiler Alert: WE SUCKED.) The incomparable and immoderate Libba Bray will be moderating us.

I’m also participating in a tribute to Joe Monti on Wedneday, March 18, where I’ll be reading from Leviathan. First time in public for that book. Ever!

And I’ll be at the giant Books of Wonder mass signing on Sunday, March 22.

Plus, I’ll be hanging out all week at other Festival stuff. (So. Much. Stuff.)

Note that the Festival has a Facebook group, so join away!

Okay, so here’s the full schedule. (Note that everything is free!)

Juvenilia Smackdown
Monday, 3/16, 4-6pm, Tompkins Square Park branch of the NYPL, 331 E. 10th Street

Join Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Alaya Johnson, Justine Larbalestier, David Levithan, Diana Peterfreund, Scott Westerfeld as they read some of their (ahem) less accomplished work from their middle school and high school years. Hosted by Libba Bray.

I Have Seen the Future…and It Sounds Like This
Wednesday, 3/18, 6pm, Mulberry Street Branch of the NYPL, 10 Jersey Street (Between Lafayette & Mulberry Streets)

Teen authors are notoriously stingy about reading from their works-in-progress. But for Guest of Honor Joe Monti, authors Libba Bray, Rachel Cohn, Eireann Corrigan, Justine Larbalestier, Barry Lyga, and Scott Westerfeld are willing to share a little bit from their future books. Hosted by David Levithan.

The Five-Borough Read
Thursday, 3/19

BROOKLYN: Central Library, Dweck Center, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn
10-11am
Gayle Forman
Jenny Han
Leslie Margolis
Abby Sher
Matthue Roth
Robin Wasserman

BRONX: Bronx Library Center, 310 E. Kingsbridge Road, Bronx
4-5pm
Coe Booth
Madeleine George
Paul Griffin
Brian Sloan
Melissa Walker

MANHATTAN: Countee Cullen Branch, 104 W 136th St
4-5pm
Matt de la Pena
Daphne Grab
Mary Hogan
Barry Lyga
Carolyn McCormick

MANHATTAN: Jefferson Market Branch, 425 Avenue of the Americas
4-5pm
David Levithan
Bennett Madison
Laura McLaughlin
Billy Merrell
Marie Rutkoski

MANHATTAN: Webster Branch, 1465 York Avenue
4-5pm
Lisa Ann Sandell
Courtney Sheinmel
Rachel Vail
Cecily Von Ziegesar
Martin Wilson

QUEENS: Far Rockaway Branch, 2002 Cornaga Ave, Queens
4-5pm
Tara Altebrando
Laura Dower
Heather Duffy-Stone
Aimee Friedman
Eliot Schrefer
Siobhan Vivian
Rita Williams-Garcia

STATEN ISLAND: St. George Library Center, 5 Central Avenue
4-5pm
Kate Brian
Judy Goldschmidt
Michael Northrop
Micol Ostow
Lynn Weingarten

Rock Out with TIGER BEAT!
Thursday, 3/19, 6pm at Books of Wonder

By day, Libba Bray, Daniel Ehrenhaft, Barney Miller, and Natalie Standiford are upstanding authors. But by night, they turn into … TIGER BEAT, the first ever YA author rock band. Tonight is their debut public performance … and it’s sure to go down in legend.

With opening act The Infinite Playlists (Rachel Cohn and David Levithan reading a litany of musical references, but mercifully not singing).

I Love You, New York: Teen Lit in the City
Friday, 3/20, 6pm, NYPL, 42nd Street, Court Room

Join authors Coe Booth, Paul Griffin, Maureen Johnson, David Levithan, Cecily von Ziegesar, and Rita Williams-Garcia in a spirited reading and discussion about teen novels set in New York City – from the glamour of the gossip girls to the grit of the Bronx projects, from the everyday battles of the high school halls to the extraordinary events of 9/11.

Stuff for the Teen Age Ceremony
Saturday, 3/21, 1pm, NYPL, 42nd Street, Celeste Bartos Forum

This new list only has the best of the best, and includes books, music, movies, and video games. Featuring a keynote by Walter Dean Myers

Teen Authors Celebrate Teen Readers
Sunday, 3/22, NYPL, 42nd Street, Trustees Room, 1pm

Over a dozen authors salute teen readers and teen advisory board members from around the city, including Blake Nelson, reading from his upcoming novel Destroy All Cars.

The Biggest Teen Author Signing EVER
Sunday, 3/22, 4pm, Books of Wonder, 18 West 18th Street

Join over 40 authors for a signing extravaganza as they take over Books of Wonder, sign books, and converse with fans new and old. An incredible event that is sure to go down in book-signing history.

Authors include:
Nora Baskin
Jessica Blank
Judy Blundell
Coe Booth
Elise Broach
Susanne Colasanti
Sarah Darer-Littman
Matt de la Pena
Heather Duffy-Stone
Gayle Forman
Aimee Friedman
Madeleine George
Maureen Johnson
Kristen Kemp
Justine Larbalestier
David Levithan
E. Lockhart
Barry Lyga
Carolyn Mackler
Sarah MacLean
Megan McCafferty
Lauren McLaughlin
Neesha Meminger
Billy Merrell
Blake Nelson
Micol Ostow
Matthue Roth
Marie Rutkoski
Lisa Ann Sandell
Courtney Sheinmel
Abby Sher
Brian Sloan
Rachel Vail
David Van Etten
Ned Vizzini
Adrienne Maria Vrettos
Cecily von Ziegesar
Melissa Walker
Robin Wasserman
Scott Westerfeld
Suzanne Weyn
Maryrose Wood
Lizabeth Zindel

Love Is Hell

Posted on by scott

No, this isn’t my review of Twilight, it’s a post about a new anthology (out this week!) that includes a short story by me.

Actually, at 60 pages it’s really a long story. There are only five stories in the anthology, so everyone got to stretch out a bit and write mini-novels. As you can probably tell from the title, the subject is love and romance of a supernatural kind.

Here’s what it looks like:

And here are the stories:

“Stupid Perfect World” by me
Set in a future in which the ancient scourges of humanity—war, sickness, hunger, teen hormones—have been eliminated. In fact, the only place you ever experience them is in a special history class called Scarcity. Extra credit proposals are due today, and Kieran’s and Maria’s class projects are going to bring them together in unexpected ways.

“Thinner Than Water” by Justine
This tale of culture clash is set in a town that follows the old ways: no TVs or cell phones, no factory-made clothes or food, and marriages way too young. This sucks for Jeannie, who’s sixteen and supposed to be “hand-fasted” soon. But when she chooses Robbie, who has a touch of faerie blood, the clash of cultures takes on a new dimension. Click here for an excerpt.

“Love Struck” by Melissa Marr
A love affair with a selkie has its complications. Melissa can explain this better than I can.

“Fan Fictions” by Gabrielle Zevin
Paige falls for a mysterious new boy at school. As Gabriel puts it: “Say, have you heard of that book where the ordinary, clumsy girl falls for the sparkly, vaguely obsessive vampire dude? (I think it’s just starting to catch on.) My story is a bit inspired by that whole thing.”

“Sleeping with the Spirit” by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Loving a ghost ain’t easy, but it’s totally worth it.

Love is Hell is available now at fine bookstores everywhere, and online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Booksense.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit College Summit, a nonprofit that helps more kids get into college.

Zombies vs. Unicorns!

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In case you haven’t been following the zombie-versus-unicorn thread on the internets, it has come to a mighty climax with the announcement of:

The Zombie Versus Unicorn Anthology! A collection of zombie and unicorn short stories to settle the issue for good, co-edited by Justine Larbalestier (aka, my Justine) and the fabulous Holly Black.

Justine is, of course, the head of Team Zombie, and Holly is the head of Team Unicorn.

Here’s Justine’s announcement of it, and here’s Holly’s.

Stay tuned for an amusing video on this subject.

But first, some appearance news: Justine and I will be in Austin, Texas this Wednesday night, at the awesome bookstore known as BookPeople.

Wednesday, Nov 19
7:30 PM
BookPeople
603 N. Lamar
Austin, TX 78703
512-472-5050
800-853-9757
Click here for more.

And the next night, Justine will be appearing at a Barnes & Noble in San Antonio.

Thursday, November 20
7:00PM
Barnes & Noble
Northwoods Shopping Center
18030 HWY 281NSuite #140
San Antonio, TX 78232
210-490-0411

Hope to see you there!

And now, a short video from Lauren Myracle, she of the Scare-a-thon and (sadly) a member of Team Unicorn.

Let the battle continue!

Update
A few things that I need to remind everyone about are:

Westerboard! The oldest Westerfeldian forum on the web.

Midnighters, Inc. The newest forum about my books on the interwebs.

How Bubbly Are You? A survey for everyone who comes here regularly, old or young. Contribute to science!

Mess o’ Politics

Posted on by scott

I’ll let in on a little secret: YA authors are political.

After all, our books are all about what the future holds, who’s got power and who hasn’t, and how bullies can and should be taken down. They’re about figuring out your place in the world, and making a stand when things are just plain wrong.

What could be more political than all that?

As novelists, of course, our politics are conveyed by Story, which creates a cushion between our world and the real one. Our characters are figments of our imagination, however human they seem. And that softens our politics around the edges.

Like in movies when the president shows up, and it’s Morgan Freeman instead of George Bush. Because who doesn’t trust Morgan Freeman?

But when it comes to politics, “fictional” doesn’t mean the same as “not real.” Our politics are very real.

And here’s secret number two: teenagers are political too.

Teens understand that power matters. Their lives are controlled in some pretty astonishing ways, both by adults and by each other. (I’ve always said that the success of Uglies is partly thanks to high school being a dystopia: a bell rings and you march to your next station; what you say and wear is monitored; the newspapers are censored—for your own good!)

And teenagers also have a huge stake in the politics outside their schoolhouse. I’ve had lots of fan letters from kids whose father and mothers are in Iraq and Afghanistan. And guess what? There are soldiers there today who were 13 years old when Midnighters came out, so some of them may be my readers. Young people fight wars.

Not planning on signing up? Well, guess what: Young people also foot the bill.

As I said in my last post, when the Secretary of the Treasury asks to borrow $700 billion dollars, you guys are the ones who get to pay it back. Every paycheck in your entire lives will reflect those missing billions.

Read that last sentence again, and tell me you’re not interested in politics.

So I think it’s time to skip the fictions for a moment, and say that I support Senator Barack Obama for president of the United States.

The people in charge right now are sucking at being in charge. And all of you are going to feel it for a long time, longer than me. So it’s time to transform the powers that be—not with a small change, but with a big one.

Now, if you’d rather pretend that Morgan Freeman is the president in Westerblog-land, that’s fine. I won’t be posting here about icky real-world politicians. But if you want to read me and about a zillion other YA authors (including Meg Cabot, John Green, Libba Bray, Cecily von Ziegesar, Robin Wasserman, Megan McCafferty, and Judy Blume) weighing in on the election in bone-rattling detail, check out this new site, YA for Obama. The awesome Maureen Johnson set it up as a place where you can network, learn about issues, and make a difference.

Click here to read my first post for YA4O, in which I do the math, Dess-style. And am joined by Gossip Girl herself!

Because as I said yesterday: “You’re going to spend your entire adult lives in the future, after all. So it’s your job to think about it, worry about it, and read about it.”

Go and rock the world.

Update to everyone around Larchmont, NY: Justine will be promoting her new book, How to Ditch Your Fairy, at The Voracious Reader tomorrow at 1PM.

Saturday, 27 September 2008, 1:00PM
Voracious Reader
1997 Palmer Ave
Larchmont, NY


Visit YA for Obama

My Tunes

Posted on by scott

Every once in a while, a fan will ask me what kind of music I listen to. This question is in equal parts fraught and shaming, or at least would take too long to answer. But now, inspired by a post at Support Analytics, I’ve figured out how to reveal all.

After a little experimentation, I followed these steps:

1) In iTunes, select View Options under the View menu.
2) Turn off everything but “Artist.”
3) Select all and copy.
4) Search and Replace the word “track” with nothing.
5) Paste the results into the Wordle.net Create page.

And an occurrence-weighted word cloud of favorite musical artistes will appear:


Click the image for a larger version.

A while back, everyone was wordle-ing their novels. But this is really much more fun.

There are bound to be embarrassments, of course, especially for crumblies like me. There’s all that stuff I don’t listen to anymore, looming large. And albums that someone gave you and you hated, still lurking. A quick google reveals some software that weights the artists by play count, but that’s more effort than I’m willing to go to.

Besides, there’s something brutally honest about this. Warts and all.

Justine’s Tour

Posted on by scott

A big announcement here:

Next Tuesday, September 16, is the release date of Justine’s next book, How to Ditch Your Fairy!

How to Ditch Your Fairy is set in a world where everyone has their own personal fairy. These creatures are invisible, but they have a huge effect on your life. Each one has its own special power, so you could have, say, a “good-hair fairy” and your hair would always look amazing, styled by unseen winds. Or a loose-change-finding fairy, and you’d always find a quarter when you needed one.

The protag of the book, Charlie, has a problem, though. Her best friend, Rochelle, has a clothes-shopping fairy, so whenever Rochelle goes into a store, she finds the perfect dress . . . and it’s on sale! Even more annoyingly, Charlie’s worst enemy has an every-boy-will-like-you fairy—and that includes the boy that Charlie likes.

Charlie herself has something much more lame: a parking fairy. Every car she’s in gets a parking space right next to where it’s going. Now, you’d think this would be handy. But it means that since she was a baby, Charlie has been borrowed by friends and family and distant relatives to go to concerts and sporting events and museums and court appearances that she doesn’t want to go to, just because they’ll get a parking place.

By now, she totally hates cars. So the book is about Charlie trying to ditch her fairy, and swap it for a new one. As you can probably tell, it’s a comedy with lots of thrills and spills.

Click here for Justine’s story of how she came up with the idea. And here’s her bio on her flashy new website.

In honor of the release, Justine will be touring for the next few months. Next week, she’ll be in northern California, then doing a couple of dates near home. In October she’ll be in Ohio and Michigan, and in Texas for November. (I’ll be traveling with her some of the time, and maybe popping in to say “hi” in a few places, but this is her tour, not mine. I will be officially appearing at Book People in Austin, though, and I am looking forward to seeing a few of you.)

You can order HTDYF at Powell’s, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.

Click here for details on all of Justine’s tour dates.

First Lines

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There is a mini-cult of first lines among us writers. The first line is sort of like the lobby of the book: the first thing you see, coloring all subsequent impressions. It’s one place where you’re truly allowed to show off.

So we writers like to geek out on first lines. We get all excited about collecting and trading them, having top-ten lists and all-time faves. We even reveal our chapter first lines in advance as tiny spoilers.

As many people have spotted, Uglies, which begins:

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.

pays homage to the opening of William Gibson’s Neuromancer:

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

I bring this up now because of this article on io9 discussing great science fiction first lines. It’s cool to read all these lines all together, and of course it doesn’t hurt that they include my adult novel, The Risen Empire, which opens with:

The five small craft passed from shadow, emerging with the suddenness of coins thrown into sunlight.

Oddly, io9 calls this line “a little adjective-heavy.” Dudes, it only has one adjective, the word “small”!

So for the sake of deep analysis, here are all my YA novel first lines:

The Uglies Series
Uglies
“The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.”

Pretties
“Getting dressed was always the hardest part of the afternoon.”

Specials
“The six hoverboards slipped among the trees with the lightning grace of playing cards thrown flat and spinning.”

Extras
“Moggle,” Aya whispered. “You awake?”

Midnighters Series
The Secret Hour
“The halls of Bixby High were always hideously bright on the first day of school.”

Touching Darkness
“At last, everything was sorted out.”

Blue Noon
“Bixby High’s late bell shrieked in the distance, like something wounded and ready to be cut from the herd.”

The New York Trilogy
So Yesterday
“We are all around you.”

Peeps
“After a year of hunting, I finally caught up with Sarah.”

The Last Days
“I think New York was leaking.”

Soon I’m going to expand on this post, and talk about why I started books with these lines. In the meantime, I’d be interested to hear from you about them

Plus: What are your favorite first lines? Pick any novel you want, except mine!

Me on TV

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This Sunday, June 8, at 9AM I’ll be appearing on WABC-TV’s Weekend show!

Yes, that’s a TV show. Which means that I am going to be on TV.

Update: To watch, Click here and select segment 3 of 15.

Joining me will be Jane O’Connor, author of the Fancy Nancy books for littlies, and comic maven MAC, who’s just come out with a non-graphic novel, Anna Smudge: Professional Shrink, which looks really cool.

TRAGIC NOTE: This is a local NYC show, so my apologies to fans from other states and other lands. My guess is that most of you in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (one of America’s many “tri-state” areas) should be able to see it. But I’m not sure. I didn’t even know they had a 9AM on Sunday. Is that new?

Check your local listings for Weekend with Michelle Charlesworth. It should be on Channel 7.

This is my first time on TV since my debut on the Bozo the Clown Show when I was . . . like, eight? (I was called out of the audience to do something and I won something. It’s all very hazy.) So I hope I don’t look stupid.

Preparations include:
New shirt (check)
Haircut (check)
Hyper-distilled plot synopsis of Uglies memorized (check)
Raging head cold and cough (check)
Witty banter (um . . . huh?)

Now if one of you tri-staters would Tivo and Youtube this, it would be fawesome. (Unless, of course, I totally suck. In which case, I think my humiliation should be shared with millions. Millions!)

Update: Again, Click here and select segment 3 of 15 to watch.