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It's just been confirmed that me and
Scott and the fabulous and witty
Maureen Johnson will be doing the following event at the brand new
Brooklyn Book Festival on Saturday the 16th of September:
YOUTH PAVILION 2:00---3:00 p.m.
The World Beyond: Award Winning Sci-Fi and Fantasy for Teens.
Readings by three of the most accomplished young adult authors of 2006: Scott Westerfeld (Uglies/Pretties), Justine Larbalestier (Magic Lessons) and Maureen Johnson (Devilish). Q&A to follow.
I'm dead excited. Not only am I reading (or gossiping, or revealing all the dread ...
Posted by Justine at 11:04, August 31st, 2006 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Young Adult literature |
This seems to be the year of books being published what I have a vested interest in of such proportions that the fact of them being in print makes me all teary.
First there was
Julie Phillips' long-awaited
Tiptree bio, later there will be Yvette Christianse's just-as-long-awaited debut novel
Unconfessed, and right now there is
Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword.
I've been a Kushner fan since 1988 when her first book, the unspeakably wonderful Swordspoint, helped get me through a tedious illness. My friend, Jane Pritchard (bless you, Jane!), loaned it to me along with a whole stack of other excellent books, but Swordspoint was the only one that I reread instantly. It's been a touchstone ...
Posted by Justine at 15:26, August 29th, 2006 under Listening, Praising, Reading |
Blessed release: Magic's Child is now on its way into Polly Watson's genius copyediting hands. Thank Elvis!
I confess I was worried. Especially when Penguin's spring catalogue arrived with Magic's Child listed as if it was an actual finished book. Gah! I thought. Booksellers will be ordering a non-existent book!
Well, it exists now---in finished form even! And, if you don't object to a moment of skiting, it's not too foul, not too foul at all. Phew!
Rather than thanking all the peoples what helped (their moment of glory is in the book's acks) I'm gunna list the music what got me through the last few gruelling weeks:
Benny Goodman Sextet (with Charlie Christian prominently featured)
Billie Holiday
Blur (Think Tank---thanks
Andrew)
Cat Power (Moon Pix---thanks ...
Posted by Justine at 2:25, August 28th, 2006 under Listening, Magic or Madness trilogy, Praising, Whingeing, Writing goals & milestones |
Posted by Justine at 16:11, August 25th, 2006 under Bloggery, Reading, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 20:10, August 21st, 2006 under Bloggery, Frippery, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy, Vainglory |
Last night after a hard day's work we thought we'd order up a movie. As you do. And we're trying to pick one, but the movies we know anything about we've already seen or would rather die than see. So we're reading descriptions of movies and we both start exercising the veto like you wouldn't believe:
Scott: not watching any movie that has the word "cop" in the description.
Justine: or "battered" or "gruelling" or "genocide".
Scott: not "lawyer" either or "detective".
Justine: Isn't that covered by "cop"?
Scott: No. Look "private detective".
Justine: I rule out "bleak", "heart-warming", and "family-oriented".
Scott: Also "doctor".
Justine: Not to mention "life-threatening" and "disease", especially if they're the one phrase.
Scott: Aren't those ruled out on account of my previous anti-"doctor" ...
Posted by Justine at 9:13, August 20th, 2006 under Frippery, Viewing, Zombies |
Quit asking already! I told you:
I'm now
Pollyanna the Glad Girl.
Posted by Justine at 17:42, August 16th, 2006 under Frippery |
A recent post on Miss Snark reveals
the horrible truth that often writers have no control over what their books are called. That's right, folks, your publisher can change the title to something they deem more commercial.
There was much debate over the title of the first book in my trilogy. I'd always imagined Magic or Madness as the series title with the actual books being called Reason and the Two Cities, Reason and Margarita, and Reason defeats the Evil Monster Marauding Zombies from Hell. Marketing intervened and the series title became the title of the first book, leaving me and my editors to come up with new titles for books two and three and thus the whole working title ...
Posted by Justine at 3:19, August 14th, 2006 under Bloggery, Magic or Madness trilogy, Praising, Publishing business, Ranting, Titles & names, Writing life, Zombies |
Posted by Justine at 22:42, August 8th, 2006 under Bloggery |
Posted by Justine at 18:05, August 5th, 2006 under Bloggery, Cricket, Frippery, Magic or Madness trilogy, New York City/USA, State of the World, Writing goals & milestones |
At long last
Julie Phillips' superlatively brilliant biography of
Alice Hastings Bradley Davies Sheldon/James Tiptree, Jr./Raccoona Sheldon is out. Alli (as Alice was known) was endlessly fascinating. She was the child of adventurers who waltzed her around Africa and India as a child. She grew up to be an artist (before quitting cause she didn't think she was good enough), joined the military during World War 2, worked for the CIA, ran a chicken farm, became a Ph.d in psychology, as well as two different science fiction writers: James Tiptree, Jr. and Raccoona Sheldon. Quite the cv.
Julie's biography more than does justice to Alli Sheldon. It's
beautifully written and exhaustively researched. There's not ...
Posted by Justine at 3:04, August 4th, 2006 under Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, Praising, Reading |
Wow, thanks so much for all the fascinating responses to my last post. The reason I haven't commented (or responded to anyone's email) for the last five days was because I was in Kyoto with my family celebrating my mother's birthday (more on that anon). My mum didn't know me and my sister would be there so I could hardly blog about it before hand . . .
No time for a proper post so in the meantime can any of you help out
Rachel Manija Brown? She's looking for
good non-fiction books about particular cities. She explains what she's after
here. Clearly, she needs to be told about ace books on Sydney!
Posted by Justine at 10:03, August 3rd, 2006 under Bloggery, Excuses, Travelling |
