Archives
Update with warning: Do not post spam here about your boy-friendly book. I am
deleting all such comments.
One of the most gratifying aspects of meeting people who've read How To Ditch Your Fairy since it came out last September (in the USA) is the number of boys who've turned out to be fans of the book. I will admit that given the title and the cover I was expecting an almost non-existent boy readership. I've been told a million times that boys won't touch a pink book and that HTDYF is irredeemably pink. So I've been dead chuffed by the boy fans.
While on tour for the book last year many parents asked me if they thought my book would ...
Posted by Justine at 8:11, June 5th, 2009 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Reading |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, May 29th, 2009 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Liar, Listening, New York City/USA |
Yesterday and today at TLA (Texas Library Association) I signed 200 ARCs (advance readers copies) of Liar. That's right, there are now copies of Liar out there in the wild.
This is a little unnerving. I've been thinking about Liar since I first got the idea in February 2005. Here it is just over four years later and Liar is almost a real book. Which other people will be reading soon.
Gulp.
I was not feeling at all nervous about Liar being read by people who aren't my agent, publisher, or friends until I started signing the ARCs. Suddenly it dawned on me that my book---the actual solid paper thing---is now going to be read and thought about, or put ...
Posted by Justine at 17:52, April 2nd, 2009 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Liar |
Posted by Justine at 9:56, March 31st, 2009 under Admin, Cons & Other Gatherings, Liar |
Our NYC Teen Author Festival event last night at the Mulberry Street Branch of the
NYPL was unbelievable. Over a hundred people showed up. Standing room only. And many of them were actual teenagers---YAY!---who asked incredibly good questions including one we'd none of us ever heard before. But more on that that below.
The event was to celebrate everything that Joe Monti has done for YA literature in the US of A. Joe used to be the YA buyer for Barnes & Noble. In that role he went out of his way to champion a whole host of fabulous books that otherwise might otherwise have disappeared. He was a supporter of Scott and mine and played a huge part in ...
Posted by Justine at 12:08, March 19th, 2009 under Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Praising, Young Adult literature |
To duck out of work and come see me and Alaya and Cassie and David and Diana and Holly and Scott make total fools of ourselves sharing our earliest attempts at writing, while Libba laughs her head off.
For extra incentive: in Sydney I unearthed a piece I wrote while in the thrall of Raymond Chandler at the age of 13 or 14. It involves a scary Erroll Flynn and has to be heard to be believed.
Details of this extraordinary event:
Juvenilia Smackdown
Monday, 16 March---otherwise known as TODAY---4-6pm, Tompkins Square Park branch of the NYPL, 331 E. 10th Street
Join
Holly Black, Cassandra Clare,
Alaya Dawn Johnson, Justine Larbalestier,
David Levithan,
Diana Peterfreund,
Scott Westerfeld as ...
Posted by Justine at 11:59, March 16th, 2009 under Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 15:39, March 14th, 2009 under Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 2:01, March 4th, 2009 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Sydney/Australia |
Posted by Justine at 7:27, February 21st, 2009 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, Listening, New York City/USA, Sydney/Australia |
Posted by Justine at 0:11, February 19th, 2009 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, Sydney/Australia, Vainglory |
Posted by Justine at 21:53, February 6th, 2009 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, Sydney/Australia |
How To Ditch Your Fairy will be published in its shiny new paperback Australian edition next month.
So. Very. Soon.
If you go over to the Allen & Unwin Alien Onion blog
you'll see what it looks like.
And guess what? I'll be doing a wee bit of a mini Oz book tour. I'm dead excited.
Two of my events are in Melbourne, including the actual book launch:
22 Feb 2009, 2:00PM - 3:30PM
Me and Simmone Howell in conversation + cake
State Library of Victoria - Conference Centre
328 Swanston Street
(Entrance 3 on La Trobe Street)
Melbourne, Victoria
Go here to book
24 Feb 2009, 6:30PM
Australian launch of How To Ditch Your Fairy
My book will be introduced by the lovely
Lili Wilkinson!
Readings Carlton
309 ...
Posted by Justine at 1:43, January 21st, 2009 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Sydney/Australia |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, December 3rd, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Scott's books, State of the World, Young Adult literature |
I have decided that I will do all future signings my way and ignore Scott's advice entirely. The only people who can tell me to hurry up when signing is whoever is running it. So there, Scott!
I hasten to add that crazy long signings are not a regular occurrence for me. They pretty much only happen at places like
NCTE or
TLA or on school visits. If I had lines like Scott gets routinely I would probably study how he gets through a line speedily while also managing to chat to those he's signing for. He is a master. He does in fifteen seconds what takes me a minute. ((This could be because he's a USian and I'm ...
Posted by Justine at 17:28, November 26th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Praising, Sydney/Australia, Writing life |
Scott and me are having a wee bit of an argument. He thinks I sign too slow on account of I like to chat to everyone and make my dedication as personal as possible. He thinks that's fine with a very short queue but when the line is long you owe it to the people standing in line waiting to go as fast as possible.
The argument arose because I had a big line at NCTE ((National Council of Teachers of English)) on account of the lovely
Professor Nana talked very enthusiastically about How To Ditch Your Fairy. Bless you!
In my defense
Where I was sitting I couldn't see the queue so I didn't know how long it was.
English ...
Posted by Justine at 0:37, November 25th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Fans & readers, Scott's books, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 13:20, November 21st, 2008 under 1930s NYC novel, Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, Fans & readers, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar, New York City/USA, Scott's books, Writing process, Young Adult literature |
So we made it in one piece to sunny, warm Texas. Wow. The weather is so much better here than it was in NYC. Yay that we're here and not there.
You can catch me and Scott at BookPeople tonight and then you can see me do my thing in San Antonio tomorrow night:
Wednesday, 19 November 2008, 7:30PM
With Scott Westerfeld
BookPeople
603 N. Lamar
Austin, Texas
Thursday, 20 November 2008, 7:00PM
Barnes & Noble
Northwoods Shopping Center
18030 Highway 281 North
San Antonio, Texas
Hope to see some of you there!
Posted by Justine at 12:42, November 19th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 9:40, November 14th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Love is Hell, New York City/USA, Reading, Sport, State of the World, Sydney/Australia, What's your fairy? |
I have neglected to let all you fabulous Canadians know that I will be in Canada next week. Toronto to be precise and, yes, there will be an appearance. Me and Scott will be here next Monday:
Monday, 27 October, 7:00PM-8:00PM
Indigo Bookstore
Yorkdale Mall
3401 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario
Here's hoping some of my Torontonian readers will be there. I promise to tell really gross vomit stories. Or, you know, not, if that grosses you out.
They're really great vomit stories, but.
Posted by Justine at 0:21, October 20th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Travelling |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, October 15th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, October 13th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Ideas, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 13:53, October 10th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Fans & readers |
Posted by Justine at 18:46, October 9th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 9:25, October 8th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, October 5th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 14:08, October 3rd, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Praising, Viewing, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 30th, 2008 under Bloggery, Book challenges, Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Praising, Reading, Science, State of the World, Travelling, Young Adult literature, Zombies |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 29th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Travelling, What's your fairy?, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 0:16, September 28th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy |
The New York Liberty
won the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals. It was an ugly win. An ugly game. The only grace notes were Deanna Nolan's gorgeous shooting---I swear she stays up in the air for seconds at a time, she looks great even when she misses---the great turnout, and the fact that we won.
I didn't think it was possible for me to hate Bill Laimbeer more than I do. But his performance tonight pushed my hate a few notches upward. How he managed not to get a delay of game call or a technical I will never understand. Sit down, Bill!
Later today I will be in Larchmont, which is a mere twenty minutes from Grand Central:
Saturday, ...
Posted by Justine at 0:27, September 27th, 2008 under Basketball, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Sport |
Posted by Justine at 12:40, September 23rd, 2008 under Basketball, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar, New York City/USA, Praising, Sport, Writing goals & milestones, Young Adult literature |
Because you deserve it, some more YA author fairies for your delectation:
Penni Russon, author of the wondrous Undine trilogy, has a most useful fairy:
I have a voice recognition fairy - with her help I can always pick out celebrity voices in animations. As you might imagine this is a very useful skill and has served me well on numerous occasions.
I wish I had a zen master fairy to help with the parenting of the children.
Lauren Myracle, author of the amazing and terrifying Bliss, had this to say when I asked her what her fairy is:
My Starbucks fairy simply loves Starbucks and steers me toward one EVERY DAY, regardless of any opinion *I* might have on the ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 22nd, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, What's your fairy? |
Posted by Justine at 15:39, September 21st, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Fans & readers, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Reading, Young Adult literature |
I have never published a photo of a cat on my blog before. This is because I believe it is a cheap way to gain visitors to your blog. I have vowed never to stoop so low.
However, I recently stopped in at
Borderlands Books to say hi to Jude and sign stock. A visit to Borderlands also means hanging out with Ripley the store cat.
Ripley is the weirdest looking cat I have ever seen. She's a
Sphynx, who are hairless space aliens. Ripley was recovering from surgery and attired in an old t-shirt to protect her stitches. This made her somewhat grumpy. As it would.
Fortunately there is now a second Borderlands cat, Ash, who deigned ...
Posted by Justine at 16:59, September 20th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Scott here, guest-blogging from the West Coast Tour Command Center (aka Room 401). Justine is out talking to kids at schools, so I'm holding down the fort (aka ordering room service). This is just a reminder that Justine has a gig at Not Your Mother's Book Club tonight (aka Thursday, Sep 18).
The store is Books Inc.
The address is 601 Van Ness.
The city is San Francisco.
The time: 7PM.
We hope to see you there!
And just because I'm briefly in control of Justine's blog: it's 'color,' not 'colour.' That's because we save our u's for this:
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
(I'm in so much trouble. Heh.)
Posted by Justine at 14:30, September 18th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Because they have signs like this at the entrance to their school libraries:
Isn't that absolutely wonderful? Made me so happy!
Yesterday I got many texts telling me that How To Ditch Your Fairy had been
boingled. Thank you, Cory! And
Whatever'd. Thank you, Scalzi! And
Slayground'd! Thank you, Little Willow! I also learned that HTDYF is on the
Lone Star list. Since Texas is my favourite state in the union ((Other than all the other ones I love.)) that pretty much made my day too.
To quickly answers some questions: The tour is going fabulously. I'm having the time of my life. I heart all the bookshops I've been ...
Posted by Justine at 10:33, September 17th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
My
imminent tour---I get on a plane to California in a matter of hours---has left me contemplating the one bad thing about book tours: junk food. Sometimes while going from school visit to book shop appearance there's little time for eating and the options available are limited to substances I would rather not eat. ((How do I know this? From accompanying Scott on his tour and from hearing tales of other people's tours.)) I does not like the junk food.
I have nothing against anyone else consuming it, but me, I does not want to. My lack of junk food love never used to be a problem back home. But here in the US many people are personally insulted by ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 14th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, Food, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Whingeing |
Just to let you all know that the mighty
How To Ditch Your Fairy Tour begins on Monday in Northern California. For all those complaining that I'm not going to Southern California:
it's not up to me, it's down to demand and my publicist.
The tour page is constantly being updated with correct addresses and times and extra events. Today I added a couple of in-store stock signings as well as the address and time for the Schuler's event in Walker, Michigan.
What is an in-store stock signing you ask? It means I'll be stopping in at a book shop and signing but I won't be reading, or doing Q&A, or juggling, or anything fancy. But if you're ...
Posted by Justine at 0:01, September 13th, 2008 under Bloggery, Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Starting on Monday 15 September I will be
roaming around the US of A teaching people how to get rid of fairies that annoy them. It's a tough job but someone has to do it.
Next week will be all northern California, then there'll be a bit of a break with stops in Philadelphia and New York, before I set out for Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. Then in November there will be some Texas appearances. That's right, my tour covers seven different states. Not bad, eh? Full details can be found
here. Complaints about my not going to your town or your state should be sent to my publicist. You can find her
address here.
This is my very ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 8th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 21:20, September 2nd, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, Fans & readers, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 13:55, September 2nd, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing goals & milestones |
Posted by Justine at 11:48, June 1st, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Writing life, Young Adult literature |
Several peoples have writ me saying, "See you at
WisCon!" Alas and alack they will not. Scott's niece Renee is graduating and we will be there to cheer her on. Go, Renee!
This is the second year in a row we have not been. I does not like it. WisCon is my favourite con in the whole world filled with all my favourite peoples. I love it so much that for a while there I organised the academic track and then the readings. I feel like I am a WisCon hometown girl. And here I am missing it again. Wah. Bad enough that I haven't been to
my real home in a year.
Hope everyone has fun without me. Even ...
Posted by Justine at 16:12, May 22nd, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Sydney/Australia, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 14:18, April 11th, 2008 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, Publishing business, Travelling |
We are in Bologna at the
Children's Book Fair. There are five of us in a tower flat. Me,
Scott,
Holly,
Cassie and
Maureen. We are the Tower Gang.
So far we have eaten really good food, gossiped and walked under many porticoes. Tomorrow the fair starts and we meet our non-English language publishers. And we eat more good food.
My life is so very hard.
Update: Fine. Here have some photos. Courtesy of Maureen, which is why she is not in them. I will remedy that later.
Posted by Justine at 12:25, March 30th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Travelling |
Posted by Justine at 5:57, March 21st, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Travelling, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 12:44, March 6th, 2008 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, Fans & readers, Words & Language, Writing life, Young Adult literature |
I will confess that I was nervous about going to
High Voltage ConFusion. There were several reasons for this:
I'm afraid of cold places. And Detroit in winter is COLD. ((How cold? Minus a million cold! That's how cold. So cold that I'm back in NYC and it's freezing and it seems warm in comparison.))
I'd never been a guest of honour before and was worried I'd be crappy at it.
I was aware that most of the people at the con would not have heard of me or Scott and was worried that they would feel dudded of a proper author guest of honour what wrote adult sf and fantasy.
I need not have had any concerns at all. I was right ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, January 24th, 2008 under Basketball, Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Praising, Sport, Travelling, Vainglory, Viewing |
Posted by Justine at 10:50, January 23rd, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Travelling, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life |
The reason for which are posted most indiscreetly on
Scott's blog.
I'd just like to share with you my favourite photo so far:
Kevin Dunn (science guest of honour) plus me and me old man at High Voltage Confusion in Detroit.
Why pirate hats you ask? If I told you I'd have to kill you.
And, yes, if you have any other photos of us we'd love to see 'em.
Thank you so much everyone for all the photos you've pointed us to. We REALLY appreciate it!
Posted by Justine at 0:00, January 23rd, 2008 under Admin, Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Travelling |
