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Yup, it's my annual what-I-did-this-year skiting post. I write these mostly for myself so I can easily keep track. Hence the
last day of the year category. Thus you are absolutely free to skip it. ((I would if I were you.))
This year was exceptional. I'm still pinching myself. My first Bloomsbury USA book, How To Ditch Your Fairy, was published and seems to be doing well. I was sent on my first book tour, which was fabulous. It's insane how much fun I had and how many fabulous schools, book shops and libraries I visited in California, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. Thank you to everyone who came to see me while I was on the ...
Posted by Justine at 0:20, December 31st, 2008 under Book tour, First Kiss, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Last Day of the Year, Love is Hell, New York City/USA, Next novel, Sport, State of the World, Sydney/Australia, Vainglory, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 6:13, December 27th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, What's your fairy? |
Posted by Justine at 5:19, December 26th, 2008 under Fans & readers, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy, Mangosteens, Praising, Reading, Sport, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 2:52, December 17th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar Book, Words & Language, Writing process, Young Adult literature |
I've had a few folks write to me to ask where they can buy signed copies of my books. The answer is there are many many places. I was just on tour, see, and wherever I went I signed books. Even if you have zero interest in whether a book is signed or not these are all very fine bookshops that you should check out if you haven't already:
California:
Borderlands Books
866 Valencia St.
San Francisco CA 94110
Bonus: they have two gorgeous
Sphynx cats.
Kepler’s
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA
The Storyteller
30 Lafayette Cir
Lafayette, CA
Copperfield’s Books
140 Kentucky St
Petaluma, CA
Books Inc.
601 Van Ness
San Francisco, CA
Michigan
Schuler Books & Music
3165 Alpine Ave
Walker, MI
Pooh’s Corner
Breton Village
1886 1/2 Breton Rd. S.E.
Grand ...
Posted by Justine at 9:05, November 30th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Vainglory |
Posted by Justine at 10:58, November 28th, 2008 under Bloggery, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Praising, Vainglory |
Posted by Justine at 13:20, November 21st, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, Fans & readers, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar Book, New York City/USA, Next novel, Scott's books, Writing process, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 16:05, November 20th, 2008 under Book tour, Fans & readers, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Publishing business, Scott's books |
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? |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, November 11th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Unicorns, Young Adult literature, Zombies |
This made my day:
Get it? E. Kristin Anderson, who works at the fabulous
Book People in Austin, is a
parking fairy. Just like the one Charlie has in How To Ditch Your Fairy. Only, you know, not invisible. Isn't that superb?
Coincidently, me and Scott will be hanging out at
Book People on
19 November at 7:30PM. Can't wait!
Happy Halloween!
Posted by Justine at 20:41, October 31st, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Travelling |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, October 29th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Praising, Travelling |
Posted by Justine at 11:54, October 27th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Sport, What's your fairy? |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, October 24th, 2008 under Fans & readers, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Travelling, Vainglory, Young Adult literature |
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 |
Allen & Unwin, my Australian publisher, has a blog:
Alien Onion. (See if you can figure out why it is thus named.) And they has written a post
welcoming me. I is dead chuffed. Thank 'ee!
There's also a
preview of the Oz cover of How To Ditch Your Fairy. See if you can spot what's different to the US cover.
Do check out the rest of
their blog it's the most lively fun publisher's blog I've seen. With lots of excellent guests and pictures of cake. I think it will give you an inkling of why I am so ecstatic that Allen & Unwin is my new Australian home.
Posted by Justine at 10:49, October 18th, 2008 under Bloggery, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Praising, Sydney/Australia |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, October 15th, 2008 under Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Many of you have been asking, "When is How To Ditch Your Fairy going to be published in Australia?" I apologise for not answering. For ages I did not know if it would be or not and then it sold and I was not allowed to tell you. But now I can!
How To Ditch Your Fairy will be published in Australia in late February by the fabulous
Allen & Unwin. That's right I am now published by the same house that publishes Ursula Dubosarsky, Margo Lanagan, Garth Nix, Penni Russon and Lili Wilkinson amongst many other fabulously wonderful Oz YA writers.
What's more A&U are not only publishing HTDYF, they're publishing the liar book too!
Keeping this news to myself has ...
Posted by Justine at 15:46, October 14th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Sydney/Australia, Vainglory |
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 23:21, October 2nd, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, October 1st, 2008 under Food, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Next novel |
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 |
Beef jerky is good.
A lint brush is essential.
A publicist with a sense of humour and a better memory than anyone alive is vastly excellent indeed.
Publicists are all convinced that authors have the worst memories ever. I suspect they are right.
I know that some writers get heaps of work done while on tour but I am most definitely not one of them.
Q & A is always the best part of an appearance. Though I already knew that.
No one wants to hear an author read. Boring!
If you must be stuck in a dread car for ages it's best to have witty, entertaining company and be in a convertible.
School visits are best when the ...
Posted by Justine at 0:02, September 25th, 2008 under Book tour, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 0:05, September 24th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, What's your fairy?, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 12:40, September 23rd, 2008 under Basketball, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar Book, 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 |
Posted by Justine at 14:42, September 19th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy |
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 |
Today is the official publication day of How To Ditch Your Fairy in North America. To celebrate I am doing
what I did for Magic's Child: sharing the first sentence of each chapter of HTDYF.
As usual my concern is to protect you, the potential reader of the novel, from unnecessary spoilerage. Because there is nothing worse. NOTHING. Hence there is a small amount of redaction. Trust me, it is for your own good.
Without further ado, behold the How To Ditch Your Fairy first sentences:
1. My [redacted] looked funny in the [redacted], which is odd because my [redacted] are tiny. ((You'll have to read the book to find out what [redacteds] are. Although I worry that it is only ...
Posted by Justine at 12:00, September 16th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing goals & milestones |
A while back I asked my faithful blog readers
what their fairy is or what fairy they wanted. Twas a popular post so in honour of the imminent publication of my latest book,
How To Ditch Your Fairy, set in a world where almost everyone has a personal fairy, I asked these questions of a tonne of writers. I'll be sharing their answers with you over the next few months.
Here's what
John Green, multiple-award winning author and all-round good guy, had to say:
The fairy I most wish I had at the moment is the Dog Whisperer fairy, because then I would understand why Willy just peed inside.
I seem to have something of a Spare Change fairy. I ...
Posted by Justine at 22:04, September 15th, 2008 under Bloggery, Book tour, How To Ditch Your Fairy, What's your fairy? |
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 |
I was chatting with my trusted partener in time wasting friend,
Mr Scalzi, in a fairly desultory manner when we made the startling discovery that both of us hates signing books with a Sharpie. And yet that is what we most often are given when we do signings.
What gives?
Sharpies bleed all over the page and their line is way too thick. They're pretty much useless for signing books. Great for graffiting toilets and making posters but for book signing? Hopeless!
Why do we keep being given them to sign with? Anyone know? Care to venture a theory?
Are there writers who actually like signing with Sharpies?
For those wondering we both deal with the problem by bringing our own trusted signing pens. ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 10th, 2008 under Book tour, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Whingeing |
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 |
Lately, I've been receiving a slew of lovely fan letters mostly about HTDYF but also about the trilogy. More than I've ever received before. Thank you so much.
I'm really sorry I haven't replied yet. Right now there are more than three thousand emails in my inbox. And lots and lots and lots of other more pressing matters---you know, the kind that pay bills---have to be dealt with before I can get to the non-urgent email. Please forgive me.
Obviously I'm not very good at managing my time, but I'm working on it. I will get to your letters I just don't know when. Please bear with me.
In the meantime, I remain committed to blogging every day. So if all else fails ...
Posted by Justine at 0:39, September 5th, 2008 under Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy |
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 |
I'm lying awake with a nasty case of bunker brain. Sleep eludes and weird thoughts intrude. I'm trying to combat them by
a) planning some fun ways to promote How To Ditch Your Fairy---so far the winning plan is to glue copies of the book to the backs of toilet doors---and,
b) trying to figure out how to describe the smell of flying foxes without using the words "musk" or "feral".
Also I'm wishing I could draw.
How about you?
Posted by Justine at 4:37, August 29th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Sydney/Australia, Toilets, Travelling |
Posted by Justine at 18:05, August 27th, 2008 under Admin, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy |
Posted by Justine at 19:29, August 17th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy |
Several people are asking when
How To Ditch Your Fairy will be available for purchase. You have a mere four weeks to wait! The release date for the USA and Canada is 16 September 2008. I don't have a release date for the German edition but will let you know as soon as I know.
The novel I just finished the zero draft of has the nickname of Liar Book. Yes, it has an actual proper name. No, I'm not telling you what that title is.
As mentioned many times previously it is the same title as a song by an all-girl band of the 1990s. You have to guess the name of the song NOT the ...
Posted by Justine at 3:50, August 16th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy |
