Readergirlz May Issue!

Hey everyone,

I'm so excited-- today is the first day that RED GLASS is featured on the very cool readergirlz website and blog! Check it out-- there's an interview, playlist, party ideas, discussion questions... and even a poster to download!

Please make sure to post comments on the blog discussion during this month of May-- I'll be checking often and posting comments myself. This is a great way to explore RED GLASS...

AND be sure to mark your calendars for Wednesday, May 20. I'll be doing a one hour long *LIVE CHAT* that starts at 6:oo p.m. Pacific time, 7:00 p.m. Mountain time, 8:00 Central time, and 9:00 East coast time.

Isn't the readergirlz manifesta great?

It's such an honor for RED GLASS to be chosen for this... readergirlz is such an awesome site... that's how I found out about The Adoration of Jenna Fox, which I wrote about in my last post. You can check out the other books and authors they've featured in the past and put together a great reading list to last you through the summer...

I'm really happy that the readergirlz feature also talks about the Dream Act , which is proposed legislation that would address the problem of the huge number of teens who are great students and want to go to college and get professional jobs, but they can't because they're undocumented. Many of the teens in this situation were brought here as little kids by their parents, and have spent most of their lives here. Read more about the Dream Act ! You can sign a petition here


Okay, on to other news:

I'm extra-excited today because I'm headed to NYC tomorrow to visit my editor and the gang at Random House... and also my good friend Amanda who lives in Williamsburg. Toddler and hubbie are staying at home, which means I'll get to sleep in past seven (pure luxury). And I'll get to go to MOMA and hip lil restaurants and ride the subway (hopefully without a mask...) Can't wait!

Okay, check back again in a few days for my NYC pictures...

Thanks for reading!

Laura

Bas Bleu Theatre's Immigration Evening!

Hey everyone!

It's a sunny spring day and the windows are open and Toddler is taking a pleasantly long nap. This morning we went on a walk downtown, had some tea at a cafe, commented on passing trucks (he now knows the color yellow-- it's his favorite because he's obsessed with construction vehicles.) On the way home he jumped in mud puddles (which are lingering from the past few days of rain-snow). To his credit, he asked me permission first, while standing at the puddle's edge, ready to spring. "Mess, Mommy? Me mess?" And because he looked so beautiful with the mud-puddle light reflecting on his face, and because I was so happy about the mud-lucious (a la ee cummings) world, I said, "Sure, go ahead." And splat! MESS!

So, on to writing-related things-- I had the privilege of participating in Bas Bleu Theatre's Immigration-themed night of readings and performance last week. It was incredible-- so moving and inspiring!

The evening started with Teresa Funke reading a lovely essay about the longing she's felt to connect with her Mexican roots, despite her mother's and grandmother's rejection of a Mexican identity.

Trai Cartwright (the organizer of the evening), Teresa Funke, me, Gloria Garcia Diaz.

Then I read a sneak preview of Star in the Forest (spring 2010), my novel for ages 7 and up about a girl whose dad gets deported to Mexico. The audience liked it (at least they said they did...), which made me happy, especially since this is the first time I've read from it!

There were two extremely touching audiotaped stories (originally a high school project intended for a radio program) told by local teens about how they immigrated here. This was one of the many times I got choked up during the evening.

Mark Sanchez read his poetry, some of which was really funny (like his infected toe that got up and walked away) and some of which was powerful and sad (about poverty he witnessed in Oaxaca).

Q & A panel after the show. Left to right-- me, Gloria Garcia Diaz, one of the students involved in the radio project, Mark Sanchez.

There was a fantastic Romeo and Julieta scene from a bilingual production of the play-- super creative and romantic.

For me, one of the most special parts of the night was reading my friend Gloria Garcia Diaz's piece about a childhood trip she and her family took to scavenge in a dump in the slums of Mexico City. It's a funny, gorgeous, sad story that ends on the poignant note of her parents playing guitar together... and Gloria tape-recording their songs. It turned out to be a recording she'd treasure her whole life-- her mother died a year later, and her father three years later. After the reading, we played the audiotape-- it was haunting and heart-wrenching to hear those voices and guitar notes from so many years ago. (That was another time I got choked up...)

Here are me and Gloria (to my right, with the pink rose blouse) and her lovely sisters and niece.

So, I finally got my first every-other-month e-newsletter out! Thank you, everyone who gave me enthusiastic responses! If you haven't signed up for it, and you want to, please go here.

As you know if you read the newsletter, I'm holding a creative writing contest to win a free signed copy of the RED GLASS audiobook CD (a $45 value)! Please enter the contest!

I read two amazing speculative fiction/sci-fi/fantasy/futuristic-type books that I highly recommend! I wished I was reading them as part of a book club so that I could discuss them with people-- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson. Both books are technically labeled young adult, but I think adults would love them, too.


The Hunger Games is set slightly in the future-- it's about a girl who is selected by a lottery system to partake in a life-and-death "game" (a sick political variant of a reality TV show, complete with corporate sponsorship) with 23 other teens. According to the rules, only one teen can make it out of the "arena" alive. This is a well-written, multi-layered, fast-paced story of adventure, survival, friendship, romance-- told with great wit and wonderful social commentary.


The Adoration of Jenna Fox is also set slightly in the future and raises fascinating questions about spirit/soul, identity, what makes us a person, and other profound ideas. It's hard to write about it without any spoilers, so I'll just say that it's about a girl who has emerged from a long coma and finds herself without a complete memory or sense of identity. She gradually discovers the mysteries and secrets surrounding what happened to her. I'm sure this could spark fantastic discussions about the ethical implications of advanced medical technology. Really exciting and thought-provoking stuff!

Okay, Toddler's up from his nap now-- we're going to make another mess with the yellow dump truck in the soggy sand of his sandbox.

Bye!
Laura

Back from Mazunte!

view from my cabana balcony

Hola everyone!

I just got back from a five day trip to Mazunte-- a little beach town on the Oaxacan coast. I'm planning on setting the third book of the Notebooks series there, so I went to do some research (very grueling, of course...)

This is a beach I sometimes vacationed at while I was living and working in the mountainous Mixtec region of Oaxaca, much further inland. Even back then, I felt I wanted to set a book in Mazunte someday-- it's so sweaty and sunny and salty and sandy and jungly and flowery and mango-ey and hammock-ey-- I knew I wanted to dwell in that space in my mind for a long time... which is what I'll be doing with this book-- The Jade Notebook.

the cabana where I stayed

So, my husband was supposed to come with me (Toddler was in the company of his doting grandparents), but alas, the day before the flight, I noticed his passport had expired. So.... it was a solo trip! (Don't tell him, but it was actually kinda nice traveling alone-- I love it-- no schedule, no compromising, easier to meet people, etc... but, shhhh.)

view from my window

My days were like this: I went to bed early and woke up late-- nothing's better than sleeping under a mosquito net with wave sounds and insect songs lulling you into a blissful state...

view from my bed through the mosquito net

When I finally got out of bed, I swung on the hammock for a long time and watched the ocean and listened to the waves some more.


I had cafe con leche and fruit and yogurt (including papaya! yum!) and granola on the balcony overlooking the water.

Then I wrote more of Cerise Notebook (the second of the series, set in France) for a while-- (I didn't go online once for the whole trip-- it felt great!)


Then I swung in the hammock some more and went for a swim in the ocean.


Then I had quesadillas for lunch, talked with some nice people, and swung on the hammock some more.


I had afternoon tea and chocolate and wrote some more of Cerise.


Then I walked along the beach, hung out with locals playing volleyball and skim boarding and fishing and playing tug of war-- a really lovely family atmosphere in the evenings. Then I walked to the tip of Punta Cometa-- Comet point-- and watched the sunset and wrote in my notebook. Ahhh...


At nights, I had fresh fish on the balcony and talked with more nice people.

To come back home, I walked along a dirt road for a long time with my giant backpack and caught a colectivo-- a tiny car crammed with four people in the back, two in the passenger seat (I was one of them) and the driver-- cumbia music blasting, the driver's collection of little stuffed turtles dangling around the rearview mirror, along with the ever-present Virgen of Juquila-- Oaxaca's Virgin. In Pochutla, I took another colectivo to the airport in Huatulco, bought a bunch of cinnamon-almond-chocolate with my extra pesos, and caught the flight home.


And now I'm home, and thankfully, I've managed to hold onto that rhythm of waves and insect songs and a swinging hammock and that delicious feeling of melting right into the hot, humid air.



If it sounds to you like I did nothing but swing in my hammock, eat, sleep, write, and swim, you're mostly right. I did do a little interviewing-- that's where the oh-so-grueling research part came in-- but that's all top secret information. I don't want to spoil the book for you... Okay, I'm going to make some of that hot chocolate now.

Gracias for reading!

abrazos,
Laura

Happy Spring Equinox! (and thanks in advance for hearing my whining...)

Hi dear readers,

I always get super-excited about spring coming, and then when it finally comes, I find myself itchy-eyed and lost in heaps of used kleenex. My tree pollen allergy puts a major damper on the crocuses and tweetering birds.

Okay, enough complaining (although you should know that I am squinting at this laptop screen through puffy, red eyelids, and trying very, very hard not to start itching my eyes, because once I start...)

So here's what I've been up to lately:

1) writing an early draft of The Cerise Notebook, the second in the Notebooks series. Since I'm in a complaining mood, I'll just whine a bit about why it's sooooo hard. For one thing, this is the first book I've started writing after having gotten a contract for it. This definitely puts the pressure on. What if I can't do it? What if it's abysmal? What if it's too weird? Not weird enough? What if my editor doesn't like it? What if I used up all my writing talent and now there's just blah-ness left over?

I give myself lots of pep talks and write a lot in my journal about why I love this story and the characters and why I can finish this book. I do, ultimately, think I can do this-- mainly because experience has shown me that I always get freaked out along the way by various insecurities, and things always turn out fine.



This is an ancient moss-covered fountain over steamy hot springs in Aix-en-Provence, France-- which has something to do with The Cerise Notebook. (I won't tell you what).

2) Another thing I've been doing-- final stage stuff with Star in the Forest, my middle grade novel which comes out next spring, and The Indigo Notebook, which comes out this fall. What final stage stuff, you ask? Well, it feels like a constant stream of new tasks-- big, padded envelopes that arrive right when I'm settling in my trailer to give myself another pep talk about Cerise. The Fed Ex truck stops at the driveway, and I'm suddenly faced with a deadline for copy-edits to go over for Star, or page proofs for Indigo.

Or I take a wee break from Cerise to check my email and get the jacket copy for Star to go over, or the illustrations for it (yes, it's got some illustrations! And they're great-- especially the heart-wrenching one of the dog huddled under a rusty truck hood in the rain at night! Aww!) And although it's thrilling to have several books in the works at once, it's a little jarring to keep being pulled away from the one I'm trying to get lost in (Cerise).



Getting lost in Cerise involves wandering around the mysterious, narrow streets of Aix, as I did last summer.

Okay, just a little more complaining: (See why I only post about once a month? I'd send everyone running in the other direction with all my whining.) It's HARD going over copy-edits and page proofs. Those copy-editors and page-proofers catch all kinds of things-- beyond commas and typos. They say stuff like, wait a minute, Zeeta is already on the bus-- how can she get on it again? Or, wait a minute, here the woman places the baby for adoption before she leaves town, and there you say it's afterward. Or wait a minute, here you say today's Friday, but there you say yesterday was Sunday. Sometimes it's easy to fix-- just changing a word or two.... but sometimes it's a headache and a half, requiring rewriting a few paragraphs.... and I always fret that I'm creating more mistakes in an effort to fix the original mistake. Ack!

And the scary thing is, I have to get it perfect, because (at the page proof stage at least) there's no going back. This is what thousands of people are going to be reading, and I better get it right. So, as I go over the seemingly endless copy-editor's/proof-reader's comments, on one hand I feel incredibly grateful that she's spared me future embarrassment (I say she because everyone I've met at Delacorte/Random House has been a she-- sorry if I've left out any men out there). On the other hand, I feel really lame that I didn't catch these mistakes myself-- or even that I made them in the first place.

On an entirely different note (because I really want to end this post on a non-whiny note), here are me and Sarah Ryan and Carrie Visintainer, two members of my writing group, at my son's second birthday party. We got distracted from the cake and balloons and felt compelled to be Charlie's Angels for a while.


Bye!

un abrazo,
Laura

Back from Maryland Trip! (Part II)

Hey all!

So, I'm dividing my Maryland trip into two sections: the previous post was about my trip to Dunloggin, so scroll on down if you want to see that. This one's about my Clemente Middle School vist.

I was super-excited to return to Clemente this year. I went last year, too, and had lots of fun. I got hooked up with this school because my aunt and uncle and cousins happened to be sitting next to the school librarian, Ms. Gerard, at an Orioles game a couple years ago. I'm so glad they made that connection for me! Mrs. Gerard is one of the coolest librarians I've met (and I've met a lot!) She organized a book swap to pay for my visit, and did book talks complete with Mexican snacks to get kids excited about Red Glass.

Between presentations, I snacked on homemade pastries (courtesy of the library assistant!) and hung out with a bunch of library regulars who have read just about every book in the place. I was extremely impressed (I think they've read more books than me, and that's not an easy feat...)


Here I am with a very talented writer...


and an avid reader...


And now, for a bit of exciting news... My friend Maria Virginia Farinango and I got offered a contract from my beloved editor at Delacorte for the book we've spent years working on-- it's tentatively called The Queen of Water, and based on her amazing indigenous girlhood in the Ecuadoran Andes!!! We are over the moon...


Thanks for reading!

Laura

Back from Maryland Trip!

Hi all!

I'm finally recovered from the traumatic return flight with Toddler (he's nearly two now!) He had a meltdown on hour four of the flight, during the part where we couldn't get out of our seats, so I had to restrain this screaming, thrashing little creature for what felt like forever. (And he'd been such an angel on all our previous flights...)

Until that point, the trip went great. I spent two fun days visiting Dunloggin, my very own middle school from 1985-87. Some of the 7th grade reading classes just finished reading What the Moon Saw. What an honor!!!




I had some great conversations with former teachers of mine-- Mrs. Witt (in pic, she organized my visit), Mrs. Stanley (aka Mrs. Petrovich), Mr. Petrovich (in pic), and Mrs. Kehm.


The seventh graders did some cool projects based on the book-- like making their own book covers. Here are some of my favorites... there are definitely some students who have a future in book design!



They picked out "classic quotes" from the book for the back of their book jackets. I loved reading the quotes that somehow stood out to them-- it made me happy that they connected with these images and words. *Remember, you can click on the image to make it bigger!*



They also pulled out a bunch of metaphors and similes from the book (more that I'd known were in there!)

Shortly before I left for Maryland, I spent a Sunday afternoon at ALA in Denver, chatting with Random House folks and hearing Colorado teens talk about potential Best Books for Young Adults and loading up on free ARCs (advanced review copies). After the conference, I went to my friend Lauren Myracle's freedom-to-read event at The Tattered Cover. (She's one of the most banned authors of last year). Her event was a blast-- a perfect way to end the day-- she's as fun and funny and smart in person as she is in her books. Here we are with writer buddies-- Ron Cree (Desert Blood), Lauren (TTYL series; Bliss), Brandon Meyers (sci fi and fantasy), me, and Keira (avid reader!)


Okay, I'm going to do a post about my visit to Clemente Middle School now. If you haven't signed up for my every-other-month email newsletter, please sign up! That way you'll know about the book releases and tours and contests I have coming up this year. Also, if you haven't been to my new website yet, you should take a look-- my husband worked really hard on it.

Thanks for reading!
Laura