So it turns out that not all YA authors look like this:
Louisa May Alcott — author of Little Women, was apparently described as “homely” by folks who knew her. Though maybe the state of photography just wasn’t so great back then.
Anyway, today I got to meet four YA authors, all female, and all stunningly beautiful. Seriously. They were: Emily Gould, former editor of Gawker, Zareen Jaffery, a senior editor at Harper Collins (the two co-wrote Hex Education) Lauren Mechling (who co-wrote the 10th Grade Social Climber trilogy and has a new novel, Dream Girl out soon), and Rachel Maude, author of Poseur, a new series that debuted in January.
Pics inside!
Emily, left, and Zareen. I’ve decided Emily looks like Alicia Silverstone circa Clueless, and Zareen totally looks like Stacey from What Not to Wear.
Rachel, who says her first name was considered totally lame at the high school she attended in L.A. Personally, Rachel is one of my favorite names, but then again, I was named “Sabrina” after a character on Charlie’s Angels. Speaking of Sabrina, Rachel actually looks kind of like Julia Ormond, who was in that 1995 flick with Harrison Ford.
Lauren, who has the most amazing blue eyes, though you can’t see them in this photo. I’m saving the best pic of her for later, when I review her new book. Of the four, she’s the only one I couldn’t match up immediately with a celeb. But maybe that’s because she’s a celebrity all her own. (Edit: I’ve decided she looks a lot like a young Lynda Carter, better known as Wonder Woman.)
Anyway, Lauren is sewing because that’s what we were all doing today. ‘Twas a YA writers’ (and hangers-on) sewing circle, in which we all made cool T-shirts. Well, actually, I took a cool T-shirt, cut off the arms, and then left it alone while I chatted folks up and took their pictures. But everyone else made awesome T-shirts, because we were at Etsy Labs in Brooklyn. For a day, the beautiful writer ladies ditched their laptops, notebooks, pens, and other usual accoutrements, and took up crafting. If you missed it … well, all I can say is that you missed out on great fun.
Ahem. You should know that in addition to being very pretty and nice, these ladies are also very good writers. Whose works you should read. Because you’ll like them. But more about that later … for now we can all just gawk at them and think, “Wow. If I were a YA author, I’d be gorgeous too, right? Maybe they have special spa services in their special authors’ mansion, and that’s why they all always look like fashion models …”
When I first glanced at Emily I saw Piper Perabo around the time she did Coyote Ugly.
But Zareen DEFINITELY looks like Stacy.
Emily told me she gets compared to Macauly Culkin, but I think that’s just plain rude. Comparing a pretty woman to a guy best known as the dorky kid from Home Alone is evil. But I can totally see the Piper Perabo thing. And that definitely isn’t rude. Still, I think you have to see Emily in person to know just how much she looks like Alicia Silverstone as Cher in Clueless. Because she really really does.