YA New York

Oh, kiddies. You missed a BIG night Wednesday. Big. Epic. Huge.

You know why? Not only were there six amazing authors reading from their books, but we were also graced with the presence of a celebrity guest. Yes, indeed, a woman so recognizable and so widely beloved that I fully expect you all to kick yourselves for not attending.

A pity you missed it, but I’m going to share it with you anyway. Ready? Pics inside!

This is Martin Wilson, author of What They Always Tell Us. He seemed a bit nervous, but needlessly so, because his reading made me desperately want his book. Lucky for me, I was sitting next to his publicist, who had a Mary Poppins-like bag of readable goodies by her side. Martin’s book features a character who drinks Pine Sol at a party, and another who goes on a “La Quinta weekend” with his girlfriend. David Levithan, who of course hosted the evening’s festivities, wanted to know why the book wasn’t called La Quinta Weekend. I’ll tell you if I agree with David once I’ve read Martin’s book.

Next up was Matt de la Peña, whose new book is called Mexican White Boy. It is, not surprisingly, about a kid who is half white and half Mexican, and just from Matt’s reading I decided the book was both funny and heartbreaking. Also, definitely familiar territory for anyone who’s ever been called a half-blood, half-breed, or whatever other slurs are in these days for those of us who are racially mixed. Oh, and isn’t Matt a cutie? If there was a website that was like, the opposite of Go Fug Yourself, and it was only about authors, I’d totally be the one running it. And I’d totally put Matt on the list. As well as …

Lauren Mechling. Who I think I’ve said often enough is awesome. And whose new book I already told you was kickass. She read well, but I was like, “No! Not that passage! What if you give something away?!?” Except of course she didn’t, and she stopped at exactly the right moment, and all the other authors looked seriously enthralled, and afterwards they all seemed to want to read Dream Girl. (And well they should, because Lauren has single-handedly resurrected the mystery-for-teens category, featuring Claire Voyante, girl detective.) Ugh. Does it just seem to you like I’m worshipping at Lauren’s feet?

Dude. With shoes like that, wouldn’t you? Ahem. I’m sorry, this isn’t a beauty blog, it’s a book blog, right? So I should move on now.

… To our next author, who is also gorgeous, and has an awesomely hot book cover, over which David drooled quite effusively. Lauren McLaughlin’s book Cycler comes out Tuesday. You’ll have to wait until next week for a full review, but let’s just say it is worth buying on release day. Or pre-ordering so it arrives on release day. Actually, there are two books coming out on Tuesday, both of which you must read, and Lauren’s is one of them. So please, do clear your schedules, yes?

Nora Baskin read from her first teen book — she’s mostly done middle grade work until now — All We Know of Love. The scene she read was kind of hot and steamy, but also very thoughtful. Like, the main character talks about how she replays every conversation, touch, kiss and so forth in her head, and I know that’s something we have all done. Anyway, Nora’s book is really about a young woman who has been abandoned by her mother (when the girl was three, though) and goes off in search of her. I can’t wait to read it, as soon as I get my grubby little hands on a copy. (Nora was also wearing super-awesome shoes, but she changed into a pair of sandals before I could get a picture of her heels. Seriously cool red Mary Janes with big chunky heels. Alas, the description doesn’t do it justice.)

Now. David started out the question and answer session, and I don’t remember the first question except that Matt answered by saying, “There were no strippers. … This time around I knew there would be no strippers.” Oh! I think David was asking what it was like writing this particular book, as each author was doing something a little different this time around. Martin’s book is his first, Matt’s is his sophomore effort, Lauren Mechhling’s is her first solo effort, and both Lauren McLaughlin and Nora were new to teen lit.

For instance, Martin says of his book, “It’s not autobiographical, but it is.”

And Lauren Mechling says, on writing alone, “It was just a much bigger deal for me. it was like taking my water wings off, finally.”

Lauren McLaughlin says she hated Jill, one of the two main characters in her book, for ages. “It took me three drafts before I could even tolerate her.” She added, though, that the character we meet in Cycler is probably a better person than the one with whom Lauren started out.

Oh! And Lauren McLaughlin got the idea for her book … from having agonizing menstrual cramps.

Nora said she enjoyed being able to use bigger words and sexier words and play a bit with structure on this book, which she can’t do for middle grade lit. As for what inspired her novel, she shared with us all that her mother had committed suicide when Nora was three. So she tried to imagine what it would be like if the form of abandonment her mom had chosen had not been so permanent, and that’s how she conceived this novel. Which again, makes me want to read it all the more. And then she went from super-serious, about her mom dying and stuff, to hilarious: “I fucked up my kids, too.” After everyone laughed, she said, “I’m very funny.”

Okay. Now we get to our celebrity guest, featured in the pic below with David Levithan. This is from a different event, because I didn’t think it would be polite to photograph audience members like some sort of paparazzo.

That’s our own darling David Levithan on the left … with our own awesome Libba Bray on the right. Yes, my friends, Libba was there, and maybe that means the Q & A session ended up being very funny indeed.

“What would be the rock opera of your life?” Libba asked, along with some other serious question about anything surprising that comes up in writing. I mean, the serious question was serious and important, but … umm … rock opera???

Nora says there was a rock opera about her life, Tommy. One of the Laurens, and alas, I can’t remember which, claims to have written half a rock opera called Food, the Opera. Matt says he doesn’t know what a rock opera is, and Martin says he doesn’t actually like rock music, so his would be a boring pop opera about a boy who doesn’t like rock music.

As for surprising things, Lauren Mechling was surprised that, when she quit her day job to write Dream Girl it wasn’t all yoga and museums and that actually she didn’t get out of the house much at all. Matt was surprised at how important the peripheral characters became to him, and now he’s actually working on a book that focuses on a supporting cast member from Mexican White Boy. Lauren McLaughlin was surprised that her book ended up being so psychological, and she surprised all of us by announcing she’s currently working on a sequel to the book.

One woman in the audience, someone I should probably have recognized because she was sitting next to Libba and looked very recognizable, asked what people thought of the whole YA Ghetto thing. YAY! Someone asked this question!

My favorite response was Lauren Mechling’s: “I am YA and proud.” Dude, I’m totally going to make some FaceBook flair expressing that very sentiment. Martin said he loves the fact that there isn’t as much pressure in YA to be a rock star with your first book, and Lauren McLaughlin said she didn’t even know YA existed until she wrote the book and Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier told her it was a teen book. Nora gave us another perspective, which is that apparently it’s kind of hard to break into YA from middle grade fiction. That was sort of a surprise to me, since so many people say it’s hard to break into adult fiction from YA.

Now, my friends, I have gone on for far too long. But aren’t you glad I did? Aren’t you sad you weren’t there? Aren’t Lauren Mechling’s shoes fabulous?

♥♥♥,
brina

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 7:13 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.