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Author Matthew Cody's Friendly Ramblings
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Who would you like to see flying through the sky to save the day? In ways big and small we all have someone in our life that is a superhero. To young readers, you yourself may be a hero—a teacher who protects a group of students during a tornado, a librarian who helps you find the perfect book that to turn you a reader…
Have your students and readers tell us about their real-life hero in 500 words or less and they could win a SUPER cool prize: Matthew Cody, the author of Super, Powerless and Villainous will write the winner of this contest into a short story as a SUPER.
Submit real-life superhero stories by December 20th, 2014 to:
Email: [email protected]
Snail Mail: Sadie Trombetta
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
Matthew, along with four fantastic ace readers from Knopf Books for Young Readers, will select the winners. The grand prize is the short story and a full set of signed copies of Matthew’s books. Five others will receive signed copies of all of Matthew’s books. As a bonus, any teacher who submits stories from her entire class will be eligible to win a class set of Matt’s books, as well as some select additional titles from Random House. The winner will be selected by January 15th, 2015.
Anyone in the NYC area, or if you’re in town for Book Expo America, this is your chance to party like it’s 2014! Saturday May 31st I’ll be joining a whole bunch of other authors for an evening of games, signings and general book zaniness. It’s the first ever Kids Author Carnival!
This is a new endeavor, so I hope you all can come out and help us make it a success! And I’ll be giving out free high-fives. Free high fives!!
Hope to see you there!
I’m late posting this (though I did do a ridiculous victory dance on Twitter when it was first announced. But I’m happy to say that Will in Scarlet is in very good company. Just in time for the holidays, too . . . .
The schedule has been posted, the streets of Charleston cordoned off, and locals are hiding their cookie jars because the authors are coming to town!
Here’s the schedule for this weekend’s festivities, but I’ll point out a few things I’ll be involved in below (The Storyball will be particularly nuts):
SATURDAY NOV. 9TH PANELS
1PM
CMH: THE MIDDLE GRADE STORYBALL Pseudonymous Bosch, Adam Gidwitz, Lisi Harrison, Alexander London, Lisa McMann, Barnabas Miller, Lauren Oliver, Carrie Ryan, Natalie Standiford, JE Thompson, Sean Williams (All Middle Grade Authors will be on stage!) Moderator: Matthew Cody
4PM
BALLROOM: WRITING FOR KIDS Matthew Cody, Adam Gidwitz, Lisa McMann, Carrie Ryan,, C. Alexander London Moderator: Pseudonymous Bosch
6PM
CMH: YA Smackdown SOLD OUT
I’m currently in lovely Saratoga Springs visiting the equally lovely Northshire Bookstore, but I wanted to take a moment from the road and share this very nice review from The Bulletin. They say so many nice things I’m going all blushy.
«Cody, Matthew Will in Scarlet. Knopf, 2013 [272p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-375-86895-5 $16.99
Library ed. ISBN 978-0-375-96895-2 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-375-89980-5 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 5-7
With his father off crusading for King Richard, thirteen-year-old Will Shackley must leave childhood mischief behind him as he takes on the responsibility of governing the Shackley estate. He makes a fine start, slaughtering two wolves during a hunt with his father’s men, but when Prince John’s thugs later attack Will’s home in an attempt to force fealty, the boy flees the battle to survive. Finding refuge among a merry band of thieves (including a drunken archer named Rob) in Sherwood Forest, Will sets out to plan his revenge but is soon confronted with the possibility that injustice is not simply the fault of one bad man. The punches packed in this historical action tale are both physical and emotional, as Will discovers that the sheltered world he grew up in is a privilege for very few and a distant dream for most. Cody’s pacing is a clever construction of frenzied but focused fight sequences balanced with quiet, subtle moments of self-reflection on Will’s part. Rich characterization does justice to each of the main players here, especially the villains: their motivations are made clear and understandable so that readers, like Will, come to realize the world is a complicated place with room for good and evil and much in between. Early scenes of wolf hunting and thrilling ambushes will likely draw even the most reluctant reader in, while the careful prose and likable hero will see them through to the satisfying conclusion. KQG
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By:
Matthew Cody,
on 9/17/2013
Blog:
The Blatantly Obvious
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I’ll be traveling the country this fall talking about Will in Scarlet to any vagabonds and scallywags that will listen! Below is the schedule of where you can find me and when. Be sure to check back for updates as we get closer to the actual dates!
Huzzah!
Friday, October 4th
Voracious Reader (Larchmont, NY)
Sunday, October 13th
New York Comic-Con
Tuesday, October 15th
Lemuria Books (Jackson, MS)
Thursday, October 17th
The Country Bookshop (Southern Pines, NC)
Friday, October 18th
McIntyre’s Books (Chapel Hill, NC)
Saturday, October 19th
Barnes & Noble (Cary, NC)
Sunday, October 20th
Barnes & Noble (Skokie, IL)
Monday, October 21st
Anderson’s Bookshop (Downer’s Grove, IL)
Tuesday, October 22nd
The Book Stall (Winnetka, IL)
Saturday, October 26th
Books of Wonder (New York City, NY)
Friday, November 1st
The Center for Fiction (New York – not open to the public)
Sunday, November 3rd
Northshire Bookstore (Saratoga, NY)
Saturday, November 9th
YALLFest (Charleston, SC)
This early review for Will just came in from Kirkus Reviews. Since you can’t see the whole thing until September without a subscription, I’ll post it here. Huzzah!
The origin story of one of the Merry Men is rousingly told.
It’s 1192. Thirteen-year-old Will Shackley, son of a lord returning from the Holy Land with King Richard I, becomes caught up in deadly political machinations when he runs afoul of the evil Sir Guy of Gisborne, loyal to the king’s usurping brother, Prince John. Wounded after fleeing his ancestral home and his beloved uncle’s murder, Will is grudgingly given haven in Sherwood Forest by a band of outlaws headed by a brute (no—not what you’re thinking). Determined to return to his father’s castle to exact revenge upon Sir Guy, now installed there, Will leads the band on a raid with treasure as its ostensible object. As the tale proceeds, Will, a deft swordsman wearing a red coat that gives him his name, finds friendship among the outlaws and begins to feel loyalty to them; he also grows in maturity as he learns that villainy isn’t as easily recognizable as he once believed. Readers familiar with the Robin Hood legend will find an unusual, perhaps unsettling, interpretation of their hero: First appearing as a drunken, irresponsible lout, Rob, too, develops self-discipline and eventually hits his stride; the story of how he comes to lead the Merry Men is plausibly told. There’s action, adventure and humor here, not to mention a fiercely proud female disguised as a boy. Characters are likable, and some modern turns of phrase don’t interrupt the narrative’s flow.
A nice addition to the Robin Hood canon. (map, cast of characters) (Historical fiction. 9-12)
This is not a review of the movie Man of Steel. Mainly because I’m not a good critic, and my review would read something like this – “I saw Man of Steel and l liked parts of it. Other parts, not so much.”
See? Useless review. But I have had some people, readers mainly, ask me what I thought of it. It’s probably because I write a series of books about superheroes and, let’s be honest, the Superman myth hangs over my books like a big . . . thing that hangs over books.
So no review here (unless you count the above, in which case you are awfully easy to please.) What I do want to write about is the story that they told, why I think several of the more controversial choices were interesting from a storytelling perpective, and whether in the end I would have made those same choices.
So if you are interested in reading that, put on your Spoiler Boots and read on! (seriously though, I’m going to spoil the dickens of it. Be warned.)
First of all: the controversy. What most folks seem to want to know is how I feel about Superman’s final act, in which he kills General Zod. I’d actually had this bit spoiled for me before seeing the movie (thanks Twitter) so I don’t know how shocked I would have been if I hadn’t seen it coming, or how that would have affected my reaction. That being said . . . I wasn’t all that shocked. As a matter of fact, I thought it was one of the more honest resolutions I’ve seen in a superhero story in quite a while.
“What?” I hear you screaming. “You think it’s okay for Superman to murder? What about when you wrote this!“
Relax, put down that plate. No, I don’t think it’s okay for Superman to murder, and I don’t think Superman as portrayed in the film thinks it’s okay either. He’s forced into an impossible situation, and is immediately filled with remorse and shame because of his action.
But let’s consider the alternative typical Hollywood solution: in most films Superman would not have killed Zod himself, but Zod would have conveniently brought about his own death in some kind of last ditch attack. (See Spiderman, see Batman Begins, see Superman II for goodness sake! That’s three Kryptonians who fall to their doom in that one.)
That’s the Hollywood cop-out. Give the audience their catharsis by killing the bad guy, but excuse the hero from any culpability because he didn’t pull the trigger. And that’s lazy storytelling. The makers of this story went a different direction, one fraught with moral implications and repercussions. It served to deepen what is basically “Superman Begins.”
Same thing with Pa Kent. Far from the true moral compass that we’ve seen in other versions, this Pa was a source of doubt in Clark. He instilled in his son fear – the fear of being discovered as different. Sure he was loving and full of pithy sayings, but he was also a therapist’s dream (and here I thought Batman was the hero with daddy issues.) But this decision wasn’t made lightly, I’m sure. Again, it gave Clark depth, inner conflict and a character arc to follow.
So craft-wise, I get both those decisions. They yield story potential, they serve what I am sure was the corporate mandate of “shake this franchise up!”
Now, back to Zod. Would I have ended it like that? That’s the question that I am getting asked, so here is the answer at long last:
No.
Even though I understand and, in some ways, respect the decision of those storytellers, I would not have made the same decision they did. Because I think that with Superman, heck with superheroes in general, there is always another way. They are aspirational, they are inspirational. Even with all their faults and foibles, at the end of the day they inspire wonder because they can do the things we cannot. They think of possible solutions to impossible problems, like how to stop Zod from killing others, without killing him yourself (if only there were a Phantom Zone to toss him into . . .)
Folks might say, “but that’s not realistic.” Nope. Neither is a guy flying around in a cape. We’re telling a myth here, and mythology deals in wonders. Go find another genre if that doesn’t suit you. The body count is high out there in fiction these days, so you won’t have to look far.
Which brings me again to did I like the movie? Parts of it I did, and parts I didn’t. I think it’s obvious which ones.
I’m glad I can finally (officially) let the cat out of the bag! In 2014 the third, and final, book in the POWERLESS series of books will be released. I can’t give away any details this early, but the title alone is a major spoiler!
(drum roll)
So look for VILLAINOUS in 2014 from Knopf Books for Young Readers!
The website’s back, and while I was tinkering around with it I went and started me a tumblr blog! You can check out the RSS feed on the right, or click here to see what it’s all about!
The gremlins have struck today and ye olde website is down! In the meantime, you can still contact me at matt@matthewcodyDOTcom. Especially if you owe me money.
Thanks for your patience!
-Matt
SUPER is finally out in stores and to make sure you all buy at least three copies a piece (one to give, one to read, and one to enclose in a hermetically-sealed case for all time) I will be hitting the road this October and November!
October 14th: New York Comic Con - Panel Discussion and signing.
October 18th: Anderson’s Bookshop, Naperville, IL
October 19th: The Book Stall, Winnetka, IL
October 20th: Illinois School Library Media Association 2012 Conference
October 23rd: Harleysville Books, Harleysville, PA
Nov. 4th: McNally Jackson Books w/ Gotham Writers Workshop, New York, NY
Nov. 15th: RJ Julia Booksellers, Madison CT
Keep checking this site because there are more appearances to come!
Hey, do you know what comes out in just two weeks? Guess? Okay, here’s a hint – SUPER, the sequel to my award-winning novel POWERLESS! (subtle, I’m not)
You can pre-order at your favorite local bookstore, or by following any of the bookstore links on the book page.
And don’t forget, Halloween is right around the corner, and that means millions of trick-or-treaters going from door to door asking you to fill their bags with copies of my books . . .
Don’t ruin a great American tradition!
Wonder by RJ Palacio is a fantastic book about a boy who is different and all that entails. The anti-bullying website Choose Kind grew out of the overwhelming response to RJ’s book and I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute my own bullying story for the site.
I’m reproducing my essay here, but I encourage you to visit the site for yourself and join the discussion.
Superman vs. Batman
By Matthew Cody
Superman is cooler than Batman, and I’ll tell you why.
I practically grew up wearing a cape. Sometimes it was a real, honest-to-goodness cape with a Superman symbol drawn on the back in black magic marker. But as often as not it was a towel, or my jacket tied around my neck. A shirt would do in a pinch and my poor mother spent untold hours of my childhood trying to untie the knots of my shirtsleeves. Supes was my guy.
For those of you who need a quick primer – Superman is an alien, the last survivor of a dead planet. Despite a loving adoptive family, he’s still an outsider. He’s different and he’s treated badly because of it. As a kid, he’s picked on and pushed around because his parents won’t let him play sports. But what the other kids don’t know is that he’s so powerful that playing sports with them would actually put them in danger. Even as an adult, mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent is the office klutz who will never get the girl.
But what makes Superman really, well, super, is that he could score any number of touchdowns as easily as breathing. He could take off his nerdy glasses and get the girl. He could toss the bullies into the next cornfield, into the sun. But he chose not to. Superman rose above it all – up, up and away. That’s pretty potent stuff for a terminally-shy kid wearing his shirt tied around his neck.
I don’t know what came first, the awkwardness or the cape. Did I get picked on because I ran around my neighborhood dressed up like a superhero or did I dress up like a superhero because I was getting picked on? I’m not really sure that it matters because the bullying continued long after the cape went away.
I wasn’t bullied by one specific kid. Throughout elementary and middle school it was more a series of unfortunate encounters, each little shame a doomsday plot. Each conflict a cliffhanger in which the hero rarely triumphed. But I learned something over the years in spite of, or perhaps because of, it all.
We are all powerless at some point in our lives. We all feel alone and alien in a world that doesn’t seem to want us, surrounded by evil-doers determined to make our lives miserable.
But we grow. We change. And under a bright yellow sun we discover a strength that goes deeper than our muscles. We defy the mere gravity that presses down on us and we leap, we soar into the future. And when we get there, we look back on our villains not with a desire for vengeance, but with kindness, because we know we were stronger than they were. Always.
So that’s why, for me, it’s Superman. Because of his secret power. Because of the secret power we all share, if we choose to embrace it.
That, and the heat vision.
A couple of weeks ago, I ran a contest on my email newsletter to win an advanced reading copy of SUPER (what? you didn’t know about it? Sign up here to stay informed!) Among the winners was Maddie from Minnesota and this weekend Maddie sent me a very nice letter to tell me what she thought of it. So here it is (with just a little FBI-style redaction to prevent major plot spoilers!)
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Matthew Cody,
I couldn’t (and still can’t) believe I was one of the names drawn from your mailing list to read Super! I received it in the mail on Monday and quickly read to chapter ten. The next day I finished it. I really liked it. My favorite part was definitely when everyone XXXXXXXXXX, but it was funny when Georgie XXXXXXXXXXXX.
I think Super is right up there with Powerless on my reading scale. I’m rereading it again. I liked XXXXXXX dramatic XXXXXXX, and the XXXXX, and Theo Plunkett–there was lots of good suspense. And the final conclusion, XXXXXXXXXX.
I liked it so much, that I ended up drawing the front cover! ↴ All in all, Super was an awesome book!
Your fan,
Maddie
Thursday, May 17th:
210 East 77th Street
New York, NY 10075
I’ll be signing and talking with students all day! Open to students of Birch Wathen Lenox and their families.
Sunday, May 20th at 1pm:
Symphony Space Thalia Theater
2537 Broadway at 95th street
New York, NY 10025
I’ll be moderating an audience talk with Michael Buckley, author of the Sisters Grimm series. Click on the above link for tickets!
Thursday, May 24th
Park Middle School
580 Park Avenue
Scotch Plains, NJ 07076
I’ll be visiting with the students all day! Bringing my comfy shoes.
The advanced reading copies are out in the world, so it’s time to reveal the cover to the sequel to POWERLESS!
SUPER will hit the bookstores in September, and if you’re curious here’s the back cover copy:
“Daniel Corrigan is as regular as can be, especially when compared to the Supers: kids in his new hometown with actual powers like flight and super strength. But Daniel’s not powerless. Only he was able to stop the Shroud, a supervillian bent on stealing his newfound friends’ powers. And thanks to him, his friends got to keep those powers.
Now Daniel himself is starting to display powers, while at the same time, his friends are losing theirs. His friend Eric thinks Daniel is just becoming a Super himself, a late-blooming one. But Daniel worries there may be something more sinister at work, since his power-stealing ability is uncomfortably like the Shroud’s. Of course, the Shroud is gone now . . . or is he? And could Daniel himself be his new vessel? “
What do you think?
Here’s the updated list of Cool Things I’m Doing Soon. If you happen to be in any of these areas, please come by and say hello!
Matthew Cody at Charlottesville Day School
Thu. March 22nd, 2012 – 9:00 AM
Matthew Cody visits with CDS elementary and middle school students
Powerless at Albemarle High School
Thu. March 22nd, 2012 – 12:45 PM
Matthew Cody (Powerless and The Dead Gentleman) chats about writing novels and comics with Albemarle High students. Open only to the AHS community.
Matthew Cody at Buford Middle School
Fri. March 23rd, 2012 – 9:00 AM
Matthew Cody discusses writing about books and comics with Buford students. Open only to the Buford school community.
Matthew Cody at Walton School
Fri. March 23rd, 2012 – 12:30 PM
Matthew Cody chats with Walton students about his books and comics. Open only to the Walton school community.
Sweet Reads
Fri. March 23rd, 2012 – 6:00 PM
Meet many of the young adult and children’s authors participating in the Festival. Celebrate literacy and literature at the Charlottesville Catholic School! Enjoy a dessert reception and chat with the authors. Open to the public.
Location:
Charlottesville Catholic School
1205 Pen Park Rd
(434) 964-040
Hosted by Charlottesville Catholic School.
Young Adult Fiction: Heroes, Demons & Bad Roommates
Sat. March 24th, 2012 – 2:00 PM
Jenny Hubbard (Paper Covers Rock), Matthew Cody (The Dead Gentleman), Wendy Shang (The Great Wall of Lucy Wu), and Jon Skovron (Misfit). Open to the public.
Featuring:
Matthew Cody, Jenny Hubbard, Wendy Wan-Long Shang, Jon Skovron, Bella Stander (moderator)
Location:
Village School
215 E High Street
(434)984-4404
The NYC Big Read (I’ll be joining a whole HOST of great authors reading all over NYC)
Thurs. March 29 (Time and Location TBA)
Symposium- The Writer as Time Traveler: Writing the Past While Sitting in the Present
Fri. March 30th, 3:00-3:50 PM
Matthew Cody
Jennifer Donnelly
Leanna Renee Hieber
Suzanne Weyn
moderator: David Levithan
Location: 42nd Street NYPL
April 2-5th, Chicago Schools Tour
These visits are open only to students. Hopefully if you live in the area, I’ll be visiting your school!
April 2nd, A. Vito Martinez Middle School
April 3rd, Jane Adams Middle School
April 4th, Lukancic Middle School
April 5th, Palos Middle School
0 Comments on Things I’m Doing in 2012: Spring Edition (Updated! Improved!) as of 1/1/1900
I hinted at this a few weeks ago, but in today’s issue of Booklist there’s a very nice review for The Dead Gentleman. I particularly like the (very accurate) list of homages towards the end! Here’s the full text of the review:
The Dead Gentleman.
Cody, Matthew (Author)
Nov 2011. 288 p. Knopf, hardcover, $15.99. (9780375855962). Knopf, library edition, $18.99.
(9780375955969).
Two young New Yorkers from different eras unite to save the world from an invasion of zombies led by an elegant, corpse-wearing darkling. Shuttling among worlds, times, and points of view, Cody chronicles the recruitment of Tommy, a street urchin from 1901, into a wormhole-traveling Explorer’s Society menaced by the powerful and mysterious Dead Gentleman. Guided by a device that can peer through time, Tommy contacts 12-year-old Jezebel a century into his future and tasks her with protecting an enigmatic clockwork bird that holds the key to the Gentleman’s ability to conquer our planet. Despite all the quick changes and fortuitous coincidences, readers will enjoy watching the two quarreling protagonists take on zombies and other creepy-crawlies on the way to a fiery, if inconclusive, air battle over the Hudson River. Chucking in elements of steampunk, Jules Verne, and Edgar Rice Burroughs along with vampires, three-armed aliens, inscrutable monks, closet monsters, and even dinosaurs, Cody pays tribute to classic adventure authors and genres here as he dishes up an exciting time-travel tale.
— John Peters
The new year is here folks and it’s getting off to a busy start! I thought it’s be useful to post what bookish things I’m doing in the first few months of the glorious year of the Mayan Apocalypse. On the days not listed, just assume I’m sitting in a coffee shop and staring bleary eyed at my computer. I do live the glamorous life.
January 11th: Gotham Writer’s Open House, Academy of St. Joseph’s NYC. I’ll be doing a FREE Children’s Book Writing class from 8:15-9:15pm.
January 15th: Housing Works Bookstore, NYC. FREE One-hour Children’s Book Writing class sponsored by Gotham Writer’s Workshop. 11am – 12pm
March 21-25th: Virginia Festival of the Book, Charlottesville VA. Schedule TBA
April 2-5: Chicago School Tour: Four schools in four days! Not open to the public, but I am considering doing a Chicago bookstore visit at the end of the tour so stay tuned!
One other very cool thing I’m doing this winter is a creative writing workshop with the excellent students at Holland Brook Elementary. Over the course of this four week residency, I’ll be running a writing workshop with the fifth graders and while it’s not a public event, I’ll certainly be posting some highlights from the experience here on the ever-popular news page!
Have a happy winter everyone!
