It's ALA midwinter weekend and while I am dug deep into writing a book, Glory gets to go out and have all the fun hanging out with the awesome librarians.

My lovely editor sent this picture to me this morning.

Not in that order.
The fan is the reward for the words.

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So excited for @AS_King’s new books with @andrewkarre in his new home @DuttonYR! http://t.co/JQ6JFyausC
— Michael Bourret (@MichaelBourret) January 26, 2015

I'm embedding Michael's tweet here because it's snowing and snow always makes me sleepy and somewhat incoherent. But here's what the PW deal looks like:



So that's the news. My 2016 and 2017 books will come from Dutton Books and I'll be working with the amazing Andrew Karre again.

Eight years ago, Andrew Karre bought my first published book, The Dust of 100 Dogs. By that time, I'd written about 8* novels over 15 years and collected 400+ rejection letters. I was too weird for adult publishers. But Andrew likes weird, and when he read D100D he wanted to publish it. I didn't really know what YA books were when this happened. I'd lived in a place where YA wasn't really booming and I was in need of a reading list. It was Andrew Karre who first uttered the words Octavian Nothing to me. I can't thank him enough for that. (*No, you will never get to read those first 7 novels. Sorry, but I'm saving you. Trust me.)

2015 will still see publication of I Crawl Through It from Little, Brown.

At this point you're guaranteed a new YA book from me every year until 2017.

Let's all just eat tacos and beat on the piñata now.

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I have three days to finish page proofs, finish my business tax prep, and enjoy my kids before they go back to school. Also: make cotton candy out of root beer barrels.

But it's New Year's Day and I wanted to show you something.

These are my road maps from 2005 (when I started drawing them) to 2015.
Ten years of road maps.

The one from 2005 said things like "Find an agent" or "Finish the book."
Ten years later, there are a lot of extra roads and more concrete and achievable goals because technically, I had no control over the agent or publishing part in 2005, right? All I have control over is what I do. And writing books is what I do.

I didn't realize that this New Year tradition was 10 years old until I took down the maps from my wall to add this year's map. When I realized it, I also realized that time seems compressed. It doesn't feel like ten years...which is made even more obvious by having a kid who is nearly as tall as I am and visiting family today whose kids I remember as middle school students who are now in college.

Time flies.

2015 is going to be an excellent year. I'm going to write my brains out. I'm going to publish I CRAWL THROUGH IT, which is a book I'm very proud of. I'm going to concentrate on all these ideas I have in my head but never have the time to get on paper.

I painted my office this week. When we moved in here, I just tossed my office together because I had to go to VCFA for my first semester of teaching a few days later. It used to be the most hideous color green. Now it's brighter and it's mine. I figured I should have an office that feels like mine as I head into a new year.

I can't tell you what color it is because it's going to be in my next book.

Anyway--road maps. They always helped me concentrate on what I had to do in a year. I love drawing them even though my trees are really poorly-drawn.

I do draw nice birds, though.

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First: When I said "I will be back with many more 2014 moments" at the end of my last post, I totally didn't mean it. Sorry about that.

But here's something I don't talk about much: letters. I get letters. I get letters from readers who say nice things, real things, honest things. It's pretty life-changing when a stranger who read your book can write you a letter and say deeply nice things.
Thank you for your letters in 2014.
They make my day.

Which brings me to fan art.
I am relatively new to fan art and being a person who can't draw, people who can draw well fascinate me. A few months ago, Ana Maia, an artist I met on Twitter, sent me these fantastic portraits of A.S. King characters. I've been meaning to share them because they pretty much blew me away.
Thank you Ana, for taking the time to draw these. I love them.

I CRAWL THROUGH IT preview brought to you by my doing page proofs: "Yeah. I regret burning the monkey."
— A.S. King ☂ (@AS_King) December 31, 2014

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I am six months late, but I have to say I have never been voted Best Dressed in my life.

Book Riot appreciates my green boots and I love them for that.

23 year old Doc Martens for the win.

I will be back with many more 2014 moments.

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It's been a very newsy week here at Casa King.
I'm going to dole out news in little tasty morsels, though, because I don't want you to eat too much at one time. That's why I can't eat bananas anymore. I once ate too many of them and now my body just says "No thank you" which is a real bummer because I really love bananas.

ANYWAY.

This sunday the New York Times Book Review will publish a review of Glory O'Brien's History of the Future written by Rick Yancey. But you don't have to wait for Sunday.

You can read it here.

If you're not the type to click on delicious links, then here's an excerpt.

"Maybe there are writers more adept than King at capturing the outrageous and outraged voice of teenagers, but it’s difficult to think of one. Her Glory is a wondrous creation, sarcastic, witty, sensitive, insightful, the kind of girl other girls (O.K., guys too) wish they were (or, probably more likely and more often than is the case, think they are)."

Now I will go eat Mexican food.

Hey Mom! I'm in the New York Times!

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I don't get it.
I just sit here and write what comes out of my head and some people seem to really dig what I do. This is really cool. And I'm not sure why, but I'm unable to process this. Even though I record these sorts of events or milestones with you--here in public--I don't really let them sink in. I'm just a lady in a room typing what comes to me.

So if you dig what I do, thank you. I really enjoy doing what I do.
We're a perfect match.

In this week's good news department, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future landed on the Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2014 list. That's always really sweet.

Also in this week's news was a sixth starred trade review for GLORY (I told you I'd get sick of typing that whole title) from the lovely people at The Horn Book coming in the January issue. I'll quote a tiny bit here for you.

✮ "King’s distinctive approach to fashioning a story of adolescent strife results in a book that’s not only thoroughly original but also uniquely compelling and deeply memorable."--The Horn Book

Six is a magic number because it makes a sort of constellation for a book. Because I can't quite process all of this, I can't tell you what the power of that constellation is, but I can tell you that it's a nice constellation and it keeps me humble and keeps me writing.

Since you last heard from me

I went to Arizona and to the awesome Changing Hands Bookstore and had a fantastic time, as always. I really do wish I could split in two and have half of me live in Arizona. Anyway, I took my kids with me and we had a fantastic time panning for gold, climbing the red rocks, and experiencing our first vortex.

Yes. I said vortex.

And it was real. Look:

Does this not convince you?

I can't describe what it felt like. I can't describe how it affected us. But whatever it was, it was something and I plan on visiting local vortexes in the future. (Math geek in me just cringed not changing that to vortices, but it's right, I swear to you.)

More soon. Upcoming events in the Exton, PA are and the Reading, PA area! Check my tour page!

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Last night was the 65th National Book Awards. Ursula Le Guin received the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. I want you to watch her speech. I want you to listen to what she says about art. And freedom.

"Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an ebook six or seven times more than they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience and writers threatened by corporate fatwa, and I see a lot of us, the producers who write the books, and make the books, accepting this. Letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish and what to write."

Dear Ursula Le Guin,

I promise you I will never be deodorant. Thank you so much for the reminder.

Love, Amy


Also, Jackie Woodson won the NBA for Young People's Literature for her book BROWN GIRL DREAMING. When she won, I jumped up out of my chair so hard I shook the house.

This book is one of the most beautiful books I've read in years. Woodson's verse lifted me off my porch swing as I read it.

Jacqueline Woodson is a national treasure.

Art and freedom. Art and freedom.

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Glory is chilling out with some really great company over at the Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2014. Click here to see the whole list, which is a fantastic list!

Other linkage:

A VCFA Faculty blog I wrote about encouragement is HERE.

There are a few bits of good news I cant share yet, but I figured I'd keep you updated because you're nice and I like updating nice people.

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My brain is mush. I just read and sent copy edits for 2015's I Crawl Through It to my editor today and I'm not sure I know my own name right now. But I promised you a blog, and so here I am.

First, good news!

Portuguese/Brazilian rights have been sold for five of my books. (Dreams come true!)

PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ will be published in Brazil [only] by Novo Seculo Editora
EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS, ASK THE PASSENGERS, REALITY BOY & GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE will be published in Brazil and world Portuguese by Editora Autentica. These should start hitting shelves in 2015-ish.

Go Brazil!

GLORY LIVES!

So it started with the launch party at Aaron's Books in Lititz, PA. I love Aaron's Books. They served tacos. And cake. They were wonderful hosts, as always, and they gave me a lovely gift and treated me like a rock star even though I'm just a simple country girl. Friends, family and supporters who pre-ordered from Aaron's or came out to join us in the fun: Thank you. By doing this, you supported my local economy. You supported a family run business that cares about people, not shareholders.

Here's Todd packing up pre-orders a few days before launch. Note: This is a tiny back room in a real live store, not a warehouse. Your pre-orders helped keep the lights on for human beings. Thank you.

So, tour pictures. I was touring with Paolo Bacigalupi who was talking about his new book, THE DOUBT FACTORY. He told such compelling stories about the history of the doubt industry. You have to read the book to understand, but it's chilling stuff. Trust me.

First stop, Santa Cruz, CA

I have no pictures of Book Shop Santa Cruz, but it was a great event. The next morning we stopped at Aptos High School and this was where my unforgettable day began.

Paolo talking about some seriously heavy stuff. The Aptos students were great. Librarian Cheryl was so warm and welcoming. And when I asked her where might be a good place to stop on the way to the city to hug redwood trees, she said, "I have a circle of redwoods up by the library. That's where we're going now." Day = Made.

Now, excuse me while I talk about redwoods.
They are magical.
Here are more pictures than you probably want. But one just wouldn't do it.

Cheryl called this a fairy circle of redwoods. And it was exactly that. They were amazing trees and Yes, I did hug one. I may have kissed it, too. Don't judge. I love trees.

Me and trees. Best friends forever.

Photo Cred: Cheryl Proof that I did hug the tree. I can't wait to go back to the west coast and hike in forests of these beauties. And Sequoias. Tree love-rant over.

So after much tree loving, we went inside Cheryl's lovely Aptos HS library and signed some books.

Photo Cred: Cheryl Gandhi FTW!

Photo Cred: Kathy/Cheryl Here we are before we took off in a car for San Francisco. I love Paolo's shirt.

Next stop, same day, San Francisco. After many many many years of Maggie Tokuda-Hall and I wanting to get me into Books Inc. for a visit, it finally happened. I was so excited to meet her and to be part of San Francisco's LitQuake Festival. It was a great event for all kinds of reasons.

Reason #1: Someone drew this.

Photo Cred: Maggie, I think. Reason #2: This space is gorgeous, isn't it? The art rocked. And there were tortilla chips. (Among other things, but all I ever need is tortilla chips.) I had such fun reading from GLORY to this crowd and then talking about everything else alongside Paolo. He's such a pro.

Photo Cred: Lianna Reason #3: VCFA Maximum respect to the VCFA crew of the Bay area! You coming out to see me that night made my day even better and I HUGGED REDWOODS THAT DAY. So this is huge. Thank you! Thank you!

Reason #4: A late night seriously awesome tour of San Francisco after I said, "I've been in the city all day and I haven't seen one hill." The lovely Lianna and Laura said, "You want hills? We can show you hills." Bonus: they also showed me the Golden Gate Bridge, The Castro, Haight-Ashbury and a ton of other really groovy stuff. Random aside: Everywhere I went in SF, they were playing music I liked. This never happens. Take, for example, airports. Only once in my life (That's you, Portland, OR) has an airport played music I like. Anyway. After the late night tour, I crashed because I had to catch a flight to Austin the next morning.

Next stop, Austin for the Texas Teen Book Festival.

Photo Cred: Andrew Smith That's Andrew, A very tired me, James Dashner and the epic Gayle Forman. We had a great night, but had to get to bed early-ish so we could do the festival the next day.

I love this picture. This is Jen Bigheart and Andrew Smith right before our lunch panel. At our lunch panel, Drew and I talked about how we golf. Without golf clubs. Why we're best friends and about a trillion other things. Jen is awesome. Drew is awesome. The audience was awesome. Later that day I was on a panel with 4 amazing authors, but I don't have a picture. Trust me. I was there. Then there was the post-festival bar time.

Photo Cred: Julie Said post-festival bar time was a damn fun crowd. Here's my favorite picture from the night--me and Drew with Julie Murphy who ROCKS OUT LOUD.

Somewhere in all of this festival day stuff I met a ton of epic readers, signed a lot of books, hugged fans, ate food, broke a tooth, called my dentist, and then went back to having a great time. (Man. My brain really is fried. I'd usually be more descriptive than this.) I highly recommend the Texas Teen Book Festival if ever you're nearby. It's well organized and powered by the best librarians on the planet and many volunteers who love reading.
So then I flew home.

I breathed for four days. I got my tooth fixed. I started the copy edits. Etc.

Last Thursday night I had an event at Children's Book World in Haverford, PA.
You all know how I feel about this bookstore, right? Heather Hebert is an independent bookselling goddess. We had a lot of fun and a huge shout out to the high school students who bused in to see me! That was AWESOME. I saw some superstars that night. Kate Walton was there, Sister Kim the mega-librarian was there (I'll be at the Little Flowers Festival in April), Jenn Hubbard was there, and Beth Kephart--who took the most amazing pictures, as usual. She has a magical camera. Let me show you.

Photo Cred: Beth She always manages to catch me in the right light...

Photo Cred: Beth And whenever we get our picture taken together, we look like teenagers. Seriously. Beth rocks. And if you haven't read any of her books yet, you must. GOING OVER from 2014 is brilliant, and all her past books are equally brilliant. Trust me.

Next stop, the Boston Book Festival.

Photo Cred: I completely forget, but thank you! That's Scott Westerfeld (our second panel together in a week), Meg Wolitzer, and me at the Emmanuel Church in Boston. People who were in the crowd: WOW! That was some crowd! Thank you for coming! Great discussion. Great Q&A and a great signing.

After the BBF event, I went to dinner with some stellar authors and then crashed for my early flight on Sunday morning.

Aaaaand we're done for a few weeks. Thank you for enduring the me me me tour post.
And thank you for all of you who came out to see me on my travels.
And thank you for all of you who read the books.
And my brain is officially fried now.
 Next up:

• Clinton Book Shop, Clinton, NJ on Nov. 7th at 7pm. 
• Reading Public Library, Reading, PA on Nov. 8th at 1pm.
• Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe location, AZ on Nov. 21st at 7pm.

• BONUS appearance: Changing Hands, Phoenix location, for a screening of e.E. Charlton-Trujillo's AT RISK SUMMER--a film that will blow you away, at 5pm on Saturday 11/22/14. I'll be there with mi hermana e.E. for Q&A after the screening. Proud to be a part of this project and its bright future pairing authors with facilities for at-risk youth. 

Placing objects in toilet may cause system failure. As an ex-smoker I have to say: Why would anyone toss a pack of still-smokable cigarettes down an airplane toilet? I mean, I get tossing them. I did that a lot. But why in the airplane? Also: DO NOT THROW SEVERED HANDS INTO THIS TOILET.

Remember: Badasses are kind to others. They do not shove on airplanes. They do not cause system failure in airplane toilets. They don't recline airplane seats. And they say thank you.

Thank you.

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I'm still gathering photos to show you from the tour.
I'll get to it, I promise.

Today I am stuck into copy edits here in rainy Pennsylvania. So this will be short. But it's exciting!


GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE got its FIFTH starred review today in The Bulletin! (If you read yesterday's blog, you're like--what? I thought yesterday was five?--but publishing is weird. It counts some starred reviews and doesn't count others. I won't stop you if you want to say six because it means more tacos for all of us. More tacos for all of us is good. Please add the drink of your choice and we will have a party.)

✭ "King continues to be one of the most original (yet accessible) YA writers today, and the magical realism element accentuates the humanity of the narrative by looking past people’s momentary selves to place them in times both past and future."--BCCB 

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A starred review in Shelf Awareness for Glory today!

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future

I have a big blog post coming with pictures to show you around my tour stops. But first, I have to work.

A drag, but you know. Has to happen.

This week's events: 
Thursday 10/23 at Children's Book World in Haverford, PA
Saturday 10/25 at the Boston Book Festival--panel with Meg Wolitzer and Scott Westerfeld at 4:15 at Emmanuel Sanctuary.

More soon.

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I've packed.
I'll be chilly in San Francisco, but I tend to stay indoors--except for when I find a few redwoods to hug. Then I won't care if I'm chilly. I've been wanting to hug a redwood tree for 40 years.

GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE comes out today.
Tonight is the launch party at Aaron's Books.
Tomorrow I will hop into a car at 5:30am to get to those redwood trees and beyond...from Santa Cruz to San Francisco to Austin, Texas for the Texas Teen Book Festival. All new places for me.
I'm excited.

I had no idea what to write on the blog today. But then I came across this poem. I rarely share poems. But part of this poem was written by Glory's mom, Darla O'Brien.

I'll most likely be back soon to post some links to cool interviews. There's a doozy coming soon from BookRiot and a really cool conversation over at Nerdy Book Club. Oh! And today at 4pm ET there's a twitter chat with me and Paul Hankins about the book. Don't miss that. I'm at @AS_King.

So here's the poem.

With Age You See the Passage of Time Ugly

<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE <![endif]-->

--A.S. King 199?


See you on the road!

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The AWESOME ladies over at Forever Young Adult and I are challenging you to go find the people who made you badass and thank them.

That's right.
We are asking you to join us in badass gratitude.
It's called, fittingly, THE BADASS GRATITUDE PROJECT.

You can see more here, where there's an interview with me and Mandy as well as my own video of thanking my favorite badass, my mom. 




And hey! If you missed it, there was a groovy interview over at the Barnes & Noble Blog last week.
Follow this link!

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It's almost time!

If you pre-ordered from my local independent bookstore, Aaron's Books, than your signed book is on its way. I love this picture that they posted on Facebook.

Sam and Todd (and Aaron) at Aaron's have been huge supporters of my books from the very beginning and I can't wait for the launch party at their store on Tuesday night.

I've sent in my midterm reviews, paid the bills, cleaned up my desk, updated all of my calendars, backed up my computer and my phone. I've even cleaned the fridge.
Book release seems to push me into some sort of nesting mode.

I'm not packed, but I'm relying on the fact that I'm so used to packing I could do it in my sleep.
Although last time I did that, I forgot stuff and was forced to use hotel shampoo and "conditioner" which is really glue. I swear. Hotel conditioner is really glue.

Okay. So maybe I should make a list or something right about now.

Watch the blog this week for links to interview on a few of my favorite bookish websites!

To those of you who pre-ordered though Aaron's, Thank you for helping me support my community bookstore.

Oh! And don't forget the Twitter chat on launch day! 4pm Eastern.

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It's ten days until the release of GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE. So the linking begins.

So here's a groovy interview that came out this this month's BookPage. 

More when I have it!

I'll see you all in a few days once I get my student work off my desk.

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I have winners from the last contest.
But I'm going to make you wait because I want to tell you about stuff first.

TODAY IS GERSDAY.

It's paperback release day for REALITY BOY here in the US and that makes me very happy. It's been nearly a year since the original release date for the book and Gerald's plight seems to resonate with readers. I know this because I get letters. Serious letters. I claim I'm a Vulcan but serious letters sometimes make me cry. There are so many people in the world struggling with their pasts. With abuse. With neglect. With unfairness. Sometimes I wish we could all stop and think about things like this because we'd make better world partners if we did. If we stopped to understand before we stopped to judge, the world would be so much nicer.

To those of you who have written to me to thank me for showing you, through Gerald, that you can change your life no matter what's happened to you, let me thank YOU. Not just for your letters, but for reminding me that change is possible in my own life.

Change takes guts. Change is hard. Change is slow. Change is important. Change is possible.

NAIBA

Last weekend I was at the NAIBA annual conference. NAIBA is a regional organization for independent booksellers. I'm pretty sure you know how I feel about independent booksellers. If you don't, let me say: independent booksellers were the first people to get behind my work and if it wasn't for their support, I'm not sure I'd still be publishing books. So when one of my books makes you write me a letter, technically it's a chain. You thank me, I thank you for reading and then I thank independent booksellers because without their support, I'd still be writing books that no one gets to read.

And that's what I did this weekend at NAIBA. I thanked independent booksellers for allowing me to keep my job as a lady who wants to tell the truth. I shared short excerpts of a few fan letters so they understand what they help me do. Since REALITY BOY is out today, now might be a good time to say: if you have an independent book store near you, go check it out. You will get to know the staff and they will help you find books you like to read. It's a personal environment. They will talk to you. It might take a bit more effort than clicking a button (if one is available) on a website, but that effort will support so many new writers of books that you might like as much as you like my books.

WINNERS!

Contests are fun. First I want to thank all of you who entered ESPECIALLY the teachers who used this prompt in their classrooms and ESPECIALLY the students who took on this challenge. That takes guts and I admire those guts. You and I (and my squirrel judges) know there can only be two winners in this contest. But because of your entries, we've increased the winner number to three. That's how great your entries were.

I know Honorable Mentions are a bummer to some because nobody gets a prize for an honorable mention. But I'm tossing two out anyway because my squirrel judges argued for hours over this. Also, if an honorable mention was from a classroom prompt, the HM's teacher gets the classroom box of books. So, that's a plus.

Honorable mentions:

Bill McCloud, I love fortune cookies and I agree wholeheartedly about the quality of fortunes these days.

“Legs give you propulsion, but heart gives you drive.” You know, I can remember when what you found inside a fortune cookie was a real honest to God fortune. Now it’s always some lame proverb, or obvious statement, or feel-good comment. A real honest to goodness fortune. That’s what I want. I want to know what lies ahead of me, around the corner, and over the hill. You can have your cookie back. False advertisement. Wait! Go ahead and give me one more. Well, good grief! “Enlightenment is disappointment to the ego.”

ryter222 dking, you get points for cannibalism and for using the word ego so well at the end of the piece. Our judges appreciate when the required words aren't shoehorned in.

“Legs or thighs? Come on. Make up your mind.”“Geez! Don’t rush me, Johnson. It’s not as easy as it looks.”“You wanna live or die? Choice is yours.”“But---she was our stewardess!” “Well, yeah, but now she’s your only ticket off this island alive! Make a choice, damn it!”“Leg! All right! I’ll take the leg! Reminds me more of a pig roast that way.”“Whatever---I deserve the thigh. I’m bigger than you.”We were hoping it wouldn't come to this, but the gravity of our situation grew heavier and heavier like Johnson’s ego. 

Thoughts of a SpiderLegs are extremely important. So how am I made fun of for having so many? Shouldn’t it be the cream of the crop for having eight? Humans think they’re hot stuff, but they only have two. Psh.
I get screams. I get newspapers, books, even flyswatters! The disrespect is entirely degrading.
Sometimes I do feel all big and bad, you know because humans are so afraid of me. But then I get the underside of another ratty old sneaker aimed at crushing my body and instead I feel the shame of my bruised ego.-Mollie 

Not sure who wrote this one, but it was hilarious and my squirrels love a good laugh. (Ms. Goncalves wins a box of A.S. King books for her classroom...and the winner gets a brand new paperback of REALITY BOY for cracking us up...which is entirely appropriate considering the material in this entry.)

Legs start shaking under the desk. Sweat drips down the center of my back. No, this can't be happening now; I took my medicine this morning. The teacher said I can’t leave the room during the test or I will fail. Lower abdomen seizes into a vice-grip cramp. Focus, focus, mind over body, right? Stomach churning and I don’t think I’m going to make it. Alright, I just have to raise my hand and go, abandon the test and my grade. Pzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Just another fart-bruise on my freshman ego.

Darden Avila, you got the judges with this one. The line "Mental catwalk wars with myself" really hit a target.

Legs that go on for eternities. A smile that’s both billboard and bedroom appropriate. Hair as impossible as fairytales. Clothes as shiny as your ambitions.
I used to look at you and your glow-in-the-dark universe and I wish you knew how many times I wished I had your life.
But I’ve forgiven you---and me, too. It isn’t your fault that you’re choking on corsets while I’ve nothing but skinny smiles, ribboned grimaces and mental catwalk wars with myself. Or that we live in a world where people remember you for your big boobs and me for my big ego.

Thank you all again for the great stories! Let's do this again sometime!
And thank you teachers for being teachers. Most important job in the world. Hands down.

Winners: I will need your mailing info (unless you did this project for school...read on.) Teachers, I will need your mailing info too, and I'll include the winners' books inside your box of books in a separate envelope. Send mailing info to asking (at) as-king (dot) com.


ONE LAST THING

On Glory O'Biren launch day, 10/14, there will be a twitter chat at 4pm eastern/1pm pacific time. Here's the info for that. It would be so great if you could join us! You can ask me anything!

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It's a month until launch day and I still have two (TWO) advanced reader copies of GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE left to give away. Twitter friends asked if I was going to have another contest and I said yes. And that's why we're gathered here today.

You can win one of these lovely ARCs no matter where you live and you have until Friday, September 19th, 2014 at 11:59 PM EDT to enter. You may enter as many times as you like, but please remember that quality matters. A lot.

1. You have to write a story.
2. You will enter by leaving your story in the comment section of this blog. NOTE: Comments are moderated. If you don't see your story immediately, that's fine. When my moderator wakes up she will post the story. 
3. Your story has to be under 100 words. Preference: It should be longer than 50. 
4. It has to start with the word "Legs"
5. It has to end with the word "ego"
6. Entries will be judged by a panel of small rodents with bushy tails and legs and egos. 

Rules are rules. 
If you choose to stray, that's fine except you can't win.

Bouns Points.
If you tweet, retweet or spread the news in other ways you get bonus points added to your entry. You can let me know how you spread the word in your comment.

Bonus Bonus Points.
The paperback of Reality Boy comes out next Tuesday. If your entry is amazing beyond words and/or makes my judges pee themselves laughing, you will also win a copy of Reality Boy in paperback.

Go forth!
Tell people.
Enter.
It's fun.
I promise.

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First: A deal announcement. A new book from A.S. King is coming in 2015.

It was late February, 2013 when I quit writing. I didn't write an entry into my writing journal about it. I didn't announce it. I didn't tell my friends. I told my husband. He seemed to either take it well or know more about me than I do.

February for me means a deadline. February is the month when I have to get a finished draft of a novel to my editor. I'd delivered in February 2013. I sent in GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE and I breathed my small sigh of relief that it was gone from my desk and I probably had a drink that night in celebration.

If we're keeping count, that was novel #18. If you don't know much about me or my work, then you should know that 8 of those 18 novels live in my attic in a box. Three of them live in a strange limbo where they are written, not published, but there's something about them that keeps me from dooming them to the attic.

If you know me, then you know I'm not a particularly dramatic person. I'm human though I claim I'm Vulcan, but still, I approach things with logic more regularly than I panic or cry about things. I don't usually quit things or make grand statements. I consider myself very lucky to be a published author--very lucky--and though I've won awards and stuff like that, I still struggle to make ends meet. I see this as normal. I know a lot of writers. Most of us can't afford a nanny or a chef and that's okay. I know a lot of other lucky people in other professions and they can't afford nannies or chefs, either.

So what drove me to quit writing in late February 2013?
I have no idea, but I did.
I said, "I'm done. I quit. I don't want to do this anymore."
I decided I'd go work in a library and maybe go back to school at night.
I decided I'd do anything but write another novel.
Eighteen was enough.

I lasted two days.

Two days after I'd quit, I started writing another novel. #19. No title. No form. Just this chunky bare prose on the page that came slowly--not at all in tune with my deadline schedules. I didn't care if it ever turned into anything. I didn't care if it was delivered on time the following February. I didn't care about the business--if it would sell, what people might think of it. I just wrote it when it came. This is probably why my husband didn't falter when I'd told him I'd quit, I guess. He's known me a long time. Maybe he knows better than I do that I'm a writer and it's not just something you quit doing.

Back on the farm in the mid-1990's when I wrote for no one and had no deadlines except for planting and harvesting the year's food, I hit the same wall. The quitting wall. Whatever you want to call it. I stopped writing novels. But since I was a writer, I kept writing. In this case, I wrote poetry. For two years, I wrote poems whenever they came to me. I read a lot. I took more walks. I painted more. I didn't "quit" because there wasn't anything to quit. Writing wasn't my job. It wasn't a hobby either. It was my--I don't know. I don't know what it was. All the words that fit here seem too dramatic a fit for me. Passion, vocation, calling all seem like the wrong words. Writing was what I did. Period. I'd written about 5 novels by then. But I wanted to write poetry, so I wrote poetry.

This was a good thing because eventually, my first published work was poetry. I wrote some good poems. I think they suck now and they're in that box in the attic. But some great university journals here in the States thought they were good enough to publish, and that was nice.

The point of me boring you with the poetry story was more to show the way of life for me when I was an unpublished writer. I could paint a still life one day in acrylics or take a whole fortnight and paint it in oils instead. I could go out back on the farm and smash things with sledgehammer. I did that sometimes. I could do farm chores. I could build a birdhouse. I could build a guest cottage. I could do whatever I wanted because no one was waiting on me to produce. Not poems, not novels, not anything. The only person demanding anything from me was me. I had to grow food. That was it. I had to grow food. So when I didn't feel like writing, I didn't. If I felt like writing poetry, I wrote poetry. Ta-da. If I was mad at the world, I'd write what I called fuck-the-world poems. I wrote them for myself. I thought fuck-the-world poems were best kept to one's self. Funny, because of my published poems, all were fuck-the-world poems.

In late February 2013, things were different. Very different. Not only did I now buy my food from a grocery store, but I was a lucky published novelist. I was also the person in charge of making money in my house. I traveled a lot and had kids and a husband in college. So when I didn't have it in me anymore, I didn't think about writing poetry or painting. I just thought about a kind friend's offer of an entry-level job at her library. But I never pursued the job.

Of course, I already told you that this....thing...only lasted two days.

Call it a crisis and I'll disagree. I was tired, yes. I may have been cranky. Sure. But I was dead serious. I quit. I was done. I'd never been so done before in my writing life. In those 48 hours, I was free. And then the world opened up and the words started flowing again with no warning or thought on my part at all.

The book that came out of me after those two days was a fuck-the-world book. No holding back. No censoring (though this book has less cursing than all of my books, so I don't mean censoring in the profanity way--I mean it in the brainwave way.) I didn't care about fitting into a box or onto a shelf. I just wrote in the same way I wrote that poetry back on the farm. I painted it like I painted those old canvases (which also live in my attic, but that's because I don't have any other place to put them.)

#19 sold nine months later. My agent and editor loved it. I delivered the finished manuscript in February 2014. This week, it was announced to the world and I'm busy writing novel #20, which started late after many months beating novel #supposed-to-be-20 which was really a dead book. Nothing like beating a dead book to remind one of one's place.

Last weekend, I painted a still life. This week, I wrote a poem. This weekend, I cleared out my garden and harvested peppers. For six years, I felt like a book machine. Now I feel more human. Human before writer. One must be human to write. One must know what ripe peppers look like and know the rule of fat over lean in oil painting.

Quitting writing was human. That's all.
Now I get to push another paper boat out onto the water and see if it sails.
The wind isn't under my control. Nothing, really, is under my control. I'm just a lady who makes paper boats. This one has I CRAWL THROUGH IT painted on the bow.
A fitting title, I think.

It will be in your local bookstore in fall 2015. There is an invisible helicopter and a walking digestive system in it. There is a man in it named Kenneth who Bill Murray would play if it were a movie. Kenneth is free, just like me. But he can't quit either.


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Finally, I have GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE tour dates for you. Am I coming to your city? Come see me. I like people. 


NAIBA Sunday Breakfast 
Arlington, VA
September 21, 2014

PALA Annual Conference
Andrew Smith/A.S. King present Boxing With Friends
Lancaster, PA
September 28-29, 2014

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future Launch Party
Aaron's Books
Lititz, PA
October 14, 2014
7pm
RSVP Here! Space is limited. RSVP Now. 

Book Shop Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA
October 15
7pm

Books Inc. / Litquake Event
San Francisco, CA
October 16
Sports Basement on Byant
6pm

Texas Teen Book Festival
Austin, TX
October 18, 2014

Children's Book World
Haverford, PA
October 23, 2014
7pm

Boston Book Festival
Boston, MA
October 25, 2014

Lititz Lit Festival
Lititz, PA
November 1, 2014

Clinton Book Shop
Clinton, NJ
November 7, 2014
7pm

Changing Hands Bookstore
Tempe, AZ
November 21, 2014
​7pm

Barnes & Noble 
Reading/Wyomissing, PA
December 20, 2014
1pm

Hope to see you there! 

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Glory O'Brien probably wouldn't read Teen Vogue, but they listed her as one of the best teen reads for fall 2014 today.  And that's pretty cool.

More to report all week. Stay tuned.

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Win a yet-to-be-released paperback of REALITY BOY and an ARC of GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE by writing me a haiku about what pisses you off. Ends Tuesday at 11:59pm EDT. Enter all you want. All countries welcome. Just tweet it to me. If you don't have a Twitter, then the comment section of the blog will do. Go nuts.

Twitter Giveaway! Write a haiku about what pisses you off. 5-7-5. Win a paperback of Reality Boy AND a Glory ARC. Ends Tues @ 11:59pm EDT.
— A.S. King ☂ (@AS_King) September 8, 2014

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Okay. So four is the magic number. I reserve the right to change what the magic number is whenever I want.

First, I want to thank all of you who followed the reposting of The Writer's Middle Finger posts. I enjoyed reading them again. I look forward to writing the next one. (Or more accurately, I look forward to rewriting the five I have here but aren't even close to coherent.) But to those of you who retweeted, shared on Facebook, or shared in other places, thank you. I disappear from this blog (and Facebook especially) for stretches of time. Then I come back with all this launch related stuff and I'm glad you understand that I have to write books sometimes.

Second, I want to share the starred School Library Journal review. This review made me howl with joy. Joy is good. Howling is good. So this was a double win. Short version: "This beautifully strange, entirely memorable book will stay with readers."--SLJ

Long version:

I still plan on posting Ana's epic drawings here soon. And I have a giveaway contest coming soon.
Get your haiku brains ready.

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It starts like this.

Author sits at desk. Brain tells author to write a story...maybe about a kid. Once the writing starts, it turns out the kid has a specific hurdle to clear. Maybe his parent left and never came back. Maybe his parent is dead. Maybe he's doing drugs. Maybe his girlfriend fell in love with his best friend. Maybe he's gay. Or maybe his friend died. Or maybe he has cancer. Or he eats to make himself feel better. Or maybe the kid is a football captain and he falls in love with a cheerleader.

Are you rolling your eyes at any of those?

Which brain are you using? Your humanist brain or your critical one? Oh I know these aren't mutually exclusive. But sometimes one can overtake the other.

The critical brain is there, as writers and reviewers or critiquers, to define certain story elements or plot lines and then look for flaws or well-executed characterizations or any number of story elements. The critical brain is allegedly objective but rarely is. How could it be? Never has a book existed that isn't both panned and raved. But the critical brain is important when we write and read and especially when we review or critique. It has criteria. It has rules...which vary from person to person. It can sometimes be very cynical about life events because they are shown through fiction which it is reviewing. 

The humanist brain, on the other hand, is the brain that translates characters in a novel into real people and is concerned about the characters' welfare. The humanist brain feels the emotions of the characters and relates. It is why we often love a book. It is also why we may hate a book. The humanist brain is allowed to be subjective. It doesn't care. It knows it's spewing opinion. The humanist brain has emotional rules. I know people who cannot read anything about child abuse. Or dog abuse, for example. Those people usually say "I'm sorry, but it's just not my taste."

Here's the truth: Sometimes football captains fall in love with cheerleaders. That doesn't make the book or the idea bad. It's all in what you do with it.

I went to art school. I took classes on critique. It is true that there are elements by which any work of art must be judged when critiquing. And the best critiques stick to those rules. For example: "The image is well framed and uses the rule of thirds expertly." If one mightn't like the actual subject matter, one may add the very fair humanist-brained opinion, "However, I'm not a fan of photographs of infants cradled in cabbage leaves, so I can't say I love the actual image." It doesn't help anyone to be too humanist: This baby grew and is a natural part of our world! Isn't it beautiful? Same as it isn't very helpful to be over-critical: How many freaking baby-in-cabbage leaf pictures can there BE? I am so sick of images like this!

Fact: Anything--ANYTHING--can work if it's done well.
Fact: But you will never please everyone.

No subject matter is a guarantee of...anything.

Sometimes there are lists of what you shouldn't be writing about. Sometimes there are lists of what will  give you a better shot at getting published. Trends. Coming trends. Comments like Why haven't I seen any books about a woman who is a circus clown and cocktail waitress while juggling a meth habit? True. The writer of this statement may want to see a book like this. However, if it's not something you naturally want to write about, then you writing it is probably not going to work out all that well.

Readers are finicky. So your job is to write about something you care about. And even if you do that, some people will criticize it. And that's fine.

I tend to read with my humanist brain. I want to like the book I'm reading. I want to find the human connection that is inbuilt. I want my time spent to be time well spent--enjoying, feeling and wondering Why did the author tell this story in this way? It's a naive tack, I'm sure, to some reading this. I'm okay with that. But know this: I have very little time to read. I am able to find pleasure in most books I pick up.

And I'm just not the kind of person who would read the flap copy, slot the entire book into a tidy labeled box, roll my eyes and say "Oh God. Not another dead mother book." Or "Ugh! Another gay book!" Or "Here we go again! A teen dealing with the death of a friend. Sheesh!"

"If you go into a book thinking you know what it's about, then that's all you'll usually get from it." --Me, earlier this year

(Same goes for writing a book...but you probably already know that.)

The humanist brain is more curious, regardless of whether a subject matter is something it's seen before.  It's allowed to be either interested or disinterested in the story, and if the subject matter is just not their thing, they put the book down. No eye-rolling. No imperious knowledge of what's supposed to be in books.

That's what bullshit rules are. Bullshit rules are what other people believe should be in our books.
You have no idea how many times I've heard that my character should have thought or done or been. You have no idea how many times I've had people assume what I was thinking when I wrote a book. I can tell you this: these guesses are incorrect. Whether stated in a positive or negative fashion, the jury is in: You have no idea what goes on in my brain.

I can't imagine many authors ever woke up in the morning and declared, "Darn it! Today I'm going to write a cancer book/gay book/drug book/dead parent book/ dead friend book/love triangle book/cheerleader and football captain fall in love book!" I'm pretty sure that most of the time these things just happen. And not from lack of ideas or creative power, either. Sorry. Anyone who thinks this is underestimating writers. And to me, that's disrespectful. And hell yes, if you say this, I will call you on it and tell you that you are living by a set of literary bullshit rules.

Why I'm thinking about this today.

I wrote something on my blog back in June. I'm going to link to it here so you know where this post is coming from. You should really go read it, but in case you don't, it was about the flippant comments I see periodically that might say something like, "If I read one more [dead parent] book this year I'll jump off a cliff!" It was about how I know some kids who lost their father this year and how those flippant comments are...too flippant. This internet. It gives us so much power. Oh how I wish we could be more human when we use it.

Last weekend, another teenager I know lost his father. We just buried him yesterday. We are heartbroken. I physically feel a hole in the world because of his loss. I feel a hole in my world because I know the pain this is causing his family. But my hole isn't nearly as big as theirs. My friend's wife, his son, his parents, his siblings, his friends. This hole--it is real. It is nothing to be scoffed. Nothing to be tsked. Nothing to be cynical about.

Only an overly-critical brain could be cynical about that hole.

In real life when we lose people, it is rare we act with our critical brain. We are human-thinking through and through. But when someone dies in a book, and we are reviewing a book, we have to run this death through a set of criteria. Was it believable enough? (Whatever that is.) Did the characters react the way they should have? (Whatever that is.) In believable ways? (Whatever that is.) Did the after-effects of the death seem realistic and cause the right amount of tension? (Whatever that is.)

As the writer of that book, you wrote it because you cared deeply about the subject matter and were thinking with your humanist brain, so yes, it's hard when that work is dissected by someone who just didn't get what you were trying to say. But please remember, that's their problem, not yours.

Those flippant commenters can claim Dead parent as gimmick. Dead parent as plot device to give teen main character more experience and savvy. Or my favorite: Dead parent as a very convenient trick to get rid of parents in books.

Convenient my ass. A dead parent is not fucking convenient. Ask anyone who has one. And as for teens having them? Happens all the time. All. The. Time.

Bullshit rules, man. They make us scared to write about what comes naturally as we sit at our desks. They make us wonder if maybe, just maybe, this time we can hit a home run and please everyone.

But then I look for my magic finger. You know the one. (Hint: it's the one who knows I will never please everyone.)

Writers: life is short. You're here to write what you want to write. I told you in my first post not to listen to rules. Dirk and Sally. No confusing tenses. No big words. And whatever other rules out there promising you easier publication if only you'd write what they want to see. 

Today, I want to remind you that those deeper reasons we write--those are more important than bullshit rules that somebody's brain made up in order to tell us how trite it is to write about what has come naturally for us to write about.

Write it.
Fucking write it.
There will always be critics who will roll their eyes at the pain your characters experience. They are not thinking about what it would really be like to, in this case, lose a parent as a child. Their job is to find flaws in your reasoning. In your characters. In your ideas. And ultimately, in your own brain.

And they don't mean a damn thing.

Write the books. Be defiantly creative. When you shy away from writing a story about abuse, don't think of the people who will roll their eyes. Think about the 1 in 4 kids who have been abused. When you shy away from writing a story about rape, don't think about those who will say teenagers shouldn't be reading about rape. Think about the 1 in 4 who have already experienced it. When you dare to write about death, do not think of the "Disney trope" someone's going to wheel out in their wagon full of critique words. Think about those kids you know who have a hole in their life so big, they can't breathe some days.

And do it for them.


It took me a week to write this blog. I see-sawed on posting it. Then I thought about my friend Scott and what he would have done. And he would have posted it. So this one's for you, Scott. Hope they're playing punk rock wherever you landed on this journey.

(There are other Writer's Middle Finger Posts. Six of them. Type "Writer's Middle Finger" into the search box up there on the left. It's like a treasure hunt, right?)

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