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Sorry to be posting late! We went up to Salem, Mass this weekend to participate in some activities surrounding the Festival of the Dead. Our hotel was so overrun (as you can imagine Salem would be in the month of October) and too many users crashed their free Internet connection. So, my post yesterday was long somewhere in the midst of blogger.com.

I hope everyone's had a chance to VOTE for Simone Elkeles' YA debut novel that is up for the American Library Associations Top Ten Young Adult book. It's one of the best YA's I've read...just zipped right through it. Loved everything about it. There's still time to drop in and vote! I know I did!

We're so proud of Simone here. She's one of the hardest working writers out there. Not only is she kind, caring and supportive to her fellow authors, but she speaks to many schools and is out there getting young people to read! She deserves all the success in the world and I'm happy to call her my friend. We're liquid eyeliner buddies, right Simone?

And for those of you who post a comment today, you'll be eligile to win a copy of Diana Peterfreund's awesome Under the Rose, the second book of the Secret Society Girl series. And just wait until the third book, Rites of Spring (Break) is out next year!



Please leave your comment to enter to win Diana's book. Since I posted late, I'll let you comment here over the next couple of days and we'll announce the winner on Wednesday.

Hugs,
Marley = )

SORORITY 101: ZETA OR OMEGA?
SORORITY 101: THE NEW SISTERS
writing as Kate Harmon
May 2008, Puffin Books

In HOW TO RUIN A SUMMER VACATION, Amy Nelson gets dragged to Israel against her will, to spend summer vacation with her extended family. At first, she is certain she's going to hate it. She's miles away from her friends, boyfriend, cell phone, and shopping mall. But by the end of the book, she's having the time of her life. She's learned to appreciate the oh-so-foreign culture--and the people!

Travel is always a bit of a risk. Will you like where you're going? Will it be better than you expect? Worse? Will you have fun? Will you learn something? Will you be bored? Excited? Moved to tears? The thing is, you never know until you go. And you'll almost always be surprised.

That happened to me in a trip just after I finished graduate school. My program sponsored a travel fellowship for a class trip, and our class chose to visit Prague. A friend and I flew out early so we had two glorious weeks. But the truly magical part of the trip was one the way home. Through lucky happenstance, our return flight came with an "overnight" layover in Paris. And by "overnight" I mean 8 hours. Arrive at midnight. Depart at eight in the morning. Not enough time to do much, right? Wrong.

My mom's friend who lives in Paris and her daughter, Laura, met us at the airport. After dropping our luggage at their apartment, the daughter's boyfriend--a professional chauffeur--picks us up in a luxury sedan. For the next two hours he and Laura gave us a whirlwind tour of the city of lights. We flew down the Champs Elysee, past the Louvre and the Ritz-Carlton, the couture shops, the Hotel des Invalides, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, and made it to the Eiffel Tower just in time to see the twinkling light show. Then we topped off the night with champagne at the Buddha Bar--favorite haunt of Madonna and the like.

Could I have planned this? Not on your life. The moral of the story is that you should never write off an experience, because it might turn out to be the most magical one of all.

Now it's your turn to share. Have you ever been surprised (either good or bad) on a vacation? Post your story in the comments and enter to win a copy of Buzz girl book, TOP TEN USES FOR AN UNWORN PROM DRESS.

Hugs,
TLC

OH. MY. GODS. -- May 2008 from Dutton Children's Books
teralynnchilds.com

Happy Teen Read Week, everybody! Hmm. I guess we cousins should start reading, huh?

Teen Read Week is... presented by? Sponsored by? Held by? ________ by ALA (The American Library Association). This year's theme is LOL.

No, really. Like the internet abbreviation.

Please excuse me. I have to go curl up in a corner and cry.

But other than the atrocious (in my opinion) theme, Teen Read Week is pretty darn awesome. Teenagers should read more.

Readingly, curling-up-and-cryingly yours,






Note: You can see my further thoughts on lol, and some other stuff, here.

Very, very busy week this week and last! Just a quick stop-by to remind everyone in the Seattle area that if you didn't get the chance to see Hallowmere author Tiffany Trent this morning at Washington Middle School for the Teen Read Week kickoff, make sure to head over to the Northgate Barnes and Noble tonight at 7 p.m. to get a copy of In the Serpent's Coils signed!

Tuesday, Oct. 16
7 p.m.
Northgate Barnes and Noble
301 NE Northgate Way, Seattle WA


And now that Teen Read Week has begun, get started on your Happy Hallow-wii project!

Also, don't forget that 31 Flavorites is still going till the end of the month! Saw all four of the lovely Readergirlz divas this morning at the kickoff, plugging the chance to chat with your favorite authors all month.

Must run! Taking Tiffany to the University Bookstore in Seattle to sign stock. So that means after today, all the places you will be able to find signed copies if you don't go tonight (and hey--go tonight!) will be:

The Secret Garden Bookshop (she signed a brick! ask her the story about Stephenie Meyer and the bricks!)
All for Kids (she got to sign the wall--go check it out!)
B&N downtown Seattle
Borders downtown Seattle
B&N at U Village, Seattle
B&N at Southcenter, Tukwila
Borders at Southcenter Tukwila (if you get the last one!)
University Books, Seattle

Mirrorstone is proud to be a corporate sponsor of Teen Read Week. We know how important literacy and reading for fun is for children and teens and recognize the work of librarians in making this possible.

As I've mentioned previously, Hallowmere author Tiffany Trent will be in Seattle next week to help kick off Teen Read Week for YALSA at Washington Middle School. Though that particular event won't be open to the public, she will be in the area dropping into bookstores--look for signed copies of Hallowmere at All for Kids and The Secret Garden as well as your local chain stores--and she'll be doing an official signing event at the new Barnes and Noble at Northgate Mall on Tuesday night, Oct. 16.

The info on the signing:

Tuesday, Oct. 16
7 p.m.
Northgate Barnes and Noble
301 NE Northgate Way #1100, Seattle WA 

We hope to see you and all your friends there!

I should have posted the night before Tiffany Trent's night on Readergirlz, but I'm afraid things have been rather busy at both work and in my personal life and the blog is the thing getting pushed aside. But be aware that Tiffany Trent will be in the Seattle area at the beginning of next week to be a part of the Teen Read Week kickoff, and hopefully she'll be signing at an area bookstore, most likely just dropping in. When I know more, I'll post it, or just make sure to follow her LJ (

tltrent

(Click on event name for more information)

Banned Book Week~ Sept 29-Oct 6, USA

Canadian Library Month~ Oct 1-31, Canada

Frankfurt Book Fair~ Oct 10-14, Frankfurt, Germany

Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 12, Boston, MA, USA

Teen Read Week~ Oct 14-20, USA

Library Week~ Oct 15-21, New Zealand

Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award~ Oct 17, Texas, USA

International Festival of Authors~ Oct 17-27, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Tauranga Arts Festival~ Oct 18-28, Tauranga, New Zealand

Reading Association of Philippines Conference~ Oct 19-20, Bacolod City, Philippines

Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 19, New York City, New York, USA

To celebrate “Teen Read Week (Oct 14-20),” YALSA and Readergirlz have organized “31 Flavorite Authors for Teens,” a month-long schedule of authors available to chat with teens via Readergirlz group forum. Teens everywhere will have a chance to hobnob with the likes of Mitali Perkins (10/20), Lisa Yee (10/22), Cynthia Leitich-Smith (10/29) and many others. Something they won’t want to miss out on!

Teen Read Week is coming up in October; many of you have read about the inspired teaming up of Readergirlz and YALSA, with their 31 Flavorites. And I want to blog a bit more about TRW and Readergirlz and YALSA, but first, I wanted to explain a bit more about Teen Read Week. It's sponsored by YALSA (the YA Section of ALA); it's October 14 to 20, 2007.

Why Teen Read Week? Well, as the YALSA website says, "Teen Read Week is a national literacy initiative aimed at teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers and other concerned adults. It began in 1998 and is celebrated the third week in October."

Here's the thing; as you can see by the Readergirlz initiative, it's not just YALSA saying "Teen Read Week." YALSA does a ton of stuff connected with this; they get sponsors and collaborate with organizations; they promote teens, reading, and YA lit to the world at large, using TRW as a focal point; they put together a ton of resources, including a wiki with book lists and program ideas, sample press releases and a ton of other goodies).

While TRW is the third week of October, registration for TRW is NOW and ends September 17th. And the reason I'm posting about TRW is as a reminder to go and register! (And yes, I'm usually so bad at remembering these dates that it wasn't until I heard from Stephanie Kuenn at YALSA, reminding me that the registration deadline was fast approaching, that I registered.)

Registration is here. It's free; it's easy; and no, you don't have to be a member of ALA or YALSA in order to register. And you don't have to be a librarian : "Teen Read Week is a national literacy initiative aimed at teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers and other concerned adults. If you would like to participate, just register."

So can nonlibrarians register? YES! When you go to register, title and library are optional; but, to show YALSA blogger involvement, why not put down "blogger" as title and your blog & URL in the library box?

Why register? I mean, it's not like you have to in order to participate or to use the resources for TRW that are at the YALSA site.

To quote from the YALSA website again, "YALSA is a non profit organization that depends on its members for support. By registering, you are letting us know that teen literacy is a concern and you are willing to do something about it! By registering, you are telling YALSA that this program is worthwhile, and we will continue to sponsor the week."

In other words, YALSA (like any other organization) cannot just say "we had TRW"; they need numbers and feedback to say, "it was a success." So, unless you officially register, you're not in the headcount, as it were, so you may as well be invisible. Too many invisible participants and suddenly TRW doesn't look successful, even if it is. So please; register!

Cross posted at Pop Goes the Library.

Due to my crazy weekend, a lot of things have happened that I haven't had the chance to post about. So, here you go, all in one post.

n       First of all, if you don't know about Readergirlz, go check them out--they've got thousands of teen girls excited about reading. As Tiffany Trent posted on her LJ (tltrent</lj>), for Teen Read Week this year Readergirlz is hosting 31 Flavorite Authors for Teens, and Tiffany will be one of them on Oct. 2. They'll talk to a different author every day. But don't wait until October--they're featuring Holly Black this month.

n       I already told you about hallowmere.com, but you should go there again. And share it with your friends. And their friends.

n       Speaking of which, if you’re on MySpace, you should be Corrine’s friend! And Hallowmere’s, too. (I’m there too, though I don’t go over there as often as here.)

n       I will be traveling down to L.A. in early September to talk to some YA librarians. I’m very excited about it.

n       I am spending the week catching up on my way-too-far-behind towering pile of submissions. If you’ve been patiently waiting to hear from me, fear not, the wait may be over soon. Though the wheels of justice—er, publication—do grind slowly, so if it’s not a rejection letter, it might take a little longer for deliberation. I’d post a picture, but I think the real thing is guilt-inducing enough. If you want another editorial perspective on how that goes (and/or, if you miss Miss Snark), I’ve recently discovered Editorial Anonymous, the blog of an editorial assistant who deals with this stuff in a most Miss Snark-ish manner.