How to use this Page

I have been hearing from some of you about a short story that I wrote for the HarperTeen anthology, No Such Thing as the Real World. Earlier today, I created and posted onto YouTube a three-minute vlog that tells some of the story behind this story and features a page or two from the book.

On Melissa Walker's big week (Lovestruck Summer is now out in stores!), Melissa is being utterly Melissa, which is to say supremely generous. Today I'm over at her blog, telling the story of the Nothing but Ghosts cover, with additional photos of Chanticleer, the garden that inspired this novel. Thank you, so much, Melissa. I can't wait to drift away into your own Lovestruck space.

In the meantime, Jill Santopolo has informed me that the No Such Thing short story competition details have now been officially posted on the HarperTeen site. You can find them here.

Before Jill Santopolo was officially my editor, she was my editor—calling one day to ask if I might write a story for a planned new HarperTeen anthology. The story, as I understood it, was to focus on a chosen turning point—on a moment of emergence, clarity, vision.

I'd written short stories for years before I'd ever written books; I've always celebrated the form's power. I'm a fan of the deeply distilled, the evocative, the provoked. I favor poetry over plot, emotion over explanation, wisdom over information; the short story seems to favor such things too, or can. Read the exquisite Steven Millhauser piece in this Sunday's NYTBR. Consider his words here:

The short story concentrates on its grain of sand, in the fierce belief that there — right there, in the palm of its hand — lies the universe. It seeks to know that grain of sand the way a lover seeks to know the face of the beloved. It looks for the moment when the grain of sand reveals its true nature. In that moment of mystic expansion, when the macrocosmic flower bursts from the microcosmic seed, the short story feels its power. It becomes bigger than itself. It becomes bigger than the novel. It becomes as big as the universe. Therein lies the immodesty of the short story, its secret aggression. Its method is revelation. Its littleness is the agency of its power.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/books/review/Millhauser-t.html?ref=books

The point is, I said yes. I said yes and loved every moment of immersion in a piece I finally called, "The Longest Distance Between Two Places." Written early last year, it confronts teen suicide and its aftermath—and a decision to live on.

I saw the cover of the anthology today, and I'm really proud to be part of this project. I'm especially touched to see An Na's name here, for seven years ago, while chairing the National Book Awards jury for Young People's Literature, I read her gorgeous "A Step from Heaven;" as a team we nominated it as a top five title. I remember many things from that evening of award giving (Jonathan Franzen's talk, sitting beside Terry Tempest Williams on that stage, my son out in the audience, holding court, and, later, Steve Martin entertaining my child). But I especially remember An Na's graciousness in the moments after the winners had been announced. It made me even prouder that I'd pushed for her inclusion in the top five.

I can't wait to read this book.