Bones and rats

I made reference to how we spent too much time in the "skeleton store" in Soho, and yes, it was Evolution. Wow. We had to hurry past it on Thursday in a rush between publishing offices, but on Sunday morning when we had a little time, we made our way straight there. What a place! If there's any way in which I'm like a 10-year-old boy, it's this: I love bones and teeth and beetles and claws and turtle shells and fossils and other weird flotsam of nature, and this shop is the place to find it.


Incidentally, it did not escape my notice that the other customers in the store at the time were primarily ten-year-old boys, accompanied by parents, and they were seriously like kids in a candy shop, agonizing over the selection of claws and rattlesnake rattles and trilobite fossils! Jim and I were agonizing too. If we'd been up to spending lots of money that day, we'd likely have come away with an "alien skull" and several huge tropical beetles, horned and winged, in glass frames. As it was, we purchased:

-- Raccoon penis bones
-- a praying mantis
-- a selection of carnivore teeth, some reproduction, some real (shark, tiger, bear, alligator)
-- a reproduction smilodon saber (for home defense, ha ha)
-- earrings made out of dangling iridescent green beetle wings
-- a large grasshopper in a vial
-- banana-flavored lollipops with scorpions encased in them (delicious!)
(The teeth, by the way, have a certain relevance to the book I am currently writing.)

Yes, I am conflicted in my fascination for these things, because I do not support the hunting of animals to fill morbid collections. A part of me would love to have a blue morpho in a frame on the wall, but the much larger part of me would rather that blue morpho be flying around in the Amazon. I didn't buy anything that came off any living animal that is not abundant -- raccoons, for example, probably exterminated as pests? I don't know. There's really no justifying any of it. It's one thing in a natural history museum, another in a curiosity shop, but . . . I'm still fascinated. I've always loved natural history museums, and I love stories about naturalists collecting in the field. But . . . it's also so offputting. I'm sure this is the closest I'll ever get to a kudu:
The taxidermy is exceptional, and the size of this antelope is astonishing, seen close up like this. At the zoo, they're always so far away you have no idea how huge they are. And the oryx too:
Which I recently had the privilege of seeing alive in a nice-size herd in the very zoo that rescued them from extinction by means of a captive breeding program (Phoenix). The more I think about it now, the more I don't understand how my mind didn't revolt at the sight of these disembodied heads. It's so wrong. And yet, a part of me was merely in awe, like I was looking at a wall of African masks or something, and not murder victims. Ugh. I don't know. It's all so strange. Now I'm just feeling sick about my fascination.

A store where you don't have to feel slightly sick and guilty? The Scholastic Store!
I didn't know this existed. We stumbled upon it while wandering in Soho:

There's all kinds of Hogwarts shwag, plus a life-size school bus (the Magic Schoolbus? I don't know) you can sit in, and a cafe, and did I mention books? Books books books, and not all Scholastic books, I don't think.

Window-shopping from Soho to Greenwich Village yielded some displays:

And street scenes:

And for lunch we had one of the best pizzas we have ever had:
(John's Pizzeria on Bleeker St.)
We were whipped around by the wind at the Hudson River:
(Photo courtesy of the lovely Kate Schafer Testerman, with whom we went to see the Coraline musical stage adaptation that afternoon; it was highly strange and awesome.)

Oh, and we also bought a rat that day, a New York City rat for Professor. See:

A cute rat! We did see a really live subway rat scurrying across the platform. It was kind of cute too. Oh, and we saw a stranger subway creature than that. It emerged from a manhole cover and pulled someone down:
So you see? The rumors are true. There are alligators in the sewers of New York!

By the way, speaking of Professor, Jim came up with another name yesterday. Are you ready?

Doctor Zombie Di Bartolo. "Doc" for short. Cute, noh? If we were movie stars, perhaps! I still like Professor better, myself. But Zombie is a fine middle name . . . Professor Zombie, maybe? chortle chortle. It's fun, thinking up absurd names. Coming up with actual names = much more difficult!

I had an ultrasound yesterday, by the way, and Professor is doing great. My belly had been measuring slightly big, but in fact she's exactly right for her due date, which is August 1 and will be here so soon!! I mean, she might even be here sooner than that! Each day it is more of a reality that this baby will emerge into the world and, you know, start to cry. Right? Crazy! Oh, and we could see her hair in the ultrasound!!! A little fuzzy halo. So cute. I wonder what color it is.

Cheers!

Lots of pictures, but still only a fraction!

We are home in Portland at last. It feels like we've been gone forever, after the weekend in Seattle, the trip to California, and flying to New York and back from there. Yesterday we drove about 12 hours, through the stultifying dullness of the I-5 in Northern California and into the lush green of Oregon, with beautiful lightning storms off to the east. Home. Ahh. It's lovely coming home, even if there is a pile of work awaiting you! In this case, I am immediately to work on a new Laini's Ladies line. Well, "immediately" = as soon as I put up another blog post!

First, apropos of nothing, have you ever seen a more deranged mannequin than this?


Anyway, I've been searching fruitlessly for a video link to the Editor's Buzz Panel at BEA, because I really want to hear it again and share it. I haven't found it yet, but in the meantime, here's a School Library Journal rundown of the event, and here's a photo of the editors, with Arthur Levine on the far right (but not politically!):

One of my favorite moments was when the moderator, David Levithan (who in addition to being an author, is also an editorial director at Scholastic), described the affect that Lips Touch had in-house. He first told of a visit by the author Markus Zusak (The Book Thief), and all the female swooning it entailed (Markus Zusak is young, super-talented, cute, nice, AND he has an Australian accent, after all), then said that the ripple affect of Lips Touch was similar, with people fanning themselves over the "heat" -- I wish I had his exact words, but that's the gist, and I love it: reading my book, compared to meeting Markus Zusak. So funny!

As part of his short presentation on the book, my awesome editor Arthur Levine read the intro to the book, and it was really gratifying to sit in the front row and hear the murmurs of the audience :-) I'm SO excited that people have begun to read this book, out in the world. Thank you VERY MUCH to those of you who've emailed me or left comments here to tell me you enjoyed it. I love hearing that!

I don't have time to be organized here, but I want to put up a bunch of pictures before BookExpo is just a dim memory! Thursday Jim and I visited some publishing offices, and it was wonderful. The Scholastic offices, occupying their own gorgeous building in Soho, are like a movie set of what you'd imagine a publishing office to look like. Harry Potter greets you in the lobby:
They have their own gleaming library for employees:
Abundant Cliffords:
I didn't get a picture, but the carpets are all patterned with words, and there is art galore. So cool. Here is Arthur Levine's office:
Arthur, I want to say, is an icon in children's publishing, and a personal hero, since he acquired not only the US rights to Harry Potter, but also published The Golden Compass when he was at Knopf, along with MANY other brilliant books throughout his career. It is a thrill to be working with him!

And having lunch with him :-)

I want to say, in a way that I hope conveys all of our geeky excitement about this day, that ever since I began to daydream about being a children's book author, I imagined days like this, visiting the publishing houses in New York, and here we were, doing it. It's a dream come true, and the culmination of years of determination and many many MANY hours at a desk (and kitchen table) writing writing writing. To be finally there, taking breathless cab and subway rides between offices, meeting people, having lunch, it was awesome.

We also stopped by the Penguin offices to see my wonderful Dreamdark editor, Tim Travaglini:
where we also ran into the lovely Julie Strauss Gabel, who is editor to John Green, but perhaps even more famously, editor to Stephanie Perkins. Yay!

We popped in to one Scholastic's educational publishing offices where Jim got to see the print-outs of a gorgeous text book he spent the past several months contributing to (a really cool graphic novel style project), and then we plunged into a cab to shoot all the way back uptown to the Simon & Schuster offices (by Rockefeller Center) to see art director Laurent Linn (who Jim recently did a cover assignment for), who we've gotten to know over several years of SCBWI conferences, and who we adore. Here's the S&S lobby:
And Laurent in his own office, which was so cute it looked like a little apartment:
Laurent used to work for the Muppets and then Sesame Street, and even toured Japan with Big Bird. How cool is that?!?

Jim and Laurent on the subway en route to dinner:
You see Jim with my very manly "I [heart] books" bag, which he was to be seen carrying for me all weekend, loaded as it was with books and ARCs. Hey, at least it's not pink!

The three of us met fabulous librarian/book blogger/author Betsy Bird and her husband Matt (who is a screenwriter) for dinner at a place called Popovers on the Upper West Side; you see here why it's called Popovers:


Yes, those are giant, puffed bread products. They were served with strawberry-butter and were de-licious :-) Betsy was the first person to ever review Blackbringer and the review was so lovely that I have doted on her ever since. I'm so excited that she has recently sold her first two picture book manuscripts (I think to Greenwillow), and I can't wait to see them become books!)

So, whew. That was all just on Thursday, before we even got to BookExpo! Friday morning, bright and early, we were down in the hotel lobby to meet our lovely Scholastic publicist Sheila Marie, along with several other out-of-town authors including Jane Yolen, Maggie Stiefvater, and . . . Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games which was easily one of my (and Jim's, and many other people's) favorite books last year. I sat beside Suzanne in the car en route to the convention center, which was VERY exciting, and which I did not document photographically, but I swear it really happened! (She was lovely, by the way.)

I did get a picture of Maggie Stiefvater, though, here with the lightbox of her forthcoming book Shiver, which I will be reading very soon:
I really enjoyed her first title, Lament last year, and Shiver is very promising: about the "bittersweet love between a girl and a werewolf." Yum.

I also met Marie Rutkoski, whose first book The Cabinet of Wonders was, like Lament, a Cybils nominee last year, and which was shortlisted in the middle grade category. I loved it (Prague, gypsies, magical toy spiders, intrigue!), and can't wait for book 2, which will be out next winter.

We saw Alice Pope, another SCBWI friend, and editor of the Children's Writers & Illustrators Marketplace book from Writer's Digest, in the new edition of which will be a story on Jim and myself and our collaboration. Fun!

And, as I mentioned, I got to meet my favorite young reader in person!
This is kind of funny, because I've been corresponding with this lovely young woman since she was eleven, I think, possibly twelve, and when I got her first emails, I really didn't think she could be a kid -- she was so smart and funny and articulate and quirky, and I hasten to add that I do think lots of kids are all of those things. But the tone of her emails was so grown-up, she was such a kindred spirit, that a part of me always wondered: is she really a kid? You know, with the internet, there's always a chance . . . but now I have proof of youth, and have even met her mother (who was so awesome and supportive to bring her book-loving daughter to the convention, which is expensive for "civilians"!). THIS was a highlight of BEA!

AND, I was very excited to see this image of Silksinger promoted in the Brilliance Audio booth,
and to meet Tim Ditlow, and talk with him and some of the other creative folks there about the forthcoming audio version. Can't wait to hear it! They also were giving away Rathersting tattoos in their booth, which was awesome beyond words:

Okay, this is random and incredibly awesome. Would you ever have imagined that Cliff Notes could be necessary for a Nicholas Sparks book? haw haw haw!
I deeply regret that I did not get my hands on one of these babies myself, but alas, I only got to see David Levithan's jealously guarded copy. Here he is gloating:
We were very happy to have a chance to hang out with David, who is super funny and awesome (you might know him best as the co-author of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was a movie last year starring Michael Cera, but he has written a LOT, and I don't know HOW, since he works full time as an editor!), along with publicist Sheila Marie, after the convention:

Man, I know, I know. Too many pictures! This post is TOO LONG! But I don't know what to do. It was such an amazing weekend, and how else is a blogger to preserve a weekend than with a ridiculously long post? We met a ton more awesome people, had more amazing meals, this spectacular book signing:
(You can't even tell, but over 200 people came for the ARCs of Lips Touch!)

And these amazing genuine New Jersey bagels with lox, courtesy of Arthur Levine:

And so much more! But I really must get to Laini's Ladies now. NOW!

:-)

I [cupcake] New York!

No really, I do [cupcake] New York. Each time we go (and this is only our third trip), we like it more, to the point that this time we could squint and visualize ourselves actually living there . . . well, sort of. No plans to move, of course, but I would love to be able to visit every year, and have enough time to see more of the city each visit: more museums, neighborhoods, restaurants. (Someone told us that if you ate out three meals a day, a different restaurant every meal, a lifetime would still not be enough to eat at every restaurant in New York City!) This trip was such a whirlwind we didn't explore much, though we did spend a morning walking around in Soho and Greenwich Village (though we spent too much of that time in "the skeleton store"!). That was one highlight of the long weekend.

Other highlights were: BookExpo America, obviously! Specifically: sitting in the front row while Arthur Levine "buzzed" my book to a big crowd and made it sound so awesome; signing ARCs in the Scholastic booth and seeing the line stretch all the way down the aisle and out of sight. WOW! (If you were in that line, thank you so much!) A big beautiful light box of the Lips Touch cover prominently featured in the Scholastic booth:
The great Arthur Levine with the light box:

Besides BEA itself . . .
. . . the highlights were all people. I met my favorite young reader in person for the first time, and we got to see many of the wonderful authors, editors, bloggers, art directors, and other book people we've come to love over the last few years, plus meeting new ones, especially the fabulous team at Scholastic who made our trip such a special event.

Here is the first highlight of the trip -- and the very first photo of the trip: being met at JFK by a driver, which was a first for us:
Hee hee, I felt famous. Speaking of famous, of actual famous, by the way: Leonardo DiCaprio was on our flight from LA to NY. I actually stood right next to him in the Hudson News and thought, "Hm, is that Leonardo DiCaprio under that ball cap and sunglasses?" And it was. Minor celeb sightings at LAX and JFK included the dad from 7th Heaven and the chef "Molto Mario" who was wearing orange crocs. And then I washed my hands beside Julie Andrews in the bathroom at the Javitz Center! Really! I didn't attempt to speak to her, though. What's to say? "I just loved you in "The Sound of Music"? ha ha!

We did speak to Meg Cabot though:
I don't recall what we said, but it must have been coherent enough for a photograph to result from it! That's Sarah Beth Durst with us. Our first books came out on the same day two years ago, and now our third books are coming out on -- I think -- the same day in October (at least the same month)! Cool! Hers is Ice an updated retelling of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" that I can't wait to read, though I did not score an ARC of it this weekend, drat! I did, however, manage to get ARCs of Catching Fire (which I read on the plane and it ROCKS!!!), Beautiful Creatures, Shiver, Forest Born, The Sweetheart of Prosper County, The Devil's Kiss, and more!

Well, I don't have the time to do all these days and all these people justice with a massive post right now, alas, so I'll just put up this little bit for now and hope I can find some time to organize in a few days. Wah! There's never enough time!

Hope you're all well!
:-)

Last day in New York

Clearly, best blogging intentions have come to naught. Sorry. We're having a fabulous time and will have lots of photos that will probably interest only us! Had cupcakes at midnight in Greenwich Village last night, and now we have a morning to see some city before going to the Coraline musical this afternoon. I think we're going to try to find that skeleton store we passed in a rush in Soho the other day. Can you carry skeletons on the airplane?

:-)

Book Expo!

Leaving in the morning for New York, bright and early. SO EXCITED! I have *good intentions* of blogging a bit from there. We'll see how that goes.

Cheers!

baby name!

We've been back and forth on names for the little wiggler. The list grows and shrinks, then grows again. Jim has taken to throwing out random words, and yesterday while we were walking Leroy, he came up with an excellent one:

Ready?

Professor. Little Professor Di Bartolo! Can't you just picture an adorable tiny girl sitting in first grade with her hand raised, and in order to call on her the teacher has to say, "Yes, Professor?"

Ha ha ha!!! We love it. The situations for hilarity are endless. While it's unlikely we'll actually name our daughter that, it is highly possible I'll use it for a character one of these days, so: don't steal it :-)

Tee hee hee.

Oh, and by the way, you might not have to experiment with this to know, but I discovered it yesterday: yellow is not the very best choice for toe nail polish, unless you are going for a slightly diseased look. What can I say? When it comes to color, I am impulsive. At least my shoes are mostly closed-toe at this moment in time. (But if you see me in the next few days, ask me to show you my yellow toe nails; I shall oblige.)

Cheers!

cool news!

Really cool news!

The audio rights for Silksinger have sold to Brilliance Audio, and the German and Italian rights to Lips Touch have sold! Yay!!!!! Italian rights! I'm so excited about that! And my love of German publishers and readers continues to grow :-) This makes me feel both giddy and greedy for more. More languages! More rights! Mwahaha!!!

Brilliance has done something extremely cool, which is: they've made up packets of Rathersting tattoos to promote the audio of Silksinger, and will be giving them away at their booth at BEA! How awesome! I haven't met any of the folks there [yet] but I love them already.

BEA draws near and my excitement mounts. I've learned something incredible: at BEA, all the books are free. Can you believe? How will I stop myself from grabbing armfuls of books, just because I can? I mean, I can't carry them all day, or fit them in my luggage to bring home. I'll have to be very selective. The Catching Fire ARC for example :-) Jim and I are sure to be doing rock-paper-scissors over who gets to read it first. OR we'll be reading it side-by-side on the plane, ha ha.

Oh, and I'm going to be signing ARCs of Lips Touch in the Scholastic booth on Saturday, May 30 from 3:30-4:30, which is directly after the Buzz Authors Panel (Downtown Author's Stage, 2 - 3:15).

Have a lurvely weekend :-) Oh! Wait! I just found this video, which the lovely Kim Baker created for the Western Washington SCBWI conference last weekend. The subject: A world without SCBWI.

SCBWI Tribute from Kimberly C. Baker on Vimeo.

Isn't that great? It's a tribute to the amazing Lin Oliver and Stephen Mooser, who created the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators in 1971 (the year I was born!). I've said many times before: without SCBWI I don't know that I would be published. Every step of the way, from me figuring out how to finally finish a novel (and how to make it a good one), to getting to hear editors speak about what kinds of books they were looking for, so that I would know who to submit to, SCBWI has been lighting the path of my own journey.

If you want to write for children, you absolutely must attend SCBWI conferences (well, it's not so much you must; I do occasionally hear tell of folks who've gotten published without it :-) but it really does help so much, illuminating a world that might seem mysterious and hard to access when you're just sitting at home typing up queries, etc. Plus, the people are amazing and it's So Much Fun. The first year I went to the LA conference was a real stretch financially, but I now believe it's one of those things you have to make happen, because it is so worth it.

Speaking of the LA conference, I am so sad Jim and I can't go this year because, as always, it's shaping up to be incredible. But we will be otherwise occupied either a) having a baby; b) waiting for a slightly late baby; or c) figuring out what to do with a baby! Ha ha. But you should go. Check out the awesomeness!