Egads!

Looking at the date of my last post I was rather horrified, seeing as how it's been so long since my last post. Of course a have reams of excuses: it was the end of the semester, we moved, I had to go to New York - but really they are just excuses and I'm sorry I've been away.

I make amends with pictures! Of New York!

The primary reason I was in New York was that I needed to visit David Levithan to sort out some details of our collaborative novel - INVISIBILITY CURSE. Here is the moment in the blog where I do a I happy dance and say OMG yes I totally did get to crash at David Levithan's apartment all weekend. And it was awesome. It's a funny thing about becoming close friends with authors you long admired, cognitively I know that David is my friend but the giddy inner fangirl part of me never quite goes away.

New York - always a place I love - did not disappoint. I had wonderful meetings with my superhero agents: Richard and Charlie. I had more wonderful meetings with the Penguin family and particularly Editor Jill who is currently reading my fourth manuscript (cue nervous nail biting). Jill also gave me a present: a finished copy of Wolfsbane!!! In two months it will be in stores. Yay!!!

I particularly enjoyed my time on the subway and noted that the subway has become a great location for performing arts. On one of my trips the car was serenaded by a four piece mariachi band. And on another we had breakdancers.

I was also in town for the Teen Author Carnival, which was so much fun and I was finally reunited with my critique partner, Lisa Desrochers, who I hadn't seen for two years! Thanks to everyone who came to the event. Look here's a picture of you all!

Now I'm back in Minnesota and crashed in my quasi new home that is in utter disarray of moving boxes and randomly placed furniture. Given that the move still needs finishing I probably will still have some lags in blogging, but I promise not as long of a lag as this last one.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

I'm still unpacking boxes.

The Best Things in Life...

Are those you didn't plan for.

A little less than a year ago I had the delight of attending the American Library Association (ALA) annual meeting, at which I met many amazing authors including David Levithan. Upon meeting David I knew I'd found a kindred spirit and being so grateful for his kindness to a newbie author I wrote this blog post.

Now I meant the post as a compliment not an actual suggestion, but lo and behold David saw the blog post and decided to call my bluff - he asked if I wanted to try writing a book together. To take a page from my beloved Ghostbusters:

When David Levithan asks you if you'll write a book with him you say YES.

And I did.

And now I have amazing news to share that was announced this morning in Publishers Weekly:

Philomel Disappears with Levithan & Cremer
Jill Santopolo, executive editor of Penguin Young Readers' Philomel imprint, took world rights to a new YA novel by David Levithan and Andrea Cremer called The Invisibility Curse. Bill Clegg, at William Morris Endeavor, brokered the deal for Levithan, who co-wrote Nick and Norah's Infinite Play-list (and is editorial director at Scholastic Press), and Cremer, author of Nightshade (and history professor at Macalaster College). The novel follows a boy burdened by invisibility who meets a girl that has the power to see him and, possibly, cure him. Publication is currently set for 2013.

Our book will be published in 2013 by Philomel/Penguin with amazing Editor Jill at the helm!!!!

There are no words to describe how ecstatic I am about this novel and how much I love David. I'm grateful to him not only for sharing his creative talent with me but also for how much he's become a dear friend over the past 10 months.

I can't wait until 2013 when you'll be able to share our journey, too!

To Heart, or Not to Heart

It's Valentine's Day and before I wish you Happy Valentine's Day I thought I'd wax on a bit about the vagaries of this holiday.

I've been having fun reading pro and anti-Valentine's tweets and blogs this morning. I understand both sides. I'm not a fan of any holiday that makes some people feel bad and Valentine's Day is probably at the top of the list.

On the other hand, I'm of the quixotic variety so I like flowers and chocolate and silly, sloppy romantic sentiments (cheesy to me = funny and I think laughter and love go hand in hand).

Recounting the problems of this holiday is the amazing Heather Brewer. She makes exceptional points all around.

Here's a video on this dichotomous holiday, which I think nicely shows us a balance Valentine Horror and Happiness:



Also, my fabulous friend and author, David Levithan is going to be talking about his book: Lover's Dictionary (which limns the peaks and valleys of that thing called love) on All Things Considered this afternoon - check it out :)

Other People's Music

I've posted many a time about how essential music is to my writing process. Each of my novels has a playlist as I'm drafting and when copyedits are done the book gets a soundtrack. You can see the Nightshade playlist and soundtrack and the Wolfsbane playlist on my web site.

Discovering new music is one of my favorite things. I find a lot of songs through the incredible Minnesota Public Radio station The Current, which I'd recommend to everyone. You can stream it online no matter where you live. For ambient, mood music I often turn to Digitalis on Soma FM, which I'll sometimes stream as I'm writing.

But even better than finding music on your own can be the joy of learning about the songs and bands that other people love. David Levithan, author and editor extraordinaire, conducts a yearly music poll wherein his friends send in their favorite albums and songs of the year. David compiles the list and then gifts us all with an amazing compilation of music recommendations from some very music savvy peeps.

If you're looking for new music I'd check out these recommendations.

And here's a 2010 single on my list: Yeasayer's O.N.E. I love this song and am now obsessed with the video - it's like if a dystopian world decided the 1980s should be revived. It also kind of makes me think that this might be a club where the capital citizens of Panem might be found slumming it. (Sorry I can't embed the video here, but I'd highly recommend watching it. It's a hoot and a half!)

Enjoy!

Humor Us

One of the incredible benefits of being a Penguin author is that I get to meet other Penguin authors. My first night at ALA I attended a dinner with wonderful librarians, great Penguin friends, and amazing writers like Laurie Halse Anderson, Ally Condie, and David Small.








Too much happened at ALA to squash it into a single post. So I decided to start with the pinnacle of my debut ALA:

They say you shouldn't meet your heroes.
"They" obviously picked the wrong heroes.

Hanging out with these guys exceeded all expectations.
Through some amazing trick of fate, I got to spend pretty much the duration of ALA with David Levithan and John Green.











And I learned a few things.

One - that David Levithan is my writing soul mate. I don't think any other person could make it seem like a good idea - natural even - to sing "You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'" into a mic in front of 100 teenagers. Yet somehow this happened. And it was awesome. Meeting David has given me two new goals in life: To at some point go on tour with David, so that singing about writing is always part of the deal. The second goal is to somehow convince David that he needs to collaborate on a YA novel that has a paranormal element and then to convince him that I should be the other half of that collaboration. I do not know how I'm going to make this happen - but I am working on it.

+
= Werewolf Bands of London (or New York? Chicago? David??)









Two - John Green is not the zany character you think he is.



I think he is a spy - or possibly a super villain of the alluring variety. It's just something in his eyes. Sure, he's charming and witty. Sure, you love him the moment you meet him. But beneath that lively exterior lurks something else. Something complex and brooding. I'm now fleshing out a theory that Nerdfighters are actually a secret society working to overthrow the world (not that their rule would be a bad thing...). John Green would be just the guy to pull that revolution off. And nobody would see it coming.

If you haven't read John and David's books, you need to start right now. My favorite books are those that make me laugh out loud and sob. David and John both write with that type of insistent and authentic emotional quality. I reread John's Looking for Alaska on the plane right home, and had to constantly apologize to the person sitting next to me for my torrents of giggling and crying. I told him it was the book. I'm pretty sure he was convinced I was going through a break up that was somehow hilarious but tragic.

Spending time with these two authors made me feel better about the state of the world. Seriously.

Meet your heroes. Just be sure you pick good ones.