Teens really do know best

I don't have any photos. YET.

Last night, the AE, myself, and the esteemed publicist from Carolrhoda went up to Dayton's Bluff to present |-1|, in all its bound-manuscript glory, to a room full of YAs: the intended audience for |-1|! It's not every author who gets the opportunity to present his work, so early in the production schedule and more than ten months before finished books, directly to teens! So, what gives?

Teens Know Best is a group of teens who, thanks to Adela Peskorz and Metro State University, in collaboration with the Saint Paul Public Library, get together to read, discuss, and review books (usually bound galleys; be jealous--their BG collection is swoon worthy) for young adults. This organization was, I think, the first to supply teen-written reviews to SLJ. They are the real deal, mister. And they're going to help us develop ideas for the cover and overall packaging of The Absolute Value of -1!

Each member has been given a bound manuscript of the book, and, once they've gotten through it, will start brainstorming, and photo hunting, and sketching, and concepting. AE has set up a blog (sorry, it's restricted) for all the TKB's to post their ideas and talk it over.

A few of the TKB's also seemed interested in reviewing the manuscript at this stage. While this is frightening, I am thrilled at the prospect, and so far, so good: one TKB insisted upon high-fiving me after reading just the first ten or twelve pages simply because they made her laugh. Sounds like five stars to me.

Adela, TKB's advisor and library liaison (and my professor of adolescent lit., by the way), will be supplying some photos, I believe, so hopefully by the time we drop by again in October, I'll have had the opportunity to post some.

Oh! And they promised me my own TKB T-shirt, which is so going on the list as soon as I get it.