Friday Five: BEA edition

BEA is over.

1. For me, it began Monday night with the Lerner librarian preview. I met a few folks, got to chat with the AE about |-1| in front of a small but apparently interested crowd. Also I drank a high ball. For supper, alone, I visited Zen Palate, a vegetarian restaurant I miss pretty regularly, and Simon's favorite:


After ordering, and while I ate, and after I finished, I finally started The Freak Observer. It is a difficult book to put down. Loa really pulls you along. There is great pain.

2. Tuesday, the first official day of BEA, was a visit to Simon & Schuster and therefore several of my favorite people. That was followed by a great lunch with my wife and our good friend, also once from S&S. We met halfway between Midtown and Soho, at Elmo in Chelsea. Good sandwich. Hip place. And Samantha and I got to exchange ARCs. Tuesday night at eight (the latest I've started supper in a dog's age), I met ENIV and the AE for a completely awesome burger and a few awesome beers and plenty of awesome conversation. Excellent day of old and new friends. Good stuff.

3. Wednesday morning, after an excellent breakfast with the Lerner crew at the hotel restaurant and a quick tour of the BEA floor, I needed to rest the dogs (shout out to Heidi -- orange Chucks look cool, but hurt!), so I sat down on a comfy couch far from the exhibition and took the opportunity to get back to Blythe's debut. Soon it was noon, and that meant lunch with several Tenners, and meeting several awesome bloggers. Please see this photo that Berk and I keep stealing from Heidi.


4. For me, BEA ended Wednesday at around 5:15. That's when I signed the last available copy of |-1| and got up from the autographing table. I admit it: I was worried the line would consist of exactly 8 people, all of whom I knew personally. But we gave away 100 copies of the book, and I got to meet many a librarian and blogger and reader and writer on that line! It was pretty great.

5. And now I'm on Long Island, and vacation. We have many friend and family and new-baby visits to make! Ta!

Friday Five: A New Hope

1. Without at first realizing that today is the 30th anniversary of the release of The Empire Strikes Back, I'd planned to blog today a little about the original three Star Wars flicks, which I've just watched in rapid succession thanks to my recent birthday gift. That was a long sentence.

Empire, as we all know, is the best of the three. Jedi is the worst. A New Hope, as we now know the original Star Wars movie, doesn't get a lot of credit either way. Sure, it gets quoted plenty ("But I was going to Tashi Station to pick up some power converters waaah," for example), but its strengths as a film and tale are not so often discussed. I'm here to tell you, it's really good. It's a freakin' awesome fantasy YA, is what it is. Imagine, if you will, a novel version of A New Hope. We'd have third-person POV, natch, with alternating close third for Luke and Leia's convergent arcs. Both characters do quite a lot of "meeting the world," in my mind the foremost quality in good YA. And, if not for -- let's face it -- Mr. Hamill's catastrophic acting and whining, both characters would be insanely sympathetic to adolescent or arrested-adolescent viewers. LIKE ME.

As for Jedi, it's as bad as you remember, or possibly worse. I found it was worse. I found the Ewoks more annoying than I thought they were. I was happy when one died. Also, Luke is STILL freakin' whining. Han, once a scruffy-looking dangerous man, is endlessly slapsticking around with his goofball sidekick Chewie. Poor Chewie. I ask you, would Chewbacca of A New Hope fall for the old meat-on-a-branch trick? No freakin' way.

But I've said too much.

2. It's also the 30th anniversary of Pac Man, in case you haven't noticed.

3. What else? BEA is what else. For me and the good people at Carolrhoda Lab (and the rest of Lerner), it starts on Monday night with the big to-do. I'm not remotely nervous!

4. Did I mention finals are in? Lookit.


5. And finally, as if I wasn't already a nervous wreck, today Sam, Beth, and I visited a pre-school. In the fall, my tiny baby boy will very likely join a two-year-old, two-day-per-week pre-school. I can hardly stand to think of it. Luckily I have the whole summer to get used to the idea.

Party down.

Today is my birthday. I am no longer a member of the coveted 18- to 35-year-old male demographic. So leave me alone, advertisers and survey takers!

To celebrate, thus far I have biked for about an hour, enjoyed a margherita pizza with spiced salami and arugula (my new favorite pizza topping) from Punch, and have now settled in at Caribou with an iced mocha and nothing but time. (Shout out to MIL for babysitting today so I can take my traditional "computer on my back, hop on the bike, and see where the day takes me" birthday.)

Gifts: Beth and Sam gave me their excellent gifts last night. From Sam, a combo DVD/VHS player. Sounds weird, I know. The gift from the nineties! But keep in mind that I have a huge collection of VHS tapes up in the attic -- including the last VHS release of the original Star Wars trilogy before Georgie added crap -- that I haven't been able to watch in years. So now I will. And I will make Beth watch the original Star Wars trilogy! WHICH SHE HAS NEVER SEEN.

From Beth, two months of WoW time. Shut up.

I am a patient boy.

Tomorrow is my goddamn birthday.

Today, the AE has something to say about waiting over at the Lerner blog. He also quotes from The Absolute Value of -1, assembling what amounts to the longest teaser of the book online anywhere, I should think.

Beyond all that, it's worth clicking over to listen to "Waiting Room." If you already enjoy Fugazi, the trip down memory lane will be a rocking one. If you don't know the tune, then the AE has done you a great favor.

'Tis a silly place

Here's what new:

Sam is feeling quite a bit better. Beth and I, however, are feeling quite a bit worse. I sound like Tom Waits after a bender.

My new website, you may have seen on Twitter or Facebook, is now live. Please do visit it and send me comments and such at stevebrezenoff.com.

In the last few days I've watched all of season one of Merlin, a BBC series showing in the U.S. on Syfy, and also available on Netflix Watch Instantly. However, there are no eps available beyond season one, and season two is (I think) nearly over on TV.

UPDATE: I'm told season two IS available online. Many thanks to AOB!

Listen, the point is this: I had forgotten how much I can geek out over a TV show. Many of you think that's ridiculous, I'm sure, and you're right. I mean, come on. But more importantly, and more fun, I'd forgotten how much I can geek out over Arthurian legend! I love this stuff, my friend, even (maybe especially) new, unorthodox interpretations of Arthurian legend.

The further point is, get a load of this short Twitter conversation:



In a fit of awesomeness, not only did R.J. Anderson know what in the hell I was talking about, but she is also the newest among the ranks of Carolrhoda Lab authors! We are good company.

So, I'll look forward to seeing season two, and soon three, and meanwhile I'll go read Mordred's Curse again.

Sick son

Sam has had a wicked cough for ages now. It feels like it's been a month.

So far it's meant two trips to the children's ER in St. Paul, one for croup, one for high fever and rapid breathing.

We're confident it's nothing serious. But when this kid takes a deep breath and goes off on a real fit, his eyes wide open, gradually filling with fear and tears, then reddening at the edges until he seems about to burst, and finally gagging on the urge to cough so he nearly vomits, or does vomit . . . it sure seems serious.

Everything I read online--worst thing to do with a medical question, as everyone knows--suggests that a toddler's cough often lasts this long, or longer. It still sucks.

Chucks Update!

Not upchuck dates. Gross.

Here's what's new, and I have to hurry because my bedtime is almost upon me.

New sneakers.

Yeah, you dig it. I covetethed them, and now I have them. I will be easy to spot at BEA . . . especially if you're a mouse or squirrel.

My new website will launch this week. Control your excitement.

I do believe I will have two writing days this week. One will go over completely, I expect, to working on the next Field Trip Mystery. The other day (Friday) can be all Jessamine's. That is, it can all belong to the MC of YA MS the Second.

YA MS the Third? Vague whisperings only, and grapevine reports. They are positive whispers and reports, which is nice. But for now, we continue to sit on our hands. Did I mention I read the entire YA MS the Third this weekend? I spotted several awkward echoes that I wish I'd fixed before. But overall, I think I still like it.

Orange ya glad

When I was a lad, my favorite color was orange. It was close. Green was in second and threatened to overcome orange, as did red. But orange won out.

This might have been because orange is the color of fire. Or because the carpet in my room was orange. Or my hair. It's irrelevant.

The point is this: My bike is orange. It's one of my prized possessions. My blog is orange, as you can quickly see by shifting your eyes slightly up. YA MS the Third (soon to be titled; watch this space) has always been orange in my mind. (The Absolute Value of -1 has always been black and red, for what it's worth; it's a happy coincidence, perhaps, that it was black and red for the cover designers, too.)

With all that in mind, I present you with these:I coveteth them.

Furthermore, they represent a burgeoning movement in YA literature borne of Heidi R. Kling's debut novel, the beautifully written and achingly romantic Sea.

So buy a pair of orange chucks--or yellow ones, sure--and don them proudly. And when you see another person out in public, particularly at the Jacob Javits Center May 25 to 27, wearing cool-ass Chucks in orange or yellow, you'll know why.

And the winner is . . .

Time to announce the winner of the signed ARC prize package. To sum up, the winner will receive:

• An ARC of THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF -1, signed by me, Dia Reeves, Heidi R. Kling, Jennifer Hubbard, Kristin Walker, and Phoebe Kitanidis
• A signed bookmark from Dia, Jenn, and Kristin
• And a signed final copy of Dia Reeves's crazyawesome book Bleeding Violet.

So, without further ado, the winner is . . .


Watch your email, Sherry, for a note from me so I can get your mailing address. Congrats!

And big thanks to everyone who entered, for helping me spread the word and trailer for |-1| around.

Those of you waiting for posters, they should go out tomorrow or the next day.

I started a "like" page for |-1| on facebook. Stop by and like it!

And finally, watch Goodreads. Another ARC giveaway begins on May 1.

No more entries!

The contest is now officially closed to entries! We have a LOT of people entering, so it's going to take me a little time to do the complicated computations to figure out who won.

Meanwhile, I'd love to send out the five posters I promised in the last post, and looking at the first five comments, I see those should go to:

♥ twiinkle :}
Tina Laurel Lee
Jonathan Arnston
Elegant Snobbery
Heather Kelly

I come to that conclusion under the assumption that I can skip Blythe Woolston, fellow Carolrhoda Lab frosh, and Micol "Meatball" Ostow, whom I hope to see at BEA. If either of you two dames wants a poster too, just holler.

Okay, you five. Please email me. My contact info is under "view my complete profile" on the right.

The rest of you, in the next few days I'll figure out the big winner. (And fear not, poster people; you're still in the running for the signed ARC, goodies, and signed copy of Bleeding Violet.) Also stay tuned to this channel for more exciting news in the next ten days or so.

Trailer for |-1|

It's here! It's here!

The trailer for THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF -1



And with it, the last chance to enter my big signed ARC giveaway. To refresh your memory (yeah, the first chance to enter was like five months ago), the prize includes an ARC of |-1| signed by me, Dia Reeves, Kristin Walker, Jennifer Hubbard, Heidi Kling, and Phoebe Kitanidis. It's a Tenner extravaganza! Also included is a signed copy of Dia Reeves's BLEEDING VIOLET, a |-1| poster, and whatever other swag those lovely Tenners send me to include in the package!

Okay, so, several people already have a bunch of entries from previous opportunities, but folks, this is the big one. You can get crazy entries right now!

• To get one entry, comment on this entry.
• To get another entry, link to this entry in Twitter or on your blog. Link to your tweet in your comment.
• And to get TEN ENTRIES, embed the trailer on your own blog. Link to the blog entry in your comment.

So that's twelve entries you can get right now! No one else has more than four yet! Four is chump change. CHUMP. CHANGE.

Okay, and, just for fun, the first five comments* I see pop up will automatically get a poster in the mail, just for entering and being awesome.

*Please do not enter if you're under 13. Please do not enter if you find fictional accounts of drug use or sexual encounters to be offensive, or if you find swear words to be offensive. If you've already won something on this blog, you are not eligible for one of the extra five posters, but can still enter the bigger giveaway. ETA: The contest will end officially at 9 pm EDT on April 21.

Fly, little novel.

YA MS the Third went on submission yesterday. I hope it is doing okay out there in the cold world. Soon, it will no longer be called YA MS the Third in this space.

Meanwhile, here's its Wordle cloud. I don't quite know why "back" is featured so boldly. Huh.

Sacrifices must be made

First, some news, which you may have already seen in my Twitter stream. The release party and reading for |-1| has been scheduled! It will be at Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis on September 23. This gives you plenty of notice and time to plan, so get those airline tickets bought now if you need them.

The trailer for |-1| will be showing up very soon.

I've let my WoW account expire. This was mainly to make me a more productive writer, just like last time I took a long WoW break, when I finished |-1| and started YA MS the Second. Ironically, though, I plan to use the otherwise wasted time to now finish YA MS the Second, which is about a girl who plays WoW too much! Truly, the mind reels, does it not?*

Also ironically, YA MS the Third is done! Which is to say, it somehow earned agent ENIV's approval last week, and this week he might, ya know, show it to someone else. So that's fun.

Also fun: the last touch it needed required a smidge of research. I went down to the art supply store and rather sheepishly explained I needed some newsprint and vine charcoals. Then I got to do something I haven't done regularly in far too long: draw. I chose a desk lamp, for reasons I won't get into now, and had a great time. This was all so I could better describe the experience of drawing with charcoal on newsprint--the feel of it, the smell, the smudging on the sides of my fingers, et cetera. Anyway, there are like 49 more sheets of newsprint on that pad, and I intend to use them.

*The crying Night Elf above is not my toon, but some random level 13 I chose simply to illustrate a crying Night Elf. If you happen to recognize this toon (called Swan, by the way), perhaps it is yours. If so, I urge you to spend your four talent points. They don't get better if you let them age.

First-ever Friday Five

1. I knew we'd get one more cold snap, but I think it's over now. No, I know it's over now. We're in the 50s again out here, and we'll hit 70 next week* -- they tell us -- which means I can now call winter as over, unequivocally. In fact, I'll put my parka in the attic this weekend. How's that?!

2. Soon, it will be April. On the first, besides all the fooling that will go on, Beth's mother-in-law will be coming for a visit. We're all very excited, but none of us as excited as my mom herself. That's because she hasn't seen her grandson since Thanksgiving or so, I think. So you can imagine.

3. Also in early April, I'll be premiering the trailer I made for The Absolute Value of -1. That entry here at the Exile will also be the last chance to enter the big ARC giveaway contest. Yes, it has been going on for almost six months. The time does fly, doesn't it? You will recall that included in the prize package is an ARC of |-1| signed by several Tenners and a hardcover, final signed copy of Dia Reeves's crazy excellent debut Bleeding Violet. I'll also throw in a signed poster, 'cause why the heck not, and I'll also choose a couple of runners-up to also receive signed posters, also 'cause why the heck not!

4. Count the "also's"! There are several.

5. I have never done a Friday five, but if you count this paragraph I just started, this is totally five paragraphs, so I'm going to go back up and number these things and call it my first-ever Friday Five! Hot dog!

*That weird picture is the cover of the Flaming Lips album Oh My Gawd!!, and if you click it you can hear their song "Can't Stop the Spring," which was on in my car that time I hit a dog, a year ago next Thursday the first.

Announcements!

Some big announcements today--relative to recent announcements, anyway. But first, to sum up:

On Saturday, the honorable Kurtis Scaletta alerted me to the fact that local YA author Swati Avasthi was reading at the Loft from her just-released debut SPLIT. I went to the reading. It was fantastic. I'm not far into the book yet, but so far it's superbly and vividly written. Great voice, serious subject matter handled well. I recommend it! Of course, I got my new copy signed by the author while I was there and we chatted a bit. It's nice to live in a town (err, twin town) with such a strong community of writers for young people. In fact, I'm at the Loft right now. My class begins in 90 minutes or so.

What have I been doing down here all afternoon? Well, I've finished my first read-through of YA MS the Second, and it . . . wants for much, let's say. I like it, mind you. I really do. It's even okay in some places where I thought it was utter garbage. But there's this one interesting character in particular who literally vanishes after page like 15, never to return. I ask you: wtf.

Okay, so, on to fun announcements. I'm nearly ready to end the signed ARC contest, but I'm going to give one more chance to enter, and this one will be the biggy--LOTS of chances for entries, such that previous entries will seem like chicken feed, kind of like that bonus round on the Family Feud. Watch for details on that in the next few days.

And finally, BEA! I'll be there, signing on Wednesday late afternoon. But even more exciting is the Carolrhoda LAB big event on Monday night. It's a swanky, invite-only affair, and I'll be (gulp) at the front of the room waxing intellectually with the AE. What, me worry?

Poster winner!

The winner of the autographed THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF -1 poster is . . .

Cari, I'll be emailing you soon to get an address to send this to.

Thanks to everyone for entering, and I'll without a doubt be giving away a LOT more posters in the near future. So check back!

Pizza, last chance for the poster

I'm reading YA MS the Second right now. The first half? Totally stellar. I love it! The second half? A mess: a thin, watery mess.

Here's an update about pizza.

I had lunch at Hiawatha Pizza today for the first time in ages. It's as good as it was, all that, but there were bad signs. One: the slices are now one-sixth of a pie, rather than the previous and traditional one-eighth. This concerns me because the price is the same, and I wonder if the owner feels like he needs to up the value to improve sales. Two: he didn't, at around noon, have change for a twenty. If during a weekday lunch rush, a pizza shop doesn't have enough small bills to break a twenty, it means there is no lunch rush.

In other news, you may have seen me tweet that I finished the trailer for |-1|. I love it. The AE and his team love it. But I can't show it to you yet. I'm dying to show it to you. I can't.

Give me three weeks. Maybe less.

Oh, and I'll announce the winner of the autographed poster really soon. Like, tomorrow, probably. Last chance to pop over there (to the previous entry) and enter.

ARCs and giveaways!

Saturday morning! Sam and I are awake and just sort of hanging around. Beth went back to bed for a couple of hours. We all need to catch up on sleep, and sometimes we have to do it in shifts.

Later on today, I'll finally get back to work on the trailer for |-1|. I don't know if I'll have the time to get it done. In fact, it's been so long since I touched it, I'll probably spend most of the time just sort of reacquainting myself with the project.

In other |-1| news, I have ARCs! I only got a small handful personally, and the rest are jetting off to review types the country over. So that's exciting and frightening. But the point is, as far as what's relevant here, is that one copy of my ARC is now flying off to Heidi R. Kling, author of the gorgeous SEA, and thence to Dia Reeves, and Kristin Walker, and Jennifer Hubbard . . . for their autographs! And that means that finally -- FINALLY -- the big ARC giveaway can be decided!

I'll post one more opportunity to enter in the near future, but for now I want to give away something. So how about a couple of autographed posters?! They're not very big, but hey, they're free and cool as heck, right?

So, I'll pick a random commenter on this entry, with an extra entry if you Tweet the contest. Here's what they look like!




















Anyone in the US or Canada can enter! Do it today!

Carolrhoda Lab, and my cover!

Just a quick note here to announce the launch of Carolrhoda Lab, a new imprint within Carolrhoda. This fall, it will debut with four new YA titles, including THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF -1.

I'm also taking this opportunity to reveal the cover, final only for what feels like hours. To see all of it, click on through to Carolrhoda Lab's new site. Tell 'em Steve-O sent ya.

The song has changed

Every so often, I get completely obsessed with a song*. I'm talking repeat-track setting on iTunes for hours at a time. HOURS, literally. That isn't hyperbole. Of course, before iTunes, there was the single-repeat setting on my CD player.

When I say "every so often," I mean it might be once or twice a year, or it might be every several years. For example, the last time this happened (until today) was with the New Pornographers' "The Laws Have Changed," from Electric Version. I still love it, but I doubt I could sit through more than, say, three playings. Anyway, that was 2003 or 2004, so six or seven years ago.

Today I am obsessed again, this time with "Dreams," by the Twilight Hours, whose name I loathe, by the way. Anyway, the band has a free download of the lo-fi version of their album at the website, so I downloaded that track and have listened to it no fewer than a fifty times today. It's playing right now.

*The song is almost never by the band with which I am concurrently obsessed. You will recall no doubt that the obsession band was recently the Ting Tings. They remain so.