NYT best selling author

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Help Tsunami victims. Yeah...remember them?

A note from Richard Lewis, author of THE KILLING SEA, a YA novel about the tsunami. Richard lives in Bali. He has seen incredibly heart-wrenching evidence of the effects of this disaster, and he's trying to sponsor children who have been orphaned by this. He is using his advance money for THE KILLING SEA to sponsor children in Aceh.

READ HERE.

I just got a letter from the second student whose school fees I am paying this next year out of the donation from my advance.

Mursyida is now 16 years old. She lost her whole family except for two brothers, one younger (actually, the Indonesian she writes in doesn’t make it clear if this sibling is a brother or sister) and one older. Her mother was never found. To add to the tragedy, her father survived the tsunami but that night died in the mosque where they were taking refuge...


More at the link.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Oh heck.

I have an ISBN. And a page on the Simon & Schuster website.

I think I'm going to cry.

Go look.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

I *heart* ninth graders

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting one of the largest high schools just outside of Washington D.C., and it was a total blast. I spent the day hanging out in my dear friend Ilse's classroom and got to chat with lots of 9th graders about writing.

It was a bit nerve-wracking at first, but the students were terrific. I started off my talk in each class by asking questions.

"Because I write for teens," I said, "I need to know the language. What's the latest terminology? I need to know the latest buzzwords, the newest lingo, the urban words of the day. I already know what a roller (pronounced "rollah," natch) is. What else is new?" That got a laugh. And then they pelted me with jargon, some of which I'm proud to say I already knew, but most of it was new to me.

I also asked what they were reading, and got some great feedback there too. We talked about my book, WAKE, a little, and they had some terrific suggestions for me. They asked great questions, like, "How do write a book that is going to be part of a series?" And "How do you get through writing the boring parts of the books?"

Of course I answered, "My books don't have any boring parts." *grin*

One of the best parts of the trip was having tons of bling to give out to the school. Many, MANY thanks to my amazing publisher, Simon Pulse, for donating EIGHT CARTONS of books for the school's summer reading program!! Holy moley, I was blown away by their generosity, as was the teacher and the head of the English Department.

And big thank yous go to my YA author buddies who provided me with signed copies of their books to hand out, as well as buttons, bookmarks, and pencils. You guys made my visit really special. Here's the list of the great folks who helped out -- click on their names to learn about their books:

Antonio Pagliarulo -- CELEBUTANTES - ON THE AVENUE (just released!)
Heather Brewer -- EIGHTH GRADE BITES (comes out in August!)
Caridad Ferrer -- ADIOS TO MY OLD LIFE (her new book IT'S NOT ABOUT THE ACCENT comes out August 21)
Renee Rosen -- EVERY CROOKED POT (on bookshelves in 3 weeks!!)
Richard Lewis -- THE KILLING SEA (he even sent a postcard from Bali to go with the book!)

And Ilse, you're a bun. Thanks for inviting me!