Thanks TXLA12 !

Oh TXLA12! What a good time was had by all. I am very grateful to my publisher, Sourcebooks, for inviting me to come and arranging for me to sign advanced reading copies of ANASTASIA FOREVER. And the the YART committee for choosing me for the Texas Author's Tea and TT4L. It was all great fun. And getting copies of Anastasia Forever in readers' hands for the first time before it comes out in August was a huge rush of excitement!

But now I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

My Austin girl Jessica Lee Anderson, rocking her cowgirl hat while Geoff Herbach and our Sourcebooks Director of Children's Marketing and Publicity, Derry Wilkens is thinking: "Oh Herbach, wait till you see *your* hat."

Yup, nothing says Texas like the special Texas author hats at the YART Texas Author Tea. That's what Chris Mandelski, PJ Hoover and I think!

My YART Tea speed dating partner, author Michael Northrup who said, "Oh yeah. Give us all hats and no mirrors." And who writes amazing books like Trapped!

The YAHOUS (Lynne Kelly Mary Lindsey, Jenny Moss, me, Chris Mandelski, Crystal Allen)

Eating dinner with author/blogger Stephanie Pellegrin, Sourcebooks 'brother' Geoff Herbach, Austin librarian extraordinaire Jen Bigheart, and blogger Stephanie Redwine.

hanging with the girls: Amy Fellner Dominy (OyMG) and blogger and all around super human, Maria Cari Soto

and this is when I got 'ferklempt' at the signing with Maria Cari Soto because she's been there through this whole Dreaming Anastasia series journey.

The Sourcebooks team very full after dinner. And laughing a bunch. Melissa Wood and intern Katie Anderson and head publicity honcho Derry Wilkens and me and Geoff Herbach. Geoff ate a manly steak. With beet sauce.

My first ever Nook cover to sign!

And the line kept coming! Thank you. I was overwhelmed with delight that people stood in line for 90 minutes! Crazy talk. Or as my husband likes to say: "If only they really knew you."

My home girl Katie B of Mundie Moms, who has supported me like a crazy woman.

YAHouston Otherwise Known as the YAHOUS

One thing you learn about a writing career is that it's more than writing. It is also about promotion, establishing relationships with the writing and book communities through whatever suits you best. Me? I like writing workshops, interactive panels and other events. And to some of these events on a larger scale, you need compadres.

Thus, the YAHous, still under construction but gaining form and speed. I'm very excited, actually. We're having fun with this new group and testing the waters of what exactly we'd like it to be. YA Houston. Authors who live in the Houston area who are published in young adult/tween land and who have agreed to this experiment of combining our brains and efforts and maybe do something cool in the name of literacy. It could happen. I hope it does.

We're working it slow so far, deciding what we do and don't want to do as a unit. We've had a couple of signing events such as the one above, which ended up as just Christina Mandelski (The Sweetest Thing, Egmont) and me at Deerbrook Barnes and Noble, chatting with readers and Christmas shoppers and as evidenced by the photo, also supported by our crazy wonderful Houston blogging community, represented that day by Christin Baker (Book Portrait) on the left and the indomitable Maria Cari Soto on the right. (I will be posting about our fab Texas book bloggers in January, so stay tuned)

But I'm pretty sure we're having fun and sticking with this new creature for the long haul. I'm excited about that. Really pretty thrilled. Cause these authors rock! Yup. Made of awesome.

We are: Crystal Allen, Dotti Enderle, CC Hunter, Sophie Jordan, Lynne Kelly, Mary Lindsey, Christina Mandelski, Jenny Moss, Joy Preble.

We have a still forming website: http://yahous.wordpress.com/ that links to our Facebook Page which you really really should go 'Like' so we feel popular. Which of course we are.

We're doing our first 'Big' event with the Barbara Bush Regional Library on 1/7/2012. It's called Whim2Weird and it's going to be a great afternoon with panel and Q&A and signing and swag and fun. Candy, too. It's the brain child of librarian Rebecca Denham and you can find out about that here. And also here. Hope to see you there!

Remember the name: YAHOUS

Look for us.

Support us!

Hang with us when we're out and about.

And yeah, buy and read our books, too.

If you're local to Houston and you're a teacher or librarian or bookseller and you'd like to work with us -- a panel or signing or reading or workshop or book club--- let me know!

More soon.

Hanging out with Christina Mandelski

One of the awesomest (yes, it can be a word. Why? Cause I said so) things that happened in April when I went to TLA was getting to know Christina Mandelski. She writes! She loves cake! (We had a bakery in the family for years. My Aunt Dina and Uncle Leon - both skimming about 5 feet tall - ran it, and here is Chris writing about Sheridan Wells, queen of the cake decorators! ) She is funny and adorable! She actually lives not far from me! She is beffies with my breakfast buddy Crystal Allen. (who is also adorable and funny and smart and lives a little farther from me but really loves cake, too)

Speaking of cake - Rao's Bakery on Cypresswood in Spring, Texas makes kick butt cakes; we had Italian Cream and Red Velvet slices at critique group last night. I am still on a lovely sugar high. (And in case you think the northern Houston suburbs do not produce anything but cake and heat and fire ants - which is partially true - let me briefly digress to say that the Klein School District has also produced some phenomenal actors that you see regularly on tv. One them is the son of family friends. For his privacy, I will leave that a mystery. BR will appreciate it. Oops. Yes, it's true, Jim Parsons (Sheldon on Big Bang Theory), Ben Rappaport (who starred in the now defunct Outsourced and has also been on Broadway! And who looks exactly like his dad except w/out the beard), and Matt Bomer (the highly hot star of USA's summer series, White Collar) - all products of high schools in the Klein ISD right here in otherwise boring Spring, Texas. We are a happening place.

But back to Christina Mandelski - well, she's not quite from the rarefied atmosphere of Spring, actor capitol of the world - but she's pretty close and darn cool and she stopped by the blog today to chat.

Here's what Amazon has to say about The Sweetest Thing:

Product Description
A delicious confection for Sarah Dessen fans

In the world of Sheridan Wells, life is perfect when she’s decorating a cake. Unfortunately, everything else is a complete mess: her mom ran off years ago, her dad is more interested in his restaurant, and the idea of a boyfriend is laughable.
But Sheridan is convinced finding her mom will solve all her problems—only her dad’s about to get a cooking show in New York, which means her dream of a perfect family will be dashed.

Using just the right amount of romance, family drama, and cute boys, The Sweetest Thing will entice fans with its perfect mixture of girl-friendly ingredients.

And here's a few words from Chris herself:

When It Rains, It Pours

It’s hot here in Houston, and dry. But the week before last, after something like 150 days, it finally rained. The morning started out dark, long rolls of thunder ambled across the wide Texas sky, and then the sky opened up. Facebook statuses rang out the news – “OMG, it’s raining!”, and “What’s that stuff falling from the sky?”.

It was only rain, but it felt a little bit like a miracle.

Ironically, not too long ago, I felt like my writing was in a drought of its own. My novel released on May 10th, I finished a manuscript and was revising, but my mind kept returning to the question, what’s next?

It’s a scary question for any writer, published or not. When will that next great idea come? Will it come? Or am I totally dried up?

I wasn’t asking for a miracle. The idea didn’t have to be a fully-formed (though that would have been nice), it didn’t have to have a title, or even a main character. It just had to be something that got me excited, a brief squall, if you will. Just enough to dampen the old creative soil and allow something to sprout up.

But back in May, nada. Crickets. My creative reservoir was on empty and I saw no chance of precipitation in the forecast.

Until one day in New York (where I was attending BEA with my Class of 2k11 peeps), when I met with the head of my agency. He’s a cool guy, who I thought would want to talk about my book, my career path, business stuff, you know? And he did, a bit, but more than that, he wanted to hear about my next idea (I had a few lame ones to share, which he proceeded to help me flesh out).

We covered a lot of ground, but I found, when the meeting was over, that my mind had camped on one particular phrase he’d used, comparing one of my ideas to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic movie To Catch a Thief (one of my favorites). I hadn’t thought of it like that, at all, but he was right.

Rumble, rumble, was that thunder I heard in the distance?

The rest of my time in New York, I couldn’t get my mind off of that idea. It burrowed its way into my brain and began to grow – sitting in JFK airport, in the midst of awful delays (terrible storms in the northeast), I joyfully took notes on everything from plot points, to the main character’s name (I’ll call her Diana, because she’s on the hunt to find out who framed her dad). I made some headway, and Monday morning, I was in my chair at home, writing with abandon.

In the course of a week, I’d gone from dust bowl to my cup runneth over. Not that it’s the best idea ever, not that I won’t completely gut it in revisions. It’s too soon to think like that. For now, I’m just enjoying the relief of a dry spell that’s ended.

Writing is weird that way, don’t you think? If you’re in a drought of your own at the moment, I urge you to keep your eyes and ears open, and don’t get discouraged. Read a book, bounce ideas (no matter how lame you might think they are) off of writing friends, and wait. There’s thunder in the distance, the rain is coming, and if you’re lucky, it’ll grow something beautiful.

Thanks so much Joy, for letting me commandeer the blog today!

Thanks back, Chris! Want to find out more about The Sweetest Thing (on shelves now from Egmont USA) and Christina Mandelski? Here's how:

http://www.christinamandelski.com/

http://www.willwrite4cake.blogspot.com/