Welcome Adam Silvera and MORE HAPPY THAN NOT

Today I’m so excited to talk with my Soho Press ‘bro’ Adam Silvera, about his about to release debut YA novel, MORE HAPPY THAN NOT, which has been racking up starred reviews and getting so much (well-deserved) buzz and press! Seriously, this book! And Adam—who I haven’t met in person yet— is pretty awesome, too.  (Full disclosure: The thing about writing books  for Soho Press is that everyone is pretty damn awesome. It’s just this crazy hive of amazing creativity!)

Anyway, here’s the synopsis from the Soho Press website:

Part Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, part Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Adam Silvera’s extraordinary debut novel offers a unique confrontation of race, class and sexuality during one charged near-future summer in the Bronx.

The Leteo Institute’s revolutionary memory-relief procedure seems too good to be true to Aaron Soto—miracle cure-alls don’t tend to pop up in the Bronx projects. Aaron could never forget how he’s grown up poor, how his friends aren’t there for him, or how his father committed suicide in their one-bedroom apartment. Aaron has the support of his patient girlfriend, if not necessarily his distant brother and overworked mother, but it’s not enough.

Then Thomas shows up. He has a sweet movie-watching setup on his roof, and he doesn’t mind Aaron’s obsession with a popular fantasy series. There are nicknames, inside jokes. Most importantly, Thomas doesn’t mind talking about Aaron’s past. But Aaron’s newfound happiness isn’t welcome on his block. Since he can’t stay away from Thomas or suddenly stop being gay, Aaron must turn to Leteo to straighten himself out, even if it means forgetting who he is.

I know, right? You totally need to read this book.

(okay, you totally need to read all my books, too, but today it's about ADAM!)

Here's what Adam Silvera had to say when we sat down laptop to laptop:

Joy: I know that at least part of the setting for MORE HAPPY is the Bronx you grew up in. What did you consider as you worked to get that setting authentically on the page? Were there places (and I know there’s a slight speculative fiction aspect to the novel) where you worked harder to fictionalize? Did you learn anything new about the familiar places as you re-created them as a setting for your characters?

Adam: Great question! One hundred percent of MORE HAPPY THAN NOT takes place in the Bronx. The original draft divided the book between the Bronx and Manhattan where Aaron (the narrator) worked (previously a bookstore, now a bodega on his block) but it created tons of complications with the distance between the primary settings. I was also living in Texas when I wrote the first draft and it was the first time I spent that much time away from the Bronx (and New York) and the differences between the states helped me realize how beautiful—and scary, admittedly—the Bronx is, and I wanted the book to double as a love letter to my home borough. That said, the book isn’t a mirror to the Bronx I grew up in. I took some liberties with parks, hospitals, post offices, etc. because I wanted this book to be Aaron’s story, not mine. There’s already enough in me in Aaron’s heart that I didn’t need to make this a full-on memoir.

Joy: You recently mentioned that you were excited that the pub date had been moved back a few weeks so that you would achieve your goal of publishing a book by the time you turned 25!  How long have you been writing? What inspired you to set that goal? Did your work at Books of Wonder and Paper Lantern have an influence on those goals?

Adam: Getting the pub date moved on was such a funny miracle—totally unimportant but still really cool. I probably started writing when I was ten or eleven. Harry Potter fan-fiction, of course. I was writing a big assault against Hogwarts because I loved writing action. But I became really serious about writing when I was fifteen or sixteen, publishing fan-fiction online for a very awesome community of readers that were demanding of more chapters so they kept me fueled to keep going and going. The goal itself was born out of 18-Year-Old Adam being super ambitious for no reason, but I took it very seriously when I was 21 or 22 because I wanted to put my all into my dream, especially since I never went to college and assumed that meant I would have a harder time getting published. So I worked extra, extra hard.

Joy: Who/what have been your biggest influences as a writer/teller of stories?

Adam: I’m of the Harry Potter generation so J.K. Rowling, obviously. Lauren Oliver taught me tons about discipline, Corey Whaley taught me how to tell a complete story within 200-something pages, and Benjamin Alire Saenz taught me to tell an honest story, even if it doesn’t have the “commercial value” writers always fear publishers are exclusively seeking.

Joy: You and I share an editor at Soho Press, the very awesome Daniel Ehrenhaft. Can you dish a little about the editorial process as you experienced it, bringing this novel from its incipient stages to the awesome debut that it is about to be?

Adam: Dan and I clicked instantly. My first phone call with him led to another phone call with my agent Brooks where I was like, “This is our guy.” Dan understood the vision of the book where other editors hadn’t. Dan only wanted to enhance what I produced and never strip away the essence. Dan’s double life as an author too has been especially valuable because he (and Brooks, actually) taught me to be more conscious of Adam Voice vs. Aaron Voice. My author voice would sometimes invade my main character’s narrating and I think I’ve got the hang of it now. We’ll see. I also super love Dan because when we were entering copyedits I realized how to fix something that had been bothering me about Act 3 and he delayed production to give me another six weeks to get my sh*t together and I’m now fully happy with the final product, and not just more happy than not with it. :)

Joy:  MORE HAPPY THAN NOT has received an enormous amount of (well deserved!) early pre-pub accolades. This can be both thrilling and overwhelming for a debut author. How do you keep even and focused amidst the hype? (Cause you seem to be handling it all very well!)

Adam: I think I was doing way better a couple months ago because I had two new manuscripts keeping me busy, but I just turned in one to my agent a couple weeks ago and the other is due in October. Keeping up with social media a month before debuting admittedly is very demanding, but there are worst problems to have than chatting with people who are excited about something you’ve created.  I am definitely feeling pressures with my future books though because MORE HAPPY is such a personal book and I don’t think I can ever recreate that experience or fall in love with another book of mine the way I have with that book. But I guess that’s not any different than love, where sometimes you have to move on and end up surprising yourself with your capabilities to love again.

Joy: Once a novel is out in the world, it becomes the property of the readers and we authors have to let go. But as the story’s creator, what do you hope readers bring away from the novel? Why this novel at this moment in time? Why did this become your debut, the story you had to write?

Adam: The book’s genesis came from me wondering about nature versus nurture in regards to homosexuality, and the way people often mistaken sexuality as a choice. And I thought about what life would look like if you could choose your sexuality, specifically, if a teenager who’s gay could choose to be straight. Would he do it? And what needed to happen in his life to lead to such a decision. I paired this with some emotional beats pulled from my relationship with the first guy I fell in love with, and came out for. I originally wanted to write a dystopian trilogy—that’s what was hot!—but I read some books that told very contained, grounded stories in a single volume that impressed me and I knew that’s what I wanted to do, too. Tell a full and honest story in one book, even if my narrator was dealing with emotional trials that don’t always necessarily excite a publisher or Hollywood.

Joy: What’s coming next for Adam Silvera?

Adam: My second novel HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME is tentatively scheduled for fall of 2016. It’s about grief and OCD and love and lies, and it’s kicking my ass emotionally and psychologically and is pushing me as a writer, and I hope I level up with each book.

Thanks, Adam!

For more about MORE HAPPY THAN NOT, go to the Soho Press website. http://sohopress.com/books/more-happy-than-not/

And for more about Adam Silvera, go to:  http://www.adamsilvera.com

THE A-WORD IS HERE!!

It’s here! It’s here!

Tuesday, May 13^th, 2014—the birthday of THE A-WORD, the sequel to THE SWEET DEAD LIFE, both from Soho Teen/Soho Press.

Let’s let the publisher’s blurb do some of the speaking. (I got to write it, so I think I trust it to tell you what to expect!)

It's been almost a year since Jenna Samuel’s stoner brother, Casey, bit the dust and returned as her guardian angel. A year since Casey and his “angel boss,” Amber Velasco, saved Jenna’s life and helped her foil the bad guys— more or less. A year in which Jenna has solved the true mystery of the universe: how to get one Ryan Sloboda to ask her out.  

Jenna’s feeling mighty cheery about life and love. But Casey, whose doomed relationship with Lanie Phelps (who has no idea her boyfriend is, well, dead) isn’t doing much to distract him, has his own big question: Why is he still hanging around?  


Bo Shivers, a heavenly head honcho Jenna and Casey didn't even know existed, might have the answers. Bo knows something big is coming. Something that might just change everything for Jenna Samuels, who once again finds herself up to her non-winged shoulders in heavenly secrets of global proportions—just as she’s finally found the perfect Homecoming Dance dress.

First dates and first kisses. Football games. Global-sized mysteries. Earthbound angels who aren’t happy about it and the loves and losses they’ve left behind. A sibling story. And the big questions of the universe. All told by sassy, smart-mouthed Jenna Samuels, one of my favorite characters I've ever written. As Kirkus observed, "wherever Jenna goes, trouble seems to follow."*

That’s THE A-WORD.

Welcome to the world, my pretty book.

And huge thanks to my lovely publisher, Soho Press, and my ever patient editor Daniel Ehrenhaft for allowing Jenna Samuels to kick up her cowboy boots once again!

Your job, dear reader? Buy a copy today. Give another copy for a gift tomorrow.  Spread the A-WORD! Because we all still want that SWEET DEAD LIFE movie, right?

Official blog tour start Wednesday. 

And some giveaways from me are in the works as well!

Stay tuned.

*Btw, in case you don't know, I do believe this quote is the reviewer's thinly-veiled reference to one of my favorite old time movies, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows -- a story about two irrepressible best friends (one played by Hailey Mills, who also starred in a zillion Disney movies and the original Parent Trap) in a Catholic boarding school who get into all sorts of crazy hijinks, much to the chagrin of the Reverend Mother, played by Rosalind Russell. 

IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS, coming in 2016 !

And so the secret news can finally be announced!

Up today on Publisher's Marketplace:

THE SWEET DEAD LIFE series author Joy Preble's IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS, pitched as Tuck Everlasting meets Veronica Mars, about a girl, a boy, a fountain of youth, and what happens when you're stuck at 17, again to Daniel Ehrenhaft at Soho Teen, for publication in Spring 2016, by Jennifer Rofe at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency (World).
jennifer@andreabrownlit.com

Yay yay yay!!!

More soon!

But you're intrigued, right? I know you are!

Thanks a zillion times over to the lovely, brilliant, nurturing team at Soho Teen/Soho Press who somehow keep wanting to write books with me. I couldn't be happier about this one.

THE A WORD galleys are HERE!!

Few things are more thrilling than the physical evidence that a book you've been working on is almost a real thing! So when I opened the mailbox yesterday and found a fat white mailing envelope from my editor at Soho Press containing three gorgeous ARCs of THE A WORD (May 2014, Soho Teen), I did the dance of joy! (When your name is Joy this is pretty easy, but you know what I mean!)

The sequel to this year's THE SWEET DEAD LIFE is looking like a lovely almost book! Contest coming soon to win one and find out before everyone else what Jenna and Casey and Amber and a new guardian angel named Bo are up to. Plus Jenna gets her first boyfriend! I am so excited for you to read. 

More soon, but for now, here they are! Feel free to pet the picture! :)

SOME YA BOOT KICKING IN THE LONE STAR STATE: WRITING TEXAS

Mall Culture Heaven: French Fry Heaven!

So here’s the story: One day recently, it occurred to authors Tricia (PJ) Hoover, Mari Mancusi, Mary Lindsey and I that we all had new YA novels set in Texas. This is perhaps not surprising since we all live here in the Lone Star State – Mary and I here in Houston and Mari and Tricia in Austin. But the more we brainstormed, the more we realized that we really had a lot to say about not only why we set our stories here as well as the process involved in the specifics of a Lone Star state setting. Thus was born a panel presentation that we’ll be doing all over Texas this fall at a variety of regional library conferences. Sometimes it will be all four of us; sometimes it will be two. But it’s been both fun and eye-opening to look at the various aspects of setting a novel in Texas and what inspired each of us as well as what Texas elements play key roles.

To catch you up to speed: PJ Hoover’s SOLSTICE is a morph of dystopian and mythology, set in a slightly future Austin where global warming has changed a great deal. Plus two hot guys and one girl who is not quite who she thinks she is!  Mari Mancusi’s brand new SCORCHED uses a West Texas setting to begin a story that is best described as Game of Thrones meets Terminator and has—yup—2 hot guys (twins!) and girl and a dragon egg and a potential dragon apocalypse! Mary Lindsey’s SHATTERED SOULS series has—yup!—two hot guys and a girl who can help lost souls. Right here in Galveston. And finally, my SWEET DEAD LIFE series is about a girl whose brother returns from a fatal car accident as her less than angelic guardian angel, setting in motion a vast family mystery with huge global consequences. Also a cute guy who appears in book 1 for the beginning of a love story that will wind its way through the series. Just 1 guy. At least for now. And set – right here in Houston, with a few Austin road trips.

(Plus all our title start with 's'--something I just noticed)

For some stories, setting is an aspect, but it’s not crucial to the story telling. Certain romances, for example. The story is so much about the couple that the setting feels secondary. But imagine Twilight set in Miami? Uh, no. Even something like Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall is deeply intertwined to the specificity of a certain economic class in a certain type of suburban CT high school. At least as I see it.

So setting. For those of you who haven’t thought about setting since your 10^th grade English teacher asked you to draw a map of Maycomb Alabama or whatever, there’s more to it than just a geographic location. Setting is everything: time period, social milieu, climate; time of year; physical and political environment and more. Here’s a quick Writer’s Digest article if you really haven’t thought about it in a while:  http://www.writersdigest.com/tip-of-the-day/discover-the-basic-elements-of-setting-in-a-story

When my Soho Press editor first suggested the basic idea for the TSDL series, I remember being a bit nervous when I sent him an email saying that I would love to write this series but that I envisioned it set in suburban Houston. I figured he would say, ‘uh no,’ or perhaps, ‘hell no’ or perhaps wtf are you thinking, Prebs?’ But instead, he said, YES!

So why Texas? Well first of all, I live here. So the small societal details come easily to me because I live them every day. I mean let’s face it, there is a stunning specificity to the ‘wasteland’ of the northern Houston ‘burbs’ : Breakfast tacos and kolaches and mall culture and Olive Gardens and strip centers and stuff like how here in the more affluent suburb where I live, they’ve built us a town center that looks like a small town’s downtown, with stores built into old brick buildings. Only it’s just a façade. The buildings aren’t old at all, just a few years old, really. So in essence – a FAKE town center that everyone raves about. Stuff like that sticks in your head, you know?

So when my brain went whirring about where I would set a story about a 14 year old girl who’s older brother came back as a guardian angel, I thought WHAT BETTER PLACE than in the middle of giant high school football stadiums and Crocs kiosks and FAKE TOWN CENTERS, and western wear and cowboy boots devoid of actual farm work, and churches so enormous that they have a Starbucks inside (yes really) and a societal culture that often professes to have a pipeline to all the answers about faith and salvation and things of that nature. So, my brain said, what if the stoner dude (formerly a football star but down on his luck  and failing his classes because he’s been supporting the family since his dad disappeared and his mom went all depressed) in one of those ordinary suburban houses actually came back as his sassy sister's guardian angel? Right before Christmas. When the next door neighbors were putting out their lights and lawn angels? And became the most unlikely hero ever? And what if there was a big global mystery that could change life as we know it and its center was the Houston Medical Center? And the newly minted Texas boy angel and his narrator sister were at the epicenter of it all?

You see what I mean? Houston Texas was the PERFECT setting for this novel—for not only the main story but also much of the subtext. In fact, the setting works as a character of sorts. I can’t imagine this novel taking place anywhere else.

So what novels have you read where the setting plays a huge role in the story?

THE A WORD COVER REVEAL: THANK YOU SOHO PRESS!!

So last week I got to show you the gorgeous redone cover for paperback edition of THE SWEET DEAD LIFE, which is coming in February, 2014. I had loved the hard copy cover, but for the pb, my delightful publisher, Soho Press, came up with a new concept that even more fully captures the tone of the novel, of narrator Jenna's sassy, mouthy Texas girl voice as well as hinting at the angels that populate the book. Love! (more in a future post about the series and where it's headed and what people are saying!)

And now today I get to reveal the cover for THE A WORD, which is the sequel to TSDL, and which arrives on May 13, 2014, exactly a year since the TSDL release! I am so thrilled with this cover!!! It is gorgeous and perfect and I owe more huge thanks to publisher Bronwen Hruska and her merry band at Soho Press.

Here it is!!

See what I mean! LOVE!
And you can see here, with the two side by side that, they are really meant to go together on a shelf!

ARCs are coming soon, but for now I can tell you this about where the series is going with THE A WORD: (slight spoiler if you haven't read TSDL, but it does not ruin the central mystery):

Jenna Samuels is about to turn fifteen. It's been almost a year since her stoner brother, Casey, bit the dust. Almost a year since he returned as her guardian angel, along with his "angel boss," Amber Velasco, the hot twenty-something former EMT. Almost a year since Casey and Amber used up their one-time-only angel power of flight to save Jenna from the evil Dr. Renfroe, swooping down to catch her as she tumbled off the balcony at the Houston Galleria. In short, a lot of A-word shenanigans and a mostly happy ending.

Except now Casey's begun to wonder why he's still hanging around—not that he minds protecting Jenna. She's a handful, but there's got to be a bigger picture, right? Something to distract him from his on again/off again, doomed relationship with cheerleader Lanie Phelps, who has no idea her boyfriend is, well, dead. After all, he can't use his angel wings anymore. Neither can Amber. 

Enter Bo Shivers, Amber's "angel boss"—a mysterious A-word guy Jenna and Casey didn't even know existed. Whiskey-guzzling. Handsome in a grizzled way. Unpredictable. Okay, make that crazy. Bo lost his angel wings in an earthly flight a long, long, long time back—and he's been a thorn in Angel Management's side ever since. But Bo knows something is coming. Something big. Something that was worth forfeiting wings for Jenna... something that might just change everything for everyone.

Tell me what you think!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THIS IS W.A.R. by LISA AND LAURA ROECKER

I first met ‘THE SISTERS’ – as our mutual Soho Press publicist, Meredith Barnes like to call them, yes, with the CAPS—back in March 2010 at the launch of Sourcebooks Fire YA imprint. My debut DREAMING ANASTASIA had just come out a few months back and their debut THE LIAR SOCIETY, was on its way. We chatted briefly, the way people do at these things. We listened to Tiger Beat play, because yeah, we shared (and still share) an editor—Dan Ehrenhaft— who plays guitar in an all YA author band with Libba Bray singing vocals. Which yeah, is very cool. Sometimes mind-blowing.

But back to LISA AND LAURA! They rock. LIAR SOCIETY came out and I loved it. Secret society, private school, kick ass girls kind of mystery. Sleek and fun and oh so well-written. As were the two sequels.

And the best part was, that even though they were in Ohio and I was in Texas and we have honestly NEVER SEEN EACH OTHER IN PERSON again, we kept up the conversation. Why, you may ask? Is it because you chat about publishing and the brilliant people you work with and the FATE OF THE BOOK? Because we both have new books as part of yet another debut imprint – SOHO TEEN at SOHO PRESS, a wonderful, nimble publisher of fabulous books including ours? And we both work with editor Dan again, now at Soho Press?

Nah. It’s because along the way we discovered our mutual low brow TV tastes. Specifically all things Bravo. Housewives. All of them. Andy Cohen, in general. Gallery Girls (a travesty that they cancelled after only one season). Princesses Long Island. I could go on. But I will spare you. Let us just say           WE BONDED. Andy Cohen needs to have us all behind the bar on Watch What’s Happening Live. Meredith Barnes needs to GET ON THIS!

THE SISTERS are here with me to talk about THIS IS W.A.R., their new YA, out today from Soho Press! Here is a brief synopsis:

This is not a story of forgiveness... 

The mystery of their best friend's murder drives four girls to destroy the Gregory family. Emily Thorne would be proud.

Everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club saw Willa Ames-Rowan climb into a boat with James Gregory, the Club’s heir apparent.

And everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club watched him return. Alone.

They all know he killed her. But none of them will say a word. The Gregory family is very, very good at making problems go away.

Enter the W.A.R.—the war to avenge Willa Ames-Rowan. Four girls. Four very different motives for justice and revenge, and only one rule: destroy the Gregory family at any cost.

I know, right?? I was lucky to read an ARC and so I’ve known for awhile how kick ass this book is! In fact one lucky one of you will WIN AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY!! So make sure to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway!

But first, Lisa and Laura are chatting today about reviews. Yeah, I know, everyone’s favorite thing, right? Of course, people like Publisher’s Weekly are saying fabulous things about THIS IS WAR. “The Roecker sisters (the Liar Society books) weave money, power, and secrets into this suspenseful story of four teenage girls determined to avenge their friend’s murder.”

But every author knows that reviews can be tough. So here’s some advice from my favorite SISTERS!

My senior year of high school, I took AP English and my teacher hated me. I think he thought I was an idiot. I’d write a response to one of his prompts and his red pen remark would read, “Perhaps you’re thinking of the movie version” or some other hate-filled reaction. I’m not saying I was a genius, I wasn’t, but I wasn’t that stupid. And for the record, I did actually read Hemingway’s A FAREWELL TO ARMS and I wasn’t confused by Bullock’s performance dammit.

The point is, there’s nothing worse than writing that poem, you know the one, that beautifully constructed (I use the term loosely) poem about heartbreak and loss with hope just skirting around the edges and knowing, positively knowing that today you’ll be asked to read yours aloud because it most definitely is the best in the class. And then having said poem returned without comment but rather a big, fat, red ‘C’ at the top of the paper. Average. Sure it could have been below average, God knows it probably was, but, but, but…

Well, reading reviews is kinda, sorta like that. Only more than 30 people are listening and they have no idea who you are and you’re the fly on the wall, the one who really isn’t supposed to be reading anyway and certainly shouldn’t be reacting even if it is within the confines of your own, broken heart. See? I was a poet.

I always know a bad one’s coming when I get a single link in a text from Lisa. It looks like Spam and if I were smart, I wouldn’t take the bait. But according to my high school English teacher, I’m not smart, so I always click. And WHAM. A review. A BAD review with comments. Lots of comments. I’m whisked back to high school and can practically hear the snickering rising from those God forsaken metal desks with the too-small chairs attached. These girls are vicious! They’re laughing at lines, ridiculing characters, burning books, researching our other books so they can burn those too. It’s all very tragic. We didn’t even get a C. We’re not even average. The lines we read aloud to each other, the words we lingered over, the characters we became are reduced to a pile of 50+ catty, mean-spirited comments.

But what’s a pair of writer-sisters to do? Give up? We considered it. Respond? Oh, lord no. Cry together? Sometimes. Laugh? Always. The harsh reality is that you’re the ones standing naked at the front of the room. And you put yourself there on purpose. And readers are supposed to pick apart and disagree and judge. In fact, that’s the whole point. So, we give a loving pat to the book we still adore and we look forward to the next. Because that’s what writers do. We write!

And now, the giveaway!! Since this is a holiday week, the giveaway will run through next Tuesday, 7/9!

 a Rafflecopter giveaway