Monday Musings on Books, Customers, the Difference Between YA and Adult, and Other Stuff

 I love my job. I mean I seriously adore it. I get to play with books for part of my living and work with colleagues who are creative and clever and talk to customers who value independent bookstores and are willing to pay full retail to keep them going, keep them a center of literary life in the community. Customers who will call us first and consciously not press that seductive buy button on the A--- site because they want us to exist and thrive. So as my manager says, Bully for that. (Actually what he frequently says is, Bully for you, Joy when I announce something that I'm excited about.)

But still. People are...people, you know?
And sometimes they say stuff. Goofy stuff.
An example for your Monday morning pleasure:

At least three times a week I field a phone call that goes something like this:
Customer: "Hi! I am looking for an obscure book on Glockenspiels of Iowa from 1897 - 1895, a topic only I care about but hey, you're a bookstore."
Me: "Well, let me see what I can find."
Me: Does some spiffy quick research on our distributors sites and elsewhere and holy moly, it exists! Ingram has one in stock.
Me: "Great news! I've found one. It can be here in 4 business days."
Customer: "No thanks. I needed it this afternoon."


In other news, I am reading the WICKED KING arc, the sequel to Holly Black's fabulous CRUEL PRINCE. It is as absolutely wonderful as I want it to be. In fact, it's better!

Other books on my nightstand:

NIGHT FILM by Marisha Pessl. This one came out in 2013, but we're hosting Pessl for her new YA next month and I wanted to read some of her back list and holy cow this  one makes your heart pound!

MARLENE by Julie Buntin, which is about female friendship and a tragic event in the past that's defined everything that's come since then. It reminds me a bit of THE GIRLS by Emma Cline (which honestly was a depressing read for me) but I'm liking it so far although there are spots where I wish the writing was sparer. That said it is always interesting to read about teen characters told from an adult vantage point and always interesting to note how different that feels in terms of character development and narration than actual YA. You'd think it wouldn't be that different, but it is. Because the adult narrator knows how an event has shaped and formed and destroyed. The teen in the moment does not. Both have value in story telling. But you really can tell the difference.

On that same note, I'm interested to read the new Michael Ondaatje book WARLIGHT which looks back at two teen characters in 1945 in post war London and then moves them forward into adulthood, carrying their scars and secrets.

But for now I need to finish my own manuscript. And so it goes.
Happy Monday!

Booking It

I have not blogged much over the past year and a half. It's not that I haven't had much to say, it's just that at first much of it was frustrated and sad and sometimes angry (as publishing and the world can cause) and then once I was back on track I had gotten out of the habit, was balancing a new job (more on that in a minute), had a bunch of life issues (some good, some not so good) and while I do blog regularly at YA OUTSIDE THE LINES, this blog, which I had curated so faithfully for almost a decade, fell to the wayside.

But. New Year. (Hello 2018!) New start.

Revamped Blog with a focus on publishing as always but through dual points of view: Author and Bookseller because since August of 2016, I've been the Children's Specialist at a wonderful indie bookstore here in Houston and it has taught me so much about the industry, helped me grow in a million ways, and informed what I write and how I write in ways I never expected. So I'll still be talking about writing and my own books and the writing classes I teach, and craft, and all the usual life stuff. Plus I get crazy wonderful access to ARCS -- so many ARCS! So we'll still be talking books a lot. Obviously.

Like right now I'm really excited for everyone to read Holly Black's CRUEL PRINCE, which drops this week. Oh how I've missed Holly's faerie worlds and this book will delight her loyal fans like me and those of you who have not read her before. Jude is a fully human child, as is her younger sister, but her mother had married a faerie and had a child (their older sister) and then escaped back to the human world. But her ex catches up with her and takes Jude and her sisters back to faerie. (Okay yeah, there's some shocking and well-told violence that happens first.) And now Jude is 16 and navigating a world that's not hers and the cruelty of handsome, cruel Prince Carden and his friends, and then it turns out that Jude (who is not truly at home anywhere by now) wants more. She wants power. And she's going to get it. Oh the political machinations! Oh the surprises! Oh this book!

We'll also be talking about what booksellers do and taking some peeks at things like what a buyer does and how it's totally amazing that we're in this reversal moment where indie bookstores are thriving while the big box bookstores are struggling to figure out what to do next. We'l probably have some chats about the Amazon factor. Because how can you leave out that elephant in the room? But let me repeat: Indie bookstores are thriving anyway.

I'll leave it at that for now.
I'm glad to be back.
Til next time!