Three for Tuesday

So much going on right now, but the Tuesday three shall be:

1. Happy surprise this morning with this review from a source I very much respect and thus I am totally honored and thrilled about what School Library Journal's Teen Librarian Toolbox had to say about FINDING PARIS:
http://www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2015/05/book-review-finding-paris-by-joy-preble/

Every author leaps for joy when a review totally GETS IT, totally understands what your novel is trying to do and how it's trying to do it. Makes my heart quite happy!!

Read the whole thing if you have a chance, but here's a snippet:

 "While this is a mystery and (less so) a romance, it is the much darker and more serious elements of the story that make this a hard book to put down and an even harder book to forget."

2. Just finished ALL THE RAGE by Courtney Summers, which is often a brutally emotional read, about a girl named Romy Grey, a small town, rape culture, recovery, bullying, and how hard it is for some people to believe the truth. As much - although not all-- of that is part of Finding Paris, I think they might someday make a fascinating companion read…

And also on the nightstand: Just started my precious arc of Julie Murphy's DUMPLIN' and I'm already swallowed up in WillowDean's world and hoping she gets the happily ever after I want for her.

Skimming through editor Cheryl Klein's SECOND SIGHT, because if anyone is a genius at breaking down plot, character, voice and revision techniques (besides my own wonderful editors), it's Cheryl Klein over at Scholastic!

And I'm a few pages in to THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins, which everyone is reading and now so am I! I'm sensing this is not going to be a happy read, but a fascinating one. 

3. And in my pop culture report, Jane has had her baby on last night's JANE THE VIRGIN, which if you haven't watched, you should totally catch up on this clever series. I'm newly addicted to CALL THE MIDWIFE, a BBC show that's been on for a few years now and why didn't anyone tell me?! Even the hubs is watching with me, having been primed and perhaps broken in by a few seasons of DOWNTON ABBEY. For now, as I have revisions to finish, let me just say "Chummy Noakes!" I am totally Team Chummy forever. On the Housewives front, Carole is having her fling on RHONY, Bethenny is back and feisty and understandably cranky with all the divorce shenanigans and I kinda like Dorinda, although she needs to dump the boyfriend. (Just saying). 

There's more of course, but like I say, there's writing to do and a talk I'm giving in June to write about setting and a new manuscript to get back to and so I leave you for now.

Coming soon: My interview with debut author Adam Silvera, about his forthcoming MORE HAPPY THAN NOT, out in June from our mutual publisher, Soho Press! 

Not the Sparkly Vegas: FINDING PARIS, Setting and Telling A Story at a Slant

In my newest YA,  FINDING PARIS (Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins), Leo and Paris begin the story in Las Vegas. Their entire lives, their mother has dragged them from place to place and guy to guy and dream to dream and now they find themselves in Vegas with Mom and the 'fresh start' stepfather. But it's not the pretty, sparkly Vegas. More the dark underbelly, the truth behind the fake stuff.

And that's the thing about setting this novel largely in Las Vegas: FINDING PARIS is a story about hiding and eventually finding the truth. It's about the things that happen to us that we can't or don't tell, the things that no one wants to hear, the things that once we've given them voice, we have to own and accept and that's often not only tough but heart-wrenchingly painful.

And Vegas, well, to me, the touristy part of Las Vegas hides the truth like that, too. As Leo's mother knows all too well, the casinos aren't built on winners. They're built on people losing, even though the glitz and shine and noise and eye candy of the slots and poker tables and roulette wheels and black jack tables would make us think otherwise. Casinos are these winding, cavernous places, designed for us to get lost and lose track of time. They bring us free drinks and entertain us and serve us gluttonous amounts of food and what's not happy about that, right? Leo points out to Max that there's a fake everything in Vegas: A fake Eiffel Tower and a fake New York and a fake Egyptian pyramid at the Luxor.

In a word, it's all a facade. It's not the real Paris. It's not the real Egypt. It's not the real anything.

But it's all so pretty, isn't it? We don't notice that we're going broke. We don't notice that really, the whole thing is making as many people sad as it is happy. Probably more people. 

I find it fascinating to think about the Luxor Hotel--where I once stayed-- and all its rooms angled and slanted to mimic that pyramid, so aggressively artificial--as artificial as the ingredients in the frozen yogurt that Leo sells at Yogiberry. But we tell ourselves it's healthy. And we tell ourselves that we'll win in Vegas.

So what better place to set a story where characters aren't telling their truths? Where one sister tries sends the other on what surfacely looks like a frivolous road trip, complete with the first clue taped with a Hello Kitty BandAid to a statue of Elvis? Where Leo meets a boy over a slice of pie and that boy works at a museum off the Strip that simulates an atomic explosion? Where what looks like fun, fun, fun, is actually masking something else? Where what Leo and Paris (who makes something pretty out of discarded bits and pieces with her jewelry) show you of their Vegas, of their house, of their life, is telling you all sorts of things that they both just can't say? Or rather, that they do say, that they do show you, but just in this slanted way.

Oh how I loved writing FINDING PARIS. I loved giving voice to Leo and Paris and Max, to their hopes and heartaches and painful truths.

Welcome to the World FINDING PARIS!!

It’s release day for FINDING PARIS!!

And so, some author facts for you, gentle readers!

FINDING PARIS is:

• Book number 6 for me!
• My first contemporary YA.
•  My first book with Harper Collins/Balzer and Bray
• An emotional family drama wrapped in a mystery, with a road trip center and a bit of romance.
• The book I first outlined at what a group of us Texas authors lovingly refer to as The Lodge of Death. I stopped writing to please someone else and out came the book I was supposed to be writing.
• A book with sparer prose than some of my others. So it felt a little like poetry to me, although it’s not verse. Every word had to count. Lots of showing. Much less telling.
• About the things we do for the people we love and the blind spots we have for those people
•  About how difficult it is to voice and own our truths.
• About the secrets that families have and about the strange, wonderful and sometimes painful sibling relationship.
• About broken families and girls whose voices need to be heard.
•  And about hope.

Among other things!

I’ll be talking about all this and more in various places including guest posts at Janet Fox’s blog; Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Cynsations; C.C. Hunter’s blog; various stops on a blog tour arranged by the awesome Jean Book Nerd, and a bunch of places in between.

Here’s the link to the blog tour: http://www.jeanbooknerd.com/2015/04/finding-paris-by-joy-preble.html

I hope you read and love FINDING PARIS. I’m very proud of all my books, but particularly proud of getting to this one at this time and this place in my career. It takes place in Vegas and points beyond and includes more than one Paris, but all of them devoid of anything authentically French. (Which is exactly the point. You’ll see.)

 If you’re in Houston, come join me at my launch party at Blue Willow Bookshop, Saturday, 4/25, at 2 PM.

http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/node/77664

And let’s all find our Paris. Whatever or wherever it might be!

One More Day!

 It's one day until FINDING PARIS pub day!!
Even though the book is not 'officially' out yet, I have:

• Signed at Houston Teen Book Con
• Signed at Texas Library Association
• Book-talked PARIS with awesome Texas librarians
• Book-talked PARIS with awesome Texas teen readers
• Signed a few at Houston SCBWI conference

And been crazy excited for 4/21/15!!

FINDING PARIS Blog Tour coming soon through Jean Book Nerd!

http://www.jeanbooknerd.com/2015/04/finding-paris-by-joy-preble.html

FINDING PARIS Houston Launch Party at Blue Willow Bookshop 4/25/15 at 2 PM!

http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/node/77664

Here are a few pics from TLA!

FINDING PARIS on the Harper Collins shelf!

signing! Aisle 7!

The YAHOUS go to TLA! (with Dotti Enderle, Jennifer Mathieu, Kim O'Brien )

with the every awesome Christina Diaz Gonzalez

And the ever clever Kari Holt

with the brilliant Julie Murphy, who shares our brilliant B&B editor with me

And authors Christina Mandelski and Amy Fellner Dominy (aka my partners in crime)

And lots more coming after that!

I'll have other things to say tomorrow, so stay tuned.

FINDING PARIS, coming 4/21/15 from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins!!

Houston Teen Book Con Recap

Houston Teen Book Con was amazing! Bravo to the ladies of Blue Willow Bookshop who, as always, do such a fine and heroic job of organizing, arranging, cheerleading. If you have never been to Blue Willow in Houston, you need to go when you are in Houston. They are a world-class indie bookstore and owner Valerie Koehler is a force of nature, as is her intrepid assistant Cathy Berner and the rest of the staff.

(I have a huge love for so many indie bookstores, including Murder by the Book and Brazos here in Houston and so many others around the state and country. But more on that at another time)

For now, let me say that it was a great day! Not only did I get to hang out with authors I adore and authors I wanted to meet but I got to meet thousands (really!) of teen and adult readers and talk about books and writing and FINDING PARIS, which will be here on 4/21. Because of the generosity of Harper Collins, PARIS was available exclusively at Teen Book Con this past Saturday, which was enormously exciting! So if you were there, you got to buy it before anyone else!

A few pictures:

Getting ready for Houston Teen Book Con 2015!

The amazing Valerie Koehler welcoming us to the store.

Me and Alexis Bass. (It's all about that Bass AND Preble)

Our Truth About Love Panel: from left: me, David Levithan, Susanne Colasanti, Alexis Bass, Jennifer Mathieu

All the books!

Awesome moderator Kate Sowa

Awesome moderator Jenn Haight

Talking Craft, Diversity, and Genre-Hopping with Cynthia Leitich Smith

Today, I'm sitting down laptop to laptop with my friend and mentor, author Cynthia Leitich Smith. Cyn lives here in Texas--Austin--and she is not only a gifted writer but also a generous and fine human being, one I have turned to for advice numerous times while traversing this wonderful but often crazy career. I adore all of Cyn's writing, but I'm particularly fond of her mix of humor and paranormal in her TANTALIZE series, which begins, as she describes it on her own website as: "the story of Quincie P. Morris, a teen struggling to help save her family's Italian restaurant by re-launching it with a vampire them. It's a great idea until some real vampires show up and her best friend, Kieren, is suddenly suspected of murder." 

Plus she and I bonded long ago over our mutual love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As fans of the Whedonverse do…

I also admire Cyn's ability to balance a life, teaching, and a writing career, and her willingness and flexibility to write across numerous genres. The latter is not a simple thing. We tend to get branded as authors (and to some degree because our readers have a sense of expectation of what we will produce) and for those of us who want to write more widely, this can be tricky. Cynthia Leitich Smith manages it with skill and ease.

Today I'm catching up with Cyn about her career, diversity in children's lit, writing across genres, teaching, and other Cynthia Leitich Smith wisdom!

JOY: Does having already achieved New York Times Bestseller status and numerous other accolades for your work put a certain level of pressure on your writing? If not, then how do you avoid it? 

CYN: Thank you. Honestly, I’m too busy to worry about it. Between writing, teaching, mentoring, traveling, public speaking, promotion, lunching with friends, lifting weights, power walking, and playing fetch with my kitty, I’m maxed out. Any lingering insecurities will have to wait.

JOY: You have spoken and written widely on the issue of diversity in children’s lit. Can you address your current thoughts on this, particularly with the influence of #WeNeedDiverseBooks on titles being acquired? Are publishers doing enough? Are authors?

CYN: Sure! We did see a slight uptick in certain underrepresented categories in the past year, but it’s too soon to gauge the long-term impact of #WNDB on acquisitions. We all must continue to strategize and try new approaches. The demographics demand a solution. The young reader population is already minority-majority. The deadline is now.

As authors, we are in a unique position to effect positive change:

We should thoughtfully work toward offering more diverse casts and topics.

We should mentor new voices from all corners of our global children’s-YA literature community.

We should raise awareness of great books (including but not limited to our own) that reflect the full spectrum of humanity today.

We should advocate for an inclusive approach to event programming.

We should keep the diversity conversation alive and boisterous.

JOY: Like some of my other favorite authors, including E. Lockhart, you are a veteran genre shifter, writing YA, chapter books, picture books. Tell us about the creative process that enables such amazing versatility.

CYN: Ah, I’m an E. Lockhart fan myself.

I start with character and setting. The protagonist dictates the age-market format. Jenna is a young girl, preparing to dance at her first powwow. She’s a picture book hero. Yoshi is a cougar-like werecat on the front lines of a brewing interspecies war. He’s a YA hero. Simple as that.

As for craft considerations, model texts teach me much of what I need to know.

I read regularly and extensively across the body of youth literature, making mental notes. I also learn from presentations and articles by my colleagues, especially my VCFA family, and I lean heavily on transferable skills.

The lyricism and precision of picture book writing improved my novels. Short stories offered confidence-building opportunities to employ humor and points of view farther from my comfort zone.

When I approach a new format—like graphic novels—I ask myself: How is this like that? Both graphic novels and picture books involve writing visually. Both prose and graphic novels require plotting a novel in the whole.

I remind myself of what I do know rather than spin pointlessly on what I don’t (yet). I make every effort to be my own best cheerleader.

JOY: And that said, do you have a favorite genre? Why is it your favorite?

CYN: I’m most comfortable writing YA fiction, but my ultimate goal is to write at least one middle-grade novel. My favorite of my titles is a picture book. I’m not sure how all that shakes out. I have either great range or a complete lack of focus.

JOY: You do a lot of teaching. What do you enjoy most about the act of teaching the craft of writing?

CYN: I’m continually blessed with inspiring students. It gives me such joy to watch them grow in their literary art and cheer as they triumph in their careers.

That said, I’m an intuitive writer. Teaching forces me to analyze and articulate. That, in turn, forces me to quickly access, to define and refine my insights.  Doing so, again and again, for students facilitates my being able to better serve my own works in progress. It’s exercise for my writing brain.

JOY: What would be your top bits of advice for writers aiming at publication?

CYN: Embrace your apprenticeship. Experiment. Play. Join SCBWI. Make friends. Educate yourself about children’s-YA literature, its surrounding conversations, and both the history and current societal forces that brought us all to this point.

Read. It’s the most obvious advice, the most repeated, and, alas, the most ignored. It’s also nearly impossible to succeed in the conversation of books if you don’t speak the language, if you aren’t familiar with the cultural touchstones (defined broadly). Remember: Reading counts as writing time.

Study writing with established author-teachers, professionals who’re accomplished on both fronts. Just be sure to consider their track records (and your budget) carefully.

Beware of cycling too long exclusively on one project. I’m not suggesting that whatever you’ve been working on won’t eventually sell. But it may be the skills built while working on other manuscripts that facilitate it reaching that milestone. Most of us improve story by story, not with one story over time.

JOY: For writers aiming at maintaining a career?

CYN: Choose yourself. Don’t wait for the publisher to promote your book to lead title. Don’t wait for your head to be graced with a crown or your slippers to be buried in laurels. Raise that chin and vow to do this:

Decide who you want to be in the children’s-YA community.

If a vision doesn’t immediately occur to you, consider various models—authors whose craft and careers you admire. Ask yourself what about them appeals. Strategize affirmative, achievable steps to work toward that goal, that identity with your unique style and spin.

Then snap to it. Own your awesomeness, claim the author you want to be today.

JOY: What’s coming next for Cynthia Leitich Smith?

CYN: Next fall, my chapter “All’s Well,” will appear in Violent Ends, edited by Shaun David Hutchinson (Simon Pulse, 2015), and I’m currently working on a realistic contemporary YA to be published by Candlewick.  

Thanks again!

For more on Cynthia Leitich Smith, go to:

http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com

And for her acclaimed blog on all things publishing, head to: CYNSATIONS

And the Winners Are

Congrats to the two winners of my bonus Rafflecopter giveaway that was part of YA Scavenger Hunt!

Jen S wins the complete DREAMING ANASTASIA trilogy!
Sarah S wins the complete SWEET DEAD LIFE duology!

Hooray!!

And thanks for joining YA Scavenger Hunt!