Blog – Page 139 – Laurie Halse Anderson

1. download a poster there,
2. read a quick interview with me (and follow links to other interviews)
3. listen to the playlist I put together
4. give to a good cause
5. participate in the forum (I’ll be dropping in all month, so look for me there)
6. party ideas centered on the book (come on, you know you want to throw a party!)

Be sure to check out the great roundtable discussion on Little Willow’s blog. (I loved the discussion of Ashley’s definition of “normal.”) And mark your calendars for June 19th (9 pm EST), when I’ll be live at the forum for an hour to answer questions. (Any questions that can’t wait that long, you can post here, of course.)

We just got a scanner, so I will be digging under the Forest floor in search of old PROM pictures and posting them, too. Have you looked at yours recently?

You are officially invited to join us in this PROM celebration. You don’t have to buy a dress or rent a tux. No limos, please. This is just a group of readers hanging out talking about a fun book.

And occasionally dancing.

May 31, 2008

Emergency over, request flag raised again

Wow. This internet thing is rather handy.

Within an hour yesterday of posting my plea for speakers of Dutch, I had three offers of help. When I woke up this morning, there were three more. Thank you very much, kind blogreaders, the emergency is over. Your help was much appreciated.

Spent last night watching Number One Son race around the track at sectionals. He definitely gets his speed from his father, thank goodness. He did well enough to make next week’s state qualifiers in the 400. I cannot even begin to imagine what it feels like to move that fast. I am the turtle in the slow lane, ducking my head into my shell as the rocket-fueled racers speed by.

Bookavore has posted many author photos in her ongoing documentation of her adventures at BEA. She has a great shots of her almost-uncle, M.T. Anderson, and of Sherman Alexie, who is exercising his rights of free speech against the owners of the Seattle SuperSonics.

This weekend is devoted to going over the last-last-super-ultimate-last pass of the CHAINS galleys and looking for a bicycle. My plea for Dutch speakers went so well, I will turn to you again.

(Random wandering tangent: Dutch = Netherlands = flat = self-sufficient, energy-saving practical people = lots of bike riders = skating too, on the canals = Hans Brinker = beloved book of childhood = curled up reading on a rainy day with McIntosh apples. Sweet.)

So – do you have any advice about what bicycle I should consider buying? I would use it for going to town to pick up groceries and library books, which means it will need some kind of basket and the ability to climb hills. I also have this fantasy of riding it to the library and bookstore in Oswego, which is about 15 miles away, which means the tires have to be strong, because the shoulders of the road can be sort of cruddy. And it needs a very soft, comfortable seat. I do not want to sit on a rock, thank you very much.

Any suggestions?

May 30, 2008

Emergency – do you speak Dutch?

I just realized that I need to run two sentences in Dutch past someone who is much better at that language than I am. It is not cool to think that your character is saying “What do you want?” when in fact, you’ve written “You have a pickle growing in your ear.”

Do any of you guys speak Dutch?

If you do, please contact me at laurie AT writerlady DOT com.

I offer everlasting gratitude and public thanks in the acknowledgment of my book. I will make sure you get a free copy of it, too.

Thank you!

May 30, 2008

Beautiful and Unexpected Things

It is Friday, so I will list Five Beautiful and Unexpected Things. As an added bonus, two come with pictures.

1. Meredith the Office Mouse spent part of yesterday weeding through a mountain of books so that BH can build some bookshelves. By the end of the day, she made an amazing discovery. She found the floor!

I had forgotten it was there.

2. Heidi Sheffield’s English classes at Oswego High School sent me flowers.

I did a drop-in surprise visit on them a couple of weeks ago. Thank you, everyone! (Notice the stacks and stacks of books in the background.)

3. The final, final, final CHAINS galleys should be arriving any minute now.

4. My research plans for the summer are suddenly falling into place, after much anxiety.

5. If you want to read about the BEA conference from a booksellers POV, Bookavore is blogging from LA a couple times a day.

May 29, 2008

The extra person in my office

There is a mouse in my office; she’s taller than me.

She keeps poking into corners and rooting through all the piles of papers that are labeled “Yeah, I’ll deal with that as soon as this book is done. Or maybe after the next book.” She is dealing with it now.

She is a mouse of many talents: printer installation, database management, some kind of wizardry involving graphic arts. In the famous words of Ashley’s Hannigan’s mother in PROM, she “don’t take crap off of anyone.”

The mouse is Daughter #3, Meredith, who is more organized than her mother. She has taken pity on this overwhelmed maternal unit and come up to help me get the non-writing part of the writing life under control.

For the first time I truly appreciate why farmers used to have so many children. They grow up and offer to help with the plowing!

More good news: We New Yorkers have a governor who is moving in the right direction.

And Syracuse won the national lacrosse championship.

What’s good in your life?