I’m off to do a videoconference with some college classes in South Dakota. No, I’m not going to South Dakota. I’m going to a local college where I will stare into a videocamera and pretend I am in South Dakota. I have visions of that scene in Willy Wonka where the obnoxious kid in the cowboy outfit (Mike?) is transported into a television set.
If I get stuck, send chocolate.
PS – nytimes.com Book section has a great article about Francesca Lia Block. I love her books!!!
I am at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, DE and I am updating my LJ. (Never did this before!) The way the schedule worked out, I have a long break right now, and Jamie the Nice Librarian was kind enough to get me on the Net. Having a blast here (awesome auditorium which makes the speaking part easy – voice is still raw from last week). Waiting for the pizza to arrive to I can eat and talk to some of the high school kids about Speak. Tough life.
Weird experience of the day: their substitute librarian, Kristine, babysat for me when I was a kid in Syracuse. She was a student at the university where my dad was a chaplain. It has been fascinating to hear her talk about how those years (we’re talking life on a college campus in the late ’60s and early ’70s) felt to her. I’m going to get her in touch with Dad – he will be stoked.
Max wrote and suggested that I put some deleted scenes from my novels on the website.
That’s actually in my long-term plan, Max. (Brilliant minds think alike, eh?) I don’t think I’ll get to it until later this summer, though. Depending on how the writing goes, it might be the fall before I can give major attention to the website again.
Which brings me to my question:
What would youse guys like to see on my website that is not there right now? Theo is working on a non-flash version for those of you with slower dial-up connections. There are a few minor tweaking things to do, but before he gets going on someone else’s projects (or his own), I want to make sure I have a rock-solid web foundation that we can add to as new books come out. What information is missing? What pages do you think are the most important? Should we add a site map?
I just got back from a fun lunch at Donato’s with Allison Charles, who goes to Upper Dublin High School. Allison’s parents won the lunch with me at an auction to raise money for the fight against breast cancer. My mom, my aunt, and one of my cousins are all breast cancer survivors, so it is a important cause for me. We had a blast and took the cheesy photo, below. Thank you, Allison!!!
Went to the movies last night with Mer, Alli (a different Alli!), Shelley and Mike. We saw Constantine, with Keanu Reeves, who in my humble opinion is a much better actor when he keeps his mouth closed. Not a great movie, not even a good movie, but we had laughed a lot, and I found myself thinking about it today which must mean something. I really liked the Angel Gabriel’s outfit. Satan was played by an actor who was a bad guy in Fargo (I loved that movie because I am a drooling William Macy fan), and I had a hard time believing him as Satan. But all in all, it was a good night. Mer and I are annoying people to watch movies with because we both have the Tragic Cycle down cold and we can see most plot points well before they unfold. But we amuse each other.
I forgot to mention two things about my Central New York week. We spent one night watching old Popeye cartoons. Haven’t done that in a long time. I had another blast from the past the day I visited Solvay High School. A deli near the school advertised bread from the Columbus Baking Company. This bread is a sacred food from my childhood. My dad, who always refers to himself as a peasant, is nuts for real, fresh food: bread, cheese, tomatoes, meat cooked on an open fire, etc. So every weekend we’d stop at the bakery for a couple of flat, round, heavenly loaves to eat up at camp.
Bread is good. No-carb diets are evil.
I forgot to say thank you to Ms. Benson’s class (Hi Alex!) and the girls at Maryvale Prep for completely stuffing my mailbox with your thank-you letters. I’m having fun reading them.
I’m halfway through today’s to-do list. Here are some recent reader questions.
Stacy writes: this is a request from my daughter who loves your wild at heart series! She would like to know if some of the books could be reprinted. We are having a really hard time locating number 12 End of the Race. We did find it but they wanted 50.00 $ for it and that was the cheap one As much as we love your books thats a little more than we can afford. thank you for all the great books that you wright I know your new book Prom will be a great success.
I am really sorry that people are having a hard time finding copies of the Wild at Heart books. As of this minute, Pleasant Company Publications (aka American Girl) has taken the series out of print. I am not happy about this, but it is out of my hands. I hope we can get them to change their minds.
Emma writes: I am a young reader, hoping to contact Ms. Anderson. I live in Philadelphia, PA, and was hoping that someone could tell me her address, or phone number. I am doing a report on her, and I was hoping to get a response from her sometime.
Sorry, Emma. I do keep a couple of things private and one of those is my phone number. You can find all kinds of information about me and my books on the Writerlady website’s About Me page. Good luck.
Mrs. Doolin writes: I’m not sure if this is what you are interested in -but I always use Fever 1793 as a literature circle selection and this year one group of eighth grade girls really got into it. As a class assignment, they were required to choose a favorite scene for a Reader’s Theatre project, but in addition to the Readers Theatre assignment these girls wanted to do more. They volunteered to write and perform a song-version of the scene! I agreed to give them extra credit after they presented the idea to me, but I suggested that they dress in period clothes and allow me to video the performance. They loved that even more! Needless to say it was an entertaining piece! If you are interested in further details let me know. I’d be happy to share and they would love it! They adore Laurie’s books! Speak and Fever 1793 “ROCK!” to put it in their language.
Do you have any still photos we could post to the site? If so, email them to comments@writerlady.com, with a note giving the required permissions, and we’ll put them up. Thanks for writing.
Note to Renee – I don’t want to post your email here because of some of the personal details. But know that it really touched me. Thank you so much for sending it to me. I’m glad the book helped.
The drive back to PA was cake. Instead of going straight back to the apartment, I drove to North Penn High School to watch Mer’s drum line corps, Innovations (Hatboro-Horsham High School) play in their first competition of the year. They gave a stunning performance and won second place. Here’s photo that just happens to have my kid front and center:
Here’s my to-do list for the day:
1. Go over family calendars with Beloved Husband (on phone)
2. Grocery shopping with Mer
3. Catch up on e-mail
4. Catch up on old-fashioned mail
5. Make a bunch of plane reservations
6. Write a bunch of thank yous
7. Put EVERYTHING away from last week’s road trip
8. Prepare for this week’s school visits
9. Prepare for this week’s writing
10. Post recent reader questions to LJ
Such an exciting life I lead…
The above list is so deadly boring, I must hop on to the 10 Things I’ve Done That Others Might Not Have bandwagon. (This is a fun meme running around LJ)
1. Eaten blood sausage.
2. Milked cows (hundreds of them).
3. Written fan mail to singer Marian Anderson.
4. Been scared witless by TV show Dark Shadows (I was in second grade).
5. Rowed a Viking ship in the Baltic Sea.
6. Given a speech to three thousand people.
7. Eaten gorp on top an Adirondack mountain in a snowstorm with my dad and sister.
8. Run a half-marathon.
9. Hugged JRR Tolkien’s favorite tree in Oxford.
10. Been chased by an angry bull.
10a. Escaped angry bull by sliding under electric fence.