book tour – Page 5 – Laurie Halse Anderson

March 20, 2009

Tour 2009 & First Day of Spring

Good Equinox, good peoples, especially those of you shivering on Brooklyn where it is snowing!

Here is a picture of what our forest looked like just as I was leaving yesterday.

The daffodils are up!

Yesterday’s trip to LA was pretty smooth. The plane was over an hour late leaving Syracuse, so I had a fun sprint through the Detroit airport to make my connecting flight, but it all worked out in the end. My luggage even arrived on time! Did my March Madness brackets in the air. Felt pretty good when I saw that MD beat California.

(Of course, I prefer not to talk about all of the bad picks I made. There’s not much fun in that!)

I’ve already started to get some nice email from readers of WINTERGIRLS saying how much they enjoyed the book. Thanks to everyone who took the time to write!

Bookavore pointed out to me that everyone can follow my daily peregrinations on tour by watching my Twitter feed and hitting refresh every once in a while. You do not have to sign up for Twitter to watch what I write there.

Today’s Events
Early morning – a couple of radio interviews.

Late morning – a visit to the Archer School for Girls (not a public event).

Afternoon – a visit to Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica (not a public event).

Late afternoon – a press conference with high school students.

4:30 – 5:30pm Public Event at the Santa Monica Public Library (hosted by Children’s Book World)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Contact: Erica Cuyugan, young adult librarian
310-458-8600

7 pm Public Event at Barnes & Noble
3rd St. Promenade, 1201 3rd St
Santa Monica, CA
Contact: John Schatzel
Phone: (310) 260-9110

Saturday’s Public Events: Come One, Come All!

12:00 PM Vroman’s
695 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91101
Contact: Jen Ramos
626-449-5320

4:00 PM Mrs. Nelson’s
1030 Bonita Ave.
La Verne, CA 91750
Contact: Andrea Vuleta
Phone:
909-599-4558

March 19, 2009

WINTERGIRLS is waiting for you!

It is finally here: publication day!

It’s like the day when your baby is born, except without quite so much screaming and no stitches.

BH is making me breakfast, then I have to throw the last minute things in the suitcase and head for the airport. Today is just a travel day. Getting from Syracuse to Los Angeles is an all-day affair. I am bringing all of my gardening catalogs on the plane, and my March Madness bracket, too.

(Yes, I watched Baylor beat Georgetown in the NIT last night. Don’t rub it in.)

If you are near a radio at lunchtime, tune in to your local NPR station to listen to my interview on Here and Now. That is one of my favorite shows and it was an absolute thrill to be on it.

Tomorrow’s events

Early morning – a couple of radio interviews.

Late morning – a visit to the Archer School for Girls (not a public event).

Afternoon – a visit to Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica (not a public event).

Late afternoon – a press conference with high school students.

4:30 – 5:30pm Public Event at the Santa Monica Public Library (hosted by Children’s Book World)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Contact: Erica Cuyugan, young adult librarian
310-458-8600

7 pm Public Event at Barnes & Noble
3rd St. Promenade, 1201 3rd St
Santa Monica, CA
Contact: John Schatzel
Phone: (310) 260-9110

March 18, 2009

Ready… Set…

WINTERGIRLS and the 10th Anniversary edition of SPEAK officially debut tomorrow!

Be still my beating heart.

I have one hundred million things to do in the next twenty-four hours. If I show up at bookstore events with knots in my hair, you’ll know I never made it to Item #37. Remember to pack brush.

I will be Twittering regularly on tour. You can follow me on Twitter by searching for my name, halseanderson. I think I have figured out how to post photos to my Twitterfeed, so it should be fun. Don’t know what Twitter is? This will explain.

School Library Journal has a great summary of the release of the two books, plus all the magical things that have happened to me in the past six months.

Many thanks to Cecelia Goodnow for a wonderful interview last week that resulted in an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A little bird in Seattle told me that the article ran in the last day of the P-I’s paper version. It has gone to an online only presence now.

Two good questions have come in recently:

When’s Wintergirls due to be out in the UK?

The UK rights have not been sold yet, but I am told by my agent that negotiations are ongoing.

Who took the awesome picture on the cover of WINTERGIRLS?

That is the work of Canadian photographer Alexandre Denomay. I think he was 18 or 19 when he took the photo. He might be 20 years old by now.

Back to packing!

WINTERGIRLS and the 10th Anniversary edition of SPEAK officially debut tomorrow!

March 17, 2009

Contest winners & Bob the Builder

We have winners!!!!

Last night Queen Louise ordered her squires to participate in the Official Drawing of the Names. They dutifully complied.

drum roll……..

The winners of custom WINTERGIRLS laptop (or phone) skins are:
Jennifer Forgotten!
Mindi Scott!
Tressa Korson!
Kara Huck!

You’ll be receiving an email from Queen Louise with the details about what happens next so we can get the skin to you. Thanks to everyone for participating!!

Bob the Builder showed up to the cottage project yesterday.

He brought a very large machine.

He plucked out the tree stumps from the site, then added a couple tons of dirt and tamped it down. (Notice the last, lingering snowbank.) Next up: a mason comes next week to form up the forms (I think that’s the right way to describe it) so the concrete slab can be poured.

I’ve been receiving early sightings of copies of WINTERGIRLS on sale already. Since I’m not J.K. Rowling, booksellers are not compelled to hold the book to the release date. If you see it, buy it!

If you see it, you could also take a picture of you standing in the store with the book. Send it to laurie AT writerlady DOT com.

March Madness News!!! Since my Georgetown Hoyas are not in the NCAA tournament this year, ::weeps::, I am supporting Syracuse University. For the third year running, Sarah Dessen and I have our bet going; if her team (North Carolina) goes farther than mine, I will send a signed copy of my new book to her public library. If my team goes farther, Sarah sends her book up here.

Haven’t had time to do my brackets yet. I think I’ll do that on the plane Thursday.

March 14, 2009

Magic Window Update & much scurrying about

WINTERGIRLS comes out in 5 days….

So, what does an author do in the days before book tour?

This author has been very busy with interviews. I had a great one yesterday with a reporter from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and have a bunch more lined up for next week. Today I hope to finish the Keynote presentation I’ll be taking on the road with me, and start packing. Am also busy emailing back and forth with the Web God as he puts the finishing touches on the WINTERGIRLS website.

While I’ve been crossing off things on my to-do list, work continues on the Cottage.

Our tree guy chopped down the dead 200-year-old maple and cleared out the smaller trees from the spot where we want to build.

The dark spots are rot. We could also see shadows where spiles had been inserted to tap the sap.

BH and a buddy of his have been busy on the magic window. They had to sand out every frame, patch and strengthen weak spots in the wood and start preparing thingies (have no idea what they are called) that will hold the glass. They found a mixture of wire nails and cut nails. The presence of cut nails confirms their suspicions that the window was buit in the late 1800s.

By Friday, the window was strong enough to be stood up. That’s his buddy on the left, BH and me in the center, and Queen Louise to the right. The glass guy came to take a look at it and will soon give us the estimate for the cost of the glass. Fingers crossed about that. The plan is for the magic window to take up most of the south wall of the cottage.

I’ll end with a couple of links for those of you who can only catch up with this blog on weekends.

Can you come and see me on book tour?

Have you entered the WINTERGIRLS contest yet?

Did you see the WINTERGIRLS book trailer?

How about the short video where I explain why I wrote the book?

WINTERGIRLS comes out in 5 days….