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Free Your Mind

It’s about 7am. I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep (wonder why), so I spent an hour on the treadmill (one of the lovely things about hotels), showered and ate. I don’t get picked up for a couple hours so I am going to try and sneak in a little writing time.

If I can get my hands to stop shaking. Because I am, to put it mildly, wicked cranked up.

Because CHAINS is released today.

And I have finally solved the problem of how to inscribe it. I’ve never heard other authors fret about this, so maybe it’s one of my many quirks, but I like to have a special tag line for each book instead of just writing “Best Wishes” whenever I sign a book for a reader. And it always takes me a long time to find the right words. But I finally hit it for CHAINS.

Free your mind.

That’s what I’ll be writing countless times (fingers crossed) for the next month. It sums up the journey of Isabel, the main character, and the journey that I hope my readers will take, using books to open up their world and grow.

Have you ever had your name in soup? As of this morning, I have. A very cool experience, I must say. Thank you, Jama Rattigan, for the awesome CHAINS celebration shout-out and for putting my name in soup! (I wonder if that is the children’s literature equivalent of putting your name in lights?)

Today I visit St. Bernard’s School in St. Paul and Roseville Area Middle School in Little Canada. (Which in in America. Which is funny because I live in the town of Mexico, which is also in America. What a country!)

TONIGHT’S EVENT: 7:00 – 8:30pm : Barnes & Noble, Roseville, MN 651-639-9256

TOMORROW NIGHT’S EVENT: 6:00 pm at Wild Rumpus, Minneapolis, MN 612-920-5005

Call your friends, wake the neighbors, alert all students that I am happy to write extra credit notes to anyone who comes out to my book signing! Let the games begin!

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Mad Woman Goes on Book Tour

If all goes well, I head to Minnesota in a few hours. I promise lots of pictures and tour details for the next month.

Before we get to the schedule, I’d like to puff out my chest and proudly point out that my daughter Bookavore (aka Stephanie) has some great quotes about economic sustainability and getting folks to shop locally.

And…. Brilliance Audio just released a wonderful audio version of CHAINS!! The reader, Madisun Leigh, does a wonderful job – so wonderful that I was in tears by the end of the first chapter. I can’t wait until I have time to listen to the whole thing!

And… not only did I buy The Dress for the fancy-pants National Book Award gala, but I took it to Mary Jean’s Alterations in Oswego and it will be ready when I get off the plane in a few weeks. BH ordered his tux there, too.

And… my absentee ballot arrived on time and I voted!!!!

And….. the book tour appearances below are my public gigs. On most days, I’ll be visiting schools during the day and then doing an evening appearance at most stores. I am really sorry I won’t be headed to the West Coast on this tour, but you can’t have everything, and my cup is totally overflowing right now, so I’m not going to make a fuss. (FYI – I’ll be going back out on tour in March. Keep your fingers crossed.)

CHAINS BOOK TOUR SCHEDULE: FREE YOUR MIND!!

MINNEAPOLIS
Tues, October 21 at 7:00 pm : Barnes & Noble, Roseville, MN 651-639-9256

Wed., October 22 at 6:00 pm: Wild Rumpus, Minneapolis, MN 612-920-5005

DENVER
Thursday, October 23 (AKA MY BIRTHDAY) at 5:00 pm: Bookies, Denver, CO 303-759-1117

Friday, October 24 at 7:00 pm: Tattered Cover, Denver, East Colfax store 303-436-9219

CHICAGO area
Saturday, October 25 at 1:00 pm: The Bookstall of Chestnut Court, Winnetka 847-446-0882

Sunday, October 26 at 2:00 pm: Center for Teaching through Children’s Books, National-Louis University, Skokie. This is at 5202 Old Orchard Road – 3rd Floor Public Forum Room. Sorry, I don’t have a contact phone number, but I do know that lots of teachers and grad students are expected to attend. At least, I hope they do.

Monday, October 27: Barnes & Noble, Skokie (no public event, but will have signed books available) 847-676-2230

OMAHA
Tuesday, October 28 at 7:00 pm: Omaha Public Library, An all-city event in Centennial Hall at the Alumni House on the UNO Campus, 6705 Dodge St. 402-444-4800

BACK TO CHICAGO area
Wednesday, October 29 at 7:00 pm: Anderson’s, Naperville 630-355-2665

MILWAUKEE
Thursday, October 30 at 7:00 pm: Harry Schwartz Bookshop (Mequon store) 262-241-6220

DOVER, DE
Saturday, November 1: several appearances during the day: Delaware Book Festival

BALTIMORE
Monday, November 3: The Children’s Bookstore (no public event, but will have signed books available)

WASHINGTON, DC area
Monday, November 3 at 7:00 pm: Barnes & Noble, McLean, VA 703-506-2937

Tuesday, November 4: Politics & Prose, Wash. DC (drop-in booksigning at 12:30) 202-364-1919

NEW JERSEY
Wednesday, November 5: BookEnds, Ridgewood (no public event, but will have signed books available) 201-445-0726

NEW YORK
Thursday, November 6 at 6:45 pm: Merritt Bookstore, Millbrook, NY 845-677-5857

WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
Friday, November 7: Odyssey Bookstore, South Hadley, MA (no public event, but will have signed books available) 413-534-7307

ATLANTA area
Monday, November 10 at 7:00 pm: Little Shop of Stories, Decatur 404-373-6300

Tuesday, November 11: The Reading Tree, Alpharetta (no public event, but will have signed books available) 770-740-7171

MIAMI
Wednesday, November 12 and Thursday, November 13: Miami Book Fair (school events only)

NEW ORLEANS
Friday, November 14 at 4:30 pm: Octavia Books 504-899-7323

Saturday, November 14 — Special school event only, sponsored by Octavia Books

NEW YORK CITY – NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FESTIVITIES
Tuesday, November 18 – Teen Press Conference

Tuesday, November 18, 7pm – All twenty of this year’s National Book Award Finalists will read from their books at New York City’ s New School

Wednesday, November 19, National Book Foundation Awards Dinner and Ceremony

SAN ANTONIO, TX
Friday, November 21 – Tuesday, November 25: National Council of Teachers of English annual conference and ALAN Workshop

CENTRAL NEW YORK
Thursday, December 4 at 6:00 pm: The River’s End Bookstore, Oswego 315-342-0077 (followed by a fundraising dinner for the Oswego Public Library!)

SE PENNSYLVANIA
Saturday, December 6 at 6pm: Moravian Bookshop, Bethlehem, PA 610-866-5481

And now I should probably try to sleep.
Yeah, right.

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Teen Read Week and all kinds of voting

HAPPY TEEN READ WEEK! Don’t forget to vote for your favorite books!

Wouldn’t it be cool if some truly rich person (I’m looking at you, Bill Gates) decided to provide a gift certificate to every teenager in America to buy a book this week through an independent bookseller? If any of you are having dinner with Bill this week, try to work this suggestion into the conversation.

Sorry for being a day late with this, but check out the nightly author interviews at Readergirlz this week, put together in honor of Teen Read Week!

Today is the last day to nominate a book for the Cybils Award. If you read a book this year that you loved, click your way over there and share the title.

Speaking of voting and nominating type things, I am having a problem. I mailed in my application for my absentee ballot weeks ago. (I’ll be on book tour on Election Day.) The ballot has not arrived. We just called the Oswego County Board of Elections and they said the ballots haven’t arrived in their offices yet! What? WHAT? The ballots haven’t been printed up yet? When were they planning on doing this? How are they going to get to soldiers serving overseas in time? Is this incompetence or political shenanigans? I just fired off a few emails – stay tuned.

::takes deep yoga breath to calm self::

More CHAINS love! Language Arts teacher Sarah gives her opinion about the use of CHAINS in the classroom on her Reading Zone blog.

Don’t forget – I’m giving a sneak preview of my CHAINS tour presentation tonight at 7pm at the Barnes & Noble in Dewitt, NY, where I’ll be speaking at their Educators’ Appreciation Night.

I’ll leave you with a little more autumnal fire from up here on the tundra.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

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Getting antsy

Click on the video below and push the time bar to the 50 second mark.

Ready? Push play and sing along with me as loud as you can:

“AN-TI-CI-PAAA-TION!!!”

That’s my life right now. CHAINS will be released officially on October 21st, the day my book tour begins, two days before my birthday. The nice people at S&S have posted a CHAINS excerpt for you to read while you are waiting for the book.

The details of the book tour are in the last stages of being firmed up, but it looks like I’ll be visiting:
36 schools (these presentations are not open to the public)
19 bookstores (this includes 2 stores in December after the official tour is over)
3 presentations to groups of librarians and teachers. Maybe 4.

At the end of the tour, I head for San Antonio, TX for the NCTE/ALAN Conference. And then I go home, turn off the phone, and take a nap.

Right now I feel like a basketball player after the warm-ups are over and before the National Anthem has been sung. My stomach is a little jumpy, my hands are sweaty, and I can’t wait until the referee blows her whistle and throws up the ball to start the game.

I am doing something new on this tour. I am bringing a portable digital projector so I can show a visual presentation to everyone. The “show” gives a little background about me and my writing, then focuses on my research and writing of CHAINS. If you live in Central NY, you can see a sneak preview of this show next Tuesday at 7pm at the Barnes & Noble in Dewitt, NY, where I’ll be speaking at their Educators’ Appreciation Night.

While we were running this morning, BH and I saw a gorgeous red-tailed hawk sweeping over a meadow. When we got home (he cooked an awesome ham and egg breakfast), a second hawk about twice the size of the first one perched on the edge of our forest and allowed us to admire him.

It’s been quite a day.

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It’s monday so I have to be organized, right?

First – I am blushing and squirming profusely as I do this, but Betsy Bird posted an incredibly detailed and generous review of CHAINS. Thank you, Betsy!

The weekend sort of didn’t exist for me because I spent most of it rushing hither and yon. Saturday morning I flew to Detroit and then took a cab to Dearborn for the Great Lakes Bookseller’s Association annual tradeshow. I hung out with Sarah Miller and ran into Jaime Adoff, who has produced both a new book and (with considerable help from his wife) a new baby this year.

Early galleys of David Macinnis Gill’s Soul Enchilada were there! (Click on the link to see the real cover, which is v. cool.) I toured the floor, signed a couple hundred copies of CHAINS, soaked my hand in ice-cold water, then spent a looooong time on the treadmill so my legs would be as tired as my signing hand.

The big event was Sunday – the booksellers gathered for one of the nicest conference breakfasts I’ve ever eaten, thanks to the generosity of Bookazine. While the booksellers enjoyed their sausage, eggs, and way too many pastries, I grabbed the microphone and talked about the reasons I wrote CHAINS, then Suzanne Collins talked about the writing of HUNGER GAMES, and Jerry Pinkney showed us his process and motivation for his new book, THE MOON OVER STAR.

We were all very happy when the speaking part was over.

I also got to meet Kathe Koja, seen here between Sarah Miller and me.

Two weeks from today I leave on the CHAINS book tour! Yikes! I need to write many, many pages before then. I also need to find the appropriate tour sneakers. Anyone know where I can find a pair of sizzling, baby-blue high-tops, women’s size 10 or men’s 8? Oh, and I need a couple of shirts that won’t wrinkle. But mostly I have to write oodles of pages.