Check out the special delivery the wonderful Cynthia Lordcynthialord got today!

Oh, and I'm trying my hand at planting flowers for the first time this year.
Right now the seeds for Lupinus polyphyllus I planted in those little Jiffy starter cups are hopefully splitting open and growing little green shoots. And if all goes well, I'll transfer the seedlings to my garden (and by that I mean into pots on my balcony), and they'll look like this:



I really hope I don't kill them. I feel awful when I kill a plant. Or salamander. Or 15 hermit crabs. Which is SO another story.

So, first Lupinus polyphyllus (I chose them because the name reminds me of Professor Lupin from HP) and then Snapdragons and Morning Glories, Moon Glories and other flowers that looked pretty on the seed packets but I can't remember their names.


xoxo
AMV

I want to write here!

George W Bush is officially the Literacy Grinch.

He wants to cut funding to RIF, which has been providing underserved kids with books since 1966.

What an asshole!

Please help stop him by clicking below - just enter your zip code and easily email the president and your senators and representatives to voice your support of RIF.
http://www.rif.org/get-involved/advocate/what/

xoxoxo
AMV

I want to make Meg Cabot a friendship pin and have her over for microwave brownies.

Words cannot describe the crush that I had on Donnie "The Tough One" Wahlberg.
In my too-hot-for-seventh-grade fantasies I tucked myself between his white t-shirt and leather jacket and smelled his collarbone. I would get all breathless imagining myself as a sort of (and honestly, I don't know if enough time has gone by for this NOT to be embarrassing) den mother on their tour bus, baking cookies and taking long, meandering walks with Donnie through empty parking lots at stadiums before the fans arrived.

Once, I saw a "behind the scenes" video of one of their concerts. They got in a water fight on stage, and just the sight of slow-motion Donnie in a wet t-shirt filled me with a yearning so fierce it felt like someone had tied my neck in a knot. I knew right then, watching him laugh and douse Joey with a bucket of water, that I would never have him. That some other girl with a (slight! and totally cured!) speech impediment would get to make out with him, and not me.

I got over it. Eventually. And now this picture is just bringing up so many painful memories of door-sized posters and kissable screen-printed pillow cases.

Oh, Donnie. We'll always have the parking lot.




Love,
AMV

Do you watch that show How I Met Your Mother? Did you see the episode about Robin being a Canadian pop star? She sang a song called "Let's Go to the Mall", and it's so fricking catchy that I sing it to the baby pretty much every day, except instead of the mall, I sing "Let's to eat some cheese!" or "Let's go find your socks" or "Let's go take a bath!" Today was extra special, because we rocked out to some "Let's go to the ZOO!" before our little family set out to meet up with my very, very dear friend Kate at the Central Park Zoo. Kate's visiting from California. We went to Humboldt State together, when I was on exchange there my junior year of college. She saved my life once, not in the 'here, let me carry you out of a burning building' way, but in a 'here, let me yank you out of this scary situation' way.

Here's a picture of a polar bear's bum from the zoo. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.


In other news, I have a pub date for my third book! I mean, a NEW pub date, since the other ones didn't exactly stick. Seriously, being a mom, having a full time job, and writing books all at once is just wicked hard. BUT, come SPRING 2010 book three will be out in the world! I should be settled on a title soon, too, but in meantime all I can tell you about it is that hell hath no fury like a prom queen scorned.

Yay!

xoxo
AMV

I had an awesome time today at the reception for the New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age (SIGHT was included, YAY!).

There were lots of best parts.

The first was getting to sit between the lovely Siobhan Vivian and a nice librarian from a private school on the upper East Side.

The second was that Robert "The Contender" Lipsyte gave the keynote address. It was awesome. He talked about boys and reading, specifically, why they're not. I wish I could remember exactly what he said so I could tell you! I know one part was (paraphrased badly) talking about how boys need to read novels in order to not become the sort of dicks (his word! scandalous! and effective!) that abuse people and destroy the world. He also talked about boys are taught that power comes from facts - batting averages, the differences between car engines - and that reading books is girly (and he means it in the not complementary way). If they post his speech, I'll link to it here. Oh! And he said that when his book Raiders Night came out, he thought it might have trouble getting into schools because of its language and violence, but it turns out that the reason some schools with football teams weren't teaching it was because they didn't want to piss off Coke. Seriously. Schools want soft drink and sportswear companies to buy the naming rights to their stadium (in Texas the price is up to $1M), and they didn't want to upset the money-bags by teaching a book that includes some scary truths about high school sport culture. He referred to the book as "Friday Night Darks", which of course made me start thinking about Tim Riggins, but I did my best to pay attention to the rest of the speech.

And the third best part was that a really sweet girl named Lauren came up to me and told me how much she enjoyed SIGHT. Talking to readers one-on-one is one of those things that make me feel so lucky, and so grateful, and so honored that I get to do this for a living.

Happy Easter!

xoxo
AMV

Today marks the start of the Simon Pulse blogging extravaganza known as



where oodles of authors dish the dirt, answering questions from teens.

Today's question: what would we do if we weren't writers? Blech! Perish the thought!

http://pulseblogfest.simonsaysblogs.com/index.php

xoxo
AMV

Live in (or around) New York? Then come to Teen Author Reading Night this Wednesday!

It's one of those lineups that makes me so happy to live in this author-filled city (which is good, because on Sunday we were ready to hop the first train out of here when our neighborhood stunk so bad we couldn't take the baby to the park).

March 12 -- Teen Author Reading Night (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave, at 10th St.)

E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Elizabeth Scott, Perfect You

Siobhan Vivian, A Little Friendly Advice

Melissa Walker, Violet by Design

Maryrose Wood, My Life: The Musical


Hope to see you there!
Love,
AMV

Tim Riggins will live to fight/drink/smolder/love another day!






But is he wearing sandles? Ew.

Love,
AMV

For Pete's sake, does no one tell the truth?!

Are you a hoax? If you are, tell me now so I don't have to read about it in the Times. Or worse, see it on Yahoo when I'm logging onto my email.

First, I was genuinely bummed to see this article in the Times about the 'former Blood' who wrote a moving memoir about changing her life. I'd read the profile of her last week (also in the Times) and was planning on buying the book, and I'd thought about the author long after I finished the article. Turns out the author made it all up. She's never been in a gang, or in foster care, she is not from South Central. She's from Sherman Oaks. Some of you will know what means.

You'd think I'd learn my lesson after JT Leroy. But I'm not sure what lesson it is I should have learned. To be on the safe side and think of all memoirs as fiction, just so I don't feel like a dope for really truly caring about the writer when I find out they made it all up? I know that with Frey's A Million Little Pieces, people said it read just as well as a work of fiction as it did a memoir, but that's not the point. When I read a memoir I'm forever thinking about the process the writer had to go through to write it - the revisiting of memory, the reconciliation, the opening of wounds, the catharsis and the closure. And sure, as a writer of fiction, I feel a degree of all those things through my characters, but it's different.

It just feels like a betrayal. I feel like readers and writers enter a really precious and special trust when a book is written and read, and all these liar faces are making a mockery of it. I almost wrote 'making a monkey of it', which is sort of the same thing.

And then! This video that about how Airborne doesn't work? WHAAAT? Are you serious? I've been cramming those jumbo sized fizzing tablets into bottles of water on airplanes for the past three years! Is it psychosomatic? Seriously, what's next? Proof that the pumping my arms and reciting "I Must, I Must, I Must Increase
My Bust" in seventh grade didn't really do anything? These B cups didn't just grown themselves, you know!



Oh, and that's not all! It turns out the host of that show Dinner Impossible, the one where the host is kind of a prick, but you're made to think it's okay, because he'd cooked for the Queen or the president or something? He's totally full of baloney! Full! Of Processed Meat Product! His baloney has a first name and it's b-i-g-f-a-t-l-i-a-r.


In other news, my book's almost done!

Love,
AMV

The Times has this article about visiting (and swooning over) the houses and writing rooms of (dead) authors you love.

It made me think about how for my first couple of books I had actual offices to write in. The first had a view of the parking lot across the street, where an innovative gentlemen ran a booming collect-the-can business. He had a van parked there, and he and his workers would fill the van with bags of cans, and then when the van was full, they would pile these bags - which were about four feet tall - on top of the van and all around it. I could also see the sky over the buildings across the street and, if I got up and stood very close to the window, the Statue of Liberty. That's where I wrote SKIN.

The second office, where I wrote SIGHT, was in the back of the apartment, which meant I had a wonderful view of our back yard. Our neighbor, Ben, had taken it from unofficial trash dump to a backyard wonderland, complete with hammock, flowers that climbed all the way up our fire escape to say hello, and a white latticed arbor. It was a really nice place to write, and an even nicer place NOT to write - to just look out the window and watch the cats jumping from fence to arbor to fence.

Now that we're in our new place, and now that the room that would be our writing office features a diaper genie and a growth chart that only goes up to four feet, I've taken the writing show on the road. Which means I'm writing my third book while sitting cross-legged on our bed, or on the couch, or at my favorite coffee shop. I don't mind, but do dream of having a Woolf's room of my own to write in. And not just a room! I want a bungalow. A little, one room bungalow behind our (imaginary) farmhouse. I could build it myself, I bet my dad would help, and we could use all scavenged lumber and things. It would have a little open cupboard with a mismatched tea set, and maybe a tiny wood stove to keep the place warm in winter.

And you could come over, have tea, and talk books!

Now please tell me, where do you write?

xoxo
AMV

This makes me feel funny. And kind of old.

Yesterday morning, on the way out of the house, I remembered I had an appointment up-town, which meant that I had twenty extra minutes of reading time on the train. Heaven! But then I panicked, realizing I had nothing to read. 'Panicked' might seem like a strong word, but for me being stuck on a train with empty time and nothing to read is just like that episode of the Twilight Zone where the dude who loves to read ends up being the last man on earth, with all the time and books in the world...and then he breaks his glasses. Can you even imagine?

Anyway.

I scanned our bookshelves, realizing that saying 'there's nothing to read!' was the equivalent of looking in a full fridge and groaning 'there's nothing to eat!' Of COURSE there's something to eat, but it's broccoli, or old hummus, or two lemons and some pickled ginger. In other words, books I've read too recently to want to read again, books I SHOULD read but can't muster the energy, and genre books that I'm just not in the mood for.

But then! My eyes stopped on Northern Lights, the first in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It's been a few years since I'd read the series for the second time, and I realized with a leaping heart that enough time had passed that for me to forget some of the details and to be able to read it again for the first time. I adore this book. I love the series as a whole, but Northern Lights is one of those books that gives me that sort of delicious ache inside, the one you get when you find a book that tells of a life you wish, wish, wish you'd had.

And to make my yesterday even better, I came home to find a clipping of the article a student journalist wrote about my visit to Hunterdon High School in New Jersey. I'm slightly obsessed with newspaper articles, especially profiles of people. The article from Hunterdon was great, and made me laugh because it included all the stuff I love to read about other people, except it was about me. So I got read quotes from my presentation (slightly mortifying - did I really ask if I could say the word shit by saying, "Can I say the word shit?"), a description of what I wore (totally mortifying. At least I had taken robinwasserman's advice on whether or not I could pull off mustard yellow leg-warmers - "No."), and quotes from students and teachers (not mortifying at all, actually very, very sweet). And Heather, their amazing librarian, sent along a home-made bookmark, which I have stuck securely in Northern Lights.

Have a great weekend!
xoxo
AMV

Saturday night I had the pleasure of meeting up with the lovely Tracey and Josh Adams of Adams Literary, along with a whole bunch of fellow clients. We gathered at the swanky Stone Rose Lounge at the Time Warner Center.

Here's what it looks like:



Okay, so I couldn't find a picture of the lounge that I liked, so I settled on a picture of Knight Rider. Because if Knight Rider doesn't represent swankiness, what does?

I wore EXTREMELY fancy pants for the occasion. Maybe they weren't technically fancy because they were jeans, but they had a waist high enough to tickle my armpits, so I felt pretty darn fancified.

Apparently, there is a sisterhood of high-waisted jeans wearers:



Though I will say, those ladies tend to be totally fancy, instead of just occasionally fancy like I am, so I bet they didn't get their armpit ticklers at Old Navy. Suckers!

It was a really wonderful evening, even better because when I got home my husband went out to see a show. Why is that wonderful? Because it was ALMOST like a date! We went for drinks at the Knight Rider bar, and then went to see No Age. Except, not together. I really hope the baby warms up to the concept of Saturday night baby sitting soon.

Speaking of the baby, the poor little peanut caught a stomach bug that has been zooming around the neighborhood. There were late nights on babycenter.com looking up 'how to tell if your baby is dehydrated' Answers ranged from 'it's actually hard for a baby to get dehydrated' to 'Dear God, bring your baby to the ER now!' Luckily, she started chugging pedialyte and has recovered.

I, on the other hand, spent last night hurling. It was one of those nights that has you trying to reason with your stomach, "Seriously, you're empty! What more do you want from -BLEEERRRRG" But I prayed for dawn to come, and it did, and now I'm feeling well enough for sips of water and hopefully noodle soup later on in the day.

The good thing, if there IS a good thing about the stomach flu, is that I don't have a fever which means I am well enough to watch TV which means I am well to WRITE. And write I will, since I am scandalously late with my third book, and watching A Baby Story is going to get me nowhere closer to meeting my (new new new new) deadline.

Love,
AMV

So even though I write for teenagers, I don't have a whole lot of contact with them on a day to day basis. Scratch that, I have a ton of contact with them, just not a lot of interaction. It's a whole lot of observing on my part, and whole lot of ignoring on theirs. I like the way they declare their space by tipping their heads back and laughing loudly, and the way they slip their arms around each other's waists, snug inside one another's puffy jackets. And I like hearing them talk, even though I try not to listen in. My favorite sentences are the ones that describe other people, "You know, that girl who skipped eighth grade and dated my cousin." I like the way they hold onto the subway poll with one hand, and look at carefully written index cards with the other. I like the way they ask about each other's kids, even though it always makes me think the phrase 'Babies Having Babies'. I try to pick out which ones my daughter might be friends with if we stay here. It's easier to do this with tween girls, with their converse all-stars, bookmarked novels, sharpied jeans, and laughter that is still heavy on spastic fits of giggles. With the high schoolers, though, it's harder. They save the true fire of their personalities for places other than subway, for people other than strangers to see.

This weekend I found this book. RED [followed by a ridiculously long subtitle]. It's essays written by teenage girls, and it's been an amazing read. Some of the essays have totally blown me away, and even the ones that are just okay are worth the read, if only because it's obvious the amount of work and thought that went into each of them. I remember some of what it was like to be a teenage girl. Oh so many feelings! And feelings about feelings! I was either an antena or an open sore. It was like everything inside me was newly opened up, all these receptors that were constantly taking in heart-stopping amounts of confusion and happiness and hope.

They are calling RED a 'living book', with each of its authors having a blog on the book's website:
http://redthebook.com

So stoked for Super Tuesday!

xoxo
AMV

Thanks to E. Lockhart for posting about the attempts to censor John Green's Looking for Alaska.

Here's a video of John explaining the poopstorm and asking for help.

I'm super stoked to be taking part in the first annual Simon & Schuster Pulse Blogfest! From March 14th - 27th, more authors than you can shake a stick at will be answering readers' questions. So send in your questions! http://www.pulseblogfest.com/

And speaking of more authors than you can shake a stick at (what does that even mean? shaking sticks at people seems a little aggressive. Unless it's a pretzel stick covered in chocolate that you actually give to them after shaking it in their face. Then, that'd just be good manners) What was I saying? Oh yes, lots of authors. Last night I went to David Levithan's book release party for his book of short stories How They Met. Since it was my MOMMA'S NIGHT OUT (caps due to the pure thrill of being out of the house past 8:00PM), I was really happy to find so many author friends in one place. It was like one stop shopping for catching up with people I don't get to see often enough. David read the title story from the book and made me all weepy, then his dad got up and spoke and that made me even MORE weepy. Luckily I was able to drink some soda and recover.

Oh my gosh, how good was Friday Night Lights last night? How do they still have new episodes? PLEEEEZE don't tell me it's be written by scabs, because even Tim Riggins isn't worth crossing the TiVo picket line.

We just found out that they are tearing down the building next door and building condos. Though I refuse to panic, I am a bit bummed that we are most likely going to lose our natural light, and the view from our deck is now going to be of a brick wall. Fine. I'll make a shade garden. This is the first year I've had any outdoor space in the city, and I'm bound and determined to enjoy it, even if it means planting seeds while being watched by construction dudes so close they could reach and give me a wet willy. Oh well, maybe they'll have gardening advice.

xoxo
AMV

I've just given myself a wicked case of main character jealousy. At first I didn't think it'd be something to be jealous of, I actually thought it was a little mean, but I think my main character and I both learned something when I started researching. For reasons to be explained when I finally finish (oh please God let me finish) the book, my main character has to do some time in the Great White North. I've sent her to fishing lodge in Canada, and at first I pictured months of smelling like fish guts and lamenting a lack of internet connection. And even though it's true that she might smell like fish guts and not have access to Facebook, I also hope she'll get to hang out with someone like Mo. Here's his website website, check out the newsletter from last season . It made me swoon!

xoxo
AMV

Heath Ledger is dead.

What. The. Fuck.*

So, so sad.


*Edited out, and then put back in. I'm having an internal debate about cursing! Brought on by having a bambino that will soon enough be parroting what I say.