Or get info here first, from me. Well, sort of from me. Good ol' cut n paste from the website should answer better than I can, courtesy of the wonder woman writer who started the thing, Maureen Johnson:
YA for Obama is a community of YA writers and readers and friends who have joined together because of our commitment to Future United States President Barack Obama. We think he's the right person for the job.
This is a social networking site, which means that when you join (it's free! easy! takes about a minute!) you can do LOADS of stuff around here. You can make your own page, contribute to the forum, upload your own photos and videos, and make friends who love Obama as much as you do. (Presuming you do. You probably do if you are here. Even if you do not, you are still welcome.)
Because there are so many writers contributing, you're going to hear a LOT of different points of view. Some you may LOVE. Some you may not agree with. The idea is that there are a lot of ways of looking at issues. Lots of contexts. Lots of things to consider.
One of the most important things on this site will be the content YOU create. We're looking to get people talking, and to figure out ways that we can ALL help Barack Obama become the next President. Even if you can't vote, there are plenty of things to be DONE! We all have to get out there and make this happen!
Now let's answer some more detailed questions.
WHAT IS YA?
YA stands for Young Adult, specifically in the context of books and authors. All of the authors contributing blogs to this page are Young Adult authors. (Including me . Hi.) YA books are generally written for people between the ages of about 12-20-ish. Or something. YA readers actually come in all ages. Basically, what it means is that we all write novels with teenaged main characters.
I AM NOT YOUNG. CAN I JOIN?
Yes. EVERYONE is welcome.
I AM NOT AN ADULT. CAN I JOIN?
Yes. EVERYONE is welcome.
I AM NOT AN AMERICAN. CAN I JOIN?
Yes. EVERYONE is welcome.
I DO NOT SUPPORT BARACK OBAMA. CAN I JOIN?
Yes. EVERYONE is welcome. Just don't be surprised if you catch OBAMA FEVER while you are here.
I AM A KIND OF SPONGE-CHEESE HYBRID THAT HAS DEVELOPED SENTIENCE. CAN I JOIN?
You are especially encouraged to join.
WHAT'S THE FIRST STEP?
Click on that sign up link, just to the right. See it? Again, it's FREE and EASY. From there, you'll be guided through the steps. You can do as much or as little as you like. If you just want to sign up and read the articles, great! If you want to make a tricked-out personal page and make loads of friends, do it!
WHAT ARE THE RULES OF THE FORUM?
The forum rules are right here , but I can sum them up very quickly. Anyone can express any point of view. The only request is that you respect each other. If you start hating on someone in a really mean and aggressive way and I find out about it, I will toss you out on your e-butt. You know like The Claw in Toy Story ? How it comes down and plucks the toys up by the head and takes them to a new world? It will be JUST LIKE THAT. Be nice. Don't make me go all Claw on you. Otherwise, DO WHAT YOU LIKE.
HOW LONG WILL THIS SITE BE AROUND?
Until the election, baby. We are in it for the win.
Back to Rachel Vail:
Visit the YA for Obama site (http://yaforobama.ning.com/) often, and keep coming here for updates, too. I'll be blogging about my early attempts at political activism, and why I am obsessed this time around…
Pub Day is upon us, so more on that soon, too. But first I have to take my two sick boys to the doctor so they can have Q-Tips shoved down their gag holes. The fun never stops around here!
September 19, 2008
Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!
In related (kind of) news, today is also “Talk Like A Pirate” Day. I am not sure that my parents chose their wedding date with this in mind, but you never know.
Big news:
My new picture book, JIBBERWILLIES AT NIGHT, is coming out soon! It is a sequel to my book SOMETIMES I'M BOMBALOO, with the same great illustrator, Yumi Heo, back as my partner… I am so excited to finally see it out and in stores. It has already gotten three terrific reviews:
From Kirkus:
This lively tale offers an ingenious solution to conquering children's nighttime fears. Vivacious Katie Honors welcomes readers into her fun-filled days of play dates and cozy family snuggles. However, even this ebullient youngster can be overcome by the late-night worries that strike when the lights go out. Vail transforms this nebulous angst most children experience at some point into a tribe of mischievous critters called Jibberwillies. When Katie's attempts to chase these gremlins away with good thoughts fail, she calls in the reinforcements: her mom. With bucket in hand, the duo “collect” the troublemakers and promptly toss them out the window. Heo's full-color artwork uses deep and vivid hues to convey Katie's rising anxieties. Her depictions of the Jibberwillies verge on intimidating and intense but effectively serve to validate Katie's—and the reader's—fears. With its clever resolution and understanding tone, this vibrant tale is a terrific antidote to things that go bump in the night.
From SLJ:
Katie tells readers right from the get-go that she is one happy kid. She loves to play with her friends, cuddle with her parents and little brother, and just twirl through life. That is, until she goes to bed. Most nights she can “comfortable” herself right to sleep, but other nights the Jibberwillies come. This is not a new subject but the treatment here is altogether fresh. In Heo's delightful artwork, the Jibberwillies are not frightening; they are more odd-looking than anything else. Their name might sound shivery but it doesn't conjure up awful ogres hovering over the bed. Katie tries to make them go away but it just doesn't work. Mommy comes in and, with Katie nearby, catches the creatures in a bucket and tosses them out an open window. This acknowledgment of a child's fear and allaying it makes for a positive and reassuring message. Well written and artfully designed, this is a sound choice for any collection. Pair it with Ed Emberley's Go Away, Big Green Monster! (Little, Brown, 2005) to be sure the Jibberwillies are gone for good. –
And, a starred review from Publishers Weekly!:
Exuberant and self-proclaimed “really happy kid” Katie Honors, the tantrum-thrower from Sometimes I'm Bombaloo , now explains what happens when she gets an attack of night terrors, otherwise known as “the jibberwillies.” When her own coping mechanisms don't quite work, her mother comes to the rescue by suggesting she catch the jibberwillies in a bucket. As they refine the strategy together, Katie finds the team approach both calming and empowering. Children (and parents) are certain to pick up that same vibe and will come away with new approaches for facing their own anxieties. Katie's personality leaps off the page via Vail's evocative language (“My friends yell 'Katie! Katie!' as soon as they see me.... I sometimes twirl instead of walking”) and Heo's bright and kicky mixed-media compositions. Playful arrangement and coloring of the type and a variety of perspectives and patterns in the art lend a sense of fun and movement to the overall design.
To celebrate the publication of Jibberwillies, I am going to be updating this website very soon… look for changes any day now. There will be contests to win FREE BOOKS, links to my Facebook (come friend me!) and MySpace (if I can remember how to get to it) and even some new treats…
And I will also tell you how I came to write this crazy, happy, lovely book back in September, 2001, when life was so full of jibberwillies it was hard to breathe.
For now, ARG! (Have a great Talk Like a Pirate Day.)
Love,
Rachel Vail
PS Wishing Jenna a great Bat Mitzvah tomorrow, with thanks for sending me the page from Teen Magazine featuring LUCKY!
August 23, 2008
I'm writing to you from New York City, despite the fact that I am spending the month in Connecticut. I came home for a brief vacation from our vacation for a wedding.
It was absolutely beautiful.
It was not the most elaborate wedding, not at all. In fact it was at City Hall, and the only people there to celebrate this wedding were the bride and groom, another friend of the bride's, me, and my two sons. We waited in some lines, sat in some hard plastic chairs, were ushered into a sterile room by a bored-looking official who had just performed another couple's ceremony and, from the looks of the waiting room, had many more ahead that afternoon.
But when the official started speaking, the bride and groom, Magda and Hubert, stood in front of her and looked into each other's eyes. She wore a simple white dress and held a small bouquet of roses. He wore a white shirt and khakis and held Magda's hand. A hush that came over that room, and the official slowed down, and looked at them – not as anonymous stuff to do anymore, but as people. Two people making the most profound possible commitment to each other. And their love was so present in that room, suddenly, that it was transformed into sacred space.
I had a professor in college who talked a lot about what makes a thing sacred. Some people believe a thing is sacred if God makes it so, but this professor, Father Reddington, who was a Jesuit priest, thought that people create sacredness by the way they act. A place becomes sacred when it is treated as sacred; a day, an object, a person – it is the acting as if the thing is sacred that sanctifies it. Another professor, Doc Murphy, taught me to create (or discover) magic objects (he called them nuggets) in what I write, to come up with a thing that takes on sacred importance because of its meaning to the characters – a green dress, a grandmother's earring, a cell phone -- and to find those moments between characters that are sacred because of the way the characters approach it. When I am able to create that in a book, when I come to a moment that has a stillness in it that feels sacred, that's when I know I'm on the right track. It is the best part of being a writer, that feeling of being a witness to a sacred moment.
I guess it is one of the best parts of being a person, too.
And yesterday I got a chance to do that. In the hush of that room, as Magda and Hubert stood beside each other and promised to love each other forever, we few who were there all suddenly knew we witnessing a sacred vow. The official asked if they had rings. My older son handed Magda's ring to Hubert; my younger son handed Hubert's ring to Magda. They slipped the rings onto each other's fingers. Nobody made a sound.
The no-longer-brusque official's voice cracked as she pronounced them married, and said, “You may kiss your bride.” The kissed, they expressed some astonishment at being married, and we walked out into the bright sunshine of a perfect summer afternoon to take pictures and celebrate. My cheeks are still sore from smiling.
Romance doesn't need orchestras and florists, caterers and cathedrals. Romance can be as simple as a glance held overlong, a hand in a hand, a smile that finds its mirror in the face across the room.
Congratulations, Magda and Hubert. May all your moments together as a couple be as sacred and full of love as those first few were.
Love,
Rachel Vail
July 30, 2008
Wow, could July be ending already?
Happy birthday Lucy (today)!
Happy Birthday Jill (tomorrow)!
And, in the past two weeks, Happy Birthday to Liam, Richard, me, and Aunt Tillie!!!! (And any of you other July babies…)
Aunt Tillie, as you may know, turned 95 last week. I went, with my family, down to Florida to celebrate. I think everybody at the party would agree: we all want to be Aunt Tillie when we grow up. Not only does she make every person feel like the most special human being to walk the earth, as my cousin Arthur said, and not only does she remember absolutely everything, as my cousin David said – she also looks so incredibly HOT! (as I said.) She spoke for almost an hour, with a few casual glances toward her notes, introducing every single person in the room with such love and generosity and details about each of us… she amazes me. I adore her.
A few nights before Aunt Tillie's bash, my husband and I spent the night visiting with Meg Cabot and her sweet husband in Key West. It was such fun, hanging out, feet in the pool, sipping drinks made with Key limes pulled from their backyard tree, chatting and laughing… Made me miss Meg more than ever. Thank goodness for email.
Then we got back home in time for my older son to perform in Midsummer Night's Dream, the play every person is apparently studying this year (did you study it? Did you do Shakespeare at all this year? Midsummer is so dirty , it cracks me up that so many schools use it – maybe just because it's so funny… but seriously! Crazy nights of love out in the woods? Is this stuff really appropriate? If I put some of that stuff in my books, I'd be censored all over the place! But that is a discussion for another time, perhaps…) My son played Bottom, as did my younger son a few months ago. I am not going to wonder why the whole family keeps getting cast as a character named Bottom, but I am just not going to go there.
Then it was my birthday! It was a beautiful day and I had fun all through it. The morning with my kids, lunch with a friend, a walk through Central Park, then out to dinner with my husband and kids and parents, and then a quick drive out to the beach to visit my in-laws, watch the waves, and soak up the sun (bad bad bad I know, but I can't help loving it once in a while). Fabulous day. Sunday was stormy but that was cool, too. Do you love thunderstorms? I do, especially at the beach. So we watch the wind, rain, and lightning, read books, took naps, and ate a lot.
Monday was my little guy's ninth birthday. I took him and his big bro and my mom on a Circle Line boat trip (okay, a few more rays, but it was kind of still like my birthday weekend, a long weekend, like on a holiday…) and then, after my mom dropped off me and the boys, we picked up a picnic and my husband and drove out to the Meadowlands in NJ to see Bruce Springsteen's concert. It was awesome. We tailgated in the parking lot, which was like a Bruce song sprung to life. And the concert was as perfect as the warm, breezy night – Bruce even sang happy birthday to my son! (Okay, he thought he was singing it to his wife, Patti, but still…) and also sang my son's all-time favorite song, Thunder Road. We all rocked out and had a dandy time.
It has been just what summer should be around here – happy, hot, romantic, and sweet.
How is your summer going?
Tell me…
Love,
Rachel Vail
July 15, 2008
Hope everybody had a great Bastille Day yesterday…
A few things to catch up on:
The winners of the SUMMER CONTEST have been notified! What great stories you all sent in. Thanks so much – that was really fun. If you are not a winner of a free signed book (and possibly other cool stuff), do not despair. There will be another contest very soon for you to enter… keep checking here and on the FREE STUFF page.
Here are some of my favorite lines from what people wrote (see if you recognize your own!):
I'm not looking forward to high school… but I don't want to go back to middle school either... I just want to stay in summer.
There's no love lost between me and chlorine.
So I've always had kind of fantasies for the summer. Which never came true, by the way…
Great openers, great stories, all.
In other news, I went to Books of Wonder down in Chelsea the other night for the Teen Panel, which was so much fun. There was a really good crowd, and all the authors were so interesting. We had 3-5 minutes to read something from our latest book or just talk about it. I read the first chapter of LUCKY. That usually takes more like seven minutes, so I read it as fast as I could! My agent, editor, her amazing assistant, and publicist were all there, along with my family and some friends, and the fantastic people of Books of Wonder, and lots of people who asked thought-provoking questions and generally had a good time…
But I didn't get to tell my story of humiliation from the first time I went to Books of Wonder so I will divulge all here now:
My first book, WONDER, had just been published. (Also I had just fallen in love with the guy I'd had a crush on in high school, the most amazing guy one of my friends called “catch of all catches” and he was even cuter and more interesting and wittier than he'd been in high school and, most amazingly, he was in love with me, too.) I was stumbling around in a state of elation and disbelief all the time that fall… so when I was wandering (with my hot boyfriend) through an unfamiliar neighborhood in NYC and came upon a children's bookstore named, of all things, Books of Wonder, I thought I must be dreaming. My boyfriend assured me I was not and, in his proud way, dragged me in to see if they stocked my new book, WONDER. We looked on the shelves. Nothing. I went up to the desk.
“Do you have a book called WONDER?”
The guy at the desk looked it up. Nothing.
I tried to convince him maybe he did have it, because it was a book for kids or young teens and it had part of the bookstore's name in it…
“There's no such book,” the guy told me.
I felt sunk, but marshaled my courage. “It's new,” I excused it, feebly.
“Do you know the author's name?” he asked, unconvinced.
I did. “Rachel Vail,” I said.
He had me spell it. I felt like an utter dork.
“There's no such author,” he told me. “Unless, are you sure you're spelling it right?”
A more confident person might have taken out her driver's license at that point to prove it, and said I know there is such an author because I am that author, and my book was recently published by Orchard books and got starred reviews, you condescending jerk!
Instead I meekly nodded, yes, I was sure I had the spelling of Rachel Vail's name right, and wandered away, grabbing my boyfriend and the shreds of my dignity on my way out.
Why?
Because I feared he was right – that there was no such book, and no such author. His pronouncement seemed to confirm my worst fears – that I had made all this good fortune up, imagined the whole thing. I half expected the boyfriend to disappear in a wisp of smoke, too, now that my bluff had been called.
But no. (Phew!) He didn't. He stuck around and we've been married fifteen years now. There is such an author as Rachel Vail, and I do know how to spell it (though not too many other things) and my 30 th book is coming out in the fall (more about that soon!)
It took me a few years before I was able to walk back into Books of Wonder. I'm glad I did, though – it's a wonderful store and I recommend you all check it out if you can (18 W 18 th Street).
Telling this story just now reminds me of one other thing. A good friend of mine, Magda, once told me that when she was a kid, she wanted to be a nurse. Everybody kept telling her she would hate being a nurse -- too messy, too intense. Though she didn't agree with them, she said, “you know how when people tell you something over and over, you start to believe it, even if it isn't true?”
I keep thinking about that – how you can know something isn't true and yet believe it anyway. I almost half believed that stranger in a store who said there was no such book as mine, no such author as me. As my new protagonist, Phoebe's sister Allison says, “It's easier to believe that bad stuff about yourself.”
Resist.
Believe what you know is true.
Especially if it is something you like about yourself.
It's hard, but ultimately good and important.
And meanwhile, have some fun. It's summer…
Love,
Rachel Vail
PS I'm heading down to Florida to celebrate my Aunt Tillie's 95 th birthday. Hooray for Aunt Tillie!!!
June 30, 2008
Thanks to all who sent in ideas for my son's birthday party. I'm taking some of your ideas (including, yikes, some make your own food events and the thing where you eat licorice strings toward the marshmallow in the center game… good calls, I hope, on those! Thanks, I think.) We're doing a Jungleland theme – both the animals and Bruce Springsteen variety – so wish me luck.
Just got some great news about LUCKY: it's on the Texas State Lonestar Award list – so to all my friends in Texas, thanks!!! And tell your friends – if LUCKY wins, I think I get to come back to Texas to have a big celebration or something, which I would love to do…
Meanwhile, keep the contest entries coming. The ones I've read so far are awesome. A few people have suggested that I should post some good bits of what people write. You got it. I will do it. Other people have written to me asking for my help with maintaining a place for fanlit. I am doing what I can for you – but meanwhile, I will be hosting more and more writing events here at my site – so get ready to write. We readers need your passionate voices. I will start posting your stuff (and sending prizes to winners) the second week in July!
Keep writing, in general and to me.
Love,
Rachel Vail
June 22, 2008
Some big news this week:
For the first time ever, I am on a panel at the New York Public Library. And I am really psyched, because check out this lineup:
June 25 -- Teen Author Reading Night (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6 th Ave, at 10 th St.)
Susanne Colasanti, Take Me There
John Coy, Box Out
Sarah Beth Durst, Out of the Wild
Daphne Grab, Alive and Well in Prague, New York
E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and a stand-in for Lauren Myracle, How to Be Bad
Randi Reisfeld, Rehab
Rachel Vail, Lucky
I can't wait. Thanks to the great David Levithan for setting this up. ( http://www.davidlevithan.com ) If you are going to be down in Greenwich Village this Wednesday evening (and why would you not be?), please come hang with us.
The booksigning I did a few days ago was great fun. Thanks so much to all who came over to Bank Street Bookstore, and especially all my friends at Bank Street for setting it up so nicely. It was really fun to read from LUCKY for the first time. I felt, as I read the first chapter aloud, like I was trying to imitate the voices of the characters. I knew, on some level, that of course I was the only person on the planet who'd ever heard their voices before (in my head) so it wasn't like trying to mimic a famous person… but still I felt a little frustrated that I couldn't imitate them more exactly. On the other hand, I did love performing them – brought me back to my theater days, which I do sometimes miss.
Today I went to my Aunt Ronnie's booksigning. She writes excellent cookbooks, and her new one, called Hip Kosher, looks like a lot of fun. I love her recipes because they are easy and yet they come out great. Check them out…
Keep those contest entries coming! You know you want to win free stuff! I will pick a random winner after the July 4 th weekend… why random? Why not just pick the most compelling, poetic, beautiful essay about (see below for more info) summer? Well, a few reasons: school is out so the pressure should be off; this is just for fun so no stress about style, spelling, etc.; and, I like randomness. And since I got to make the rules, random is the way it'll happen!
Once in college I was typing a friend's paper for her and found that mid-essay, she had written the sentence, “Thus, blueberries.” This was a paper discussing the history of Bauhaus architecture. Thus, blueberries? She shrugged, and since it was a pretty convincing shrug, I typed it right in there. Now I can't hear the words Bauhaus architecture (and isn't it weird how often that phrase pops up?) without thinking “Thus, blueberries.”
Speaking of randomness.
I am now, thanks to Lily, Sarah, Trina, Elise, and Amy, on both Facebook and Myspace, so if you are, too, drop me a friend request…
Oh, the other big news this week is that my above-mentioned niece Trina is coming to visit. Maybe I will finally get her to guest blog…
Congratulations to two more nieces, Sarah and Hannah, who are both graduating from high school. They have grown from two of the cutest, sweetest babies into two amazing, talented, kind, bright, artistic young women. Each of them (they are not related to each other, live hundreds of miles apart and actually barely know each other) won an incredibly impressive award at graduation in the past few days. I am so proud of them both, and feel so lucky (that word again) that they are part of my life. As the mom in LUCKY says (in a different context), “Go conquer the world, girls!”
And finally, I am planning my little guy's ninth birthday party. I used to entertain at kids' birthday parties, so this should be a snap for me, right? I was a clown (though clowns terrify me) or just a magician (if the kid didn't like clowns either), and I ran the whole party from games to treasure hunts to balloon -- well, animals would be a stretch, okay balloon, um, sculptures… it was a great job, but a ton of work. I got fifty bucks a pop, which went a long way for a high school girl back in the day. This time, however, the mom isn't paying me anything (oh, yeah, I'm the mom) and I have not yet come up with a great plan… with one week to go, does anybody have any brilliant suggestions?
Remind me to tell you next time about my poetry bathroom.
Speaking, again, of randomness.
My contest entry: I love that in summer randomness rules.
Happy summer!
Love,
Rachel Vail
June 18, 2008
Happy end of school!
For all of you graduates, congratulations… and I include those who are just moving up a grade. You are now entering that weird zone when there is really no answer to the question, “What grade are you in?” Since what grade you're in is so central to your identity all year, it feels kind of unbalancing to be between, doesn't it? I always just said, “I'm going into (whatever) grade” in the summers, but that doesn't quite feel like a solid thing, more like a destination.
Maybe that's part of what gives summer it's time-out-of-time feeling.
But, of course, there is more to the magic of summer than just not knowing what grade you're in.
The regular schedules of life are suspended. Parts of your body that even you yourself only see in the shower the rest of the year are out there on display. Days stretch into night territory. Some stuff slows down, like how fast you can walk; some stuff speeds up, like the intensity of relationships… You get that buzzy feeling in your head on those long summer evenings, and it's deliciously addictive…
That's what I love about summer. How about you? What do you love – or hate?
Tell me your stories of summer – what do you wish for this summer? What do you dread? What is the best or most romantic or most exciting thing you ever did in summer? What did you do that made you feel completely unlucky – or – like the luckiest person on the planet?
Put Summer Story in the subject line and send me your thoughts.
I'll post bits of your responses here soon… and here's the kicker: Every response will be automatically entered into my first ever contest. I will pick one response, at random, and that person will win a free, signed copy of LUCKY, along with some extra goodies to go along with it!
But remember – it's summer – it doesn't have to be long or have perfect spelling or grammar. Go ahead and babble your random thoughts. I love that.
Oh, and yes, my stitches are out. It wasn't nearly as bad as getting them in, despite the fact that my husband took them out at the kitchen table and at first wanted to remove them with the hair-cutting scissors! No way! So we had to wait an extra day and get the official stitches removal kit. Not fun, but not awful. So this is my advice, kids: if you have a choice, get stitches taken out instead of put in.
Now – tell me your summer story! I've got a book to send you…
Love,
Rachel Vail
June 9, 2008
What a week!
A few hours after I last wrote, I was heading out to the bookstore with my younger son and decided (well maybe decided is too decisive a word) to fly down the stairs of my building instead of walking.
Why?
Yes, well, good question.
Have I mentioned that my elevator is being repaired? By repaired I mean, actually, replaced. Have I mentioned that I live on the eighth floor? Do you know how long it takes to replace an elevator in a Manhattan building?
That is a trick question.
The trick answer: It depends on the building.
I have heard that in a high-rise office building down on Wall Street, an elevator can be replaced in a day.
Up here in Academic-land, where the professors and intellectuals and the like live, it apparently takes months. Months. Five so far, and we're still hauling our selves up and down, over and over, trudging our way up and down seventeen steps per flight (you end up counting, eventually) – unless, like me, your feet decide to lodge a protest, much to the surprise of the rest of your body, and refuse to trudge down one more step, declaring (in foot style) that is IT! Not one step more! Up in the air I go!
And nobody was more surprised (with the possible exception of my 8-year-old) than my elbow, which was suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into stair duty.
At which point it split open, sending me to the hospital to get stitches. Well, especially after my husband, who is a doctor and who therefore HATES to go to the hospital on his free time unless absolutely necessary, took a look at my arm and said, “EW! Okay. We gotta take you in…”
You never realize how often you lean forward on your elbow until it is held together by twine, I have discovered. Or how often you use elbows for stuff like banging into everything.
To add to the thrill of it all, I had only a few hours between getting home from the ER and heading out to visit one of my absolute favorite middle schools in the world, Eastchester Middle School. Luckily, everybody there was very sweet, warm, funny, and interesting – so I forgot all about how much my arm hurt until after I left and tried to buckle my seatbelt. Ouch!
Here are some pics from the day (no elbow shots, so no worries for the squeamish among us)…
Everything is now almost back to normal… until Wednesday, when I am going to make a video about LUCKY (more about that after I do it!) and then Wednesday night, when my husband is going to take my stitches out after dinner. Yikes!
Send strong wishes my way. I think I may hate being sewn down almost as much as being sewn up.
Love,
Rachel Vail
June 2, 2008
The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.
-William Faulkner
This past weekend I went to my college reunion. I knew I'd have fun because I was going with a bunch of my old pals, who are some of the funniest people currently walking the planet. I could have spent the whole weekend laughing if I'd been stuck in an elevator with them the entire time. Leslie started the weekend by telling a hilarious story about which stall you must use if you have to poop while at work (the far back one) and what happened when her sister Liz bent down to see if the person in the pooping stall was her friend, because they were supposed to go out to lunch together. But the shoes she saw belonged to her boss instead, and meanwhile Liz's necklace got caught in her zipper. Picture it – there was Liz, bent way down, with her boss about to emerge from the pooping stall to find Liz clearly peeking under and unable to stop, without a complete necklace sacrifice. I was laughing too hard to hear what she ultimately did, after that first moment of panic – I think she may have stumbled out into the hall but then did she have to explain to someone how in the world she got her necklace caught in her pants' zipper, in order to get help? I have no idea.
That was about the level of our humor for most of the weekend, which partially explains why my cheeks ache from smiling.
But even beyond the friends I was looking forward to seeing, it was surprisingly wonderful to reconnect with lots of people I hadn't seen in many, many years. I was particularly struck by how easy it was to talk with so many of them. I never wanted to go to sleep. There was a moment during the party Friday night when I could've sworn I was still in college and almost looked for my old boyfriend, as I would've, back in the day, if I didn't see my friends around and I felt a twinge of boredom. He wasn't there, and if he were, I wouldn't have felt at all comfortable going up and just hanging with him like I used to! Among other more relevant reasons, I haven't seen him in a very, very long time. So it was a weird thought on many levels. Anyway, after I kind of shook my head to get rid of that freaky feeling, I wandered around the room some more, and found more interesting people to hang with. And I had an amazing time with them all the rest of the weekend, talking about the past, the present, hopes and dreams and funny stuff, sweet stuff, kids, jobs, politics, troubles and struggles, conflicts and successes, how much had changed over the years and how much really hadn't… and just hanging out in the misty Washington night, smelling the damp grass and the Potomac and the beer, listening to the laughter and the sighs… It definitely made me wish I hadn't had a boyfriend so much of the time in college…
Today I have been shockingly unproductive, mostly because I keep thinking about the weekend and everything I did. I was actually supposed to be interviewed for the website www.YAmansion.com today at noon, but the person who was supposed to interview me forgot! So I just sat there on this gorgeous day by myself in a café and thought about the past, and how immediate it sometimes feels in the present. I am a good rememberer, which helps in this line of work – but there are definitely moments that zap a person back to the entirety of being somebody you used to be – and going back to a place you haven't been in a while, with people who used to be there with you, is a real-life time machine. The sights, sounds, and smells all conspired to remind me in the most visceral of ways who I was, and who I am.
Crazy cool.
And those feelings? Coming soon to a book near you…
“…so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
May 19, 2008
Great news! Lucky just got a starred review from Publisher's Weekly!
Here ‘tis:
Lucky Rachel Vail. HarperTeen, $16.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-06-089043-8
Publishers Weekly (starred review) May 19 th Issue
Vail ( You, Maybe ) again demonstrates a penetrating insight into the concerns of young teen girls, this time upending the conventions of the rich-girl novel. In the first of a trilogy about three sisters, 14-year-old Phoebe, the appealing narrator, and her two older siblings have been coached to view themselves and their über-successful investor mother as Valkyries (“Nobody—nothing—can intimidate us. We will never back down; we will never surrender,” their mother tells them over breakfast). Less a Valkyrie than a people-pleaser, Phoebe has joined her best friends to plan a lavish eighth-grade graduation party, for which Phoebe has picked out a Vera Wang gown. But when her mother gets fired abruptly for what could be shady dealings, Phoebe is forced to think about money for the first time, and to wonder how much effect it has on her friendships and popularity. Vail gets the relationships exactly right, from the shifting twosomes among the sisters to the changing attitudes among the eighth-grade friends and their parents, and most especially, the shifts in behavior within her protagonist. Readers will absorb this in one fell swoop. Ages 12–up. (May)
Thanks to all of you who've been writing to me about having read the book! I love your comments – and knowing what cracks you up is my favorite thing in the world, maybe, even including dark chocolate. Well, probably. No, I really think so! Lauren liked the part about Phoebe's laugh sounding hideously like a donkey braying when she was trying to flirt with Luke. What about you?
Also – it is totally Meg Cabot's fault that I got almost nothing done this morning. If she hadn't sent me her absolutely absorbing new book, Airhead, (in which, by the way, I get a shout out – se the Acknowledgements page!) I would not have been forced to curl up and read all morning on the couch…
Love,
Rachel Vail
May 13, 2008
I'm back from the International Reading Association conference in Atlanta, GA, and here is what I learned there:
YOU, MAYBE is one of the IRA/CBC Young Adult Choices for 2008! (Okay, I actually just found that out an hour ago, while I was sitting in a café drinking tea with a friend. I mean, working on a book. Whatever. But it seemed like IRA news, so it gets included here.) Hooray!!!!
It is apparently funny and interesting if there is a fire drill in your hotel just before dawn, because you get to see all the people you work with in their pajamas.
Reading teachers are very cool and opinionated and funny. Okay, I already knew that. But still, I learned it all over again.
In a convention, there are different grades of carpet that the various vendors (in this case, mostly publishers) can have, based on a very complicated rubric involving how much they are willing to pay, how big their booth is, the astrological signs of the majority of employees, etc.
It is hard to walk gracefully on wedges when you are wearing your first ever pair of wedges and the thickness of the carpeting you are walking on keeps changing.
If you are chosen as the ambassador of children's books, as Jon Scieszka was, you get to wear a morning coat with a very snazzy red sash across it.
It turns out I want to get chosen to be an ambassador of children's books someday so I can have a red sash. And a morning coat. Though Meg Cabot's shoes were cuter than his (sorry, Jon.)
It is one of life's great pleasures to watch a baseball game in Atlanta in May, as the sun sets. Also, the Atlanta Braves' manager gets thrown out of games more often than any other manager. (On the night I was there, he wasted no time at all, getting thrown out in, I think, the second inning.)
The people on the panel with me were great – thought-provoking and funny. We were all supposed to talk about girls and books – each of us had a different take on it – and I learned so much! Here are their names and websites:
And the moderator, who put us together and organized us and kept us going, was Claudia Katz of the National-Louis University of Skokie, IL. She is a real class act.
10. M&M's are good, for making friends and also for lunch.
Love,
Rachel Vail
May 1, 2008
LUCKY is in stores now!
And I just got this terrific starred review from Bulletin:
Middle-school graduation is approaching, and despite some differences of opinion among the hostesses, Phoebe's excited about the huge graduation party that she's planning with her friends. When her mother loses her lucrative job in high-powered finance, however, the comfortably moneyed world of Phoebe and her two older sisters takes an alarming turn. Already uneasy about the snobbery of her best friend, Kirstyn, and the shifting planes of insider- and outsiderdom within her clique, Phoebe stubbornly refuses to share the news with her friends and tries to figure out a way to kill the party she can no longer afford to host without denting her social status. What could be a superficial tale about a girl whose tragedy is having to pass up a $400 dress becomes, under the skilled hands of Rachel Vail, a highly readable, thoughtfully nuanced account of a fourteen-year-old just beginning to realize how lucky she has really been. The book has clear sympathy for Phoebe's position – she really is worried about her mother, and Kirstyn really does dismiss people summarily for lesser crimes – but it doesn't let her off the hook, either: not only does her dad very appropriately take her to task for her questionable priorities in a family crisis, it turns out that Phoebe has been underestimating Kirstyn, who has silently been a better friend to Kirstyn than Phoebe has been to her. We've had more dramatic sagas of the sudden fall from wealth, but this is superior for its realism, its moderation (Phoebe isn't a snobby princess, just a young person who can't quite grasp that what she's accustomed to isn't quite the norm any more), and its understated complexity of characters and relationships. Readers will drink up the drama and impatiently await the planned follow-up titles. (STARRED)
Also, I am now (thanks, Trina and Sarah) on Facebook. If you are, too, come visit, friend me, join the Rachel Vail's Books club…
I just finished revising the sequel to LUCKY (this one is called GORGEOUS) and it is after 2AM. My butt has fallen asleep and now the rest of me is going to follow its lead.
Let me know if you get a copy of LUCKY!!!
Love,
Rachel Vail
April 3, 2008
It's my husband's birthday today!
Don't tell him — I'm going to cook up a feast. He is the BEST person to cook for, because he loves everything, and like many good cooks, totally appreciates being cooked for. I'm even ( shhhh !) going to try to make a birthday cake from scratch — meaning not from a box. Apparently you can do it starting just from flour and sugar and stuff. We'll see. I have my doubts. I'll let you know how it goes…
Other stuff before I get to the big book news of the day:
It has been noted by a couple of readers that the kissing quiz posted here is a shorter, simpler version of the quiz in the back of the paperback of IF WE KISS. You are right. If you want the full, real thing, and to find out really what kind of kisser you are — yeah, you gotta get the book. But I just took the shorter version, too — and it turns out that right this moment, I am most like Phoebe in the book I was originally calling 3 PROMISES but am now calling LUCKY — which is about to come out! Did you see the cool countdown thingy on the front page of my site? (Thanks to Magda, webmaster extraordinaire!!!!)
So that brings us to the book news:
LUCKY is about to come out! It is due in stores on April 19 th , though some places, including my friends in Sinton, may get it a little early. Please tell me when you get yours — first one to report in wins a special congratulations bulletin. Not joking. It will have fireworks and stuff right here on the blog , with your first name or nickname!
Here is the cover of LUCKY:
It's the first cover of a book of mine that I have really loved. I am so excited about this book, and look forward to discussing it with you all and maybe traveling around a bit to do some signings, etc.
One of the reasons I started writing this book, the first in a trilogy about the rich, beautiful, fabulous Avery sisters (Phoebe, 14, is the narrator of this one; her older sisters will have their chances in the next two books) is that I was thinking about money. It's like the one thing that feels way out of bounds to discuss, even with close friends — and yet it affects so much of what we can do — the parties we can throw, the vacations and shoes and clothes we can afford, the activities we can choose — or not.
When I was 14, my dad's business went under. I could read books about girls in wartime or getting their periods, families coping with death, time travel, and other disasters — but there was nothing about what happens when suddenly your family can't afford the stuff they always could before. And it was private family business, not for discussing with my friends — it was barely MY business, never mind theirs. So what was a girl to do? Just worry? Just imagine what was ahead for us? There was no internet then, no blog I could join (I know; I sound like a dinosaur or like my grandmother) — so I wrote in my journal and I tried to not think about it (I don't have that skill at ALL) and I guess just pushed on with life. Things turned out fine for us, luckily — but I was a heck of a lot more aware of the tension my parents were feeling than they knew I was.
And I swore to myself that when I grew up, I would remember how all that felt.
So, since one of the themes of LUCKY is money — or really, how it feels when money becomes an issue in a family, I want to open it up to you.
How is your family doing, in this shaky economy? Are you or any of your friends worrying about it? How does money affect the social standing of kids in your community? What happens when somebody in your group can't afford what the rest can — whether it's a movie ticket or the same level shoes or activities?
One of the hardest things to cope with, I found, was the isolation — so while, not being a financial wiz myself, I'm certainly not in any position to give financial help, I thought maybe what I could offer is that this could be a safe place to air your stresses. I will post a few thoughts that you share with me, if you want me to (all posts will be without names, so no worries about protecting privacy) — and maybe the twin acts of putting feelings and worries into words, and then reading those of others going through similar stuff, will ease your load a bit.
Just send your thoughts to me here at the site and I'll get them up soon.
And don't forget to tell me when you get a copy of LUCKY!
Love,
Rachel Vail
April 1, 2008
From now on, this blog will be all about dieting. I am sick of books, sick of keeping it real, all that stuff about being true to yourself . Forget it. I'm done. Now I will share only diet tricks. Fiction helps nobody — but dieting properly helps us all. For today I will list only the main points of my diet revolution:
1. Eat what you like, just not too much.
2. Try to cultivate a taste for real things, especially fruits and veggies, instead of sugar and chemicals.
3. Treat yourself well. You deserve to feel and look good.
Yikes, that last bit was veering back toward that whole be true to yourself thing. Oops.
4. Decide one thing that is a special treat for you (dark chocolate for me) and treat yourself sometimes. Other junk you avoid because you are saving up for that treat…
5. Drink a lot. Of water! No soda. (Unless that is your special treat.)
6. Exercise as much as possible.
Okay, confession time: just kidding. April Fools joke. I am not going to try to become a diet guru after all. Especially because that is it, pretty much all I have to say for diet secrets. Brilliant, isn't it? Well, actually, I kind of do think it is brilliant. But I think if I want to be a diet guru I would have to come up with something more wacky than that. Saying, “You know what's bad for you — avoid it; you know what's good for you — eat that” will hardly bring me fame or fortune. Alas.
A few years ago on April Fool's Day, my husband decided to play a joke on our older son, and so said, “Hey! It's your birthday! Happy Birthday!” Now I should mention that this son's birthday is in October, almost exactly as far from April as you can get, and that this son ADORED his birthday and planned his parties months in advance (well, both my sons do that; we are in a constant state of birthday party planning around here) so this was a joke DESTINED to fail. BUT IT DIDN'T. “It is?” he asked, delighted. “I had no idea! That's so exciting!” My husband felt terrible, especially as our son, with eyes twinkling, wondered aloud what we should do to celebrate. My husband pulled me into the hall to beg me to just let it be his birthday, we'd get a cake and invite people over… but, figuring the truth would eventually come out, sucked it up and went back in to confess with a meek, “ April Fools!?”
We had a cake anyway. Because, what the hell.
Meanwhile, that little guy has now grown up so much he just took the KISSING QUIZ from the back of IF WE KISS!
If you want to take the quiz yourself, click here:
(Confession: I just got an email pointing out that I had never posted my own results from the kissing quiz on this blog , despite having promised to! Sorry! And thanks for calling me out… so that's why I found myself taking the quiz again, and persuading my now 13-year-old who no longer gets quite as easily April Fooled, to take it with me!)
And now ( drumroll ) our results…
Weirdly enough, he and I both scored in the same range!
We are both (as long as you still have the drum out, go ahead and roll again): CHARMING KISSERS!!!!
I probably could've guessed that.
But it was fun to confirm it.
How did you score?
Love,
Rachel Vail
March 18, 2008
Just back from a trip to Sinton, Texas, where I visited Smith Junior High School and had a great time. Here's a picture:
Sinton Texas is famous for having the largest squirrel in all of Texas, which scared the jelly out of me until I realized they meant a sculpture of a squirrel, and that it was in front of a store, Aunt Aggie De's, that sells, among other lovely things, candy!
I had a terrific day with all the students and faculty at Smith. They were so interesting and sweet. I love Texas! This is now my second trip (my first was to San Antonio, which is gorgeous, for the Texas Library Association meeting last year — so great!) unless you count my secret trips to Friday Night Lights…
I managed not to mention FNL to anyone this time, on the theory that it would seem funny to me if a visitor to my town (Manhattan) kept asking me about Sex in the City or Gossip Girl and if we are all really like that (even though, of course, we are.)
Some other highlights of my trip, beyond the squirrel:
- I talked to a real rodeo star, who was also a girl in junior high
- I said y'all, twice, just to try it out
- I went to a lovely restaurant, the Back Street Café, with a terrific librarian named Ms. Hart, and ate some yummy catfish and all the offerings of the bean bar, which has to be one of the all-time great additions to the salad bar
- I got some great ideas for future books.
Thank you Sinton, Texas! And thank you to Ms. Hart for the adorable iMods – I will be jotting my notes and ideas in them for months to come…
While I was waiting for my plane on the way to Texas, I found out that my new book, LUCKY, will be featured in TEEN Magazine in June as one of their summer picks! Yay !
So things are really moving on that front… more about LUCKY soon, including the jacket!
But before I leave this note about my trip, I must add that when I drove up to the school, which I had written down as Smith Jr. High, I saw that it was actually the E. Merle Smith Junior High… and it felt very jolted for a moment:
One of my best friends when I was in junior high was a brilliant, complex, deep, beautiful and hilarious girl named Merle. Merle died last month, and I am still very much mourning her passing. So while I was at the school, I made a conscious effort to honor my old friend by speaking as truthfully I could about the real pain and power of adolescence — and to find the humor we always helped each other remember, back then, too. Hang in there, Merle and I used to tell each other, because someday, mark my words, we're going to be truly great … and so that's what I say to y'all, today, too.
Love,
Rachel Vail
March 6, 2008
Hello, again!
I am (prematurely) digging myself out from under stacks of everything, which I by all rights should not be doing until next week, when I send in the completed first draft of my book GORGEOUS . I am sending it in on Monday. That is why today instead of writing the second to last chapter I banged my head against the wall all day. Not literally, of course. Literally I chased myself around my apartment and ate handfuls of chocolate chips. After 6 hours of that, I realized I couldn't write the second to last chapter because the third to last chapter ended the wrong way. So I spent the next two hours fixing that. The other thing I did today (well, other than reading every possible political website — I have become a real junkie — don't even get me started, since this is not a political blog) was accidentally discovered that computer keeps tabs on me.
Here are some interesting facts about this soon to be completed FIRST DRAFT:
Total editing time: 20,990 minutes
Revision number: 179
Wow. This book better be really good. That's crazy. Or I am really slow.
Other interesting tidbits about this book, minus its last 2 chapters, before it is edited:
It has 268628 characters (meaning letters. It is not a Russian novel.)
It has 50360 words (including a few repeats, I think)
It has 2271 paragraphs and 5114 lines.
That is such weird stuff to know. I have not decided whether to feel flattered or freaked out that my computer keeps track of all that for me.
BTW, GORGEOUS is the second book in my new trilogy. The first, LUCKY, will be coming out this spring. I will post a picture of the cover soon. It is the first cover of one of my novels that I actually LOVE.
In other news:
I am leading a roundtable later today at the Authors Guild, where I will sit with about 20 authors and share advice and (I hope) funny stories about visiting schools. I hope I learn good stuff because in one week I will be visiting a school in Corpus Christi, TX and I want to do a good job! Especially because by being in Texas, I will miss seeing my son in a spelling bee. (He luckily did not inherit his mother's impressively awful spelling ability and I love to clap for him. Sigh.)
Meanwhile, if you have some advice or warnings or funny stories about authors visiting schools, email me!
I recently wrote my first book review! I was nervous — what if I hated the book? What if I had nothing interesting to say about it? And it was for Publisher's Weekly, which is a hugely influential journal. Yikes! Luckily, the book they gave me to review was great so I had an easy time: Meg Cabot's new book for kids, Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls. Here's the review…
Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, December 2007 (Vol. 61, No. 4).) Righty and Lefty are, as the subtitle indicates, two feet; they "don't always get along so well, but they are stuck with each other because they are two feet on one person." An average day requires them to negotiate their different temperaments (Righty likes to be moving, Lefty likes to hang in bed) and different tastes (Righty likes every shoe, while Lefty only likes galoshes), but they also enjoy playing together (though each foot has won its share of foot races, the finish "is always close"), and ultimately they're a team ("It is no fun to be Righty without Lefty"). It's a wonderfully weird story, filled with hilarious detail and deadpan humor, that clearly draws on sibling relationships for its model ("It's always fun until someone gets hurt," intones the narration after Righty chases Lefty into a door). Cordell's easygoing line-and-watercolor illustrations, vignettes floating amid white space, avoid contrived personification, simply keeping the feet so sustainedly in focus that they gain character through sheer persistence (Lefty, by the way, is the one with the band-aid). Giggling audiences won't be able to resist responding by putting their own best feet forward.
Review Code:
R* -- Recommended.
A book of special distinction.
(c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2007, Scholastic, 32p.; Reviewed from galleys, $16.99. Ages 4-7 yrs.
Thank you, Deborah Stevenson and The Bulletin!
More soon…
Love,
Rachel Vail
November 28, 2007
I am dashing around today preparing for my son's 100 month birthday party. Yes, he is 100 months old. Only he would figure this out, my little math guy. But really, don't we all need to celebrate ourselves more than once a year? He certainly thinks so — and you know what? I applaud that. I'm always up for a celebration. How many months old are you? I bet it's just about time for a party, right? In your honor! With cupcakes!
I'm going to be at the Barnes and Noble store in Greenwich Village (8 th Street and 6 th Avenue) this Saturday, reading from my new book, Righty and Lefty. I will be the one wearing one patent leather pump and one galosh . Come look for me. It's for a really good cause — so you can get your holiday shopping done and leave with an armful of books and a generous warm happy feeling. Especially if you have gone to the café for a cup of hot chocolate with me after the signing. Anybody wearing mismatched shoes gets a cup of the sweet stuff on me.
Here is the info:
Join Behind the Book on Saturday, December 1st, at the Greenwich Village Barnes & Noble for an all-day Book Fair, where you can help promote book reading for New York City's disadvantaged kids while you do some holiday shopping.
Barnes & Noble is giving Behind the Book a percentage of all book sales made that day when the purchaser presents the attached voucher or mentions Behind the Book to the cashier.
Behind the Book will also be offering free gift wrapping with any purchase, courtesy of Behind the Book students from DeWitt Clinton High School.
We will be there from 10am until 10pm and hope to see you there -- our main table will be on the second floor!
* * * * *
WHAT: The Behind the Book Book Fair at Barnes & Noble
WHEN: Saturday, December 1, anytime from 10:00AM to 10:00PM -- FREE
WHERE: Barnes & Noble in Greenwich Village, 396 6th Avenue (at 8th Street). Take the A/C/E, B/D, or F/V lines to West 4th Street station.
WHO:
11:00AM - Stephanie Calmenson ( Dinner at the Panda Palace )
12:00PM - Myla Goldberg ( Catching the Moon ) 12:30PM - Marthe Jocelyn (How It Happened On Peach Hill)
1:00PM - Rachel Vail ( Righty & Lefty )
2:00PM - Adriana Trigiani ( Big Stone Gap series)
3:00PM - Carolyn Mackler ( Guyaholic )
4:00PM - Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story) 5:00PM - Cathrine Kellison ( Producing for TV and Video: A Real World Approach )
WHY: Behind the Book's mission is to excite children and young adults about reading. Working with low-income students in New York City's K-12 public schools, Behind the Book brings authors and their books into individual classrooms to build literacy skills and nurture a new generation of book readers. We make reading something more than schoolwork - we make reading something kids want to do. www.behindthebook.org
November 23, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all had a good one and that you are having a fun and relaxing long weekend.
My 8-year-old had a homework assignment over this weekend: to make a speech at Thanksgiving dinner telling what he is thankful for. It was very sweet and ultimately hilarious when he launched into wicked imitations of everybody.
But as I was going to sleep last night, I started thinking about all that I have to be thankful for — my family, friends, health, work I love, etc etc etc — all the things the lucky among us need to count as our blessings every day. But then two things occurred to me as things to be thankful for that get relatively less press: other people's kids, and other people's friends.
I love loving other people's kids — my nieces and nephews, my friends' children and teens — because I get to watch them grow up, have fun with them, celebrate their big days and small achievements, without the angst and guilt and second-guessing of being their parents. I don't have to make sure they're eating a balanced diet or having a balanced life or school schedule; it's not my job to monitor whether they're learning to read, be polite, or drive safely. I just get to enjoy them. I just get to plain love them. So here's to all of you kids I love… you rock. (Even those of you who occasionally get booed off Guitar Hero.)
And now, about other people's friends. I am thinking of some people I am actually lucky enough to call friends of my own, but who so loved a friend of theirs they pulled together to make miracles happen.
I have a friend named Howard. He was a year ahead of me in school, back in New Rochelle, NY, where I grew up. Everybody called him the mayor of New Rochelle because Howard (most people call him Howie but I call him Howard) knew everybody, kept everybody in touch, remembered everybody's birthday and younger brother and parents and where everybody went to college. He had the biggest smile and the best bear hug of anybody I've ever met. When I got the news that my first book was going to be published, I got in my car and went to Wykagyl , the shopping center in town, straight to the fried chicken store where Howard worked, to share the news with him. He came out from behind the counter and grabbed me up off the floor in a huge hug, then, after he put me down, yanked off his apron and left work to get a bottle of Champagne to toast me with in the middle of the day. That was just his way. Howard knew how to be a friend, how to be there for other people, how to be generous from his soul.
But then one day Howard kind of started slipping away. He wasn't in touch, he was hard to reach. He was sick.
But he was part of an amazing group of friends, one I had loved from a little distance all through high school. I still think of this group of men as the eleventh grade boys, because I first became aware of them when I was a tenth grade girl. I have heard so many times that boys don't have close intimate friendships the way girls do, and that it is difficult to maintain friendships across race or economic or ethnic differences. This group of boys put the lie to all of that. This group of boys, back in high school, loved each other. They weren't the football team or the newspaper staff, though some of them played football and wrote articles; they were white, black, Jewish, Christian, Irish, Italian; they were rich and poor; big and small, fat and skinny, athletic and not, academic and not. They were inclusive, loose, they hugged a lot, they teased and called each other rude, loving nicknames. They always seemed to be laughing, having a good time. What kept them together, without the usual bonds of a team or other affiliation? I don't know. The only answer I have is this: love. They loved each other.
And the hub of all this fun, loving friendship was Howard. So when he got sick, the guys got moving. They dragged him out of his apartment and to the doctor, and another doctor and another, until a devastating diagnosis was made: Howard had a potentially life-threatening liver disease. He needed a liver transplant, and fast.
No way were those guys letting Howard die. They contacted everybody who loved him (hundreds of us) and organized according to what people could do: research, support, making contacts, raising money. Eventually Howard got onto the liver transplant list in Florida, was moved down there into an apartment, and got his liver transplant. (While he was waiting, typically, he couldn't help being a hero when, in a café, an elderly couple were victims of a robbery — Howard, sick as could be, nevertheless gave chase to the robber, got his car's license plate number, called it in to the police, then waited with the rattled couple until the police returned with their property — meanwhile learning all about them and their survival of the Holocaust.) But a liver transplant is no walk in the park or even chase in the parking lot, and Howard is still working hard at recovery.
I recently went to the second annual Friends of Howard fundraiser — and Howard was able to come up to NYC from Florida to celebrate. He looked great. He flashed that unbelievable smile of his and I burst into tears. He wrapped me in that great strong bear hug of his, lifting me off the floor, and when I opened my eyes again, all around were those same eleventh grade boys, now a bit older, with some different hair styles it is true… but with the same slap-on-the-back great-to-see-you attitude.
Howard got up to speak, to toast the gathering and others who weren't there who had played a role in his survival. He said that when a hospital psychologist had her meeting with him before the liver transplant, she marveled at his strength and good humor in the face of this grim prognosis. She asked him what his secret was. He replied, simply, “My friends.”
The friendship among this group of boys has always been inspiring to me. I write about friendship all the time — its hidden jealousies, its complex negotiations, its centrality and redemptive potential in the lives of my characters. But it is a rare and awe-inspiring thing to be in a room full of friendship at its most raw and potent. That's what it feels like to be in a room with Howard and his friends. So — during the crisis part of Howard's illness, when nothing was clear other than the love of this group, I wrote a short story in their honor. It is called
It was just published as part of a collection called Be Careful What You Wish For, by Scholastic, but I have gotten permission to reprint it here in full. It is dedicated to Howard and all his friends. The facts are not at all what actually happened in Howard's life, as you will see if you click the link above. Comparing the stories may answer some of your questions about how much of what I write is taken directly from life.
Mostly, though, I wanted to post it here because I am so thankful to know some real heroes, who have shown me once again what it means to be a friend.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Love,
Rachel Vail
November 16, 2007
Feeling torn among things I need to do today:
- write my book
- write my blog
- work out
- pack to go to Boston in two hours
- get my nails done
- eat all the chocolate in the house
I just had a brainstorm: do as many of them as possible at once!
So I am sitting here messing up my not-quite dry nails (ugh, self-manicure is a messy thing), typing something useful for both blog and book, while finishing the excellent chocolate bar my friend Mary brought over last night for us to eat while we watched the debate (second best line was Joe Biden's , in arguing for more money for schools/teachers/education: “don't tell me what you value; show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value.” Very best line was Mary's: “I brought chocolate.”)
That is four things out of six. Oh, yeah, I rock.
I will have to pack afterwards, aerobically.
Finished the chocolate. My somewhat wrecked nails are dry. Here is the book/ blog thing.
I am going to do the writing exercise I need to do, right here on my blog ! (Better than doing yoga on my blog . That could be scary.)
Many of you have asked for writing tips. I am going to share with you now a thing I use to help me create all of my characters. When I am creating characters, I need to know everything about them — what they think, what they regret, what they wish, their favorite food, the thing a teacher once said that wounded them, what they eat for breakfast, the sheets on their beds. Everything. For my main character I will actually do many theater exercises, finding her (or his) body language, posture, pencil grip. Some of it is intuitive. Some I get from listening to (okay, eavesdropping on) people everywhere I go. But I also make myself sit down and fill out forms on my characters. One of them, which I call a Form to Form a character, I adapted from my mom's sentence completion projective testing form (my mom is a school psychologist). But I don't feel like doing that one today. Maybe Monday. Today I am in the mood to do an I-page. It's not like iPod or iPhone or anything cool like that (If it were, I would just leave it pretty and unusable on my desk, like the new iPod my son got. Sure is pretty. Hasn't made a sound yet…)
WHAT IS AN I -PAGE???
It's pretty self-explanatory once you see it. There are just a lot of I statements, and what I do with my characters is I give myself 5 minutes, no more, and speed write my answers in the voice of my character. Doing this sometimes yields startling insights into my character. And when it doesn't, well, it's just 5 minutes down the drain. But seriously, if you are going to presume to write from the voice of someone else, you darn sure better know her from the inside.
Here are the ?s
I AM
I AM A
I WISH
I WORRY
I WANT
I NEED
I LOVE
I HATE
I USE
I WONDER
I REGRET
I SHOULD
I WORRY
I WANT
Here is a sample of i -page from the point of view of me, your pal Rachel Vail — today (because these change from day to day).
I AM Rachel Vail
I AM A writer, mother, wife, daughter, friend, procrastinator
I WISH I could read all day
I WORRY that a lot of people I love are stressed out today
I WANT another cup of milky tea and maybe some more of that nice chocolate I finished
I NEED to be more patient
I LOVE hearing my kids giggle
I HATE when people cut in line
I USE the delete key the most
I WONDER all day long
I REGRET talking too much
I SHOULD be bold
I WORRY about knee-jerk reactions to complex questions
I WANT to get it right
I am working on a new book, called GORGEOUS. It is the second book in a trilogy about three sisters named Phoebe, Allison, and Quinn Avery. The first book, LUCKY, from Phoebe's perspective, is coming out in the fall. But now it is Allison's turn. So today my job is to do an i -page as Allison.
I AM Allison Avery
I AM A bit confused by what is happening to me
I WISH I could be gorgeous
I WORRY that the deal I just made will have some nasty consequences
I WANT my ex-best friend to forgive me
I NEED to figure out an excuse for when my Mom finds out what I did
I LOVE my mom, despite everything, though I'd never tell her that
I HATE help
I USE people only when I have to
I WONDER if Tyler is just jerking my chain
I REGRET nothing
I SHOULD be good like Quinn — but I can't
I WORRY that anything good won't last
I WANT endlessly
Hmmm… OK, the things that surprise me:
I REGRET nothing
and
I WANT endlessly
Most of my characters are full of regrets and second-thoughts. I am intrigued by that aspect of Allison. Good for her, but also, how does that impact a person, that she doesn't (or won't allow herself to) regret anything at all? How does that color her choices or the way she remembers things?
Also, wanting endlessly — she feels herself as a bottomless pit of want, and nothing can fill her needs, no matter what. How does she try to fulfill her wanting? How does knowing that her WANT is “endless” affect her actions? Does she have an ironic self-knowledge, then? I like that…
The “I hate help” is something I overheard one time, and I love it. I feel like that tells me so much about Allison, how feisty and independent she is but also and how painful it is to be her, sometimes — as a kid you constantly need help, even if it is just getting a ride or permission or money… very useful in forming her character. I hate help has to stay in the front of my mind. Maybe I will put it on a post-it abovemy desk — as I write a book, more and more find their way up there, things that make sense only to me:
“I HATE HELP,” and
“INTERESTING LOOKING”
are up there now, along with
“I SOLD MY CELL PHONE TO THE DEVIL. WHY HE WOULD WANT IT I HAVE NO IDEA.”
And so it goes. This is what a writing day looks like: wondering “all day long” about the inner life of teenagers who actually don't exist outside my imagination. What kind of job is that for an adult?
Kind of an awesome one, actually.
Try an i -page — for yourself, with a friend, on a character. Any surprises? Let me know.
Meanwhile, have a good weekend. Time for me to go pack. Aerobically.
Love,
Rachel Vail
November 8, 2007
My new book, Righty and Lefty: A Tale of Two Feet just came out this week (rush to your local bookstore as soon as you log off, or go here or here) and my editor, Jen, just forwarded me the second review. I am going to print them both here because I am so excited.
Here is the one I got first, from Kirkus:
Bad enough that Lefty wants to live a life enveloped in galoshes, but does he have to be so neurotic? Yes, when you're a pair of feet, you're pretty much stuck with the personality of the appendage beside you. Lefty, distinguishable (aside from his arch) by his personality-appropriate Band-Aid, is happiest when he's safe and dry. His general attitude? “Life is a blister.” Righty, in contrast, is an adventurous sort. He loves grown-up shoes, beaches and running about. Can two such different footsies ever find a way to get along? Certainly. They may not be the same, but Lefty and Righty have a relationship that can survive everything from boo-boos to falling asleep. A truly unique method of discussing relationships, Vail's feet are a step above the rest. Cordell's understated watercolors help by lending the tale a soft, humorous tone. Consider this a love story that every man, woman, child and podiatrist can enjoy. (Picture book. 4-
I love that the reviewer got it that, like most of my books, this one is about relationships, and is at heart a love story.
And here is the one I just got, from Publishers Weekly:
Righty and Lefty: A Tale of Two Feet
Rachel Vail, illus. by Matthew Cordell. Scholastic, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-439-63629-2
In this funny, ingenious take on the meaning of friendship, Vail ( Sometimes I'm Bombaloo ) and Cordell ( Toby and the Snowflakes ) muse upon the way that two very different feet manage to get along—a good thing, since they belong to the same person (seen only from the waist down). Lefty likes lingering under the blankets and wearing only galoshes, while Righty , an early bird, revels in all the possible shoe choices and secretly wonders what it be like to take a beach vacation without Lefty . Vail's deadpan prose evinces a sly comic mind and a wonderfully ticklish system of logic: “Outside, Righty and Lefty race. Sometimes, Righty wins. Sometimes, Lefty wins. It is always close.” Cordell's watercolor and ink cartoons prove he's up to the challenge of focusing on two characters who can express their emotions only through their toes—and the occasional thought balloon. For making kids laugh, this one's a shoe-in. Ages 3-5. (Nov.)
Not sure why Righty and Lefty are bolded, but since they are the stars of the show, I suppose they deserve it. Love and friendship — the twin themes I can't seem to get away from. How cool is it that they think I have a “sly comic mind and a ticklish system of logic”? I have always wanted to have both of those.
Hooray for Righty and Lefty! I may have to go out and buy them each a present. Should it be those cool low-top Chuck Taylors without laces that I have been coveting for two years (or are they already OUT?) or secy stilettos? Email me and make one of those your subject line: CHUCKS or STILETTOS.
Meanwhile, here's to Righty & Lefty, especially to whichever one of them you feel like today (since you know you are sometimes Righty and sometimes Lefty, right? Left?! Stop me before I start marching).
In your email, once you settle on a subject line (and you need to put a subject I will recognize or I will delet it along with all the offers for Viagra etc.) you will need to tell me something — so keep your stories coming (see below for the rules). Trina hasn't sent hers in yet but we will give her a break because yesterday was her birthday! Happy birthday Sweet Sixteen!!!
I have been thinking a lot about bullying — both the obvious kind (where somebody ends up bleeding) and the more sneaky malicious kind (where somebody ends up excluded, humiliated, and crying). What do you think schools can or should do about it? Parents? What have you done or wish you'd done? Should a school exert authority if bullying takes place outside school, like on IM's? Should a school's role change depending on the grade of the students involved? Have you been bullied or bullied anybody?
Tell me what you think and I'll tell you where I'm going with this soon.
Also, to come soon, I am going to post a short story I wrote that has just been published in a through-school-book-fairs only collection about wishes — a story that is dedicated to the group of guys (now men, but still and always in my mind “the eleventh grade boys” from when I got to know them as a tenth grade girl) who saved one of my favorite people in the world's life.
But right now I have to try to write a chapter of my new book… maybe if I finish the whole chapter, my prize should be a trip to the shoe store?
Keep in touch.
Love,
Rachel Vail
October 22, 2007
Time to catch up!
I have a new picture book coming out next week. It is called RIGHTY AND LEFTY: A Tale of Two Feet. Righty and Lefty don't always get along but they are stuck with each other anyway – because they are two feet on one person.
Last weekend I got to go to Baltimore for a really cool event related to the upcoming publication of RIGHTY AND LEFTY. It was a conference for independent booksellers, and 18 authors were invited to come and talk to them about our new books at lunch, one author per table. There were three courses at lunch -- and at the end of each course, the authors all stood up and went to the next table. Kind of like speed dating. Which I have never done but which always seemed like a great alternative to, say, college. But I digress. It was incredibly well-organized and fun. (The event. Not college. Which for me was lots of fun but not always terribly organized.) I LOVE independent booksellers. They are so well-informed and passionate about books. I got a bunch of good recommendations (and some free books, which I read all the way home on the lovely Acela train, as I gobbled peanut M&M's). I was wearing my cute new Betsy Johnson black dress (I noticed when I watched my fabulous friend Meg Cabot on the Today Show recently that Meg has the exact same dress! And looks so good in it! But I still love her anyway.) along with some funky footwear: since Righty in the book is the adventurous foot, I wore on my right foot a pretty black patent leather pump. Lefty, however, is skeptical and careful, and a big fan of waterproof, practical galoshes… so on my left foot I wore a galosh! Some of the very kind independent booksellers were concerned that I had a broken foot, but once I explained, they came up with some really fun event ideas for RIGHTY & LEFTY! One said he'd like to host a Righty & Lefty party at his store and have kids come wearing two different shoes, and maybe have a prize for the wackiest combo… The booksellers at my third table (dessert – cheesecake – yum!) got into a friendly argument about whether it was a book about friendship, siblings, or marriage – and one said she was going to buy a copy for her friend's upcoming first anniversary present! Did you know that the first anniversary is “paper,” which means you are supposed to give something made of paper? Maybe everybody but me knows that… Anyway, a book sounds perfect!
If you read Righty & Lefty, let me know what you think. I am thinking maybe we'll have a Righty & Lefty contest – should it be pictures of you in mismatched shoes? Or stories of how you and someone close to you are different but find a way to get along? I like that one. Let's go for that. The winner will receive a free signed copy of Righty & Lefty – and I'll post the winning entry on this blog! Be my guest blogger!
I tried to get my niece/cousin/friend Trina, the soon-to-be-famous actress, to do this for me this past summer, when she lived with me, but she didn't. So now I am opening the position of guest blogger up to YOU.
Trina is still eligible. If she sends in a good story. Which she will – she is a really good writer – so do your best, all the rest of you! Competition will be tight!
In other news: my friends Lauren and Peter had tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert last week, but Peter didn't feel well so Lauren invited ME!!!! It was so incredibly great. Bruce Springsteen puts on the most amazing show I have ever seen – and I have been going to his shows for many, many years. He is so brilliant and inspiring – he writes/plays/sings about the most tough, painful moments of life and somehow makes the tens of thousands of people arrayed in front of him feel not just moved but uplifted. And not just because the man can wear a pair of jeans like nobody's business. He is able to be deeply political and controversial while still being patriotic and inclusive. And fun! What must it feel like to hear your own lyrics sung back at you from tens of thousands of people in a room thumping with rhythm? Also, at the end of the concert, a fun thing happened – Lauren and I were taking a short cut out, and came face to face with a wall. I was thinking that back in the day, a big strong guy would materialize behind me and lift me up and over, but now I am old… when what do you know? A big strong guy materialized behind me and lifted me up and over not just the wall but my feelings of having aged irrevocably… thank you, big strong guy, whoever you are!
Finally, I am about to go for a run across Central park, which is great but hello, it is October! Mid- to late-October! It should be way too cold for a wimp like me to go running in the park, especially in just a t-shirt and shorts. This weather is just too weird. Diplomats were meeting recently across town at the UN to discuss whether or not Global Warming (Global Climate Disruption sounds much less cozy and more urgent, I think) really exists. I heard two women discussing the meeting on the subway. One of them said, “If you ask me, they should stop discussing and take three steps out of the air conditioned room into this heat. That's their answer.”
Love,
Rachel Vail
July 17, 2007
Hi! Happy summer. Wow it's hot in my office right now.
Many people have been writing lately, with three main genres of questions. They are, boiled down:
1. What should I do if I want to be a writer?
2. What are you doing this summer?
And
3. What is your new book about?
First things first. Today I will answer question one. We'll get to the others soon.
Here it is, my ADVICE FOR FUTURE WRITERS:
1. Read A LOT -- anything you like to read -- and think about what makes it good, boring, funny, interesting, etc.
2. Write A LOT -- but not just like for school stuff or to show adults. Write for yourself. Write journals, wishes, lists, stories, stuff you imagine, descriptions of strange people you spot at the hardware store, etc.
3. Pay attention -- to everything. Really listen, small, taste, watch, feel. Describe everything to yourself and to anyone who listens well, but most of all, write it down. Keep a journal with you at all times so it becomes habit to write.
4. READ some more.
5. Turn off the electronics as much as possible.
6. Keep reading.
7. Have fun as much as possible. (OK, that's not advice just for writers but for everybody.)
8. Be brave. Try things that are too hard for you, take a chance when probably you'll fall on your face. The writing life is full of rejections and disappointments. Also, the scene you need to write is probably the one you are avoiding, and for good reason — it will be difficult to write, maybe technically but worse, emotionally. Writing sometimes feels like pressing on a bruise. You have to work up a lot of emotional courage.
9. Make stuff up. As often as possible. Also tell the absolute truth. It's hard and sometimes needs tremendous courage (see number 8) but it is a good habit to get into. Nobody wants to read stuff that feels false. Even fantasy and fiction need to feel real, and to tell some vital truth.
10. Learn as much as you can about as much as you can. Everything is useful to know while you're writing -- and anyway, life is more interesting when you have more to think about. Likewise with books.
That's it — my words of wisdom. You will notice I put nothing on the list about how to find an agent. That's the business side, and also important if you to be a professional writer. But the thing is, before you decide about if you want to be a writer, you should figure out if you want to write.
Back soon.
Have a great day.
Love,
Rachel Vail
June 8, 2007
I'm back! I've been kind of buried under work the past month — finishing up edits on my new novel (more about that in a sec) and starting three other things, as well as visiting a bunch of schools (hi, my new friends from Eastchester and various schools around NYC — I promise I will answer your letters and emails soon…) and dealing with stuff like helping out with a sixth grade play and really fun stuff like tick bites…
Straight to the big news first: the title of my new book is going to be:
LUCKY
I hope you like it because it feels really right for the book and also because for a few weeks there I was going nuts, trying to name the thing. I had lists and pages and printouts of literally hundreds of different titles — mostly because this is going to be the first book in a trilogy (one from the point of view of each of three teenage sisters in a fabulous, glamorous, full-of-secrets family) so it had to both be great and also set up great titles for the other two as well.
After all that work, one word? Two syllables? Five letters? It felt kind of like giving birth to a tic tac.
But still, it feels right to me for this book about Phoebe Avery, who feels like the luckiest girl in the world until… oh, well, I will tell you more about it as we get closer to publication.
Now I have to get to work on Phoebe's sister Allison. Allison is passionate, jealous, angry… She feels not just like the “difficult child” in this family of sweet high achievers, but also, in a family of beauties, like the complete Ugly Duckling. But she is in for the surprise of her life… Anyway, her book is going to be called GORGEOUS.
First, though, this July, the paperback of YOU, MAYBE is coming out! Buy it here or here…
And then in the fall, comes my new picture book… more about that soon, too.
But first there is summer, glorious summer, one of my favorite seasons. One of my nieces, who is 15, is coming to live with us for six weeks. I am so excited! Maybe I can get her to do a little guest- blogging . She is a seriously talented writer, among many other talents… And she is a girl! I am so outnumbered by the guys here — even the fish and the bird are boys! (Well, we are actually not sure about the bird…)
Oh, before I forget, I wanted to tell you about the amazing lunch I had with Abby, one of favorite editors (to celebrate her engagement) and Meg Cabot, Maureen Johnson, and Michele Jaffe. Wow, those girls are all so smart, loving, and funny! And they talk so fast! I felt lucky just to be at the table with all of them. Unfortunately, as always, I was very thirsty; because I completely overdid the iced tea and Pellegrino, I was forced to leave the table to go to the ladies' room. I held it as long as I could. I did NOT want to miss one second — but then they all kept being so witty and funny I knew I was one laugh away from completely humiliating myself. And then it turned out the restrooms were all the way across the restaurant, down a steep flight of stairs, and around some twisty corners (welcome to NYC, where you'd never waste precious ground-level square footage on a toilet!) It was a bit scary for a second, especially because Meg Cabot had graciously agreed to come with me (so I wouldn't be the only one missing the conversation) but she was ahead of me in the narrow hallway — what if it was a single user bathroom? Would I be forced to deck my good friend? Maybe we would have to play rock-paper-scissor (more about this next time) for who could go first? Could I afford to be gracious? Maybe not! Luckily, it was a three-staller, so disaster was narrowly averted. And the rest of lunch continued without catastrophe but with snorting laughter, non-functional wind-up toys, a feather boa, and dating disaster stories (pleated pants! His mother's sunglasses! Video games! Macramé!) What a great way to spend an afternoon…
The sixth grade play I helped out on was my older son's. The kids were amazing — they really pulled off a fantastic show. I mostly hung around and watched, but still, I think that can be quite helpful sometimes. Well, anyway, I brought Oreos and Kisses.
The tick belonged to my younger son. It was his second of the season. For all who might follow in his footsteps (literally), I have only one word of advice: DEET! Or else you will have a different word twice a day for 21 days: AMOXICILLIN.
I keep getting emails and letters asking for some info on me to spice up book reports or author projects. You know where to go to get all the basics (to the bio section of the website) but here is some extra stuff you may not be able to find anywhere else.
1. I like lots of milk in my tea
2. I am 5'4"
3. I am allergic to cats, dust, mold, and allspice
4. I prefer reading to writing
5. I wish I could play the piano and/or guitar, but so far haven't mustered the courage to learn
6. I like classical and rock music best, followed by show tunes
7. My favorite food is just-picked raspberries
8. I hate to wear shoes while I write
And now for the big exciting news my editor just emailed me:
9. IF WE KISS has been named an IRA/ CBC Young Adult choices title; and
10. YOU, MAYBE appears on the NYPL Books for the Teenage list.
Hooray!
Now if it would just stop raining…
Have a great weekend.
Love,
Rachel Vail
April 21, 2007
Wow, it's been forever since I last wrote! I really had such good intentions when I made my New Year's Resolution to write at least two entries every week in this blog .
The whole no more chocolate thing is going just about as well.
Well, okay, in my own defense: I've been writing. I just finished the first book in a trilogy. It was really hard but so exciting. I kept asking myself why I do this – why do I always insist on making things hard for myself? I finally really feel like I know how to write a novel, so instead of writing a novel, I decide I have to write a trilogy instead? My brain is just not that big! But anyway, I loved writing it and now luckily I don't have that end-of-the-book blues issue (if you've ever been in a play or gone away to camp or played on a team, you know the feeling as it all draws to an end…) because I have two more books still to write! I don't have to say goodbye to all these characters I've begun to fall in love with, because, now that I have finished writing from Phoebe's point of view, I will get to see life through the eyes of her older sister Allison, who is full of secrets and anger and passion and her own intense conflicts. I can't wait! I always love the “bad” girls.
Okay, I love all of them.
Speaking of love, I also just back from my first ever trip to Texas! I was in San Antonio, Tx for the Texas Library Association's famous annual meeting. That whole “things are bigger in Texas” cliché? Totally accurate! Also, I met such interesting, cool people! I was on a panel called “Chic Lit Divas: Creating Strong Girl Characters” with Dana Reinhardt (HARMLESS), Cecil Castellucci (BEIGE) and Melissa Kantor (THE BREAKUP BIBLE). One big perk of doing this panel was getting to read these terrific books. I admit I was scared by the name of the panel, thinking maybe it would be all fluff and sparkles (not that there's anything wrong with either fluff or sparkles, but seriously, and also the panel was scheduled for 8:30 AM, a completely undiva -like time. Not that I would know, not being a diva, but still.) But anyway, I couldn't have been more wrong. These were strong, smart, funny women, and their books were so well-written I ended up laughing out loud and crying, too, even on the plane, where my seat-neighbors must have thought I was a total whack.
Anyway, I recommend all of these authors. Check out the book titles listed with them above. They're really great.
I got to meet so many cool people at TLA , it was incredible. Tim Wynn-Jones is the best audience – laughing, nodding, so attentive… I couldn't wait to talk to him, which was even better than I'd hoped. I also got to meet John Green at the airport on the way home. He wrote LOOKING FOR ALASKA, which I read a few weeks ago and totally loved. Oh, and as a total bonus, I got to spend a little while with my old AUTHORS READERS THEATER buddies Avi, Sharon Creech, and Sarah Weeks, and to meet Walter Dean Meyers, whose shoes I tried to fill (ha!) at a gig last fall. I got to meet a bunch of other really interesting authors and publishing people, and an excellent collection of totally smart and cool librarians. It was a great time.
Can you tell I have my fingers crossed to get invited back?
And then to cap it off, I got the most awesome letter from the librarian of Blendon Middle School yesterday, with one of the nicest gifts I've ever received by mail: a totally filled up circulation card for my book IF WE KISS! Turns out the kids in Westerville, Ohio are making sure IF WE KISS doesn't get dusty… thank you so much! And thanks for sending me the card, Ms. Yingling – I am going to hang it up in my office as soon as I finish typing this.
I am back to re-resolving – so come visit often. I think I may give up on giving up chocolate, though. It comes from beans – that's gotta be good for you, right?
Happy spring!
Love,
Rachel Vail
January 25, 2007
When I was in seventh grade, I got to be best friends with a girl named Bea. In many ways we were very much alike – serious, passionate, opinionated, funny. We liked to ski and read, we hated superficiality. Bea's father had died a few years earlier and she, and her home, still ached from the loss. I could feel it when I went over there, the intense presence of absence. Bea's two brothers were older, both in high school, big and gorgeous; most of my other friends, like me, had younger siblings, so those huge handsome hunks seemed exotic to me. My mom was (and still is) cute and bubbly. Bea's mom was glamorous and elegant but quiet – she drifted through the house, her shiny dark hair in a complicated bun, a long thin cigarette between her long thin fingers.
A few days ago, Bea's mom died.
I have been spending a lot of time with Bea this week, just sitting on the floor, looking at old pictures and movies, talking about her mom, eating brownies, hanging out. Bea asked me to share with her my memories and thoughts of her mother. Bea, who is still a strong, funny, honest, smart, loving person, and is now also an amazing mother, wants to put together a book about her mother for her children to have as they get older. But the truth is, I didn't know Bea's mom as a separate person. I was a teenager when I knew her best, and I knew her really only as my best friend's mother. So I have felt inadequate to the task.
But yesterday at her apartment, Bea was telling the story of our sons, and how they became friends. When her son was born a few weeks after mine, there was a small gathering to celebrate his birth, and instead of gifts bought from a store, each guest was asked to bring something meaningful with which this new child should begin life. People brought photographs they'd taken or poems they loved. I was a sleep-deprived young mother and hadn't gotten my act together to choose a poem or a painting or find a family heirloom. I might have bequeathed to Bea's son the friendship ring Bea and I shared, which was in my possession at that time, but I didn't think of it. Suddenly it was my turn, and in my lap my baby made a little cooing sound, and I realized that I of course had brought my gift for Bea's child – I brought him a friend. What could be a better, more important thing to have at the start of journey? I had learned long ago, with this new baby's mother, the value and necessity of friendship. The gift I gave to Bea's child, and to my own as well, was a wish, really, that these babies would find the grace, comfort, and strength their mothers had found in each other's friendship; that they would learn what it means to be, and to have, a true friend.
So this is what I have to say to Ivy, Bea's mother: thank you for the gift you gave me, so many years ago.
January 19, 2007
I try not to get too political on this blog. It's not a political blog, for starters, and also I respect that people who read my books have widely ranging, and often conflicting, political viewpoints.
But I can't help thinking, as I read emails from you, about the fact that most of you are teens, which means that you are within a few years of eligibility to join the armed forces. I have tremendous respect for people who devote their lives to serving others, in any capacity, and those who put themselves in harm's way for the sake of others amaze me particularly. I still, as a New York City girl, have difficulty speaking to a fire fighter without getting a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. And when I see (or, honestly, even think about) the brave young people standing erect and proud in the uniforms of my country, willing to march off to foreign, dangerous places with a smart salute, I am both grateful and awed.
And now, also, ashamed.
I am ashamed that this country I love so much continues recklessly, profligately sacrificing our troops, our honor, and our money to fighting this awful war, this war we had no business starting, this war we have managed so incompetently. When we were attacked on September 11, 2001, I was stunned, I was terrified, I was grief-stricken, and eventually I was angry. I knew we had a responsibility as well as a right to hunt down the people who planned and plotted this atrocity, and to punish them with the full power of our might. I am a non-violent person who nevertheless recognizes that sometimes overwhelming force is the best way to achieve peace and justice. But despite the bravery of our troops, we failed to get the bad guys; we didn't demolish their ability to hurt more innocents. We started to – and then the leaders of our country and our military got distracted by a war of choice in Iraq. We promised our courageous, obedient kids they'd be greeted as liberators there, when really we were sending them to the slaughter, and meanwhile both let the bad-guys slip away and incensed others into joining them.
And now our president, with more than 3,000 of us dead, ten times that many wounded in the line of duty, and uncountable innocent Iraqi lives destroyed, is asking us to send 21,500 more troops into the fight. Most of our country says no. Most of Congress says no. Even a group of retired generals just came out saying this increase of 21,500 will not help and might hurt our efforts in Iraq. And here is what has stopped me in my tracks today – the peculiarity of that number. Not 20,000. Not 25,000. The specificity of the 21,500 has opened up the yowling horror of this question for me this grey afternoon, before my two sons come home from school:
Which 21,500?
Which 21,500 of us should be sent into Iraq, when just about every expert says those 21,500 can't help and might hurt the situation? Which 21,500 mothers should send their teenagers to fight this war we never should have started and cannot now win?
Which of you should go?
Tell me your thoughts. I need to hear them.
Love,
Rachel Vail
January 11, 2007
Thanks to my terrific Aunt Ronnie for sending me this – enjoy!
Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
The winners are:
1. Coffee (n.) the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.) appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.) to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly(adj.) impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.) to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.) olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.) a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.) a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.) the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n) a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.) a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.) (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.) an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:
1. Bozone (n.) The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
2. Cashtration (n.) The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
4. Sarchasm (n) The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
5. Inoculatte (v) To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
6. Hipatitis (n) Terminal coolness.
7. Osteopornosis (n) A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
8. Karmageddon (n) It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like , a serious bummer.
9. Decafalon (n.) The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
10. Glibido (v) All talk and no action.
11. Dopelar effect (n) The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
12. Arachnoleptic fit (n.) The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
13. Beelzebug (n.)Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
14. Caterpallor (n.) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.
January 10, 2007
Happy New Year!
I know I'm a little late on that but I was (this is one of my favorite things to write) FINISHING MY NEW BOOK.
Not even reading a new book; writing one. I'm really exited about it, but I will tell you more about that soon. Right now I am about to get on a plane to go to Barcelona, Spain, but before I go I must announce the first prize winner in our poetry contest: Katie!!
Here is the winning poem:
Something New
When you're feeling blue,
Try something new,
Laugh, like you've never laughed before,
Go, where you've never gone before,
And love, like you've never loved before.
When you feel like you're falling through the floor,
Be, what you've never been before,
See, what you've never seen before,
And do, what you've never done before.
Try something new...
- Katie
Congratulations!
I will run other poems in coming weeks. They were all really terrific and inspiring – some sad, some funny… I know you'll enjoy them as much as I did.
Tomorrow a cool thing my Aunt Ronnie sent me will be posted here. Come take a look!
Wishing you a 2007 full of happiness, love, success and laughter…
Love,
Rachel Vail
December 14, 2006
Today I made soup. I didn't actually want to eat soup, and it was White Bean Provencal Soup—a type of soup nobody in my family (including me) particularly cares for, including my younger brother, who was coming over for dinner. But it suddenly became clear to me that before I could possibly write one word more of my current book—the one I have been struggling to finish—I needed to make White Bean Provencal Soup.
As I chopped and measured, simmered and reduced, I started thinking that making soup is kind of a metaphor for writing a book. Lots of stuff goes in it and you have to keep checking, tasting, changing the proportions to make it work. As you just stand there stirring, you begin to appreciate how the individual ingredients affect one another, the oil and heat sweetening the bite of the onion, the beans thickening the broth as they soften—just as each change in a character's motivation, action, or history affects everything else in the book.
But actually that was mostly a rationalization. I was making soup because I didn't know how to get from where I was stuck to the ending I needed. Though both can make me cry, chopping an onion is much quicker than creating a plot twist.
The problem with soup is that it just sits there simmering for a couple of hours, after the initial burst of action—so I was forced back into my chair, where I belonged, to write again. It's 11:30 P.M. now. What do I have to show for my day's work? Negative fifteen pages, a new subplot that may propel me in a way I didn't see coming through the scene I've been avoiding to the final chapter of my book, and a Tupperware half-full of surprisingly tasty (though perhaps under-salted) White Bean Provencal Soup. Plus, now, a note to you.
All in all, a decent writing day. How about you, my fellow writers? What did you make today?
November 16, 2006
Thanks to Jennifer, who alerted me to the latest 4-star review for my new novel, YOU, MAYBE, posted at Amazon.com:
YOU, MAYBE is a great book about high school romance. This book really captures how romance in high school can be confusing and heartbreaking, but can also be fun. This book is a page-turner; it keeps you wondering what could possibly happen next.
Josie is a fifteen-year-old girl who is very independent and has never wanted to be anybody's girlfriend. She believes that when you become a couple, you yourself are only half of something and not whole. She's just a regular kid who never understood why they say that these are the best years of your life.
Josie is living her regular life; going to school, trying to make some extra money, hanging out with her friends, and everything else a regular teenager would do. Josie loved hanging out with her best guy friend, Michael. Everything was fine between Josie and her friends. But what happens when she starts to think that she might be falling in love with Carson, a BP (beautiful person), the kind of person she had always hated? What happens when Carson starts to notice her? Carson had previously
had a hard time when his first love, Emelina, got accepted to college early and fell in love with an older college boy. Will Carson learn to love Josie and give up on Emelina? And what will happen when a tragic event happens? Will Carson love Josie or break her heart?
To answer all these questions, read this great book.
Reviewed by: Cayla Carhart
November 15, 2006
In the interest of promoting writers who are kids, here is a poem written by my seven-year-old son.
A SAD SONG ABOUT MY PEACH
I feel sad about my peach
my little little peach
that I ate
It was good and it was ripe
but now it's down the pipe
my sweet little peach
that I ate.
Who else has a poem to share? Don't be shy; send ‘ em in. We'll have a contest. Enter before Thanksgiving and the winners will be posted right here on the BLOG.
What? Not a poet? That's okay. Write poetry anyway. A violinist plays scales, a dancer stretches, a football player lifts weights. Poetry helps your writing even if you never publish one single poem. Don't believe me, take it from the doctor ( Seuss, that is) who says:
“Write a verse a day, not to send to publishers but to throw in wastebaskets. It will help your prose. It will give you swing.”
Who will win the RachelVail.com first maybe annual poetry contest? Could it be … YOU?
November 13, 2006
I just got back from a really interesting meeting about current trends in kids' and teens' books. I was the moderator of the panel, which included the great:
Gail Carson Levine, author of Ella Enchanted and (brand new) Fairest
Jodi Reamer, agent and lawyer at WritersHouse
Josalyn Moran, head of children's books at Barnes and Noble
And Susan Katz, President and Publisher of HarperCollins Children's Books.
The room was packed, standing room only, stuffed full of authors who wanted to learn: what books do kids (and teens) want? The panelists were articulate and knowledgeable; they came up with well-informed, thought-provoking answers. We authors had so many questions we went on for an hour and a half. Of course, what kids want is want any reader wants: a good story well told. Right now it seems “chick lit” as well as paranormal stories, fantasy, picture books, and of course humor are hot. And books particularly for teens are on fire.
But now let's hear from the experts: What do you think? What are your favorite books? What do you want to read next?
Tell me and I will pass the word along to the good people of the Authors Guild. Let your voice be heard!
(Can you tell I have really gotten in to the whole elections spirit? I love to vote and in fact have gotten teary-eyed every single time I've done it. More on this topic another time, when I have mastered my recent urge to break into patriotic song. Meanwhile, speak up, say what you think! At every opportunity!)
I'll post some of your responses soon.
Love,
Rachel Vail
November 2, 2006
This is a letter I got the other day. Because it asks some questions so many of you have asked, I am going to post it, and my response here.
SPOILER ALERT:
If you haven't yet read YOU, MAYBE, you should skip this!
Dear Ms Vail,
I just read your book, YouMaybe, It was very good. My schools media specialist ordered it recentlyand got it out today, and I was the first in my school to read it. I got it first period this morning and finished it before dinner. I liked it so much I told all my friends and now they want to read it! I was glued to the book all day, which wasn't very good because a couple of my teachers were ina bad mood and kept catching me reading it! I switch sides on who I feltbad for throughout the book, first it was Michael, then Carson, then Michael,then Josie but I loved how well you defined the characters through their actionsand what they said and how they said it. It was very captivating, but I was slightly disappointed with the ending. If there was a denouement I didn't find it. I was hoping you would explain what happens between Josie and Michael,if she gets over Carson, I don't know something. I wanted closure so badly Iread both the flaps, the front and back cover, and even the copyright page,looking to see if you hid it somewhere or something.
I think this book really deserves a sequel, though I'm sure you're not planning one, I was aft so dumbfounded I actually called my friend, (name omitted), who is one of my fewfriends I talk to about books usually and who was also planning to read the book after me, and totally spoiled the "ending" for her trying to express how upset I was but she says she still wants to read it. I don't know but, I guess it's just such a good book its one you just have to read no what.
I must say I would totally read the book again in aheartbeat!
Good job
Emily
Here is my response:
Dear Emily,
Thank you so much for your eloquent and heart-felt feedback. I am so honored that you loved YOU, MAYBE and were moved so much by it both to recommend it to friends and to write to me about your thoughts.
My hope in creating the ending that way was to leave readers with some closure (Josie ended the relationship with Carson, of course) and some questions (will she get together with Michael? Will she get over Carson? Will this experience help her to grow or just be a painful, damaging memory?). I hoped to be true to real-life, rather than creating an artificially neat and sweet fairy tale -- nobody I knew in high school had neat, sweet happy endings; everything had shade of good and bad, and seemed unending. Finally, I based this book on a classic opera called Carmen. (The hint you were looking for is on the acknowledgments page!) In it, the man, Don Jose, falls hard for the charismatic woman named Carmen (see some similarities) and in the end instead of a wiffle ball bat, Don Jose strikes Carmen with a knife, and kills her. The opera ends with him sobbing over her dead body. I didn't want to wreck both lives so completely. The image of Josie waiting until Carson is gone, then finding her earring under a leaf, and then walking back toward her friends is the one I wanted to leave you with. You are not the only reader who has felt unnerved by this ending. Maybe that's something I need to think about on future books, or maybe it is okay to be unnerved by a book's ending. I know the books I have loved most have left me feeling kind of elated or kind of off-balance (or both) at the end.
Thanks for writing, and for thinking so much about YOU, MAYBE. I am so excited to have people like you reading my books.
Love,
Rachel Vail
November 1, 2006
For all you writers out there, especially those of you who write to me asking for tips on how to write and how to get published:
There is a contest going on right now, just for you!
You can write chapters and enter them into the contest and win fabulous prizes. You can read chapters written by other aspiring writers, and vote on which is best – just like Project Runway, though don't even get me started on that… How did the guy whose clothes looked either like an eighth grade goth nightmare or like kitchen curtains win?
But I digress…
Also on the site you will find tips on writing from me, Meg Cabot, and other fabulous writers for teens, and from real (and excellent) editor about what they look for in manuscripts to publish.
Here's the link:
Good luck, and have fun!
Love,
Rachel Vail
October 31, 2006
Happy Halloween!
For those of you planning on dressing up as writers tonight, I have some costume tips:
Cozy sweatpants
Ratty t-shirt
Pony tail (if you have long hair; otherwise, just generally messy is fine)
Slippers or thick socks
Short fingernails
If you just got a manicure and your nails are beautiful, long, and unchipped, I advise that you think of a different costume. You could be a witch, or a pumpkin, or a character from one of your favorite books. But with long beautiful nails, you can not be a writer. Nobody will believe you.
Another Halloween tip, while we are at it, even if you are not planning to dress up as a writer: no props.
I always had props. Props suck. You know you have your plastic pumpkin or, if you prepare ahead like I always did (not) at least a plastic bag from the grocery store. That's one hand gone, right there. And then you need to use your other hand to ring doorbells, knock on doors, wave at friends, etc. So how are you planning to hold your props?
And my almost-final Halloween tip, especially for those who are planning to dress up as writers: avoid costumes you will have to explain at people's doors. It is embarrassing, and then tedious, and finally just awful. I went one year as Mozart, which I thought was a great idea. I obviously hadn't read tip number two, above, at the time. I brought along my mother's violin, in its case. At every door, candy was given to Cathy in her witch costume, Beth in her ballet outfit, and Lauren in her football suit – all with no comments, only smiles and praise. So cute! And what are you supposed to be? Is there a harder word to force out of your mouth at that moment, in front of your friends, than Mozart? But did I learn my lesson? Ha! The next year I went (in pretty much the same costume: white wig, pink satin short bathrobe, sweatpants tucked into tube socks) as… Thomas Jefferson. I kid you not. I just left home the violin and instead took along both a quill pen and, of course, a copy of the Declaration of Independence. I can not believe my friends consented to go with me again. Even when I decided, in future years, to go with something more obvious – a skier, for instance, so I could wear my jacket, hat, and goggle – I still forgot good old rule number two and started out lugging my skis and poles. My friends did draw the line and forced me back into the garage, that time.
Finally – stick with friends, stay in the light, don't be stupid. Don't eat any questionable candy; it could be really gross. Have fun on this fabulous holiday, all about staying up late, pretending to be someone else, and eating candy. I must have invented it myself.
NO PROPS!
Love,
Rachel Vail
October 11, 2006
Well, September is a blur, and here we are, already well into October? Crazy.
Thanks to all of you who joined me and Meg Cabot at Meg's Bookclub chat Sunday. Meg (who is as fantastic and funny and full of heart IRL as she seems like she would be, from her books) chose YOU, MAYBE as her book of the month. Hooray for Meg! It was great fun and kind of challenging, too. There were so many terrific questions, from thought-provoking to clever to hilarious. One that I didn't answer, asked by a number of readers, was whether Josie and Michael end up together… What do you think? I'll never tell!
Another was, Which of Meg's books is your favorite? My first thought of course was Princess Diaries, but then I thought, wait, but what about All American Girl? Or Size 12 is Not Fat? How to be Popular? I've never even read any of the Mediator or 1-800-Where-Are-You books…. Obviously that was way too hard a question for me; luckily we don't have to choose just one.
Another good missed question was, What do you do when a story just isn't working? I've been thinking about this a lot, especially since I get ?'s like this so often in letters and email. I am thinking of starting a section on this website for writers – meaning, people who want to turn their ideas into stories. What do you think? I could post a sort of class of the month… like character study one month, maybe, and story structure the next, and then each week I would post exercises for you to try. I think it could be interesting… Let me know what you think.
Last week I was in Naperville IL, with Avi, Sharon Creech, and Sarah Weeks. We were performing something called ART: Authors Readers Theater. Each of us chose two of our books (I chose IF WE KISS and YOU, MAYBE) and wrote scenes for four people from each. So there I was, up on a stage in front of about 350 teachers, librarians, and civilians, being Josie (from You, Maybe), all flirty and independent, and then two minutes later being a disgruntled Italian father of six or a dying guy named Bear in the middle ages or a mouse or a calendar (!) or confused, lying Charlie (If We Kiss) and in between, narrating scenes about rebelling, secrets, death, and butterscotch. It was amazing! I totally loved it. All four authors (including myself!) were easy-going, hard-working, funny, and lovely. And I especially want to thank Becky Anderson, her daughter, and all the people from Anderson's Books for all they did to make our visit there so great.
I'm thinking it might be fun for you to have one of the scripts. I can post one of mine here for you if you like, and you can do whatever with it – perform it with friends, use it as part of a book project for school… up to you. If you'd like more info on ART, the website should be up soon: authorsreaderstheater.com.
