Ally Condie's Blog, page 10

crossed blog tour: day one

We're kicking things off today over at The Matched Department, and the topic is the meaning of Cassia's name. I discuss it more in-depth in this post than I ever have anywhere else. AND, you can comment on the post to enter to win a copy of CROSSED, among other goodies.

Come on over and check it out! And many thanks to The Matched Department for participating in the tour!

announcing: the crossed blog tour

I haven't been posting much lately, but I have been writing guest posts like mad to prepare for the CROSSED Blog Tour. For the next few weeks, beginning tomorrow, the release day of CROSSED(!), I'll be posting every weekday on other sites (and linking to them here, of course). I had so much fun writing the posts. In them, I share new info about CROSSED and answer some frequently asked questions and lots of other things.

And HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I'm too lazy to dress up, but I make my kids a spooky feast and take them trick-or-treating and then we all have caramel popcorn and watch Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit and it is one of my favorite days of the year. And I hope it is a great day for you too.

one week! one week! one week!

I had to post the link to the CROSSED trailer again. I love this trailer so much…

One week until CROSSED is out in the world. I've been working on a slew of blog entries for the official blog tour, and I will be sure to post links to those as they come up. And don't forget to brush up on your Matched Facts. Many thanks again to Penguin Teen for putting them together!

I'm so excited to head out on tour (for the full schedule, click here) and hopefully meet many of you! The official launch party is Tuesday, November 1, at The King's English. And before that, THIS VERY WEEKEND, I will be speaking and signing at the St. George Book Festival on Saturday, October 29th. We'll have early copies of CROSSED on sale there and at the Barnes and Noble signing afterward. Click on the Events page for more info.

Also, the event on November 12th at the Provo Library for the Provo Library Teen Book Fest is going to be epic. I don't use this word lightly. They are renowned for creating fantastic events and I hear rumors there will be a Cassia in a green dress in the crowd. Also stations for signing, etc. You need a (free) ticket to attend and they are giving books away to the first 500 teens in attendance. I'll be giving the keynote at noon, followed by signing and a panel. Dystopian authors Robison Wells, Elana Johnson, and Kristen Landon will also be presenting and signing. For the full schedule, and more info, click here.

Thank you for reading the blog, and for your support of the series!

crossed trailer & yalsa top ten & more big news

Awesome news! The official trailer for CROSSED is up, exclusively at ew.com. I am dying to know what you guys think. This trailer is beautifully done and I love it–and I think it's the perfect transition from MATCHED to CROSSED.

I also have some truly unbelievable news. MATCHED was chosen as one of YALSA's 2011 Teens' Top Ten Books. This award means the world to me because MATCHED was nominated by teens, voted for by teens, and ultimately selected by teens across the country as one of their Top Ten favorite titles. As a former high school English teacher, I can't imagine a more awesome honor than this. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the teens who nominated and voted for MATCHED. I am very grateful and thrilled.

I also have some fun news for those of you who live in the southern Utah area. I'm presenting at the St. George Book Festival on October 29th and doing a signing afterwards at the Festival, and then again a bit later at Barnes and Noble. But here is the really fun part: I have confirmed with Penguin that they will ship CROSSED a few days early to those two events. So if you come, you can get CROSSED before its release date. This is so exciting for me because I'm from southern Utah and because the Outer Provinces are based on that area, so it's really fun to talk about the book and see it go out into the world right from where it began, so to speak. More info on these events here and here. (If you click on the second link you'll have to scroll down in the left sidebar for info on where/when I'll be presenting.)

We are getting closer and closer–less than two weeks left now! Woo hoo!

it's time for another song on the crossed playlist!

I'm on my way to Providence, Rhode Island to speak at the NEIBA Fall Conference. In fact, I'm writing this post in the Salt Lake City Airport, which has free wi-fi, which I LOVE. (Other airports, take note!)

The release date for CROSSED is getting closer and closer. And I thought this would be a good time to tell you another song from the playlist. (For the other songs I've mentioned, click on the "crossed playlist" category.)

The song Doubting Thomass by Nickel Creek, is a song that I listened to when I was editing Ky's chapters in particular during the early drafts. It's a very "Ky" song–although I picture his voice sounding a little more rough, maybe more like Brandon Flowers of The Killers.

I can't wait for the launch, which is just three weeks away! Remember, if you can't make the launch, The King's English Bookshop is taking orders for signed copies. I will personalize them, too–just let them know when you order what you'd like the books to say.

I'll be back soon. I've been to Providence before, but it's been years. My son is jealous that I get to go to the smallest state in the USA. Any ideas of what I should do while I'm there? Besides work like crazy on my manuscript?

Also, I've responded to all the comments on the last post. Thank you so much for your kind words–and for re-reading MATCHED!

re-read matched month!

The lovely folks at Penguin Teen have declared October to be "Re-Read Matched Month." And I will say that it is a great idea to re-read MATCHED to be ready for CROSSED because the story picks right up again in Chapter 1 of CROSSED.

To celebrate Re-Read Matched Month, Penguin Teen has made an awesome tumblr of Matched Facts to help refresh your memory. They've posted a bunch already and will be adding a new fact each day up until the release of CROSSED. You can find the tumblr here, with the most current fact at the top. Scroll down to see more (the ones that are marked SPOILER are spoilers for those who haven't yet read MATCHED, but won't ruin anything for CROSSED). So, if you can't re-read the book, this is a fast way to remind yourself of some key facts!

There are also Matched-related discussions taking place over in the Re-Read Matched in October forum on Goodreads.

In other MATCHED news, the MATCHED paperback made the New York Times Bestseller List (Children's Chapter Books) for paperbacks, debuting at #5 its first week out and staying on at #7 this past week! Thank you all so much for your continued support of this book. I got to sign copies of the paperback for the first time last week on the Smart Chicks Tour and it was so much fun. That cover is gorgeous. I love the added green and shininess.

Speaking of the Smart Chicks Tour, it was a really lovely experience. Though I was only gone for about 24 hours and didn't get to see/talk with the other authors nearly enough, it was so fun to hang out with them even for a bit. And MANY THANKS to all of you who came to the event. I loved meeting each of you. And Portland is GORGEOUS.

While at the Smart Chicks tour event, I got to meet the AWESOME Audra, who runs one of the fansites (the-society.net). She is giving away some great MATCHED swag over on the fansite right now, so head on over to enter! I have links to the fansites in the sidebar and they are amazing. Sometimes they know things before I do! So if you haven't checked them out yet, be sure to do so.

Also, I've chosen the winner of VARIANT (via the random number generator)! It is Jessie Humphries! Congratulations, Jessie!

I hope you are all having a wonderful October so far. This is the best month in a lot of ways–best month for running here in Utah, best month for being outside during the day and then curling up with a book at night, best month for apple cider and pumpkins on porches. Happy fall!

crossed gets a starred review from kirkus!

BIG NEWS.

We received our first major professional review for CROSSED and it is from Kirkus. And it's a starred review!

(!!!)

I am giddy, giddy, giddy about this. Here is a little of what they had to say:

"Cassia and Ky grapple with secrets, wilderness and the tumultuous meanings of love in the second installment of this addictive, layered dystopic trilogy…

"Although two-boys-one-girl triangles run rife in this genre, Condie's is complicated and particularly human, involving real emotional scars…

"Both rich and easy to digest, this will leave fans hungry for the third book."

They said more nice things, too, but I didn't include them JUST IN CASE there are those of you who prefer to avoid all things spoilery.

I am absolutely thrilled. CROSSED is the most personal book I've written, for a variety of reasons. I care so much about these characters and their story and the setting–I had to get it all right, and it took a lot of work. My editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel, was patient and wise throughout this collaboration. I'm deeply grateful to her.

November 1 is coming up so quickly…less than a month left before CROSSED is out in the world. I can't wait!

variant: by robison wells

I'm trying to think of the first time I met Robison Wells and I don't think I'm positive about when it was. The inaugural Whitney Banquet, when I was enormously pregnant? It had to be before then but that's my first concrete memory of talking with him, although I'd known about Rob for a long time before that. I'd been reading a group blog in which he participated and always found his posts hysterically funny/incisive (you can find an example here).

At the time, Rob and I were both writing for regional publishers, and I remember when I talked with him I thought, "This guy is going places." And when I read his books, I knew it too. We exchange manuscripts (he was supremely helpful with CROSSED in particular) and, when I read VARIANT a yearish ago, I was blown away. So clever. So interesting. The kind of book that kept both my husband and me up all night reading it.

It's a fast-paced, exciting, twisty, intelligent book that takes place at a boarding school where all is not as it seems. And that's really all I'm going to say. I don't want to spoil anything for you. Part of the joy of reading this book is starting on page one without any preconceptions and just going along for the ride with Benson, Rob's fantastic main character.

To celebrate Rob's upcoming release, I'm giving away a hardcover copy of VARIANT. To enter, you need to leave a comment (just one!) here that includes:

*your name

*a way to contact you if you win

*the freakiest name for a boarding school you can think of (yes, I'm going to make you work just a tiny bit for this)

*you get an extra entry if you blog about it AND post the link in your comment

Contest is open internationally and you need to comment by midnight (MST) on Tuesday, October 4th (Rob's release date). And if you are lucky enough to live near the King's English, they'll be hosting Rob's launch party on Thursday, October 6th at 7:00 p.m.

Congratulations, Rob!!

one week away: smart chicks tour!

In exactly one week, on Thursday, September 29th, I will be signing with Melissa Marr, Kelley Armstrong, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Claudia Gray, Beth Revis, and Sara Zarr at the Portland, Oregon stop of the Smart Chicks Tour. I CANNOT WAIT. More details on the event here.

For those of you who are coming, you can find posters here to print out and bring to sign (or just to have for your very own, even if you can't make it to one of the stops on the tour). They look like the picture above, except much bigger and better for printing, and they are also tailored so that there's a poster for each specific event.

Kelley and Melissa have put so much work into getting this tour together and I'm absolutely thrilled to be a part of it.

This is the first trip outside of Utah for work that I've had in four months. It's been good to be writing hard and hanging out at home. But I'm excited to get out and about and to have a chance to talk with fellow authors and fellow readers in a beautiful city.

Hope to see some of you soon!

release day!

Today is the release date for the MATCHED paperback. It's shiny and green and BEAUTIFUL and it includes the first two chapters of CROSSED. The paperback editor for this book, Eileen Kreit, has just done an unbelievable job with this edition and I really want to thank her and her team.

And it's the release date for ENTHRALLED. So many great stories in this one, including ones by Mary Pearson (hers was one of my faves), Carrie Ryan (ditto), Margaret Stohl (okay, I loved them all), Kami Garcia, etc.

To celebrate the paperback release of MATCHED, there's a twitter party today at 5 p.m. (MST). I'll be answering questions about the book, etc. More info in the post below!

If you aren't on twitter, etc., and would like to leave a question here in the comments, I will do my best to get to those as well if they are questions that haven't been asked in the FAQ section of the blog or the Q & A posts (click on the q & a category to see those posts).

Happy September 20th!