Melissa Kantor's Blog, page 2
January 23, 2011
Enter to win a free copy of "The Darlings Are Forever"
I have so much to write about. Down at the American Bookseller's Association I met tons of excited and exciting independent book store owners and staffers. These are amazing people with a real love and deep knowledge of books. Also, I got taken out for dinner, which I have to say is one of the greatest things that can happen to a girl, don't you think?
But what I want to quickly blog about before I go get the baby up from her nap is that goodreads is running a contest. You can enter to win one of four copies of The Darlings Are Forever. So if you're in the mood, click here to enter.
More later.
xoxo,
Melissa
But what I want to quickly blog about before I go get the baby up from her nap is that goodreads is running a contest. You can enter to win one of four copies of The Darlings Are Forever. So if you're in the mood, click here to enter.
More later.
xoxo,
Melissa
January 7, 2011
"The Darlings Are Forever" has a video!
Click on
The Darlings Are Forever trailer
to see the fabulous movie they made about the book! Feel like making a movie of your own? Send me a clip of you and your friend talking about why you're BFF, and I'll post it!
xoxo
Melissa
xoxo
Melissa
January 4, 2011
"The Darlings Are Forever" is out TODAY!
At last, THE DARLINGS ARE FOREVER is out! It's the story of Jane, Victoria, and Natalya. Together, they are the Darlings. Best friends forever. They have matching necklaces, their own table at Ga Ga Noodle, and even a shared motto: May you always do what you're afraid of doing.
When the friends begin freshman year at three different high schools in distant corners of New York City, they promise to live by their motto and stay as close as ever. The Darlings know they can get through anything as long as they have each other. But doing scary new things is a lot easier with your friends beside you. And now that the girls aren't spending all their time together, everything they took for granted about their friendship starts to feel less certain. They can't help but wonder, will they really be the Darlings forever?
You can order it on amazon or buy it at your local independent bookstore.
Hooray and happy new year!
xoxo
Melissa
When the friends begin freshman year at three different high schools in distant corners of New York City, they promise to live by their motto and stay as close as ever. The Darlings know they can get through anything as long as they have each other. But doing scary new things is a lot easier with your friends beside you. And now that the girls aren't spending all their time together, everything they took for granted about their friendship starts to feel less certain. They can't help but wonder, will they really be the Darlings forever?
You can order it on amazon or buy it at your local independent bookstore.
Hooray and happy new year!
xoxo
Melissa
December 14, 2010
What is a best friend?
My new book, The Darlings Are Forever, tells the story of three best friends who go off to different high schools. It's about a lot of things (parents, fame, boys, homework). But ultimately, it's about being best friends and staying best friends. No matter what.
Writing the book made me think a lot about my best friends, which made me think of the story of Sharon and P. P is the first boy I ever kissed, the first boy I ever went out on a real date with and the first boy who said he would call and then didn't. And for a long time, I thought the following story was about him.
But it is really about my best friend. It is really about Sharon.
When I was in middle school, I was hopelessly in love with P, who went to camp with me. P was dashing and literary and could quote movies I had heard of but never seen. I don't know that P was objectively handsome, but he had a certain wry smile that a certain kind of girl (ie. me) found desperately attractive, and when he called me up one January and asked if I wanted to meet him for an afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was clear that my life (which up until that point had been pretty average) was about to become fabulous.
I won't bore you with wardrobe (I went old school--jeans and a t-shirt) menu (Chinese food) or which exhibit we saw (no idea). Suffice it to say that by the time he was kissing me goodnight at my father's Upper West Side apartment, I knew I had passed the afternoon with my soul mate. When he promised, "I'll call you tomorrow," visions of future dates (not to mention a future) danced in my head.
Tomorrow came and went. So did the next day. And the next. But P didn't call. Now that I'm older and wiser, I understand that P never intended to call, that he'd said, "I'll call you tomorrow" because he didn't know what else to say. But at the time I didn't understand anything. I just knew that he'd said he would call, so he must have meant to call. My best friend Sharon and I discussed his not calling for a long time. We tried as best as two eighth-grade girls could to make sense of his not calling. But we just couldn't do it. So we did what any sane best friends would do: We called P.
"Hi," I said. "It's Melissa."
"Oh," he said, the painfully awkward monosyllable followed by an equally awkward pause. "Hi."
Up until I heard P's voice, I'd really believed that there must be an explanation for his not calling. That he'd suffered a terrible accident or been in a coma. That his parents had filed for divorce. That he'd been trapped in a parallel universe. But that single word, that "Hi," told me the real story. P hadn't called because he didn't want to call. Our afternoon hadn't been his dream date. It had been something he'd had to extricate himself from with a polite promise that he'd never intended to keep.
"So, um, hi," I repeated. "So, what's up?"
"Not much." Pause. "What's up with you?"
"Not much. I…" hating myself but unable to stop, I said, "I just thought you were going to call me." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I would have done anything to take them back. If I'd had to erase myself from the universe, to have never been born, I would have done so just because it would have prevented my living to see the moment when I asked P why he hadn't called.
"Yeah," he said. Then he didn't say anything else.
I didn't know what to say. I was so embarrassed. To make matters worse, I could feel my throat closing up in that way that meant I was about to cry.
I may not have known enough not to call P in the first place, but at least I knew enough not to let him hear me cry. The silence--along with the lump in my chest--grew. Panicked, I handed the phone to Sharon.
Now, if you don't have a best friend, this might seem like a strange thing to have done. After all, I had gone on a date with P, not Sharon. And P had kissed me, not Sharon. It was me P had promised to call, me to whom P had been caddish.
But Sharon was my best friend. And when you're best friends with someone, it's kind of hard to know where you end and she begins. So when I couldn't speak, I turned to Sharon. Who had no trouble finding her voice.
As soon as her fingers wrapped around the receiver, Sharon launched into a blistering attack on P. She told him what he'd done was pathetic. She told P that she hated him and that he was a total loser. She told him he was a sorry excuse for a human being. She told him she hoped they never saw each other again (which was kind of a funny thing to say given that they'd never met). When she ran out of insults, she hung up on him.
When I look back on what happened with P, I can barely remember why I cared about him so much. It was kind of a cheesy date, and he was always more interested in himself than he was in me.
What I do remember is how awesome it felt to listen to Sharon tell a guy who had hurt my feelings what a jerk he was. I remember the determined slam of the phone hitting its cradle and feeling like Sharon's hanging up on P was my hanging up on P and both of us hanging up on P was exactly what P deserved. I remember thinking that P had messed with the wrong girls.
On the phone with P, I felt lame. Lame for liking a boy who hadn't liked me back. Lame for thinking he'd call just because he's said he would. Lame for getting my hopes up about something that turned out not to be something after all.
But after Sharon told P off, I didn't feel any of those things. I felt amazing.
For a lot of my adolescence, I thought life was about boys, whether you liked them, whether they liked you, whether you liked them more than they liked you, whether they liked you more than you liked them. I thought my friendships were background noise and that the real story of my life was somehow tied up with the boys I was important (or not important) to.
But now I know the truth. Best friends aren't background noise. They're your theme song.
xoxo
Melissa
Writing the book made me think a lot about my best friends, which made me think of the story of Sharon and P. P is the first boy I ever kissed, the first boy I ever went out on a real date with and the first boy who said he would call and then didn't. And for a long time, I thought the following story was about him.
But it is really about my best friend. It is really about Sharon.
When I was in middle school, I was hopelessly in love with P, who went to camp with me. P was dashing and literary and could quote movies I had heard of but never seen. I don't know that P was objectively handsome, but he had a certain wry smile that a certain kind of girl (ie. me) found desperately attractive, and when he called me up one January and asked if I wanted to meet him for an afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was clear that my life (which up until that point had been pretty average) was about to become fabulous.
I won't bore you with wardrobe (I went old school--jeans and a t-shirt) menu (Chinese food) or which exhibit we saw (no idea). Suffice it to say that by the time he was kissing me goodnight at my father's Upper West Side apartment, I knew I had passed the afternoon with my soul mate. When he promised, "I'll call you tomorrow," visions of future dates (not to mention a future) danced in my head.
Tomorrow came and went. So did the next day. And the next. But P didn't call. Now that I'm older and wiser, I understand that P never intended to call, that he'd said, "I'll call you tomorrow" because he didn't know what else to say. But at the time I didn't understand anything. I just knew that he'd said he would call, so he must have meant to call. My best friend Sharon and I discussed his not calling for a long time. We tried as best as two eighth-grade girls could to make sense of his not calling. But we just couldn't do it. So we did what any sane best friends would do: We called P.
"Hi," I said. "It's Melissa."
"Oh," he said, the painfully awkward monosyllable followed by an equally awkward pause. "Hi."
Up until I heard P's voice, I'd really believed that there must be an explanation for his not calling. That he'd suffered a terrible accident or been in a coma. That his parents had filed for divorce. That he'd been trapped in a parallel universe. But that single word, that "Hi," told me the real story. P hadn't called because he didn't want to call. Our afternoon hadn't been his dream date. It had been something he'd had to extricate himself from with a polite promise that he'd never intended to keep.
"So, um, hi," I repeated. "So, what's up?"
"Not much." Pause. "What's up with you?"
"Not much. I…" hating myself but unable to stop, I said, "I just thought you were going to call me." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I would have done anything to take them back. If I'd had to erase myself from the universe, to have never been born, I would have done so just because it would have prevented my living to see the moment when I asked P why he hadn't called.
"Yeah," he said. Then he didn't say anything else.
I didn't know what to say. I was so embarrassed. To make matters worse, I could feel my throat closing up in that way that meant I was about to cry.
I may not have known enough not to call P in the first place, but at least I knew enough not to let him hear me cry. The silence--along with the lump in my chest--grew. Panicked, I handed the phone to Sharon.
Now, if you don't have a best friend, this might seem like a strange thing to have done. After all, I had gone on a date with P, not Sharon. And P had kissed me, not Sharon. It was me P had promised to call, me to whom P had been caddish.
But Sharon was my best friend. And when you're best friends with someone, it's kind of hard to know where you end and she begins. So when I couldn't speak, I turned to Sharon. Who had no trouble finding her voice.
As soon as her fingers wrapped around the receiver, Sharon launched into a blistering attack on P. She told him what he'd done was pathetic. She told P that she hated him and that he was a total loser. She told him he was a sorry excuse for a human being. She told him she hoped they never saw each other again (which was kind of a funny thing to say given that they'd never met). When she ran out of insults, she hung up on him.
When I look back on what happened with P, I can barely remember why I cared about him so much. It was kind of a cheesy date, and he was always more interested in himself than he was in me.
What I do remember is how awesome it felt to listen to Sharon tell a guy who had hurt my feelings what a jerk he was. I remember the determined slam of the phone hitting its cradle and feeling like Sharon's hanging up on P was my hanging up on P and both of us hanging up on P was exactly what P deserved. I remember thinking that P had messed with the wrong girls.
On the phone with P, I felt lame. Lame for liking a boy who hadn't liked me back. Lame for thinking he'd call just because he's said he would. Lame for getting my hopes up about something that turned out not to be something after all.
But after Sharon told P off, I didn't feel any of those things. I felt amazing.
For a lot of my adolescence, I thought life was about boys, whether you liked them, whether they liked you, whether you liked them more than they liked you, whether they liked you more than you liked them. I thought my friendships were background noise and that the real story of my life was somehow tied up with the boys I was important (or not important) to.
But now I know the truth. Best friends aren't background noise. They're your theme song.
xoxo
Melissa
December 11, 2010
What do you charge for babysitting?
So I have these three children, and they're pretty young, which means when my husband and I go out for the evening, we need to hire a babysitter. With one exception (a really nice boy who was extremely tall and who used to babysit my oldest son, which was basically the cutest thing ever), all of our babysitters have been teenage girls. And let me tell you, they are the most patient, loving, generous girls you could ever hope to meet. I know this to be a fact because never once have we returned home to find all of our children tied to their beds with no babysitter in a sight and a note tacked to the front door that reads, "You have GOT to be kidding. I am SOOOO out of here," which is what always almost happens when I am alone with my three children.
My point is not how...challenging it is to be with my little angels. It is that our babysitters are miracle workers. They are evidence (to me) of god on Earth. But despite the fact that every single one of our babysitters is worth her weight in gold, whenever a girl comes to watch our children for the first time, she and I have the strangest conversation you can imagine. It goes something like this:
Me: (slipping on my coat) We never talked about what you charge.
Babysitter: (shrugging, smiling awkwardly) Oh, you can pay me, you know, whatever.
Now, I don't think these girls really mean I can pay them "whatever." Like, if I came home four hours later and handed over a quarter and said, "Thanks so much," I think they might complain. Or maybe their moms would. Or maybe they'd just never babysit for my children again.
But here's what I'm wondering: Why won't they set a fee?
These girls are performing a service. They are doing a job. (A really, really, really hard job). They deserve to get paid a fair wage for doing this job. But they don't feel comfortable demanding it.
Because I am a teacher (and therefore forever in search of "teaching moments"), I used to respond (when the girls told me I could pay them "whatever"), by saying, "Can you tell me what you were expecting to be paid?" But after a few awkward exchanges thus begun, I realized I wasn't exploiting a teaching moment so much as I was completely embarrassing the poor girl, and that she would prefer to change a million of my children's dirty diapers than to talk about money with me. Now I just pay the babysitter what I think is a generous amount and hope she's not counting her money on the way home and rolling her eyes at how cheap I am.
So I'm wondering, all you babysitters out there. How do you handle talking about money with your employers? No need to tell me what you charge, but I'd love to know how you settled on the amount, and if it was you, your employer, or some combination of the two who made the decision.
xoxo
Melissa
My point is not how...challenging it is to be with my little angels. It is that our babysitters are miracle workers. They are evidence (to me) of god on Earth. But despite the fact that every single one of our babysitters is worth her weight in gold, whenever a girl comes to watch our children for the first time, she and I have the strangest conversation you can imagine. It goes something like this:
Me: (slipping on my coat) We never talked about what you charge.
Babysitter: (shrugging, smiling awkwardly) Oh, you can pay me, you know, whatever.
Now, I don't think these girls really mean I can pay them "whatever." Like, if I came home four hours later and handed over a quarter and said, "Thanks so much," I think they might complain. Or maybe their moms would. Or maybe they'd just never babysit for my children again.
But here's what I'm wondering: Why won't they set a fee?
These girls are performing a service. They are doing a job. (A really, really, really hard job). They deserve to get paid a fair wage for doing this job. But they don't feel comfortable demanding it.
Because I am a teacher (and therefore forever in search of "teaching moments"), I used to respond (when the girls told me I could pay them "whatever"), by saying, "Can you tell me what you were expecting to be paid?" But after a few awkward exchanges thus begun, I realized I wasn't exploiting a teaching moment so much as I was completely embarrassing the poor girl, and that she would prefer to change a million of my children's dirty diapers than to talk about money with me. Now I just pay the babysitter what I think is a generous amount and hope she's not counting her money on the way home and rolling her eyes at how cheap I am.
So I'm wondering, all you babysitters out there. How do you handle talking about money with your employers? No need to tell me what you charge, but I'd love to know how you settled on the amount, and if it was you, your employer, or some combination of the two who made the decision.
xoxo
Melissa
November 13, 2010
Boys who don't call back
I have a friend who recently went out with a boy who then did not call her back. I do not mean to say that she sat by the phone and waited for him to call her back after their date. I mean that after they had gone out a few times, she invited him out on a date and he just…never got back to her.
In general, I am opposed to the death penalty, and I do not want to be an extremist here, but I think that this is very, very bad behavior. It is worse than putting your elbows on the table or forgetting to thank your grandparents for the birthday check they sent (it's not too late! run, do not walk, to the phone to call them). If you go out with someone (even if you just go out with someone ONCE), and that person invites you out on another date, you must tell the person that you do not want to go. I know that this is a horrible conversation to have. Actually having to look someone in the eye (or, you know, hear his or her voice on the phone) and say, "I do not want to see you again" is awkward. It is uncomfortable. It makes me cringe just thinking about it. But it must be done.
Here is where I must come clean and admit that once I went out with someone several times and then stopped returning his phone calls. I also made the sister of my friend (I was living at her house at the time) tell him that I had moved to Africa. This sounds like an exaggeration made for comic effect, but it is not. It is true that I was moving to Africa. But at the time of his phone call, that move was still a month in the future and I was, in fact, not only in the continental United States but actually sitting on the bed next to her and hissing, "Tell him I've already left!"
It was, to say the least, not my finest hour.
And it makes me sympathetic to people who do things like delete a voice mail from someone who has become nothing but an awkward conversation needing to happen. I have been there. I feel for you. But the truth is, the cringe factor of remembering times when I was rude or inconsiderate or (ugh) outright mean is really, really high even years later. Sucking it up for a few unpleasant minutes really beats regretting, for decades, having been a jerk.
In general, I am opposed to the death penalty, and I do not want to be an extremist here, but I think that this is very, very bad behavior. It is worse than putting your elbows on the table or forgetting to thank your grandparents for the birthday check they sent (it's not too late! run, do not walk, to the phone to call them). If you go out with someone (even if you just go out with someone ONCE), and that person invites you out on another date, you must tell the person that you do not want to go. I know that this is a horrible conversation to have. Actually having to look someone in the eye (or, you know, hear his or her voice on the phone) and say, "I do not want to see you again" is awkward. It is uncomfortable. It makes me cringe just thinking about it. But it must be done.
Here is where I must come clean and admit that once I went out with someone several times and then stopped returning his phone calls. I also made the sister of my friend (I was living at her house at the time) tell him that I had moved to Africa. This sounds like an exaggeration made for comic effect, but it is not. It is true that I was moving to Africa. But at the time of his phone call, that move was still a month in the future and I was, in fact, not only in the continental United States but actually sitting on the bed next to her and hissing, "Tell him I've already left!"
It was, to say the least, not my finest hour.
And it makes me sympathetic to people who do things like delete a voice mail from someone who has become nothing but an awkward conversation needing to happen. I have been there. I feel for you. But the truth is, the cringe factor of remembering times when I was rude or inconsiderate or (ugh) outright mean is really, really high even years later. Sucking it up for a few unpleasant minutes really beats regretting, for decades, having been a jerk.
October 7, 2010
Check out the cover of The Darlings Are Forever
It's crazy, but it's true: We have a cover for The Darlings Are Forever! It's the story of three best friends in New York City who are heading off to different high schools after being at school together since forever. Soon you'll be able to read the first chapter on my website, but for now, you can at least check out how it's going to look when it's in your local bookstore come January. Or, If you want to order it now, you can go to: The Darlings Are Forever.
August 8, 2010
Remember your first time (falling in love with a book, that is)?
My older son has discovered Harry Potter. He's listening to it on my computer, and all he wants to do is be left alone to hear the next chapter. Last night, I let him listen during dinner (he sat at his own table outside on the deck at the house we're renting in Vermont for the month). I'm totally jealous; I remember the first books I dove into and didn't emerge from for anything. It was the summer before third grade, we'd just moved, and the wonderful librarian (Mrs. Distler) watched me check out a new Nancy Drew book every day and never asked why I wasn't playing outside with my friends (what friends?!?).
How about you? Can you remember the books that first let you shut out the world? Or maybe a more recent and beloved read is what's on your mind. Either way, tell!
How about you? Can you remember the books that first let you shut out the world? Or maybe a more recent and beloved read is what's on your mind. Either way, tell!
August 4, 2010
"What's this, Mommy?" (Baby's first squeezable jelly!)
So I'm on vacation with my family, and we just went food shopping. Normally, when we're home in Brooklyn, we shop at a food coop where everything (well, almost everything) is organic and they sell a lot of locally grown produce and everyone who is a member has to work once a month so prices can stay low and people can get that warm, co-opy feeling. While I love the food coop, it can be a little intense; once I walked in holding a can of Diet Coke and a member said to me, "Where'd that come from?" as if the food coop is located not in a city where you can buy a Diet Coke on every corner but on a special planet where nefarious multinational corporations simply do not exist.
Anyway, the point of that long introduction is that my daughter has never been in a real supermarket, and my younger son has no memory of the last time he was in one (last year, when we were also on vacation). And what I want you to know is that at the sight of sugared cereal and Welch's squeezable jelly he completely lost his mind!. It was like he couldn't believe universe was kind and generous enough to have provided him with such bounty. He ran down the aisles with kool aid pops in one hand and Scooby Doo mac and cheese in the other screaming, "Mommy! Mommy! Look at this, Mommy!" And then he would show me each item, stroking the box or jar reverently as his older brother (who knows his way around a Stop and Shop) nodded, a sage expression on his face.
Ultimately, I failed in my attempt to convince my husband that every child should have the chance to try Skippy crunchy peanut butter for himself. But we have a long month ahead of us. I may triumph yet.
Anyway, the point of that long introduction is that my daughter has never been in a real supermarket, and my younger son has no memory of the last time he was in one (last year, when we were also on vacation). And what I want you to know is that at the sight of sugared cereal and Welch's squeezable jelly he completely lost his mind!. It was like he couldn't believe universe was kind and generous enough to have provided him with such bounty. He ran down the aisles with kool aid pops in one hand and Scooby Doo mac and cheese in the other screaming, "Mommy! Mommy! Look at this, Mommy!" And then he would show me each item, stroking the box or jar reverently as his older brother (who knows his way around a Stop and Shop) nodded, a sage expression on his face.
Ultimately, I failed in my attempt to convince my husband that every child should have the chance to try Skippy crunchy peanut butter for himself. But we have a long month ahead of us. I may triumph yet.
July 28, 2010
Follow me on twitter. No, really
I am now on twitter. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing on twitter. There's a line in One Hundred Years of Solitude where someone explains why he's come to Macondo. "We came because everyone is coming." That's how I feel about Twitter. And I sent out a tweet. I don't even know exactly what a tweet is, but I sent one anyway. And Rachel Simmons, who I now love more than anyone in the world, wrote back. Or tweeted back. Or retweeted. It's all a beautiful, technological blur.
The point of all this is that I would like to invite you to follow me on twitter. Whatever that means. And also that I would like to invite you to do something you're not sure you can do. Because you probably can. And when you do, some very nice person just might tweet you back.
xoxo
Melissa
The point of all this is that I would like to invite you to follow me on twitter. Whatever that means. And also that I would like to invite you to do something you're not sure you can do. Because you probably can. And when you do, some very nice person just might tweet you back.
xoxo
Melissa
