Gayle Forman's Blog, page 12

fat

So, yesterday, my five-and-a-half-year old daughter informed that she was going to start eating more carrots. More vegetables in general. "More green things," she told me.  This was very good news to me as her fresh produce intake consists of: baby carrots, broccoli, apples. I figured it was the influence of her friend Sophia's mom. During my tour, she's been eating dinner over there a lot, dining on things like vegetable soup and even trying a spear of—gasp!—asparagus.

"That's great...

the one in which i tenuously use earth day as a reason to give away books

So, it's Earth Day. Woop-dee-dooh. In times as perilous as these, even a boring government report from the Project on Climate Science* is sounding the alarm:

The report, a draft of the Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report that will be sent to the United Nations, says bluntly: "Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced … Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases."

Anyhow, one day ...

what will grayson, will grayson means for the gays

So, last week I learned that If I Stay hit the New York Times Children's paperback bestseller list at #4 its first week out. This was delightful—and I might add, surprising—news.

But when my editor sent me an early PDF of the list, there was something else that caught my eye that made me even happier, and no, I'm not bullshitting here. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan debuted on the New York Times Hardcover Children's list at #3 (right behind The Hunger Games and...

tour dispatch #4: the kids are alright

Oh boy this has taken me a while to get written. But as they say, you save the best for last.

So, book touring, it's kind of grueling, and unless you're a megasuperstar, it can be dispiriting to read to an empty room, or a room that would be empty were it not for the people you personally dragged in.

But then there's the flipside to grueling, and that's the readers. The teen readers. And every time I get to actually interact with real teens, I get my f-ing head blown. They are just so cool. I g...

tour dispatch #3: you gotta have friends

So, where were we?

Aha, Oakland.

I walked into A Great Good Place for Books and immediately felt at home. There were cookies. And Kathleen, the owner, yelled at me: "I can't believe you didn't win the Printz." Then she went on to tell me that she LOVED the book, foisted it on everyone and that her small store had sold like 140 copies of If I Stay in hardback. Well then, nice to meet you, too.

With my new speakers hooked up, I was ready to go. Then in came Nina LaCour, author of the amazing Hold...

tour dispatch #2: best laid plans

This is a blog post about the second and third days of my book tour.

It's also, to some degree, about why, I will, eventually, get one of those expensive Dyson vacuum cleaners.

But first.

Seattle. Where it's also freezing, if not quite raining. I arrive. Meet Diane, the nice "media escort" who's driving me around, who drives me to my sister's house, whereupon I raid the refrigerator before we three take off for all the local bookstores so I can sign stock, i.e. sign books. At the U Bookstore...

tour dispatch #1: a day

There are things I love about Oregon and things I hate about Oregon and basically I had them both all wrapped up in one big, crazy ball last night at the kickoff reading for the If I Stay paperback tour, or as I'm calling it If I Stay: The Musical Tour.

The thing I hate about Oregon, about the Pacific Northwest in general, is the weather. And it was horrific yesterday. Last night, blowing wind, snow in higher elevations, downed trees and electric lines. Which meant that the reading, the...

what the $%*!

When I was writing If I Stay, there were a couple of things I thought might turn people off: All that death. The fact that Mia and Adam have a pretty racy sex scene on the page, and are implicitly sexually active off the page. I even made a couple of changes to one or two scenes with that in mind—not to censor it, but  to make it a bit more readable for a younger audience.

But there is one thing I didn't give a single thought to and that was foul language.

This might be for a couple of...

are you sick of me yet?

Well, I am.

But in case you're not, here's even more chances to indulge in Gayle.

New York Book Tour Date Added!

Monday, April 12, Brooklyn, NY

Bookcourt, 7PM

163 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

And of course, tomorrow, NYC Teen Author Fest, I'll be reading at Seward Park NYPL along with:
Cathleen Bell, Susane Colasanti, Matt De La Pena and Daphne Grab. I think I'll be reading a never-published, never-heard short story and giving away a copy of Sisters in Sanity and the not-yet-released paperback ...

writers, blocks, hoaxes, winners!

Okay, so first of all, the winners of The Sky Is Everywhere contest are:

Robby

Rachel

Congratulations. I'll email you so you can send me your mailing addresses. And then, books!

Second of all, last night kicked off the amazing New York City Teen Author Fest. Because I am lame, I did not take any pictures, but I can report the following:

Eliot Schrefer had the most imaginative way of describing revisions. He is hilarious and inventive both in prose and in life and I cannot wait to read The...