Amy Plum's Blog, page 26

The Year That Kicked My A**

This is going to be a quickie, with no comments allowed. Because I’m not asking for pity or support or any other input. But since my bio has changed drastically in the last year, I’m going to tell you the story succinctly, and then you’ll understand all of the Tweets, blogs, etc. where I am suddenly a single mom living in Paris instead of a married mom living in the French countryside.

Laurent and I split up early this year. We both have apartments in Paris now, care for our kids alternating weeks, and have kept the Loire Valley home (with my ancient office) to use for vacations. I won’t say anything else about that because he is a very good man and an excellent dad and I couldn’t wish for a better father for my children.

Spring and summer were tumultuous, and I had the great misfortune of falling for a guy—a lawyer who passed himself off as a gentleman but turned out to be a cad. He seduced me with beautiful words, spoke of love and a future together, yet his break-up line was, “You should know that I’ve been seeing two other women besides you.” Um yeah. You’d think I’d know the difference between a frog prince and a snake by now. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t looking out for a worm.

And now here I am, single mom in Paris. Getting used to living alone, trying to do the best things for my children, and writing furiously to meet a couple of deadlines (the first book in my JUNEAU series and another mystery project that I will be able to announce very soon).

On the weeks I don’t have my kids I am becoming very familiar with frozen dinners, working round-the-clock, and beginning to tiptoe out into the Paris night life. (See fashion week party in the last post.) I’m a part of two different book clubs, and am forcing myself out to art and literature happenings so that I can meet people and have friends in Paris other than my books’ main characters.

So here we are, nearing the end of 2012. I have a beautiful apartment in the center of Paris, gorgeous healthy children, the best job in the world, and wonderful friends supporting me from around the world. These are the things I am focusing on—moving forward, enjoying the beauty around me, and learning. Always learning. Because that’s what life’s about.

Paris Fashion Fun

I promised to take you along on some of my Paris experiences now that I’m living in the city full-time. So how about accompanying me to the designer Oscar Carvallo’s fashion week party?

I met Oscar at a peniche party a few months ago, during which he said he wanted to do the costumes for a DIE FOR ME film if one were ever made. So when I got an invitation last week to his end-of-Paris-fashion-week party, I didn’t hesitate to accept.

However, about an hour before party-start last night I was on Twitter begging for makeup tips from my friends at Epic Reads as well as make-up experts (okay, YA writers) Natalie Parker and Tessa Gratton. After leaving a pile of discarded dresses and shoes strewn across my apartment, I came up with this:

Revenants meet fashionistas...at least in my mind

As for the rest, I will let the photos & captions speak for themselves. Welcome to your Paris fashion experience!

Me with the man of the evening, Oscar Carvallo

One of Oscar's dresses that I was lusting over

and yet another that I wasn't sure I could ever pull off, but I still had to worship it.

the space

One of the perks of fashion week: male models. (This cutie's name is Sulabh Kalra and he lives in Milan.)

another perk: very interesting characters. This guy wasn't happy when I asked if his outfit was steampunk.

girl in the middle: the singer Inna Modja

Dresses so gorgeous that I had to touch all of them.

fancy headgear

And last but not least, my friend Laila standing next to the house model, who is "retired" at age 31 and has a PhD in biochemistry and does AIDS research. (Um...where was I when they were passing out superhero genes?)

So – what do you think of your first Paris Fashion Week party? Tell me in the comments below and let me know what else you want me to bring you along to!

YA Authors French Invasion (part 1, Loire Valley)

I had thought about writing a whole huge blog post about my recent week with Tara Hudson, Natalie C Parker, Anna Carey, Tessa Gratton and Josephine Angelini. But when I looked over the pictures and stories I wanted to use I realized it would take me hours and hours as well as pages and pages. So I’m going to let the pictures and their captions do the talking for me. I’ll just set the scene:

A few months ago I invited my book buddies Josephine Angelini and Tara Hudson to visit me in France. I told them that some day I wanted to get a ton of writer friends together, but since I just moved to Paris (and with life being a bit crazy lately) I wanted to keep things small. I asked them if they wanted to bring a friend or two. Josie invited Anna Carey and Tara invited Tessa Gratton and Natalie C Parker. And wham-bang, just like that we had us a writer’s retreat!

The group descended upon my Paris apartment on September 16. As soon as the last taxi arrived from Charles de Gaule airport, we jumped on a train to go to my Loire Valley farmhouse. And here is the story in pics:

Train to the Loire Valley (yes, believe it or not, everyone is jetlagged)

Look at what Josie found on an outing to my country supermarket!

Natalie displaying her lettuce-folding skills. (Click on this picture if you want to know why.)

Grocery shopping at the weekly Bourgueil market

All that shopping made us thirsty...wine before noon, hurray! (At least the glasses are tiny.)

What we were supposed to be doing. (Working.)

What we were actually doing. (Working...with breaks for liquid refreshment)

Which degenerated into…

...ditching work and concentrating on liquid refreshments. (As you can imagine, there was a LOT of storytelling going on.)

We did take short breaks from our incessant eating, drinking and talking to take in some culture…

...like wine tasting in a 12th-generation family vineyard.

Eating huge slabs of cheese and meat at Cafe de la Promenade in Bourgueil.

Oh, right…the last two count as drinking and eating, don’t they? Okay, well we did go to a…

...medieval castle (the Chateau de Langeais), where absolutely no eating or drinking took place while we were within the castle walls.

Since I used to work there, I took the girls on my super-duper guided tour, where I knew everything except the things they asked me questions about.

We impressed the locals with our serious authorly attitude towards their revered history.

After all that culture we had to go back to the eating and drinking. Thank the gods we're all such culinary geniuses...

...especially Anna, who almost set the kitchen on fire when lighting cognac over her stew, which I secretly suspect was a ploy to check out the local fire department's "talent."

After 4 days of eating, drinking, talking and working extremely extremely hard producing chapter upon chapter of prose that can only be described as pure genius*, we hopped back on the train and waved goodbye to the Loire Valley.

NEXT UP: French Invasion Part 2, Authors Abscond to Paris

*this part added for our editors and agents
who know our deadlines only too well

YA Author French Invasion – SEE US LIVE!!!

Storming the castle: Josephine Angelini, Anna Carey, Natalie C Parker, Tessa Gratton, Tara Hudson, Amy Plum

Five YA authors have joined me in the land of runny cheese and crispy baguettes, and we want you to join in the fun. Epic Reads will be broadcasting us live tomorrow night (Friday, 21 September from 3:30-4:00pm EST).

Details on how to see the broadcast are here.

Submit your questions in the comments below or by Twitter as noted in the link above. If you have a question for all of us or just one of us, ask away!!!

IF I SHOULD DIE, UK cover reveal

Are you ready? This is big. No, not big. Huge. The UK cover of the last book of the UNTIL I DIE trilogy — IF I SHOULD DIE — is now ready to reveal. (Although HarperTeen will be making changes for the US version!)

It’s awesome. It’s spooky. It is…to die for.

Johanna Basford and Mark Ecob are officially queen and king of book cover art. Thank you Little, Brown Atom for the creeptastic delicious swirly romantic face for the epic conclusion of the DIE FOR ME stories!

Signed Bookplates!

Last year I ran an offer for signed bookplates, and people seemed to enjoy it so much that I feel like doing it again. If you haven’t already seen them, here they are. Aren’t they pretty? The drawings were done by Johanna Basford, the Scottish artist who drew the swirls on the cover of DIE FOR ME and UNTIL I DIE.

And this is what it will look like inside your book:

The plates are my gifts to anyone who writes an Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble review for DIE FOR ME or UNTIL I DIE. Just send me an email to amy attt amy plum books dottt com (take out the extra “t”s, add appropriate punctuation, and squish everything together) telling me what your Amazon and/or B&N user name is and your mailing address, and I will send it to you.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to write a novel-unless you want to. Just a sentence is fine! And let me make this very clear – you can leave WHATEVER review you want. I am not buying positive reviews here. Just say what you thought of the book(s), and that’s good enough for me!

You can receive a total of 4 bookplates – two for the 2 books on Amazon and two for the 2 books on B&N (which means 2 for you and 2 for a friend if you wish), and the offer is international.

Thank you all for your enthusiastic support!

Edinburgh Festival: Round 2

After spending a week with my kids in Paris, I jumped back on the plane to Edinburgh. This time I knew a few people, and had more hang-out time. And I’ve got to be really honest: I did absolutely NO touring of Edinburgh. Every second of the four days was spent either attending book events or hanging out with book people. Who needs tourism when you’ve got books?

So…

Friday: 3pm Emylia Hall & Karl Ove Knausgaard did a talk on writing about family. Emylia read from her THE BOOK OF SUMMERS, and oh is her style beautiful! Listening to her read was like tasting honey: rich, sweet, and left me wanting more.

Then Karl started talking about his book and it blew me away. His A DEATH IN THE FAMILY caused a scandal in his native Norway, crossing the lines for many as he aired his family’s private life in a way they thought was shockingly invasive. When he read, Karl insisted on standing up and holding a mic, which facilitated this kind of leaning side-to-side dance that he does when he reads. And by the way, in real life he looks like the Marlbolo Man mixed with Alexander Skarsgaard. Just sayin’.

Karl doing his reading dance

I bought his book and had him sign it for me afterward and told him that I too had a Norwegian father (or half-Norwegian) who was violent and scared the shit out of me. And then suddenly embarrassed that I had just blabbed this personal information to a complete stranger, I bustled off to the Authors’ Yurt. But the way he smiled a few minutes later when he sat down across the tent from me told me he had probably heard crazier stories from even stranger people.

At 5pm I went to a Young Adult event with Katie Dale and Jennifer E Smith where they talked about their books SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE and THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT and the importance of serendipity and fate in their works and a lot of other interesting things. I bought both of their books afterward and made a date to go out with them and their publicists that night.

Katie Dale & Jennifer E Smith (moderated by hilarious Eve)

And then I dashed off to a talk called “What Comes Next?,” “next” in this case meaning after one dies. But if they had called the talk “Death,” I doubt anyone would have come, so well done for the marketing people on that one. Keith Gray (who I had already seen chair Patrick Ness), Kate Harrison (both YA authors) and Iona Heath (a famous doctor/general practitioner) chatted about death.

Moderator with Kate Harrison, Iona Heath and Keith Gray

The doctor said that it was interesting that she had seen no difference in the anxiety and fear of death between very religious people and those who have no faith. Keith talked about the anthology he edited about death NEXT and his book THE OSTRICH BOYS, which one kid in the audience said was “the best book ever.” And then Kate talked about her book SOUL BEACH, which she pitched as “Facebook for the Dead.”

And after, I went out with everyone in the last two paragraphs (besides the doctor), a few publicists, some bookstore people, and a film director. We encamped in a cave-like wine bar and sat around chatting until the wee hours.

Saturday

I spent most of the day at the “Presenting Life Writing Workshop,” which I joined in order to see what a writing workshop is like, since I have never been to one. There was a lot of talk about self-publishing, and how to publish your own memoir, so it was interesting to know how beginning memoir writers are now approaching publication of their own works.

After that I saw Jane Rogers talk about her book THE TESTAMENT OF JESSIE LAMB which won an Arthur C. Clarke award even though she hadn’t written it specifically as a science fiction book.

Kate Harrison & me in the wee hours

I was then scooped up by Kate Harrison, Nina Douglas (publicist for Orion) and Anthony McGowan (who, by the way, is very very funny and engaging) and swept off to Unbound where people were reading poetry that would probably have been good if we hadn’t been chatting so much that we didn’t hear any of it. KJ Wignall, who I would be on a panel with on Monday, joined us and we sat with a group of publicists who tried to convince us to go with them to karaoke at 1:30am.  Knowing I had a 10:30 event, I called it an evening and went back to my hotel.

Me and KJ with Sam Eades (center) who tried to drag us to karaoke

Sunday

At 10:30 I attended my FAVORITE event of the festival (besides my beloved Neal, of course), which was Mark Walden talking about his H.I.V.E. books and introducing his new series EarthFall. Mark was, in one word, hilarious.  In two, hilarious and engaging. He paced back and forth on the stage and had the entire audience of rabid adolescent fans laughing and participating, and discussing which were their favorite villains in fiction and film and why. (Someone took my “Sauron” but no one mentioned my “Agent Smith.”) It was truly the most entertaining book talk I’ve ever attended, and I showed my appreciation by buying H.I.V.E. (Higher Institute of Villainous Education) and having him sign it for Max.

My next event was Marcus Sedgwick, who I immediately developed an author crush on…yes, he’s cute, but his way of speaking about writing and his stories lassoed me in and held me spellbound. And he has the best book title ever: MY SWORDHAND IS SINGING. However, I bought his new one, MIDWINTERBLOOD, since I was intrigued by his description of two souls living seven different lives together.

Marcus Sedgwick, author of the truly wonderful book MIDWINTERBLOOD

I met Angie Sage in the Authors’ Yurt as we were both huddling as close as possible to the fire (I was pitifully underdressed for Scottish weather), and flashed her my ticket to her event to show my support. I followed her into the theater, and listened to her talk for an hour about the world of apprentice magicians and dragons in her SEPTIMUS HEAP series to a crowd that included three kids dressed inexplicably as vampires.

Angie Sage talking about SEPTIMUS HEAP

And after that I watched KJ Wignall and Will Hill talk about their books ALCHEMY and DEPARTMENT 19, the two having approached the topic of vampires in very different ways. The guys were funny and engaging, and afterward I was scooped up by them and their publicists and we headed to an Italian restaurant and then sat outside of Unbound and chatted until the very very wee wee hours.

Monday

KJ and I met in the Yurt bright and early, chugging coffee to make up for the lack of sleep. Since we had already chatted for hours over the last few days, we didn’t really need to prep for our talk. So we walked into the Scottish Power Theatre with our moderator Daniel Hahn and for the next hour winged it in front of about 150 Scottish school children all dressed up in their school uniforms. KJ had been joking before about how he hoped there would be more boys in the audience (to give you an idea of our difference in styles, his kissing scenes last all of 3 words, mine for a page), so I was very pleased to win the bet and see the place packed with girls.

I did my normal specialty and said some totally inappropriate things…well not actually inappropriate, but they just always come out wrong. Like how if you kissed a unicorn it would be pretty slobbery. (Don’t even ask.) But I think KJ and I did a pretty good job of entertaining the crowd, and we both sold completely out of our books afterward, so were quite pleased with ourselves and went out to lunch to celebrate.

Me with Scottish schoolgirls Rachel and Ciara (pic @byrne_rachel)

I was so sleepy from the night before that I went back to my hotel for a nap, and then, refreshed, made my way back to the festival and gave a talk about the DIE FOR ME series to a group of about 25 parents and kids. I had an excellent chair, Philippa Cochrane, who make the hour-long discussion fun and inclusive of the audience, and altogether perfect.

Marcus showed up, returning the favor of attending each others’ talks, bought my books for his daughter afterward and we chatted about WWII occupied Paris (as one does).

Afterward, I went to not only MY last event of the festival but THE very last event of the festival, which was a Sci-Fi panel of Ken MacLeod and Chris Beckett talking about future worlds. Chris’s book DARK EDEN sounded so interesting that I lined up to have him sign it for me afterward (and am halfway through it right now – it’s really good!).

After that, I was whisked off by my panel buddy KJ for a farewell drink. And that concluded my Edinburgh Festival experience…

…or so I thought! Because at the airport I met an illustrator who I had seen during the week in the Authors’ Yurt, and he was traveling back to Paris. He got the guy who was sitting next to me on the plane to move, and we had a chat all of the way back to Gare du Nord. And a few days later I was invited to the squat he shares with other artists in the north of Paris. Check out the vintage wallpaper in the stairway! (Does it look totally Alice in Wonderland, or what?)

A beautiful city, strange pig-stomach based food, a friendly and passionate public, lots of books, and new friends. The Edinburgh Book Festival was more than I ever expected it to be. I hope I get invited back!

I just had to…

[image error]

Norwegian Book Birthday

Hurray! I’m back. You probably didn’t even know I had gone anywhere, but I’ve been off-line for a few weeks. First my cell phone decided not to let anyone on the other end hear me. And then my internet and phone service at home was accidentally cut off and couldn’t be restored for 2 weeks. I tried to do CONTEST MONDAY yesterday while hacking into my neighbor’s WiFi, but it didn’t work. So one new iPhone later, and a visit a couple of hours ago from the phone guy and I’m BACK!!!

So here is CONTEST TUESDAY, which is dedicated to celebrating UNTIL I DIE’s Norwegian Book Birthday. Give me a few words in Norwegian and you can win an Edinburgh Book Festival book bag! JOIN THE CONTEST HERE!)

And just check out the gorgeous cover that Elisabeth Bjone did for Cappelen Dam (my Norwegian publisher)! If you read Norwegian (or even if you don’t, and just want a pretty book to put on your bookshelf so that everyone will think you are extremely smart and multi-lingual) you can order one here.

Gratulerer med dagen to Kate, Vincent, Jules, Ambrose, Georgia and the rest!

Edinburgh Festival: Part 4

Thursday

I faff around my hotel for the morning until noon, at which point I make my way for the first time in another direction, which leads me straight through the main street of the Fringe Festival.

It’s time for me to make a confession. I don’t particularly love theater. Especially street theater. In addition, mimes totally freak me out, and I will skirt a block out of my way to avoid them.

So here I am, walking through these throngs of people who are feverishly trying to pass out flyers for theater stuff and there are so many of them that they have all come up with a different scheme to get your attention. They are dressed as clowns, they are naked and tied together, they are lying on a blanket smeared with fake blood, they are leaping, grimacing, waving rubber chickens about, and yes – miming. I walk as quickly as I can through them, dodging guys in kilts who skip around to bagpipe music, girls in Shakespearean dress who bow low to me while shoving their paper in my direction, and a gang of people made up as woodland animals who I guess are supposed to look cute but who I sure as hot damn am going to see again in my nightmares.

Finally I arrive at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, where Linda awaits me for lunch. We have tasting platters and talk about writing and books and Neil Gaiman and touring and are still in full chat mode when Linda’s next date arrives. She introduces us, and it turns out to be Philippa Cochrane, who will be chairing my solo event on the 27th. I stay with them for a little while and tell them my Lucia-thought-my-grandma-turned-into-a-zombie-after-she-died story and then leave them to get down to their meeting.

I try to take another road back to my hotel in order to avoid the scary festival people, and find myself on this beautiful street,

which has a ton of shops, in one of which I found the perfect gifts for my kids.

The Plum family are huge Star Wars fans

Unfortunately the beautiful curvy road ended in the wrong place, forcing me to retrace my steps and dive back headfirst into the clown mob. I think I might have actually held my breath. Which I let out abruptly when I saw this sign on the side of an ancient building:

I re-emerge for a talk by Patrick Ness, who has packed the house with adolescents who watch his lips as if he’s spitting pearls. Keith Gray chairs the talk, and the repartee between the two men, who are friends, makes the event even more entertaining. I line up and get him to sign A MONSTER CALLS for me afterward and discover that he too was traumatized by the film A THIEF IN THE NIGHT as a child raised in Evangelical circles in the 70s. (He turns to the festival worker standing behind him and says of the film, “It was basically child abuse.”)

There is no haggis on offer this evening in the Author’s Yurt, but I settle for something safe – a salmony pasta dish, and sit next to a woman who introduces herself as Janne Teller, a Danish author who lives in Manhattan and writes fiction. When I tell her I write YA, she says that one of her YA books, NOTHING, was banned in Scandinavia. Too existentialist and dark, apparently. Her description of it—a boy who stops going to school, sits in a plum tree, and tells his classmates that life is meaningless—has me immediately add it to my TBR list.

Janne lived in Paris for a while, and our conversation veers over to the French, and she gives me her very own pearls of wisdom. Once again I am bowled over by the automatic sisterhood shared by women from seemingly all cultures: we all experience the same joys and tragedies. Over the last few days I have dared to share some recent personal sorrows with some of the women I have met and have been immediately embraced and comforted by them.

(Confession…okay second confession after the mime one: these blog posts were written from journal entries that had to be highly edited. Although emotional meltdown can make for interesting reading, I didn’t want anyone to send a trained psych unit to my hotel room. I will tell you the story of the cad who had me completely fooled some other day.)

Add those women’s compassion to the fact that authors of fiction often wear their hearts on their sleeves, I know I am in the right place. With the right people. And as I fly back to Paris the next day to spend time with my children, I look forward to my return in 6 days.

Books bought in the first week of Edinburgh Festival