Amy Plum's Blog, page 27

Edinburgh Festival: Part 3

Wednesday

10:30 I start my day with an intellectual talk on “pursuing fugitive traces of the past”—meaning researching documents to uncover previously unknown tidbits about Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Jack the Ripper and the like. The speaker is Charles Nicholl and he’s chaired by Stuart Kelly and it’s fascinating and so scholarly it kind of makes my brain hurt.

Next event: Daniel Tammet talks about his book “Thinking in Numbers.” It is billed as “An event which should open the eyes of maths geeks and numbers skeptics alike,” (myself being in the latter group), but he actually doesn’t say anything to convince me of the beauty of numbers. However, I find his description of his “high functioning autism and savant syndrome” fascinating, as well as the fact that he had to train himself to relate to people. (A feat, I suppose for someone who can recite pi from memory to 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes.) I decide to order his book “Born on a Blue Day.”

He lives in Paris. I think of introducing myself, but chicken out. It’s like David Sedaris, whose writing I admire so much, but to whom I would have nothing to say besides raving about his books, which I’m sure gets old fast.

I float back to the Author’s Yurt thinking of numbers having colors and shapes and how different brains work, and wishing that my brain could sometimes be practical instead of ethereal- and emotion-based and suddenly find myself face to face with Charles Nicholl who is looking at me like he knows me. “I enjoyed your talk this morning,” I say, and he replies, “Oh yes, I saw you in the audience.”

(Speakers always thank me for smiling at them and tell me it’s encouraging. I don’t even know that I’m doing it—it’s like a weird subconscious cheerleading thing. Or maybe it’s the attentive look that I developed in grade school specifically in order to be teacher’s pet. How annoying that it still remains.)

So he and I get onto the topic of France, and his son who is moving to Paris in a few weeks to attend Science Po (a good university) and how Charles and his wife live in Italy near Lucca, which is one of the prettiest towns I’ve ever set eyes on.

It’s time for my next event, and I run off to a talk about women writers being parents by Rachel Cusk & Gaby Hinsliff. They talk about feminism, reverse feminism, and how many women give up high-powered careers in order to focus on what is more important in life, and at the end I’m honestly feeling a bit despairing and depressed.

I quickly repair to the Author’s Yurt, where I spy steaming food coming from the back table. Much to my joy there is a label saying, “Haggis, neeps and tatties” in front of bowls with three scoops of different colored stuff in them. The reason for my joy: Kimbery Derting has dared me to eat haggis, and I can never turn down a dare.

Linda Strachen, the person I had been introduced to the day before as “Linda who knows EVERYONE” sidles up to me, and I say excitedly, “Look! It’s haggis!” Being Scottish and probably having eaten a kazillion haggises in her lifetime, she smiles patiently at me and even holds my drink while I take a picture of it.

Haggis served with "neeps and tatties" (Scots: turnip and potato) The haggis is the brown part.

I sit down on one of the couches to eat, and as I finish, I say proudly to the man next to me, “I just ate haggis.” He says, “You realize that’s like eating a scab.” I suddenly want to thump Kimberly Derting, but instead ask what he writes about. “Politics,” he responds.

Oh shit, I think, but I smile nicely and ask what his book is about. It’s something about defending democracy, and he’s a professor at the university of Sheffield, so I think that it probably isn’t be the brightest idea to attempt to engage him in any serious way on his topic. I ask a few polite questions and tell him that I was an anti-war marcher who disengaged from politics in despair after George Bush won the second time, and after that I feel like I have contributed enough to that conversation.

Then he asks me what I write about. “I write paranormal romance for young adults,” I say. He stares at me blankly. “Have you heard of Twilight?” I ask. “I have teenagers,” he replies, nodding. “Well, I initially pitched my book as ‘Twilight in Paris with zombies,’” I reply.

Oh shit, I see him think. Since he had just mentioned how hard it is to talk to some audiences about his stance in politics, I tell him how hard it was to talk to an amphitheater full of hysterical French teenagers right after Ian Somerhalder left the stage. Although that took an explanation of what Vampire Diaries is, and what a sex symbol Ian is, but I think in the end he kind of understood. So I think, My job of YA evangelism is done here, and I get up and join Linda and walk with her to the next talk, The Performing Writer.

This features a panel of Lindsey Davis (crime writer), Tania Harrison (organizer of the Latitude Festival), and Angela Robertson (with Canongate publishing) chaired by Angus Konstam. They talk about the importance of Twitter and Facebook and self-proclaimed old-school Lindsey cracks me up by saying something like, “If the fans want to know about me they can come to my website.” Afterward, much to my pleasure, Linda invites me to dinner with the entire panel plus a few other people. (She DOES know everyone!)

We eat huge piles of tapas and chat about everything under the sun and the way Tania talks about the Latitude Festival makes me want to go next year. (They have dyed sheep wandering around the festival, for god’s sake – how can I miss that?) Afterward, I dash back to UNBOUND since I promised the organizer I would go. I spot Jonathan Ley with a table of his friends and sit with them and watch magic tricks and listen to some creepy magic-themed stories until the day is long gone and I flit back past the castle to my hotel.

Edinburgh Festival: Part 2

Tuesday

My first event is at 11:30. I have plenty of time to spare, so decide to venture forth in search of shoes, since in my usual state of spaciness I packed only high-heels and flip flops and nothing in between. I wander around town until I find some black ballerinas, stick my flip flops in my purse, and make my way to the event only to find that I have missed it because I was looking at my carefully-typed-out itinerary for the wrong day.

3pm I return to Charlotte’s Square for my next event, after checking my schedule a kazillion times to make sure I’m on the right day. (I have a problem with time, if you haven’t noticed. I don’t feel it passing. It’s all just numbers to me, and numbers and I are not friends.)

This event is with two new writers, Kerry Hudson and Lisa O’Donnell. They are both Scottish writers, but Lisa lives in L.A. and Kerry in London, and I enjoy listening to them read excerpts of their books and talk about topics familiar to me like how the titles were chosen, what they felt about the covers, their writing processes, and all of the questions I’m always asked when interviewed.

Kerry Hudson and Lisa O'Donnell (with moderator in center)

Afterward, I go to their signing table, buy both books, and introduce myself. And then I do something I like to do in new cities: I walk for two hours, having no clue where I am going. One friendly woman joins me for a few blocks, tells me all about her babydaddy disappearing, and then goes her own way. And finally I find my way back to the festival thanking the shoe gods for those ballerinas. I never would have made it that many miles in my flip flops.

Graveyard I wandered by in Edinburgh

I go to the Authors’ Yurt and grab a water and sit down next to someone and force myself to chat. It’s the girl who is organizing the UNBOUND event for the next night, and I promise her to come. And then I spot Lisa sitting across from us and tell her that I enjoyed her talk from earlier. “I’m about to do another one,” she says. “I’m about to go to another one,” I say, and take out my ticket and discover that I have signed up to see her once again, but this time she’s talking about screenwriting.

Jonathan Ley and Lisa O'Donnell

7pm I sit in the audience and find myself laughing because everyone is there to learn about screenwriting and Lisa is basically telling everyone that it’s a crap business and that they’re crazy to want to do it. The moderator, Jonathan Ley, tries to diffuse the situation, urging her to talk more about screenwriting, but she’s adamant that she’s much happier writing novels. Her honesty is refreshing and the confused reaction of the audience is priceless and I find myself smiling broadly because it’s all so comic.

8pm I book it out of the tent back to the Authors’ Yurt because I have the first organized meeting of my trip: Keren David, who my British editor had introduced me to by email.  Keren has written several YA novels, and has a few more coming soon, so we chat about that and when I admit I don’t know anyone at the festival she grabs a passing woman and introduces her as Linda Strachen, author of over 60 children’s books. “Linda knows EVERYONE,” Keren says. We trade cards and they run off to another event.

8:30pm I wander past the bookstore and see Lisa sitting there at the signing table with her moderator Jonathan. I sweep them off to the Authors’ Yurt and we go outside and sit and talk all evening with a wandering writer from Mexico. And when it gets too cold to sit outside in my dress and ballerinas, I walk back to my hotel and watch the fireworks explode above the castle from my window.

Edinburgh Book Festival: Part 1

Monday

Wander across Edinburgh from my hotel past this:

to Charlotte Square, where the festival is being held.

3pm Excellent talk by Colm Toibin on “New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families,” a book he wrote on writers and their families. Especially memorable, the story about Yeats and his father, a frustrated writer who sent his son his work to receive only…silence. (Good article on this.)

6:30pm Attend V. Campbell’s talk about her middle-grade book VIKING GOLD for which she brought lots of props like a replica Viking sword and helmet. I wonder what kind of props I could bring to a talk about DIE FOR ME: A replica Eiffel Tower? A beret? A box of macarons? A hot dead guy?

The festival tradition is that after each talk, the author goes immediately to the festival bookstore and signs books. I buy V. Campbell’s book and have her sign it for my son, who can’t read yet, but I’m hoping he’ll love it some day. (It has Vikings and mysteries and swordfights, so why not?)

8pm I pocket my copy of VIKING GOLD and jump straight into the line for Neil Gaiman’s event. I watch him and Chris Riddell talk about the 10th anniversary of CORALINE, and am completely enchanted. It is my first time to see Neil, and I realize why everyone I know who has met him has raved about it. He’s as amazing as I imagined him to be. Better.

One of my favorite parts of the event is when Neil reads a section from CORALINE and Chris does a simultaneous illustration on an overhead projector. Such talent with both the art and writing, I am swept away in the pleasure of pure creativity.

I had joked online about getting a picture taken with Neil, but hadn’t actually taken myself seriously. And when he announces to the audience that he has a family emergency and is flying off right after the talk and can’t sign books I give up all hope of meeting him. Following the crowd out of the tent and into the night, I head toward the festival exit.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse Chris Riddell leaving the Author’s Yurt, and a sudden thought flashes through my mind. Could He possibly be there?

I slip my Author’s badge over my head and make my way into the Yurt. And there he is: Neil Gaiman, waiting for a taxi to take him to the airport. There are four or five people standing around, talking to him about logistics for his trip back. I stand there and nod as if I’m supposed to be there.

And then, as Neil is about to walk further into the yurt to where Amanda Palmer waits for him, I walk up and stick my hand out. “I’m Amy Plum. I write for HarperCollins,” I say, knowing that he too is a Harper author. Amanda leans her head around the corner to see who I am. (Can I just say…she’s so stunning – photos don’t even get close.)

Neil gives me this huge smile and says something and I say something back but I am so starstruck that I couldn’t tell you now what we said even if you hung me by my toenails over a barrel of piranhas. I ask if I can take my picture with him, and he agrees. And then he makes a joke about how he always has red-eye in pictures, and I promise to Photoshop it out.

And that is it. I thank him and walk out into the Edinburgh night, back to my hotel room, smiling because my Day 1 of the festival ended with a beautiful little dream coming true.

Photo of the year

Um…yeah. Just my hero and all.

Me & Neil Gaiman

And then… *faints*

Plummy Updates – the One About the 12-toed Cat

Plummy Update #1

Tomorrow I’m going to EDINBURGH!!! HURRAY!!!

(Can you tell I’m just a teensy bit excited?)

This is what happened: I was invited to speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival. I’m doing a talk on the 27th, which you can buy tickets for here, and then a panel with KJ Wignall which you can’t buy tickets for unless you’re a Scottish school child, in which case you’re coming with your class.

So I was all excited about it and decided to extend my stay a few days so that I could see some other authors talk. And then I got the program for the 3-week festival and decided to lump a whole extra week on. I’ll be there the first and third weeks of the festival, just basically hanging out and attending about a kagillion events.

BUT…if you are at the Edinburgh Festival and want to find me to say hello or have me sign something, I will probably be at UNBOUND every night in the Guardian Spiegeltent from 9pm-11pm. The days I’m there: August 12-17 and 24-28.

And now for the real reason I am attending Week 1 of the Festival. Two words: Neal Gaiman.

I love him. I love him in the same way that I love Gene Wilder, who I fell madly in love with the first time I saw his frizzy hair sticking out from underneath that velvet top hat. (I was nine.) I, however, have never written Gene Wilder an embarrassing gushy fan letter and will certainly never meet him. Thankfully, I wrote Neal’s letter using my real name, so his bodyguards won’t have “Amy Plum” on their stalker alert list. (I actually had to unfollow him on Twitter and FB so that I wouldn’t have daily bouts of jealousy about Amanda F. Palmer.) (Just kidding.) (Kind of.)

The event was sold out before I could even get my Author Ticket Request Form in, but I pleaded my case with a few key festival organizers, and they gifted me with a Director’s ticket. Who knows what that means, but if I am back stage, you will be sure that I will have a photo of Neil & me up here as fast as you can say Twitter.

Plummy Update #2

I turned in my copyedits for IF I SHOULD DIE today. Which means I get to start work on JUNEAU, my HarperTeen book that will be coming out in 2014! I can’t even tell you how excited I am about that. I’m bringing my notes along to Edinburgh for any down-time I have, since I’m thinking that with all of those authors in one place, inspiration is going to be drifting around like a thick fog. I’ll just have to breathe it in, and I’ll be writing magical prose.

Plummy Update #3

I never know what I’m going to be asked to do in my job. Take part in a “who has the hottest protag” contest, tell some interviewer what kind of undies Vincent wears, or send birthday greetings to someone’s friend halfway across the world. Yesterday I got a new one: a Tweeter asked me and 2 other authors to come up with a name for their rescue cat, who happened to have a peculiar genetic deformation. I was happy to oblige. My perfect name for a 12-toed cat? “The Duke of Dozen.”

Plummy Update #4

I passed a Paris clothes shop called “Jules” the other day and saw these posters in the window.

So I knew I had to take a photo for you. And it wasn’t until I took the group-shot that I saw what was printed on the one in the front:

Um…yeah. Weird, right?

Plummy Update #5 (which is not really an update)

And finally, my favorite recent quote:

“I love him, I love him, I’m so sorry.”

If you guess who this is, you win…nothing. Except the knowledge that you too were once a Twihard. And Twihards never die. They just spend the rest of eternity skipping around Forks in a peasant dress.

Completely random image (just because it’s beautiful)

Apfelbaum, Gustav Klimt, circa 1912

I passed my Klimt stage about a decade after my short-lived Monet stage and around five years after my Toulouse-Lautrec stage.

But Klimt’s apple trees have remained favorites, the apple tree being one of my most beloved symbols. When I was seven I used to climb up into the branches of the apple tree in our backyard and read. And ever since, I’ve thought of them as the perfect refuge: strength, shelter, beauty, nourishment. A sensual delight with the heady perfume of the blossoms, the tart-yet-honeyed taste of the fruit, the rustling sound of the wind through the leaves, and feel of the rough bark beneath my legs.

So this morning I’m doing a Kate and basking in the beauty of this apple tree.

YA Scavenger Hunt: Winner of My Contest

We had over 250 entries for my personal contest for the YA Scavenger Hunt!! Thank you everyone for participating and for your enthusiasm and fun comments. After counting up all of the points and sticking them into Randomizer.org, we have a winner!!!

Amanda Pedulla has won the signed paperback of DIE FOR ME, and unsigned hardback of UNTIL I DIE (with a signed bookplate)!!!

Congratulations, Amanda. Be sure to email me with your mailing address!

And everyone else – check back to the YA Scavenger Hunt homepage for the names of other winners and the grand prize winner.

See you this winter for the next hunt!

YA Scavenger Hunt: Summer Edition

Welcome to the Summer 2012 YA Scavenger Hunt!
August 1 – August 5 (noon pacific time)

For you first timers, the YA Scavenger Hunt is an online blog hop created by the lovely and talented Colleen Houck. It’s a chance for you to see bonus material by your favorite YA authors as well as winning amazing prizes.

If you came here looking for my bonus material, a POV piece written by Jules, you’ll have to keep hunting! Don’t blame me…he’s the one who likes to play hard-to-get!

At each stop on the hunt, you not only get to meet a YA author and read their bonus material, but you get a clue to enter for a grand prize–one lucky winner will receive at least one signed book from each author on my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours—until noon PST on Sunday August 5th!

You can start right here or you can also go to the YA Scavenger Hunt homepage to find out all about the hunt. There are TWO contests going on simultaneously! I am a part of the BLUE TEAM–but there is also a red team. You can enter both contests!

(If you get stuck as you are moving through the hunt, click through to this page.)

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE



Directions: You’ll notice that I’ve hidden my favorite number in blue somewhere below. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the blue team, and then add them up (don’t worry, you can use a calculator!).
Entry Form: Once you’ve added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian’s permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by August 5, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
ARE YOU READY??? Here we go…

BONJOUR!

I’m Amy Plum, and these are my two love slaves, Paul and Ian.

Support for my revenants from a couple of vampires

As my love slaves are so kindly demonstrating, I’m the author of the DIE FOR ME and UNTIL I DIE, the first two books of a paranormal romance trilogy set in Paris (which is where I live) featuring supernatural beings of my very own making called “revenants.”

Now that I’ve introduced myself, I’m excited to tell you about the author I’m hosting today:

MIRANDA KENNEALLY

Miranda’s Bio:

Miranda Kenneally is the author of Catching Jordan (2011), a contemporary YA novel about football and femininity. Her next book Stealing Parker releases October 1, 2012. Miranda is the co-creator of Dear Teen Me, a website where authors write letters to their teen selves. The Dear Teen Me anthology releases October 31, 2003. I mean, 2012. (Silly me. *cough*) She enjoys reading and writing young adult literature, and loves Star Trek, music, sports, Mexican food, Twitter, coffee, and her husband.

This is her book, STEALING PARKER, which will be released in October, 2012:

STEALING PARKER:

After her family’s scandal rocks their conservative small town, 17-year-old Parker Shelton goes overboard trying to prove that she won’t turn out like her mother: a lesbian. The all-star third-baseman quits the softball team, drops 20 pounds and starts making out with guys—a lot. But hitting on the hot new assistant baseball coach might be taking it a step too far…especially when he starts flirting back.

Find out more about Miranda’s books by checking out her website at mirandakenneally.com/

or you can pre-order CATCHING JORDAN here!

Today Miranda has given us something amazing as her bonus material. The EXCLUSIVE COVER REVEAL of Miranda’s forthcoming book THINGS I CAN’T FORGET, coming in 2013.

ISN’T IT GORGEOUS???

Thanks, Miranda, for letting us be the first to see!

Don’t forget to enter the official Scavenger Hunt contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Miranda, and other YA authors! To enter, you need to find my favorite number, is which hidden somewhere in this post, in blue. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the blue team and you’ll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!

UNTIL I DIE Contest!

Enter up to 6 times to win a fabulous prize pack including a signed bookmark, a signed paperback of DIE FOR ME, and an unsigned hardback of UNTIL I DIE (with a signed bookplate you can stick in). (International.)

How to get your points:

follow me on Twitter at @AmyPlumOhLaLa
get a friend to follow me on Twitter
like me on Facebook
get a friend to follow me on Facebook
join my mailing list (on the right hand side of this blog page)
Leave me a comment here under this blog post telling me how many points to give you. Just leaving a comment counts 1 point. (And if you have done 1-4, give me your user names and your friends’ user names so I can credit your points.)

Ready to go to the next website on the Scavenger Hunt? Let’s go visit NANCY HOLDER!!

Tweet #YASH

Countdown to YASH

I’m popping out of my Batcave, where I am busily working on copyedits to IF I SHOULD DIE, to remind you that the summer YA Scavenger Hunt starts in 2 days (August 1)!

As I promised you all, my special content this time is a Point-of-View piece that Jules wrote near the beginning of UNTIL I DIE. And to whip you into a frenzy of Hunt madness, I’m giving you these two teasers…the first and last lines of the POV.

“I’m in love with a girl who’s not mine to love.”

and

“My heart is sore with wanting her.”

Is that enough inspiration to join the hunt? If so, prepare yourselves by checking out the Hunt Homepage!

Back to the Batcave, which I’ve moved this week to a top-secret location…

Appropriate place for a batcave, non?

(I jumped on a train to see an old friend, so brought my work with me!) If you want more photos of my top-secret hideout, I’m letting people guess where I am on Twitter at @AmyPlumOhLaLa.

As Christian would say…”Laters, baby!”*

*A hint to what I read on the train…cover carefully hidden.

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