Beth Revis's Blog, page 41

Shop Local, Get Swag and Signed Books

I love local stores. One of my favorite things about the town where I live is the Main Street. The Main Street at the town where I used to live...didn't exist. But my town has a really cute main street! (Funny side note, you can see part of it in the background of my interview online here.)



Also: I really think that a lot of America's problems might be solved if there was more shopping on Main Street. It doesn't take much to make a difference.



Which is why, this year, I'm supporting my local economy with Small Business Saturday.







Now...IF you happen to be lacking an idea of something you'd like to order from a Small Business....might I recommend my favorite small business, Fireside Books and Gifts? Fireside is a great local store--right on Main Street, even!--and they ship books and fun local crafts worldwide.



And if you're wondering what you should get...why yes, this is a shameless plug...then might I suggest the paperback copy of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE?




Reason 1 to get the paperback:

Cool New Cover

You can't see all the detail here, but this cover is pretty sick.

There are little shiny details--like runway lights under Amy's feet, and around the text on the back--that make the whole cover just POP!











Reason 2:

Ship Map on One side, Stars on the Other!

I was really worried they wouldn't be able to put in the ship map...but it's there! Shiny! And stars!








Reason 3:

Your Name is In the Acknowledgements!

In case you didn't know, everyone who was a Facebook fan by 1/11/11 at 11:11am has their name listed in the acknowledgements! I'm SO grateful to my publisher for finding this unique way to thank the most important people in this set-up--YOU GUYS.




And also! The first chapter of A MILLION SUNS. :)














Reason 4:

I will give you free stuff!

Order from my local indie, Fireside Books and Gifts, and not only will you get a SIGNED copy (and personalized if you want it that way), but I will also slip as much swag as possible into the envelope! And I've got a ton of swag--posters, rubber band bracelets, and pins.

















So yeah--this is totally my way of trying to talk you into buying local and picking up a paperback copy of AtU :) It officially releases on November 29th, but you can preorder now--and they'll be sent out as soon as they're signed, directly to you, with as much swag as I can fit in the envelope! 






And oh, hey, while you're in the book ordering mood and all (heh. Like I'm ever not in the book ordering mood.) On the same day that my paperback comes out, so does another awesome title--LEGEND by Marie Lu! I was starting to feel dystopianed-out when I picked up this book, but the first chapter latched onto me and wouldn't let me put the book down. 




There are some really cool features about this book--including dual POVs (which of course I love!), cool ink selections in the text, and four five-starred reviews from the big wigs! So whether you're just now dipping a toe in dystopian waters or you think you've read them all: definitely give this one a try!

WINNERS!

Guys, this last contest was SO. MUCH. FUN. I hope y'all enjoyed it as much as I did--I loved going to your blogs and checking out the books you loved...and I've added an inexorable amount of them to my TBR list! You guys really went above and beyond--I loved how many of you put so much thought into the book(s) you were truly the most grateful to have read. And it put a smile on my face to see the ones written by friends!



In addition to the Thanksgiving contest, I also have a contest for a signed copy of CROSSED by Ally Condie. And the winner of that one is... JEN @ MIDNIGHT BOOK REVIEWS!



But I know most of you are probably the most curious to see who won the big prizes for the Thanksgiving contest.



And I am cruel and like to extend your anxiety...



Hehehehe....



For the curious: the most popular book selected for this was HARRY POTTER. The second most popular book was one or more of the TWILIGHT books. Several of you picked classics, such as CATCHER IN THE RYE, but at least half of you picked books published in the last ten or so years (NIGHTSHADE was a popular title for that, as was the HUNGER GAMES books).



Of the winners: 1 person who won entered on the first day the contest was open, 1 person who won entered on the last day it was open. (Just thought that was a neat tid-bit.) I did moderate the winners and only selected winners who properly entered and followed the instructions.



OK, so there are five prizes total--3 signed copies of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE with swag, 1 signed copy of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE with swag and a box of Turkish Delight, and one Grand Prize winner of all 19 signed books.



We'll start small...



But since you had to tell me what book you're most grateful for in order to win, I thought it might be fun to make you click to see who won based on the book they're most grateful for.



The winners of the signed ACROSS THE UNIVERSE with swag are...




This person, who is most grateful for DELTORA QUEST!

This person, who is most grateful for HARRY POTTER!

And also this person, who is also most grateful for HARRY POTTER!




The winner of the signed ACROSS THE UNIVERSE with swag and a box of Turkish Delight is...




This person, who is most grateful for ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS!




And...




drumroll please...




The winner of 19 signed books, swag, a box of Turkish Delight, and as much goodies as I can cram in the boxes is....




This librarian, who is most grateful for BOY MEETS BOY!!!




Congrats to all the winners, 

and thank you ALL for playing along!




Don't forget to check back in December for my next giveaway!

I've been prepping for this one for awhile,

and, it's even bigger.

Linkspam!

I've been under the weather lately (thanks husband!) and so rather than do productive things, like, you know, write a book, I've been sitting on the couch, going through two boxes of Kleenex, and browsing the interwebs.



Which means: lots of links of fun for you!



Contest updates: You still have until Monday to win the signed copy of CROSSED by Ally Condie or the 19 signed books for Thanksgiving (PS: whoa that's a lot of entries! I'm glad Rafflecopter's going to pick the winner, not me!)



ZOMG I can't wait for this news! The nerd inside my can barely contain my excitement for these two things: leaked pages of the Avatar: The Last Airbender comic book, and the first official trailer for the new Pixar movie, BRAVE, which looks epic and amazing, including the hair.



This is my new favorite picture of Stephanie Myers. Seriously. Speaking of, I'm really intrigued by Kaleb's Nation TV show.



Are you doing NaNoWriMo? This is my pep talk. It's all official and shizz.



Here's the Earth. Coming right at you.



ATU Facts is live! I'm really excited about this--to encourage people to read (or re-read) ATU Facts is a series of details about ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. The cool thing is that I was able to sneak in some details on hidden Easter eggs for AtU...and some (tiny, and marked) spoilers for A MILLION SUNS.



Lists! AtU has made the YALSA Reader's Choice list (yay!) and the TAYSHAS list (Texas yay!)

CROSSED Interview and Giveaway!

I had the very great pleasure of meeting Ally earlier this year and can say with certainty that she is one of the nicest, kindest people I know--and she writes beautiful books on top of that! I'm also pleased to say that today we're a part of the CROSSED blog tour--which includes a SIGNED copy of CROSSED for one reader! 




You guys know I love the full-monty when it comes to online stuff, so be sure to check out the CROSSED trailer here--it's one of the best book trailers I've ever seen. You can Get Matched at the Facebook app here, and find out cool MATCHED facts here. Finally, be sure to check out the (beautiful!) dedicated website for MATCHED here.




Now, on to the interview! And don't forget to enter for a signed copy of CROSSED at the end!








YOU

We can read all about your life from your bio in the jacket flap of your book.
So, what's a completely random fact about you that most people don't know?


I don't think most people have heard this
story:




When I was in college I had the biggest crush on
my husband but all the other girls in our dorm thought he was cute, too. He was
this really sweet, funny, athletic guy who also played guitar. So I had to find
a way to get his attention. I knew he was a runner so I dared him to run a
marathon with me. Of course, that meant that we "had" to go running together
almost every day. We ran our first marathon together back October of 1999. Two
weeks later, he proposed, and seven weeks after that, we got married. So it
totally worked. ;) 



As a kid, what was your favorite book? Have your tastes changed since growing
up?

Growing up, my favorite novel was Anne of Green
Gables. I read that book thirty-two times (I know because I marked the inside
cover of the paperback every time I finished). I wanted to be Anne so badly! I
still love that book and books like it (plucky heroines, gorgeous settings,
etc.). But now I also read more science fiction and fantasy than I once did.



In the MATCHED books, Cassia starts her journey towards freedom from the
Society in part because of a poem ("Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night" by
Dylan Thomas). Is there a poem or book that helped define you the way this poem
defines Cassia?

There's a novel called Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner that my grandmother gave me
to read at some point in high school. When I read it, I was blown away by how
much I cared for the characters and by the beauty of Stegner's writing. I've
read the novel several times since—in college during a senior course on
Stegner, during the time my husband was in grad school, after I had my second
baby, etc. It's the kind of book you read over and over again and, each time,
you are taken with its beauty and torn apart by its truth. Crossing to Safety is a book I encountered when I was young and
that I'll continue to re-read for the rest of my life. This novel changed the
way I looked at reading, writing, and myself, and that happens again each time
I revisit the book.




And a question from Twitter: What's your
favorite cupcake flavor?

Ooh, good question. I think lemon. I'm on a big
citrus kick lately. Perhaps because winter has arrived here in Utah!






YOUR BOOK

I've loved learning about the influences from the real world that created the
world of MATCHED, such as being inspired by Zion canyon.
But Twitter (and I!) want to know: how did you come up with the idea for The
Society?


I often say that I got the idea for the Society
from my own experience being a parent. It's really hard to know when to take
control and when to step back. I definitely struggle with that issue—when do
good intentions and protective instincts stop helping and start inhibiting? In
my mind, the Society did start out with the best of intentions but then started
holding on more and more tightly.





How was writing CROSSED different from writing
MATCHED? (Having just gotten off the sequel-writing train myself, I'd love to
learn from your wisdom or share in your misery!)

Oh, Beth, you are so awesome. I have no wisdom.
Every book is such a different beast from the one before and I am coming to
realize I know very little about anything. Writing CROSSED was different from
writing MATCHED for a lot of reasons. I added Ky's point of view, gave the
novel an entirely different setting, etc. CROSSED was both the easiest and
hardest book I've ever written. It was easy because I cared deeply about the
characters, I knew the setting, and I knew how integral this journey was to the
rest of the series. It was difficult because I wanted so badly to get it right.



If your reader could only take away one emotion, theme, or idea from CROSSED,
what would you want it to be?

 Honestly, I just want them to enjoy the book
and to find something in it that they feel rings true to them, to their own
life or experience. I always love it when I read a book and think, Yes. This
is how I feel too. If I reader feels that when reading something I've written, that is the ultimate
compliment.





YOUR WRITING

What's the most surprising thing you've learned since becoming a writer?




Hmmm. I think that happened back in 2006 with
the publication of my first book. I learned that publication did not change me
as much as I thought it would—I think I imagined that, upon publication, I
would feel different. But I didn't really. My work was still my work. My family
was still my family. I was still myself. Of course, it was beyond awesome to
see my book on a shelf and to have people actually reading my story!




I think that what I didn't realize until after
it happened was that publication didn't change me—but the writing itself does.
I hope that makes sense.



Beyond the typical--never give up, believe in yourself--what would be the
single best advice you'd like to give another writer?

 Don't forget to live your life. Don't let
writing become your life.




At the end of the day, when I go to sleep, I now
and then will think, "Today was such a great writing day!" But usually it's the
other things that are on my mind and on my heart. My kids, my husband, my
parents, etc., and how they're all doing. Those are the things that are really
my life. My work is deeply, deeply important to me and feels very real to me.
But if it were all I had, I would be very lonely.



What do you think are your strongest and weakest points in writing?

I think my weakest point is that I never
outline. (I do take lots of notes—for example, when I started Book 3 in the
Matched Trilogy, I had 150 pages of notes and ideas from the first two books to
use in Book 3, but no formal outline.) I've tried to outline but it always ends
up being completely ineffective because I end up deviating so much from the
outline. But if I could do that well, it would probably save me so much grief
later—when writing sequels, for example! ;)




I think my strongest point is that I really care
about character development. I want my characters to feel and act very real. I
want them to change and grow in important ways, to do interesting things.





Thank you, Ally, for sharing your thoughts and ideas here!




And thank you, Penguin, for providing readers today with a SIGNED copy of CROSSED for one lucky winner! 




In order to thank Penguin for providing the prize, I included ways to get extra entries for the giveaway by following or tweeting Penguin Teen. It's totally optional, but I wanted to give everyone a chance to thank Penguin for giving the prize.






And meanwhile, here's something for everyone: you can read the first two chapters of CROSSED here!




Check out what the other Bookanistas are reading here:




Elana Johnson gives a standing ovation for VIRTUOSITY
LiLa Roecker pines for THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS
Shannon Messenger talks up THE PLEDGE - with a giveaway
Corrine Jackson falls for UNDER THE NEVER SKY
Carolina Valdez-Miller gives some love to HERE
Veronica Roth screams for THE NEAR WITCH
Nikki Katz praises LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR
Katy Upperman reccommends THE PLEDGE





<a href="http://rafl.es/enable-js"&am... need javascript enabled to see this giveaway</a>.

A Rare Poetry Sighting

Even dead leaves




                        old

                        dry

                        crinkled

                        crumbling
already to dust




are beautiful when they fall.




-November 15, 2011

It's Not a Competition

Recently, someone asked me if I was scared to have a release date near another author's release date.



The short answer: nope.



One of my friends was surprised when I mentioned other authors I knew as if they were my friends (they are) rather than my competition.



But...they aren't competition.



I mean, yes, sort of. Everything we do in life is something of a competition, arguably. We all want to be the best, or at least do our best.



But one of the great, great things about writing, especially writing in the YA community, is that there is no winner or loser. Because it's not like people can only buy one book. You can buy as many as you want! You can read as many stories as you want, you can live in Narnia and Middle Earth and Little Whinging.



When I first got my book deal, I expected other authors to look down on me a little. Tiny fish in a huge pond, new kid on the block, whatever analogy you'd like to use here. Also, I sort of expected all these awesome, amazing authors to be a little on a pedestal, or unreachable in their ivory tower. Instead, I've found that 99% of the writers in the YA community are kind, gracious, and friendly.



Because writing? It's not a competition. It's not a race. There is no winner or loser. The only person I compete with every time I open my computer and start writing is myself. When I look at my words, I don't compare them to someone else's. I compare them to mine. When I say I want to be better, I don't mean that I want to be better than Author X. I mean I want to be better than what I used to be. 

News and Announcements!

EVENTS!


This weekend, I'll be in Charleston, SC, for the first annual Y'All Fest! I have been promised pie, so I will definitely be there.




My events:





Location: THE AMERICAN THEATER, 446 King St.



Time: 3 pm 

PUTTING THE YALL IN YALLFEST • Ballroom

Saundra Mitchell (The Vespertine)

Michelle Hodkin (The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer)

Katie Crouch (The Magnolia League)

Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth)

Moderator: Beth Revis (Across the Universe)

Note: I'll be unable to sign after this events, as I have to rush off to...




Location: THE AMERICAN THEATER, 446 King St.

Time: 4pm

DON'T DIS-TOPIAN • Cinema

Beth Revis (Across the Universe)

Kim Derting (The Pledge)

Diana Peterfreund (Rampant)

Eliot Schrefer (School for Dangerous Girls)

Moderator: Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon)

Note: I WILL be able to sign books after this event.




And I'll also be here:

6 pm YA SMACKDOWN • Ballroom • $5•Available at Blue Bike or here

All 26 writers on stage at once for YA games!

Presented by Chas. County Public Library YA Services




If you live in or near Charleston, be sure to attend! It's going to be TONS of fun--with TONS of authors--and my publisher is shipping down an extra box of swag and goodies JUST for this event! Remember, you can find more information here.




AWARDS!

Holy frex, you guys, I've been nominated for some awards! I am...gobsmacked. Seriously. I can't even begin to express what an honor it is to be even nominated for these.




Carnegie Medal 

(a literature award based in the UK)




Romantic Times (RT) Award Nominations:

Book of the Year

Best YA Futuristic/Paranormal




GoodReads Award Nominations:

Young Adult Science Fiction & Fantasy

Best GoodReads Author




None of this would have happened without you guys, the people who read my book and have been with me every step of the way. I've already informed the husband that should my book progress from the longlist to the shortlist for the Carnegie, we're going to London for vacay. And I will be going to the RT Conference in Chicago next April, so I plan to high-five as many people there as possible (as well as give away a ton of copies of A MILLION SUNS).




If you want to, I would appreciate your vote in the GoodReads book awards. Or you can vote for another book--seriously, I won't know the difference--but if you're a reader and on GoodReads, definitely do make your voice heard and your vote counted. (And I'll give you a hug and a sparkly-eyed-smile if you vote for AtU.)




THANK YOU!

I mean, I know I'm doing the whole thank-you-contest-thing right now, but seriously...thank you. Thank you all. I can never say it enough.

THANKFUL FOR...King Lear

All this week I'm going to be discussing the books I'm most grateful for. Doing a post like this one is all you have to do to qualify for the 19-YA-Book Giveaway I launched yesterday. Just tell people about a book you're thankful for, include a link to the contest and the graphic right there to the right, and you're qualified.





King Lear by Shakespeare




I'll be honest, my first two books I featured were softballs. Who doesn't love Narnia and Harry Potter (don't tell me if you don't love them, I live in a world where everyone loves them).



I also mentioned my love of YA and how reading so much adult lit drove me even further into YA. So let me switch it up today: today I'm talking about my favorite play, King Lear.



My first experience with this play was actually as a child--one of my favorite books growing up was Grandfather Tales  a collection of folk Appalachian stories collected by Robert Hillerich. I read and absorbed every single one of those stories, and eventually, as I grew up, I started making connections between the stories and their sources. "Whitebear Whittington" had roots in the classic "Beauty and the Beast" stories, for example, and I realized that many of the stories can be traced back to classic fairy tales. The settlers in Appalachia took the stories of their European ancestors and made them their own.



One story, though, was always a mystery to me: "Like Salt Loves Meat." In it, a girl tells her father she loves him "like salt loves meat," a similarity that he doesn't appreciate, and he sends her away. It's not until a clever cook (his daughter in disguise) makes him a meal without salt that he realizes the depth of her love.



When I was in high school, I was assigned to read King Lear. Within the first scene, I realized I had found the source of my favorite folk tale, and by the end I was as in love with the original as with the bedtime story.



One of my favorite things about King Lear is that it touches on all forms of love--and it most definitely IS a love story, even if the main love story is between a father and a daughter. It's about familial love between parents and children, brothers and sisters. It's about the love between friends and strangers. It's about love turned sour by greed and kept pure by sincerity.



There are little moments in the play that I relish. When Goneril smashes out Gloucester's eyes and describes them as jelly, I can't help but laugh. Kent's loyalty and Lear's madness are some of my favorite scenes, as is Gloucester's "aided suicide." But one of my favorite aspects of the play is the fact that it's possible for the same actor to play both Cordelia and the Fool--which adds a whole new layer of meaning to the Fool's words.



Shakespeare's probably most well known for Romeo and Juliet...and that's my least favorite of his plays. I don't think that Romeo and Juliet had love at all. At best they had a manic sort of obsessive attraction, but love? No.



If you want love, look at how Cordelia loves Lear.



She loves him like salt loves meat.



Find out what the other Bookanistas are reading here:






Elana Johnson is crazy about Crossed and Shatter Me

LiLa Roecker swoons for Sirenz

Christine Fonseca  interviews Kids Inventing! author Susan Casey

Shelli Johannes-Wells dishes on Become (Desolation Book #1)

Beth Revis celebrates books for which she's grateful – with gigantic signed book giveaway

Jessi Kirby applauds Virtuosity

Megan Miranda marvels at How to Save a Life

Rosemary Clement Moore is wild for The Iron Witch

Veronica Rossi  is amazed by Shatter Me

THANKFUL FOR... Harry Potter

All this week I'm going to be discussing the books I'm most grateful for. Doing a post like this one is all you have to do to qualify for the 19-YA-Book Giveaway I launched yesterday. Just tell people about a book you're thankful for, include a link to the contest and the graphic right there to the right, and you're qualified.





Harry Potter by JK Rowling




It's probably cliche to say that Harry Potter is one of the books I'm most grateful for. Nearly every writer I know has read and loved these books (and, to be honest, I'm a little wary of those that don't).



Still: it's true.



Let me set the scene for you. I was in college. I was an English major--and had taken the lofty classes and ready the snobby books to prove it. While I loved stories and loved reading, I don't think I'd really read a book for fun in years. In high school, I worked myself to the bone between part-time jobs and AP classes so I could afford college--I used the jobs to buy my first computer and used the schooling and a healthy dose of luck to get a scholarship. In college, I still had this insatiable need to prove myself. I was rather like Lisa Simpson.



So: I took the highest level classes, wrote the longest essays, and read every book on the syllabus.



And somewhere in there, I forgot about how I loved stories. I was so busy finding the symbolism in Frankenstein and parsing the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare and translating the Old English of Beowulf that I forgot about the pure joy of story.



The number one thing that I've gotten flack for on my website is my often-proclaimed loved of YA books and how, in my opinion, YA books are better than adult literature. People seem to think that means I hate adult literature, or that my love of YA somehow degrades or insults their love of adult lit. The thing is, I don't hate adult lit. I spent five years of my academic life researching adult lit and getting two degrees in it. I like adult lit.



But I love YA lit.



So here I was in college, surrounded by Moby Dick and Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, and I went to a bookstore with my roommate, also an English major. We were browsing the shelves--on the adult lit side, of course--and she leaned over and whispered, almost like it was a secret, "I sometimes like to read the books over there."



Over there was the YA section.



My first instinct: turn up my nose and scoff. Over there? Yeah, right. We were adults now, we read adult books. We were scholars! Academics! Why waste our time over there?




But I glanced at the titles on those shelves.



It was like being greeted by an old friend.



You know how a dog always loves you, no matter what? How a dog is always excited to see you, tail wagging, ready to jump in your lap, and it doesn't care what you look like or if you'd been mean to it before, it just wants to love you? YA books are like that. Adult books are like the housecat who does what it wants and often ignores you, but YA books are the happy dog with a tail wagging just waiting to be picked up.



From that point on, I started reading YA books for fun. I fell back in love with story.



And the first books I read, the first ones that reminded me of the joy of story, were Harry Potter.



PS: I love Harry Potter so much that I'll be a guest speaker at Ascendio 2012, a Harry Potter conference taking place in July, in Orlando, home of Harry Potter World! Hope to see you there!




Oh, and, meet my dog...named Sirius.

THANKFUL FOR...Narnia

All this week I'm going to be discussing the books I'm most grateful for. Doing a post like this one is all you have to do to qualify for the 19-YA-Book Giveaway I launched yesterday. Just tell people about a book you're thankful for, include a link to the contest and the graphic right there to the right, and you're qualified.





Chronicles of Narnia

by CS Lewis




If I had to pinpoint one book that changed my life, it would be this one.




I remember when I first discovered The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It was at my local library. The children's section was in the basement of the library, and under the stairs that lead into the section was "my spot," an area were I would pile up books and pour myself into them until my mother dragged me away. 




I had read every single Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley in the library, and was getting a little sick of it. (Or maybe I was just sick of Jessica. She was never as cool as Elizabeth.) Frankly, at the time there was little else beyond picture books down there. 

[image error]




Then I found The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. 




It was, in a word, magical. I went through the wardrobe with Lucy, and I never came back out. 




I've re-read the entire series countless times since, but that first time I read it was the best. That was when I realized that books could be more than the words on the page. To an adult reader, the allegorical subtext of the novels is pretty obvious, but to me, a kid with no experience in that sort of thing, piecing together the meaning behind the story was like putting together a puzzle, uncovering each detail as if it were a carefully hidden clue in a mystery I was living with the characters.




I love Narnia not just for the story (and Reepicheep! and Mr. Tumnus! and Puddleglum!) but also for that moment of discovery. I loved it so much that, from a very early age, I dedicated myself to books. I went on to major in English, get a master's degree in literature, become a teacher of English for six years, and all the while weave together stories that always had a hint of snow or Turkish delight in them.




If you haven't yet, be sure to tell me about what story you're most grateful for and sign up for the giveaway! And, after today, I think you can figure out why I decided to include a box of Turkish delight with the prizes... :D