Rainbow Rowell's Blog, page 6

Beautiful Fangirl special edition out now

Hey! I’ve got some Fangirl news!

On May 12, 2015, you can get a Fangirl special edition featuring gorgeous fan art and an excerpt from my upcoming Simon Snow novel, Carry On.

AND YOU HAVE THREE COLOR CHOICES!

Barnes and Noble has a raspberry red cover with a mint ribbon bookmark and dark gray case.

Indigo in Canada has a yellow cover with a dark pink bookmark and purplish brown case.

Amazon, Target and indie bookstores have a salmony light pink with a light pink bookmark and red case.

You can order a signed or personalized copy from my hometown bookstore. (Leave a note in the “notes” section saying who you’d like the book personalized to.)

(I feel both EXCITED and SORRY about these color options, because if I was interested in a special edition, choosing would make me crazy.)

Each book features a Q&A with me, plus full-color artwork by some of my favorite Tumblr (and everywhere else) artists: Simini Blocker, Lily Williams, Leela Wagner and Valeria Bogado. (Something that makes me happy: This is a book about a fan writer, featuring fan art, including canon inspired by fictional fan fiction. haHAha.)

The excerpt from Carry On -- which comes out in October -- is a big face-off between Baz and Simon down in the catacombs below Watford. 

Thank you to everyone who has already read and purchased and made Fangirl fan works. That enthusiasm is the reason my publisher went ahead with this edition!

Beautiful Fangirl special edition coming in May

Hey! I’ve got someFangirlnews!

On May 12, 2015, you can get aFangirlspecial edition featuring gorgeous fan art and an excerpt from my upcoming Simon Snow novel,Carry On.

BUT WAIT! Why are there three colors?

Because Barnes & Noble gets berry pink; Indigo Chapters in Canada gets yellow; and Amazon and other retailers get bubblegum pink.

(I feel both EXCITED and SORRY about these color options, because if I was interested in a special edition, the choice would make me crazy.)

The fan art featured in...

New cover for Landline paperback …

As much as I loved the hardback cover — I like this one EVEN MORE. Designed by Olga Grlic. Coming July 7, 2015.

UK tour! UK special editions! Everything cool I know about Britannia!

I have so much UK news that I decided to stash it all in one place. This is it: everything I know about my UK tour and all the special editions. I AM SO EXCITED.

THE TOUR: I’m on my way.

This is my first UK tour, and I’m covering a lot of ground. Most of these events are ticketed. (All but Cardiff.) You can buy tickets from the stores themselves or from the Waterstones Web site.

Some of the events are sold out, but you can still pre-order signed books from these shops.

You can bring books from ho...

Meet the UK special edition of Fangirl. Plus other cute stuff.

I feel like the UK publisher of Fangirl,Macmillan Children’s Books, understands me on a spiritual level. They have a bunch of stuff lined up for my UK visit in July, and it’s all so cute and cool:

FIRST:

A special edition of Fangirl with so many bells and whistles, I’m almost disappointed it’s not scratch-n-sniff. (IMAGINE. PUMPKIN MOCHA LATTE.)

Hardbound, flipped-colors cover, A BUTTER YELLOW RIBBON BOOKMARK, mint green boards with Simon and Baz emblazoned in raspberry pink foil . . . There’s e...

I’m coming to the UK this summer!

I’m coming to the UK in July, and I actually couldn’t be more excited about it. Don’t even keep reading this post if you can’t bear to watch someone go indiscriminately capslock.

I visited London two years ago when Attachments came out, and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

SO I AM COMING BACK FOR THE LANDLINE RELEASE.

AND TO CELEBRATE FANGIRL.

AND TO MEET YOU.

AND SIGN BOOKS.

AND MAYBE SEE MARTIN FREEMAN LIVE ON STAGE. (Dear God, somebody help me make this happen.)

Seriously, I’m comin...

I wish I could tell Park and Eleanor about this.

I’M WRITING A GRAPHIC NOVEL!!!

So, this is the news I’ve been keeping secret so long, and I’m super-super excited about it.

I signed a deal withCalista Brill atFIRST SECOND BOOKSto write two graphic novels.

The first will be a collaboration withFaith Erin Hicks, the writer/artist of SO MANY GREAT COMICS, includingFriends with Boys.

This all happened because of mutual admiration and Twitter. My career advice is now: Get excited about the things you love, and then TELL EVERYONE.

It’s especially huge...

I wish I could tell Park and Eleanor about this.

I’M WRITING A GRAPHIC NOVEL!!!

So, this is the news I’ve been keeping secret so long, and I’m super-super excited about it.

I signed a deal with Calista Brill at FIRST SECOND BOOKS to write two graphic novels.

The first will be a collaboration with Faith Erin Hicks, the writer/artist of SO MANY GREAT COMICS, including Friends with Boys.

This all happened because of mutual admiration and Twitter. My career advice is now: Get excited about the things you love, and then TELL EVERYONE.

It’s especially huge news for me because I’ve been reading comics since junior high — and they’re just a really important part of who I am.

The first book won’t come out for a while because Faith and I are both working on other books. And both graphic novels will be new stories, not adaptations. (Though I think Eleanor & Park could be excellent as a graphic novel — and a Simon Snow comic would be so much fun to write.)

READ MORE ABOUT THIS ON EW.COM.

READ A SUPER NERDY CONVERSATION BETWEEN FAITH AND ME.

READ FAITH’S POST ABOUT OUR ORIGIN STORY.

The LANDLINE cover is here!

I just got the final cover design for my next book, Landline,which comes out in July from St. Martin’s Press.

I LOVE IT.

It was designed by Olga Grlic, who also did the covers for Eleanor & Park andFangirl.(WHICH ARE ALSO AMAZING.)

Here’s more about Landline:

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems besides the point now.

Maybe that was always besides the p...

Is Eleanor fat? Or does Eleanor just THINK she’s fat?

Eleanor is fat.

Eleanor also thinks she’s fat.

She probably isn’t as fat as she thinks she is …

And she definitely isn’t as disgusting as she thinks she is. She isn’t disgusting at all.

This question — Eleanor isn’t really fat, is she? — comes up fairly regularly for me. And sometimes (not always!), I feel like people expect me to reassure them:

“Don’t worry. Eleanor isn’t really fat. You weren’t imagining a fat person making out in the back of a car; that would be gross. She’s actually just curvy. Like Marilyn Monroe. Or Jennifer Love Hewitt.”

I don’t say in the book (Eleanor & Park) with any narrative authority exactly how fat Eleanor is, though many of the characters say what they think …

Eleanor sees herself as huge and repulsive. The kids in the neighborhood call her “Big Red,” which makes Park’s dad expect her to be bigger. Park is embarrassed by Eleanor for all sorts of reasons, and gives us the clearest physical description of her body:

Why hadn’t he expected her to be so beautiful? To have so much negative space? He closed his eyes and saw her again. A stack of freckled heart-shapes, a perfectly made Dairy Queen ice cream cone. Like Betty Boop drawn with a heavy hand.

But none of that answers the how fat question.

And that’s because I don’t think it’s important. I know how I picture Eleanor — but I don’t care how you picture Eleanor. And I think drawing a line between “sort of fat, but only by 21st-Century American standards” and “really, really fat” is depressing.

I mean, who I am to draw that line? Who are you? And where do we start?

Park thinks Eleanor is beautiful. He loves her for who she is on the inside, and he loves her for who she is on the outside. He wants to kiss her. He wants to have sex with her. And it isn’t because he’s brave and deep — it’s because he’s attracted to her.

This is how attraction works.

Is Eleanor fat? Yes.

How fat? That’s up to you.

Does it matter?