Leigh Bardugo's Blog, page 84

Announcing My Next Book!

malindalo:

Yesterday the news of my latest book deal was announced in Publishers Weekly and I’m thrilled to share some more details with you today. Here’s the deal:

Andrew Karre at Dutton has acquired Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a YA novel by Malinda Lo. Set in 1950s San Francisco, the novel is a story of love and duty that explores the complicated overlap between the city’s Chinese-American and LGBTQ communities. Publication is planned for 2019; Michael Bourret at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret did the deal for North American rights.

This is a book that six months ago I didn’t even know I’d be writing, and the speed with which this happened is amazing to me because publishing usually moves at the pace of an extra slow tortoise. Here’s how it happened: Last year, author Saundra Mitchell invited me to contribute a short story to an anthology she’s editing, All Out, which is a collection of historical fiction about LGBTQ+ teens that will be published in 2018. Of course I said yes immediately!

Right before Saundra asked, I had read Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt, a nonfiction account of the women who worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, starting in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These women were computers — they did the mathematical calculations that were necessary to make rockets fly — just like the women in the movie (and book) Hidden Figures. The JPL women included a Chinese American woman named Helen Ling, who was one of very first Asian American women to work in this field. She went on to hire several other Asian American women, and I found her story to be really inspiring.

I wanted to bring that inspiration to my story for the All Out anthology. The story, which is titled “New Year,” is about a Chinese American girl in 1955 San Francisco who dreams of a life outside of Chinatown. Her aunt, who was inspired by Helen Ling and the women who worked at JPL, is one window to a bigger world. The main character finds other windows too, in the form of an underground lesbian community.

In 1950s San Francisco, there were quite a number of gay and lesbian bars, mostly operating in the North Beach area of the city. They often had drag shows, and those drag shows were featured openly in the San Francisco Chronicle’s entertainment columns and ads. If you’re familiar with San Francisco, you know that North Beach is only a block or two away from Chinatown. It got me wondering: How likely is it that a girl from Chinatown might encounter some of those drag performers? Or walk past those bars? From those questions, an entire world has opened up for me.

Because I’m a recovering academic and seriously addicted to research, I totally over-researched my story. When I described it to Michael Bourret, my agent, he told me he thought there was a novel in it. I hadn’t initially thought it was anything more than a story, but the more we talked about it, the more I was taken by the idea. That idea has become the basis for my next novel, Last Night at the Telegraph Club. I’m so excited that Andrew Karre, my editor, saw the potential in the idea, too.

The best part of it for me is that I get to continue researching! Even though I over-researched the story, there are so many gaps for me to fill in for the novel. I’m in the middle of research right now, and later this summer I’m going back to San Francisco for a week to walk through Chinatown, imagine where all the old lesbian bars were, and hopefully talk to some experts on the historical period.

I especially love that I’m getting to tell a story that has rarely if ever been told: the story of a queer Chinese American girl in the 1950s. This girl has been invisible for far too long, but I’m totally certain that she existed, because we always have.

lbardugo:Saturday signing is already sold out, but not sure...

lbardugo:

Saturday signing is already sold out, but not sure about Sunday. I admit I do not understand the workings of Bookcon & Book Expo! 

We made this a printable size in case you want a handy Grishaverse/Wonder Woman guide to the con. I hope it makes me easier to find. And I can’t wait to see all your faces! Except for you, Doug. You know why. 

Reblogging with some new info: 

1. NO purchase required at Saturday signing. 

2. Other than Saturday, the signings are sooort of ticketed, but you get your tickets day of. Basically, it’s a first come/first served, while supplies last situation, but every publisher has slightly different rules so I think the best thing is to ask at the booth once you’re at the con. Wish I had a more definitive answer, but this was the best I could do! Hope to see you there ❤️

"When you grow up as a girl, the world tells you the things that you are supposed to be: emotional,..."

“When you grow up as a girl, the world tells you the things that you are supposed to be: emotional, loving, beautiful, wanted. And then when you are those things, the world tells you they are inferior: illogical, weak, vain, empty. The world teaches you that the way you exist in it is disgusting — you watch boys cringe backward in your dorm room when you talk about your period, blue water pretending to be blood in a maxi pad commercial. It is little things, and it is constant. In a food court in a mall, after you go to the gynecologist for the first time, you and your friend talk about how much it hurts, and over her shoulder you watch two boys your age turn to look at you and wrinkle their noses: the reality of your life is impolite to talk about. The world says that you don’t have a right to the space you occupy, any place with men in it is not yours, you and your body exist only as far as what men want to do with it. At fifteen, you find fifteen-year-old boys you have never met somehow believe you should bend your body to their will. At almost thirty, you find fifteen-year-old boys you have never met still somehow believe you should bend your body to their will. They are children. They are children.”

- Stevie Nicks (via whisperingwordsofwisdom)

Saturday signing is already sold out, but not sure about Sunday....

Saturday signing is already sold out, but not sure about Sunday. I admit I do not understand the workings of Bookcon & Book Expo! 

We made this a printable size in case you want a handy Grishaverse/Wonder Woman guide to the con. I hope it makes me easier to find. And I can’t wait to see all your faces! Except for you, Doug. You know why. 

favoritelittlelyrics:Hamilton, “Wait For It”

favoritelittlelyrics:

Hamilton, “Wait For It”

glitzandshadows:YEAH. I’D ONLY EVER READ THE THIEF.When...

glitzandshadows:

YEAH.

I’D ONLY EVER READ THE THIEF.

When your favorite people read your fave books.

russianculture:Kamchatka Peninsula by Igor Shpilenok

russianculture:

Kamchatka Peninsula by Igor Shpilenok

thecrowandcup:An Inej Ghafa playlist // ListenListen to my...

thecrowandcup:

An Inej Ghafa playlist // Listen

Listen to my other Six of Crows playlists here

So true confession time. Several years back, I was in a bad relationship. Like really bad. I’d moved out, basically gone running, but really, truly getting  free was just as hard—maybe harder—than I’d expected. I was standing in my new, safe, all mine bedroom when I heard Florence Welch’s Shake It Out for the first time and it set off a bomb in my chest. I wanted to let go and dance, fling myself around, but I couldn’t, because I wasn’t free yet. And I swore I wouldn’t listen to that song again until I could dance to it without the devil on my back. It took months to wrestle that devil and disentangle myself. But I got the papers signed literally the day before I left on my first book tour, and I packed my suitcases listening to that track on repeat, crying, and twirling around my room like a fool. Tl;dr: Seeing Shake It Out on playlists makes me really happy. 

thecrowandcup:An Inej Ghafa playlist // ListenListen to my...

thecrowandcup:

An Inej Ghafa playlist // Listen

Listen to my other Six of Crows playlists here

So true confession time. Several years back, I was in a bad relationship. Like really bad. I’d moved out, basically gone running, but really, truly getting  free was just as hard—maybe harder—than I’d expected. I was standing in my new, safe, all mine bedroom when I heard Florence Welch’s Shake It Out for the first time and it set off a bomb in my chest. I wanted to let go and dance, fling myself around, but I couldn’t, because I wasn’t free yet. And I swore I wouldn’t listen to that song again until I could dance to it without the devil on my back. It took months to wrestle that devil and disentangle myself. But I got the papers signed literally the day before I left on my first book tour, and I packed my suitcases listening to that track on repeat, crying, and twirling around my room like a fool. Tl;dr: Seeing Shake It Off on playlists makes me really happy. 

shirewalker: “P e a...

shirewalker:

                                              “P e a s a n t s
                                               l o v e
                                               t h e i r
                                               S a i n t s”