Alexandra Coutts's Blog, page 3

If You Write It…

One of the things I miss most about living in the city is riding the subway. Not for the convenience or the cozy snuggles with strangers, but for all of the time it afforded me to read. This series of photos of subway readers made me all kinds of nostalgic. 

I did very little subway reading this past trip, mostly because I had a hard time getting on the subway in the first place.  An hour before I was set to take the R train from Brooklyn into Manhattan, there was a massive water main explosion directly in front of my publisher’s building, where I was supposed to be meeting all of the lovely editors and other behind-the-scenes magicians who are working so hard to bring my next book to life.

That’s Broadway and Fifth avenue completely shut down, due the gaping hole in the middle of the frame. I took this shot from the windows of the FSG conference room, which may have been the most impressive conference room I’ve ever seen. It is very conference-y and probably has one of those cool Star Trek phones, but what’s most awesome is that it sits wedged in the point of a NYC landmark, the Flatiron Building. Very, very cool. 

I’m not saying that it’s my fault, exactly, that there was a semi-natural disaster happening live outside the very place where my book about the end-of-the-world was being celebrated and discussed, but, given the fact that a freakish wind-storm delayed our trip off-island by four hours the day before, and given the fact that I am now back home, checking flashlights and buying provisions as we anticipate the blizzard to end all blizzards, I am starting to feel like I may be cursed in the disaster-department.

Who do I see about taking back all of that asteroid stuff? 

Kill Your Darlings

It’s snowing again. 

Is it snowing where you are? It seems like it’s been snowing for four months here. It was charming, at first. Now it’s a nuisance. One of my dogs refuses to go out, and the other refuses to come back in. It’s an endless dance of opening and closing the back door and toweling off their stupid paws. I’m over it. 

(At least they’re cute.)

It was not snowing in Brooklyn this weekend, though it was nose-numbingly cold and windy. After a traffic-and-weather-cursed journey that felt like something straight out of a Ben Stiller flick, Big E, little e and I arrived at our hotel, just in time to catch the last hour of my BRILLIANT cousin’s movie premiere at BAM. The film (which does not star Ben Stiller) is called KILL YOUR DARLINGS (check it out here) and it was stunning. Even if the director was not my blood relative, and even if I didn’t read many drafts of the script in my now-defunct NYC writer’s group, I would sing this movie’s praises to anyone who would listen. 

Here’s a little video interview starring my cousin, the talented and adorable John Krokidas, and the rest of the amazing cast (Daniel Radcliffe! Ben Foster! Jack Huston!) Gah! So much adorable talent in one place, it’s practically criminal. 

I did lots of other fun and exciting stuff in New York, but I’m not going to write about it now. I’m going to write about it later, because this is a blog, and a blog is where you write things — that’s more than one thing — on consecutive days. So I will be back here to write more things on another day that is after this day. Like tomorrow, maybe? 

We’ll see. 

xoxo

abc

Big News!

Firstly, thanks to all who participated in the YA for NJ auction last week! Over $13,000 was raised for Hurricane Sandy relief! It was truly amazing to see so many YA authors and readers come together so quickly to make this happen. Again, thanks to Kieran for leading the charge. Way to go, everyone! 

I have some other happy news to share. While I’ve sort of talked around it in the past, I realize I haven’t formally announced that I have a new book coming out soon. I do! I really do! It’s called Tumble & Fall and it will be out, appropriately, next fall. Hooray!

I can’t tell you how much I loved writing this book. (A lot.) But I can give you a list of reasons why I hope you’ll love reading it:

It takes place on my home island of Martha’s Vineyard, in the summertime. (Which, let’s be honest, is truly the most wonderful time of the year…sorry, Christmas.)
There are three main characters. My first multi-POV book! Three characters, three stories, three times the fun.
It has almost all of my favorite things in it: summer, road trips, boat rides, oysters, end-of-the-world-parties, breaking-and-entering (not a personal favorite, but fun to write!) making out on docks, making out on beaches, making out in tents (three main characters = three love stories, duh) used bookshops, live music, and confetti. 
Did I mention the asteroid? There’s an asteroid. A big one.
But it’s not your typical asteroid book. (Is there such a thing? I don’t know.)
It’s a book about what happens when nothing is certain, and everything is about to change. What would you do, with five days left? How would you spend them, and who would you spend them with? 

So there you have it. Hopefully, the world won’t actually end before next fall, and we’ll all get to read about it from the comfort of our non-asteroid-demolished couches. 

Oh, and one more tiny little bit o’ business. I have a new name! This I definitely have mentioned before, but since the book is coming out kinda soon, and since it’s written under my new name, I figured I should tell you again. I got married and I changed my name and my new name is:

Alexandra Coutts. 

(rhymes with boots. I guess I am  destined to forever have names that need pronunciation guides…sigh…)

Ok, that really is everything. 

Thanks for checking in! 

xoxo

abc

 

Just This:

Paul Rudd and Jason Segel Sing Les Mis! 

(Mostly for my brother George, who always tried to sing both parts at the same time.)  

YA for NJ

The lovely Kieran Scott (aka Kate Brian) has put together a pretty amazing auction to benefit The Community Food Bank in New Jersey, her home state, to help with Sandy relief. There are TONS of autographed books up for grabs, including WISH, WISHFUL THINKING, and an ARC of my new book, TUMBLE & FALL (to be shipped out as soon as I get one, sometime this Spring!) 

It’s for a great cause, and just in time for picking out some one-of-a-kind gifts for the YA book lovers on your list.

Happy bidding! 

xo

abc

still here.

hello!

just checking in, you know, casually, after…nine months.

hey, know what else takes nine months?

babies.

so i had one of those. a girl one.  she’s the greatest.

but she’s six months old now, and i’ve finally learned how to do all kinds of back-to-the-real-world things, like writing books, and making dinner.

surely i could have blogged at some point, too.

i will get the hang of this, some day.  until then:

just saying hello.

(hello?)

 

the bad, the good, the lovely….

the bad:

I watched some of the Grammy’s on Sunday night.  Yesterday, there were a few things I wanted to talk about here, pretty much the same things everyone was talking about everywhere else:  Jennifer Hudson’s amazing-but-kinda-creepy Whitney tribute, Lady Gaga’s net-headded-near-absence from the proceedings, Adele’s overall awesomeness and adorable Cockney swagger. I wasn’t going to touch the Chris Brown situation, except maybe to give him some credit for navigating a set of stairs far better then Madonna managed to at the Superbowl last week.

But now I see that would have been a mistake.  I had thought we could all pretty much agree that given his disturbing record of confirmed abuse, he wasn’t somebody we were going to be giving a lot of thought to anymore.

I was wrong.  

I’m not surprised to learn that while Chris Brown was turning back handsprings and hopping around blocks of pretty neon, girls nation-wide had taken to Twitter to give him permission to beat them up.  Like, yeah, maybe he smacked around his girlfriend a couple times, but look how cute!  What’s the big deal?

I’m not surprised because: who told them it should be a big deal?  Who told them, after the hype fizzled and he started making more (yes, catchy; yes, dance-worthy) music, after he was invited back to the Grammy’s and asked to perform (twice!) and then awarded the top honor in his category, who told them they shouldn’t forgive-and-forget?

Nobody, except for Roxanne Gay.

the good:

In response to the Twitter round-up of girls begging to be beaten, Rumpus-contributor Roxeanne Gay wrote an open letter:

Dear Young Ladies Who Love Chris Brown So Much They Would Let Him Beat Them.

You should read it.  Not because it will convince you that beating up women is wrong.  Everybody (sadly, almost-everybody) knows that. But it might make you think about why, at some level, some people still don’t see “the big deal.”

the lovely:

Enough of the serious, and on to some lovely.

It’s Valentine’s Day!  Yes, it’s a Hallmark-hoiday, and yes, it is usually under-celebrated in this house (if you call pigging out on Chilmark Chocolates and maybe setting the table for dinner “under-celebrating.” Which you should.)

But that doesn’t stop me from feeling the love all day long, especially when I have the creative and wildly-talented jeweler/style-maven Alexandra Rothwell in my life.  She sent along some gorgeous and fun love-inspired images this morning, and I couldn’t help but share a few with you.

xoxo

abc

Surprise! I’m confused.

When I promised I’d be back here soon, I didn’t mean weeks later, and I certainly didn’t imagine that the next time I showed up I’d be ranting about Madonna, but life is full of fun little surprises, I guess.

I expected to wake up this morning to a general online consensus about last night’s Superbowl half-time show (Side Note:  We will not be speaking here of the actual game, and/or butt-touchdowns, hail mary let-downs, or any downs of any kind)  and I expected that online consensus to be in-line with the following:  

The half-time show, featuring Madonna and a head-scratchingly bizarre array of back-up performers, much like the game, (ok this is all I’ll say about the game, I swear it,) was a TRAVESTY of EPIC PROPORTIONS.    

In case you missed it, because you were too busy watching Downton Abbey and tweeting about how little you care about football and fun, here is a fantastic recap by the fug girls. 

Apparently, not even the Fugsters were as impressed as I was by the aura of sad-clown catastrophe that prevailed last night.  I honestly wouldn’t even know where to begin.  The gladiator hoopla and drum corp?  Fine.  Glitzy?  Over the top?  Yes, but I get it, it’s the Superbowl.  Subtlety is not on anyone’s agenda.  

But what about M’s stomping around precariously in those fairly low-heeled boots?  Or the fluffy-afro man, flinging his parts (private and otherwise) against a tightrope?  Wouldn’t it be more impressive if he, like, walked on it? Or Madge’s awkward petting of those strange white “rappers” I refuse to acknowledge by Googling?  Or her NEAR COLLAPSE at the top of the stairs?  And WHO thought it was a good idea to introduce stairs to the apparently already-difficult walking equation?  

I can’t even get into Nicki Minaj or MIA, mostly because that part of the evening was deadly boring the first time around.  Even the allegedly-subversive camera flip-off, which was nowhere near subversive enough to fool anyone into looking past those horrendous cheerleader outfits, or the asinine chanty hook of that song. 

And I also don’t have much to say about Ceelo’s arrival on the scene.  This is partly because the sheer existence of Ceelo is too confusing for me to address, and partly because I actually really enjoyed the whole Bedazzle-robed “Like A Prayer” finale.  Any love I have ever had for Madonna is all tied up in that song, and even here, even slapped on at the end of a hyper-spastic, accident-prone, circus-freak production, it did not disappoint.  

And that is all, I promise.  

That, and — I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY, NOBODY SCORES A TOUCHDOWN WITH HIS BUTT ON PURPOSE.

Confusion reigned, on the field, off the field, and on my couch.  

The end.