Fangirl: Gary Schmidt & Wednesday Wars

One of the best parts of attending librarian conferences has got to be meeting beloved authors. For me, this just doesn't get better than going to TLA and meeting Gary Schmidt who wrote two of my all-time favorite middle grade novels: The Wednesday Wars and Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. Pitch perfect in humor and pathos, these books should be on everyone must-read list.
Pictured with me are Gary, Lorie Ann Grover, Lucy (librarian), Dia Calhoun.

Hi, Y'all! Off to Texas Librarian Association

The readergirlz co-founders--Dia Calhoun, Lorie Ann Grover, and I--are off to TLA in Houston today for a whirlwind of presentations and dinners!

If you're planning on attending this conference, join us at our key events:

Wednesday, 4/1
6:30-8:30 YART Dinner

Thursday, 4/2
10:30 a.m. TT4L Discussion with Teens

2:00 p.m. readergirlz: making literacy hip and relevant for teens

3:00 p.m. Book Signing in the Author Plaza

Please join us! We'd love to see you there, TLA-ers!

Today I am thankful for my publisher, Little Brown, for sending me to TLA and hosting a dinner for me and Sara Zarr.

Awww...a love letter...to me!

People are uploading their Find Beauty videos! It's so exciting...and here's one from the readergirlz divas:



Awwww... I beg to differ. But what are you waiting for? Make your voice heard! Tell the world what True Beauty really means. You've got 90 seconds. And for every video that's uploaded, I'm donating $10 (up to $1,000) to fund cleft lip surgeries in the third world. Help a kid, make a statement. Do it now!

North of Beautiful: The Official Geocache!

One of the most truly beautiful gifts anyone has ever given to me was made by the multi-talented Dia Calhoun. (She creates art! Writes fantasy! And verse! And fights off cougars!) A few weeks before I left for China last summer, she and Lorie Ann Grover met me in Winthrop--the setting for North of Beautiful.

They spirited me to Dia's favorite fishing hole...where Dia presented me with the official North of Beautiful geocache! Not only did she create a cache--stuffing it with keepsakes and symbols from my book, but she had scoped out a site for the cache, too.


We were giggling as we took the coordinates... N 48° 08.290 W 120° 01.022.



Your mission: Go to the Methow Valley. You won't be sorry. And now can you find the cache?


Today I am grateful for friends who know my heart.

Climbing Walls: Rite of Passage

Anyone who has read Dia Calhoun's FIREGOLD knows a thing or two about rites of passages. Harrowing rites. In the real world, there are the bar mitvahs and bat mitvahs. Quinceneras. And I suppose, Sweet Sixteens. But...what about a rite of passage that's uniquely American to celebrate the crossing from tweendom to teendom?

So as my son's 13th birthday approached, I'd been brainstorming about creating our own rite of passage to demarcate the end of his official childhood and the beginning of his manhood. As the Big Day neared, I had a few other personal things I needed to attend to and I was coming up empty on ideas. My friend, Lorie Ann, however, gave me a serious tushy kicking about my son's rite of passage. I'm so glad she did!

So...I challenged my guy to face his fear of heights and booked us for a lesson at our local climbing gym, Vertical World (which is where I researched part of Nothing but the Truth and a few white lies). There, he mustered his courage and scaled FIVE walls (count 'em, FIVE) as if he had been born in the Himalayas! Bhutan Boy, that's my little man!


Which, of course, inspired me to get in my harness. As it did my daughter. But what got me to the tippy top of the most challenging wall of the night? My kids down below who promised, "Mom, we'll do the laundry next week if you reach the top!"


Heh heh. Now, that's what I call inspiration. Fear conquered! The laundry fairies are visiting Chez Headley this week. Woo hoo!

Today, I give thanks to my kids--my young man and little girl--who think I'm weird but are up for my ideas anyway.

Vision Boarding 2009

I am a visual person: I remember passages in books based on where they are on the actual page. I learn from watching and then doing. For as long as I can remember, I've created vision boards for each of my new novels and for my yearly goals. Each image and word on these boards symbolize what's important to me in my new work and my dreams.

I am so ready for 2008 to be over and done! My girlfriends, Dia Calhoun and Lorie Ann Grover, came over on Sunday to give me moral support as I created my vision board for 2009.

Can you guess whose is whose?

Ta da! Here we are after hours of cutting and collaging: Dia and her wings. Me and my security for the yPod Trio. Lorie Ann and her love.

May our visions for the new year all come true--every wish. Every hope. Every dream. I'd love to see your vision board!

Home Again, Home Again!

Home again! Home again! Jiggity Jig!



And trust me, I've been doing a little jig since stepping off the airplane on Friday morning. There, meeting me at the airport, were a few of the readergirlz divas: Lorie Ann Grover, Holly Cupala, and Janet Lee Carey. I was so touched! And felt so loved!!! And my kiddos' best buddies met us at our house, carrying balloons and signs.

My Strata-sisters descended on Saturday to paint my house and unpack for me. They're part of my pro bono consulting group, StrataGem, which is on hiatus indefinitely. For about 7 years, we helped non-profit groups that helped women and children solve tough business problems...totally for free. And now these amazing, amazing women are helping me. They brought cake! They brought coffee! They brought love! This is probably the one and only time my closet will look like a boutique--my clothes are folded so meticulously.



As thrilled as I am to be home, I think so fondly of my friends back in Shanghai, like Richard and Stacey, and Meg and John. Here we are at my send-off at Sun with Aqua on the Bund...a fantastic restaurant...before we hit my first and only jazz club in Shanghai. The best sushi I have ever had. Check out the sharks swimming in the background. (And you must go to the Cotton Club if you visit Shanghai! Must! A total boozy, smoky scene with fantastic live music.)

In my packing haze, I misplaced my camera so I couldn't photograph the wonderosity that is my traditional Chinese chopping block. It's about 50 pounds--I'm not joking. A single slab of wood, a veritable tree trunk. John had remembered me talking on and on about them while we were in Dunhuang since I had just read Nicole Mones' fantastic THE LAST CHINESE CHEF. These chopping blocks are extremely difficult to source...but John found one for me! I can't wait until it arrives, making its way across the Pacific Ocean to me.

More than that, I can't wait for my Shanghai friends to visit me in Seattle. Make your way across the Pacific to me, my pengyous. Missing you!

Shanghai Chic

So my good friend and co-diva of readergirlz, Lorie Ann Grover, challenged me to find the most fashionable figure in Shanghai. Out to lunch with my family, I spotted The One:

Hip down to the dog's four-sneakered paws.

Fashionable or questionable?

Today I am thankful for all things ludicrous that make me laugh.

Hanging with Librarians @ OASL / WLMA, Day 2

A night after crashing catatonic in bed without changing positions for seven hours straight, I'm happy to report that a more alert Me presented at Day Two of the WLMA / OASL Conference in Portland, Oregon.

My audience was skeptical when I told them that I get inspiration for my novels from so many places: travel. Eavesdropping. Daily humiliations.

Case in point: Lorie Ann Grover informed me post-presentation that my shirt rode up everytime I gestured, leaving a big old two inch swath of bare, stretch-marked belly for all in the ballroom to see. *sigh* So reminder to self: before ANY presentation, move in front of a full-length mirror with my outfit to ensure no undue belly baring or otherwise. (Or perhaps an amendment is in order: check outfit before appearing in public. Anywhere. Why? Oh, like the time when I met a certain bigwig's sister AND found out to my horror later that I had bared half my breast in front of her. And people wonder why I am so connected to my inner teen?)

I'm happy to report that I've made a full recovery of today's humiliation. First, I had a great conversation with Liz Gallagher. Then, my brother, Dave Chen, and sister-in-law, Jill, took Lorie Ann and I out to dinner at Biwa, a fantastic little Japanese restaurant with yummy skewers and homemade noodles. Homemade chubby udon noodles--the sumo wrestler of noodles. I will be dreaming about them...

And then Lorie Ann and I whooped it up (okay, looked bleary-eyed at each) in a swanky boutique hotel in Portland.

I am a princess. And I know it. (Live it up, I'm telling myself. In 24 hours, I return to the land o' squat toilets.)

Bleary Eyed @ WLMA!

I'm back in the States! My peeps have asked me what I miss most about the U.S. Was it the food? (Well, I did have a hankering for a hamburger...and satiated it with a big, greasy one!) Was it the clean water? (Yup, missed being able to drink and brush my teeth with tap water.) Was it Oreos? (Ummm...no.) And NO...it's not our sad, sinking economy.

To be honest, what I miss most are LIBRARIES (and my family and friends). I miss being able to check out a limitless number of books. I miss my favorite librarians: Robin and Dawn and Barbara and Darcy and Erin and Pam and Brenna and Jackie and all the others who have sustained me through research and book tours. Did you know that three of these librarians told me that they would help me with whatever research I needed this year while I was in China?! That they would scan and send whatever chapters I needed. How truly amazing is that?

So it was with huge delight that I returned to my book peeps--librarians where I spoke at the sensational Washington and Oregon Library Media Association Convention. I picked up Lorie Ann Grover on the way to the conference since she was worried that I would be driving by myself at what was the equivalent of 1:00 a.m. Shanghai time.

There I met Jone MacCulloch, the powerhouse blogger who hosted the Kidlitosphere Conference with Laini Taylor two weeks ago! I was so sad that I couldn't attend that pow wow...so was super happy that I got to meet her! She truly has the most luminous skin I've seen...as well as the cutest grandchildren.

After 30 hours of being awake, I presented on my favorite topic--readergirlz! And then wobbled with Lorie Ann down to the car where we had Hamburger #1. Honestly, I am not sure how much sense I made at the presentation. My head was fog. TODAY was much better after getting a few hours of sleep!!!!

More later, gators!

I Love Your Blog, Too!

Greetings from Dunhuang--the upper northern reaches of China. I'll be posting soon about the truth about camel rides and sunrises in the desert. But first...this...

After bad times (read: evil taxi driver from hell) and hard times (read: melamine scare in milk), you know who your reals friends are. Thanks to everyone for emailing me about my Kidnapping Crisis 2008 and sharing your own harrowing stories of life on the road. I'm not sure if those anecdotes were supposed to comfort me or SCARE me more (thank you, Nicole, for sharing with me your boat hijacking on the Mekong story). But in all seriousness, the support was amazing.


And thanks to friends like Janet Wong and Molly Goudy who have emailed me, asking if I want a food shipment from the U.S. (We are okay...although my sweet tooth husband is seriously missing chocolate. I have found sources here though. So Chocolate Crisis 2008 has also been averted!)


And special thanks to the Blue Rose Girls and Mrs. F-B's Book Blog for nominating my blog for the I Love Your Blog award during this tiny little rough patch!



So here's how the award works, taken straight from Mrs. F-B herself:





1. Add the logo of your award to your blog. (Check)


2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you. (Done! Please check these blogs out)


3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs. (See below!)


4. Add links to those blogs on your blog. (Yup! Done!)


5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs. (About to do this!)





Here are my nominations for great, wonderful blogs with an emphasis on the women who co-founded and run readergirlz, the world's foremost online book community for teens! (I've omitted some of other favorite blog reads--such as Little Willow, Miss Erin, Jen Robinson, Kelly Herold, BookSlut, etc--since I know that everyone already knows about them.)





1. readergirlz: check out the website and blog to catch the latest and greatest about books and authors who are empowering teen girls through literature. Dia Calhoun has been blogging on our behalf and has done a wonderful job!


2. On Point by Lorie Ann Grover: this blog gives mucho insight into the world of Lorie Ann who is a brilliant verse novelist and board book author.


3. Dreamwalks by Janet Lee Carey: Janet is one of my mentors and best writer-buddies. Her very soulful blog is filled with insights into the creative process.


4. Mitali's Fire Escape by Mitali Perkins: Well, everyone knows Mitali! And I love her blog which focuses on multicultural literature. Her books, Rickshaw Girl, happens to be on of this year's Jane Addams Honor books. Go, Mitali!


5. Brimstone Soup by Holly Cupala: Watch out, world! Holly's debut novel, A Light that Never Goes Out, is set to be published in 2010, and I think it's going to rock the world.


6. Design Sponge: My very dear friend, Janet Wong (she of the food-to-the-rescue email above), turned me on to Design Sponge. This is my guilty and not-so-guilty read on all things design related. I love this blog!


7. Moo by...moo! I love, love, love Moo.com. It's where I print my business cards and gift enclosure cards for my books. So, of course, I'm crazy about the moo.com blog, too. I just wish they would blog more frequently with more case studies of how other people are using their products. That, however, might be dangerous for my credit card.

readergirlz around the world!

Other than writing and procrastinating (I mean, researching) in Shanghai, I also happen to be one of the co-founders of readergirlz, the leading online book community for teens! Along with my divas divine--Lorie Ann Grover, Dia Calhoun, and Mitali Perkins (all fellow award-winning YA authors)--we've spent the last 18 months or so creating fun literacy programs to promote more teen reading!

Here's what we've cooked up next:

READERGIRLZ PRESENTS “NIGHT BITES” ONLINE AUTHOR CHATS
More than a dozen authors to converge on rgz forum to chat with ravenous teen readers

Sept. 18, 2008 (Seattle, Wash.) – In celebration of Young Adult Library Services Association’s (YALSA’s) Teen Reed Week™, readergirlz (rgz) is excited to present Night Bites, a series of online live chats with an epic lineup of published authors. The chats will take place at the rgz forum, Oct. 13-17, 2008.

Playing off of YALSA’s theme of “Books with Bite,” Night Bites will feature five themed chats designed to appeal to an array of literary tastes. Sure to suck in even the most reluctant teen readers, the complete Night Bites schedule is as follows:

Monday, Oct. 13: Multicultural Bites with authors Coe Booth (TYRELL), An Na (THE FOLD), and rgz diva Mitali Perkins (SECRET KEEPER)

Tuesday, Oct. 14: Verse Bites with rgz diva Lorie Ann Grover (ON POINTE), Stephanie Hemphill (YOUR OWN SYLVIA), and Lisa Ann Sandell (SONG OF THE SPARROW)

Wednesday, Oct. 15: Contemporary Bites with Ally Carter (CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO SPY), rgz diva Justina Chen Headley (NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL), and Maureen Johnson (SUITE SCARLETT)

Thursday, Oct. 16: Fantasy Bites with Holly Black and Ted Naifeh (THE GOOD NEIGHBORS), rgz diva Dia Calhoun (AVIELLE OF RHIA), and Tamora Pierce (MELTING STONES)

Friday, Oct. 17: Gothic Bites with Holly Cupala (A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT), Christopher Golden (SOULLESS), Annette Curtis Klause (BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE), and Mari Mancusi (BOYS THAT BITE).

It all happens at the rgz forum (http://groups.myspace.com/readergirlz) beginning at 6 p.m. Pacific Time (9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, 9 a.m. Justina in China Time!), Oct. 13-17.

Watch the Night Bites video at

Click on: www.youtube.com/readergirlz or watch it here (with a huge shout out to Holly Cupala for her brilliant cinematographic skills):



About readergirlz
readergirlz is the foremost online book community for teen girls, led by five critically acclaimed YA authors—Dia Calhoun (Avielle of Rhia), Lorie Ann Grover (On Pointe), Justina Chen Headley (Girl Overboard), and Mitali Perkins (First Daughter: White House Rules). readergirlz is the recipient of a 2007 James Patterson PageTurner Award.

To promote teen literacy and leadership in girls, readergirlz features a different YA novel and corresponding community service project every month. For more information about readergirlz, please visit www.readergirlz.com and www.myspace.com/readergirlz, or contact divas@readergirlz.com.



About YALSA
For more than 50 years, YALSA has been the world leader in selecting books, films and audiobooks for teens. For more information about YALSA or for lists of recommended reading, viewing and listening, go to www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists.

Parting Thoughts

Here I am, on the eve of leaving America to move to China for our year abroad. It's been a lovely whirlwind of family and friends that's often felt like my own Olympic of goodbyes.

My emotions by Wordle:



The week started with a last goodbye with the readergirlz divas where we toasted each other for our great year and conspired on new literacy programs. And then my mentor, Janet Wong, who refused to let me take her picture. She didn't say anything about me blogging about her though.

Then it was on to the annual Meat-and-Corn Fest at our friends Bill & Kristin's home. If there are any people who can make miracles happen, it's these two.



Yes, yes, Kristin is a genius and bestselling author (The Motherhood Manifesto) and political activist (Moms Rising). But Bill? He can preside over Congress. He can start businesses. And most importantly, he can bake! Here it is, my very own China pie a la Bill.


Then my sister and kids ventured to the Puget Sound Blood Center with me. There, we met some of the crew who, after hearing about Girl Overboard, thought we might have some mutual interest in getting more minorities to give blood and register for the National Bone Marrow registry.

Not only is my sister gorgeous, but she'll be attending nursing school in a few weeks. She was fascinated with our tour: from the blood extraction to the bones warehoused at the center for surgeries. I was...faint. Who knew that bones and heart valves could be...freeze dried. (Fine, fine, there's some scientific term for this procedure, but look at this ankle bone for yourself. Freeze dried, yes?)

And then! At last! My buttons from the wonderful Kyle at Button Arcade arrived just in time. (Love Button Arcade.)

As a present for all the wonderful authors who have blurbed my previous novels and my readergirlz crew, I had their book covers turned into buttons.

Shhhh...it's supposed to be a surprise. But I just had to share since there buttons are so darn cute! Can you name all the books and authors? (Major shout out to Lorie Ann Grover who coordinated this project for me as a PRESENT to me! I love that woman.)

And then...the goodbyes. To my mom and sister. (I can't even begin to express how much I will miss them.) To my kids' track team. To my writing mentor, Janet Lee Carey and Janet Wong. To my readergirlz buddies, Lorie Ann, Dia Calhoun, and Holly Cupala.

And one last goodbye to my local library. I love libraries, and I especially love my local one. Let me ask you this: how many librarians come to your house to say goodbye? How many librarians email you to assure you that they will help you research WHATEVER YOU NEED?!


It's a good thing they offered. Because I need a lot. (Of books, that is. And friends. And family.)

Charmed, I'm Sure!

When I wrote the Mama Lecture Series in Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies), I never really thought I'd be scripting my own lectures. But here I am, telling (lecturing) my kids that nothing really matters in life except for friends and family. (This, I'm sure, will come back to haunt me when it's back to school time and the kiddos are slacking off: But, Mom, you said nothing mattered more than friends. I want to hang out with my new ones in China!)

How important friends are has become so clear now that we're down to our last week in the U.S. LAST WEEK! LAST 7 DAYS!!

In between getting our final shots--who knew that there'd be a run on the rabies vaccinations in the U.S.?--we've been saying our last goodbyes to dear friends.

(Note: The Japanese encephalitis shot hurts.)

Readergirlz diva Lorie Ann Grover has been a great sport, going geocaching with me in the HOT, DRY heat in Winthrop where I love to write.

Then, she and Dia Calhoun sent me off with the most gorgeous readergirlz yearbook, filled with photos of everything our group did in the last 18 months! 31 Flavorite Authors! Operation Teen Book Drop! Books for Your BFF! And all the authors we've brought to teen readers over the year.

Dia also created a geocache in honor of North of Beautiful!

Here we are, sneakily hiding the cache together in a super secret location for other treasure hunters to find.




Two nights ago, my StrataGem group--the fabulous women who worked with me to help women and children--threw a party for me. It was the first time in 2 years when all of us were able to get together on the same night (except for Birgit who lives in Vienna). It was a miracle, I tell you. They created a charm bracelet for me with each of the charms symbolizing a special moment together. Like the Christmas box for the boxes we created for kids in third world countries. And the snowflake for our retreat at the Sleeping Lady Lodge where we figured out how to fix the world! (Of course, fixing our own worlds--how on earth do you balance family with career with philanthropy?!--was and is a conundrum.)

And then the readergirlz of Seattle went (what else?) geocaching with me for one final time as we filmed footage for a future North of Beautiful video.



Pictured here: Dia Calhoun, Jackie Parker (Interactive Reader & postergirlz), Holly Cupala, Sara Easterly (rgz publicist), me, Lorie Ann Grover, Janet Lee Carey, and Nancy Pearl (honorary readergirlz).

Friends, I tell you. They make up a charmed life.