Bas Bleu Theatre's Immigration Evening!

Hey everyone!

It's a sunny spring day and the windows are open and Toddler is taking a pleasantly long nap. This morning we went on a walk downtown, had some tea at a cafe, commented on passing trucks (he now knows the color yellow-- it's his favorite because he's obsessed with construction vehicles.) On the way home he jumped in mud puddles (which are lingering from the past few days of rain-snow). To his credit, he asked me permission first, while standing at the puddle's edge, ready to spring. "Mess, Mommy? Me mess?" And because he looked so beautiful with the mud-puddle light reflecting on his face, and because I was so happy about the mud-lucious (a la ee cummings) world, I said, "Sure, go ahead." And splat! MESS!

So, on to writing-related things-- I had the privilege of participating in Bas Bleu Theatre's Immigration-themed night of readings and performance last week. It was incredible-- so moving and inspiring!

The evening started with Teresa Funke reading a lovely essay about the longing she's felt to connect with her Mexican roots, despite her mother's and grandmother's rejection of a Mexican identity.

Trai Cartwright (the organizer of the evening), Teresa Funke, me, Gloria Garcia Diaz.

Then I read a sneak preview of Star in the Forest (spring 2010), my novel for ages 7 and up about a girl whose dad gets deported to Mexico. The audience liked it (at least they said they did...), which made me happy, especially since this is the first time I've read from it!

There were two extremely touching audiotaped stories (originally a high school project intended for a radio program) told by local teens about how they immigrated here. This was one of the many times I got choked up during the evening.

Mark Sanchez read his poetry, some of which was really funny (like his infected toe that got up and walked away) and some of which was powerful and sad (about poverty he witnessed in Oaxaca).

Q & A panel after the show. Left to right-- me, Gloria Garcia Diaz, one of the students involved in the radio project, Mark Sanchez.

There was a fantastic Romeo and Julieta scene from a bilingual production of the play-- super creative and romantic.

For me, one of the most special parts of the night was reading my friend Gloria Garcia Diaz's piece about a childhood trip she and her family took to scavenge in a dump in the slums of Mexico City. It's a funny, gorgeous, sad story that ends on the poignant note of her parents playing guitar together... and Gloria tape-recording their songs. It turned out to be a recording she'd treasure her whole life-- her mother died a year later, and her father three years later. After the reading, we played the audiotape-- it was haunting and heart-wrenching to hear those voices and guitar notes from so many years ago. (That was another time I got choked up...)

Here are me and Gloria (to my right, with the pink rose blouse) and her lovely sisters and niece.

So, I finally got my first every-other-month e-newsletter out! Thank you, everyone who gave me enthusiastic responses! If you haven't signed up for it, and you want to, please go here.

As you know if you read the newsletter, I'm holding a creative writing contest to win a free signed copy of the RED GLASS audiobook CD (a $45 value)! Please enter the contest!

I read two amazing speculative fiction/sci-fi/fantasy/futuristic-type books that I highly recommend! I wished I was reading them as part of a book club so that I could discuss them with people-- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson. Both books are technically labeled young adult, but I think adults would love them, too.


The Hunger Games is set slightly in the future-- it's about a girl who is selected by a lottery system to partake in a life-and-death "game" (a sick political variant of a reality TV show, complete with corporate sponsorship) with 23 other teens. According to the rules, only one teen can make it out of the "arena" alive. This is a well-written, multi-layered, fast-paced story of adventure, survival, friendship, romance-- told with great wit and wonderful social commentary.


The Adoration of Jenna Fox is also set slightly in the future and raises fascinating questions about spirit/soul, identity, what makes us a person, and other profound ideas. It's hard to write about it without any spoilers, so I'll just say that it's about a girl who has emerged from a long coma and finds herself without a complete memory or sense of identity. She gradually discovers the mysteries and secrets surrounding what happened to her. I'm sure this could spark fantastic discussions about the ethical implications of advanced medical technology. Really exciting and thought-provoking stuff!

Okay, Toddler's up from his nap now-- we're going to make another mess with the yellow dump truck in the soggy sand of his sandbox.

Bye!
Laura

Back from Mazunte!

view from my cabana balcony

Hola everyone!

I just got back from a five day trip to Mazunte-- a little beach town on the Oaxacan coast. I'm planning on setting the third book of the Notebooks series there, so I went to do some research (very grueling, of course...)

This is a beach I sometimes vacationed at while I was living and working in the mountainous Mixtec region of Oaxaca, much further inland. Even back then, I felt I wanted to set a book in Mazunte someday-- it's so sweaty and sunny and salty and sandy and jungly and flowery and mango-ey and hammock-ey-- I knew I wanted to dwell in that space in my mind for a long time... which is what I'll be doing with this book-- The Jade Notebook.

the cabana where I stayed

So, my husband was supposed to come with me (Toddler was in the company of his doting grandparents), but alas, the day before the flight, I noticed his passport had expired. So.... it was a solo trip! (Don't tell him, but it was actually kinda nice traveling alone-- I love it-- no schedule, no compromising, easier to meet people, etc... but, shhhh.)

view from my window

My days were like this: I went to bed early and woke up late-- nothing's better than sleeping under a mosquito net with wave sounds and insect songs lulling you into a blissful state...

view from my bed through the mosquito net

When I finally got out of bed, I swung on the hammock for a long time and watched the ocean and listened to the waves some more.


I had cafe con leche and fruit and yogurt (including papaya! yum!) and granola on the balcony overlooking the water.

Then I wrote more of Cerise Notebook (the second of the series, set in France) for a while-- (I didn't go online once for the whole trip-- it felt great!)


Then I swung in the hammock some more and went for a swim in the ocean.


Then I had quesadillas for lunch, talked with some nice people, and swung on the hammock some more.


I had afternoon tea and chocolate and wrote some more of Cerise.


Then I walked along the beach, hung out with locals playing volleyball and skim boarding and fishing and playing tug of war-- a really lovely family atmosphere in the evenings. Then I walked to the tip of Punta Cometa-- Comet point-- and watched the sunset and wrote in my notebook. Ahhh...


At nights, I had fresh fish on the balcony and talked with more nice people.

To come back home, I walked along a dirt road for a long time with my giant backpack and caught a colectivo-- a tiny car crammed with four people in the back, two in the passenger seat (I was one of them) and the driver-- cumbia music blasting, the driver's collection of little stuffed turtles dangling around the rearview mirror, along with the ever-present Virgen of Juquila-- Oaxaca's Virgin. In Pochutla, I took another colectivo to the airport in Huatulco, bought a bunch of cinnamon-almond-chocolate with my extra pesos, and caught the flight home.


And now I'm home, and thankfully, I've managed to hold onto that rhythm of waves and insect songs and a swinging hammock and that delicious feeling of melting right into the hot, humid air.



If it sounds to you like I did nothing but swing in my hammock, eat, sleep, write, and swim, you're mostly right. I did do a little interviewing-- that's where the oh-so-grueling research part came in-- but that's all top secret information. I don't want to spoil the book for you... Okay, I'm going to make some of that hot chocolate now.

Gracias for reading!

abrazos,
Laura

Happy Spring Equinox! (and thanks in advance for hearing my whining...)

Hi dear readers,

I always get super-excited about spring coming, and then when it finally comes, I find myself itchy-eyed and lost in heaps of used kleenex. My tree pollen allergy puts a major damper on the crocuses and tweetering birds.

Okay, enough complaining (although you should know that I am squinting at this laptop screen through puffy, red eyelids, and trying very, very hard not to start itching my eyes, because once I start...)

So here's what I've been up to lately:

1) writing an early draft of The Cerise Notebook, the second in the Notebooks series. Since I'm in a complaining mood, I'll just whine a bit about why it's sooooo hard. For one thing, this is the first book I've started writing after having gotten a contract for it. This definitely puts the pressure on. What if I can't do it? What if it's abysmal? What if it's too weird? Not weird enough? What if my editor doesn't like it? What if I used up all my writing talent and now there's just blah-ness left over?

I give myself lots of pep talks and write a lot in my journal about why I love this story and the characters and why I can finish this book. I do, ultimately, think I can do this-- mainly because experience has shown me that I always get freaked out along the way by various insecurities, and things always turn out fine.



This is an ancient moss-covered fountain over steamy hot springs in Aix-en-Provence, France-- which has something to do with The Cerise Notebook. (I won't tell you what).

2) Another thing I've been doing-- final stage stuff with Star in the Forest, my middle grade novel which comes out next spring, and The Indigo Notebook, which comes out this fall. What final stage stuff, you ask? Well, it feels like a constant stream of new tasks-- big, padded envelopes that arrive right when I'm settling in my trailer to give myself another pep talk about Cerise. The Fed Ex truck stops at the driveway, and I'm suddenly faced with a deadline for copy-edits to go over for Star, or page proofs for Indigo.

Or I take a wee break from Cerise to check my email and get the jacket copy for Star to go over, or the illustrations for it (yes, it's got some illustrations! And they're great-- especially the heart-wrenching one of the dog huddled under a rusty truck hood in the rain at night! Aww!) And although it's thrilling to have several books in the works at once, it's a little jarring to keep being pulled away from the one I'm trying to get lost in (Cerise).



Getting lost in Cerise involves wandering around the mysterious, narrow streets of Aix, as I did last summer.

Okay, just a little more complaining: (See why I only post about once a month? I'd send everyone running in the other direction with all my whining.) It's HARD going over copy-edits and page proofs. Those copy-editors and page-proofers catch all kinds of things-- beyond commas and typos. They say stuff like, wait a minute, Zeeta is already on the bus-- how can she get on it again? Or, wait a minute, here the woman places the baby for adoption before she leaves town, and there you say it's afterward. Or wait a minute, here you say today's Friday, but there you say yesterday was Sunday. Sometimes it's easy to fix-- just changing a word or two.... but sometimes it's a headache and a half, requiring rewriting a few paragraphs.... and I always fret that I'm creating more mistakes in an effort to fix the original mistake. Ack!

And the scary thing is, I have to get it perfect, because (at the page proof stage at least) there's no going back. This is what thousands of people are going to be reading, and I better get it right. So, as I go over the seemingly endless copy-editor's/proof-reader's comments, on one hand I feel incredibly grateful that she's spared me future embarrassment (I say she because everyone I've met at Delacorte/Random House has been a she-- sorry if I've left out any men out there). On the other hand, I feel really lame that I didn't catch these mistakes myself-- or even that I made them in the first place.

On an entirely different note (because I really want to end this post on a non-whiny note), here are me and Sarah Ryan and Carrie Visintainer, two members of my writing group, at my son's second birthday party. We got distracted from the cake and balloons and felt compelled to be Charlie's Angels for a while.


Bye!

un abrazo,
Laura

Back from Maryland Trip! (Part II)

Hey all!

So, I'm dividing my Maryland trip into two sections: the previous post was about my trip to Dunloggin, so scroll on down if you want to see that. This one's about my Clemente Middle School vist.

I was super-excited to return to Clemente this year. I went last year, too, and had lots of fun. I got hooked up with this school because my aunt and uncle and cousins happened to be sitting next to the school librarian, Ms. Gerard, at an Orioles game a couple years ago. I'm so glad they made that connection for me! Mrs. Gerard is one of the coolest librarians I've met (and I've met a lot!) She organized a book swap to pay for my visit, and did book talks complete with Mexican snacks to get kids excited about Red Glass.

Between presentations, I snacked on homemade pastries (courtesy of the library assistant!) and hung out with a bunch of library regulars who have read just about every book in the place. I was extremely impressed (I think they've read more books than me, and that's not an easy feat...)


Here I am with a very talented writer...


and an avid reader...


And now, for a bit of exciting news... My friend Maria Virginia Farinango and I got offered a contract from my beloved editor at Delacorte for the book we've spent years working on-- it's tentatively called The Queen of Water, and based on her amazing indigenous girlhood in the Ecuadoran Andes!!! We are over the moon...


Thanks for reading!

Laura

Back from Maryland Trip!

Hi all!

I'm finally recovered from the traumatic return flight with Toddler (he's nearly two now!) He had a meltdown on hour four of the flight, during the part where we couldn't get out of our seats, so I had to restrain this screaming, thrashing little creature for what felt like forever. (And he'd been such an angel on all our previous flights...)

Until that point, the trip went great. I spent two fun days visiting Dunloggin, my very own middle school from 1985-87. Some of the 7th grade reading classes just finished reading What the Moon Saw. What an honor!!!




I had some great conversations with former teachers of mine-- Mrs. Witt (in pic, she organized my visit), Mrs. Stanley (aka Mrs. Petrovich), Mr. Petrovich (in pic), and Mrs. Kehm.


The seventh graders did some cool projects based on the book-- like making their own book covers. Here are some of my favorites... there are definitely some students who have a future in book design!



They picked out "classic quotes" from the book for the back of their book jackets. I loved reading the quotes that somehow stood out to them-- it made me happy that they connected with these images and words. *Remember, you can click on the image to make it bigger!*



They also pulled out a bunch of metaphors and similes from the book (more that I'd known were in there!)

Shortly before I left for Maryland, I spent a Sunday afternoon at ALA in Denver, chatting with Random House folks and hearing Colorado teens talk about potential Best Books for Young Adults and loading up on free ARCs (advanced review copies). After the conference, I went to my friend Lauren Myracle's freedom-to-read event at The Tattered Cover. (She's one of the most banned authors of last year). Her event was a blast-- a perfect way to end the day-- she's as fun and funny and smart in person as she is in her books. Here we are with writer buddies-- Ron Cree (Desert Blood), Lauren (TTYL series; Bliss), Brandon Meyers (sci fi and fantasy), me, and Keira (avid reader!)


Okay, I'm going to do a post about my visit to Clemente Middle School now. If you haven't signed up for my every-other-month email newsletter, please sign up! That way you'll know about the book releases and tours and contests I have coming up this year. Also, if you haven't been to my new website yet, you should take a look-- my husband worked really hard on it.

Thanks for reading!
Laura

Happy New Year!!!

Hello and happy new year, dear friends and readers!

Nothing earth-shattering to report-- just wanted to say hi and wish you all well (and show you a picture of my Christmas cactus blooming). I've had a nice few weeks-- it's been relaxing since I haven't had to teach night classes or answer too many emails. I managed to meet my revision deadline for Star in the Forest, which was a relief. Now I'm focusing on the second book of my notebook series (still at the day-dreamy first draft stage-- exploring the plots and relationships and characters and themes and all that). I've also been doing a lot of cozy reading in bed while sipping chamomile tea lately.

Some highlights of my reading are:

Peeps and Uglies by Scott Westerfield (I had to see what all the fuss was about. Indeed, they're good YA books. I liked Peeps best-- parasitical vampire speculative fiction stuff. The parasite-host relationship is truly fascinating (as you will see if you read the book, which is chock-full of true, gross tidbits). Both books make you reflect (squeamishly) on your society and assumptions, which is the sign of good speculative fiction.

Another smart book I read was E. Lockhart's YA book The Disreputable History of Frankie [somebody-- can't remember the last name]. She manages to throw Foucault's ideas in the book-- stuff I didn't even know about til grad school. Impressive. And a smart, reflective, burgeoning feminist-revolutionary narrator.

Lessee... what else? Oh! Books on tape (well, CD.) I'm in the middle of Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. Riveting, I must say. Spooky and gossipy-feeling at the same time. I definitely recommend listening to this one, since the whole premise is that a dead girl is talking to the narrator on cassette tapes, explaining why she killed herself. I think hearing it makes it extra-good.

For a younger crowd, Savvy by Ingrid Law was lots of fun, as was Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson. I kept wishing my son was about eight years older so we could read these aloud together-- they'd both be fantastic read-alouds, I think. Adventure, suspense, humor, touches of magic/fantastical elements.

{a fountain in Provence}

For the next book in my Notebooks series, I've been reading Contes de Provence (Tales from Provence) and Les Eaux de Provence (The Waters of Provence). Take note-- I just gave away where the second Notebook will be set! (in case you missed my blog entries from Provence over the summer.) I so much prefer listening to French (and Spanish) than reading it. It's laborious for me to read word by word. In English I'm so used to skimming and breezing through page after page. These French books are exhausting. Shoowee...

{Samenakoa-- troubadour-ish street performers I hung out with in Provence}

The content, though, is really fascinating and makes the agony of the reading process worthwhile. Lots of underground water-related mysteries are involved, is all I'll say. And the tales are fun-- amazingly, several tales involve troubadours, who vagabond around (that's a verb in French, I just discovered)-- as do certain characters in my book-in-progress!

My favorite phrase in the book so far is about this troubadour Pierre who wandered with his viola through the countryside, from chateau to chateau, making every day a poem.

So go! Make today a poem!

gros bisous (fat kisses),
Laura

TA-DAH!!!!! The Indigo Notebook Cover! (This one's really it!)

Hey everyone!

Well, my toes are finally starting to thaw out. We've had near-zero temps all week in Colorado, but today's a balmy 40 degrees. I was too wimpy to write in my trailer in the freezing cold, so I camped out at my favorite coffee shop downtown-- Cafe Ardour. It's cozy and sunny there, with plenty of Orchid Oolong tea to meet my tea-fiend needs.

So... here it is... the cover of THE INDIGO NOTEBOOK!!!


I think the designer, Marci Senders, did a really nice job with it. (She designed the infamous Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants covers). Inside the suitcase, she included a few things that I sent her-- the crystal and the photos), which is very cool. I love the indigo-colored background and how it contrasts with the red suitcase.

The Indigo Notebook is the first in a series of three books, each a different color notebook, each taking place in a different country. My editor also sent me the covers of the next two books in the series (but I'll save those so they'll be a surprise...)

A few random things I'll include in this post-- a link to an interview with my smart, lovely editor Stephanie Lane Elliot and another link to an interview with my smart, lovely agent, Erin Murphy. (I am very lucky to be surrounded by smart, lovely women. Actually, while I'm at it, here are links to the blogs of two smart, lovely members of my writing group-- Leslie Patterson (France, History, Art) and Carrie Visintainer (travel adventures).

I get lots of questions about my agent and editor-- what they do, how we work together, etc. So here it is, from their perspective. The SCBWI interview with Stephanie gives you a good idea of how an editor and author work together to revise a manuscript. The Cynsations interview with Erin gives you a sense of what she does as an agent, her relationship with authors, and the benefits of having an agent.

Okay, I'm off to the library to check out a book of ancient Nahuatl poetry. Nahuatl was the language of the Aztecs-- they created beautiful, resonant poetry-- and the language is also spoken today in parts of Mexico. My book Star in the Forest (Spring 2010) has a little Nahuatl in it, inspired by a good friend of mine from Puebla who speaks it.

Thanks for reading!

abrazos,
Laura