Cover Reveal!!

I'll keep it short and sweet, since nobody clicked on this to hear me talk--here's the cover for my next YA book, NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED. I am unbelievably in love, and still freaking reeling that we found a girl who's Etta Etta Etta all over (look at her '70s clothes! and her ankles crossed in SUBTLE BALLERINA FASHION! and her eyes SEEING INTO YOUR SOUL).

Sooooo...

right? RIGHT? I could pretend to be modest but I mean I didn't design it so LOOK AT THAT DAMN THING.

Here's the summary of the thing: 

Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.

Everywhere she turns, someone feels she's too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself? 

The latest powerful, original novel from Hannah Moskowitz is the story about living in and outside communities and stereotypes, and defining your own identity.

And here is where you should add it on goodreads 'cause I'm gonna be watching that like a creeper today. 

Thanks for clicking! Tell me what you think, please!!

xoxoxo miss hannah

Dancing

So last month when I posted about my BIG NEWS, little did you know that that was only part of it. And now I get to announce the whole damn thing.

People who follow me on twitter know that, while I talk and talk and talk and talk about #sparklyfairyprostitute (SCRAPBOOK, Chronicle '15 woooooo) since November when I started it for NaNo I've been talking about this other book, one that I've been calling #bisexualballerina, one that is more professionally currently titled ETTA NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED. 

ETTA is about three things I knew very well and one thing I definitely did not--bisexuality, musical theater, eating disorders, and ballet. The four main characters are ones that I've tried to write book after book after book for through the past four years, and I had begun to give up hope that  could ever find a place where they all fit.

But then, these characters I'd had for so long, these characters I'd never even considered putting in the same book...

It just happened. And I owe it all to that weird little Etta. She's the anti-snarky narrator in what my agent called an anti-problem novel; Etta has a hundred and a half problems but it's not about them. It's about her. This tenacious, five feet nothing, curvy as all hell black ballerina who puts herself into therapy and dates boys and girls and will try really, really hard not to let her lesbian friends (the Disco Dykes, because they dress all in 70s clothes and yell 'breeder' at the zillions of straight people in rural Nebraska) make her feel like shit about it, not when there's this tiny little smoke of a girl in her ED group and a boy on a motorcycle from her musical theater auditions pulling her in another direction. Etta Etta Etta. She's made from my years and years of being eating disorded but never being underweight, my even more years and years of musical theater, my issues finding a place to fit in as a bisexual, and my obsession with toe shoes I've never been in. 

Since it's Monday and since I'm currently writing this post I have an excellent chance of failing, let's have some good news, shall we?

ETTA NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED will be my fifth book published by the awesome amazing Simon Pulse, this time with the fantastic Liesa Abrams, thanks to my fucking incredible agent John Cusick.

Cover Cover Cover Cover

My FAVORITE kind of post.

 So once upon a time I wrote a book about a magic gay fish...

 I don't have any official cover copy for this yet and fuck if I actually know how to describe it, but the basic idea is that this kid Rudy moves to an island with magic fish that are supposed to cure his sick little brother (HI I AM HANNAH MOSKOWITZ AND I WROTE THIS BOOK). And then he meets this half-fish half-boy who is ugly as all fuck and is this angry, fantastic vigilante and they have this kind of hesitant unspoken romance and there is DRAMA AND INTRIGUE. INTRIGUE, I TELL YOU. Basically it's very strange, very magically-realistic, and altogether very ME so if you like what I do and you're not squeamish about fish sex, you will like this, that's what I think. AND NOW IT HAS A COVER. My goofy blog layout won't let me post it too big, so CLICK CLICK CLICK!

I am really, really crazy about this cover. Do you think it might be kind of shiny in real life? I think it might be kind of shiny in real life.

You can add that shit on Goodreads right here if you want to! As you can tell by its 3 review average of FIVE STARS, it is an important piece of literature already. GET ON THAT SHIT.

Six Days From Now and Ten Years Ago

Six days from now, my 4th book, Gone, Gone, Gone, comes out.

It's been getting really good reviews, which is pretty fucking cool. Look at these nice quotes!


"Moskowitz captures the teenage mentality and voice in this tender yet emotionally complex romance."
- Publisher's Weekly

“Moskowitz, as usual, imbues her prose with a dreamy quality that makes every off moment feel monumental….Despite featuring the very real sniper attacks of 2002, this is as amorphous as the author’s Invincible Summer—not necessarily a bad thing for those inclined to float along with the lullaby rhythm. The theme of the randomness of tragedy (literalized here by 9/11, the sniper, cancer, and Craig’s 14 lost pets) is particularly well-handled.”
- Booklist


So there's that, and that's awesome, but let's lay it on the line: this is my fourth book, and after four books it takes a lot to get my feathers ruffled (gross?) in either a good (yeah, it's gross) or a bad way. ANY review means that someone's picked up the book, and that's what's important to me at this point, and maybe that means I'm soulless, Supernatural or Zombie Tag-style.

Except the thing is...it's different with this one. Even though I'm pretty fond of that magic gay fish thing, GGG gets a special section of my brain all to itself. GGG is just very, very me. Both 'me' as a writer--pretty much every hannah-trope you know and hopefully grudgingly accept is in this book, seriously, make a drinking game--and as a actual, real human.

And it's kind of the end of an era. As of right now, this is my last male-POV fully contemporary YA book. This was me doing everything I love so much, wringing into one book, and letting it rest.

This was me closing a door, for now.

That's not really why it's special.

**

John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind of the D.C. metro sniper shootings, was executed on November 10th, 2009.

I was at Brown then, and a friend of mine had a blog where he wrote about political events and such, and he asked me to take a look at a post he wrote criticizing the death penalty with regards to Muhammad's execution. Because I was from Maryland, and also because I'm a bleeding heart liberal who was attending a bleeding heart liberal school and I assume he was expecting me to have a certain reaction to the news that someone had been executed.

In any other circumstance, he would have been wrong, but the thing was...

I'd been waiting for John Allen Muhammad to be executed for seven years.

Except, if you'd have asked me, I would have said eight. Because I would have sworn up and down that the sniper shootings and 9/11 were the same year.

I was young--ten for 9/11, eleven for the sniper shootings, so it makes sense that my memories get muddled. But I don't think that's the reason I was so sure that the sniper shootings were a month after 9/11, rather than thirteen.

I think it's a Maryland thing. A suburbs-of-D.C. thing.

They're linked for us. They always will be. We sat right next to a city that lost 125 people in 9/11, and we very obviously were NOT in New York. We weren't even in D.C. We were Maryland, uncomfortably close and uncomfortably detached, and thirteen months (feels like one month) later we, we fucking suburbanites, were the playground for two snipers and two weeks and ten casualties.

We have issues.

It's a Maryland thing.

So I was at Brown in 2009, and my friend showed me the blog post, and the way he talked about Muhammad's execution was...

normal.

He talked about it like it was any other situation, any other murderer. He used it as a support in a larger argument.

It just made so much sense.

And there I was, seven years out of it. Seven years of reading the Wiki page obsessively, of reading about John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo and timing the shootings and figuring out how far I was from each when it happened (not far, never far, and how the fuck could I use that as a reason something was important? People die all the time. Why the hell does it matter if I'm five miles away?)

Seven years out of running in zig-zags on my way to voice lessons and reading about a boy my age getting shot on his way to school. Seven years out of our chief of police crying on TV and our faculty members wearing orange vests and patrolling our grounds.

There was nothing else on the news.

People ducked while they pumped gas.

People talked, all the time, about 9/11.

Seven years out of it, and still shocked that anyone could think it made sense.

So I wrote a book.

(I did what I have to do to make anything make sense. I made a love story.)

So I wrote GGG over a few days a month after Muhammad was executed, during final exams, because I take my studies very seriously, obviously. And because I can't be objective about it. I can't. I can't let it go.

I can't shut this door.

So I wrote a book.

I hope you read it.

Remember That Time I Had News? HOW ABOUT AGAIN.

In lieu of a post with actual thought-provoking content, how about some NEWS!

FIRST OF ALL, congratulations ONE ZILLION TIMES to Erin Bowman, the winner of the cover contest, with her use of a beaaaautiful photograph by John Goodridge!!

NOW. Okay! So!

S&S (and at least one other publisher, if I understand correctly) is trying out this badass new thing where they release a hardcover and a paperback simultaneously.

The logic behind this is that big bookstores like B&N and...oh wait, just B&N (guh my heart my soul) are more likely to stock a paperback than a hardcover because it is thinner and takes up less space. It's also less expensive to ship and generally lower-risk for the store to carry.

This is the main reason BREAK and INVINCIBLE SUMMER were in paperback rather than hardcover. Contemporary YA is a kind of scary place and putting it out in paperback increases the chances that the stores will be willing to stock it. (And I am SUPER lucky that B&N stocked both BREAK and INVINCIBLE SUMMER. Sidenote: they will be carrying ZOMBIE TAG as well. Which is a hardcover. So that news does not really belong in this post. HENCE THE PARENTHESIS.)

But there are people and places that like hardcovers more: some independents, libraries, my parents, etc.

WHICH IS WHY it is really, REALLY exciting that S&S has decided to EXPERIMENT ON ME

no no no not like that

and release GONE, GONE, GONE simultaneously in paperback and hardcover!







I KNOW, Jared and Jensen, cast of Fantastic Mr. Fox, and guy with chair!!

I'M EXCITED TOO!

I will have MORE INFORMATION closer to pub date, when I trust you to remember it (you dear little fish with your horrible memories) but I think you guys can figure out how to best support your chica on this if you are so inclined. You know as well as I do that the best way to show some love for a writer is with that wallet, so. If you shell out the extra money for the hardcover, eternal gratitude (AND POSSIBLY SOMETHING ELSE I'M WORKING ON IT). It shows the people over at my publisher that you like me enough to support me in hardcover, and they like when people like me because then they can wear their I LOVE HANNAH shirts without fear of embarrassment or egg-throwers.

BUT the paperback and the ebook will be available at exactly the same time (I should say when that time is, right? APRIL 17TH, 2012) so buy it in one of those if you'd rather. This is why we give you options. Because we love you.

Pretty, pretty fish.

At Long Last: Cover Contest FINALS!

Okay. Let's do this.

Here are our Top Four in the INVINCIBLE SUMMER COVER REDESIGN CONTEST! These are the 3 from my Top Ten that received the most votes, and the fan favorite you all picked from the remaining entries! I've scrambled their order just for kicks.

You may vote ONCE for ONE cover. Each cover's number is above it. Remember you can click each to make it bigger.

And so you remember what a big deal this is, the winner will receive...

--a signed copy of my first book, BREAK.
--a signed copy of my second book, INVINCIBLE SUMMER.
--a signed arc of my first MG book, ZOMBIE TAG.
--a signed arc of my third YA book, GONE, GONE, GONE.
--their cover, printed up on pretty photo paper, signed by me (if you want me to? It's your art, you might not be into that. Let me know.)
--however many bookmarks I have lying around (three?) signed by me.

AND. MOST IMPORTANTLY:

--the first chapter of my just-sold novel, FISHBOY, printed out and signed. This is pre-edits! Who knows if this chapter will even EXIST in the final draft?? This is a first look that ONLY YOU WILL RECEIVE.

You have until MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH, MIDNIGHT EST to cast your vote.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:

#1

#2

#3

#4

Dear Magic Gay Fish

You've had that name for a long time.

A bunch of you probably don't know why the followers of my blog and my followers on Twitter are called magic gay fish.

The truth is, that before there was you, there was a manuscript.

The magic gay fish manuscript.

It was always called Fishboy, but I wanted to be funny, and, well...the thing is about a magic gay fish, after all. Well, a magic gay half-fish, half-boy. Named Teeth. Who, I've got to say, is a character unlike any I've ever written and one that I adored writing in a way I've never really loved anything.

So it's this manuscript. I wrote it last July. If you hit the tag "Fishboy" at the end of this post, you can see some of the excerpts I've posted. It's just this manuscript, except that it's this manuscript that's special to me in a way I can't really explain. It's this way that makes me feel like one of those floaty sensitive writers that I never really thought I was. I don't know. I just know that this manuscript was my weird, crazy long shot book about a magic gay fish and a dusty, dreamy boy named Rudy who loves him, and a girl named Diana who teaches Rudy about Roald Dahl, and Rudy's parents who love the shit out of him. And his sick little brother, because, let's be honest, it's a hannah book.

It's really as hannah as any of my books have ever been, really.

It's the only manuscript I would have ever considered naming my fans after. It's THE book.

So here's the deal, my beautiful, beautiful, amazingly magic and amazingly gay fish.

You are immortalized.

The deal closed yesterday, and I am honestly the luckiest girl in the planet.

Sometime in 2013. Consider it my love letter to you.

A Need So Freaking Beautiful

(You can still enter the ZOMBIE TAG arc tour right here!)

So you may have seen a bunch of posts today about the release of this amazing book called A Need So Beautiful by Suzanne Young. I don't usually do promotional stuff on this blog, but I make an exception today for two reasons:

1) Suzanne Young is my best friend. Which would be enough all on its own, but
2) A Need So Beautiful is a really, really, REALLY amazing book.

So we're having this wicked awesome contest, but first I'm going to give you a story about an act of kindness that changed my life, like how Charlotte changes people's lives--and her own--with her acts of kindness in A Need So Beautiful.

So once upon a time, about thirty years ago, this guy and this girl were in college and dating, pretty casually. They'd been together for the better part of a year, but they both knew that the guy was going to move out to California over the summer to meet the girl he'd been with before this one. All cards were on the table, everyone knew how it was going to go down.

And then the new girl sprained her ankle, right when the guy was supposed to move out to California.

And it wasn't as if it was life-threatening. It was a sprained ankle. He could have gone anyway. He wasn't obligated.

But he did. He blew off the girl he was supposed to move with (and never called her...but that's a different story) and stayed in North Carolina with the girl with the sprained ankle.

And that's how a random act of kindness changed my life. Seeing as I wouldn't exist if he'd gone out to California. Thanks, Dad!

:)

So here's the contest.

It's the same one from all the blogs, so you only need/get to enter once. The contest is open until June 28th.

There are SO MANY AWESOME PRIZES, and you'll get to choose which ones you want to try to grab on the entry sheet. Pretty cool, yeah? Some prizes are international and some aren't, so pay attention to what's available for you.

There will be 1 winner per item, and then three people will also be chosen to win a signed copy of A Need So Beautiful. Woohoo!

HERE IS THE ENTRY FORM!

And here's how to earn lots of points. You can only enter once, so make sure you have all your extra points ready to go when you fill out the form.

Earn one extra entry for each of the following:
Take a picture of an author's book in the wild and tweet it to the author and Kari (check the form for her twitter handle).
Post a positive Amazon review for a book you loved
Donate a book to a library or classroom
Tweet a good deed you plan to do this week, using the #ANeedSoBeautiful hashtag

Earn 10 extra entries for each of the following:
Take a picture of A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL in the wild and tweet it to us and Suzanne Young
Post an Amazon review for A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL
Donate a copy of A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL to a library or classroom

And here are some of the amazing prizes you could score:

First 3 chapter critique (Jessica at Confessions of a Bookaholic: http://www.totalbookaholic.com/)

YA Lit Swag Bag (Sara at Novel Novice: www.novelnovice.com)

Hourglass Order from TBD – Int (Corrine at Lost for Words: http://lostforwords-corrine.blogspot.com)

Random Books (Jessi at The Elliott Review: http://elliottreview.blogspot.com)

2 Header/Button Packs (Jessica at Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile: http://www.hopelessbibliophile.com/)

First 3 chapters Critique (Cindy at Books Complete Me: http://www.bookscompleteme.com/)

First 15 pages Critique (Kari at A Good Addiction: http://agoodaddiction.blogspot.com/)

Signed ARC of Hereafter (Kari at A Good Addiction: http://agoodaddiction.blogspot.com/)

Query Letter Critique (Shannon Messenger: http://ramblingsofawannabescribe.blogspot.com/)

Signed copy of Invincible Summer – US/Can (Hannah Moskowitz: hannahmosk.blogspot.com)

First Chapter Critique and a Skype Chat (Keri Mikulski: http://kerimikulski.com/books/pay-it-forward-the-author-edition/)

Signed copy of Tell Me a Secret with signed TMAS art print - US (Holly Cupala: http://www.hollycupala.com/search/label/blog)

Signed copy of Chasing Brooklyn – US (Lisa Schroeder: www.lisaschroederbooks.com)

The Pledge Swag Pack including ARC (Kimberly Derting: http://kimberlyderting.blogspot.com/)

Teen Author Carnival!

So Monday, May 23rd, I'm going to get my ass to New York City to be a part of Teen Author Carnival 2011.

This is a pretty huge deal for a couple of reasons.

1) It's the first thing anything like this that I've ever done. I will be a nervous wreck.

2) In a second I'm going to post the list of authors in the panel I'm in, and if you know anything about me, you will find out another HUGE MAJOR REASON that I will be a nervous wreck. (I will put this reason in BOLD so that you will be able to locate it even if you do not know anything about me).

3) I bought a new dress.

4) I will be signing stuff! And you can probably snag an arc of Gone, Gone, Gone. Or even Zombie Tag! And duh Invincible Summer and probs Break too, who knows!

5) My family will be there. Yes. YOU CAN MEET MY MOM.

6) Check out this amazing list of authors:

Carol Estby Dagg - The Year We Were Famous
Nova Ren Suma - Imaginary Girls
Carrie Jones - Need, After Obsession, Dear Bully
Scott Tracey - Witch Eyes
David Levithan - Every You, Every Me
Melissa Walker - Small Town Sinners
Michelle Hodkin - The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever & As I Wake
Michelle Zink - Circle of Fire
Michael Northrop - Trapped
Leah Clifford - A Touch Mortal
Nick James - Skyship Academy
Amy Fellner Dominy -OyMG
Kirsten Hubbard - Like Mandarin
Malinda Lo - Huntress, Ash
Bettina Restrepo - Illegal
Caridad Ferrer - When the Stars Go Blue
Kody Keplinger - Shut Out
Torrey Maldonado - Secret Saturdays
THIS BITCH RIGHT HERE
E Archer - Geek Fantasy Novel
Gayle Forman - Where She Went
Courtney Allison Moulton - Angelfire
Susane Colasanti - So Much Closer, Something Like Fate
Andrea Cremer - Wolfsbane, Nightshade

7) I have practiced a new author signature. It includes a magic gay fish.

8) I did something weird to my hair! You should come see if you like it.

9) UM SO HERE'S THE REALLY EXCITING PART.

So the way Teen Author Carnival works is there are a bunch of different panels and you can see us talk and stuff! My panel is from 5:15-6:10 and it is called Teenage Angst: Getting It Right - The Emotions, The Voice, The Drama. And, well...here is who is on this panel.

1. David Levithan

2. Susane Colasanti

3. Melissa Walker

4. Kody Keplinger

5. Hannah Moskowitz

6. Gayle Forman

7. Torrey Maldonado

8. Caridad Ferrer


In case you didn't notice, I BOLDED THE NAME David Levithan.

Know why?

Because David Levithan is my FAVORITE AUTHOR IN THE WORLD.

I mean, just check out what I wrote at the front of the traveling GONE, GONE, GONE arc.



I am not only going to talk to David Levithan, I am going to be expected to say intelligent things before or after or possibly both David Levithan. I am going to be a disaster and I am probably going to be hilarious, so you have to come see.

So pretty please, if it is at all possible, come. It is Monday, May 23 from 4pm-7:30pm at the Mulberry Street Library (10 Jersey Street, New York, NY 10012-3332). It is also a zillion percent free, unless you buy something, obviously. Which you probably should.

Most (all?) of the writers on this list I've never actually met, so I'm hideously excited to meet them and hang out with them, and if you want to come and fangirl/boy, I will be fangirl/boying just as hard. We can do it together. But come. Say hi. I like you guys so much.

GONE, GONE, GONE's Travel Schedule!

Thank you so much everyone who signed up! I am mega, mega excited to get this thing out!

A few notes:

1) I assigned everyone a week that goes from Wednesday to Wednesday. I'm putting it in the mail on Monday so it will hopefully arrive to person #1 on time. It would be great if you could get it in the mail before Wednesday as well. This leads to point #2.

2) Don't freak out about the dates. They're more so we have an order than anything. This is not the army. Nothing is set in stone. Things happen, I understand! People get sick, people have birthdays, the mail takes longer than it logically should, etc. etc. If you need another day or two, go for it. If the book doesn't get to you by the assigned date, wait a few days before you freak out. Just email me and keep me abreast (teehee) of what's going on. I have the tour ending two weeks before the book comes out, so we have a lot of extra days to play with. It's all good.

That being said! If you look at this list and go "oh shit I'm on vacay that week/am getting my brain replaced/am getting my mailbox taken in for a tune-up" let me know and I'll switch you with the person before/after you. Which is easy becaaaause:

3) Everything was determined geographically. That's how the order was worked out. I tried to take the order that people signed up into account, but it very rarely made much of a difference (and thanks to the cruel world, the person who signed up first is getting it last. I'm totally sorry!). But the order of who gets it in Ohio first was decided by who entered first. Same as the people in LA. (Not Texas. You guys were just "how can I not go back and forth across the state a zillion times." Who knows how I did.)

I did it this way so the book can get from place to place as quickly as possible.

So now! A few rules!

1) You know this one already: rate (and review, if you like) on Goodreads ASAP, hold off on blog stuff until March or April. You are now OBLIGATED to review, fishies, even if you hate the damn thing. Tell us WHY you hate it. Tell us in excruciating detail.

2) If you lose it, I will starve you while you watch the other fish gobble up all the fish flakes that should be yours.

3) As soon as you read this blog post, email me. I WILL start tracking you down if necessary, but that'll make me cranky.

PLEEEEEEEEASE put the week you are getting the book in the subject line of your email.

IN THIS EMAIL, I NEED:

Your real name (and do let me know what name I have you under, so I can streamline everything)
Your address
The URL of your blog.

I don't care if I already have this info, send it again.

As soon as I get your address, I will give you (if I have it) the address of the person who comes after you. I won't give out your address until the person I'm giving it to has given me theirs, k? So everything's fair and all. Try not to lose the email with the address, but I'll have them all on file, so don't freak out.

4) Write in it. Yep. I want a note at the beginning or the end. It can say something about the book or it can just say hi or it can say something dirty (preferred). I want you to slip photos or drawings between the cover and the title page for everyone else (and me!) to see. I will write a little letter in it for you before it goes out! Return the favor. Make me smile when I get it back.

Oh, one last thing! If you are not on the list and you have no idea why not, let me know. Also if you're on it twice, because I'm really not all that smart.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO!

May 11th-May 18th: A Book Vacation
May 18th-May 25th: Pam Harris
June 1st-June 8th: sassysam
June 8th-June 15th: Jeremy West
June 15th-June 22nd: Al
June 22nd-June 29th: Tara
June 29th-July 8th: Tracey Hansen
July 6th-July 13th: M.A. Chase
July 13th-July 20th: Jamie Manning
July 20th-July 27th: Mandie Baxter
July 27th-August 3rd: Allison
August 3rd-August 10th: Another Book Junkie
August 10th-August 17th: Christwriter
August 17th-August 24th: Tabitha Michelle
August 24th-August 31st: Kari
August 31st-September 7th: Kelsey (TX)
September 7th-September 14th: Yara
September 14th-September 21st: Jeanette Bruce
September 21st-September 28th: Jacob
September 28th-October 5th: Liz
October 5th-October 12th: Linda
October 12th-October 19th: Janelle Alexander
October 19th-October 26th: Cory
October 26th-November 2nd: fakesteph
November 2nd-November 9th: Fiktshun
November 9th-November 16th: Nora Coon
November 16th-November 23rd: Eliza
November 23rd-November 30th: Lindsay
November 30th-December 7th: Becca C.
December 7th-December 14th: Sara (Manitoba)
December 14th-December 21st: Nicole Loren
December 21st-December 28th: Jamie Kline
December 28th-January 4th: Rachael
January 4th-January 11th: Erin Thomas
January 11th-January 18th: Erin (Michigan)
January 18th-January 25th: Loren Chase
January 25th-February 1st: Jamie B. (OH)
February 1st-February 8th: Lydia Brunswick
February 8th-February 15th: Amanda Sage
February 15th-February 22nd: Jess Tudor
February 22nd-February 29th: Kelsey (NJ)
February 29th-March 7th: Mbee
March 7th-March 14th: April
March 14th-March 21st: Weechagirl
March 21st-March 28th: Miranda White
March 28th-April 4th: Brittany Moore
April 4th-forever: Hannah Moskowitz

I'm Very Excited About This

EDIT: AAAAND WE'RE CLOSED. Thanks everyone!

So. I have this thing. Look at it!



It's an arc of GONE, GONE, GONE! (and here it is all snuggled with the rest)...





In case you've missed it or you're new here (in which case hey I'm hannah what up have some pizza), GONE, GONE, GONE is my 2012 YA coming out with Simon Pulse.

I don't like to pick favorites, but...I really like this book.

You can check out the official blurb right here, on the back of the book: (click to make it bigger!)



But I should say a little about it, right?

GONE, GONE, GONE is one of my very favorite things I've written. It's about love and guns and lots of other ugly little things. It is dark and quiet and it is also really damn jubilant, if you ask me. It has my favorite narrator I've ever written in the form of this weird, passionate, awkward insomniac named Craig, and one of my favorite characters in Lio, who is maybe the character I've put through the most shit, ever, but is also ridiculously well-adjusted.

Also there are parents! They are present! And they are good parents!

And of course there are siblings, because it is one of my books.

Anyway. I hope you like it because I really do.

BUT HERE'S THE EXCITING PART.

Usually, when I get my two arcs from Simon Pulse, I keep one for my greedy little self and give one away to someone on the blog.

But why give it away to one person when I can give it to all of you??

That's right, fishies...WE'RE HAVING AN ARC TOUR.

And guess what? This book doesn't start until April 17th, 2012, but if you guys help me out, you can have this damn thing really, really soon.

Here's the deal.

YOU ARE ELIGIBLE TO ENTER IF: You are in the U.S. or Canada, you are a book blogger, and you promise to review this book. (NOTE: My definition of "book blogger" is pretty lenient. If you have a blog where you will review my book, you're in.)

To get into the tour, you need to comment on this post telling me that you've done both of two things:

1. Added GONE, GONE, GONE on Goodreads. Right here.

2. Bought INVINCIBLE SUMMER.

Yeah, that's kinda gross, I realize. But chick's gotta eat. Just comment and be like "yeah, I bought that shit." It counts, obviously, if you ordered it and it's on its way. It counts, obviously, if you order/buy it as a response to this post.

(But hannah, can't we just lie and tell you we bought it if we hadn't? Yeah, you can, d-bag.)

I want to give each of you a week with the book, which means the first 50 people to comment are in. U.S. and Canada only, sorry, it's just not fair to make someone else pay the postage to get it to you, internationals. I love you dearly.

If 50 people don't enter, no problem! I'll close this after a week and send the book out however many weeks before release. So if 20 people enter, I'll send it to the first person 20 weeks before release. So if you want it now, tell your friends! The more people, the sooner you get it. EDIT: If I get enough entries, I'll consider extending the tour through a month or so after it comes out.

I'll organize it geographically, so the closest person to College Park, MD will get it first, you lucky dog. LEAVE YOUR CITY AND STATE in your comment, and later I will make you email me your address and I will pass it along to the person before you in the tour. Hopefully I will not fuck this up. I promise not to give your address to weird people.

So yes, you'll have a week to get the book, read it, and send it to the next person. I'll send to the first person, the last person will send it back to me. If you drop the ball and lose my arc, you will be BLACKLISTED FROM EXISTENCE. You don't want that.

Important note, worth repeating: YOU MUST REVIEW THIS BOOK, whether or not you like it. But! Please DO NOT post this review on your blog until a month or two before release date. But PLEASE PLEASE rate it, and even review it! on Goodreads or Librarything or wherever the fuck (but Goodreads, please, I'm a Goodreads ho) as soon as possible after you finish it. I need the buzz, kay? Let's grassroots this shit.

Any questions, PLEASE hit me up either in the comments or on twitter (@hannahmosk). Aaaand go!

So Here's The Thing: Invincible Summer's Cover

When I first saw this book, I thought it was a summer kind of read. I've heard it's rather emotional. The cover doesn't make it appear that way at all!

Because of the cover I did think it was going to be a beachy read that I wouldn't be able to get into.

The cover of this book is entirely misleading.

Actually, I'm ashamed to say I think I DID judge this by it's cover. I've seen it around a bunch of times, wasn't really drawn in by the cover so just skipped over it. STUPID ME! This sounds like exactly my kind of read!

Cover and synopsis are pretty misleading. Don't judge this book based on the cover.

First off, this cover is weirdly my #1 favorite of 2011 so far!

The cover is so infuriatingly off. But honestly, I don't have a better idea....maybe a portrait of Albert Camus?

The current cover sucks. They should really let readers take votes on these things before they come out.

The synopsis is a little misleading. Sure there were girls and boys, love and lust, and a beach, but that wasn't what the book was about.

The cover and the reviews I've read of this book turned out to be 2 different things.

They really should change the cover. It doesn't fit the book whatsoever.

From all the reviews I've read, I just can't get over the fact that the cover kind of gives the wrong impression

Now I'm going to tell you that this whole blurb is totally inadequate and only the very last line really describes this book, in my opinion. Also, this is the worst cover ever for this book.

These are all quotes from reviews, positive and negative, and I could go on forever and ever. These are the ones I could find in five minutes.

All right, guys. I hear ya.

I did a post a while back where I responded to a lot of the "wow, your cover makes me want to go to the gym" comments I'd gotten, etc. (A quick summary of that post: you're hot, shut up, and that chick is photoshopped. I saw her when she had half the tits she has now.)

But this is kind of a different issue, yeah? Because this isn't really about what the cover looks like, but about what it says about the book.

It's a beautiful cover. I'll state that outright. It's a cover I'm proud to have on one of my books. It's doing its job and people are picking it up. I think the spine in particular is absolutely lovely. If you've seen IS in person, you'll know that the cover is made out of some kind of fantastic soft I don't even know that makes you want to put your head on it and go to sleep.

It's a beautiful cover.

But no, it's not the cover I would have chosen for this book.

So my 2012 book, Gone, Gone, Gone? It's a love story. It is so completely a love story. The WIP is a love story. I fucking love writing love stories.

Back in 2008, when I wrote IS, I did not know how to write a love story.

And I wasn't trying to.

This is a story about a family.

Some of the people up there ^ are responding to a little line at the end of the goodreads description that says "Not your typical beach read." That's not part of the real blurb. That's not on the back of the book.

That's something I went in and added myself a few weeks ago.

My publisher is amazing. Hands down. And they chose a cover and a blurb that would get people to pick it up. And I think it's working. I honestly could not be happier with how many people seem to be hearing about IS and picking it up. I saw a comment on an interview the other day where a girl said that the only reason IS was popular was because it had a chick in a bikini on it. Um guys. SHE SAID MY BOOK IS POPULAR.

This cover is doing its job. My publisher knows its shit, man. It's a beautiful cover, and I have so much support from the beautiful people in-house, and damn am I proud of my little book and INCREDIBLY thankful for the people who helped me make it and nourish it and get it out into the world. I really can't say that enough, and if you take one thing away from this post, let that be it.

But see, this cover is also pissing you guys off.

And that part sucks.

You all know this, but it's worth repeating: authors don't choose their covers. Authors don't write the blurb on the back of the book. And here's one you maybe don't hear as often: authors do not know what sells.

Yes, the love triangle aspect of IS's plot has been heavily pushed. It has been since the second my then-agent read it. The two brothers sleeping with the same girl? Of course it's weird. It's the hook because it's weird. It's not a hook I'd thought of. It wasn't a major part of the story, as far as I was concerned.

Once the book sold, I amped that up and made it a larger part of the plot. I made Noah have a real relationship with Melinda. I added more fights and conversations. These things absolutely strengthened the book as a whole.

It's not as if my book was ruined by this marketing, is what I'm trying to say.

The only part of that book I can control is what happens inside of it. And the truth is, the parts of that that I think are important would make really shitty book covers. Like the girl up there said, how do you design a book cover for a book about brothers and sign language and sex and Camus?

It's not easy.

But please. That don't judge a book by its cover thing? You have to understand something.

When you don't pick up a book because of its cover, you are not punishing the design team.

When you say, I would have picked up this book, but I hate the cover, so I won't, you are not punishing the design team.

When you refuse to read a review or take a second look at a book because of its cover, you are not punishing the design team.

You are punishing the author.

There are SO MANY reasons not to pick up my book. If that's the road you want to take, pick a good reason! Make it something that I did wrong. Make it about the ugly paragraph on page whatever or the fact that you hate books about big families or that you hate philosophy or that I peed on your front lawn or I said something mean to you on twitter or you don't like my nose. Make it something about ME. About something I did. Okay, maybe not the nose thing, then.

But guys. It's a book about a family. I will tell you a zillion times if I have to. It is a book about a boy and his family. It is a book about a boy and the siblings he is co-dependently creepy close to. There is sex in. There is more sign language than there is sex. This is not a book about a girl.

Not to mention, and here's the zinger:

I have made an executive decision.

If we're going by screen(page?)-time and character importance alone, that's Chase's goddamn sister (the only character in the book ever described as wearing, and I quote, "that green bikini," just sayin') on the cover and NOT the girl Chase and Noah are sleeping with.

And Claudia, the little sister, is the hero of the story. I will say that a million times too. Claudia is the hero of the story.

And in my mind, that's Claudia on the cover. That's my girl.

She deserves a cover.

And believing that makes me like my cover a hell of a lot more. Because it makes it darker and stranger and a fuckload more awkward and dirty sexy and God don't you want to put a towel on her and cover her up now? GOOD. Then read my book because you will like it. Seriously. Read this book if you want to cover up your little sister.

My point is: it's Claudia on the cover. That's my official statement. It's Claudia on the cover. And any time discussion of this cover ever comes up again, that's what I'm going to say.

And if you want to do me a favor, you will a. buy the book because bitch has to eat and b. TELL PEOPLE. You don't have to defend the cover. You don't have to like it. You don't have to offer a big explanation. But if you see a review dissing it, just leave a comment that says, "Hey, actually that's the sister on the cover."

And then walk away.

And that won't change the way a lot of people feel. But maybe, maybe it'll make a few say guhwhatthefuck? And that's why I write, really. It's especially why I write messed up shit like IS.

So. The chick on the cover. It's Claudia. And it is a beautiful cover beacause Claudia is goddamn beautiful.

It's not Melinda. It's not the girl they're sleeping with.

And really, this is all kind of appropriate, because it's Melinda's job to screw up everything.

So that's really all I have to say, so I'm going to leave you with a few things.

The first is Invincible Summer's trailer. Yeah, I just posted this. Have it again. And here's why.

1. I worked closely with Vania in developing this. I chose the images at the beginning. I also told her I wanted making out. Because making out sells, guys. That's the moral of this story. And maybe that sucks a little.

The more important reason is:

2. The voiceover? I wrote that. Just me. No input. Vania said do whatever you want, make it in Chase's voice. And I wrote that. It isn't an excerpt from the story.

And maybe it's a response to that girl, that girl that everyone assumes--and I'm not saying it's dumb to assume this, guys, it's only natural--is the girl on my cover, and therefore the girl everyone thinks is the focus of the story.

Maybe that's what the voice over is about. Maybe I'm talking about the girl who ruined it.

I don't know.



And I'll also give you links to two reviews, one positive and one negative, from two people who I think really captured what the book is about, whether or not they liked it.


Nay

Yay


I would absolutely love comments on this post, and I would also love if you would tweet the shit out of this or get it tattooed on you or otherwise let this be known to the entirety of the world. Make a song out of this post and then sing it. Put it on youtube. Add a bugle. Self-publish a book with only the words IT'S CLAUDIA ON THE COVER repeated over and over and over.

Whatever you do, be it tattoo or nothing, thank you for reading. This is all for you guys, you know?

THE FIRST SCAVENGER HUNT

So.

We are having the first of four scavenger hunts today.

You are about to embark on a quest to win a copy of INVINCIBLE SUMMER.

Good luck.

--

First, the rules for every day:

You will have 24 hours, starting from the minute this post goes up, to answer a series of questions. You will post your answers in the comments section of this post. Some of these questions have multiple (perhaps nearly infinite) correct answers, and some do not. You must answer all correctly to have a chance to be the randomly selected winner. There will be one winner each day, and I will announce that winner in the post opening the next round of the contest. If you do not win, you are absolutely free to enter the next few rounds! If you do win, you have 24 hours to email me your mailing information before I pass off to a different winner. And please do not enter again.

To find the answers of the questions, I suggest you try some of the following strategies:

a) look deep inside yourself

b) Google it

c) copy the answers of someone who posted before you

d) ask a muser. Just saying. These guys tend to know things. They're also busy people, so you might be lucky and you might not.

(Some names to try: @gracetopia, @Sagecollins, @sayitwhirly, @althrasher, @_bethanygriffin, @briannaorg, @suzanneyoung, @brittanimae, @libbymartin, @raemariz)

e) ask me. I may take pity on you, especially if you ask me in a funny way.

f) otherwise bribe/cheat/steal. This is a lawless society.

There will be none of that +1 for following or retweeting nonsense, but I would be ever so much obliged if you would consider adding the little book in question to your goodreads shelf, because I am a goodreads whore and sometimes you need little things to make you happy.

NOW. For the special rules for today.

THE PRIZE IS:

One copy of INVINCIBLE SUMMER and one CD of INVINCIBLE SUMMER'S PLAYLIST, as well as one signed bookmark.

THE RESTRICTIONS ARE:

U.S. and Canada only this time (sorry guys! There will be an international day).

One entry per customer. No exceptions. Don't make me come down there.

Contest ends at 2:30 PM, April 17th, 2011.

AND YOUR QUESTIONS ARE:

1) What is Hannah Moskowitz's porn star name?

2) What is the weight of a Tyranitar?

3) What is the worst lyric from your favorite song? (Example: My favorite song is "A Perfect Sonnet" by Bright Eyes, and the worst lyric is absolutely "so I stand in the sun/and I breathe with my lungs" because wow. That's pretty terrible. Obviously there are many correct answers. I want yours.)

4) Who is the first character named in INVINCIBLE SUMMER?


aaaaaaand go.

AWESOME CONTEST OF AWESOMENESS

Tadaaaa! I know you've been dying of anticipation.

Well HERE IT IS:



That's right. You can win ARCs of my book Invincible Summer! and Suzanne Young's book A Need So beautiful! And some other stuff too!!

The entry form is right HERE and it is without a doubt the easiest form in the world. Trust us. And that's all you have to do!

BUT if you want extra karma points, it's probably a good idea to add our books on goodreads--HERE and HERE.

Also you could tweet or blog about this because people will think you're cool for knowing about such an awesome contest. True story. Our contest will make you more popular.

Enter! Enter! Enter!

A Contest! A Contest of Awesome Proportions! An Awesome Contest of Awesomeness!

Here is a teaser for the most amazing contest of your life, brought to you by the AMAZING Suzanne Young.

Check back next week.

And you might want to check Suz's blog too. It's possible I'm there. It's possible the link is right here.

COVER COVER COVER

You can click on it to make it bigger. Also the tagline is obviously a placeholder. My editor is funny.

And here's some bullshit blurb that I wrote to give you some idea of what it's about:

Craig, for the first time in nearly a year, wakes up in Silver Spring, Maryland on October 2nd, 2002 to a house devoid of chirping, barking, and mewing. Between twilight and daylight, somehow his entire menagerie escaped. All the animals that he'd collected since his old boyfriend was dragged away to the psych ward. Gone.

Lio, the post-cancer kid transfer student from New York City, doesn't like to talk. But he does like Craig. His new therapist says he's "a little fucked up." Craig just says, if he has the time, could he help him put up posters?

At 5:20 PM, when their stack of posters is about halfway out and Lio surprises Craig with a kiss, the sniper shootings begin.

Ten people died in the D.C. sniper shootings. This is the story of two of the boys who didn't.

--

I love this cover. Do you love this cover? Do you hate this cover? TELL ME TELL ME NOW.

What Are We Doing to YA?

This post is more of a question than most of mine are. I fully admit that this is all speculation. But it's something I've been wondering for a while.

Has the internet community changed YA?

Am I right in thinking that YA writers are the most active online? We tweet word counts and deadlines and what our main character would eat for breakfast. We friend each other on Facebook and leave each other rep points on AW. We have blogs just for posting excerpts and shit like this. We know each other's names, agents, and editors like we're all related. We're The Contemps, the Debs, the Tenners, the Elevensies, the Musers.

The word "blogosphere," ugly though it may be, is so appropriate. We're our own little biosphere. We have staked out our little corner of the internet, and we're loud and social and crazy and God knows I'm part of the problem.

And lately I've been worrying that it really is a problem.

To put it plainly, I'm starting to wonder if YA is turning into something written by/for the internet community under the guise of writing for everyday teenagers, and that who likes you on the internet is more important to your career--or, if not to your career, to your psyche and your perception of your success--than if teenagers are picking up your book.

Is the gap between "successful" author and "author teenagers want to read" getting wider and wider as our main audience to impress becomes bloggers and librarians instead of teenagers themselves?

(For the record, I realize and acknowledge that some of us are teenagers ourselves. But if you're reading this, you're not the average book-reading teenager. You know too much. We've relinquished our right to be considered the average YA reading teenager.)

Are we getting too self-referential to be relevant?

I don't know. But recently, YA has started to look very clubby to me, and I'm wondering if that's really fair for the readers. If we're writing to be social, are we doing our readers a disservice?

We give each other biased Goodreads reviews because we don't want to piss anyone off. We tell people we love books we haven't read just because we're friends with the author. We're so loud about the books we love--which should be a great thing!--that we might be fooling ourselves into thinking that our tastes reflect those of a teenager.

We hear so much about publishing trends. Vampires are in, vampires are out, zombies are in, zombies are out, angels are in, angels are out. But a teenager who loves vampires wants to read more about vampires. She doesn't give a shit whether it's out or not. So is our perception of a "saturated" market affecting her? I'm not saying, obviously, that we should all be out writing vampire books, but wouldn't it make more sense if we did stuff steadily instead of in trendy slews? And wouldn't that be possible if we weren't so intent on responding to and competing with the authors we follow on Twitter?

I think the reason I'm posing these questions is that lately I've felt very disillusioned and overwhelmed. I still love YA. But when I'm writing stuff like #magicgayfish, I start questioning my own relevance really, really easily. I love that you guys are all over it, and obviously I hope that teenagers would have the same reaction, if the thing gets published.

But how closely does our taste reflect that of an actual teenager?

Are the boys we swoon over the ones THEY find hot?

Okay, I'm asking a lot of questions. So here's what I think.

What was initially cool about YA, in my opinion, was that it had the least adult influence from the shelf to the hands of the reader. YAs pick out and buy and read their own books. Their parents don't screen them first. And obviously [adult] publishers still have to decide to publish them (and that's a HUGE thing, but we really can't change that) and the bookstore or the library still has to decide to stock them, but it was still more direct than other childrens' books. It's the kid's wallet, the kid's choice.

And now for some reason, it looks to me like we're letting it become books about teenagers and for adults rather than about teenagers for teenagers, and the way we're going, I don't think that's going to change.

WE'RE the ones counting down the days 'til the next big YA comes out.

WE'RE the ones fantasizing about ourself and the Next Hot Boy.

WE'RE the ones trend-chasing and trend-hating and jacking up the Goodreads reviews.

I think in the future, people are going to equate expecting YA to be only for young adults to expecting science fiction to be only for scientists.

I don't know. I've had very many emotional crisises lately where I'm like I DON'T KNOW WHAT TEENAGERS WANT. So maybe I'm just projecting. But I still think the market shift is noteworthy and worrisome.

Your thoughts?

You Are Not A Book Cover

My ARC contest is open until midnight, July 17th. Please enter here.

I'm going to be doing a vlog about this in a few weeks with the Rebels, but this is something I wanted to say before the contest is over.

Let's get a picture of my cover. Nice and big. You can even click on it to make it bigger. Let's take a look at this thing.



Okay, so here we have a girl, presumably, or a boy with some very well done plastic surgery. She's lying on her back (if you originally saw stomach, don't worry, you're not alone, and more on that later.) She's wearing a green bikini and lying in the sand. My name is curled nicely around her ass. Her skin is pretty perfect.

This is a gorgeous, gorgeous cover, and I love it. But when I saw it for the first time, I was worried that some people would respond to it in a certain way. I told myself they wouldn't. I begged the universe that they wouldn't. But they have, and I've seen proof on several message boards and even in the comments of the ARC giveaway. There are women who are using my cover as a medium through which to hate their bodies.

Guys. Stop. Look.

As I'm typing this, I am on my back with my netbook on my stomach. I'm, completely coincidentally, wearing a green bikini. I am on the deck at the beach house where INVINCIBLE SUMMER is set, looking down at the sand where the girl in the cover is probably lying.

I don't look a damn thing like the girl in that cover. Even if I didn't have a laptop slung over me like the geek I am, I wouldn't look anything like her. I'm more thighs than tits and I'm whiter than fishbelly. And you know what? That's okay. Because the girl on my cover doesn't look like the girl on my cover either.

To be clear--I don't know the model they used for my cover. I am sure she is a beautiful, beautiful girl, and I applaud her balls tremendously--can you imagine having a picture of your torso sitting on shelves in major bookstores? But I *can* tell you one thing about this model. She doesn't really look like that.

And I know because, in the first draft of my cover, this girl looked a little different. Her bikini top wasn't stretched over big, perky breasts. Instead, it sat pretty near to her ribcage, with puckers near the bottom where she didn't quite fill up the fabric. I felt some kinship, I'll admit.

The fabulous art design team at Simon Pulse didn't change the cover to make you feel shitty about yourself. They changed it because it was impossible to tell which end was up. The cover was kind of confusing. It was hard to differentiate the boob end from the ass end, so they changed it to be more immediately clear. Some people are still a little confused by it, but I think unless we paint nipples on her, we've done about all we can at this point.

And even if they hadn't photoshopped this girl, can you imagine how many pictures they took to get that perfect one? And how they played with the light and pinned the bathing suit just right so she'd look her best, and spray-tanned her and artfully placed each grain of sand along her side? It's not a mistake that she looks this good. And you're not expected to put on a green bikini, flop down in the sand, and look like her. You can't look like her because she isn't real.

And now you're saying oh, hannah, but just because the model isn't real doesn't mean you're not writing bikini-clad hot girls and, yeah, you're right, but I have two points on this also. First of all, there are three girls in INVINCIBLE SUMMER that could logically be on the cover, but I think most people will agree with my guess about which one this model represents (although one of the other ones is the one described in the book as wearing a green bikini, so there's a nice little puzzle there, I think).

The girl who I'm pretty sure is meant to be on the cover is, and trust me on this one, no one you want to be.

Not to mention, point two, that this book is told from a male POV, and you're clearly supposed to look at this girl on my cover in a sexual way, let's not kid ourselves, so what you're really seeing is the idealized version of this girl the way my main character sees her.

And that's what makes this such a successful cover, that it so clearly shows the setting and one of the major characters through my main character's eyes, I could not be happier to have it. But it makes me sick, as someone who has struggled so much with body image, to hear women, even jokingly, say that my cover makes them feel bad about their bodies.

Don't feel bad. Seriously. Feel happy that you're not the bitch from my book. And that your tits aren't photoshopped.

ARC CONTEST

Hello hello hello I am an ARC of INVINCIBLE SUMMER.



I WANT TO BE ON YOUR BOOKSHELF.



The problem is that I (now I'm hannah again) only have TWO of these. And I get to keep one, because I wrote this book and that's the kind of shit I get to do.

So there is only ONE available.

Here are some reasons you want this ARC.

1. It is uncorrected, meaning there is an entire page that is all in italics for no discernible reason.

2. Possibly the worst paragraph I've ever written somehow survived for this long and is on page 18 of this ARC. It will not be in the final version. I crossed it off and wrote "what the fuck?" next to it.

3. If you don't get this exact ARC, chances are very good that you will have to wait until April 19th, 2011 which, let's face it, is a long time from now.

4. I will sign it, obviously.

5. According to the back cover copy, this book is pretty awesome. "Across four sun-kissed drama-drenched summers at his family's beach house, Chase tries to come to grips with his family's slow dissolution while also finding himself in a chaotic love triangle, pitted against his own brother in pursuit of the girl next door. Invincible Summer is a gritty, sexy, page-turning read from a talented teenaged author that readers won't want to miss."

6. This exact ARC has been BETWEEN MY LEGS.




So. Here is how to enter.

BY ENTERING, YOU SOLEMNLY SOLEMNLY SWEAR THE FOLLOWING:

1. You are a follower of this blog. Don't make me check up on you, bitches. Here in hannahland we use the honor system. This rule is purely because I want more followers. At least I'm honest.

2. You will review INVINCIBLE SUMMER somewhere. Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, Librarything, Shelfari, your own blog, whatever catches your fancy. And dude, if you hate it, give it a bad review. I just want the name out there. ARCs are for reviews, you know?

HERE'S HOW TO ENTER:

1. Comment telling me your own reasons why you desperately desperately need this ARC. The more ridiculous the better. Make shit up. Be hilarious.

2. None of that +1 for retweeting shit. I don't have time for that. Do it for good karma.

3. And the winner is going to be chosen by a random number generator. Yeah, your stories are worthless. I'm just bored.

The contest starts RIGHT NOW and will close in two weeks, on JULY 17TH, 2010. I'll try to mail it out to you soon after that.

You can enter no matter where you are in the world, 'cause I love you bitches. Oh, and obviously one entry per person. Don't make me come down there.

UPDATE: If this contest has over 100 entries, I'll randomly pick another winner for a signed copy of BREAK!

AND GO.

Humor Me Here

I know, I'm posting a lot lately. I have some things to say.

This is one I've been meaning to say for a while. And I apologize if this comes up as somewhat of a rant. And, actually, for probably the only time in the history of ever, I'm going to apologize if this offends anyone. Because, this time, it's actually not my intention.

Because ME ME ME this is about me. Yesterday I told you not to blog about yourself, today I'm blogging about myself. Welcome to Invincible Summer.

So.

Do you remember when Mary-Kate and Ashley made that big announcement about how they didn't want to be called The Olsen Twins anymore? I guess this is kind of like that.

I've thought a lot about this, and I've decided I don't want to be called a teenage writer anymore.

This is a weird declaration to make, because it implies some sort of deceit or, at the very least, shame, that isn't at all what I'm intending. I'm fine with being referred to as a writer who was first published as a teenager, or a nineteen-year-old writer, or a writer who is a teenager, or, hell, a teenager who is a writer. So it's not the actual meaning of the term "teenage writer" that I'm trying to break away from. It's the three connotations this term has come to have.

The first one is the predictable one, and the one that is less of a problem for me. "She's good for a teenager." Yeah, awesome. That was cool when I was turning in papers in high school. It's not going to cut it now.

I'm obviously not the first person to experience it, and I think even people who haven't had this firsthand can see and understand that this is frustrating. And it is, but it is not my biggest problem with being called a teenage writer. Not at all.

The second is bigger. Let's use a story to illustrate this one.

So let's say you have this woman. When she was 27, she decided she wanted to be a writer. She was horrible at first--who isn't?--and she was fine with that, and had fun dabbling around and playing with different things. She started researching the possibility of publication when she was 30, long before she had anything of publishable quality.

She finished her first piece of long fiction when she was 31. That was the same year she got her "great idea," which took her until just after her 34th birthday to finish. This was her first novel. It sucked, but it was hers. But she knew she had a long way to go, and she continued working and working without trying for publication until she turned 36. And then she sent her first query letter.

She kept writing, and she kept querying. She finished projects and queried them and got requests and rejections and no offers. She kept writing. After completing six previous novels, she finally wrote the one that got her an offer of representation right before her 37th birthday. The book sold that summer and came out when she was 38, the same month she got a contract for two more books. She is now 39 and waiting for the release of her 2nd book shortly after her 40th birthday.

Yeah, did you figure out the punchline? Subtract 20 years from all of those ages, and you have my journey.

There's this idea that, because I'm young, this all must have happened very quickly for me. I must have skipped steps, or gotten really lucky, or come out of the womb a perfect writer. I must have slept with someone, or done the twelve-year-old equivalent of sleeping with someone, to get to where I am.

It's bullshit, and it didn't feel fast to me, and I'm not a prodigy. The only reason I got published a lot younger than other people is I'm a stubborn little shit who decided that she had a career when she was eleven years old. The fact that my journey became public when I was a teenager shouldn't lock me into that age. Fuck, call me a child writer, if anything; it's more accurate, in the end. That's when I started.

And here's the third problem with the term. My third problem.

I have slightly less than eight months until I turn twenty.

I'm not planning to be come irrelevant overnight.

I don't want my twentieth birthday, exactly a week before the INVINCIBLE SUMMER release, to be the day in which I'm stripped of something that makes me 'edgy' or 'interesting' or 'catchy.' 'Cause guess the fuck what, bitches. Eight months from now, I'm still going to be edgy and interesting and catchy, and I don't want there to be any doubt about that.

I'm not a child actress. I'm a career bitch, and I have my feet firmly planted in the ground and no no no I'm not going anywhere. And hannah in 8 months is still hannah. She's not any less relevant than this chick right now, just because she doesn't have that edgy little 1 in front of her age.

So I would like to lose it now, because I would like to prove--to you, to the world, and most of all to me--that I don't need it.

When I was a kid, I said I had to be published before I was eighteen, because if I wasn't, no one would care about me. I wasn't good enough, interesting enough, brave enough to run with the big dogs.

I'm calling bullshit on old hannah tonight. In favor of new hannah.

I'm a teenager. I'm a writer. I'm not ashamed of either one. And yeah, I'm fucking proud of what I've accomplished at my age. And my age is staying in my blogger profile. But it'll be there when I'm twenty and when I'm thirty-two and when I'm forty-six, too. Because I'm not here to fucking play games.

The bottom line is, yeah, I'm young, but I'm planning to be around kicking ass for until I'm really, really wrinkly.

And I want you there with me. And I don't give a fuck how old you are.