Tour Picture Blog (Or: My Brain Is Jell-O)

My brain is mush. I just read and sent copy edits for 2015's I Crawl Through It to my editor today and I'm not sure I know my own name right now. But I promised you a blog, and so here I am.

First, good news!

Portuguese/Brazilian rights have been sold for five of my books. (Dreams come true!)

PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ will be published in Brazil [only] by Novo Seculo Editora
EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS, ASK THE PASSENGERS, REALITY BOY & GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE will be published in Brazil and world Portuguese by Editora Autentica. These should start hitting shelves in 2015-ish.

Go Brazil!

GLORY LIVES!

So it started with the launch party at Aaron's Books in Lititz, PA. I love Aaron's Books. They served tacos. And cake. They were wonderful hosts, as always, and they gave me a lovely gift and treated me like a rock star even though I'm just a simple country girl. Friends, family and supporters who pre-ordered from Aaron's or came out to join us in the fun: Thank you. By doing this, you supported my local economy. You supported a family run business that cares about people, not shareholders.

Here's Todd packing up pre-orders a few days before launch.
Note: This is a tiny back room in a real live store, not a warehouse.
Your pre-orders helped keep the lights on for human beings.
Thank you. 

So, tour pictures. I was touring with Paolo Bacigalupi who was talking about his new book, THE DOUBT FACTORY. He told such compelling stories about the history of the doubt industry. You have to read the book to understand, but it's chilling stuff. Trust me.

First stop, Santa Cruz, CA

I have no pictures of Book Shop Santa Cruz, but it was a great event. The next morning we stopped at Aptos High School and this was where my unforgettable day began.

Paolo talking about some seriously heavy stuff.
The Aptos students were great. Librarian Cheryl was so warm and welcoming.
And when I asked her where might be a good place to stop on the
way to the city to hug redwood trees, she said,
"I have a circle of redwoods up by the library. That's where we're going now."
Day = Made.

Now, excuse me while I talk about redwoods.
They are magical.
Here are more pictures than you probably want. But one just wouldn't do it.

Cheryl called this a fairy circle of redwoods. And it was exactly that.
They were amazing trees and Yes, I did hug one.
I may have kissed it, too.
Don't judge.
I love trees. 

Me and trees. Best friends forever. 

Photo Cred: Cheryl
Proof that I did hug the tree.
I can't wait to go back to the west coast and hike in forests
of these beauties. And Sequoias.
Tree love-rant over.

So after much tree loving, we went inside Cheryl's lovely Aptos HS library and signed some books.

Photo Cred: Cheryl
Gandhi FTW!

Photo Cred: Kathy/Cheryl
Here we are before we took off in a car for San Francisco.
I love Paolo's shirt.

Next stop, same day, San Francisco. After many many many years of Maggie Tokuda-Hall and I wanting to get me into Books Inc. for a visit, it finally happened. I was so excited to meet her and to be part of San Francisco's LitQuake Festival. It was a great event for all kinds of reasons.

Reason #1: Someone drew this. 

Photo Cred: Maggie, I think.
Reason #2: This space is gorgeous, isn't it? The art rocked.
And there were tortilla chips. (Among other things, but all I ever need is tortilla chips.)
I had such fun reading from GLORY to this crowd and then talking
about everything else alongside Paolo. He's such a pro. 

Photo Cred: Lianna
Reason #3: VCFA
Maximum respect to the VCFA crew of the Bay area!
You coming out to see me that night made my day even better and
I HUGGED REDWOODS THAT DAY. So this is huge.
Thank you! Thank you!

Reason #4: A late night seriously awesome tour of San Francisco after
I said, "I've been in the city all day and I haven't seen one hill."
The lovely Lianna and Laura said, "You want hills? We can show you hills."
Bonus: they also showed me the Golden Gate Bridge, The Castro, Haight-Ashbury and
a ton of other really groovy stuff.
Random aside: Everywhere I went in SF, they were playing music I liked.
This never happens.
Take, for example, airports. Only once in my life (That's you, Portland, OR)
has an airport played music I like.
Anyway.
After the late night tour, I crashed because I had to catch a flight to Austin the next morning.

Next stop, Austin for the Texas Teen Book Festival.

Photo Cred: Andrew Smith
That's Andrew, A very tired me, James Dashner and the epic Gayle Forman.
We had a great night, but had to get to bed early-ish so we could do the festival the next day.

I love this picture.
This is Jen Bigheart and Andrew Smith right before our lunch panel.
At our lunch panel, Drew and I talked about how we golf.
Without golf clubs.
Why we're best friends and about a trillion other things.
Jen is awesome.
Drew is awesome.
The audience was awesome.
Later that day I was on a panel with 4 amazing authors, but I don't have a picture.
Trust me. I was there.
Then there was the post-festival bar time.

Photo Cred: Julie
Said post-festival bar time was a damn fun crowd.
Here's my favorite picture from the night--me and Drew with Julie Murphy who
ROCKS OUT LOUD.

Somewhere in all of this festival day stuff I met a ton of epic readers, signed a lot of books, hugged fans, ate food, broke a tooth, called my dentist, and then went back to having a great time. (Man. My brain really is fried. I'd usually be more descriptive than this.) I highly recommend the Texas Teen Book Festival if ever you're nearby. It's well organized and powered by the best librarians on the planet and many volunteers who love reading.
So then I flew home.

I breathed for four days. I got my tooth fixed. I started the copy edits. Etc.

Last Thursday night I had an event at Children's Book World in Haverford, PA.
You all know how I feel about this bookstore, right? Heather Hebert is an independent bookselling goddess. We had a lot of fun and a huge shout out to the high school students who bused in to see me! That was AWESOME. I saw some superstars that night. Kate Walton was there, Sister Kim the mega-librarian was there (I'll be at the Little Flowers Festival in April), Jenn Hubbard was there, and Beth Kephart--who took the most amazing pictures, as usual. She has a magical camera. Let me show you.

Photo Cred: Beth
She always manages to catch me in the right light... 

Photo Cred: Beth
And whenever we get our picture taken together, we look like teenagers.
Seriously.
Beth rocks.
And if you haven't read any of her books yet, you must. GOING OVER from 2014 is brilliant, and all her
past books are equally brilliant.
Trust me.

Next stop, the Boston Book Festival.

Photo Cred: I completely forget, but thank you!
That's Scott Westerfeld (our second panel together in a week), Meg Wolitzer, and me
at the Emmanuel Church in Boston.
People who were in the crowd: WOW! That was some crowd! Thank you for coming!
Great discussion. Great Q&A and a great signing.

After the BBF event, I went to dinner with some stellar authors and then crashed for my early flight on Sunday morning.

Aaaaand we're done for a few weeks. Thank you for enduring the me me me tour post.
And thank you for all of you who came out to see me on my travels.
And thank you for all of you who read the books.
And my brain is officially fried now.

 Next up:

• Clinton Book Shop, Clinton, NJ on Nov. 7th at 7pm. 
• Reading Public Library, Reading, PA on Nov. 8th at 1pm.
• Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe location, AZ on Nov. 21st at 7pm.

• BONUS appearance: Changing Hands, Phoenix location, for a screening of e.E. Charlton-Trujillo's AT RISK SUMMER--a film that will blow you away, at 5pm on Saturday 11/22/14. I'll be there with mi hermana e.E. for Q&A after the screening. Proud to be a part of this project and its bright future pairing authors with facilities for at-risk youth. 

Placing objects in toilet may cause system failure.
As an ex-smoker I have to say: Why would anyone toss a pack of still-smokable
cigarettes down an airplane toilet?
I mean, I get tossing them. I did that a lot.
But why in the airplane?
Also:
DO NOT THROW SEVERED HANDS INTO THIS TOILET.

Remember: Badasses are kind to others. They do not shove on airplanes. They do not cause system failure in airplane toilets. They don't recline airplane seats. And they say thank you.

Thank you.