I have two books coming out next year!
That exclamation point is for me; I still can’t believe that this is happening. I will have three books. Actual printed things with covers. Enough for a shelf.
DETAILS:
The first book is called Eleanor & Park, and it comes out in the U.S. in March FEBRUARY. (It’s already out in the UK, New Zealand and Australia.)
The second is called FANGIRL, and it comes out next fall.
MORE DETAILS:
Eleanor & Park will be released in the U.S. by St. Martin’s Press on March 5, 2013 FEBRUARY 26, 2013. It is lovely:
You can pre-order it from Amazon. Or from Barnes & Noble. Or you could harass your local bookseller or librarian. (IT IS NEVER TOO EARLY TO START HARASSING A LIBRARIAN.)
Or you can order it right now from an exotic foreign land. The UK edition is also lovely:
I’ve had good luck ordering from Fishpond.com (free global shipping), and you can also get it at Amazon.co.uk.
If you’re asking yourself, “Yes, but what is an Eleanor & Park?” – let me tell you:
It’s my second book. It’s being sold in the U.S. as a YA book, but as an adult book in other parts of the world. (Weird, I know.)
I’ve been calling it an East Omaha love story. Sort of like Juno plus Romeo & Juliet plus a few choice episodes of Dawson’s Creek. Here’s the official pitch:
Bono met his wife in high school, Park says.
So did Jerry Lee Lewis, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be, she says, we’re 16.
What about Romeo and Juliet?
Shallow, confused, then dead.
I love you, Park says.
Wherefore art thou, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be.
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.
More blog stuff on Eleanor & Park:
Eleanor & Park & me & the cover design process.
Eleanor & Park, the UK cover and the significance of the sophomore book.
What about FANGIRL?
I have fewer details about FANGIRL. It’s still a baby, I’m still editing the manuscript.
But I can tell you that it will also be released by St. Martin’s Press as a YA title. Maybe in September or October?
Here’s a way-too-long synopsis. (I’ve got a shiny nickel for anyone who can help me trim this.)
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan …
But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids. It’s what got them through their mother leaving. Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to. Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words … And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?
Or will she just go on living inside somebody else’s fiction?
FANGIRL update, Jan. 1, 2013: I have a cover! And it was illustrated by Noelle Stevenson! Read more here.
I CAN LIFT A CAR, Walk the Moon