DEAR INTERNET,

I want to tell you about Annika. Annika, who is awesome/wry/hilarious/clever/cool (or AWHCC for short), and who also has an AWHCC blog right here, HAD A BABY. Annika and I originally shared release dates. Her, for her little girl and me for Some Girls Are. Annika clearly won this race because uhm sharing release dates also makes it a race? Or maybe because when you have a baby this adorable, YOU WIN. EVERYTHING. Anyway, this is BRILLIANT NEWS, INTERNET! And I am so happy for her and her family. Congratulations Annika, Will and big brother Sam and welcome Grace! In truth, I think these four people are strong contenders for Coolest Family on This Planet right now, and I mean that.

Hmm.

DEAR ANNIKA, WILL, SAM & GRACE,

Leave a little cool for the rest of us, Gawd.

Love, the Internet

DEAR INTERNET,

On January 1st, 2010, I woke up and discovered that this book:

Is a Cybils finalist in the Young Adult Fiction category alongside Blue Plate Special by Michelle D. Kwasney, Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford, How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford, Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern, North of Beautiful by Justina Chen and Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.

I was majorly shocked. When I first found out Cracked Up to Be was nominated (and many thanks to Robin Prehn who nominated it in the first place–thank you so much, Robin!), I blogged a bit about how I felt about the Cybils and why Children’s and Young Adult book bloggers are so important here. To be on the longlist was exciting and this is just beyond…. beyond! Beyond anything I expected and I truly cannot believe it at all. Cracked Up to Be is in some incredibly humbling company. Thanks to Team Cybils ’09 for all their hard work! They do an incredible job. My favourite part of the Cybils is that it’s a fantastic representation of the passion and care that makes this community so amazing to be part of.

So that was a really nice way to ring in the new year, to say the least.

GUESS WHAT ELSE, INTERNET! Tomorrow, this book comes out:

But there have been reported sightings in bookstores already AND some places are shipping it!

Do you know, I cannot believe THAT either. January is turning out to be quite unbelievable. It feels like yesterday I was in the throes of a massive revision for Some Girls Are. It really, really does. I don’t know what to say about that, but January 5th was the day I clung onto when I was quite certain Regina’s story would never see an end, whilst my editor and my agent and my wonderful friends and family insisted that it would. In the event that the 5th flies past me–as all days seem to have been doing lately–I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has been so supportive and encouraging every step of the way and if you read it (and I really think you should and I am ENTIRELY UNBIASED), I hope you enjoy it.

Even though “enjoy” seems like a really strange word when it comes to a book like Some Girls Are. I hope you CRINGE. CRINGE LIKE YOU HAVE NEVER CRINGED BEFORE. But I hope you like it while you are hopefully cringing like you never cringed before.

Related news: I uploaded the last of the video teasers to my youtube account, and you can watch them all on a playlist right here.

Happy 2010, internet! I think it is going to be a good year!

Love,
Courtney