Fall For Anything appears to have a release date and that day is December 21st, 2010. In unrelated news: I hear a lot of gift-giving occurs around this time of year. It’s also available for pre-order on a few Canadian bookselling sites (how I discovered the date!), but I’ll put a multitude of pre-order links up on the book’s page after it has spread everywhere like the zombie plague I am totally prepared for. I like to update things in one go because I’m a busy person with lots of Mario Kart to play, okay (speaking of which: I unlocked! Rosalina!).

Because Fall For Anything is availble for pre-orders in a few spots, that means it’s on GoodReads! If you want to read it, I’d lurve if you added it to your To-Read list. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend.

And that is all the Fall For Anything news that is fit to print! I am anxiously awaiting permission to show you guys the cover and nervously anticipating copyedits, which is like the math of this whole publishing process to me, which means it is scary and I can’t do it in front of people.

Yeah, I know.

NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT DELICIOUS FOOD.

One thing that I love to do is cook, so I am going to talk about cooking now. CAN YOU HANDLE MY TRUTH. Anyway, I’ve noticed lots of publishing folks place a lot of stock in baked goods and sweets but no one talks about SAVORY EASY MEALS. I have decided to be the person that does.

In case you don’t know, food is awesome. I am always on the quest for ‘The Perfect X.’ Did you know that my 2010 will be defined by the fact that I found the perfect red sauce for pasta which made me reconsider everything I ever thought about food (this is a true story, please get out your Kleenex). I had been searching for the perfect red pasta sauce for YEARS (THAT IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION) and then Smitten Kitchen introduced me to Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with butter and onions. It has THREE ingredients. THREE. This is the sauce they serve to the angels in heaven, I assume. Or this sauce is made of angels, I don’t know. I heard a choir of them SING when I tasted it, anyway. And like that, after years–YEARS!–I had found my perfect red sauce.

BUT IT WAS A REVELATION TO ME. It was in that beautiful moment I realized I was overthinking food. I felt the best recipes had to be complicated and crazy and involve many ingredients, but now I am trying to do more with less.

Yesterday I made the most awesome vegetarian sub. But it might not qualifiy as a ‘do more with less’ recipe. In any case, it was so good I am going to write it into a novel. What you do is, you chop up some green peppers, onion, portobello mushrooms, mince some garlic. Sprinkle them with dried oregano and salt and pepper. Sautee them in some olive oil until they are nice and soft. Take yer sub bun! Thinly spread herb cream cheese on one or both slices of the bread depending on how much or little regard you have for the fact that cream cheese is not all that good for you in extreme quantities. If you are like me, you prefer enough herb cream cheese to kill several men. Take your nice and soft vegetables and spoon them onto your sub. Put some sub sauce on the veggies. Put some provolone cheese on top of that! Chop some tomatoes and put them on the cheese and then you know, put the top bun on and EAT IT.

And then love yourself and the world.

photo by Liz West

…

Ok.

So basically this year I have been trying to be as uncomplicated as possible in my endeavors in the kitchen. But I want every uncomplicated meal I make to taste like angels. I picked up The Flavor Bible and am totally hoping this will help me do that, but we shall see. Now that I have found the perfect red sauce, I am on a quest for the perfect vinaigrette and salad dressing and vegetable sandwich. Though the sub comes very close, IT IS NOT SIMPLE ENOUGH. And also I want to make an entire raw food meal one of these days BUT WHO KNOWS. I have many great aspirations in the kitchen when I am not writing novels and now you know.

Anyway, I think the whole point of this entry is that if I can impart any knowledge to you today, dear blog readers, it is not future book release dates, it is that LIME AND TOMATOES WERE MEANT TO BE TOGETHER.

That is all.

It was pretty exciting.

But it was not the most exciting thing that happened to me in the last month (I don’t like those things so much anymore, though). I have missed you, Internet! Thank you for being patient with me while I scrabbled to meet an incredibly intense deadline, fell drastically behind in emailing and blogs and thank you in advance for your continued patience as I scrabble to catch up.

I have to say, the best thing about my absence was some stuff happened so I’ve got blog entry material. I HAVE THINGS TO TELL YOU! That doesn’t happen often as we all know.

So the first exciting thing is that Fall For Anything is DONE. Done, done, done! Okay, copy-edits and first pass pages are all on the horizon but it’s pretty much done. When I can share more–plot summary, cover, release date and whatnot, I will. But the main thing is that it’s finished and that is a very nice thing to type. I got chills.

The second exciting thing is I’m thrilled to report Some Girls Are has been nominated for YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults and it is a nominee for their Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers. So cool! And it’s in very good company. And speaking of Some Girls Are, it’s now available for a few e-readers, so if you’ve been waiting for it to come out on the Kindle or the Nook, it’s here…

When I wasn’t working on Fall for Anything (or ‘Eddie’ as I call it 99% of the time, for it’s main character), I was preparing for the OLA’s (Ontario Library Association) Forest of Reading/Festival of Trees. Last October (LAST OCTOBER! Where is time going?) I announced that Cracked Up to Be was nominated for the White Pine Award. On May 12th, the nominees gathered for the Festival of Trees at the Toronto Harbourfront Centre. It’s a HUGE event that takes place over two days and thousands of readers visit and interact with authors.

It was an incredible day. I was up at four AM and on the road shortly thereafter so I could arrive in Toronto by 9:30. When I arrived, I got a badge with my name on it and a green ribbon and I had to note that because I <3 green. I met Pam Bustin first, (the author of Mostly Happy, which went on to win the White Pine–congratulations, Pam!) who is lovely and energetic and then directly after breakfast in the green room, I went to my signing tent which I shared with Susan Juby and Tim Wynne Jones, who were both very friendly and engaging and very cool and looked like they knew what they were doing at all times (which I envied!).

And then it was time to go onstage! Sabrina Jalees MCed the event and she was so hilarious we (mostly) forgot about the cold. And then the authors were paraded (literally!) onstage. Each author was accompanied by two people. One person holding a sign with the authors’ name on it (my sign holder’s name escapes me but she was a really nice girl–thank you!) and your speaker, who introduces you very kindly (thank you, Mel!) and then oh my goodness, the author has to speak. Which I did. And I didn’t fall down or nothin’ so that was awesome.

(Any day I don’t fall on my face is awesome.)

So, in short: a GREAT day. I want to thank everyone who worked hard to make it all possible and to make it run so smoothly. I can only imagine how much planning goes into an event that huge, but from where I was sitting it was flawless. I got to meet so many wonderful librarians and volunteers and readers and authors and I feel truly grateful to be in such a wonderful community.

And then the four hour drive home!

The next day, I gave three talks to teen readers about writing and publishing at a Voices of the Forest event at a local (for me!) education center, along with the wonderful Lesley Livingston, Pam Bustin and Susan Juby. I was incredibly fortunate to have my talks attended by awesome readers and writers who asked great questions and were just–I know I’m using a lot of positive adjectives in this post but they all apply! They were great, cool, awesome, nice. And now I must make use of this space to thank Pearl H., who tirelessly organized the event, but was unable to attend it. THANK YOU, PEARL! I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet.

So that was also a great day. And after the talks, we got the keys locked in the car and had to get a man with a coat hanger to fish them out so that was pretty exciting too.

SO MUCH EXCITEMENT!

Andddd that is what has happened in my neck of the woods since I cruelly abandoned this blog to uhm, do those things (I can’t emphasize enough that if you want up-to-the-minute news, you can get it if you follow me on Twitter). I am so going to spend June reading, relaxing and getting caught up on, well, everything and thinking hard about what book I will write next after Fall For Anything. Also maybe blogging more regularly? (Ha ha ha!)

Basically, I’m briefly deadline and outside-obligations free, so THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER.

And what I would really like to know is–

How are YOU?

So I do the night owl thing and yesterday I woke up (in the afternoon) to a flurry of @ replies on Twitter (my Twitter is active when my blog is not!) and emails and notifications in my inbox asking me WHY WASN’T I AWAKE and when I read why it was so urgent that I be awake, I was not really sure I was awake anymore.

I always make that joke about possibly of being in a coma when I get good news but the thing about that is it isn’t a joke because when I get good news I do really honestly have that fear that I am actually dreaming it and when I wake up it will be very sad. Also I have a fear that because I have received good news something terrible is about to happen to me but ENOUGH about the weird way my brain works.

This means a lot to me. Being nominated meant a lot to me (thank you to Robin Prehn for the nomination!) and being a finalist was beyond anything I expected. I spilled coffee on myself after I found out Cracked Up to Be won. I was excited and thrilled and shocked and my hands were like AAAAH! [THROWS COFFEE]. I don’t usually love spilling hot coffee on a shirt I am planning to wear for the rest of the day but I did yesterday! Thank you to everyone who has emailed, tweeted and messaged their congrats. You made me cry. Lots.

And I’m humbled. What can I say about authors like Michelle D. Kwasney, Brent Crawford, Natalie Standiford, Julie Halpern, Justina Chen and Laurie Halse Anderson that has not been said? They are a fantastically talented bunch of authors and what they bring to the YA table is inspiring and it makes me want to work harder, to make absolutely sure I’m giving my best when I sit down and write. Honestly, I feel that way looking at all the nominated titles. It is an incredible list of books. In short: YA/kid’s lit authors are freaking awesome and that is that. CONGRATS to all nominees, finalists and winners.

And The Cybils themselves. I cannot IMAGINE what an undertaking it is, but what it does for this community, for books, is incredible. Team Cybils!: you are a wonderful bunch of people and your time and your passion makes all the difference. It must be hard, but also fun. But also HARD. Thanks in particular to the YA Fiction Panel. 2009 was a great year for YA books and I came out of it with a lot of favourites, personally, so I can’t begin to guess what the judging and selection process feels like (and that goes for every panel), and to do it all in a limited amount of time, ohmygoodness basically. I hope you are patting yourself on the back right now. Also putting your feet up and indulging in something DELIGHTFUL. As a reader and writer, thank you for the work you do.

And not to be nostalgic every time I bring up the Cybils but, as I said earlier in the year, I will never be able to articulate how much of a driving force the YA blogosphere was in my own pursuit of publication. Once I knew I was writing YA–something I’d always loved to read–blogs like Bookshelves of Doom and Little Willow’s Bildungsroman (my very first book blogs–I will never forget this!) were my introduction to this community…

And though I lurked for quite a long time, Willow and Leila’s passion and interest and opinions of books for and about YA audiences helped inform ME as someone who wanted to write those books, and directed me to other bloggers who were also passionate and interested and informative. This helped me connect, to work hard, and that made a significant difference for me and my writing and it continues to, and when I think of the Cybils, I always think of this. I love the way the the book blogging community has evolved and continues to inform and connect and engage readers and writers out of a sheer love of books. I have a great deal of respect for it.

Thank you.

And now back to writing, but I do not know how I am going to make my characters miserable when I am feeling so happy.

THIS COULD BE A PROBLEM.

From Publishers Marketplace:

SOME GIRLS ARE and CRACKED UP TO BE author Courtney Summers’s gritty story of one girl’s attempt to make sense of her father’s untimely death, to Sara Goodman at St. Martin’s, in a two-book deal, by Amy Tipton at Signature Literary Agency (World English).

So I have known about this since December and I’ve spent all that time since uhm trying to meet my deadline, but also trying to figure out what to say when I was given the okay to announce it.

BASICALLY:

I am grateful to Amy, who got this ball rolling in June 2007, and keeps it rolling. She is a true advocate and I love working with her. I love how she makes me think outside the box. I’m absolutely THRILLED I get to continue working with Sara and St. Martin’s Press. Over the course of two books, Sara’s magical editorial eye (seriously it is actually magical) has helped me grow as a writer and I can’t wait to shape books 3 and 4 (!) with her. I am especially grateful to my family because living with a writer is hard and to my friends because boy do they put up with a lot, especially when I am complaining to them about how my family doesn’t understand how hard it is to be a writer.

Nothing in this business is a given. I feel very fortunate to be part of this awesome YA community. It astounds and humbles and inspires me every day. I don’t have ENOUGH thanks for all the people who make it what it is and I’m so glad I will have the opportunity to share more of my crazy stories with you. And I hope you will consider reading them when they come out! And I must also thank you so so much for the support you have shown Cracked Up to Be and Some Girls Are.

THANK YOU.

I am very excited about this third book and I will be excited about book four too, just as soon as I know what it is about. But book 3, I can promise (at least at this point), is pretty dark and it is about how grief is not a beautiful thing.

I can’t really say much else about it at this point except maybe that I would HATE to be a character in a Courtney Summers novel.

Hee hee hee.

HOLD ON, COURTNEY. BACK THE TRUCK UP, you are saying. THAT AS EXTRAORDINARY. HOW DID THIS COME TO BE?

Well, Internet, I will tell you.

First, I am a big fan of Survivor. SINCE SEASON ONE. And then some people invented Twitter. Flash forward to I don’t know how many years it has been, to January 7th, 2010. I had just woken up from a nap. It was a day like any other, except it was not quite day. It was early evening. It was an early evening like any other. I logged into Twitter and checked my @ replies, where Adele of Persnickety Snark (who is also having a blogoversary celebration which I contributed to here–happy anniversary, Adele!) tells me that JEFF PROBST now has a twitter.

I immediately made it my new goal in life to get Jeff Probst to tweet hello to me on Twitter. And questioned how that could happen. And THEN! The wonderful Catt AKA The Dreamer Reader tweeted to get the ball rolling.

And then I questioned whether or not Twitter would make a dream come true (SPOILER: IT DOES).

MEANWHILE, Scott Tracey (whose novel WITCH EYES, which I can’t wait to read, comes out in 2011 from Flux) dubbed my new goal in life Project #sayhitocourtney. And then so many wonderful folks chimed in, asking Jeff Probst to say hello to me (THANK YOU WONDERFUL FOLKS).

CAN YOU BELIEVE THE AMAZINGNESS OF TWITTER? I always have. May this story make you doubters see the light.

And then I think an hour went by.

(TOTAL ELAPSED TIME: AN HOUR)

… And then, THIS MAN, Internet:

Photographic proof:






WHAT? YOU WOULD LIKE A CLOSER VIEW, YOU SAY?

HERE IS A CLOSER VIEW:

Internet, between THAT and the release of this:

So Some Girls Are had an incredible release week and I have to thank everyone who tweeted, Facebooked, emailed, called, and blogged about it. To wake up to that was totally overwhelming and I don’t think I can say thank you enough. THANK YOU! Quite a few reviews of Some Girls Are came in this week and I promised I’d do a round-up in my blog entry. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read it and review it:

I really hope I am not missing anyone. If I am, accept my apologies as it has been Quite a Week and don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll add it here ASAP! As always, I put all reviews on the Some Girls Are page and try to stay on top of sharing them on my Facebook Page.

I was also lucky enough to share release dates with Lisa Schroeder and Dia Reeves, whose novels Chasing Brooklyn and Bleeding Violet, respectively, also came out. I am looking forward to reading Bleeding Violet and I devoured and LOVED Chasing Brooklyn–it was brilliant! I posted my review on GoodReads here.

So that is how epic my week has been, Internet! Next week won’t compare. Sad but true.

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:

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:

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

Uhm.

Today, the 2010 OLA Forest of Reading nominees were announced and Cracked Up to Be is one of them.

It is a nominee for The White Pine Award.

When I found out, I was like what wait wait wait what what WHAT what what WAT.

And then I refreshed the nominees page a lot, just waiting for the cover image of Parker on the bench to somehow disappear. Because, to be honest, I did not get a lot of sleep last night so I wasn’t entirely convinced what I was seeing was real. Maybe someone had hacked my computer?

But then I got confirmation from my publisher that it WAS real.

And then I was like what wait wait wait what what WHAT what what WAT.

And I have been so completely shocked and thrilled and just like WHAT REALLY about it ever since, I don’t know what else to say.

OH WAIT, ok, I got my sister to pinch me a couple of times and nothing happened, so I feel relatively certain this is not a dream. But I do kind of worry that I am in a coma and this is one of those coma realities AND HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE IN ONE OF THOSE?

DOES ANYONE KNOW.

!!!

Yes, I had to announce it that way. Had to!

So I will not bore you with how excited I have been to put this up and unleash it upon the internets, so without further ado:

I’m chuffed to say this week has been very good to Some Girls Are. The amazing Book Chick gave it a glowing, spoiler-free review here, in which she called it a must-must-must (!) read. I got a wonderful email from a supercool bookseller in Australia who got an early read that made my week (thank you, Sonja!) and the awesome Tye, of The Book Gryffin, reviewed Some Girls Are and said, “READ IT. If you are a parent, READ IT. If you are a teacher, READ IT. If you have any interaction with adolescents, READ IT. ” Check out the full, spoiler-free review here!

More news: at the suggestion of my awesome publisher, I’ve created a Facebook Page for my books. ALL book-related updates will go there as soon as I have them. I will be leaving the everyday stuff, like my love for Lady Gaga and her new sunglasses, to my Facebook profile (which you are always free to friend me at) and uhm, here. So if you want UP-TO-THE-SECOND news on my books, like when the next chapter of Some Girls Are is up, I’d definitely suggest becoming a fan. Facebook and Twitter often get the latest first. EVEN BEFORE THIS BLOG.

I know!

And that is all my news that is fit to print. I was going to mention how I am woefully–and I mean WOEFULLY–behind on emails, but that is not really news. SIGH.

In the mean time, I will be posting an excerpt page in plain text on my website soon and will update this entry accordingly when it goes up (EDIT: here it is!).

Uhm.

Eek!

AND, if you’ve read the first chapter and it sounds like yer kinda read, my contest for an ARC is still going on for a few more days. It will be the only ARC giveaway I’m doing so make sure you get in on it. If you don’t, the release date is still January 5th aka MONTHS FROM NOW.

Also, I am thrilled to share with you Some Girls Are’s first official blog review from Suzie. It’s spoiler free and glowing and it made my week and you can read it here! Thank you, Suzie!

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who was kind enough to RT about my cover! Not only that, but my google alerts went a little crazy last night notifying me of all the book bloggers that made it their Waiting on Wednesday pick. I can’t thank you guys enough for this! Word of mouth is so important and it really means a lot that you’re getting it out there. The sparkles I have in my heart for you are many.

MANY.

People I may have bugged unrelenetlessly about showing my cover to the world: my awesome editor.

But! It’s so wonderful, you guys! I couldn’t help myself. My editor and the cover designer worked really hard to make the face of the book perfectly reflect the text on the inside and they did it. They just totally did it. And they went through many rejected covers to do it.

I don’t even know what else to say. I’m EXCITED! I REALLY love this cover.

THANK YOU, St. Martin’s Press!

Okay, enough segue! Here it is:

AND because I can show you what the cover looks like, I can now show you the ARCs, which are even prettier in person–the colour of the sweater, the locker are so vivid. Except I kind of washed them out with the flash, which is a biproduct of the environmentally friendly lighting system in our house. But trust me: VIVID. And totally sexy.

!!!

You’ve got until the 14th!