Got word recently that THE VENGEKEEP PROPHECIES is a Fall 2012 Junior Library Guild selection!  

Wowsers. The JLG reviews thousands of books every year and only a small percentage of those books are made “selections.”   Basically, for those who may not know,  it’s kind of like an emphatic recommendation to librarians to BUY THIS BOOK!  And that, as the kids these days say, is totally tubular.

So yeah.  I guess this officially launches the Soul Train of Excitement that’s barreling down the track towards the book’s release in October.  Will my withered heart be able to sustain the mounting frenzy? Stick around and find out.

For the first time ever, I am attending an ALA Conference as an author, not an editor.  It makes me feel five kinds of special.

Simon Pulse is graciously sending me to attend the Stonewall Award banquet, where I’m looking forward to (hopefully) meeting fellow honorees Lili Wilkinson (PINK), Ilike Merey (a+3 4ever), Paul Yee (MONEY BOY), and Stonewall winner Bil Wright, whose fabulous PUTTING MAKEUP ON THE FAT BOY also won this year’s Lambda Literary award for YA literature.

For anyone interested in saying ‘hi,’ my conference schedule is below. And please do say ‘hi.’  I have this nightmare that I do the signing and no one comes. Having once been an events coordinator at a bookstore, I know this sometimes happens.  But I can’t help but feel it’s far worse when it happens at a conference with thousands of attendees walking around. So, yes, please, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, please say ‘hi.’

Sunday, June 24

8:30 – 10:00 AM  (Ticketed event)

YALSA’s Young Adult Author Coffee Klatch

2:30 – 3:30 PM

Signing in Simon & Schuster Booth #2600-2601

Monday, June 25

10:30 AM – 2:00 PM (Ticketed event)

GLBTRT Stonewall Book Award Celebration  w/ Signing from 1 – 2 PM

In case you hadn’t heard, I am the Biggest Loser.

I lost the Bet.  Big time.  My horse came in last. LAST!  How did I go from Numero Uno last year to…to…THIS.

The shame. The shame.

So, as a result, I had to write a short story using a title supplied to me by the inimitable Catherine Ryan Hyde.

You will find that story here. All 1,200 words of it.*

If you’ve read WITH OR WITHOUT YOU or maybe you’ve gotten your hands on an ARC of THE VENGEKEEP PROPHECIES, I think you’ll find this is a bit…different from my other stuff.  My husband, who is my biggest cheerleader, kept watching me out of the corner of his eye for a week after he read it.

Yes. I have a dark side.

I am, however, not alone in my loserdom. Catherine and Kimberly Pauley also lost (leaving Andrew Smith to bask in his non loserness) and they have also written stories as penance.  Check them out too. Please. Hey, it’s three free short stories. What’s it gonna hurt?

And if you feel like it, leave a comment below to let me know what you thought.  I don’t do a lot of short stories so feedback is appreciated.

*I was tempted to tweak the title and call it “All of Nature Abhors a Vacuum…But Not Nearly As Much As My Cat” but 1) the rules of the Bet don’t allow for title tweaking and 2) the story has nothing to do with a cat.