Coming Out of the Cave

I've been in the writing cave for a while.

The bad news about the writing cave:

I let the emails / student papers / laundry / dishes / prettymucheverythingthatisn'twriting pile up disastrously.

The good news about the writing cave:

I have a new book. (claps hands together excitedly) A new book! A NEW BOOK!

Yeah, it's going to need some revision, and I will have to creep back into the cave for a few solid intervals between now and January, I'm sure.

But every time I finish drafting a novel, it feels like a miracle.

This novel, especially, feels like a miracle. I've been working on this novel, in one way or another, for about two years, and it's been a story that's been waiting inside of me to write for much, much longer.

(dabs at eyes) Ahem. Anyway. I will tell you way more about it soon, I swear.

Right now I will simply say that it is a contemporary stand-alone that will be out in Winter 2015--that's the plan, anyway.

(goes to wash some dishes)

Young Adult Scavenger Hunt

Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This tri-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive TWENTY signed books, one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are THREE contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the GOLD TEAM--but there is also a red team  and a blue team for chances to win a whole different set of twenty signed books!

If you'd like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt homepage.

 

 

Scavenger Hunt Puzzle

Directions: Below, you'll notice that I've listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the gold team, and then add them up (don't worry, you can use a calculator!).

Entry Form: Once you've added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.

Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by August 5, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.

Scavenger Hunt Post

Today, I am hosting Rita Arens on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt!

Rita Arens



Rita Arens is the author of contemporary young adult novel THE OBVIOUS GAME (InkSpell Publishing, 2013). She is also the editor of the award-winning parenting anthology, SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK (Chicago Review Press, 2008), and the co-editor of food anthology ROOTS (Open Road Media, 2013). For playlists and excerpts from THE OBVIOUS GAME, visit ritaarens.com and click on Young Adult. Rita is currently working on her second young adult novel.

Find out more information by checking out the author website! 

Buy the book from here!

 

"Everyone trusted me back then. Good old, dependable Diana. Which is why most people didn't notice at first.""

Fifteen-year-old Diana Keller accidentally begins teaching The Obvious Game to new kid Jesse on his sixteenth birthday. As she buries her shock about her mother's fresh cancer diagnosis in cookbooks, peach schnapps and Buns of Steel workouts, Diana both seduces athlete Jesse and shoves him away under the guise of her carefully constructed sentences. As their relationship deepens, Diana avoids Jesse's past with her own secrets -- which she'll protect at any cost. Will Diana and Jesse's love survive his wrestling obsession and the Keller family's chaos, or will all their important details stay buried beneath a game?

Exclusive Content -

My novel is called THE OBVIOUS GAME, and it's written in first-person from the point of view of 15-year-old Diana. Evelyn is Diana's mom, and their relationship is pretty rocky throughout the book. My exclusive content is part of chapter one written from Evelyn's point of view. Here it is!

The Wigs

 

It was all I could do to get home from the store. When I walked in the door, I knew something was wrong. I heard Amanda’s voice in my room. Diana’s been friends with Amanda since they were little, and I can’t stand that girl.  When they were seven or eight, Amanda convinced Diana to use my good sewing shears to make paper dolls when the regular scissors were sitting right there on the table. I can’t decide which of them makes me more angry: Amanda for pushing every boundary or Diana for not putting up a fight.

I worried about my wigs. I couldn’t believe how much those things cost. I looked up a semester of tuition at the University of Iowa the other day. It’s $940. The wigs cost almost half that. It made me sick on top of the sick I felt from the chemo.

I just wanted to look normal, not like the freak I felt like inside. I could barely drive, I was so tired.

Please not the wigs.

I paused, my hand on the doorknob. And then I heard Diana: “Amanda! You idiot!” My heart sank.

When I walked into the bedroom, I saw them standing there, one of my wigs in the sink filled with water and what looked like hair gel. Three months of college, soaking up pink goo. I hadn’t even had them for a week.

Diana’s face was terrified. She knew how mad I was, knew how mad I would be, but yet something didn’t make her stop that little wench Amanda from ruining my new hair.

“What are you doing?” I tried to keep the shake out of my voice. I wanted to appear larger, not weaker. I wanted to loom as large as I did when they were in first grade and I caught them with their hands in the Halloween candy bucket. When they looked at me with real respect instead of scorn.

“Diana was just showing me your wigs. They’re beautiful.” Amanda’s smile widened. I could tell she thought she was fooling me, which infuriated me even more.

“Why is that in the sink, Amanda?” Maybe there was an explanation, a good one. I tightened my grip on the gallon of milk in my hand to keep from throwing it at Amanda.

“Diana said you could style them because they’re made of human hair.” Somewhere inside, the anger exploded into ball of betrayal that spread out to every inch of my insides. My feet seemed to root to the ground, and all my energy evaporated. Getting through the day took everything I had. Getting mad used it up early. I didn’t have anything left for either of the girls. I just wanted them gone. Both of them.

“Get out.”

Amanda looked alarmed. Good. Maybe for once something got through her thick skull.

“Call your mother, Amanda. You’re going home.” I heard her running down the stairs, probably as eager to get away from me as I was to have her away. I turned slowly to face my only daughter. “How could you, Diana?”

I could see in Diana’s face she understood what she’d done, how I felt. So why didn’t she stop Amanda? When was she going to learn to stand up for herself, for me? When would she stand up for her sick mother?

“I didn’t tell her to do it, Ma.”

“It doesn’t matter. You let her. That is my hair.” I leaned on the words, trying to make her understand those wigs weren’t wigs. They were my dignity.

“She’s hard to control, Ma,” Diana said softly, ducking her head.

I turned to the hairless dummy head on her dresser, pulling the wig off my head. I set it on the dummy and turned to face Diana. She didn’t know I’d shaved my head, and when she saw me without my wig, she turned away, and I thought I saw fear. She used to look at me like I was her universe. How much had cancer taken? How much was left to take?

“The world is hard to control, Diana,” I said. “If it were easy, I wouldn’t look like this.” I grabbed her shoulders, stopping just short of shaking her senseless. I wanted to shake her and shake her until she understood what I felt, the helplessness, the ugliness, the uselessness. A mother who could barely get herself off the bathroom floor. I needed to know she could take care of herself until I could take care of her again. “You have to take responsibility for your part in it. You’re not a little girl anymore.”

Diana just stood there, her face turned from me, and I realized she wasn’t going to hug me, wasn’t going to process any of it. She was in shock. And I felt ashamed. She was just a child, my baby. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and rock her worries away. But that would take energy, and I didn’t have any left to give.

“Get out,” I said, instead. As she rushed out the door, I collapsed on my bed and sobbed, not sure if I was crying for her or the mother I couldn’t be, the one who would've known what to say.

Enter the Contest

And don't forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Cynthia Hand, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 17. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the gold team and you'll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!

Continue the Hunt

To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author! Click here!

Enter The Extra Boundless Giveaway

In honor of this special event, I'm going to give away 2 extra signed copies of Boundless. Just follow the directions in the rafflecopter below:
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Update on Foreign Editions

Thanks to everybody who tweeted and blogged and posted about this giveaway. It's been so fun! So far I have taken 3 trips to the post office and made a lot of people cranky with how many packages I had to mail. But it was worth it.

I still have a lot of books left, but I am out of the British, Australian, German, Taiwanese, and Polish copies.

I do have a lot of the Brazilian, Danish, Croatian, Czech / Slovak, and a few Lithuanian, a few Hungarian, and a few of the Australian audio versions.

I also have a few of the Hallowed paperbacks, the US style, and the Boundless ARCs to give away to anybody who tweets or posts about the giveaway.

Thanks again, everybody.

Peace out.

C

Unearthly Foreign Edition Giveaway

I've been quiet lately, writing a new book. I can't tell you much about the book yet, except to say that it's a contemporary stand-alone and it will likely be out in Winter 2015 (sorry, it takes me a LONG time to write books), and it's on a subject that's near and dear to my heart.

So I've been quiet, because my mind is occupied with something that I can't share with you. And I've been busy with my summer.

But school is starting in a couple weeks and I will crawl out of my writerly hidey hole and brush myself off and hang out on Twitter and this blog and facebook and all the places again. I promise.

In the meantime, I am trying to clean up my house to prepare for school. This week, as I was cleaning, one thing became abundantly clear:

I have too many books.

That's kind of a given, I know.

But I noticed this time I was organizing said books that I have WAY TOO MANY foreign editions of my books. I mean, I love that I get free copies of my foreign editions. I love their awesome covers. I love to flip through to see how a foreign language translates some of my favorite lines:

"Schwing dich schon rein, Karotte." German translation of Tucker's: "Get your butt in here, Carrots." Hee.

I also love to read the acknowledgements section of the book to my friends and family who are in the acknowledgements. This is good fun.

But I do not really need, say, 12 copies of the Polish version of Unearthly. I look at those copies, and I even feel a little guilty. People could be reading these books. People who are not me, because I cannot read Polish. The only foreign language I can fluently read is French, which is ironic, because France is one of the only European countries not to buy the foreign rights for Unearthly. :) It's a shame for all these books to be sitting here gathering dust.

This is just one of the many places where I have stashed my foreign editions.

Therefore I am going to have a big giveaway.

Now before you get too excited, let me just say out front that I am only going to send these books to U.S. addresses, which, I know, sucks. But I looked up how much it would cost to send 12 copies of Unearthly to separate people in Poland and it was more than $200. Which I honestly can't afford.

So. Here's the terms of my giveaway. I am giving away free signed copies of my foreign editions from the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UK. Yes, free. I will give them away on a first come, first serve basis.

BUT I will only send to people in the U.S. Which can work out one of 3 ways:

1. You can speak/read the language the book is translated into (which will be easy for the UK and Australian versions, although if I get a flood of requests for these books I will give preference to those who are natives of Australia or Great Britain. Because these books are really for you.) and you are currently residing in the United States. Awesome. Free book for you. Scroll down my list and see which copies I have. Then just shoot me an email at writercynthiahand@gmail.com and follow these instructions exactly:

• Use the term "foreign edition giveaway" in the email's heading, so it will not get lost in the scary black hole that is my business email.

• Give me your name, your full US address (you'd be surprised at how many requests I get for things where the requester doesn't include the zip code, to which I say ARGH), and what copies of which books you would like me to send you. To be fair, please do not ask for copies of multiple languages, like a UK and a Croatian version, for instance. And do not ask for multiple copies of 1 book, like 2 copies of the German edition of Boundless, for instance, unless you can give me a very, very good reason. (I will listen to very good reasons.) I am also happy to send you the foreign editions of all 3 books (Unearthly, Hallowed, and Boundless) if I have them.

• Be patient, because I will wait to gather a bunch to go to the post office, and I will send these at Book Rate, which is slower than a cold snail.

• Enjoy your book. Shoot me an email if you find part of the translation that is particularly funny or beautiful. As a wordsmith, I love to hear about how the meaning can be changed in translation.

• When you get your book, it would be nice, and make my foreign publishers very happy indeed, if you would say something about the book to someone: tweet or blog or write a review or something like that. This is not a requirement, of course, but it would be nice. It would also be AWESOME if you would email me a picture of you holding your book, so I can put together an "Unearthly Around the World" video.

2.  You can speak the language the book is translated into, but you do not live in the U.S. But you do have a wonderful friend who DOES live in the U.S. who will agree to mail the book to you once they receive it. Then just follow all of the above steps except give me your friend's name and US address, and be even more patient, because it's going to take even longer.

3. You can speak the language the book is translated into, but you don't live in the U.S. and you don't have a friend willing to mail you the book. In this case, sit tight. I will be having a giveaway raffle for the rest of my foreign editions in a few months.

So here we go. The list:

Australia / New Zealand copies of all 3 books

Australia! I have 8 copies each to give away of Unearthly, Hallowed, and Boundless. Aren't the covers divine? I love these. I also love that in this book Clara calls her mother "Mum" and it describes the forest fire as a "bush fire." I want to go to Australia in the worst way. It's actually on my bucket list. So, as I mentioned, anybody who speaks English can receive this book but I will give first dibs to readers who are actually from Australia and New Zealand (I didn't forget you, New Zealand!).






Brazilian? (I think?)  version of Book 2. 7 paperback copies

Croatian copies of Hallowed and Unearthly

Croatia:

I have the following editions:

4 hardcover and 5 paperbacks of Krila Andela (Unearthly, Book 1)

2 hardcover and 4 paperbacks of Sjena Andela (Hallowed, Book 2)

I love how they've added wings to the original US cover and made Clara blonder--very cool.







Czech / Slovak edition, 9 hardcover copies of Unearthly (Nadpozeska) , Book 1

Danish edition: 2 paperback copies of Unearthly

 

German copies of all 3 books

Germany:

Sadly, I don't have that many of these. I have 5 of Unearthly (Dunkle Flammen), 2 of Hallowed (Heiliges Feuer) and 1 of Boundless (Himmelsbrand), all in paperback.

Sidenote: can somebody tell me the translation of these titles?

Another sidenote: Fun fact: In the first draft of Boundless, the first scene took place in Germany, while Clara and Angela were visiting there. My editor made me change it to all happen in Italy (which made sense), and then later those scenes ended up being a totally different book: Radiant.

Another fun fact: Radiant is available as an ebook only, EXCEPT for in Turkey, where you can also buy the hard copy, or you will be able to very soon.

Hungary: 5 hardcover copies of Hallowed, Book 2. Not sure why, but I don't have any copies of Book 1



Poland: 2 copies each of Unearthly and Hallowed, paperback
 

Turkish editions

Turkey:

5 copies of Koruyucu (Unearthly, Book 1)
6 copies of Kutsanmis (Hallowed, Book 2)

Both are paperback.

Side note: When I was in college I spent a semester in Greece, Italy, and Turkey studying archeology, and I found Turkey to be the most surprising and wonderful place to visit. So much of their archeological sites are unspoiled.

Taiwan: 3 copies of Book 1, 2 copies of Book 2

 The UK:

6 paperback copies of Unearthly. Like I said, I will give these to anyone who speaks English, but will give preference to people originally from the UK.

Fun fact: When I was 7 I won a writing contest where the prize was a 10 day all-expense paid trip to England, Belgium, and France. I loved England so much, and tragically lost my rolls of film with all of my pictures. But I still remember the lavender gardens near my dorm at Cambridge. Sigh. On the ferry to Belgium I vowed to myself that I would come back someday. I haven't been back yet, but it's at the top of my to-do list. I want to take a writing retreat there with my friend Brodi Ashton so that we will have the right atmosphere to do a funny historical project together.

Also UK related: I have copies of the UK audio version of all 3 books: 2 copies of Unearthly, 3 copies of Hallowed, 4 copies of Boundless. These are CD recordings, unabridged, by Eloise Oxer.

And finally, if you had the patience to wait until the end, I am going to give away 5 paperbacks of Hallowed and 5 ARCs/hardcovers of Boundless to anybody who can show me that they tweeted / blogged / posted / pinned about this giveaway somewhere. I'll only send to the U.S., but I will give these away to anyone.

Happy reading, everyone!

I'll be back with regular posts soon. Soonish. When I am done with this new book.

xoxo

C


New York, New Book

Hello. Long time, no read.

I know.

I have been busy traveling. And traveling. And traveling. So far this year I have spent almost 3 months, in total, on the road. At first it seemed glamourous and fun, a great adventure, but at this point I'm like, "Oh. It's you, airport." Then I sigh.

But this week I am teaching a summer conference at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, holed up in my very own quaint little dorm room, meeting with students and talking about writing until my voice hurts, and then hiding out in the later hours to write.

I am writing a new book.

And it will be published. Unfortunately I can't tell you much more about it until things are signed and sent and finalized, but I will say two things:

1. It is not related to the Unearthly series. But I hope the fans of the Unearthly series will love it, because I love it, and it is a story that is very near and dear to my heart.

2. I will be reading a bit of this new book at the faculty reading on Friday night. So if you want a preview of my coming work, come out and listen! The reading is open to the public at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York (you take the Metro North train from Grand Central Station, about 20-25 minutes).

Here are the details:

7:30pm, Friday, June 28
Reisinger Auditorium
Sarah Lawrence College
1 Mead Way · Bronxville/Yonkers, NY 10708

Here's a link to the campus map.

I will read, and if you wait for me at the end, I'll have time to talk to you and sign anything you want and give away a few bookmarks and such. So if you're in the New York area, and you want to know something about my new book before anybody else, come out.

Hope to see you there.

And now I must go back to writing, writing, writing, writing, writing!

Want Me To Be Your Teacher?

I teach creative writing at Pepperdine University, as you might know, and every year I tweet and talk and post about how much I love my classes, and I always get the same response:

I wish you were MY teacher.

Which always makes me go, Aw. I wish I were, too.

But now I can be! I have the honor and immense pleasure of being on the faculty for the Summer Seminar for Writers at Sarah Lawrence College from June 23-28. I will be teaching an intense writing workshop and doing a bunch of one-on-one conferences.

It's a bit expensive, but there are scholarships you can apply for to cover the tuition.

Here's the website for the seminar. If you're interested, email me and I will send you the pdf of the full brochure / application form.

The deadline for admission is May 1.

I can't wait. Maybe I will see you there and get to read YOUR work.

Um, Hi . . .

Hey, guys.

Sorry I've been MIA for like a month. I've been on tour, and then recovering from being on tour, and then getting ready to go on tour again. It's all very tour-related. Here's the new video that recaps the Dark Days of Winter tour I went on in February with Brodi Ashton, Tahereh Mafi and Veronica Rossi. It was so much fun, and I miss these ladies so much.



So it's a good thing that my writer bffs Brodi Ashton, author of the Everneath series, and Jodi Meadows, author of the Incarnate series, are coming out to Los Angeles for a string of events next week. We are doing the whole shebang: school visits, a signing at the Thousand Oaks Barnes & Noble on Friday, March 15 at 7pm, and a signing at Books, Inc in Mountain View on Saturday, March 16 at 5pm. (Yes. This is the bookstore that appears on page 377 of BOUNDLESS. In hell.)

And I will be traveling again at the end of April: San Diego, Phoenix, Houston, Miami. Check the Events tab for the details.

And also in May.

And June.

I'm a busy woman.

I'll try to blog more, I promise.

Oh, and here is also a large clip from our Cary, NC stop in the Extras section, if you'd like to hear me talk about writing about a real place like Jackson, WY, and why, if I hadn't been trying to impress my husband, I would never have gotten published. And you can see Brodi Ashton blow kisses.

Change of Time For Tomorrow's Event

So my event at Books of Wonder is at 12pm tomorrow, not 1pm. They changed the time on me.

12pm!

Books of Wonder!

Tomorrow!

Off to Tour I Go

I know I've been quiet this past couple of weeks. This is because I am totally swamped with book launches and book tours. My inbox is like a battlefield.

Today (in a few minutes, actually) I am off to New York City, to start the big leg of my tour. My bags are packed, I'm ready to go. . .)

Here are the dates and times.

February 2, 1-3pmEvent with Brodi Ashton, Jocelyn Davies, Jodi Meadows
Books of Wonder
New York City

February 4, 7pm
Dark Days tour with Brodi Ashton, Veronica Rossi, and Tahereh Mafi
Barnes&Noble
Huntington Beach, California

February 5, 7pm
Dark Days tour with Brodi Ashton, Veronica Rossi, and Tahereh Mafi
Little Shop of Stories
Decatur, Georgia

February 6, 7pm
Dark Days tour with Brodi Ashton, Veronica Rossi, and Tahereh Mafi
Barnes & Noble
Cary, North Carolina

February 7, 7pm
Dark Days tour with Brodi Ashton, Veronica Rossi, and Tahereh Mafi
Harvard Coop
Cambridge, Massachusetts

I can't wait! Touring is one of the best parts of being an author: the big black sedan pulling up to my house, hanging with my fellow author friends, meeting the fans! So exciting!

The big black sedan just pulled up to my house. . .

*is whisked away.*

Happy Birthday BOUNDLESS!

The day has arrived!

BOUNDLESS is out wherever books are sold!

I'm in curlers right now, and I've just ironed my launch party clothes, and am soon going to meet up with Brodi Ashton (Happy Birthday EVERBOUND!!!!!) to spend the day in blissful preparation for our launch party at 7 at the King's English! There may be a manicure involved. And a sneak to a bookstore to see with wondering eyes our books upon the shelves.

Happy sigh.

I've got a lot to do today, but for now I just want to thank everybody who helped make this happen. Erica. Katherine. John. Catherine. You know who you are. Thank you!

Basically what I'm feeling is this:



GIFSoup

YAYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Happy reading, y'all!

On Tour

As I write this, we're 1 day and 22 hours 26 minutes from the launch of BOUNDLESS. WHEEEEEEEEEE!

I am so excited to share this book with you!

Anyway, tomorrow I am heading off to Utah, where on Tuesday I will be having an awesome LAUNCH PARTY / SIGNING / EVENT with the amazing and talented Brodi Ashton, whose book EVERBOUND (book 2 of the Everneath series) is coming out the same day as BOUNDLESS. Brodi is a kindred spirit and a good friend of mine, so I can think of nothing better than us having our book launches together. Here's the skinny: The King's English, SLC, Tuesday 1-22, 7pm. Be there.

And then we'll be headed off to Idaho together to do it all over again in Idaho Falls. We'll be doing a barage of school visits in Idaho Falls and then a launch / signing / event at the Idaho Falls Barnes & Noble on Friday night, the 25th, at 6:30 p.m.

And THEN we're driving across the state to Boise to do an event at Hyde Park Bookstore at 4pm on Saturday!

See my facebook page for invites and details to all of these events, and my Events tab above for all the other great places I will be stopping by this winter and spring. Hopefully I can catch up with you somewhere!

1 day 22 hours 21 minutes! Squee!

One Week to Go!

One week until BOUNDLESS!

I am now under the ever-pounding waves of pre-launch preparation: designing this season's bookmarks and patches (oh yes, there will be Unearthly patches again this year, Team Tucker or Team Christian!), making sure all my tour clothes fit, picking nail polish colors, filling out the seemingly-never-ending flow of interviews and guest posts, signing copies for other people's giveaways, checking that my Sharpie supply is adequate. You know, author stuff. It's fun. Really. Mostly.

So, a few orders of business to go over. First:

THE TRAILER!

The trailer is here! The trailer is here! I love it!

Look:



*Does a little happy dance!*

This year it all feels a bit different from the other years. This is the END, the last book of the series, and it feels so bittersweet to me. Some days I think, I miss Clara. It's been a while since I had her voice in my head. . . And I am so excited to find out what the fans will think of how everything plays out. I hope you like it!

Second: Those of you who entered my Radiant pre-order giveaway, fear not. I have ordered the special-signed something, which is just taking a while to come, so I can sign it and mail it to you. Don't worry--it will get there! And I think you'll really like it. . .

Third: I am about to go on tour. Click above on my Events page to see where and when!

Fourth: I am already on a wonderful blog tour. Check this out. All you ever wanted to know about me and the Unearthly series, and BOUNDLESS, coming your way over the next couple of weeks!

And last: a new giveaway. I am giving away 4 signed copies of the Boundless ARC! All you have to do is share the BOUNDLESS trailer on your facebook page, your twitter feed, or in your own personal blog! You can also enter by spreading around my new countdown widget from the top left corner!


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