Is Accelerated Reader really a good idea?

Accelerated Reader says it “guide[s] students to the right books.” It is “a ‘reading management’ software system that helps teachers track student reading through computerized comprehension tests and awards students points for books they read based on length and difficulty, as measured by a scientifically researched readability rating.” Sounds good, right? But one author who is also a mom looked closer. The fifth installment of the Gossip Girl series, I Like It Like That is given 8 points - which means it’s worth more than Hamlet (7 points). The author’s daughter pointed out that if students really wanted to get a lot of points, they should read Harry Potter. The Order of the Phoenix was worth 44 points. Another daughter, in an Advanced Placement class, was reading Frankenstein (17 points), The Remains of the Day (13 points), Heart of Darkness (10 points). Notice how together they don’t add up to the Order of the Phoenix? Teacher says kids often won’t read books that aren’t on the list because they won’t get any points. And some say Accelerated Reader has increased reading among students, who like collecting points and getting prizes. You can read the whole article here. If you are a teacher, I would be really curious to hear what you think about Accelerated Reader. Curious after reading the article, I looked up Shock Point. 7 points. So not as that Gossip Girl (8 pts), but better than Hamlet (7).

Far North - a book for writers to savor

[Top is the UK cover - I wonder why they are different?] Last night, I finished reading Far North: A Novel, a book writers should read just for its lovely use of language. It's a dystopian novel. The main character, Makepeace, is the only person left living in a city in the far north (Siberia). While there were certain approaches the author took that I didn't agree with (having a character from the past rather improbably turn up, letting a main character die and referring to it only in passing), all of that was made up for by the simply stunning use of language. Page 16: "There were a few last signs of human settlement along the riverside - a burned-out cabin, a wooden cross on a grave, some tumbledown walls..." [I admired how the author had the narrator describe them as signs of settlement, when they were really markers of death and absence.] Page 198: "I lay down to sleep thinking that as much as I missed what was gone, maybe this was the best thing: for the world to lie fallow for a couple hundred years or more, for the rain to wash her clean. We'd become another layer of her history, a little higher in the soil than the Romans and the people who built the pyramids. Yes, Makepeace, I thought, maybe one day your mandible will show up under glass in a museum. Female of European origin. Note the worn incisors and the evidence of mineral deficiency from a poor and unvaried diet. Warlike and savage. And beside it some potsherds." Page 224 [the narrator is in a long-deserted city, with no food or water, and has broken into what used to be a girl's bedroom]: "In the story of Goldilocks, the little girl sneaks into a bear den, eats the animal's food, and finds a place to sleep. That night I felt I was the story in reverse: a stinking, scarred bear, reeking of blood and gun smoke, turning up in a world of clean sheets and flowers."

Do you have a Kindle? Do you have $1.99?

This week, I put one of my old books on Kindle, about eight months after all the cool kids figured out how to do it. http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Fly-Novel-ebook/dp/B0030EG3BS/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_9 This isn't just any book. It was a Booksense Pick, an Otto Penzler Pick for Amazon and the recipient of starred reviews in Booklist and Library Journal. Library Journal also chose it as one of the best books of 2002. Foreign rights sold in the Netherlands, Japan and France. The book is about Free Meeker, a 19-year-old with a shaved head, a tattoo around her bicep, an unplanned pregnancy, and a jerk of a boyfriend. All she wants is a new life. And when she is involved in a multi-car accident and is mistakenly listed among the dead, and ends up with a dead drug dealer's bag of money - fate seems to be handing her her ticket out . Here's a selection of what some critics said: "Compulsive reading ... A classic tale of an innocent on the lam, Learning to Fly has the kind of plot that would have made Hitchcock smile in evil anticipation of its cinematic possibilities." - Penzler Pick, Amazon "The suspense becomes deliciously unbearable. With Learning to Fly, Henry soars straight into the big leagues." - Starred Review, Booklist "Features a most interesting plot, told with easy grace, choice characterization and mounting tension." - Starred Review, Library Journal "A sure-footed chase novel that starts with a bang and rarely slows down." - Seattle Times "A high tension thriller [with] an endearing heroine." - Denver Post "April Henry's debut, Circles of Confusion, garnered a lot of attention. This book proves that she's a talent tot watch, delivering solid characters, good plot, and a great sense of place." - Canada's Globe and Mail "Learning to Fly soars with suspense." - South Florida Sun-Sentinel "A carefully plotted look at what can happen when a person's dreams come true, she has all the money she can spend - but she can't shake off the ties of the past." - Dallas Morning News

Kirkus is no more.

Just saw this on PW: "As part of the sale of its business to business publications, Nielsen Business Media has announced that it is closing its book review publication Kirkus Reviews as well as Editor & Publisher. No details on the closing have been released yet. Nielsen is selling its major publications, including The Hollywood Reporter and Adweek to e5 Global Media Holdings."

The tone of Kirkus was often mean, but I still have mixed feelings about seeing a publication go down. And I took any book with a star from Kirkus extra seriously, given their normally crabby-pants reviews.

Their review of Shock Point ends with this: "Henry writes with a quick-moving, superficial style and often glosses over awkward plot points with quick explanatory paragraphs. He delivers some shocking moments while making no attempt to examine realistic adolescent problems. A potboiler that may appeal to a wide range of young readers and could be useful for reluctant readers. " A. I'm a girl. B. Talk about mixed messages.

Are you a budding author?

Are you a budding writer? Then you might be interested in bidding on one of the following items in an online auction to benefit Bridget Zinn, a YA author. She has had a crazy year, one that including getting an agent, getting married, getting diagnosed with colon cancer, and make her first sale. The services that would appeal to authors include: * Chapter critique of your middle grade novel by author Jennifer Cervantes * Critique of the first 20 pages of your manuscript By New York Times bestselling author April Henry * Foot in the Door Critique Package Critique of your whole novel, synopsis, and query letter by Through The Tollbooth * One Critique of a QUERY plus FIRST 10 PAGES of your Middle Grade or Young Adult Novel By Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency * One critique of a QUERY plus the FIRST 10 PAGES of your middle grade or young adult novel By Jill Corcoran, Herman Agency * One Critique of a Query Plus the first Ten Pages of Your Middle-Grade or Young Adult Novel By Michael Stearns, Upstart Crow Literary, LLC * Picture Book Critique from Picture Book Author, Jean Reidy Detailed critique of a fiction picture book manuscript up to 1000 words * Proofreading services for one query letter and synopsis By Martha Brockenbrough, Punctuation Activist This is Bridget. Auction items can be viewed at http://www.32auctions.com/view_auction?id=bridget&pwd=rules - or just go to www.32auctions.com and use the Auction ID: bridget and Password: rules (as in: Bridget rules!!) to view the auction. In order to bid on auction items, you will need to create an account on the site in order to bid. (Creating an account simply requires your name, email address, and a password, and it is required so that you can be contacted if you win an item.) Bidding ends 9 p.m. Central time on Dec. 11.

Laini Taylor is a winner in our hearts

If you haven’t read Lips Touch: Three Times, you should. It’s a wonderful book, playful, inventive, moving. The Oregonian featured a great story about its author and illustrator, National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor and her husband Jim. It begins, “She writes, he draws. Her hair is pink, and her laugh is infectious. His hair is red, and he laughs a lot, too. They live and work together in a little yellow house in the Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland with a new daughter named Clementine Pie.” Read the rest of the story about Laini and Jim here.

Author of Geek Love takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'

Katherine Dunn is my hero First, she wrote Geek Love: A Novel. Second, at Wordstock, I got to meet her and she said she was an admirer of my work! I seriously thought I could die happy right then. And here’s a third reason to like Katherine Dunn - she’s a fighter. Literally. And I’m not talking about the essays she has written on boxing. On Tuesday, she was walking home from Trader Joes when she was attacked by a purse snatcher. 
 When a young woman grabbed her purse, she clamped down on it. The woman began to kick her in the shins and slap her in the face. Katherine said [according to media accounts] "That's what gave me permission to hit her in the face." Her only regret? She was wearing flip flops and kicking seemed futile. "Next time, Doc Martens," she said.

But they were in a stalemate. "She didn't let go. I didn't let go." Dunn started to call for help from passersby. She yelled "Help, fire." Just like a character of mine in Heart-Shaped Box (A Claire Montrose Mystery), she had heard that passersby are more willing to get involved if they think it’s a fire. When some people responded, Katherine yelled that she being robbed. But the robber yelled "please help me, she's trying to rob me." Katherine described that vocal countermove as "just brilliant. She was very sharp, I have to say." 

The passersby were confused. But then a neighbor came by and saw what was happening. At that point, all three women were tussling. Two employees came out of Trader Joes and said the attacker had just tried to shoplift at the store.

Finally, cops arrived. Katherine told reporters said the attacker must have been in a "really really desperate" state to attack her. She also thought she was under the influence of drugs. “I had scratches from her fingernails, a bloody eye where she had thumbed me — it was a helter-skelter affair,” she told the Oregonian. “Getting a tetanus shot, it made me feel young again.” She said she was proud of herself for putting her years of fight training to use, staying relatively calm and hanging on to her purse. She was a little disappointed not to bloody her attacker’s nose, but pointed out she was fighting with her rear hand. “I would normally lead, as all good boxers do, with my left hand,” she said. “But my left hand was tied up in the purse.” Read a recent essay about Katherine here.

"Going down the stairs with a gun in his hands"-just found out great-grandfather was a murderer

My grandmother didn’t marry until she was 32, in 1920. I just figured she was a late bloomer. This weekend, when I should have been working on my editor’s revision letter, I goofed off by Googling my grandmother’s name. “Effie Satterwhite.” Google has obviously been scanning more books since the last time I looked, including one published in 1907 that listed the opinions of the Arkansas Supreme Court. One of which involved Effie. When Effie was 18, her father shot her boyfriend for kissing her. I’ve got booklets of family history and this is mentioned NOWHERE. My mom didn’t know it. She is sure my dad, who died in 2003, didn’t know. According to the court records, when she was 17, Effie started seeing a man named Jim Wallis. One night they went to an “entertainment,” and returned at 11 pm. The court transcript states, “She started to go in the house, but was stopped by Wallis who reached out his hand and drew her to him and kissed her. She put her hands against him and pushed him away. They walked to the end of the porch, and stood there talking until the clock struck eleven. Wallis looked at his watch and then turned and kissed her again. He then left the house.” Effie went inside, heard a door open, and then saw her father “going down the steps with a gun in his hands.” She heard the shot, and tried to run to Jim. Her father grabbed her, and said it was all her fault for hugging and kissing Jim. Finally he let Effie go to her boyfriend, who lay bleeding in the street. Jim told her that he was sure he was dying. A neighbor carried him into a nearby house. Jim’s father came and said he should have known something like this would happen. At the trial, Effie’s brother testified that a year earlier he had seen Effie and Jim together “in a very suspicious attitude, conducting themselves in what he thought a very unbecoming manner on the front porch.” He ordered Effie inside, and told Jim to never come back. But Jim did, the next day, and told Effie’s brother that he loved her. They continued to see each other until the night he was gunned down. My great-grandfather’s defense was that he was sure Jim “was trying to seduce his daughter and relieve her of her virtue.” But the jury found that the two intended to marry. My great-grandfather was convicted of assault with intent to kill, and his appeal was denied. Jim died in a hospital four months after the shooting. And my grandmother did not marry for 14 more years. My grandmother in 1920, shortly before she married at 32 - and 14 years after her father shot and killed her boyfriend for kissing her - Did Effie feel it was her fault for kissing and touching Jim? - Her fault that her father spent two years in prison? - Did she regret not having sex with Jim? - Or had she? - Did they let Effie visit Jim in the hospital where he lingered until he died? - Did everyone in town know, and whisper about her? Was she branded a loose woman? - How did the murder affect her relationship with her father? My grandfather had pernicious anemia and wasn’t a prime catch. They were 36 and 43 when my dad was born. She was 72 when I was born, and 90 when she died. She was slender, with a sharp mind and sharp opinions. She was prim, severe, judgmental, fanatically religious. She could whistle really well. Our written family history has stories my great-grandfather shooting a puma and catching horse thieves. Nothing about him murdering his youngest child’s beau. One of the last coherent conversations I had with my dad was about his grandfather. The man who murdered his own daughter’s boyfriend.

"Dead, brutalized women sell books"

One British author who is also a reviewer is speaking out about what she sees as the increasing violence against women in mysteries and thrillers. She says that an increasing number of books feature male villains hurting women. “"Each psychopath is more sadistic than the last and his victims' sufferings are described in detail that becomes ever more explicit, as young women are imprisoned, bound, gagged, strung up or tied down, raped, sliced, burned, blinded, beaten, eaten, starved, suffocated, stabbed, boiled or buried alive,” she said. “Natasha Cooper, former chair of the Crime Writers' Association, agreed with Mann. "There is a general feeling that women writers are less important than male writers and what can save and propel them on to the bestseller list is if they produce at least one novel with very graphic violence in it to establish their credibility and prove they are not girly," she said.” Full disclosure: I know a female writer who has enjoyed incredible success due in no small part to graphic, over-the-top violence. I'm thankful that the adult mysteries I'm writing with Lis Wiehl are pubbed by Thomas Nelson, where graphic depictions of violence are not part of the publisher's DNA. You can read the article about the reviewer by clicking here.

For this, Palin needed a co-author?

From the first paragraph of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. "I breathed in an autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with rugged splashes of the Last Frontier”

"rugged splashes"??? It sounds like it would hurt.

and can you even start to imagine smelling that? What does "everything small town American" smell like? How about "Last Frontier"?

So much for appealing to the senses.

Somehow this seems like cheating

Teen someone managed to persuade her lit teacher to let her choose Shock Point as a book for her "reading response journal." Of course, she has an advantage no one else does: she can ask me questions. The report begins: "This story is pretty good so far. I like the author’s (my mother) use of time." And beware how you dress your characters (the book was written when Teen was just Kid). Teen writes, "I don’t like the main character all too much though. I know it is kind of shallow of me to base it off the way she dresses, but really the way a person dresses can tell you a lot about them. For instance Cassie wears “[a] vintage black thrift store shirtdress, black fishnets, and pink Chuck Taylor All-Stars.” A person who dresses like this would generally be the kind of person who wants to be noticed but just doesn’t want to admit it. The kind of person who wants to seem all punk and tough but really isn’t. I asked April (my mother/the author) about it and she said she didn’t really think that much about, she just saw someone dressed like that on the bus and made Cassie dress like that. So I guess I shouldn’t read so far into the way she dresses." Ah, the language of clothes. I guess back then I wasn't speaking it very well.

Bad, bad blogger

I spent the last few eight or ten weeks in deadline hell. Now I plan on being better about posting at least some of my posts from my livejournal, www.aprilhenry.livejournal.com, here.

Contemplating a mercy killing

This weekend, I contemplated committing a mercy killing. I was running and could see something on the road up ahead. The crows were hopping around it, looking excited. It was a squirrel, lying on its chest. There was some blood on the road but no visible injuries. But it wasn’t moving, except every now and then its tail would lift. I stared at its unblinking black bead eyes and tried to believe it was dead and that only the wind was moving the tail. Then I saw the tiny thrum of its heart, very fast. Earlier this summer, I found a beetle in our driveway, lying on its back, legs waving in the air. I carefully turned it over. It flipped back. I carried it over to the grass and told myself it would recover. I found it there in the morning, dead. And knew I should have killed it earlier. Now here was this squirrel. And a non-native squirrel. Squirrels, alive and dead, are a dime a dozen in our neighborhood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Western squirrels that should be here, all pushed out by Eastern squirrels. So Audubon wouldn’t care. And it was too early for a vet’s office to be open. That left me and the dying squirrel and an empty street. I thought about hitting it in the head with a rock. I thought about trying to move it off the road. But then I realized it might be better if another car came along and finished it off. There seemed nothing I could do, so I ran on. If the squirrel was still there after I came back from my five-mile run I decided I would do something about it. We have an old bucket and a shovel. I would drown it. I know I couldn’t really speak for the squirrel, but it seemed better to die fast than to die slow. But it would be about 50 minutes until I returned. And that seemed too long. So I turned around after two blocks. I had only been gone for a few minutes, but the squirrel was just - gone. I don’t think it ran off. It hadn’t looked capable of running off. A minute earlier, the crows had been competing to pluck out its eyes. I think another neighbor took it in or dealt with it. I’ve since heard from a vet that you should pick up an injured squirrel (with a towel) and put it in a box. In a couple of hours, you’ll know whether it will get better or not. And if not - well, the vet had the same answer. Drown it. Commit a mercy killing. I’ve been thinking how loaded the word commit is. You commit sins. Crimes. And when you are committed to something, there is no turning back.

I'm teaching again this fall in Portland

I'm going to be teaching mystery and thriller writing again this fall in Portland. With two books a year (one adult and one YA) for the foreseeable future, this will probably be the last time I do this for a while. I've got two spots left. The 10-week class will be begin Sunday, September 13, at Annie Blooms Books. Email me if you are interested in learning more. aprilhenrymysteries (at) yahoo (dot) com.

The mail I get

This week I got an email with an offer. Stripping out the contact info, it says: === I have written an action-adventure novel (complete at 206,000 words). The work has been has been edited, and it has undergone extensive rewriting. It should be awfully close to publish-ready! Due to a recent financial disaster, I’m forced to sell the manuscript outright as quickly as I possibly can. My goal was to have it published, but that is no longer an option. I need whatever money I can get from this work as quickly as I can possibly get it. Call it an emergency, and you won’t be wrong by much. The book offers plenty of action, drama, and intrigue; a touch of romance, a few near-disasters, and a number of scenes that will touch your heart. I know you’re a busy professional. I also know the book has the potential to become a serious “hit” for someone with foresight who has the ability to do something with it. === A. 206,000 is too long. At least twice too long. B. Why would an author buy someone else's book, when she could write her own? C. And why would a publisher buy a book from someone who hasn't authored the book? Pretty much every publisher right now wants an author who has a platform, or failing that, someone who is willing to promote, part of which involves telling about your relationship to the book you wrote. D. Nothing right now is a sure thing in the publishing world. E. And who says authors have a lot of money - money that they want to throw at something that is definitely less than a sure thing? F. I hope you have a back up plan.

Spider on the Freeway

On Monday, I had lunch with some folks I went to high school with. One woman I hadn't seen in more than 20 years turns out to be married to literary agent Chip Macgregor - which made for interesting lunch table conversation. For us, at least. As I was driving there, I noticed a large spider crawling near my door. I HATE spiders. Then it began to drop down on a web - heading straight for my thigh. I shrieked, rolled down the window, and tried to brush the web so that the spider would land outside the car. All while maintaining my lane and traffic flow. Instead, I just broke the web. The spider fell to the floor of my car. And promptly disappeared. I stomped around with my left foot while still staying at 65 with my right foot. I finally had to give up. I couldn't see it (it's actually really hard to see the footwell without moving your legs, which isn't a good idea when you're surrounded by cars). But the whole time, I kept feeling the tiniest of tickles on my sandaled feet and bare legs.

An open letter to folks at the gym

Dear Anonymous: I know it's easy to drop your keys/water bottle/Blackberry/sweaty towels on the nearest piece of equipment, but what about those of us who actually want to use it, but don't want to violate the unspoken "don't touch my stuff' rule? Dear Middle-Aged Guy in the White Snake T-Shirt: Dude, I know it seemed like a genius idea to cut off the sleeves to give yourself more mobility. But what possessed you to cut out the sides as well? I could see way more of the reason you decided to start going to the gym than I really wanted to. Dear Guy with the I-Pod Who Did One-Million Rapid Sit-Ups with Rabid Intensity: Maybe you can't hear yourself over your music, but the rest of us can hear your loud pants and groans, as your breath gets faster and faster. It's like porno without the visuals. Just sayin'.

The end is in sight

I can see the end in sight for the book I'm writing on spec. What will happen (mostly), how and why. Here's the end of one chapter of The Girl in the Mini Cooper: ===== The thing is, I think I might want Kayla to be dead. Because what’s the alternative? That someone took her. Either that Cody guy or someone else, someone worse. Someone took her and has her and can do whatever they want to her. I used to like movies with plots like that. Maybe not like them, but I watched the DVDs with my mom when she brought them home. After she got off work she would go over to the video store next to the Thriftway. Slasher movies. Hidden underground torture chambers. Handcuffs and gags and chains. Blood spattering on the walls, sometimes in slo-mo. The creative use of a nail gun or a rusty saw or a shiny scalpel. But when it’s not a movie? When it’s not fake? When you can’t push the power button and watch the light on the TV turn into a little white dot in the middle of the screen and then disappear? When it’s really Kayla’s pale skin, Kayla’s blood? Then maybe it would be better if she were dead and in the river.

One twin claimed her blood, the other her bladder

I’m fascinated by the idea of chimeras, which happens when twins become one person in utero very early on in the pregnancy. According to Wikipedia, “For example, the chimera may have a liver composed of cells with one set of chromosomes and have a kidney composed of cells with a second set of chromosomes. This has occurred in humans, and at one time was thought to be extremely rare, though more recent evidence suggests that it is not as rare as previously believed. Most will go through life without realizing they are chimeras. The difference in phenotypes may be subtle (e.g., having a hitchhiker's thumb and a straight thumb, eyes of slightly different colors, differential hair growth on opposite sides of the body, etc) or completely undetectable .” Go here and start about 4.5 minutes in to hear about a woman who discovered she was a chimera when she was told DNA tests showed she was not related to her sons.

Horror in a Portland suburb

Some poor girl just moved to Portland. 21 and pregnant. Looked for baby clothes on Craig’s List. She met a woman through a listing and went to her house – and never came out alive.

Instead the other woman killed her, cut the baby out, and tried to claim it was hers. But she had to call 911 because the baby wasn’t breathing. She and the baby got taken to the hospital, where they figured out she hadn’t had a baby recently – and the ambulance crew had noticed an awful lot of blood around the house.

The really creepy thing is she had been telling everyone, including her boyfriend, who they don't think knew what she was planning, that she was pregnant with TWINS. And the police are tracking down other women who may have had contact with the killer.

I only heard about this type of crime a few years back. Do you think if it hadn’t been in the media, then crazy women like this chick would think of it on their own?

You can read more here.

And similar cases are listed here. Notice that none of them is more than a decade old?

What will Kindle mean for books? Some eye-opening numbers

Publishers Lunch says that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said "Kindle sales are now 35 percent of books where we have Kindle editions" and print editions of the same title. PL says this is “more than three times the ratio that Amazon had reported previously, first in October and then again in February when Kindle 2 was announced. The initial reception at numerous trade publishers, executives tell us, was deep skepticism. But as sales departments crunched numbers, in many cases the data has confirmed the general range of Amazon's report.”

The most interesting part of the article was this unanswered question:
“Do Kindle Sales Cannibalize?
The big unresolved question for many houses is whether this spike in Kindle sales is additive or cannibalistic. (Amazon did not update their contention from last year that Kindle customers "buy the same number of physical books going forward as they did before they owned a Kindle. And then incrementally, they buy about 1.6 to 1.7 electronic books.") One executive believes strongly that, while their house's total Amazon sale on big books is rising when you include Kindle and print editions, the Kindle spike is taking market share away from other retailers' print versions (though this point will be hard to confirm until after returns are taken on recent releases). Other houses are just beginning to analyze the extent to which these sales are additive or cannibalistic.”

The NYT had an interesting article on ebook pricing. One sentence caught my eye: "But publishers argue that those costs, which generally run about 12.5 percent of the average hardcover retail list price, do not entirely disappear with e-books."

So if my current hardcover sells for $24.99, then as an ebook version, it should cost $21.86.

But it doesn't. It costs $9.99.

So how does that work?

Here's the answer, according to the article "For the moment, say some publishers, Amazon is effectively subsidizing the $9.99 price tag for new book titles in digital form by paying publishers the same $13 it pays them for a new hardcover title with a list price of $26. It’s a classic “loss leader” situation. Although Amazon won’t comment on the arrangement, the online bookseller is using low-price e-books as a lure to persuade consumers to pay $359 to buy a Kindle, or $489 for the new, larger Kindle DX."

But if the Kindle establishes itself as the dominant player in the ebook market, how long will Amazon be willing to pay publishers less? And if they pay do pay publishers less, you know that the publisher is giong to turn around and ask the authors to take less.

Lots more food for thought here.

Welcome to the world of $1300 a piece nausea patches or $400 a piece pain killers

Remember Bridget, this beautiful 31-year-old writer who lives in Portland? Three things happened to Bridget in February:
1. She got an agent for her young adult novel.
2. She got married.
3. She found out she has Stage Four colon cancer.

You want to know the reality of health care in American today? Bridget just found out that her "insurance" doesn't cover $1300 a piece nausea patches or $400 a piece pain killers. What would you choose? Paying rent or vomiting so much you end up back in the hospital? Buying groceries or being in agony?

But you can help. To help defray some of the costs, authors and artists all over the US have banded together to offer their goods and services in an online auction. Check out the items at the Bridget Zinn Auction at http://bridgetzinnauction.wordpress.com. The auction closes May 30.

If you live in Portland, then go to the Lucky Lab Brew Pub, 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Friday, May 29, 6:30-9 p.m. You don't have to RSVP. Just show up! Why did we pick that day? Because the Portland area Kidlit Bloggers decided meeting for drinks and chat on a regular basis would be a great way to network. Bridget came up with the idea to meet on the fifth Friday of a month. May 29 is a fifth Friday.

And if you would like to follow Bridget blog or just find out more about her, you can do so at http://www.bridgetzinn.com/blog/.

The Costco Miracle!

My agent is unfamiliar with Costco, and thought it might be similiar to Grocery Outlet, another of my favorite stores. But Costco isn't the last home for products that never sold. Instead it specializes in items, many high-end, at unbelievable prices. Seafood, meat, imported cheeses, clothes, bedding, cookware, office supplies - they might not have a lot in any one category, but the buys are incredible.

Costco stocks very little hardcover fiction. But now, thanks to being on the New York Times list, plus the hard work of our Thomas Nelson publicist, they have Face of Betrayalin stock on a trial basis in Seattle and Portland stores for only $11.99 (list is $25).

Shoot! That's even cheaper than I can authors' copies for. Yesterday I bought a couple and promptly gave them away to folks who wanted copies but for one reason or another couldn't get them.

While I was in the checkout line, I said to the checker, "See if you can figure out what's special about that book." They put your Costco card right in front of them. He looked back and forth and said in an amazed tone, "Wow! You have the same name as the author!"

Quite a coincidence!

If you live in Portland or Seattle and would like to meet Lis and I in person, see us at:
* Friday, May 29
6-8pm
Seattle Costco, Aurora Village, 1175 North 205th, Seattle

* Saturday, May 30
10am-1pm
Portland Costco (the busiest Costco in the country), Portland Warehouse, 4849 NE 138th Street, Portland

Can you help Bridget?

This is Bridget. Three things happened to Bridget in February:
1. She got an agent for her young adult novel.
2. She got married.
3. She found out she has Stage Four colon cancer.

I met Bridget a year ago at an Oregon SWCBI event. She had just moved to Portland from Wisconsin, where she was a teen librarian. She is a beautiful person, inside and out. When she found out she had an agent, she was just glowing. A few days later she went to a naturopath for headaches and vision problems. She ended up in the ER – and learned very quickly that she had cancer. Big, bad cancer.

Right now, Bridget is undergoing chemotherapy.

To help defray some of the costs, authors and artists all over the United States have banded together to offer their services in an online auction.

Are you a writer? Would you like the first pages of a manuscript critiqued? Are you ready to market a book,need a bookmark or advice on a query letter?

Are you a reader? There are dozens of signed books.

Do you like to travel? Want to get away to Torrey, Utah and take in the fabulous national parks in the area?

Are you looking for a handmade baby quilt, handmade book, jewelry and more?

Check out the items at Bridget Zinn Auction at http://bridgetzinnauction.wordpress.com. The money will help her with medical expenses.

If you could spread the word, I would be grateful.

And if you would like to follow Bridget blog or just find out more about her, you can do so at http://www.bridgetzinn.com/blog/.

I guess it wasn't a fluke

I guess it wasn't a fluke. Because Face of Betrayal is still going to be on the New York Times bestseller list May 17!

And we moved up!

And we are ahead of a James Patterson book! (Okay, one that is two months older, but still!)

Does this make up for the two years it took me to get an agent?

The fact that I had to write four books before one sold?

Being dropped by one publisher because the sales of my second book were not double the sales of my first?

Writing more books that did not sell even after I was published?

Having a few other issues that would not be politic to mention in a public post?

Um, I'm not sure.

But it helps!

If you can't say anything nice...maybe you should be a book reviewer

Or if not a book reviewer, at least post your thoughts on Amazon. An agent found some examples of negative reviews for famous books. My favorite was:

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
“I bought these books to have something nice to read to my grandkids. I had to stop, however, because the books are nothing more than advertisements for “Turkish Delight,” a candy popular in the U.K. The whole point of buying books for my grandkids was to give them a break from advertising, and here (throughout) are ads for this “Turkish Delight”! How much money is this Mr. Lewis getting from the Cadbury’s chocolate company anyway? This man must be laughing to the bank.”

Read more here.

Kicked off library board for “affirming traditional heterosexual perspectives"?

Teen read The Perks of Being a Wallflower when she was still Kid. I guess I should be glad it didn't make her gay, because four library board members in Wisconsin were fired for not “affirming traditional heterosexual perspectives," by getting rid of books like Perks or Brent Hartinger's Geography Club.

Do they really think that reading about gay kids makes people gay? Read more here.

Don't give up

Last Friday, I was at a fundraising event for affordable housing. I've done these for 10 years now. Affordable housing is just one piece of the puzzle of getting some people's lives on track. They had two authors speak, as well as a woman who a few years back was arrested for making meth and had her kids taken away. This spring she is getting her associate's degree and plans to get her bacehlor's. Her kids are back with her. The group that offered her a place to live also helped her learn how to be a parent. She is happy for the first time in her life.

Another story about not giving up is Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel, who was sitting next to me at the event. When I first got to know Garth, he was the author of two midlist books, one of which was out of print (and the other of which I loved, which led me to email him and started our frquaintanship). Then he wrote a book narrated by a dog and sent it off to his agent. The day before Thanksgiving, Garth was walking into the grocery store to buy a turkey when his agent called and said he liked it but there was no way he could sell a book narrated by a dog and Garth should write something different, something more typical.

Instead, he fired his agent.

And then he couldn't get one for a long time. He had an unexciting track record and a book about a dog.

Then he met another writer who had written a literary book narrated by a crow, and he suggested Garth contact his agent.

And that agent loved it, and there was an auction, and now it's selling in 25 countries, and they are making a movie with Patrick Dempsey, and Garth is going to Italy next month tour.

But none of that would have happened if he had given up.

Where Have I Seen that Bookcover Before?

A crime echoes down through the years

I was looking through some old journals at entries I had written around my birthday. In 1993, a man shot two Portland visitor guides, killing one, and then carjacked cars, shot more people, etc. The living guide, a 23 year old college studnet, came to our hospital. Everyone wanted to talk to her, but the cops said not to let her until they interviewed her again. My beeper and cell phone kept going off. Bryant Gumble sent her flowers. Someone else snuck into the hospital to try to get a photo of her.

This is what I wrote in 1993:
"The police didn't want her talking to anyone until they had had her positively ID the guy. They also wanted, as evidence, the bullets from her chest and right arm. And for some reason, they didn't want us to tell the media that was the reason they couldn't talk to her. I spent all day on the phone, hedging over and over, while journalists of every stripe begged for a family member to talk to, or a still photo, or something they could show their viewers/readers.

And in between I sat in the hospital room and talked to her and the woman she called her "other mother," watched as that woman brought her lipstick and rubbed oil on her skin so it wouldn't look ashy on the TV screen, ran a pomade through her hair. Her arm was in a cast, part of it was gone, and she told me about how she had wanted to be a surgeon. I use the past tense, but for her it was still in the present tense, that her arm still had the fine motor coordination she would need to perform surgery. Every three or four minutes my beeper would go off and I would leave the room and talk to one more cajolling reporter. Some of them called her room instead of me, in spite the code of cooperation that exists in this state, but were given away when they asked for her by her full name. She was nervous and excited and not hurting much at all. Later, after the detectives finally came and took away the flattened bullets in two baggies, she held her own at a news conference, eyes black and snapping. How had she felt? What had it been like to hear the TV sets in the pawn shop behind her exploding as he shot at her again and again? Was she planning on going back to her job? We escorted her in and out, gave her tips on what to say beforehand. It went well. We left shortly afterward, after congratulating ourselves and her.

Two days later, she called, asking if one of us needed to escort her to the funeral for her co-worker who was killed the same day she was shot. Nah, we really didn't need to do that. The feeding frenzy was over, but she didn't realize it. Now the attention was somewhere else, for a while on the grieving man's family, then later on the victims of some new tragedy. Her arm? I don't know what happened to it. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. It will make a good story for new people she meets, but the general public - guided by the media - will never be interested in it again. Too small a story for a "where are they now?" piece. Maybe a sentance in a summary paragraph in a story about the many people touched by crime.
===
So today I got curious and googled her. Here's what I learned about what happened next.
- Within the next 18 months, she had a baby. In the next ten years, she had two more.
- A single mom, she met some charming, charismatic guy. She didn't know about his past convictions for domestic assault.
- He moved in with her.
- He choked her.
- They broke up.
- They patched things up.
- They broke up again.
- Smiling, he came by to get his things. When she turned, he hit her dozens of times with a hammer.
- When the cops came, he said he would kill her if they came in.
- They tasered him twice.
- At his trial, he said she hit him first.
- Now he's in prison.

I wonder what would have happened to her if she hadn't been shot that day?

A giveaway to celebrate Face of Betrayal

Face of Betrayal officially releases tomorrow!

Publishers Weekly says, “Wiehl, a Fox News commentator and legal analyst, teams with mystery veteran Henry (Buried Diamonds) on a sizzling political thriller. When 17-year-old Senate page Katie Converse goes missing on her Christmas break near her parents' white Victorian home in Portland, Ore., law enforcement and media personnel go into overdrive in a search for clues. Three friends at the pinnacle of their respective careers--Allison Pierce, a federal prosecutor; Cassidy Shaw, a crime reporter; and Nicole Hedges, an FBI special agent--soon discover that Katie wasn't the picture of innocence painted by her parents. It appears Katie was having an affair with a much older man, a senator whose political career could be derailed if the affair was publicized. The seamless plot offers a plethora of twists and turns.”

I say: it's time for a giveway!I'd love to give a couple of signed copies away!

It's so simple!
1. Comment on this post and let me know you're in. (If you're not on Blogger, give me your email or another way to get hold of you)
2. To get your name in twice, opy this post into your blog or Facebook or what have you.
3. Wait until April 19, when Teen will draw the winners.

Thanks for playing along!

See me, hear me (but no touch me, feel me) I’ll be on the Lars Larson show and at Powells April 7

If you live in the Northwest, on Tuesday, April 7, I will be on the Lars Larson show at 12:30 PST. Can I just say I am freaking nervous! That same night, I’ll also be at Powells in Beaverton.

If you want to listen to the audio steam live, click here . And pray for me! This is live radio. No do overs. No copy edits.

Live in Portland?

I will be at Powells Cedar Hills Tuesday, April 7 at 7 p.m., and I would love to see some friendly faces there. I’ll be talking about my new young adult novel, Torched. I’ll also talk about my new adult mystery, Face of Betrayal, which I co-wrote with FOX legal analyst Lis Wiehl.

Torched is about 16-year-old Ellie. When her hippie parents are arrested for growing marijuana, the FBI offers her a choice. Infiltrate the radical environmental group the Mother Earth Defenders, or her parents will go to jail. But when Ellie joins the group, her loyalties are compromised – and she also finds herself falling in love. Booklist says “The contemporary mix of politics and thrilling action will grab teens, not just environmentalists, as Ellie must decide how to save her parents and save the earth. … This suspenseful story will spark discussion about what it means to fight for right ‘by any means necessary.’”

Face of Betrayal begins when 17-year-old Senate page Katie Converse disappears from Northwest Portland while home on Christmas break. Three women take a special interest in her case: Allison Pierce is a federal prosecutor, Nicole Hedges is an FBI agent, and Cassidy Shaw is a TV crime reporter. Together the three women band together to find Katie. Their prime suspect: a senator who may have gotten a little too close to the girl. Publishers Weekly calls it a "sizzling political thriller" with a "seamless plot [that] offers a plethora of twists and turns."

I’ll also be teaching a class on mystery writing at Annie Bloom’s Books.
Commit the perfect crime: learn to write a mystery, thriller or suspense novel. Millions of people read mysteries – why not a mystery written by you? Currently, 6 of the top 10 New York Times hardcover bestsellers and 8 of the top 10 paperbacks are mysteries, thrillers, or suspense novels.

Whether you’re a beginning writer or already have a work in progress, you’ll benefit from this supportive, results-oriented workshop led by an author who just had her eighth book published. Through writing assignments, discussions on craft, and instructor and peer feedback, you’ll learn the fundamentals of crime writing. By the time class ends, you’ll know how to choose point-of-view, develop characters, write lively dialog, handle violence, increase tension, and plant clues, as well as critical techniques for self-editing. You’ll also learn practical tips for attracting the right agent. This is a highly interactive class – so be prepared to write, read, and talk!

Annie Bloom’s Books
7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland

Sundays, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Begins: April 26
$225 for 10 classes ($60 deposit)

Register by e-mailing:
aprilhenrymysteries@yahoo.com

A giveaway

Torched releases today!
When Ellie’s parents are busted for growing pot, the FBI thinks they've finally found a way inside Mother Earth Defenders, a radical environmental group. They give her a choice: infiltrate MED or her parents will go to jail. At first Ellie is more than willing to entrap the MEDics, but the more time she spends undercover—particularly with Coyote, the green-eyed MEDic that she can’t stop thinking about—the more she starts to believe in their cause. When talk turns to murder, Coyote backs out, but Ellie is willing to risk everything to save her family—even if it means losing Coyote and putting her own life on the line.

Kirkus says "the thrills and action will keep readers interested." Booklist says, "The contemporary mix of politics and thrilling action will grab teens, not just environmentalists."

I say: it's time for a giveway! I'd love to give a couple of signed copies away!

It's so simple!
1. Comment on this post and let me know you're in.
2. To get your name in twice, copy this post into your blog (and let me know in the comments so that I give you credit)
3. Wait until March 15, when Teen will draw the winners.

Thanks for playing along!

Fun to think about

My first book, Circles of Confusion, came out in 1999. There was a lot of "close but no cigar" movie interest. One producer got the book on Drew Barrymore's company's short list, even though at the time Drew was far younger than the character. (I was told Drew "has emotional baggage that makes her older than her years.")

Drew made Riding in Cars with Boys (another book to movie) and the producer went her way and I went mine.

So my phone just rang. It was the producer from nine or ten years ago. She has a meeting in a few weeks with someone in Hollywood and she is looking for a couple of ideas to pitch. And she thought of Circles of Confusion. She said it was a perfect book, with a little mystery, a little romance, etc. She's kept my phone number all these years (I couldn't even remember her name) and she wanted to know if rights were available.

I didn't know whether to be coy or not, so I just said the rights were available and she should talk to my agent.

It's a total long shot, but F-U-N to think about.

Cover, cover, who's got the cover?

It's the rare book cover that is done entirely by a commissioned artist or has a photo shoot set up for it. Often the cover is made up of stock images, sometimes manipulated. Cases in point:
















Gotta remember to ask my publishers to print my next cover in purple, because Evermore ended up on both the NY Times bestseller list and the USA Today bestseller list!

If you like cover art, check out http://jacketwhys.wordpress.com .

Best Vanity Plate Ever!

And it's even from Oregon!

I wrote a whole series of books featuring a vanity licnese plate verifier (there actually are such people), starting with Circles of Confusion.

My own vanity plate is TUVWXY which no one ever, ever gets. Ever.

Get me redesign!

I've got a new favorite book blog: Book Ninja. Back in October, they challenged readers to rebrand serious books with more sales-friendly covers.

The winner? Ingrid Olson redid The Road, the most depressing apocalyptic book you could imagine, as a parenting how-to.

Click here to see more.

Guess who's written a "sizzling political thriller"?

Guess who's written a "sizzling political thriller" with a "seamless plot that offers a plethora of twists and turns"?

According to Publishers Weekly, Lis Wiehl and I have. [Full disclosure: I'm also referred to as a "mystery veteran," which makes me sound like I've gone to war.] The book in question, Face of Betrayal, publishes April 7.

For the past week, I've been dreaming of seeing the review. In my dreams, I would look on line, but I couldn't find it. Or I could find it, but the words would get blurry when I tried to read it. Reality was much better than my dreams - it was all praise without a single quibble!

Teens were sentenced to bootcamps so judges could get kickbacks!

As anyone who has read Shock Point can tell you, I'm not a big fan of boot camps for teens.

But this is beyond belief. Two Pennsylvania judges who have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. One girl was "sentenced to a wilderness camp for building a spoof MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal." Another boy spent months in a boot camp because his FRIEND stole some DVDS.

Read more here.

Come celebrate Oregon's 150th birthday with me!

Oregon turns 150 on Valentine's Day. To celebrate, the Central Library in Portland is having an event February 14, 2:30-4 p.m.! Light refreshments will be served.

Special guests will include:

April Henry, author [AKA - me!]
Barbara Drake, poet
Candy Bertelson, librarian
David Schmitke, reporter
Gabriel Boehmer, author
Helen Raptis, television host
Henk Pander, artist
Janet Irwin, librarian
Jose Holguin, radio/TV personality
Laura Foster, author
Manuel Arellano, library staff member
Martin Gonzalez, PPS schoolboard member
Rocio Rios, newspaper editor
Ross Huffman-Kerr, actor

The speakers are going in alphabetical order by first name - so it's good to start with A!

For more information, click here.

Good publishing news for so many friends!

From Publishers Lunch:
Amanda Marrone's THE MAGIC REPAIR SHOP CHRONICLES three-book series in which a twelve-year old girl takes on an apprenticeship in a magic repair shop, to Kate Angelella at Aladdin, by Wendy Schmalz at Wendy Schmalz Agency (World).

Edgar Award winner Robin MacCready's SNAPSHOT, in which a girl discovers her father has a secret life, to Christy Ottaviano at Christy Ottaviano Books, by Wendy Schmalz at Wendy Schmalz Agency (World).

Author of the NYT bestseller WAKE Lisa McMann's next paranormal stand-alone, again to Jennifer Klonsky at Simon Pulse, for publication in spring 2011, by Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World).

Adrienne Maria Vrettos's untitled NYC mystery, in which a teenage girl wakes up in a nearly empty subway car to find herself in an unfamiliar costume and makeup, with no memory of what's happened to her in the three days since Halloween; it will take her five days to figure out why she only has six days to live, to Lisa Cheng at Margaret K. McElderry Books, for publication in Spring 2011, by Tracey Adams at Adams Literary (US).

The Love that Dares Not be Put on a Shelf

School Library Journal has an interesting article about self-censorship. School librarians only have so many dollars at their disposal. They can't buy every book. So how often does self-censorship factor in: librarians choosing not to buy a book that they feel might lead to parental challenges and protests?

"In the first survey of its kind, School Library Journal (SLJ) recently asked 655 media specialists about their collections and found that 70 percent of librarians say they won’t buy certain controversial titles simply because they’re terrified of how parents will respond. Other common reasons for avoiding possible troublemakers include potential backlash from the administration (29 percent), the community (29 percent), or students (25 percent), followed by 23 percent of librarians who say they won’t purchase a book due to personal objections."

Librarians "tend to be skittish about book purchases for obvious reasons. Sexual content ranks number one, with 87 percent of those surveyed by SLJ saying it’s the main reason they shy away from buying a book. Objectionable language (61 percent) comes in second, followed by violence (51 percent), homosexual themes (47 percent), racism (34 percent), and religion (16 percent)."

Read more here.

I chose to self-sensor a tiny bit with the paperback of Shock Point, after a middle school student in Texas raised his hand at a school visit and asked me why I used "the b word." When I thought about it, the word wasn't needed. The book was suspensful enough whether or not the bad guys said it. So I asked that it be taken out.

The series I'm writing with Lis Wiehl is for Thomas Nelson, so it is squeaky clean. Characters can't even say "Jeez," let alone "the f word." It's frankly more of a problem to think of how a bad guy would talk in those books and not swear.

Happy anniversary to me!

Today marks one year of no nylons, no commute, no boring meetings, no creative briefs, no makeup, and no fixed schedule. No more trying to channel the latest CEO’s not-very-well-articulated thoughts. A year where my life has been my life. A year of trying to make a living as a writer

Sure on the flip side, it also marks a year with no company-provided benefits, no company adding to a pension, and watching our retirement and Teen’s college savings lose about 40 percent of their value.

But I’ve also signed contracts for five books, written three or four (if you add all the pieces up), started running four days a week (in the winter, when I was working, I could only run one or two), and discovered that I’m not lonely (which was one of my big fears).

Would I do it again, knowing the economy was going to tank?

Yes. Shaking and trembling, but yes. Because it was getting to the point that work was soul-crushing.

This pretty much describes my old job.

Naming Names

I need a name for a main character, a female serial killer who looks and acts normal most of the time.

Got a first name you want to nominate? She's white, in her mid-30s, middle class, American.

I'll send you a book or two if I pick yours.

Our new cover is up!

Face of Betrayal, the first in a new series co-written with Lis Wiehl, comes out a week before my birthday. I’m doing a reading at the Cedar Hills Powells the day it’s released, April 7. If you live in Portland, I would love to see you there.

My book reviews in the Sunday Oregonian

When I picked up the paper on Sunday, I found myself avoiding the books page. Because it had my review in it. Not a review of my book - a review I had written. I always worry that I’ll figure out I made some big error and it will be too late and I can't take it back. Which is sort of related to my fears about reviews of my books.

Anyway, in the Sunday Oregonian, I reviewed two books by Portland authors: The Fetch and Far from You.

Read the reviews here.




[Full disclosure: and on a sidenote, as another blog pointed out, don’t the jackets for Graceling and The Fetch look alike? I guess there are only so many ideas in the world.]