Our First Author Interview... and Getting the Gas

Hi Y'all.

Last Day of the Competition status: Um, yeah, it's the last day to be entered in the drawing for the autographed copy of Laurie Halse Anderson's book Speak.

I've procured our first author interview. She is Sydney Salter, and her book My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters hit shelves just last month.

Here's the blurb from Amazon:

"It’s the end of junior year, and summer is about to begin. The Summer of Passion, to be exact, when Jory Michaels plans to explore all the possibilities of the future--and, with any luck, score a boyfriend in the process. But Jory has a problem. A big problem. A curvy, honking, bumpy, problem in the form of her Super Schnozz, the one thing standing between Jory and happiness. And now, with the Summer of Passion stretched before her like an open road, she's determined for Super Schnozz to disappear. Jory takes a job delivering wedding cakes to save up for a nose job at the end of the summer; she even keeps a book filled with magazine cutouts of perfect noses to show the doctor. But nothing is ever easy for accident-prone Jory--and before she knows it, her Summer of Passion falls apart faster than the delivery van she crashes. In her hilarious and heartbreaking debut novel, Sydney Salter delivers a story about broadening your horizons, accepting yourself, and finding love right under your nose."

I think it sounds like a lot of fun! My copy's coming in the mail, and I plan on reading it before our interview. Join me if you'd like, and we'll make it a full-blown book club.

Please send along any questions you might have for Sydney. They can be about anything writing related, so you don't have to be familiar with her book. (How she came up with the story, how she got published, etc.)

Just to make it extra fun, the first three commenters who give me good questions (you know what I mean, they can't be "what's your dog's name" or "cubs or white sox" or anything like that) will win a copy of her book!

Any subsequent questioners will be put in a drawing to win an autographed copy of her book! (Providing I can get one before the interview. If not, it will be a regular copy.)

Most of you are familiar with my evil plan to single-handedly sustain the Young Adult publishing world, right? Mwah-ha-ha. Ha. Bankruptcy now, world domination soon.

NUMBER 12

So, I stopped the "25 things about me" tag at number eleven, because I couldn't think of anything else. My cousin asked me what the rest are, and I promised her that over the course of the next decade, I will complete the list. Here's number 12.

12. I love, love, love, getting the gas at the dentist. I actually look forward to it. In fact, if I'm in the middle of a stressful moment of life, I daydream about getting gassed. If I'm impatient, waiting for revisions for instance, I want to get gassed just to pass the time.

So, last night, when we were watching Chuck, this scene cracked me up. (Courtesy of NBC.com).

Chuck was pretending to be a doctor, operating on a known terrorist, and when his cover was blown, another terrorist attacked him. And then the nitrous oxide was released into the air. Enjoy the scene below.

I especially love the part where the guy slashes the knife back and forth, laughing, saying : "I was going to cut you, like this!"




If you've never watched Chuck, give it a chance. You can watch the full episode here.