I spent last Saturday morning at the Annapolis Book Festival, which is a fantastic event that I would have stayed at longer, but some of the people in my party were feeling under the weather, so I had to leave early. (Sad face.)

However, I did get to wander around the beautiful grounds of the Key School, check out the book sales, and participate in a marvelous panel on Young Adult Literature with a bunch of other great writers. I did not get to meet Jeffrey Deaver. Maybe next time.

The panel was well attended (standing room only!) and a lot of fun. There is always a danger, when discussing “mature topics in YA fiction” that the conversation is going to veer into the realm of censorship and “think of the children!” but instead we had a very in-depth and interesting discussion on how writers should handle mature topics, why teens might gravitate toward reading about mature topics, and why all of that can be okay. We also talked about a lot of books that don’t have a ton of “mature topics” — some written by our own panelists, like Caroline Hickey and Paula Chase-Hyman. I wish I’d gotten more of a chance to talk to Caroline and Paula but we got separated after the panel and I couldn’t find them again. However, I did have a great conversation with L.M. Preston, who writes YA sci fi– and I can never get enough of that! — at the signing they held after the panel.

The signing was also a lot of fun. I think I sold a bunch of books, and some blog readers showed up (Hi, Virginia! Hi, Celia!) I totally made a fool of myself in front of Virginia, by the way, because we got into this whole discussion about Avatar: The Last Airbender and Postal Service and about whether I could get away with naming a kid Toph, and I accidentally heard her name as REGINA and wrote it that way in her book. Big oops.

Here’s a picture of me with Virginia of the pretty hair:

And see that plastic bag down by the books? That’s a bag of Rose & Grave pins I totally failed to give out to people. I was not at my most organized that morning.

I also got to meet Celia of the Adventures of Cecilia Bedelia, who actually got some copies of Rampant signed for her blog readers, and is giving them away right now! Go enter! She has a picture of us too, but it’s kind of blurry. It’s six of one, half dozen of the other here, though, since in my picture, we’re looking elsewhere. Observe:

I think this is L.M. Preston’s photographic style.

Afterward, I’d hoped to attend a panel on historical romance with Jane Feather and Lauren Willig (who I went to college with, but though we have several good friends in common, I never knew her), but I guess I’ll see them at RWA this summer. That’s right, I’m also going to RWA. I have one major book conference a month planned for this summer, and, um, five book releases before October’s over.

May: BEA con
June: ALA con
July: Kiss Me Deadly anthology releases, RWA con
August: Rampant paperback releases
September: Ascendant releases, Zombies vs. Unicorns releases
October: Secret Project MG releases

And three weddings, and a book due, and — gosh, you’d think that would be enough, wouldn’t you? No wonder I’ve been so busy!

Speaking of, how did I do on my little goal sheet for the week?

• finish and turn in final (fingers crossed!) rounds of revision for Secret Project: MG (which hopefully I’ll be able to announce soon)
• Get a good chunk of PAP drafted
• Clean out winter clothes from bedroom
• Progress with garden
• Walk Rio every day (M/T/W done)
• Various admin stuff related to health
• Various admin stuff related to civic duty (Done Monday!)
• Various admin stuff related to bills
• Pull trigger on e-reader situation (Done Monday!)
• Various admin stuff related to upcoming vacation to Caribbean (!!!)
• Get Rio groomed
• Prepare for house party on Saturday
• begin reorganizing kitchen

I did not walk Rio on Thursday, and we definitely felt the effects of that on Thursday night, as she ran around our street looking like a little, red Tasmanian devil. I also did not arrange to get her groomed, so unless there’s a surprise opening for her tomorrow morning (unlikely) it looks as if it’ll be me in the bathtub with her — and she doesn’t like that one bit. It’s too bad, though, since she REALLY needs the fluff around her ears trimmed (you don’t want me anywhere at the intersection of scissors and hair), and I hate clipping her nails.

I got some work done on PAP, though not as much as I’d like. Plans for Saturday’s party are going swimmingly (if only the weather would coordinate — it’s supposed to be cold and rainy, and we were holding a barbecue!), but are obviously not done, as it’s only Friday morning. Cleaning fell through the cracks, as it’s always on the bottom of my priority list, so that’s what I’m concentrating on today.

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Yesterday’s post focused specifically on books I read in high school. but I noticed, reading your responses, that I have read some of those other books, though sometimes not for class (I did read and love Brave New World for class, though, I’d totally forgotten!) and some for a class other than one in high school. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in middle school (loved it) and Frankenstein in college (ditto).

A few of you (JJ and Katherine) mentioned hating “puritan literature.” I’m not sure what you mean by that. I remember (vaguely) doing a Puritan section in my American lit class, even though most of what we read (Hello, The Crucible, which I also loved) was not necessarily written by Puritans. We also read The Scarlet Letter, which I liked fine but is not my favorite, and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” which I promptly forgot until I got to Yale and had a good giggle over the fact that the mascot of Jonathan Edwards College’s mascot was a spider. What is the puritan lit you’re talking about?

I am very curious what Sharon’s Yonkers high school did have her read, I think Emilia probably made Carrie Ryan’s day by saying she liked The Forest of Hands and Teeth better than Farenheit 451, and I’m so jealous of Rhiannon’s roaring 20s party! I want to throw a Gatsby party now!

I think our reading tastes, as a blog community, are very similar. There’s a lot of love for Shakespeare on yesterday’s post, and Dorian Gray, 1984, and Jane Austen. And I’m glad to see I’m not alone in my dislike of Wuthering Heights, even though most of you think I should try the other Brontes anyway. (This is similar to even Steinbeck haters telling me to go for East of Eden. And I feel like I should, given that it’s Poe’s favorite book.) Perhaps it is unfair of me to think that I’ll hate one sibling’s work just because I hated another’s.And LJK set my mind at ease about my inability to recognize what was going on in The Sun Also Rises. I was always worried I was the only one in the dark.

(There’s a reason for this. I was shocked — shocked, I tell you — when Darcy proposed. I got much better at reading comprehension as high school went on. But I can still never guess “whodunnit” in a mystery, which is probably why I don’t usually enjoy mysteries.)

What I thought was very interesting is how some people (like Lenore and dragonfly) loved everything they were assigned to read and other people (like Rhiannon and Phoebe) had the joy of reading sucked out of them by the act of study. I loved studying literature and the more I learned the tools by which to interpret what I was reading, the more I enjoyed it. Though, like Phoebe, I hated being told that “X symbolizes Y” and that this was the only way to read something. I loved it when I got to college and learned in my literary theory class that a lot of people think that kind of crap is… well, crap. Viva la intentional fallacy!

(Yes, this is the only time I say that. As a writer, I rue the day I learned that I just had to accept that the something I want to say in my work doesn’t really so much matter.)

Do you think that students’ resistance to reading certain things is:

a) a product of teaching styles? (stop telling children what “green” means!)
b) a product of what they are reading? (stop forcing children to read particular bad titles — which is of course a slippery slope)
c) a product of individual students’ reading tastes?

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An interesting discussion on Twitter has blossomed into an interesting post over at Robin Wasserman’s blog about books you read for class in high school that you loved/hated.

Okay, unscientific and super-fast survey time, because now I’m curious:

If you’re in high school now, well, no extra-special additional question, but I’ll be doubly curious to hear your answer. (And maybe if there’s something unanimously loved, I’ll risk taking another look.)

Personally, I loved most of the books I read in high school. I had AMAZING high school English teachers (Mrs. Sayers and Ms. McDuffie) who I credit quite a bit toward teaching me how to write and cultivating in me a love of literature. Because I had nothing against being “assigned” books and they taught literature in such a way that I could learn how to analyze it without losing how to appreciate it (with one glaring exception), I really feel that the books I hated in high school would be books I’d hate now, so I havent actually tried any re-reading.

Loved:

• A Separate Peace
• The Chosen
• Pride & Prejudice
• The Crucible
• all the Shakespeare we read
• The Odyssey
• As I Lay Dying
• Kaffir Boy
• The Picture of Dorian Grey
• The Magus

Hated:

• The Red Pony
• The Grapes of Wrath
• All the Pretty Horses
• Wuthering Heights

At the time, I hated Lord of the Flies. It was the first book we read in high school, and therefore, it was dissected and offered up on the altar of “now we’re going to teach the students how to analyze literature.” I will never forget how one day, we had to answer questions about what the color of the poop the boys were pooping symbolized. I really don’t know why this book was so utterly destroyed, because, as I said before, this teacher was fantastic. Perhaps it was just a classroom conversation that devolved by students who were really resistant to the idea of talking about symbolism or literary analysis. I can’t remember now. But I do remember it wasn’t fun anymore. Things got better after that. (Though I do remember, sophomore year, everyone in my class being so confused by what was going on in The Sun Also Rises only to be told by the students who had a different, less G-rated  teacher what the main character’s big conflict was.)

Over at Robin’s blog, the votes are coming in fast and furious for A Separate Peace. Interesting.

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I can’t believe April is half over already! This was going to be my big “get stuff done” month, and though I have, indeed, gotten a lot of stuff done, I am certainly falling behind on a few of my goals. So I hereby announce this “get stuff done” week. This week, I plan to:

• finish and turn in final (fingers crossed!) rounds of revision for Secret Project: MG (which hopefully I’ll be able to announce soon)
• Get a good chunk of PAP drafted
• Clean out winter clothes from bedroom
• Progress with garden
• Walk Rio every day (M/T/W done)
• Various admin stuff related to health
• Various admin stuff related to civic duty (Done Monday!)
• Various admin stuff related to bills
• Pull trigger on e-reader situation (Done Monday!)
• Various admin stuff related to upcoming vacation to Caribbean (!!!)
• Get Rio groomed
• Prepare for house party on Saturday
• begin reorganizing kitchen

So that there on the internet, to keep me honest.

Okay, off to walk Rio now. I’ll be back later to talk about the book festival.

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One more time:

Annapolis Book Festival at the Key School, Saturday, April 17, 10 AM – 4 PM

Panel: Topics in Young Adult Fiction: 11:00 a.m. ROOM 3 – Barn Learning Center

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Like many people, I have recurring nightmares. By the time we’ve reached adulthood, our recurring nightmares have solidified into a distinct type that usually pops up when we are at our most vulnerable. “Stress dreams.” Maybe it’s the one where you show p for school naked. Maybe it’s the one where you are looking for soemthing lost and can’t find it, or the one where your teeth start falling out.

Mine takes the form of the “unknown exam.” The dream is always the same. I’m in my last semester of college, and exams are coming up. I have an exam for a class that I don’t remember registering for. I have to make up all the work for this class or I’ll fail out of school. Sometimes, it’s even too late for that, and there’s no way to make up the course work.

I have had this dream for years. Whenever I am stressed out about something, this is the dream I have. I usually wake up in an utter panic, and sometimes it takes me a really long time to remember that I haven’t been in college in almost ten years, that I did graduate, and that my degree is in a frame downstairs in my office. Sometimes it takes me several minutes. Yes. There I am lying in bed with my husband, in Washington DC, in a house I bought with money from my career, with a puppy that I bought AFTER I bought my house at my feet, and it takes me several minutes to remember that I’m not longer a college student in a dorm room in New Haven.

I am not proud of this.

I’m not the only one who has this dream. In fact, it’s so common a recurring nightmare that people have actually written academic papers on the subject.

Indeed, success is one of the hallmarks of many people with recurrent exam nightmares, says Zadra, who wrote his doctoral thesis on the link between recurrent dreams and psychological well-being…. “What’s strange is that the negative aspect in the dream is tied to an experience in which the dreamer did well. What people should keep in mind is to make a link with their current situation. There is the same underlying message: this is just another task that I can solve or approach constructively.” This link, often a stressful situation, is known as a “retrieval clue.”

Which is interesting, especially in the context of what I’m about to tell you.

Last night, I had the dream again. Except, this time in the dream, for the first time since I started having this dream many years ago, something was different. This time, I called the professor back and told him that there was absolutely NO WAY I’d signed up for a 300-level math course, and that he must have the wrong student number down or something on his registrar packet. And then I called the registrar’s office and told them that there must be some mistake, that a 300 level math course was not required for me to complete either of my two majors and I would not have signed up for it on a whim as an elective (I hadn’t taken the pre-reqs, either), and that therefore, someone had made a coding error. I got the issue resolved. I ddn’t have to take the exam.

And then I woke up.

I have no idea what this means. All I know was that I was in such a gleeful mood when I woke up. I’d beaten the dream! For once, I’d beaten it. I didn’t need to take the exam. I didn’t need to lay quietly and remember how I’d graduated from college in 2001. I’d solved the problem in my dream. I actually laughed out loud. I woke up my husband, who wanted to know what I was laughing about.

I know why I had the stress dream. There is something going on in my life that has never left me feeling so utterly powerless.

But why did I beat this dream? Why now? Is my subconscious telling me that I’m an adult, that I’m no longer a college student, and that it’s time to put away childish things? Are my new stress dreams going to be not of a collegiate nature? Or is that just the pessimist talking?

Or is my subconscious taking one of its most cherished security blankets, the outlet for stress it has relied upon for the better part of a decade, and offering it up as a sacrifice? Here, you can have this. You can have this to show you that you are stronger than the things that are happening to you. That you can overcome them. There is a way.

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Since, y’know, I’m writing one.

I am a big, big fan of retellings, in general. I think the first time I was aware of one was when my parents introduced me to West Side Story. My dad is not the biggest musical fan, but he loves West Side Story, because ballet-dancing gang members are totally awesome. I saw West Side Story way before I saw or read Romeo and Juliet, in fact.

(My husband, Shakespeare lover that he is, is probably even now drawing up divorce papers. Nah, just kidding. In fact, last year, he got me tickets to the new bilingual WSS when it was in DC gearing up for its Broadway run.)

Anyway, thus began my long love affair with retellings. I love Clueless, I love Bridget Jones’s Diary, I love Valiant, I love O, Brother, Where Art Thou.

And of course, given my long and devoted love, I’ve come to several conclusions about what makes for the best kind of retellings,or indeed, what even constitutes a “retelling” as opposed to an “adaptation” or a “reboot.”

For instance: The Baz Luhrman film Romeo + Juliet is not a retelling. It’s an adaptation. Though set in modern day California, it uses Shakespeare’s dialogue. West Side Story, on the other hand, takes the general plot (two young people from feuding groups fall in love, igniting street warfare and death) and certain character relationships (the “Romeo” and the “Mercutio” are best friends, the “Juliet” and the “Tybalt” are closely related) from Shakespeare’s play, and creates something entirely new.

On the other hand, I think the Drew Barrymore film, Ever After would definitely count as a “retelling.” The framing device reveals that the story is going to be about the “truth” behind the legend of Cinderella. There’s no magic, and the fairy godmother is really Leonardo Da Vinci. (Oh, and the prince recognizes a heck of a lot more than Cinderella’s slipper!)

It starts to get a little sticky at times. Now they’ve even got these “remixes” — stuff like Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, which takes the actual text of P&P and mixes it up with original material. (And no, since i get asked this all the time… my book is not one of these.)

Adaptations (by their very nature) and “reboots” (due to the rights issues involved) are much more common in film than in books. (I say, just as John Scalzi announces his sale of the “reboot” of the Little Fuzzy series.) So what differentiates these things? Might be one of those “I know it when I see it” things. It usually requires a very different setting. Batman Begins is a reboot, because there have been other Batman film franchises. Otherwise, it would have been an adaptation, because it was adapted from the comics.And yet, Ever After, which takes place in a frocks and swords European fairy tale-ish setting, is a retelling.

Gah, now I’m even confusing myself. Perhaps I should just stick with “I know it when I see it.”

How excited am I about the movie adaptation of the Beauty and the Beast retelling BEASTLY, by Alex Flinn? 1) I totally loved the book, 2) I love how many adaptations are coming out of YA novels these days, 3) Neil Patrick Harris.

Also, dudes in hoods are hot. I think I spent four books detailing that little insight into my psyche.

In passing, is it me, or does Beauty and the Beast, in particular, lend itself very well to retellings? I can’t tell you how many romance novels I’ve read that are retellings of that book, and one of my favorite YA novels of all time, Valiant (my troll love is vast), is also a retelling of that story. I think because it has a really great theme about loving someone for their insides, and the magic in that story is so metaphorical in nature, that it can truly be whatever you want it to be.

Speaking of Holly Black, I definitely credit a few conversations I had with her in Ireland last year with my decision to move forward with this project. Holly has tacked several retellings, and done it so skillfully that more than one person I know has said to me, “Oh, yeah! Valiant *is* Beauty and the Beast! Now I see it!” Her newest retelling is, of course, White Cat, which is based on the (rather obscure) fairy tale by the same name. Having read both Holly’s incredibly awesome fantabulous book and the fairy tale, I would argue that even fewer people would make the connection. You know, if they’d ever read the fairy tale. Which most people haven’t.

My point being, is that Holly’s way of thinking about retellings freed my mind from some of the doubt demons I had about tackling my own. And basically, what I got from the conversation was this: fair game. No matter what the source material, that’s THEIR story. Your story is your own, and you can feel free to jettison, combine, and remix whatever elements you need to to make your story the best it can be.In fact, the more it is your own, the better I like the retelling.

For instance, the troll in Valiant (unlike the boy in Beastly) is not under a curse. He is, in fact, a troll. True love will not make him “beautiful” again. Because that wasn’t the point of Black’s retelling, which was more about Val (the “Beauty” character) and her personal journey. Whereas it is the point of Flinn’s retelling, because her story focuses on Kyle’s (the “Beast”) personal journey and how his “curse” was the catalyst for that to occur.

In Bridget Jones’s Diary, it’s not Bridget’s little sister who runs off with a disreputable man, thereby ruining the family’s reputation, it’s her mother, whose lover scams the Jones family friends out of their savings. (If you’ve only seen the movie, you are probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about, since they cut this plotline.) But in both cases, the fact that Darcy (it’s so convenient when characters get the same names in retellings, isn’t it?) tracks down the scoundrel in order to save Bridget/Lizzy’s family is the catalyst for them to reunite. In West Side Story, Tony (Romeo) still kills Maria’s (Juliet’s) beloved relative after the man kills Tony/Romeo’s best friend, sending him on the run and forcing Maria/Juliet to make a horrible choice between her family loyalty and her one true love.

The point is, in a retelling, you are taking a particular part of a story (a plot, a character, a story question, a theme) and using it as a jumping off place from which to create something entirely new. West Side Story used the plot and characters of Romeo & Juliet to talk about race relations in mid-century Manhattan. Valiant took plot elements and themes from Beauty and the Beast to tell a story about dark fairies, murder, and drug addiction. Clueless cut and combined and jiggled around character relationships from Emma to fit into a late 20th century lifestyle. And you can do those things because you are serving the needs of your story, and in order to create that omelet, well, you might have to break a few of the old story’s sacred eggs.

In other words: No fairy godmother? No problem. Use Da Vinci.

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So this is the second year of my attempt to grow a garden. As before, the drawbacks are my inherited black thumb, and my total ignorance when it comes to all things garden-related — though I suppose there is less ignorance than last year, as I now have a year of experience under my belt. Also as with last year, I focus my garden on the category of Stuff I Can Eat. Honestly, I do not get as excited by flowers, however pretty, as by the idea that I put a seed in the ground and now it’s two dozen tomatoes. Because Food Is Good.

This is last year’s garden at an early stage. The squash haven’t even come up yet. All that growth in the lower right is the radishes.

A quick recap of last year’s hits and misses:

2009 Garden:

• Created raised beds. (WIN!)
• Radishes, french and regular: the greens were nice, the bulbs never formed, perhaps because I failed to thin them.
• Sungold tomatoes, bought as seedlings: we drowned in these last summer, and they were gleeful drownings. Basically little tomato candies. So good. SB put these on his “must have again” list. (WIN!)
• Summer squash, from seed:  Got two squashess out of them (which were, to be fair, delicious!), then the vine succumbed to powdery mildew
• Zucchini: Death by powdery mildew before they fruited (and everyone told me I’d be drowing in ‘em!)
• Black-something (Cherokee?) tomatoes, bought as seedlings: Mixed bag. One died, one grew, and most of the fruits cracked before ripening. We got fewer than half a dozen before fall, but they were all delicious.
• Various other tomatoes, from seed: Never grew, but might have been shaded by the sungolds.
• Parsley: grew nice, but rarely used.
• Thyme: Ditto.
• Oregano: Used some, clearly don’t need to plant as much this year.
• Sage: Died. Shaded by the sungolds.
• Sweet basil (in pots): Never got very big (and my neighbors might as well have a basil farm in their backyard)
• Thai basil (in pots): never used
• Lemon basil (never used): never used
• Mint (in pots): Didn’t grow much, but survived the winter just fine!
• Spearmint (in pots): succumbed to the beloved overattention of Temp Dog #3
• Chocolate mint (in pots): died. TRYING AGAIN, though, because OMG the scent is INCREDIBLE.
• I also planted marigolds from seeds as a garden bed border, because I heard it keeps away some pests. They came up fine and were quite pretty. I never paid the least bit of attention to them.

Lessons learned: Some things sound a lot better in the farmer’s market than in my kitchen. I will henceforth try to plant more things that I know we actually eat. Also, people say plant mint in pots or it’ll take over your garden, but apparently those people don’t have my black thumb. We took down the tree that was shading my garden (because it was falling over), so I hope we have less of a problem with mildew this year. Also, the compost my organic farming neighbor brings in his truck is like twenty-times better than anything I can get anywhere else. I would start my own compost bin, but we don’t have a ton of space in my backyard.

It sounds from this list that I really only had one real “Success” last year with the sungolds, but we did have a good amount of basil (I didn’t buy any fresh basil last year, though we never did make pesto we had plenty for caprese salads all summer), some herbs and stuff, and some slicing tomatoes, and just being able to grow my own food was so cool that I’m all about giving it another whirl.

This is the parsley at an early stage last year. I stopped taking pictures after a while, which is a shame. I’ll do better this year.

Things I’m doing differently this year: I’m considering planting the mint in-ground. I’m just not sure where. There isn’t a lot of room in the raised beds (which is outside our fence, and therefore dog-free), and Rio LOVES mint. I’m also starting some of my seeds in those Seed-starter cardboard things. I didn’t do it last year, and my seeds came up fine, but what the heck, It was like $2 and this whole thing is an experiment anyway. Plus, I’ve begged my neighbor for more compost. And I’m doing more fruit.

Garden plans for 2010:

• Sungold tomatoes: 3 seedlings (SB is so excited)
• Some form of hybrid slicer tomato the farmer’s market lady recommended: one plant (might get another slicer later, depends if those really are tomatoes coming up in the garden already)
• Sage (from seed)
• Summer squash (from seed): three plants
• Zucchini (from seed): three plants (and I SURE hope they produce as promised this year!)
• Bell peppers (from seed): 4 plants, and can someone who knows tell me if I should use pots for these?
• Anaheim chilis (from seed): Ditto?
• Poblano Peppers (from seed): Ditto? (I ask about these peppers b/c the packets say all this stuff about not planting them near each other, which, given the small size of my garden, would necessitate pots)
• Alpine strawberries (seedling)
• Sequoia strawberries (seedling): One died already, the other one might make it.
• Quinalt strawberries (seedlings): these might have died already. They aren’t looking so good.
• Raspberries: two sticks, and I have NO CLUE where to put them in my yard without ripping out a bush.
• LoganEchollsberries: ditto
• Cucumbers: I have one of those seed strips. Thought it looked fun, but I haven’t planted it yet because I haven’t put anything in the actual garden yet. SB thinks the idea of “burpless” cucumbers is the funniest notion ever.
• Leaf lettuce (seedlings from farmer’s market) : four varieties. Kale, arugula, red fire something, and something else. Seven plants in total.
• Spinach (seedlings from farmer’s market): Seven (SB loves spinach)
• Oregano: one seedling in a decorative pot with
• Rosemary: Ditto
• Cilantro: Ditto (in passing, I think I probably should get more cilantro. We eat a lot of guacamole in this house)
• Sweet basil: Three seedlings worth, from: Farmer’s market, Home depot, and grocery store. We’ll see whose basil wins this year. Haven’t decided if I’m going to pot them or garden them yet.
• Chocolate mint: would you believe the thing DIED ON ME ALREADY? I’m getting a new one as soon as I find some. Chocolate mint, you haven’t beaten me yet!!!!
• The regular mint in the pot came back, so I’m hoping for the best. And there’s SOMETHING growing in the old chocolate mint pot, but I can’t tell if it’s CM or a weed.

I’m not sure what these are (the little things below the zucchini seedling), but I’m glad I took a picture of them last spring, because they are coming up again this year, even after SB tilled the garden. Because they are coming up in rows (even now), I suspect they are tomatoes. But I don’t think they ever got any bigger than this last summer, and I am finding it hard to believe there are still tomato seeds with some juice in them after the blizzards. But I don’t want to tear them out even though I’m about to dump a whole mess of compost on them tomorrow. I guess if they can survive tilling and six feet of snow, they can survive that, too. And…could this caption be any longer?

I’ve added a whole bunch of peppers this year, because our friends did them in pots off their back porch last summer, and they worked great, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Also, we have a grill now, and I love grilled peppers! I have some money for new plants, too, because I don’t have any of the initial set up gardening costs, like tools and the boundaries of the raised beds and pots. Besides, it’s year two. so it’s time to expand. I’m also doing some berries, because I LOVE THEM, and some strawberries, because my aforementioned organic farming neighbor says you can’t mess them up, even if you try. (Except, I appear to have already messed two of them up, and he said the same thing about the mint last year.) Seriously, I don’t get it. He’s constantly ripping strawberry shooters out of his yard and calling them a menace, and I’ve already killed mine and I’ve only had them for like two days.

I’ve also got this other new neighbor who just moved in, and after being here for approximately two days, had managed to set up a giant compost bin and rip out half her backyard, then till it with some automatic plowy-thing she rented from the hardware store, and into which plowed field she erected a scarecrow and started planting long rows of like, carrots and broccoli and other things that I’m not even ATTEMPTING to grow in my little 6′x4′ plot. She’s from Berkeley, y’all.

She fits in really well on my block, though. I’m totally the odd gardener out, in that I suck and everyone else is totally hardcore. To my left I have organic farmer guy (fig trees, y’all, and a rosemary bush bigger than me), and the couple with half the world’s supply of fresh basil (“we have pesto all winter!” the guy exclaimed, while handing me a giant paper sack filled with beefsteak tomatoes the day I moved in). On my right I’ve got the new gal and her scarecrow, and the woman whose side yard is covered with the most gorgeous flowers, whose front lawn has mower marks like a checker board, and who, year after year, FOR FUN, plants flowers and bushes in the public median despite the fact that they are regularly flattened by the recycling truck. Her flowers are gorgeous, though. It’s a fantastic public service.

And then there’s SB and me. This is what our gardening conversations sound like:

SB: Look, we have tulips!
Me: Oh, cool. How did they get there?
SB: Beats me. I’m surprised I didn’t kill them when I mowed the lawn.

We also discovered this lone rose last year.

Luckily for us, our neighbors are aware of our cluelessness and are always willing to step in and offer advice (or handfuls of fresh basil). Our one neighbor gives us strawberry cuttings and compost and told us about the powdery mildew. The one with the gorgeous lawn explained to us that our lawn wasn’t dead (as it appeared to be in late April last year), it was a certain variety that sounds like “shicksa grass” (but I’m sure that’s not the real name) that comes back late, but saves on mowing. She was right. The basil people — well, they give us basil, and shake our heads at our pitiful potted attempts. And the new girl pulled some stray violets out of my raised beds this evening, and is totally downplaying her scarecrow so I don’t feel so inadequate.

I love my neighbors. I love my garden!

Are you gardening? What are you growing? Do you have any advice for me?

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Annapolis Book Festival

When: April 17, 2010
Where: The Key School, 534 Hillsmere Drive, Annapolis, Maryland
Event: Topics in Young Adult Fiction
Time and Place: 11 AM, Room 3, Barn Learning Center

Come watch Diana (and a bunch of other awesome YA authors) talk about controversial subjects in YA literature. Take bets on how long it takes for Diana’s head to explode.

Book Expo America

When: May 25-27, 2010
Where: Javits Center, New York City
Event 1: Speed Dating With Children’s Authors; Wednesday, May 26, 11am-12:30pm (location TBA)
Event 2: Ascendant ARC signing and Giveaway; Wednesday, May 26, 3:30-4pm (location TBA)

I think the Speed Dating thing is something booksellers are invited to, but the ARC giveaway will no doubt be a violent free-for-all.

ALA Annual Conference

When: June 25-29, 2010
Where: Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC
Events: Fiction Breakfast, Saturday, June 26 (Time and Location TBA); signing in Harper booth (details TBA)

Yay, librarians! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways, Dewey-decimal style…

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Why, lookee here:

Ooh, pretty. And look how thick it is! That’s one hundred and eight thousand words of killer unicorns, Astrid’s inner struggle, romance, and both unbearably ugly and heart-stoppingly pretty frocks, people.

(Yes, I figured it was about time that I wrote a book with a pretty frock in it. I love pretty frocks myself, and somehow I got through four secret society girl books having barely dressed Amy in anything but jeans and swimsuits and hooded robes. So, sorry for the spoiler, but there’s one heck of a frock in this book. I mean, not like Luxe-book-cover frock, but right up there.)

So, a few caveats. I know this is the cover that has been floating around the internet. However, this is not the cover of the novel. This is the ARC cover. You can tell it’s not the real cover, because of the incredibly lo-res, massively pixelated, not-even-neatly-cut-out-from-the-original-image sword they smacked on there as a placeholder. Observe:

I’m honestly surprised that none of the people who have been (sometimes repeatedly) posting this image around the internet and calling it my cover has noticed this. And that only two people have actually emailed me and said, “I heard this was your cover, but I assume there’s a reason you yourself have never posted it/I’m sure Harper would never give you such a bad photoshopping job/what’s up with that, can you confirm?” (Thank you, people. You know who you are.)

Sometimes, cover designers make what they call a “comp” (for composite) which means they put together a bunch of images in a rough collage to show the editorial and marketing teams what they would like the cover to look like. That’s what this is: a comp. If they don’t have the final cover done in time for the ARC printings, the comp is what goes in the catalog (a sales tool for booksellers) and on the ARC (yet another sales tool).

The comp of the original Rampant cover was what went on the ARC of Rampant. It differed significantly in layout and font from the final (original) Rampant cover, and then the concept was scrapped entirely for what appeared on the hardcover when it finally came out. As you can see, this concept is in keeping with the Rampant hardcover, and I assume that the final Ascendant cover will look pretty close to this. (Crosses fingers the upcoming photo shoot goes well.) Which makes me happy, because I think it very much captures Astrid’s inner life in this book.

(It does not so much capture Astrid’s outer weapons usage. She barely picks up a sword in this book, except once when she is [SPOILER REDACTED] and then again, when she wields it against [HUGE FREAKING SPOILER REDACTED]. She’s all over the bows and knives though, and she even kills a unicorn with a [OMG SPOILER REDACTED SO MUCH]. However, I think it works really nicely with the series “look” and there’s more room to insert a unicorn than there would be on a bow. Also… well, I made up the alicorn knife. Kind of hard for someone to get a real picture of it.)

But enough about the non-cover! I’m sure what you all are really interested in is the inside! Here’s the back cover copy:

Now a fully trained unicorn hunter, Astrid Llewelyn is learning that she can’t solve all her problems with a bow and arrow. Her boyfriend has left Rome, the Cloisters is in dire financial straits, her best friend’s powers are mysteriously disintegrating, and her hope of becoming a scientist seems to be nothing but an impossible dream.

So when she’s given the opportunity to leave the Cloisters and use her skills as part of a scientific quest to discover the Remedy, Astrid leaps at the chance. Finally, she can have exactly what she wants—or can she? At Gordian headquarters deep in France, Astrid begins to question everything she had believed: her love for Giovanni, her loyalty to the Cloisters, and—most of all—her duty as a hunter. Should Astrid be saving the world from killer unicorns or saving unicorns from the world?

And here are a few randomly-generated, hopefully spoiler-free phrases from within the pages of this, my sixth published novel:

“The real Clothilde Llewelyn had been scarred and dirty, with blood-soaked hands and arms that looked like ragged ropes of muscle.”

“Ooh, would you? We’d make prime time!”

“A unicorn-hunting decoy.”

“Where’s my wannabe doctor cousin?”

“You told me you hardly ever see him.”

“Did einhorns hibernate like bears?”

“The green shaft of Melissende’s arrow still jutted from its side.”

“The first touch of their magic was like a cool breeze in the midst of a heat wave.”

“Six seconds. Six seconds too many.”

“All the women in my family are strong.”

Enough of that. I’m sure what you really want to know is how to get your hands on one of these beauties. Well, I know I’ve already promised some to a few of you (there was a contest a few months back…). And then I also know I”ll be signing copies at some upcoming bookish events, like BEA and ALA. And I’m still trying to plan out what I’ll do here, but it will be something, eventually.

So stay tuned!

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