Upcoming Events & Signings

I'm in the revision cave, but here is a list of events where I'll be signing and/or reading for the next few months. This is a pretty solid schedule, but some things are still subject to change. More info will be posted closer to the events . . .

Thursday, March 17th, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m., Teen Author Festival, NYC - Reading from Jazz in Love at a Queens library (location to be announced).

Sunday, March 20th, Books of Wonder, 1:45 p.m.

Thursday, April 14th, keynote speech at San Gabrielino High School, San Gabriel, CA

Thursday, April 21st, 6:30 p.m. Toronto Women's Bookstore - Discussion with authors Zetta Elliott and Vivek Shraya on publishing options for under-represented voices. This discussion will be live-streamed from the bookstore, so even if you cannot attend IRL (in real life), you can attend virtually!

Saturday, April 23rd, 1:00 p.m. Booksigning at Yorkdale's Chapters/Indigo bookstore with authors Helene Boudreau, Mahtab Narsimhan, and Cheryl Rainfield.

Saturday, May 14th, 1 p.m. Diversity in YA tour with Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, Jacqueline Woodson, Rita Williams Garcia, Matt De La Pena, and Kekla Magoon.

If you're in any of the above areas, please stop by and say hello!

LIVE-streamed Book Launch

My dear friend, Sheila Batacharya, is celebrating the launch of a book she co-edited about the 1997 murder of Reena Virk in British Columbia, Canada. Reena Virk was a Punjabi teen who was murdered by a group of teen girls (and one boy) she wanted desperately to be friends with.

Most of the media coverage focused on the "girl-violence" aspect of the case and all but ignored the glaring race and hetero-normative elements. The book is called Reena Virk - Critical Perspectives on a Canadian Murder and takes a closer look at some of the issues that went largely unreported in mainstream media coverage.

The book launch will be live-streamed from the Toronto Women's Bookstore tomorrow, Thursday, February 24th, from 6:30-8:30 pm EST. At 6:30 EST tomorrow, go to www.womensbookstore.com, or www.ashrouder.com. I will most definitely be watching.

Margaret Atwood on Changes in Publishing

I love this keynote address from award-winning poet and author Margaret Atwood at the Tools of Change conference. She talks about authors being the "dead moose" of publishing and says, "Authors are a primary source. Everything else in the world of publishing depends on them." She includes libraries, schools, book reviewers/bloggers, publishers, agents, printers, book cover designers, etc. in that analogy--all of whom rely, first and foremost, on authors to write books. She also says that authors are like anchovies in the food chain, and the anchovies are getting restless. Ha! She's fun, witty and engaging, and offers some great food for thought. (No pun intended! But she does use lots of food metaphors.)

Watch live streaming video from oreillyconfs at livestream.com

Nerds Heart YA

If you're a book blogger, or just an avid reader who loves YA books, please consider going on over to the Nerds Heart YA site and nominating your favourite YA title/s for their 2010 tournament. Here is the criteria, as per their website:

1. Title can have no more than 15 reviews published throughout the book blogosphere
2. Title must be either authored by or include a character within the following category: Person(s) of Color (POC), GLBT, Disability, Mental Illness, Religious Lifestyle, Lower Socioeconomic Status or Plus Size.
3. All titles must have been published between January 1 – December 31, 2010

I just nominated my first title. LOVE it.

Jazz & Jeeves?

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!! Today, being the day that it is, I just had to share this video from UK rappers, Raxstar and Sunit. It's called "Keep it Undercover," and Jeeves could totally have written it for Jazz . . .