Updatey Date

Bonjour mon ami!


It's me. Janet! Who? You ask. I know right? I'm back acting all french and stuff.

I haven't been a good little blogger lately have I? Of course, that is kind of the usual, right? I will flog myself with some paperback books later. Pinky finger promise.

So it's been a busy New Year so far. Already 8 days into February. Seriously, where does the time go?


And I was lucky enough to go to ALA in Seattle this year to sign ARC's of HOW I LOST YOU!  HOW I LOST YOU comes out in May!!! That's only three months away. GAH!!!!!

Me and Bailey! She's so sweet!

I had SUCH A GREAT time in Seattle. I hung out and met lots of great bloggers I saw some author friends and I had lunch with my agent Jill Corcoran, who was also there to sign her poetry anthology.

So fun! I went to dinner with Sourcebooks folks and met some really cool librarians. Good food. A blast. Loved it!

Signing at ALA in Seattle

I actually had lots of free time in Seattle too, so I went and explored a bit at Pike Market the first day but then the rain came so I was happy to hang out at the conference the rest of the time. Got some great YA CONTEMPORARY ARC's that I can't wait to read like Jennifer Brown's new book- Thousand Words, Chris Crutcher's new book Period 8 and a long list of others I'm excited to dive into. Actually I already read Period 8 and really liked it. Thousand Words was the book I was most excited to get, but I have to put off reading it for awhile because I have a slightly similar storyline in the book I'm currently writing. I started Mind Games by Kirsten White last night and so far so good!

Signing at Indigo on the Piano!

After ALA I came home for two days and then was off to Toronto for the Super Conference for OLA (Ontario Library Association) I did a book signing there with my Canadian distributor, Raincoast Books and then the lovely young publicist from Raincoast took me around to a few Indigo stores in Toronto to sign stock. Met some great Indigo employees and Jocelynne from Raincoast was an incredible hostess and she even took me on the TORONTO subway. I'm afraid that geeked me out a little bit too much. As in I was all happy and giggly to do it.

I met a couple of Canadian bloggers at OLA (YAY) and some Canadian Librarians (YAY) and some Canadian authors. Coolio fo shizzle.

Now I'm back in the land of Calgary and working hard on my next Sourcebooks YA book. I have a title and it's really cool and really different from my other ones. I can't say what it is yet...but soon!!!!

Yesterday I also went and spoke with the Grade 7's at Mount Royal School in Calgary. I love going to schools and talking to kids and they never fail to amaze me with their great energy and positive attitudes. They were a great group with lots of really good book and publishing questions and the time flew by! I have to admit my favorite question was from two girls who came up to me at the end of the presentation and asked me where I got my boots. Oh yes. For a moment I felt like a cool girl again!

All right. So I'm going to be head down, deep in story writing mode for the next couple of months. My poor house. My poor family. Digging into the story and after having a chat with the ever lovely and amazing editor, Leah Hultenschmidt I am eager to take this new girl, Morgan, on her journey.

Hope you are all staying warm and getting through the last weeks of winter. I look so forward to Spring! Not only for the release of HOW I LOST YOU, but because, well, it's SPRING. My favorite season!!

Happy reading!

Janet