HOW I LOST YOU in Entertainment Weekly!!

So, cool on top of cool!

I was interviewed for the Shelf Talk on Entertainment Weekly and the interview posted!!

Check it out here... CHECK IT OUT!


Can you hear me squeeeeee!!!!

Also, tomorrow we'll be talking to A.S. KING!!!!

 

 

 

Proof Home Perms Are Always a Bad Idea

Teen Janet and her Tony Home Perm
 

In case you haven't noticed, to celebrate the recent release of HOW I LOST YOU, the YA ADDICT blog is currently running a series on Best Friends. I'm talking to YA authors and people in the YA world about their teen best friends, the good, the bad and the ugly.


The blog is featuring lots and lots of favorite YA authors, like A.S. King, Mandy Hubbard, Jennifer Brown, Kimberly Derting.  Look for your favorite authors and for great stories from debut authors too, about teen best friends. The blog features a new interview every week day until June 8 which is NATIONAL FRIENDSHIP DAY!! Hug your friends close!

If YOU have a story about YOUR teen best friend, especially in you're teen RIGHT NOW let me know, I'd love to interview YOU on the blog too! I'd love to see some BOOK BLOGGERS take part and READERS and anyone else who wants to chat about their best friend!!

Meanwhile, RUN to your nearest bookstore for your copy of HOW I LOST YOU. Okay. You don't have to RUN.  But if you do pick up a copy, THANK YOU!! You are awesome. And you smell nice too. Oh. And I love your shoes.

Is Dan Krokos Weird?

Dan Krokos is the author of the False Memory Series. After pumping gas for nine years to put himself through college, Dan Krokos, now twenty-six, dropped out to write full-time. He enjoys watching TV, playing MMORPGs, and drinking coffee. False Sight comes out in August 2013!

Hey Dan. Nice to have a male type person on the blog to talk about friends. So. Tell us, did you have a best friend in high school? If you did, are you still in touch?

Yes I did, and yes we are, and we’re still best friends.

Me: Cool.

Well, he still lives in Cleveland and I’m in New York often, so I miss hanging out all the time. Luckily we both play video games and can kind of hang out that way. 

Me: Online video games? For real. So cool and beyond my life. So did you ever have a big fight?

Oh yeah. Adam is afraid of the dark, even though he’s a fully grown man. One time he came home from work, and I turned off all the lights in the apartment. It was pitch black. He came into the apartment and was mad, and I hid in the dark for a little too long. He wouldn’t come inside. As I was going out to get him, he burst through the door, and thought I’d been hiding behind the door when really I was coming to tell him it was safe to come inside, and that there were no gremlins in sight.

 

He got really mad.

 

Another time before we were really friends, he pulled up to a gas pump on the wrong side three times in a row, like someone experiencing a mild stroke. I made the mistake of laughing.

 

Okay, that made me laugh out loud. Also, I find it awesome that he is afraid of the dark. Since he likes video games, you should get him this…. Pajama Sam

Okay, I’m done laughing, so where did you like to hang out?

Applebees and Denny’s, depending on what time it was. We would play video games, then decide it was time to eat all the food, so we’d rip it to Applebees for half off appetizers or Denny’s for eggs and hashbrowns and bacon/sausage. My mouth is watering right now. Whenever I go back to Cleveland we go to those restaurants as often as we can.

Mmm. My mouth is watering too. So what did you and your best friend most love to do?

You may be sensing a theme here: play video games. But before that, when we were in our teens, Adam had a Camaro he would race at the local track. It wasn’t street legal. We’d spend all day at the track eating dollar ice cream (it was seriously a pound of ice cream for a dollar) and generally hanging out and having the time of our lives. Those days were the best.

We also worked together for a short time at EB Games, which was awesome. Imagine working at a fun job with your best friend? You can’t do it.

Not anymore that’s for sure. I am sensing food and video game obsessions. So what did you love most about Adam?

That he was literally the only other person in the world as weird as I am. Stands true to this day.

Um. Let me introduce you to my big brother. And Geoff Herbach. Ha ha. So what did you learn from Adam?

How to talk to girls. How to be better at Warcraft. How to drive stick shift. How to swing a baseball bat.

I hope you didn’t talk to girls about Warcraft. Just saying.  I’d like to learn to drive a stick shift.  Adam? Adam? Never mind, Cleveland is far from Calgary. So. Are your relationships with friends different at this stage in your life? How?

 Yes and no. Depends on if I became friends with that person at a later stage in my life, and it depends on how weird they are. My relationships with my teen-era friends haven’t changed much at all. But I do have adult friends who I try not to be too weird around, or make weird noises, or say crude things.

 Oh, but you should, because that’s much more fun. There’s a teenage weirdo in most adults. Well. The fun ones anyhow! Thanks so much Dan. That was an awesome chat! Hope you and Adam are eating sausage at Denny’s soon!

 

Can You Be Best Friends with Your Boyfriend? With Betsy Cornwell

Please welcome today’s YA Author, Betsy Cornwell, author of the delicious new novel, TIDES which releases June 3, 2013.

 TIDES by Betsy Cornwell
When high-school senior Noah Gallagher and his adopted teenage sister, Lo, go to live with their grandmother in her island cottage for the summer, they don’t expect much in the way of adventure. Noah has landed a marine biology internship, and Lo wants to draw and paint, perhaps even to vanquish her struggles with bulimia. But then things take a dramatic turn for them both when Noah mistakenly tries to save a mysterious girl from drowning. This dreamlike, suspenseful story—deftly told from multiple points of view—dives deeply into selkie folklore while examining the fluid nature of love and family.

Um. Yes please.  Add this to your to read pile pronto!!
Tides by Betsy Cornwell

Thanks for playing Betsy, so right to it, did you have a best friend in high school? If you did, are you still in touch?

Betsy and her best friend!

My best friend in high school was my boyfriend—it might sound like a cliché, but it’s true. We’d been best friends since we were twelve, when he showed up as a new seventh-grade student at my school. We were immediately inseparable…even though we harboured top-secret crushes on each other at various times over our middle school best-friendship.

Those times finally matched up in tenth grade, when we had our first kiss under a maple tree outside of the high school and decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend. But our relationship didn’t change that much (other than the kissing and, uh, such!) because we already spent all the time we could together when we were ‘just friends.’

We dated for seven years, all through college, but eventually broke up after graduation when we realized our lives were headed in different directions. We also both came to see that we were really friends, not true-loves, at heart. It was devastating at the time, but now we’re both happy and even relieved that things turned out the way they did. (Don’t tell my high school self that, though—she’d probably kill you!)
While, true to our predictions, our lives have taken very different directions, we still talk occasionally and are definitely on good terms. We’re also both happy in other relationships, and have other best friends now.

Wow. Now that is a cool story. I am FASCINATED by couples who are together so young and stay together, and more so for going from friends to more, back to friends. Good on you. What do you miss most about him?

The funny thing is, as fond as I still am of him, I don’t really miss my high school BF/BFF. However, I think the thing I most valued about our friendship *and* our relationship is how steadfast and supportive he was. We were both dealing with pretty tough family situations in high school, and he was always, always there for me if I needed to cry or vent or just watch movies all day and not think about anything. I’m really glad I was able to be there for him and support him in the things he was dealing with, too. We basically became parts of each other’s families in high school, and that was something we both really needed.
I have a wonderful best friend and a wonderful boyfriend now who both give me so much support and love—so while I don’t “miss” that, I am very, very grateful to have had it at one of the times I needed it most.

You sound well grounded!! He was there when you needed him, and that’s so wonderful. Did you ever have a big fight? What was it about? How did you resolve it?

You know, we never really fought that much at all—we were both sort of passive by nature, and both still figuring out how to be assertive enough to fight with someone in the first place! We went that whole seven years without a single ‘break’ or break-up or even a big fight. In fact, we always had more of a steady, quiet friendship than a passionate romance. While that was really stabilizing for both of us at the time, it was also part of what made us eventually realize we were more friends than, erm, lovahs.
My current boyfriend and I certainly fight sometimes, but now I think that’s a good thing! It’s good to disagree, even vehemently, and to let yourself be angry or upset without feeling like you’re jeopardizing your relationship. That’s a lesson it took me a really long time to learn…but I know the bump-free relationship I had in high school was something I really needed then.

Good golly Miss Molly, your maturity at a young age impresses me. So, what’s something your best friend did for you, that probably no other person would do.

I think I’ve sort of covered this in previous questions—he was always there for me, even more than my other (completely awesome) high school friends were. However, one thing that definitely sticks out was that he went backpacking with me in Europe, something I’d been desperate to do for years and had long begged him to do with me. He’d never traveled outside of the country before, and he had a hard time convincing his mom to let him go, but we both saved up our money, flew over together, and had an amazing, and even slightly life-changing, time.

I love you and hate you at the same time, does that make me evil?? So, did you have a favorite song, or a favorite place where you hung out?

Mike Doughty’s album Haughty Melodic was what we listened to, and thought of each other to, whenever we had to be apart—especially “I Hear the Bells.” (Definitely worth a listen if you haven’t heard it, or haven’t seen season two of Veronica Mars…)

Our favourite place to hang out was downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a great little seaside town with yummy (and cheap!) restaurants, a fantastic record store called Bull Moose, a beautiful park and harbour, and lots of quirky side streets—the perfect setting for high school date nights.

Veronica Mars! Oh how I loved that show. What did you and your best friend most love to do?

We both did theater tech, and we loved sitting in the booth at the top of the auditorium with the other techies and working the sound and lights for school plays and assemblies. We were also both aspiring movie buffs and could spend whole days and evenings, as long as our parents would let us stay, watching one movie after another.
Yeah, we were nerds. Still are—and I hold no regrets on that score!

So what did you learn from your best teen friend?

You learn a lot in seven years! He was my first serious boyfriend, so I definitely learned plenty about how to be in a romantic relationship—and some things that I learned *not* to do in future ones. But I think the most important thing that I learned from him was the idea I now think of as ‘found family’—that your family isn’t just the one you were born into or raised with, but all the wonderful people you come to love over the course of your life. When I thank my family in the acknowledgments page for Tides, my first book, I’m not just talking about my biological one, but all the family I’ve found, too.

So amazing! So happy for you! Family is family, wherever you find them.  So, are your relationships with friends different at this stage in your life? How?

When I was a teenager, my whole world was wrapped up in high school. I had one small circle of good friends, and one best friend/boyfriend. Now, I have friends from high school, college, grad school, work, traveling…and probably some other things, too! The world is much bigger for me now, and my friendships have gotten bigger and more diverse along with it. But in a lot of ways, my relationships with friends are the same now as they were then. I’m still not a social butterfly—I prefer to have a small number of close friends, and the idea of a big party or even a night at a club or bar is kind of exhausting. My best friends are people I can really talk to, whose ideas and passions I admire, and who are totally happy spending an evening watching movies and eating ice cream. And most of my friends are still aspiring movie buffs and total nerds…as am I. As far as that goes, nothing’s changed a bit.

 I know my teen self would be sad to hear that I didn’t end up with my high school boyfriend—but if she saw what I’m doing now (Published author! Living abroad! Teaching at the summer camp I so adored! …with a dreamy Irish boyfriend in the mix, too) she’d get pretty excited about her future. And the thing is, her best friend/boyfriend would, too—because he always wanted what was best for me, and I will always be grateful for that.

 I know that our teen selves sometimes envision a different future, but things usually happen the way they should. And a dreamy Irish boyfriend and the published author thing sound pretty good to me!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing your unique and touching story about your teenage boyfriend/best friend!

 

 

Best Friends with Hannah Jayne

Today on the Bloggity Blog we're chatting with the gorgeous and fabulous Hannah Jayne. Hannah Jayne is a well loved romance author, and also a YA writer. Her debut YA novel, Truly, Madly Deadly comes out this July.  The cover is hot and I can't wait to read it.

I was lucky enough to meet Hannah last year at the Romance Writer's of America conference. She's one of those bubbly warm people you just immediately love. We bonded over talks about spanks and young adult novels we love! So now, here's YOUR chance to chat about teen best friends.



Did you have a best friend in high school? If you did, are you still in touch?

HJ: Yes! My best friend, Jen, and I were co-captains of our high school cheerleading squad. We lost touch a bit after high school, but found each other again just before she got married. That was eleven years and three kids ago!

You were a high school cheerleader co-captain? How much do I LOVE that? So you're no longer carrying pom poms so what do you miss most about the best friend?

HJ: We see each other a lot less since we no longer have daily cheerleading practice! She used to be my daily ounce of calm. Now, since she's the one with the husband and kids, I get to do that for her -- but a lot less frequently. 

Did you ever have a big fight? What was it about? How did you resolve it?

HJ: Neither of us were huge fighters, but I "re" started dating an ex boyfriend my senior year in high school. She was deathly against him and it caused a huge rift in our relationship. Then, I thought it was because she wasn't supporting me; twenty years later I know it was because she was completely right (he was horrible), and I knew it, but I just didn't want to see it.

What do they say? Hind sight is 20/20.  Re-dating  ex's is rarely a good thing, right? If you never fight, what’s something your best friend did for you, that probably no other person would do.

HJ: She was the only person in my life to cut out all the niceties and say, "you're in a bad relationship. Get out or I'm gone." And then she followed through. It sounds terrible, like she abandoned me, but it was the best thing. I was (am) the kind of stubborn, hard-headed person who needs serious action and follow through to get a message.

 
Yeah and she sounds pretty amazing to know that and give it to you! So. Did you have a favorite song, or a favorite place where you hung out?

HJ: We're local San Jose girls, so back in high school, the place to hang out was "haunted" Hick's Road. There was supposed to be an abandoned insane asylum up there where a few of the crazies still resided, along with albinos, witches, Satan worshipers and choice rabid animals. No one ever went to the top of the road to check out the legends -- except, of course, for someone's sister's roommate who came back white-haired and catatonic and was never able to say what she saw...

Yeah. I would never go there. Like ever. So. What did you and your best friend most love to do?

HJ: We were pretty nerdy! Our main activities were watching cheer competitions while eating cheesecake, hanging out in the back of Kevin Kwan's Thunderbird while listening to Prince, and talking about guys. Now, since we're adults, we got to New Kids on the Block concerts together, eat cheesecake, and talk about guys.

I love that! So what did you love most about you teenage best friend?

HJ: She was crazy and fearless. She taught me how to drive my own car -- even though she didn't get her license until 2 years after I got mine!

What did you learn from your best teen friend?

HJ: Besides how to use a gear shift, I learned that being afraid of everything in your past would never drive you forward.

Are your relationships with friends different at this stage in your life? How?

HJ: Yes and no. Humor and eating are still huge in my relationships (what can I say? I'm Italian!), but our being fearless has taken on completely different forms. Fearlessness in high school was asking a guy out; fearlessness now is quitting a solid career to follow a dream.

Definitions do change, but attitude doesn't. So good for you. Thanks so much for stopping by for a chat!!

 She thought it was a coincidence.
 She was wrong.
      
Truly, Madly, Deadly --coming July 2013

Sawyer Dodd has it all. She's a star track athlete, choir soloist, and A-student. And her boyfriend is the handsome all-star Kevin Anderson. But behind the medals, prom pictures, and perfect smiles, Sawyer finds herself trapped in a controlling, abusive relationship with Kevin. When he dies in a drunk-driving accident, Sawyer is secretly relieved. She's free. Until she opens her locker and finds a mysterious letter signed by "an admirer" and printed with two simple words: "You're welcome."

 

Nicole McInnes

Oh my gosh, I don't know about you, but I am LOVING this best friend series. I love hearing about so many GREAT YA books (especially my special love- YA CONTEMPORARY) Also, it's fun to look inside the lives of authors and look at the type of teen friends they had. Am I right??

Anyhow. Today we are chatting with Nicole McInnes. She's the author of BRIANNA on the BRINK.

Popularity didn't come easily for sixteen-year-old Brianna Taylor. She didn't wear the right clothes or come from the right family. In fact, she didn't come from any family at all, unless you counted Jolene, who just wasn't that much into being a mom. So when Brianna joins the cheerleading squad, she finds herself suddenly popular. But then a one-night stand has life altering consequences, and Brianna must accept help from the one person closest to her mistake.

No longer in control, Brianna must reevaluate all that she thought was important and learn the true meaning of family.

Show more

Show less

I'm hooked!!! Now let's talk to Nicole about Friends!!!

Did you have a best friend in high school?

NM: Yes, definitely! I was lucky to have not just a core group of great friends, but a bestie as well.

Did you have a favorite song, or a favorite place where you hung out?

NM: Honestly, there are too many favorite songs to list. Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” does come leaping to mind, though. We loved hanging out at the local frozen yogurt shop, on the high school lawn during lunch or just on the metal hallway railings near our lockers.

Well, I thought you might be close to my age with Soft Cell but when you say frozen yogurt shop, I'm like, nah. I'm old. So...what did you and your best friend most love to do?

NM: Our favorite pastime may have been passing notes during class and trying to get each other to crack up. She was a ballet dancer, and I was big into drama, so there was always a lot of performance stuff going on in our lives outside of school as well. We also just liked to chill with our other friends and our boyfriends, doing stuff in groups, etc.

Sounds like awesome artsy fun!!!What did you learn from your best teen friend?

NM: I learned to persist and to be more organized! Seriously, she had/has the neatest handwriting I’ve ever seen, and she was amazing at organizing everything from what she was going to wear to Prom to the details of my wedding rehearsal when she was my matron of honor.

I love that trait in other people, most because I LACK it. Lol. So, are your relationships with friends different at this stage in your life? How?

NM: My relationships with friends (besties and otherwise) are different now in the sense that it takes a mutual understanding of life responsibilities in order to make a friendship work. I definitely didn’t feel this kind of pressure in high school. These days, if someone doesn’t get what it’s like to have kids and a career and isn’t able to be flexible with their expectations (i.e. of how much time I can spend on the phone or just hanging out), then it’s going to be really hard for me to connect with that person. That said, my friends who DO “get it” are pure gold to me. Besties ROCK.

I don't think there's any relationship quite as intense as a Teenage Bestie, because it's a time in your life when you really need someone around. Not that we don't as we get older,  life just tends to interfere more or something. Thanks so much for stopping by to share your story!! Can't wait to read BRIANNA on the BRINK. I see it's getting rave reviews from Kirkus!!! Congrats!!!
 

Nicole McInnes
BRIANNA ON THE BRINK

Contemporary Young Adult Fiction
Available wherever books are sold!

Twitter: @Nicole_McInnes

Facebook: Nicole McInnes Author
www.nicolemcinnes.com

 

Why Caela Carter was Afraid to have a Best Friend

I am sooooo excited about reading Caela's book, ME, HIM, THEM and IT. It's at the tiptop of my reading list, and I can't wait to sink my teeth in. I've heard so many people raving about this book!! Gritty YA Contemporary...my FAVE!!! Caela's book just came out in February 2013!

ME, HIM, THEM AND IT by Caela Carter

ME is Evelyn Jones, 16, a valedictorian hopeful who's been playing bad girl to piss off THEM, her cold, distant parents. HIM is Todd, Evelyn's secret un-boyfriend, who she thought she was just using for sex - until she accidentally fell in love with him. But before Evelyn gets a chance to tell Todd how she feels, something much more important comes up. IT. IT is a fetus. Evelyn is pregnant - and when Todd turns his back on her, Evelyn has no idea who to turn to. Can a cheating father, a stiff, cold mother, a pissed-off BFF, and a (thankfully!) loving aunt with adopted girls of her own help Evelyn make the heart-wrenching decisions that follow?

And now, in Caela's own words, a touching and heartbreaking story and then touching again story that probably many of us can relate to. But she says it best in her own words....here's Caela...

It was the beginning of third grade and I was being dumped by my friend. Publicly. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk in classroom when D dropped it into my palm: the jagged edge of the half silver heart with the letters “BE- FRI-” carved into it. Even though I’d given her the better half of the necklace without even arguing. “Here,” she’d said. “I don’t need this. I’m best friends with K now.”

            I was a little girl who didn’t understand friendships that could be part-politics, who wasn’t interested in New Kids on the Block or winning recess kickball or owning the best pair of shoes. I could not comprehend what D was doing, though, believe me, it hurt.

            The trading of friendship necklaces became an epidemic in our school for the next few years. Girls were often heartbroken, crying on the playground, over jewelry lost in the dissolving of friendships. I couldn’t understand any of it. When I was handed a half-heart, it always said “-EST -ENDS,” I always accepted, even though I didn’t understand the game. It was always eventually taken from me.

            By the time I got to high school, the very concept of “BEST FRIENDS” scared the heck out of me. I was fortunate to have a bunch of close girlfriends in high school, some of whom I still hold in my heart. Melissa always wanted to hang out, to talk, to sit next to me in the cafeteria. Jackie found me my very first boyfriend. And Katie and I spent so many hours together running, lifeguarding, eating, double-dating, and (occasionally) arguing we may as well have been sisters. But each of these girls seemed to have other friends who were actually the “best”. I avoided those words in high school.

            But I thought about them.  I would often think about girls who were obviously best friends. I would wonder how they knew, how they chose, how they managed to hold onto each other without one tearing the other down as I had experienced in my elementary school.

            I thought I’d missed the Best Friend Boat.

            But then I went to college at Notre Dame and I met Linda. She was the silly girl who lived across the hall from me, who had grown up only hours from my house, who was fun and nerdy and warm and open-minded and almost-never shy. Who could make anyone laugh, even that someone was also crying. We were fast friends.

            We spent hours in the Lafortune Student Center (the table in the basement, closest to the door). We would study and talk and laugh and share big cups of Mr. Pibb Xtra and slices of greasy Sbarro pizza. We were there so often people would come looking for us. This was in the era of AOL Instant Messenger and before WiFi, so we would leave “Away Messages” on index card with highlighters— “Going to the dining hall”, “Back at the dorm for a shower.”

            When we walked around campus, we hopped over the cracks in the sidewalks without even halting our conversations. We went out dancing and sometimes did silly dance moves in unison without thinking. Linda loved science and she would tell me all the fascinating things she learned. She taught me more about science than I ever learned from my teachers. She would read short stories  I wrote for my creative writing classes. We’d wear each other’s clothes without asking.

            I don’t know if we ever called each other best friends in college. I know we didn’t use that term to limit each other. We had other friends and it was clear that some were closer to one of us than the other, but we didn’t use that to hurt each other. And when the girls around us engaged in pointless drama, Linda was my respite and I was hers. She made friendship easy. And we always made each other laugh.

            When Linda and Nestor (her long-time crush) finally started dating, I was ready for it to change the dynamic of our relationship, but it brought us closer. He was so great, he made her even more Linda.

            When we were forced to graduate, we fantasized about digging holes in the quad and burying ourselves side-by-side, refusing to ever leave. The joke was because of how much we loved Notre Dame (and we still do). But we only wanted to stay there if we could be together.

            Of course our relationship has changed. We’ve become professionals (Linda is a SuperSmart Scientist, to use the technical term). We’ve moved far away from each other. We’ve each gotten married. And we’ve had a few conversations that skirted close to fights. (Example: Linda once told me I was dating someone who wasn’t good for me. I didn’t want to hear it. She was right. There was no yelling.) There are times when we feel so close it’s like she can read my mind. But there are weeks and months when we don’t have the time and the gaps between us feel larger. I miss her when this happens, but it doesn’t hurt. 

            So, I’ll say the words now. We’re best friends and we have been since our late teens. Our best-friendship is so close to idyllic it’s actually comical. We make each other laugh in every conversation (even the sad ones.) We know and love each other’s families and other best friends. We were college roommates. We share a birthday (May 6th). We were “best women” in each other’s weddings (two years apart). And, in a crazy twist of fate, I married Linda’s husband’s best friend and college roommate. (Yes, really.)

            That’s pretty good for a girl who grew up afraid of the very words “BEST FRIENDS”