Miniature Updates

Big weekend ahead - Saturday is the LitFest at the Eisenhower Library in Harwood Heights, IL (a suburb bordered on three sides by the city). I'll be signing, chatting, and running a workshop on world building. The event runs 10-3 and is free for students (five bucks for adults). Also present will be James Kennedy,Daniel Kraus (who are in my gang, The Brothers Delacorte), Simone Elkeles, Stephanie Kuehnert, and others.

Sunday is the paranormal lit discussion between me and Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Dead-Tossed Waves) at 57th Street Books, 1301 E. 57th street in Chicago. 4pm, free!

Meanwhile, I wrote another music essay: Hold Steady and Gaslight Anthem: Two Gangs Fighting in the Same Springsteen Song.

Most Tuesday nights I participate in the "kidlitchat" on Twitter. Last night's was an especially interesting talk about swearing and word choice. The transcript is a great read (viewer discretion advised): Part One, Part Two.

AND, I can't say anything officially yet, but either I or someone on the Smart Aleck Staff may or may not have a new YA book (long known as "the top secret YA project" around the Smart Aleck Headquarters) to announce shortly :)

And speaking of Smart Aleck's Guide, someone turned in one of their assignments that's worth sharing: A Diorama Based on the WW2 Song "Blood on the Risers!"

My Life and Star Wars: Pictures 1984-2009

My Life and Star Wars a photo series on Flickr showing me and my Star Wars stuff from the last twenty-five years. From getting action figures for my fourth birthday to my stepson playing with the same figures a couple of months ago.

Will Your Book Be Dated in Five Years?

Almost any time people make lists of suggestions for aspiring writers, one of the bullet points is "avoid current slang, pop culture, or technology. This will make your book seem dated in five years."

This much is true: if you're using slang and "modern" references in attempt to connect your book with "today's teens and tweens" (or using the phrase "today's teens and tweens" at all), you're picking the wrong way to get readers to connect with your book.

But as long as a writer understands this, I think that leaving pop culture out altogether is fairly bad advice. If your main character is a teenager, then slang, pop culture and technology is probably a big part of their life and will probably heavily influence the way they see themselves and the world. Characters in historical fiction have no problem using the slang of their day and dealing with current events - why shouldn't modern characters? And, most importantly, you need to know that leaving that stuff out won't protect your book against being dated in five years one little bit.

Back in the Idaho Press

Some of you might remember that a few months back, someone tried to get one of my books banned from a library in Idaho - and it was a slow enough news week in Boise that it made every news outlet out there. Well, I'm back in the Idaho press, but this time they just want to say Zombie Satire a Great Read!

News, All Sizes

In Weird Chicago news, Troy and I have dug up some information on Tillie Klimek, a forgotten serial killer, whose house is still standing a few blocks away from mine! See my new post The Bluebeard Clique of Little Poland at The Weird Chicago Blog!

Meanwhile, at Playground Jungle, I've added new posts about the rhymes "Bang Bang You're Dead" and "My Boyfriend Gave Me an Apple."

Also, I'm pleased to announce that the Turkish rights for I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It have sold to a company called ALF after a short bidding war between a few Turkish publishers. I am very pleased to be able to add "started a war in Turkey" to my resume!

Upcoming Appearances

So many of these coming up that I thought they deserved their own post, instead of just a sidebar:


March 13, 2010
Lit Works
Eisenhower Library, Harwood Heights, IL
with The Brothers Delacorte, Simone Elkeles, Stephanie Kuehnert, and others. Signing and workshop on world-building. Free for students/teens, $5 for adults. Free lunch! Score!
10-3 (reading, signing, workshops)

March 14, 2010
57th Street Books (Seminary Co-op)
1301 E 57th Street, Chicago
with Carrie Ryan
4pm, free!

April, 2010 (date TBA):
Kankakee Library
Kankakee, IL

April 26
International Readers Assosciation
Signing with The Brothers Delacorte 4-5pm at the Random House table.

May 13, 2010
Schaumberg Township Library
Schaumberg, IL
6:30pm

On the Radio Last Night

Last night I did a really fun interview on Whispers Radio, talking about the new books and everything else I've been up to. This was a really cool show to do! Click Here to hear it! I'm the second half of the program.

Getting a lot of great response on the essay On Green Day that I posted earlier! There're some great comments over at the livejournal version of it.

Oh, and I just got word that I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It is going into its second printing! Hurry up and order now if you want a rare, highly collectable, destined-to-be-REALLY-valuable first edition!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch the webcast of the "Songs of the Civil Rights Movement" thing at the White HOuse, featuring Bob Dylan (and Joan Baez, who last officially shared a bill with him in 1984!)

On Green Day: An Essay

Ever since the Grammys, when Green Day performed "21 Guns" with the cast of the new rock opera version of "American Idiot," I've seen a lot of people snidely pointing out that Green Day can't be punk anymore if they're going to be on Broadway. I'm amused by this. I thought we went through the whole "Green Day Isn't Really Punk" backlash in 1994.

At the beginning of that year, my only exposure to punk had been back in 1986, when, on a family trip to Minneapolis, we went downtown to an area where, I was told, there would be punks. I had no idea what that meant, being barely 6, but when I saw a guy with a leather jacket and spiked green hair, I knew right away. "There's one!" I shouted. My parents freaked out while the guy smirked; they thought he might be offended and beat us up or make us take drugs. In reality, I probably made his day...


Click to Read the Full Essay: On Green Day (which goes on to discuss the impact of "Dookie" and my experience seeing them live during the backlash in 1995. It also examines the reactionary elements of the punk scene (including the "punks"' reaction to the signing of Tom Waits to Epitaph Records in 1999), and the progression of Green Day as a band).

New Event: 3/14 in Chicago

On Sunday, March 14, 57th Street books in Chicago will be hosting a Paranormal Fiction discussion between me and Carrie Ryan, author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, followed by a Q&A and signings. 4pm, free!


March 14
4pm
57th Street Books
1301 E 57th St (that's in Hyde Park - very cool, safe neighborhood)
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 684-1300

Fine, I'll bite. What do I think of Twilight?

Since I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It is somewhat of a satire of the paranormal romance genre, people keep asking me what I think of Twilight.

It's really not a fair question. Asking a 29 year old guy about that whole scene is like asking a 12 year old what he think of Barney and Friends. It's not meant to appeal to me. But I can certainly understand why girls like it.

Girls who ask me the question want me to say "yes! It's not just a book, it's art!" Everyone else wants me to deconstruct all the ways it manipulates those girls and rant about the prose, the plot, the characters, or Bella's IQ. But I'm tired of hearing those rants. For one thing, too many of the anti-Twilight rants I've read fall into the same pitfalls: judging it based on whether you want Bella to be your best friend or not, or after only reading five pages, or based on how well it follows the rules on some "how to write" website. I certainly don't like it when people judge MY work by those standards. In any case, it's not fair to judge Twilight as though it were trying to be a landmark of serious literature. The point of the book is not the plot or the prose; it's making teenage girls fall in love with a vampire (and imagine themselves as the protagonist).

The party line in the YA world seems to be "whether the books are good or bad, it's been great for YA literature." I disagree with this - if you write books for boys, it's been very bad you. Nearly every YA book that comes out these day has to cater to the Twi-hard in order to sell, since so many of the other readers have been scared right out of the section. Certainly the series has attracted new readers into the world of books, but the jury's still out on whether it's attracting more than it's scaring away. I'm certainly not comfortable feeling like my career is dependent on what girls who love Twilight think of me, or whether they want my characters to be their best friend or their boyfriend, but if it comes down to that, it isn't Stephanie Meyer's fault.

Being so far out of the target demo, the book is not really for me to like or dislike. But part of my job as a satirist is to jump on the bandwagon and stick a Garfield doll in the window.

So there you have it. My evasive answer.

PS: Interesting discussion in the comments of the livejournal version of this post

Doorbell Ditchin' at the Pearly Gates

The Broken Chimneys appear on two songs on the soundtrack to I KISSED A ZOMBIE AND I LIKED IT. Now you can download their song "Doorbell Ditching at the Pearly Gates" right here for free - just right click on that link! The video is here. A rewritten version serves as the theme song to At Last, Okemah, which will be showing at Schuba's in Chicago before a Jon Langford concert on March 6.

While I'm spreading punk songs around, I'm in a "montage of trying on different clothes to the strains of a new wave song" mode lately. Reinventing myself and all that. Today I picked up a brown corduroy blazer and a brown cardigan to wear over a turtleneck - I look like I belong in a movie with an opening credit sequence by Saul Bass (who, in addition to those paper-cut-outs-and-jazz title sequences, made one of my favorite cartoon shorts ever: The Edifice

Some cool news regarding the recent release of I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It that I need to keep quiet about, and things have been delightfully busy here at Smart Aleck Headquarters since my appearance on Coast to Coast with Georgy Noory on Tuesday!

I KISSED A ZOMBIE AND I LIKED IT

New: Are You Dating a Zombie? Take This Quiz From Random House!

I KISSED A ZOMBIE AND I LIKED IT is out today! Pick one up at your local store, and check out the videos, the soundtrack (featuring Vixy Dockrey, Seanan McGuire, Mary Crowell and Peter Stone Brown), and the extras!

Order on Amazonor indiebound now!

Here's the book trailer:


And a couple of extras:

Questions? We have answers. Click to download a FREE pamphlet

Vampires and Zombies in Iowa

New This Week

This week, Playground Jungle featured posts on cooties, 18th century fart jokes, Lizzie Borden, Little Miss Muffett parodies, and The Princess Pat.

There's a new "don't be a vampire" PSA for I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It, which hits the shelves on Tuesday! The reviews in the trades are among the best I've ever had!

Burglar Haikus

The other night, Claudia Gray told me she had a dream that someone broke into her apartment, stole her stuff, and replaced it with poems. Here are some haikus from a burglar who stole your stuff:

As the autumn wind
carries the old leaves away
we stole your TV

VCRs wither
Take up space and block the light
Don't worry. Gone now.

All things pass away
the wind, the sea, the snowfall
your good silverware

Where does old time go,
Never to be seen again?
Same place as your plates.

Cry for no lost thing
that was not of pure beauty.
Your stuff was ugly.

We took your music
But we're just stealing it back
Downloading is theft

Leftover pizza
wrapped in shiny silver foil
We ate the whole thing.

Art belongs to all
You hide this painting alone.
Well, not anymore.

OW!

Good things this week:
- the gravy I made
- the barbecue beef Ronni made
- the margarita chicken I made
- Game night with Jeff, Deborah, and Claudia Gray.
- Really good episode of Modern Family
- Playground Jungle showed up on Metafilter, greatly increasing the traffic.
- Inching ever closer to 1/26 - time for I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It!
- Couple of new projects off to a running start.

Bad things this week:
- the baked pasta I destroyed.
- Some warning signs that my computer may be dying.
- Rush Limbaugh says Obama will steal your donations to Haiti, Pat Robertson does his usual shtick, and no one hits either of them with a pie.
- Abscessed wisdom tooth. OUCH. Like walking around with Civil War Surgery taking place in your mouth.
- How much they charged to remove aforementioned abscessed wisdom tooth.
- Being loopy from the painkillers all through game night.

Upcoming Radio Show Appearance

No official word yet, but it looks like I'll soon be doing an interview on Coast to Coast AM, the late night radio talk show that talks about UFOs and stuff. I'll be talking about my ghost book, as well as Smart Aleck's Guide and I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It. I'll post the actual date when I know (and a download link afterwards!)

New Interview: In The Coop with Adam Selzer

Now up for your reading pleasure at Three Silly Chicks. It's about time someone asked me who would win in a fight between a mime and a clown, and let me explain how my first act as a dictator would be known as The Han Shot First decree.

I think I may have also forgotten to post this one, an Author Spotlight from Star Shadow that I did last month.

The Foolkiller Submarine: A Chicago Mystery

One of my favorite research topics in Chicago History is the Fool Killer Submarine, which was found in the Chicago River in 1915, where it had been buried in river muck for decades. A couple of months ago PBS interviewed me for a story on it that aired last night. You can watch it here and see my Weird Chicago Blog entries about the thing (which constitute just about everything this is known about the thing) here.

Speaking of mysterious history, here's a new Playground Jungle post about the history of saying "jinx" when two people say the same thing at the same time. The practice may only be 50 years old - but it might also be 500!

Another Zombie video

Yes, I'm in a video-making frenzy lately! Here's another public service announcement about zombies and vampires, featuring Claudia Gray, author of the Evernight series. There's a message from both of us at the end.

New Smart Aleck video!

smartalecksguide.com presents a look at our Founding Fathers (and why you should never assume they agree with you politically).