Oh, I’ve been a laggardly blogger this week, re-outlining the entire second half of my work-in-progress, arranging school visits and preparing to head to a wedding (congratulations, Johanna and Andrea!)  But I am thrilled to report that Nice and Mean is New Moon Girls Magazine’s October book pick! (That link gets you to a page with more details.)

New Moon Girls is a v cool, ad-free web magazine that actually addresses the concerns of girls 8-14.  (Can you see how cool it is from the image?  Hope so.)  It doesn’t try to give you diet tips or fashion tips or sugarcoat the realities of life with cheezy suggestions, and a lot of the articles are written by the readers.  If you know any girls in this age group who could use a  friendly and realistic ear, I suggest you send them over there toute de suite (that means “right away.”)

As part of Nice and Mean on New Moon Girls…

* I will be participating in a live chat with readers on Wednesday, October 27th, 8-9 PM EST.  Send your girls my way!  I am a super-fast typer (this always freaked out my students) and predict that I will be able to answer an astounding number of questions simultaneously.

* You can win a free copy of Nice and Mean by creating a one-minute video about popularity, which is also the theme of this month’s magazine.  It can be interviews with your friends–you sounding off–clips from other movies and TV shows–whatever!  I’m not the judge, but I can’t wait to see what wins, and I hope to be able to post it here!

* Speaking of popularity, you can also head over to the New Moon site to chat or rage about the subject.  (When I was in seventh grade, boy, would I have had some choice words for people who were obsessed with popularity.)

* And speaking of that pesky subject once again, you can vote in my poll on the left to share your thoughts about popularity.  (Riddle me this, readers: I know how many of you come by each month, how many are new and how many are returning.  Why do only a fraction of you vote in the polls?  Do you not see it over there?  Are you rationing your clicks?  Most puzzling.)

Hoping to have less self-promotion-y things to share next week, but until then, you can enjoy the fun and thought-provoking postings at New Moon!

Mitali Perkins, one of the foremost kidlit authors to talk about race and representation, as well as the queen of techno-connections, has featured Nice and Mean on her blog, Mitali’s Fire Escape!  I am deeply, deeply honored.

Here’s the link, and a preview:

“I’ve been challenging my author friends—and myself—to take risks in crossing borders of class and race in fiction, but to do it wisely and carefully, respecting the inherent power of storytelling. It’s lovely to find an example or two to showcase, like NICE AND MEAN, one of my favorite middle-school reads of 2010.

[okay, I can't resist quoting the second paragraph, too]:

“Sparkling with creativity and humor, this tween novel features two protagonists, Marina (“Mean”) and Sachi (“Nice”), who is Indian-American. A pet peeve of mine is the insertion of a nonwhite character into a story whose sole purpose is to serve as a sinless foil for a main white character.  Sachi, in contrast, is a flawed but sympathetic middle-schooler. Author Jessica Leader gives her a first-person voice that’s funny and true, and pays attention to cultural details as she invites us into Sachi’s home.”

As you’ll see from the interview, Mitali was rather hilariously psychic about the process of my writing the novel.  She was right once again to assume that it felt like a risk to cross the border of race to write from the point of view of an Indian-American character in Nice and Mean.  I did as much research as I could and tried to make Sachi’s storyline real, compelling, and non-stereotyped, but I felt nervous–and continue to feel nervous–that it would feel false or easy to readers, especially Indian-American ones.  I know I should develop my own internal barometers and not be too swayed by other peoples’ opinions of my work, good or bad, but to be totally honest, the fact that an author so attuned to the representation of culture, especially one who’s Bengali-American and knows so much about East Asian culture, is a tremendous validation.

All right, enough serious stuff.  Just read the dang interview!  And hang out on the Fire Escape, too.  There’s a lot to learn there.

I’m sorry for anyone who did not win, but I am glad that Scribner did, because not only is their auditorium gorgeous, their teachers organized, and their kids an ideal audience, but they made 250 kids available to come hear me speak!  Thank goodness I was a teacher before I was an author, because this was a big crowd, y’all.  The pictures tell the story best, so I’ll let them do it…

See what I'm saying? That place was huge!

Am I balancing an invisible tray?

Once they raised their hands, they all became ghosts.

Okay, obviously, there was no paranormal element to the proceedings.  The blurriness is a result of the fact that I hate the way the flash affects digital pictures and always turn it off, and then other people have to suffer through my poor choices when they kindly take the camera (thank you, Ms. Thompson!)  I’d like to think it lends a cool effect, at least.

One fun thing about the visit was that Ms. Thompson, who organized it, encouraged me to talk about my own experiences with niceness and meanness, and I did, in a more forthcoming way than I have before.  The most meaningful part for me, and I think for the students as well, if I’m any good at reading a room, was when I talked about the only time I remembered anyone standing up to me for the way I tried to run the show.  I’ll tell that story some other time, some other place, but I think it was as much of a “Wow” moment for them as it was for me back in ninth grade that somebody could be brave enough to say, “I know I have no control over what you do, but what you’re doing is hurting me, and I wish that you would stop.”

Another great element of the visit was the questions, and my favorite happened to be the last one: “You know when books–not yours, maybe, but other ones–have, like, handwriting in them?  How do they do that?”  I explained that there are more fonts in the world than your Microsoft Word can even dream of, and publishers look for the ones that best fit the character.  The girl seemed to like this explanation, and I liked the question because it so exactly spoke to what kids really care about: the nuts-and-bolts of the physical book that they interact with.  Never mind this mush about what inspired you, the boring adult author.  What’s the deal with the book in my hand?  I hope to do more school visits so I can keep bringing on the ghosts and connect with the kiddos.

Thanks, Scribner, for your extensive awesomeness!  Oh, and ps, thanks for telling your kids that if they couldn’t buy books, I would sign their planners!  I think that might be an all-time career high.

That's Cyn. She's a hoot.

Some come on down to Cynsations, read what I have to say about outlining vs. plunging into the story, how teaching has influenced my writing, and writerly self-promotion.  And then stick around and click through to read some other new voices!

(On a side note, the playwriting program I teach for is called New Voices.  We’re just voicey all over the place here!)

And on a p.s. note: On Monday, I talked to 250 kids at Scribner Middle School in Indiana!  They were awesome.  The auditorium was huge and I walked with my hand-held mike up the aisles, just like Oprah.  Photos of that to come.

In other news (ha, I almost wrote, ‘in other words’), I’m hoping to see some of you Louisville readers at Carmichael’s Bookstore on Frankfort Avenue this Saturday at 4pm!  I’ll be reading and doing Q&A, and there will be a special presentation for teachers called, “Ways to Enhance Writing Workshop: Lessons from a Real-Live Writer.”  I always thought I was a pretty good writing teacher, but when I started writing full-time, I realized there were several things I could have done more effectively.  Here’s a teaser: no more memoirs!  Nancy Atwell, writing guru, swears by memoirs.  I loved Nancy Atwell, but I never thought the memoir units really worked, and at Carmichael’s, I will reveal the reasons why.

I also have a new approach to my get-the-crowd-talking technique.  Questions will fly.  Objects will fly.  Be there.

Carmichael’s did a great write-up for me, so I’m going to paste it here. Did you know they’re Louisville’s oldest independent bookstore?

I was also thrilled to get this lovely review from Tweendom, which is run by the lower-school librarian at Little Red School House in NYC.  (I did a little Internet sleuthing; it’s true.  The school looks almost nothing like that picture, by the way; although it is, in fact, little and red, it’s on the corner of very busy 6th Avenue.  That image was so gorgeously Maxfield Parrish, though, I couldn’t resist including it.)  Little Red was so much cooler than I was that I didn’t even know anybody who went there, but I can recoup some of that lost coolness now by having a nice mention on the librarian’s review blog.  You can read it here, or just enjoy this part:

“Jessica Leader has gotten the multiple worlds of the middle schooler down pat. Seventh grade tends to be a time of big changes…of kids figuring out who they want to be and where they are going to fit in. Marina and Sachi, while seemingly opposites, illustrate this beautifully. Round out the cast of their satellite friends and many types of kids are shown without seeming like Leader simply lined up types and put them in. Nice and Mean shows readers that most likely, the kids they think of as mean aren’t all mean, and the kids who seem nice definitely have some back story of their own!”

Off to the beach this weekend, and I desperately hope that Earl does not delay me!  I have kind of a horrible fear of flying,

and if this flight is punctuated by turbulence, I don’t know what kind of state I’ll be in when I get off the plane.  If you want tosay a little prayer, I wouldn’t mind being included.

Happy Labor Day weekend!  May the fruits of your labor be recognized!

Thanks to WHAS 11 News for inviting me to be on the news at noon–it was so fun!

Edited to add: you can watch it here!

I hope everybody gets a chance to be interviewed in a news studio sometime, because it’s an uncanny experience.  The top 10 things I was surprisedly delighted by, in order of appearance:

1. The ceilings in the building are so high! Maybe 16 feet?  I tried to guesstimate, and maybe someone can set me straight, but walking in, I felt like a member of the Willy Wonka party peering around the door to the chocolate factory. (Tragically, no Gene Wilder singing “Pure Imagination,” but there were other pleasures to follow.)  It makes sense; they need to hang many lights at different angles, but I had never thought about that element before.

2. If it’s local news, at least, there will be no one fluffing your face with a blush-brush or dabbing on the pancake make-up. That was okay by me; I used the once-weekly make-up beforehand.  I had just been looking forward to that, along with some tissues tucked in the collar, but maybe I’m confusing that with, I don’t know, having an important role.

3. There may not be a green room, but you get to sit on the sidelines and  watch until it’s your turn. This was probably the best part.  Claudia, the news anchor, read the news just like they do on TV.  (Shocking, I know!)  But in between takes, she’d make funny comments.  When she finished introducing an Oprah episode about call-girls, she fanned her face said, “I’m so glad you showed the clip for that one–I didn’t want you to see my face!  My mother’s at home going, ‘Clow-dia!  Ach du lieber!’  I giggled, thinking of this incredibly polished woman and her strict German mother.

Claudia also made me laugh over the Tiger Woods divorce story.  When she finished it, she worried, “Did I pronounce his wife’s name E-lin, or Ellen?  No, I know I said E-lin.  Ellin has very long hair;  Ellen has very short hair.”  It took me a minute to get the pun (Ellen de Generes; vowel sounds), but then I had to hide my laughter, too.  I thought only reading teachers thought about long and short vowels, but apparently not!

4. You may meet other people in the studio with much cooler stories than your own.

I shared the warming-bench with the second-place winner of both the pie-baking contest AND the chocolate-treat baking contest at this year’s state fair.  It was a serious effort not to leap up and swipe a piece of the cake while no one was looking.

5. News comes in even during the broadcast, and the anchors have to adjust the stories and keep their composure.

During commercials and clips from the network, Claudia would check her Blackberry, and at first, I thought, ‘Oh, she’s probably texting her family.” Turned out she was getting new stories, including one about a shooting in town.  It seemed like they shortened other pieces to get that in, with little lead-time to do so, and they couldn’t react emotionally at all, or if so, only in a measured way.

6. It’s almost lonely in that studio.

It’s so big, and it was just Claudia, the weather and traffic reporter (Grant? Gene?  Sorry!) and the tech guy.  I always think writing is a lonely profession, but I wonder if it doesn’t feel even weirder to cheerfully report the news and bare your personality with no response!

7. The microphone goes up through your shirt!

Second base on the first date with a microphone, on local TV!  What would Claudia’s mother say?  And the worst part was that my shirt and the mike were black, so to make sure the mike wasn’t making my shirt look weird, I had to ask Claudia to help me adjust.  She was very nice about it, though.

8. The chairs have no backs, and you can’t see how you look beforehand!

I am much better at sitting up straight when there’s something to rest on, and I didn’t get to check my appearance until I was on TV, only to see that I was projecting an unflattering side view and didn’t know how to work around it!  I mean, I know the point is the book and not me, but I wish I’d had more winning cards here, other than what mom and dad gave me…

9. Unless you’re a criminal, they are nice enough to let you know what they’ll be asking you first.

I wouldn’t say I got the questions in advance or anything, but in the minute or so between when I sat down and when we went ON AIR, Claudia said we didn’t have a lot of time and asked me what I wanted covered.   I told her and she more or less stuck to that with a few other things thrown in.  Quel relief!

I got to talk about what I think the book teaches, where I get my inspiration, and how I’m grateful to be on the IndieNext list.  That was all we had time for, but it was fun while it lasted!

10. If you get to be on TV, for goodness’ sake, ask when it will be aired and record it!!

I just assumed it was going to be for a later broadcast and that I’d get home in time to record it, but apparently it was somewhat live–gah!  I guess I’ll pay the $$ to buy it, but I still feel like a doog.  (That was meant to say ‘doof,’ but ‘doog’ encapsulates it so much better.)

Ah, well–next time, I’ll check my side appearance and do my recon!  That is, if there is a next time.  I hope so; I really enjoyed myself.  Maybe Claudia wants me to come on to imitate my mother.  I can do a really good one of her talking about her pockabook, which is Rhode Island-ese for “purse.”  Or I can talk about long and short vowel sounds.  Or maybe I’ll write another book…

If you have any tips for future appearances, feel free to chime in!

Saturday’s Reading at Destinations Booksellers in New Albany, IN!

I’m so grateful to Andy and Randy at Destinations Booksellers and to everyone who came indoors during a completely glorious summer afternoon to hear me read and answer questions about Nice and Mean.  Thanks especially to the cool mom who brought these fun kids!  (She’s taking the picture.)  They also won an author visit from me on behalf of their middle school, and I can’t wait to set it up, in part because I need to do a better job at answering one girl’s question.

The Q&A about the book veered toward the subject of meanness, and one of the girls, not pictured here, asked, “If you had a daughter this age, what would you tell her if people were being mean, the way they were in this book?”

“Ooh,” I said, “that’s a really good question.” (Apparently this is what I automatically say when I don’t have an answer ready, which is one sign of a good question.)  ”It’s such a good question that I’m not even sure I can answer it well right now, but I’ll try.”

I said something to the effect that there will probably always be mean people and they’re not likely to change a ton, but if you are a nice person, people will notice.  Classmates and teachers will notice your including someone who isn’t well-liked, or going out of your way to support a friend, or having the character to engage people in interesting conversations.  And it may not pay off right now, in elementary or middle school, but as you get older, people will seek you out for friendships and positions of responsibility, and you will be a happier person than the person whose main means of pulling themselves up is putting others down.

“How’s that?” I asked the girl.  ”On a scale of tiny to huge, how helpful?”

She gave what I can best describe as a look of kindness, although that’s not quite it.  ”It’s okay for now,” she said.

Well, phew.  But I went home and thought about it some more, and I came up with a longer answer–so long, I created a new post.  But thank you, brave middle-school student, for asking me that question, and thanks to everyone else at Destinations Booksellers who created an environment where she felt comfortable asking.  I admire you all.

Coming soon: an 8-step plan for dealing with meanness in school.