May readings!

May 7 -- Teen Author Reading Night (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave, at 10th St.)



Tara Altebrando, What Happens Here

Libba Bray, Up All Night

Erin Haft, Meet Me at the Boardwalk

Cheryl Klam, The Pretty One

Nico Medina, Fat Hoochie Prom Queen

David Levithan, David Ozanich, and Chris Van Etten (aka David Van Etten), Likely Story

Lizabeth Zindel, The Secret Rites of Social Butterflies



May 8 – UP ALL NIGHT reading/party with Libba Bray, Peter Abrahams, Sarah Weeks, Patricia McCormick, and David Levithan (Books of Wonder, 5-7)



May 16 – LIKELY STORY reading with David Levithan, Chris Van Etten, and David Ozanich (aka David Van Etten) (7:30pm, B&N Greenwich Village, Waverly/6th Ave)



May 19 – Prom reading with Brian Sloan, Nico Medina, Jeanny Le Ny, and David Levithan (6:30pm, Borders at Time Warner Center, on Columbus Circle)

Plus two readings I'm hosting in June and August...

June 25 -- Teen Author Reading Night (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave, at 10th St.) (I'm hosting)



Susanne Colasanti, Take Me There

John Coy, Box Out

Sarah Beth Durst, Out of the Wild

Daphne Grab, Alive and Well in Prague, New York

E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and a stand-in for Lauren Myracle, How to Be Bad

Randi Reisfeld, Rehab

Rachel Vail, Lucky



Aug 13 -- Teen Author Reading Night (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave, at 10th St.)



Nora Baskin, All We Know of Love

Matt de la Pena, Mexican Whiteboy

Donna Freitas, Possibilities of Sainthood

Lauren McLaughlin, Cycler

Lauren Mechling, Dream Girl

Margo Rabb, Cure for Heartbreak

Martin Wilson, What They Always Tell Us

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I’m coming out...as David Van Etten

Yes, folks, it's true I cannot hide it anymore. You know me as David Levithan... but there's more to me than that. Along with my friends David Ozanich and Christopher Van Etten, I am also one third of someone else... namely David Van Etten. And David Van Etten's first book is coming out ... so the time has come for you to know the truth. I am one third of David Van Etten. And you should read all three thirds of LIKELY STORY, our new book.

Want more details? Check out David Van Etten's page here -- www.myspace.com/davidvanetten. PLEASE become his friend. And buy his book. And enjoy it!

(Also, if you're in New York, please come see David Van Etten read -- both Wednesday, May 7th at Teen Author Reading Night, 6pm at the Jefferson Market Public Library, and May 16th at 7:30 at the Barnes & Noble on 6th Ave and Waverly!)

/:) David

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The HOW WE MET tour comes to North Carolina, 4/4 and 4/5

I will be at the Regulator Bookstore in Durham next Friday, April 4th, at 7pm. (Location: 720 9th St in Durham) And then at the Chapel Hill Public Library (Location: 100 Library Drive in Chapel Hill) on Saturday, April 5th at 4pm. If you’re anywhere in the area, please drop by!

/:) David

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HOW THEY MET Tour -- NYC, Philly, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, North Carolina

Here are the dates for my HOW THEY MET tour (so far!):

January 15 – Barnes & Noble, ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Greenwich Village (7:30, 6^th Ave and Waverly)..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

February 1 – Giovanni's Room, Philadelphia (5:30, 345 S 12^th St)

February 6 -- Teen Author Reading Night  (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6^th Ave, at 10^th St.)

I will be hosting, with readings from James Lecesne (Absolute Brightness), Robin Palmer (Cindy Ella), Brian Sloan (A Really Nice Prom Mess), and Suzanne Weyn (Reincarnation)

February 21 – Carnegie Library Reading and Afterparty, Pittsburgh (7-11pm, 44400 Forbes Ave)

March 12 -- Teen Author Reading Night  (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6^th Ave, at 10^th St.)

 I will be hosting, with readings from E. Lockhart (The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks), ?Elizabeth Scott (Perfect You), Siobhan Vivian (A Little Friendly Advice), Melissa Walker (Violet by Design), and Maryrose Wood (My Life: The Musical)

March 13 – Not Your Mother's Book Club, San Francisco (details to come)

April 3, 4 – Raleigh/Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina (details to come)

Please spread the word to anyone you know in these areas!  Hopefully I'll get to more places as the year goes on...

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HOW THEY MET... in stores now!

My new book, HOW THEY MET AND OTHER STORIES, has just hit stores.  It some stories I wrote in high school, some I wrote in the past year. A lot of the stories are the valentine's day stories I've written for friends ever since I was a junior in high school. I'm really proud of the book, and the reaction to it so far has been amazing.   So, please, go get a copy and read for yourself! 

This is an excerpt from the first story in How They Met, entitled "Starbucks Boy"

Starbucks Boy

            It was my aunt who pimped me out.

            We had this arrangement:  I would get to live with her for a few weeks over the summer and take a pre-college course at ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Columbia before my senior year.  In return, I wouldn't have to do a thing besides stay out of the way.  It sounded like a good plan to me, except that when I got to Columbia on the first day of summer classes, I found that my course had been dropped.  Apparently, there'd been a notice that nobody in my family had bothered to notice. 

            I thought Aunt Celia would be mad.  Or at least concerned.  But instead she said, "Well, this could actually solve Elise's problem."

            Elise was a friend of Aunt Celia's who lived in the same apartment building. She had a six-year-old daughter.

            "I'm sure you're wonderful with children," Aunt Celia told me.

            This was an especially strange statement coming from Aunt Celia, who (as far as I could tell) considered the continued existence of children to be something between a nuisance and a plague.  We have a picture we love to look at in my immediate family, taken right after my brother Jonathan was born.  It's Aunt Celia's turn to hold him, and from the look on her face and the positioning of her body, you'd think that someone had asked her to cradle a ten-pound turd.  Nothing personal against Jonathan – I'm sure she was the same with me.  As Jonathan and I grew up, Aunt Celia always gave us presents to "save for later."  For my seventh birthday I received a pair of Tiffany candlesticks.  For my eighth, it was a matching finger bowl.  I freaked out, thinking a finger bowl was meant to hold fingers.  (Aunt Celia left the room so my parents could explain.)  When I turned thirteen, Aunt Celia actually seemed relieved.  She finally stopped maintaining any pretense of treating me like a child, and started treating me like a lesser adult instead.

            "Aren't you?" she now prompted.  "Wonderful?  With children?"

            I didn't know where we were going with this, but I was sure that without a reason to stay in New York, Aunt Celia would ship me back to suburbia faster than she could dial out for dinner.  Even if I found a way to avoid being underfoot, she would be unnerved by the concept of me being underfoot.

            "I'm wonderful with children," I assured her.  Various instances of me "baby-sitting" Jonathan flashed through my head – we hadn't been allowed to have pets, so I'd often encouraged him to act like one. I thought it best not to mention the particulars of my sitting experience, which, at its most extreme, stopped just short of accidental lobotomy.

            "Perfect," she said.  Then she picked her cellphone off the front table, speed-dialed, and told the person on the other end, "Elise, it's Celia.  I have a solution for the whole Astrid affair.  My nephew . . . yes, Gabriel.  The one I was telling you about . . . escaping my sister, yes.  Well, it seems that his course has been cancelled.  And I happen to know he's wonderful with children.  A complete charmer. . .  yes, he's entirely free. . . I'm sure those hours would be fine. . . . He's delighted. . . . You'll see him then. . . . Absolutely my pleasure!"

            She hung up and looked at me like I'd just been checklisted.

            "It's all set," she said. "Although you'll have to dress nicer than that."

            "What's all set?" I asked.  If I couldn't do it in a Modest Mouse T-shirt, I was worried.

            "Why, your job.  For the next three weeks."

            "Which is…?" I coaxed.

            She sighed.  "To take care of Elise's daughter, Arabella.  You'll love her.  She's wonderful."

            No follow-up questions were allowed.  With an air kiss and a trail of perfume, Aunt Celia was off.

            I started the next morning at eight.  My now-dead class was supposed to have started at ten, and I'd looked forward to the extra hours of sleep.  Instead, Aunt Celia came into my room at seven-fifteen, turned on the lights, released a low-octaved, "Be ready by eight," and left before I could see her without the compensations of makeup. 

            Even after I cured my early-morning dayblindness with two cups of coffee and a shower prolonged by ten minutes of tangential thinking, I still wasn't fully awake when I rang the doorbell of apartment 8C.  I looked presentable enough in my button-down shirt and khakis, but my mind felt button-downed and khaki as well.  I was already starting to resent my new job.

            Aunt Celia's friend Elise was three-quarters out the door when she opened it for me.

            "You must be Gabriel," she said. "I've heard so much about you.  Come in."

            Elise was one of those women who exercised so often that she was starting to look like a piece of exercise equipment herself.  She walked around the apartment as if she were still on a treadmill, telling me about emergency numbers and people to call and when to expect her back. 

            "I really appreciate you doing this," she said, putting on her coat and leading me down a hallway.  "Arabella's back here."

            Even though the light in the room was on, Arabella remained under the covers, reading by flashlight.  I could see the beam breaking through the comforter, and could hear the pages turn even as her mother called her name.  Finally, as the calling grew more insistent, Arabella emerged.  She was not, as I'd expected, as sleek and steely as her mother.  In fact, she was pudgy and flushed, her hair only making a half-hearted effort at curling.  Her expression was sour, her clothing dour, and her anger at being interrupted was palpable.  She held up her Berenstain Bears book and said, "I'm trying to read!"

            Elise took it in stride.

            "Well, I'm heading off, Arabella.  Gabriel will take care of you until Manolo comes at two.  Comprende vouz?"

            "Oui."

            Arabella didn't seem to pay me any mind, and once her mother left the apartment, I remained standing there awkwardly.  Arabella didn't return under her covers, but she continued to use the flashlight over every page.

            Stupidly, I hadn't brought any reading material of my own.  So I reached for a copy of Pete's a Pizza, only to be chastised when I picked it up.

            "You should ask first," Arabella said.

            I apologized.

            "I don't go out until ten," she told me. "You can watch TV if you want."

            "Do you mind if I read some of these instead?" I asked, gesturing to her bookshelf.

            "Sure," she replied. "Just don't say them out loud."

            I started with a few picture books, then found a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and began to read that.  Every now and then I'd look up and check on my baby-sittee. I could see her concentrating on each word of every page; only after a sentence was through would she look at the pictures.  It was cool to see reading become such a transparent act – it was as if her face had a different expression for each punctuation mark, and when there was dialogue you could see her actually listening to it in her head.  One time she caught me watching her and grimaced.  I quickly returned to my own book, and didn't smile or even acknowledge it when she started to take books from the pile that I'd already read.

            At precisely ten o'clock, Arabella announced, "It's time to go."

            Elisa hadn't said anything about whether or not we could leave the building, but I assumed it was okay.  Arabella swiftly moved to the front door, undoing the locks and bolts as if they were pieces of an ancient Chinese puzzle.  She pointed out the spare keys and then instructed me how to lock up once the door was closed again. 

            I had always secretly suspected that rich New York City kids acted twice as old as they really were.  The three-year-olds acted six, the six-year-olds acted twelve, the twelve-year-olds partied like they were twenty-four, and each eighteen-year-old took on a thirty-six-year-old's weariness.  Because they had seen the city, they felt they'd seen the world.  Whereas those of us in the suburbs had simply seen the suburbs.

            I will admit:  I was still somewhat amazed and intimidated by New York City and its complex hugeness.  Back home when I wanted to go somewhere, I jumped in my car and drove there.  But the city required the higher math of navigation, factoring in subway grids and bus paths and street maps, so many letters and numbers and names and letter-number combinations and number-name combinations.  The basic act of considering a local distance in terms of east, west, north, and south was bizarre to me; those words, I felt, should be used to describe coasts or countries, not a place two blocks over and one block up.

            Arabella didn't seem fazed.  Even though she was barely taller than the hydrants, she knew exactly where she was going.  Since we were near Central Park, I thought we might be heading for the zoo, or a museum, or a playground.  It was a perfect July day – sunny, but with the feeling that God had left the windows open.

            At the end of the first block, Arabella waited, even though there was a walk sign.  I didn't understand, so after a moment she said to me, a little impatiently, "You need to hold my hand when we cross the street."

            Such a strange thing, to hold a six-year-old's hand.  Especially a six-year-old you've only just met.  A toddler will grab hold of your finger, and someone your own age will clasp on to your whole hand, but with six-year-olds it's something in between, this acknowledgment that they can't be the one to take hold, so you have to do all the holding, folding your hand around theirs, feeling so much bigger and responsible.  It's weird and it's scary and it's nice.  Neither Arabella nor I said a word, and as soon as we got back to the curb, she pulled away and I let go until the next curb.

            "Where are you taking me?" I asked.

            "I want to try a new Starbucks," she replied.

            "Are you sure you're allowed to go to Starbucks?"

            "I go there all the time."

            Elise had told me to call if there was an emergency, but I figured the prospect of undue caffeination didn't really count as one.  In fact, Arabella made it seem like going to Starbucks was the most natural thing in the world, so I followed along.  We only had to walk five blocks to hit the nearest one.  It was now ten-fifteen, and the morning rush was over.  Instead, the seats were filled by the daytrippers, the patrons for whom the word ensconced was no doubt termed.  Laptops were open, bookmarks were orphaned on tables, and newspapers were set out to be read section by section.  An idle idyll.  Suddenly I felt more at home.

            And then I looked behind the counter. 

            Now, it has to be one of Starbucks's more brilliant marketing strategies to maintain at least one completely dreamy guy behind the counter at any given shift.   This guy is invariably known as Starbucks Boy to the hundreds of regular customers who have a crush on him, and the glory of it is that he always seems just accessible enough to be within reach, but never accessible enough to actually touch.  Starbucks Boy wears short sleeves even in the winter, so you can study his arms when you're feeling too shy to stare at his face (in hopes of catching an eye-sparkle or a dimple).  Depending on the location of the Starbucks, you can imagine that the minute he gets off of work, he heads off to rehearse some new songs with his band, or surf the big waves, or shoot an indie film.  He is, unlike most beautiful people you've ever encountered, friendly – and you honestly believe it's not because that's a part of his job.  He banters with the counter girls relentlessly, whether it's cornrowed Latisha, corn-fed Barbara, or corn-toed Betty.  You listen in on their in-jokes, and then think that the way he says "good morning" or "have a good one" or "here you go" to you is a little different than the way he says it to anyone else.  Or at least that's the hope.

            The dreamy guy at this Starbucks wasn't working the counter.  Instead he was working a broom behind it, smiling as he swept.  At first I didn't get the smile, but then I realized he was listening to the radio, to Norah Jones sliding her voice around the notes.  In his own way, he was dancing along.

            I was so busy not-looking-but-looking that I didn't notice Arabella arrive at the front of the line.

            "Can I help you?" the counter girl asked.  She was about my age, with her hair pulled into a ponytail and her face pulled into a ponyfront.

            Suddenly, Arabella became shy.  She leaned into me and whispered, "I want a vanilla mocha decaf latte but with no mocha."

            I figured the counter girl had heard, but instead of punching it in, she stared at me.  So I said, "She'd like a vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha."

            "You mean like a vanilla steamer?" the bored barista asked.

            "No!" Arabella shouted.  "I want a vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha!"

            "One vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha," the bore-ista repeated.

            Arabella pulled on my shirt.  I leaned down and she whispered, "I have my purple cup."  She rummaged through the small Hello Kitty purse she'd brought and pulled it out.

            I could sense a stop to the sweeping, and could imagine Starbucks Boy finally noticing me as I said to the counter girl,  "And would you mind putting it in this purple cup?"

            "I'm sorry, we can only refill Starbucks mugs," she said.

            I looked down to Arabella and saw she was on the verge of an outburst.

            "C'mon," I said.

            The barista looked offended by this plea – I was violating the Starbucks Code of Customer Behavior.  But she would be violating the Starbucks Code of Employee Behavior to tell me to piss off, so we were at a standstill. 

            Arabella chimed in with a "pleeeeeeeeease," and that's what did it.  Starbucks Boy leaned in, took the cup out of my hand, and said, "No problem."

            Then he smiled.  At me.  The kind of smile that feels like there's a wink attached to it.

            I ordered an iced chai, then paid with my hard-earned (well, unearned parental) dollars.   Arabella and I shifted over to the pickup counter, where Starbucks Boy was already waiting with her vanilla milk.  Frustratingly, a Starbucks Boy never wears a nametag, so you just have to imagine his name is Dalton or Troy or Dylan.  As my Starbucks Boy handed Arabella her drink, I observed that he gave her the same smile he gave me.  I realized how stupid I was being, thinking his attentions were anything more than routine.  Then, when he handed over my drink and our hands accidentally touched, I forgot that realization entirely.

            Arabella picked out one of the superlong straws to sip her milk with, and I drank the minute's worth of liquid that had been given to me with an afternoon's worth of ice cubes.  When we were finished, I stole one last glance at Starbucks Boy, who was making some foam.  I almost went up and purchased a mini bundt cake just to get another view, then I dismissed myself as too silly for words (this was a full conversation in my head) and ushered Arabella (who'd lost interest in her drink after six carefully-spaced sips) outside.  I proposed a stop at the Central Park Zoo, and she acted like she was humoring me by saying yes. 

            I found myself wanting to impress her, like we were on a date.  I rattled off facts about polar bears and penguins, and was excited when she seemed mildly interested.  She started asking me the names of each of the animals – not their scientific names, but their proper names, like Freezy or Gertrude.  I gave her the answers, making them up as we went along, and it took a good dozen species before Arabella figured out I was kidding. 

            "The emu is not named Clifford," she said. "Clifford is a dog."

            "Did I say Clifford?" I backtracked. "I meant Gifford.  Like Kathie Lee."

            "Who's Kathie Lee?"

            And I thought, Holy shit, she's too young to remember Regis with anyone besides Kelly Ripa.

            "Kathie Lee's the sea otter.  Let's go see her."

            I had thought it wouldn't be any problem for us to get back by two, and because of that I didn't bother to check the clock on my cell phone.  I was shocked when I finally saw that we only had twenty-five minutes to get back. 

            "You didn't tell me you were hungry," I replied, and then immediately felt the way any adult feels when he or she picks an argument with a six-year-old – namely, stupid.

            "I was," Arabella said, and that was that.

            We got back with three minutes to spare. 

            "Don't worry," Arabella told me as I made her a pb & j sandwich in the kitchen. "Manolo's always late."

            I nodded and asked her who Manolo was. 

            "My French tutor," she replied.  Then she asked, "Do you have a boyfriend?"

            I was about to bitch and moan – the usual response – but then I realized who I was talking to.  Only in New York (and maybe San Francisco) could a six-year-old have gaydar.

            "How do you know I'm gay?" I asked.  I genuinely wanted to know.  My wardrobe wasn't infused with pink or rainbow, and I certainly hadn't been very flamboyant in her presence.  I wondered what my tells were.

            "The way you look at boys," she said. "You're gay."

            The doorbell rang.  Arabella made no move to answer it.

            "I'll get it," I said.  It took me a minute to walk to the door, but two minutes to get open the locks.

            "The top one first and to the left," the voice on the other side of the door said. "Then the middle one to the right.  Then the bottom one, twice around to the left.  Now turn the knob."

            When I finally got it open, I found a guy a few years older than me, wearing a winter sweater on a summer day.  He had Harry Potter glasses and a Beatrix Potter body.

            "Bonjour," he said.

            "'Allo," I said, trying to sound Cockney but ending up Klingon.

            "You must be Astrid's successor," he continued. "I'm charmed to meet you."

            "And you must be Manolo," I said. "Or do you prefer Manny?"

            At that last word, he shuddered.

            "Manolo," he said. "Is le fille ready?"

            "She's in le kitchen."

            "Can you tell her to meet me in the study?"

            "My pleasure."

            I watched him stroll off without another look in my direction, then poked my head into the kitchen.

            "Your Frenchman's here," I said. "I'm going to head home."

            Arabella put her sandwich down and said, "That's fine.  I won't tell Mom about lunch as long as you remember tomorrow."

            I told her she had a deal. 

            The next day was much the same, only I was wearing better clothes.  I had a suspicion that Arabella was a daily-ritual kind of girl, and if I was going to see Starbucks Boy again, it wasn't going to be in khakis and a button-down.

            If Elise or Arabella noticed my more casual attire, neither mentioned it.  Instead Elise mentioned that Ivan – the math tutor – was coming at three.

Figuring it might mean extra money – and also figuring I had more than a fair grasp of first-grade math – I told Elise, "If you want, I could tutor Arabella.  You know, stay later and do it."

            Elise stared down her nose at me.  She had to angle her head to do it.

            "I'm sure you're very intelligent, but we prefer Arabella's tutors to have graduated college."

            "Ivy league?" I asked, tongue in cheek.

            "Preferred, but not essential," Elise replied, tongue nowhere near cheek.  "We had a lovely girl from Smith, but she went away to India with her new lover."

            I didn't think it would win me the argument to point out that I wasn't going to be running off with any lovers anytime soon.  I made a mental note to teach Arabella some really stupid knock-knock jokes as retribution.

            As I'd predicted, we followed the same morning routine:  reading in Arabella's room until ten (once again, I didn't bring my own book, but this time it was deliberate – I enjoyed reading hers), then a stroll down to Starbucks.  I kept looking at my reflection in windows as we walked there, checking to see if my hair was flat or if my shirt was billowing the wrong way.  Arabella was telling me a story about a girl in her kindergarten class who had eaten a Crayon and said it tasted like chicken.  I tried to follow.

            All of my prayers and fears were answered, because Starbucks Boy was working the register when we walked in.  There were two people in front of us, and I obsessively paid attention to the way he talked to them – genial, but nothing special – to use as a contrast when analyzing the way he talked to me.   When we got to the front of the line, he smiled a little wider (I was sure of it) and said, without missing a beat, "One iced chai and one vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha, in a purple cup, right?"

            Was I dealing with some kind of Starbucks Savant, or had he thought my order yesterday was worth remembering?  Melodramatic as it may sound (and it certainly felt melodramatic), I considered that my entire romantic future might hinge on the answer to that question.

  I could hear the people behind me shuffling and preparing to grumble as I fumbled through my wallet for correct change (saving my singles for the tip jar, where they'd be more noticeable).  Starbucks Boy conveyed my order and Arabella's cup to the worker b's behind him, then looked at my wallet and said, "It's cool you have a change pocket.  I need one of those in my wallet.  I hate loose change."

            If there was something to say next that would parlay our conversation from reportage to repartee, I couldn't figure it out.  So instead of something inspiringly witty, I said, "I got it at H&M.  I like it a lot."

            "Homosexual and Metrosexual," Starbucks Boy replied.  Then, as I thought WHA?!, he added, "H&M.  I know it stands for something Swedish, but really it should be Homosexual & Metrosexual."

            "Yeah," I said.  "Mmm hmm."

            "It's a cool wallet."

            "Thanks."

            Because I'd paid in exact change, there wasn't anything for him to give me back except the receipt.  And once he handed that over, I couldn't continue to hold up the line.  I didn't think the woman behind me would understand if I turned to her and said, "I just need another moment – I'm admiring his eyes."  Or maybe she would, and she'd get farther with him than I could.

            Homosexual or metrosexual?  Or just a fan of mass-produced Swedish fashion? 

            I hadn't even realized that Arabella had disappeared from my side, which I imagined wasn't the best thing for a baby-sitter to do.  Luckily she was only a few steps away, at the pickup counter. 

            "He's nice," she observed. I restrained myself from grabbing her by the shoulders and asking, What else did you notice?  Do you think he's into guys?  And into me, specifically?  I wished I were back home, where I could send my girlposse in to suss him out. 

            That afternoon, after I'd abandoned Arabella to Ivan (who looked like the love child of Lenin and Stalin), I found myself ambling by the Starbucks again.  I debated whether or not to go in, to see if Starbucks Boy's shift had ended.  Then I started to feel like I was exhibiting Typical Stalker Behavior and decided to stalk wallets at H&M instead. 

            I knew I was getting perilously close to opening up my History of Stupid Things Done in the Name of Crushes, but the insidious thing about the History was that I always felt each new blank page had the potential to transform it into a different book.  One successful gesture, one successful relationship would suddenly turn it into a History of Stupid Things Done in the Name of Crushes That Were All Redeemed in the End.   If on page 13 I wrote Justin Timberlake's initials with mine in a heart on my sneakers, only to throw them out the next day when Laura Duke teased me for it, or if on page 98 I set up base camp outside Roger Lin's locker just to see if he'd notice me there, or if on page 154 I entered a milkshake-drinking contest to be able to stand next to Mark Tamlin for fifteen minutes, only to have him puke vanilla chum onto my Sketchers … well, somehow I felt these pages didn't bear consideration as I headed to page 239 and bought a ten-dollar H&M wallet for a boy because it was the only thing in the world I knew for sure he liked, including me.   I didn't buy him the same exact wallet – I made his green to my blue – and I didn't actually believe I'd ever give it to him.  But at least it provided me with the illusion of doing something proactive.

To read the rest of the story, check out How They Met and Other Stories

3:28 PM - 19 Comments - 28 Kudos - Add Comment

NYC, LA Tour Dates!

If you live in or around NYC or LA, I would love to see/meet you ... so please come to this fall's tour dates...

TOUR DATES

September 24, 2007 – Barnes & Noble, Greenwich Village (on 6th Ave), NYC, 7:30 pm with Rachel Cohn

September 27, 2007 – Borders, Long Beach, CA, 7pm with Rachel Cohn

September 28, 2007 – Vroman's, CA, 7pm with Rachel Cohn

September 29, 2007 – Barnes & Noble, Santa Monica, CA, 2pm with Rachel Cohn

October 3, 2007 -- Teen Author Reading Night, the Tompkins Square Branch of the NYPL, 331 E. 10th Street, off of Ave B, NYC, 6pm, I will be hosting and Jessica Blank, Robert Lipsyte, Wendy Mass, Kirsten Miller, Adrienne Vrettos, and Melissa Walker will be reading

October 15, 2007 – Borders, Columbus Circle, NY, 6pm with Rachel Cohn, Carolyn Mackler and Megan McCafferty

November 7, 2007 -- Teen Author Reading Night, the Tompkins Square Branch of the NYPL, 331 E. 10th Street, off of Ave B, NYC, 6pm, I will be hosting and Alaya Johnson, Kristen Kemp, Louise Plummer, Abby Sher, Scott Westerfeld, and Jake Wizner will be reading

December 5, 2007 -- Teen Author Reading Night, the Tompkins Square Branch of the NYPL, 331 E. 10th Street, off of Ave B, NYC, 6pm, I will be hosting and reading, along with other friends reading their favorite selections of the year.

Stay tuned for the How They Met tour in 2008 -- which will definitely not be in just NYC and LA!

/:) David

4:37 AM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Naomi & Ely and David & Rachel

In honor of the release of Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List... a little back-and-forth between its authors...

D:  I think we should address the rumors first.  Is it true that Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List is based on an episode of Falcon Crest?..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

R:  Actually, it's based on a lost episode of The Golden Girls.  Only younger, hotter, and gayer.  Now tell me, David:  When we start doing our street theater performances of The Golden Girls meets Naomi & Ely, who do you want to play?  (I call Sophia.)

D:  I've actually given this much thought.  And I want to play all of Blanche's ex-husbands.

Now, if Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List had a theme song over the opening credits, what would it be?

R:  My choice is old school honky-tonk, of course.  On my Naomi & Ely playlist, "their" song is "Your Place Is Here with Me" by Charlie Rich, for its soulful sense of love and co-dependency.  Could you please tell me what yours would be (hopefully by an artist born after 1980 or so)?

D:  I will confess that at first it was hard to exorcise the demon that is Hall & Oates's "Kiss on My List" whenever talking about this book.  But honestly, I'd probably pick something from Tegan & Sara – probably "Living Room".  Strange to pick a band of twin lesbian sisters for a novel about a gay guy and a straight girl.  But no matter.  Why don't we have any lesbians in our book?

R:  We do have lesbians in our book!  Represent!  And we've got two Bruces, and two Robins, and a hot doorman, and a club bouncer who lets Ely show his...nevermind.  And can I just say, I know you'll be brilliant as Blanche's ex-husbands, but I really saw you as Dorothy.  Speaking of which, how come you haven't written a lesbian comic novel yet?  Because I am waiting and hoping for it from you, and if you don't write it soon, I may just have to come out of retirement and write it myself.  (Please don't make me go back to work.)

D:  It's just too typical for a gay guy to be "Dorothy."  And you're right -- we do have lesbians in our book.  They're just Lesbians of a Certain Age.

I guess this is why I write teen books -- I forget about adult characters.

As for lesbians in my novels -- well, "Miss Lucy Had a Steamboat", a long story in my next book, How They Met, and other stories, could very well become a novel at some point.  It's astonishing to me that the ration of gay teen novels to lesbian teen novels is so lopsided.  Someone's got to help Julie Ann Peters.  You should definitely come out of retirement to do it.  Pleeeeeease.

Now, because you know we're going to be asked, where did the spark of an idea for Naomi & Ely come from?

R:  Well, we just had too much fun writing Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, and I was keen for us to try writing our own take on a Will & Grace-type relationship, only with real and raw feelings, and without all the usual stereotypes.  Then one night you told me about a "No Kiss List" that you and your friend Nick (aka "Real Nick," to distinguish him from our character Nick) had, a list involving a name of guys you both know that neither of you was allowed to kiss.  And almost immediately after, when I sat down to write the first chapter of our second book (since you wrote the first chapter of Nick & Norah), I kept thinking about the "No Kiss List" and I e-mailed you if it would be okay for me to incorporate the idea into my first chapter and you said yes, and we were off from there.  Since you wrote the second chapter, can you tell me:  Why do you think Bruce the Second thinks of himself as a boring guy?  I mean, he's dating this hot Naomi girl, then he kisses her best friend Ely...for a boring guy, he's getting a lot of action.  I think this guy might have more charisma than he lets on?

And for the record, I don't mind playing to type as cranky old lady Sophia, so I don't see why you couldn't be Dorothy.

D:  I always liked the Betty White character the most.  Even if I'm blanking on her name.  Which loses me gay cred, big time.  But I am guessing that writing books like Boy Meets Boy and Naomi & Ely gives me some gay cred in the bank.

            Speaking of gay cred . . . I think Bruce the Second definitely doesn't know what he's got going.  Which is part of his charm.  While Ely and Naomi know exactly how hot they are (not without insecurities, of course), Bruce has no clue that he could be attractive.  Which makes him roughly in line with 94% of the general population.

One of the most flattering things I'm hearing in people's response to Naomi & Ely is that they're completely confused about which chapters you wrote and which ones I wrote.  I didn't know how much chaos not having chapter numbers would cause.  But I love that it's so hard to tell.  So now, be honest...which of my chapters is your favorite?

R:  I think you already know my favorite of yours is the Robin "Friends" chapter.  (But don't expect another birthday present from me to you in tribute of that chapter.)  If I ever get irritated with you (of course that never happens, but *hypothetically*), all I have to do is read that hilarious and disturbingly beautiful monologue to remind me how great you are.  What chapter of mine do you think of when you're *hypothetically* irritated with me and need to remember how great I am?

Betty White was Rose!  Your gay card is so revoked.  Honestly, I'm embarrassed for you.

D:  The funny thing is, the minute I hit send, my mind went "ROSE!"  My gay card is in the mail to you.  You'll know the envelope, because it'll be singing showtunes.

Although my heart was full of Rachelness when Mrs. Loy started speaking

British slang and when girl-Robin started speaking ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Schenectady, I think Gabriel's first mix chapter is the one that made me think "damn, that's beautiful" the most.  And not just because you name-checked Kirsty MacColl.

I actually haven't told you this -- just a week or two ago, a reader from the UK emailed me and asked me if I'd ever listened to Kirsty MacColl.  I was so excited to say yes! and we included her in our latest book!  (Note to readers:  go download some Kirsty MacColl.  "You and Me Baby" if you want to start desolate, "A New England" if you want to be galvanized, "Caroline" if you want some fun.)  Yes, if we can get one new person to listen to Kirsty MacColl, I will consider our job done.

Meanwhile, I want to go back to something you said earlier, about Naomi & Ely being the anti-Will & Grace.  I think it's an important distinction to make, because I think one of the big pitfalls about doing a book about a straight girl and gay boy who are friends is that the inevitable Will & Grace comparisons come up.  I also love that Naomi is not a stereotypical "fag hag" -- which is a characterization that I think gets thrown around much too easily nowadays.  So I can think of plenty of things that inspired us to act against them in writing the book.  But what were the books/movies/shows that inspired you in a positive direction?  (I wouldn't have been able to articulate it as such, but I feel we were trying to do a Billy Wilder comedy, only with teens and set now.)

R:  Exactly!  On the Naomi thing, and the Billy Wilder feeling.  (Folks, IMDB him to find out some of the amazing movies he made.)  I don't know if I had specific inspirations/influences when writing Naomi & Ely other than wanting to explore natural feelings within a loving but difficult relationship -- kind of like you'd see in some of those old John Hughes/Molly Ringwald movies.  I think Adults of a Certain Age forget that teenagers have very real, contradictory feelings about the important people in their lives, and truly complicated relationships with each other, and that's something I hope the characters in Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List really explore.  Plus, I really hate the "fag hag" stereotype and wanted Naomi to serve as a contradiction to that image.

And a bonus prize to the first reader who writes to us to tell us the Kirsty MacColl songs they've discovered as a result of reading our book. ;>

I forgot to tell you that a lot of people have also commented to me that they can't tell which of us wrote which chapter.  (Do you think that's because we're confused, or we've just gotten that wordily mind-merged at this point?)  So yes, to clarify, we did alternate writing chapters again, but we wrote from the perspectives of several characters besides Naomi & Ely.  We knew we couldn't replicate the feelings and energy of Nick & Norah, so we took a different direction instead.  How do you feel about it when our second book gets compared so often to our first, without taking into account that they're two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT BOOKS?!?!?

D:  Well, one of my least favorite questions is "Which of your books do you like best?"  It's such a ridiculous question.  I guess it's natural for people to compare the books, and I think different people will like different books more.  Nick & Norah had such a charmed life that Naomi & Ely was bound to live somewhat in its shadow.  But really, when people are reading the book, hopefully they're in that book alone.  That's what matters.

I do have to say, though, it's pretty funny that we stumbled into writing another book with the word "list" in the title – when we started writing about the No Kiss List, I didn't make any connection whatsoever to "Infinite Playlist."  Clearly, we will be writing a romantic comedy about a grocery list before long. 

Here's the thing:  I love N&N, and I love N&E.  So I don't see why readers can't love 'em both, too.  So which one do YOU like better?

Just kidding.  Which of the characters in N&E did you find the hardest to write?

R:  Ely was the hardest for me to write, because I was feeling Naomi's side of everything much more than his, and I naturally gravitated toward her "bitch tirade" voice anyway.  It's funny because in lots of ways the two lead characters were both the hardest to write, because as much as I loved them, they're so wrapped up in their own self-absorption in the beginning, but unwrapping them out of that as the book spooled through was really fun.  I think they both come into their own quite nicely as the book progresses.  But I did very much enjoy writing the side characters' points-of-view on all things Naomi & Ely.  What about you?  Which was the hardest to write?  (I'll note you lapsed into Naomi tirade mode almost too easily!)  And what the f*&! do you have you have to say to all those who complain about the, er, "edgy" content in our books?

D:  I should've known this question would ricochet back my way!  The obvious answer would be Naomi – but the truth is that the one time I took it from Naomi's point of view, she was so incredibly angry that it was really, really easy to write.  I just rode that anger and frustration and sadness.  (And list form always helps, of course.)   Instead, I'm going to say Gabriel, because he's the one I stayed the furthest away from. In many ways, Naomi was easier because I had spent so much time watching her through Ely's and Bruce II's eyes.  Whereas Gabriel, especially, remained a mystery to all of the characters but Naomi, so I never got that close to figuring him out.

As for the "content" question – I think we use language and show things in our books because they are real to the characters and real to the story, and it's somewhat insulting to treat our word choice as if it was any less deliberate than that of authors who stay "safe."  For example:  There is a huge difference between saying "I'm so mad" and "I'm so frickin' mad" and "I'm so fucking mad" – there is a different meaning behind each of the phrases, and if you shy away from using the word "fucking" you can't get to the truth of the statement.  Because the character isn't mad, he's fucking mad.  There's a difference.

That said, I think the language in Nick & Norah is different from Naomi & Ely, because the characters who are speaking are very different.  And, yes, Naomi and Ely start out self-absorbed (in a way that "self-absorbed" is defined as "absorbed in each other as well.")  But in many ways I feel what they have to do is much, much harder than what Nick and Norah have to do.  Nick and Norah, god bless 'em, are aware of their insecurities and vulnerabilities from the get-go.  Whereas Naomi and Ely start off trying to deny the things that are wrong, and end up having to face them.

Do you ever think of the characters we've written together in terms of the characters in your solo books?  Do you ever wonder what would happen if Norah and Naomi met up with Cyd Charisse?

R:  Oh, thank you so fucking much for answering the language issue so much better than I could have.  Sometimes when I hear complaints about the language in Nick & Norah, I think, "Did you actually READ the book?"  Because Nick and Norah are as clean-living and full of life and heart as you could hope for, and if they say fuck a lot, that's absolutely about the passion and energy of that one particular night they share together – I don't think they go home and talk to their mothers that way!  They are good kids; they know the difference.

And yes, I do sometimes think of my characters talking to each other!  Usually it's Norah and Cyd Charisse trying to get over their own cool and see if they like each other.  Then sometimes Norah is talking to Infinite Darlene, or CC getting some gospel on with my beloved Gail from Realm of Possibility…and the possibilities go on and on.

When you're actively working on a story, do you ever find yourself in constant dialogue with your characters, even when you're supposed to be conversing with real people?  And kind of swatting your characters away, like, "Shut up, I'm trying to maintain in the physical world."  Then, "Wait, come back, you had something important to say!"  Or is this just my own personal writing dementia?

D:  Oh, I don't think you're alone in that dementia.  I think different authors interact with their stories in different ways, and I know many who share your symptoms.  Not to get all high-fallutin' on you, but one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies is the part in The Hours when Virginia Woolf's sister explained to her children that Aunt Ginny is lucky, because she always exists in two places: the world and the novel she's writing.  When I'm writing, when it's really working, I'm in a zone, where most of my thoughts are in terms of the writing.  It's not necessarily that I'm thinking the characters are real, and I don't converse with them, but it's as if I've set my mind to think about the story and not about life, so the sentences that come are ones to do with the story, not to do about life.  I'll get up from this computer, walk around my apartment, maybe even make it to the store – but I can feel the creative synapses working to connect, and when a connection is made, I will run back to my computer and resume.  The characters never, ever talk to me.  Instead they appear to me.  What they do, or how they feel, or where they are.  I just suddenly know these things.  I don't even see them – the word "appear" probably is misleading, because I'm very bad at picturing what (or who) I write.  They all exist as words, and the words make sense to me.

(It's the problem of when someone asks you why you chose to do a certain thing in the book, and there's really no answer.  Why does Bruce the Second chew Orbit?  I don't know.  It's just that when I was writing that particular sentence, it made sense that he chewed Orbit, and that's what I wrote down.  Does the fact that I choose Orbit influence that?  Sure.  But, you know, I do many things, but I only chose certain ones for Bruce the Second.)

Ah, what a long answer that was. 

Because we flipped the order for N&E, so you started it and I ended it, whereas it was the opposite for N&N, let me ask this… which did you find harder:  writing the first chapter or writing the last chapter?

R:  I found it much harder to write the first rather than last chapter for the exact reason you just described.  Stories and characters don't so much "appear" to me as voices feel like they come fully alive in my head, and everything I want to observe is through that voice's spectrum.  When it happens, when I truly get into that zone, it's a furious rush for my hands to type as fast as the words want to come out.  But the voices aren't instantaneous; they usually start as a whisper, a speck of an idea, and as I get deeper into the stories and truly discover the voices, the whisper feels like it becomes a mad but wonderful scream.  Which is why first chapters are hardest for me, and are the ones I usually have to revise the most.  When I'm writing first drafts, it's not usually until the fourth or fifth chapter that I start to really understand the voice and can truly hear it.  But by the end chapters, sometimes I feel the book could write itself, if only I can type fast enough.  Although the exception for me would be Nick & Norah.  You delivered me a first Nick chapter that was so enticing, I couldn't NOT respond as Norah right away.  It was like she was shoving me aside to answer that Nick guy.  But with Naomi, she resisted.  She only wanted to speak in symbols.  What could I do?

Authors get asked about sequels all the time.  I don't think we could write a Naomi & Ely sequel, if only because we ran out of symbols, and we'd have to learn hieroglyphics or something to take Naomi to a new level, and the book designers would really hate us then.  But I wonder if you've ever been tempted with Nick & Norah?  If only because they only had that one night.  (Mind you, I'm not suggesting we write a sequel.  I think we're in agreement it's better left to all our imaginations to speculate on what happens next after Nick & Norah jump that subway turnstile.  But I will confess that their voices are still very present in my head!  I can hear them commenting on different movies I see, songs I hear, bantering with each other…)  And is there any one particular book you wish there was a sequel for – or that you find yourself writing one in your head?  Don't say Gone with the Wind, it's been done.

D:  Well, you know I'm dying to read the third book in Virginia Euwer Wolff's Make Lemonade trilogy.  But as far as a sequel to a book that probably won't get a sequel… isn't it funny, but there's nothing that immediately pops to mind.  Or the books that do pop to mind are more for the "I wonder how they would do it" reason, not the "I love this character so much I have to stay with him/her reason."  If Salinger decided to bring back Holden Caulfield, would I buy it?  Sure.  Just to see how he'd messed up his main character.  But do I want to see Scout grow up, or return to the record show in High Fidelity?  Not really.  This is one of our big differences, isn't it?  When the story is over for me, the story is over.  For any of my books, a tangent might be interesting – for the longest time, I genuinely though our book after Nick & Norah was going to follow T(h)om and Caroline on the same night.  But for Nick and Norah themselves… they have their night, and I want that to be theirs.  I do love that they're still talking to you, though.  And I will definitely have moments when I'm walking in the East Village and I think, "Oh, look, there's Nick."  Or, "That's SUCH a Tris outfit."  Same thing with Naomi and Ely and the Bruces and the Robins – they've definitely become a part of how I see the world.  Even if we disagree about endings, I think we're in agreement about durings, and how if a book works the way it should, it informs the author as much as the author informs it.

Any last words?  I started, so you get to end.