More GNF!!!

Huge congrats to Lauren on her awesome review of CRAZY/BEAUTIFUL. I was lucky enough to read an early copy and I can definitely say that it's all that and more!

My good news this week is that BLUE MOON was released on July 7th (yay!), and that EVERMORE landed at #4 this week on the New York Times Bestsellers List for Children's Paperbacks making for 23 weeks in the top 5 (!!!), and it's at #103 this week on the USA Today list (up 5 from last week!)!

But what I'm really really excited about is the new website my publisher put together--a destination for all things IMMORTALS--and they did such a great job, I'm totally addicted, I keep sneaking back there when I'm supposed to be working! There are chakra charts, screensavers, wallpapers, a place to download your aura--and every time you click on a tulip you will hear an audio clip of a scene not contained in the book!! To check it out for youself just click HERE!

And don't forget to subscribe so you can be the first to know about any exciting IMMORTALS SERIES news!

Well, that's it for me--how about you--what's your good news this week?!

Have a fun weekend-

Alyson

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Good News Friday: Early Kirkus

Got the Kirkus review for CRAZY BEAUTIFUL, due out Sept 7. The last line: "Somehow, this romance transcends all of its potential pitfalls to create a powerful story about recovery and friendship. " I'll take it!

How about you? Got any GNF to share?

Be well. Don't forget to write.

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Heading for ALA!

For travel week, I thought it would be fitting to talk about what I'm looking forward to most as I travel to Chicago for the ALA national conference. I'll be there Saturday and Sunday, haunting the exhibits area. My ARCs won't be on display until the ALA Mid-Winter Conference in Boston in January, so I get to attend this one solely as a booklover (and host of The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest). Much fun to be had. Here's what I'm excited about:


1. Meeting my fabulous editor. Really, I'm excited to meet the entire Egmont team. They're all completely fabulous. Gooooooo Team Egmont!


2. Getting to hang out with some of the Great Scavenger Hunt Contest librarians. What a terrific bunch of people! If you'll be there, we're meeting near the Egmont booth at 3:30pm on Saturday. Stop by and say hi!


3. Hearing Laurie Halse Anderson speak at the Margaret Edwards luncheon. I'm delighted that I'll be joining my editor and fellow Egmont author Julia Keller for the event.


4. Meeting two of my favorite YA book bloggers. (Waving to Chelsea aka The Page Flipper and Kristi aka The Story Siren.) Chelsea is the very first reviewer to have read The Cinderella Society, so that makes it double the fun.


5. Attending the Egmont launch party Saturday night at the Art Institute of Chicago. I've heard nothing but raves about their BEA launch party, so I know this is going to be a blast. Especially since I get to hang out there with my lovely (and funny) librarian friend Cathy.


6. Did I mention books??? So many great books to discover. I'm hoping to pick up a few ARCs of upcoming Great Scavenger Hunt Contest books so I can do some special giveaways for participating Hunt librarians. We'll see how I fare while I'm there.


Who else is heading to ALA? If you've been there before, what suggestions do you have for a first-timer?

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Twilight Goes to School

Clearly, I am too easily amused. Maybe it's because I'm recovering from a non-vacation vacation. Maybe it's because I'm up against a tight deadline. Or maybe it's because these things are just plain funny.

Did you know that Twihards can go to summer school in Forks? I am not kidding. You can read the article here.

This is my absolute favorite, though... Edward schooled by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Enjoy!

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Schools Out!!

This week we’re blogging about school, and, I’m afraid my attitude toward it can best be summed up by THIS.

For those of you who are click shy, that’s Alice Cooper singing the infamous, end of school anthem—"Schools Out." A song they used to play in heavy rotation back in my day, especially around mid-June.

The last day of school was always my favorite day of school. Sure I liked the new clothes, the sharpened pencils, and the nervous making anticipation that the first day would bring—but what I liked even more was ditching the books I had to read in favor of the books I wanted to read and swapping my school clothes for bikinis and flip-flops. Those three, long, glorious months stretched out before me like an overfed cat. Nothing but long days—warm nights—and, as the song says, “No more pencils, no more books . . .”

So tell me, what was your favorite day of school? First or last or somewhere in between?

 

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Embarrassing Moments With Tyra Banks

It's Embarrassing Moments week on TFC, and I have to say that one of my most embarrassing moments of this year was when I went to a taping of the Tyra Banks show. I talked about it on my blog, but I'll relive the humiliation here, just for you:

First of all, the three of us got sat in the front row, so Ty Ty was about five feet away from me and I can confirm that she has the smallest ankles you've ever seen. She's genuinely gorgeous, and her body is a great mix of not-too-thin curves.

Here comes the mortification: I got pulled up on stage to dance with the audience prep guy (who ruled and knew all the moves to Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"). Unfortunately, I do NOT know all the moves to "Single Ladies." In fact, I know zero dance moves. Period. I'm one of those people who won't even get in the middle of a dance circle among friends, so I was totally red-faced. But I realized that if I fought it, it would just draw more attention to me (which I definitely didn't want) so I sucked it up and did some horribly doofy moves up there!

I'm really glad those 2 minutes are over. Confess an embarrassing moment of your own? It'll make me feel better.

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GNF!!!

So,  during my morning blog hop I visited The Cafe and thanks to Lauren's post (see below!) I realized it was Friday.

That's right. I had no idea what day it was. This is occurs more often than I'd like to admit!

Anyway, I do have some good news to share--stuff I'm pretty dang excited about, so here goes:

EVERMORE remains at #4 this week on the NYT Best Seller list for Children's Paperbacks, making for 5 straight months in the top 5!!!! It's also still on the USA Today and Publisher's Weekly Best Seller Lists and I can't thank YOU enough for all your support!

Also, I just agreed to add a sixth book in THE IMMORTALS series!!!

And, Riley (Ever's ghostly sister in EVERMORE) will be getting her own series debuting in Fall of 2010!!!

I can't tell you how excited I am to extend THE IMMORTALS and to give Riley her own story line. She was so fun to write, and I can't wait to reprise her!

Also, Turkish rights were recently sold- so Woo-Hoo to that!  My husband and I had planned to go there for our honeymoon, but work plans derailed it, but now it looks like we'll get a second chance!!!

Also, just 11 more days now until BLUE MOON hits the stores and it just got an awesome review from The Story Siren today who gave it 5 Stars!!!  You can read it HERE!

Oh, and the BLUE MOON trailer is up on YouTube!! You can see it HERE!

Okay, that's it from me--what about you???  Any good news?  Any weekend plans? Spill all in the comments!!

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Good News Friday: The "Where's Alyson???" Edition

I'm sure I could come up with some piddling GNF item to post today of my own, and I know I'd like you all to know my husband Greg Logsted's latest book ALIBI JUNIOR HIGH came out on Tuesday - please buy it and tell the world! - but what I'd really like to know is:

Where is Alyson Noel??? And why hasn't she posted her own GNF yet???

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More GNF!!!

Huge Congrats to Lauren and Stephanie on their exciting news, and since it's GNF I figured I'd add some of my own!

Just 18 more days now until BLUE MOON, book 2 in THE IMMORTALS series, hits the shelves, but you can watch the book trailer HERE!

Also, EVERMORE hit #4 this week on the NYT Best Seller list for Children's Paperbacks--making for 19 weeks in the top 5, and it also jumped to#89 on the USA Today list, and remains at #2 on the Publisher's Weekly Best Seller list for Children's Fiction!

So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for that!!

And in case you're wondering, those pictures above are of the EVERMORE and BLUE MOON cakes my publisher served at a little party they threw for my in NYC last week!! They were so beautiful I was reluctant to eat them--but, I did, and they were Delicious!!!!

So what about you--any good news to share?  Any plans for the weekend?

Happy Friday Everyone!

Alyson

xoxo 

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GNF: The Lauren Edition!

In the immortal words of Stephanie K: Happy Good News Friday!

Here's mine for today, two new advance reviews for Crazy Beautiful:

A Curious Reader

Teens Know Best

It's making me happy.

How about you - any good news to share?

Be well. Don't forget to write.

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GNF: The Stephanie Edition

Happy Good News Friday!

It's been one of those weeks--loved ones in the hospital, a sick dog, financial woes--so I really really needed it!

I've got some early reviews of Ballads of Suburbia to share!

I've been waiting on pins and needles for these to start coming in because in some ways this book is even closer to my heart than I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. They are like my children so I don't really love one or the other more, but Ballads was a lot more trouble to raise so to speak, and yet I'm really pleased with how it turned out and I hope it reaches a lot of people, so I've been dying to see how people respond to it. So far so good....

There is a Booklist review that I don't think has actually run yet so I don't have a link, so I'll just post it, which I hope is kosher:

Kuehnert follows her strong debut, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone (2008), with an intensely real and painfully honest novel of high-school anxiety. Kara enters her freshman year without her best friend while her parents are on the verge of divorce. Her antidote for stress? She cuts herself. She bonds with the eccentric new girl, Maya, who shares her love of Manic Panic hair dye and the Ramones, and starts hanging out at Scoville Park with other troubled teens, including Cass, who drops acid to cope with her mother’s mental illness, and Quentin, who is hooked on heroin.

The punk-rock clique spends weekends relieving their pain with copious amounts of sex, drugs, and booze, and weekdays writing in a notebook titled “Stories of Suburbia,” a collection of what Kara calls “ballads” meant to shatter the myth of a quiet, safe suburbia. The dramatic climax borders on excessive, but with a slew of multidimensional characters and a heavy dose of authentic teen angst, Kuehnert nails the raw vulnerability of teendom and delivers a hard-hitting and mesmerizing read.—Annie McCormick

Then blogger Steph Su posted about it, calling it "A book you all should read." It seems I sort of rendered her speechless. Which is a good thing. That's the kind of impact I was striving for ;)

So I hope this is a sign of good things to come for Ballads and of a better week to come for me personally :)

Also if this gets you interested in reading Ballads, there is a sneak peek of the Epilogue (which is technically the first chapter) on my website and then of chapter 1 (which is actually the second chapter in the book) on the Simon & Schuster website. So all and all that's the first 20 pgs for you to read.

What is your good news this week?

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FRIENDS BEARING GIFTS

It's Friends week here at TFC so today I'm talking about great gifts friends have given me.

I have two best friends, one I've known for 32 years (BFF1) and one for 22 years (BFF2).

For my bridal shower, BFF2 arranged with a few other folks to give me a very expensive pool cue to replace the one that had been stolen from a bar one night when I was out shooting.

Then last week, I came home to find a message from UPS saying they had a package I needed to be home the next day to sign for. I grumbled, "Oh great. Probably some other writer-type person wants a favor and they're being anal, making me sign for it - I can't wait around all day!" With a knowing smile, my husband said, "I don't think it's what you think it is." Hmm...what did he know that I didn't? Only that BFF1 had sent me an entire case of Prosecco, my summer drink of choice which I'd shared with her during her visit from Colorado the week before. A whole case??? I don't live the kind of life where people send me things like that! Wait a second. I guess now I do. I get things like that and pool cues because I'm lucky to have friends who know me so well, they know exactly what I want and they like to give it to me.

So here's to friends! And here's to friends bearing gifts!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: WHAT UNUSUAL GIFTS HAVE FRIENDS GIVEN YOU THAT MADE YOUR DAY WHILE MAKING YOU FEEL KNOWN AND LOVED?

Be well. Don't forget to write.

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