The Big Comprehensive PLACES NO ONE KNOWS Post

Posted on by

In the past few months, Places No One Knows has been getting realer and realer, turning into something undeniably solid, acquiring the various characteristics that make it more and more like a book.

For instance.

It has a release date:

May 17th!

It has a cover:

Places No One Knows

It has a synopsis:

Waverly Camdenmar spends her nights running until she can’t even think. Then the sun comes up, life goes on, and Waverly goes back to her perfectly hateful best friend, her perfectly dull classes, and the tiny, nagging suspicion that there’s more to life than student council and GPAs.

Marshall Holt is a loser. He drinks on school nights and gets stoned in the park. He is at risk of not graduating, he does not care, he is no one. He is not even close to being in Waverly’s world.

But then one night Waverly falls asleep and dreams herself into Marshall’s bedroom—and when the sun comes up, nothing in her life can ever be the same. In Waverly’s dreams, the rules have changed. But in her days, she’ll have to decide if it’s worth losing everything for a boy who barely exists.

You can read an excerpt on the Entertainment Weekly site.

It’s on Goodreads and Amazon.

I wrote a book, and it’s about dreams.

It’s about sleeping and not sleeping.

It’s about boys and girls and ideas and feelings and the towering shower of sparks that happens when all those things collide.

Anatomy! of. Curiosity!

Posted on by

A long time ago (no, seriously, like a really long time ago, because two years is a long time, I have been informed), Tessa Gratton, Maggie Stiefvater, and I decided we were going to write a follow-up to our short-story collection, The Curiosities. And because time is a slippery, ever-mutating thing that never seems to stay in one place, that book is done now (!)

It hits shelves October 1st and thanks to the magic of the Carolrhoda team, it is so, so pretty! It looks like this:

Anatomy Cover

And sounds like this:

The follow-up to the acclaimed novel The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories by Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff.

In an unassuming corner of Brooklyn, a young woman learns to be ladylike, to love context, and to speak her mind from a very curious sort of tutor.

In a faraway land convulsed by war, a young soldier hears the desert’s curious hum as he disarms bombs with the person he doesn’t know how to love.

In a place so shriveled by drought that any drowning is a curiosity, a young writer tries again and again to tread water beneath the surface of a vast and unusual sea.

Three new stories—complete with commentary on the creative process—from three acclaimed young adult authors working at the height of their powers.

Curious?

We wrote another book together! It is about writing fiction! And also, it is absolutely full of fiction. It’s a collection of novellas, and it’s a nitty-gritty exploration of how and why and all the other complicated considerations that go into figuring out the way you want to tell a story. It was written in Virginia and in Kansas and while tucked away in coffee shops and tearing across Nevada along I-80, and parked sadly in Nevada waiting for the engine to cool, and it is about writing, but it’s also a celebration OF writing.

Mostly though, it’s a story about three different ways of getting to The End.

The Time I Made a Haunted Christmas Present (or else, haunted myself with a Christmas present)

Posted on by

There is a slight-but-important distinction between the two ideas presented in this title, I swear. Also, hello, welcome to my spooky Christmas story!

Context: I’ve been mostly-in-charge-of-myself (with relatively more successes than failures) for a long time. I’m competent at Not Opening the Door to Strangers. I can use the stove and I know all the different kinds of wounds and how to first-aid them, and to never throw flour on a fire and when to call Emergency Services or Poison Control. In fact, I even have a long and uneventful history of supervising other people. Most of my income from ages 11 to 19 was derived from babysitting—sometimes as many as five tiny people at once. I’m very good at remembering who will eat sandwiches with mustard on them, and who won’t.

Over the years, I’ve proven how very much I’m allowed to be in charge of myself.

Except.

There is one specific area in which I am really, really bad at supervising myself. It’s when I’m asleep.

I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking right now, which is that most people don’t actually need very much in-sleep supervision.

And I’ve talked about this before, but I think maybe I didn’t convey how dramatically bad at sleeping I am. I am SO BAD that it’s almost like a joke or an urban legend. Among my distance-friends—anyone who ever has to travel with me, really—it’s become a poorly-understood but generally-accepted phenomenon, kind of like gravity, complete with concise, factual explanations for the benefit of others (Tess) and dramatic reenactments (Maggie).

Sharing a room with me is the kind of thing that no one is just born ready for. It’s an intermediate endeavor. You have to work up to it.

At home, the situation is normalized. It’s fine. I’m married to someone who pretty much takes these things in stride and explains to me (patiently) that no, the ceiling does not in fact have an octopus on it, and the closet is just a closet, and it’s not flooding outside, the water is not higher than the windows.

But sometimes, D has to go out of town for work, and then I’m left unsupervised.

Continue reading →

Fiendish Hardback Winners (AKA: Better Late Than …)

Posted on by

I know, I know—I’m posting on a Sunday* (isn’t that weird?)!

The Summer Nostalgia contest has ended, the entries—as I’ve come to expect from you guys—are utterly delightful, and FIENDISH is officially out in the world!

Which I celebrated by immediately removing myself from all earthly responsibilities, going deep into hiding, and dropping off the face of the world.

(Not really. Really, I celebrated by attending my dear high school friend’s thoroughly excellent wedding in the mountains, far from paved roads, the internet, and cellphone service, but close to horses, rattlesnakes, and shooting stars. As you might imagine, it was gorgeous, wild, and total perfection.)

But now I’m back, ensconced in the coziest corner of my local coffee shop, it’s an all-Bob-Dylan morning on their Pandora station, and here’s the part you’re waiting to hear about.

The US winners of a signed, finished copy of Fiendish are:

  • Alyson C
  • Kelsey

AND

Our international winner is:

  • MarieD

I’ll be emailing you three shortly, so be on the lookout!

Thank you all for showing up, for telling me about your own personal versions of summer. The little details are the best ones. They’re something I never get tired of. You are, have always been, and continue to be the very best, and I still have a whole stack of finished copies that need good homes—as my husband periodically reminds me, there’s no need to hoard them—so stick around!

*This originally said Saturday, because that is exactly how much I know what is going on at any given time.

Countdown to Launch

Posted on by

One week from now is the 14th of August. Which means: in one week, Fiendish will take flight and land on shelves—weird and spooky and full of monsters, full of teeth and claws and tangled thickets and wind chimes. Which also means: now it’s time for a CONTEST!

Fiendish cover

I wrote this book because there are fireflies in Arkansas and none here. Because when you’re little, the world is big and the middle of the creek is over your head, and Little Sister Yovanoff was born without any propensity for angst. Her mind is astute, her appetite for stories is voracious, but her attitude toward melodrama has always been one of frank bemusement: “I liked the [generic spoiler for the story of your choice] and how they solved the [shocking plot point],” she said to me once. “But why are the people in books always So Upsetting?”

Clementine DeVore—main character of Fiendish—is not upsetting, and that’s the truth.

Clementine is the kind of person who gets things done. The kind of person you can depend on to sally forth. To want to do the right thing. There’s a special version of dramatic tension inherent in a character who wants to do the right thing. A person who loves everything and everyone, and just wants to do right by the world.

So. We come to the part that concerns you: I arrived back home from the highly entertaining, slightly chaotic excitement of Comic Con and Maggie’s Sharp Teeth road trip and three weeks away, to find … a big box of finished books!

Which means, it’s time for me to figure out how to use rafflecopter again.

Today my contest is about a very certain kind of joy. I want to know about summer pastimes. What is that very particular thing that means summer to you—the thing you think of wistfully sometimes when it’s gray and sloppy out?

The prizes are as follows: two finished copies up for grabs for US residents, one copy for international.

I take the internationalness of this contest very seriously, since I’m never allowed to give you guys ARCs, so we’re going to try a thing. I know that automatically makes this whole endeavor about fifty times more complicated, but bear with me:

If you live in the US this link is for you:

a Rafflecopter giveaway for US residents

If you DO NOT live in the US this link is for you:

a Rafflecopter giveaway for international residents

You can get points by commenting here and sharing your most quintessentially-summer pastime, and also by tweeting the message that’s included in the rafflecopter. Contest ends next Wednesday at midnight Eastern.

Sally forth!

Sharp Teeth

Posted on by

It transpires that it is July—that the asphalt is hot, the hail storms are erratic, and my neighborhood is beset by earwigs. That my cohort, critique partner, and dear, dear friend Maggie Stiefvater is currently in the throes of a cross-country road trip of outrageous proportions (that’s mostly just how she likes to do things).

Thanks to the physics of traveling cross-country, if she points west and accelerates for long enough, she’ll reach Denver. At which point I will throw my suitcase in her 1973 Camaro, hope the AC holds, and we’ll drive out to California, probably engaging in some light mayhem on the way, and definitely acquiring our third merry sister Tessa Gratton somewhere in Utah.

Beyond that, the finer points are kind of soft around the edges—if the car breaks down, I’ll push, if there’s a dirt bike or a pony, I will totally ride it—but here are two things that are definitely-definitely happening:

First, on July 24th at 7:00, the three of us will be at Kepler’s in Menlo Park, CA, talking about writing, critique, and why group chat and a constant stream of red panda gifs are absolutely necessary to productivity.

Second, on July 26th, I’ll be participating in a horror panel at Comic Con in San Diego, talking about scaring people on purpose (signing of Fiendish to follow)!

So.

If you are at all in the vicinity of either of those places, you should definitely come see me!

Otherwise, you can watch Maggie’s (and by extension, mine and Tess’s) progress west at Sharp T33th.

(You have absolutely no idea how much I hope there’s a pony …)

Fiendish Winners*

Posted on by

And now, the first Fiendish contest has officially drawn to a close! (And let me just say—I’m amazed and kind of delighted at how many people’s early memories involve food, pets, favorite toys, or playing in the dirt.)

Your entries have been tallied, your personal anecdotes have been thoroughly enjoyed by me, the winners have been randomly selected, and now I present to you:

  • Lily D
  • Cynthia P
  • Anne Tedeton

I’ll be contacting you guys shortly for your mailing addresses!

To everyone who entered, I had a wonderful time reading through your stories and will endeavor to think up an equally-answerable themed question for the next contest, so stayed tuned for more giveaways!

*Of the book, I mean. I’m sure you’re very lovely people

Fiendish ARC Giveaway

Posted on by

This is a book I wrote:

Fiendish cover

It has a pretty face!

Kirkus gave it a star (!!!) and said this:

The atmosphere in Yovanoff’s latest is eerily reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird, if only Harper Lee’s Maycomb residents had been given magical families as a focus for their bigotry.

I say this:

It’s about magic and monsters—even more monsters than I have ever written about before, and also more magic. Also: girls, boys, cousins, best friends, Trans Ams, tattoos, and catfish. It’s about a girl who has spent ten years underground, and now she’s finally waking up.

Fiendish hits shelves August 14th and then everybody can have it! But three of you can have it RIGHT NOW, so the contest part:

I’m giving away three ARCs, and unfortunately (as usual), ARC rules means no international entries. HOWEVER. As soon as I have finished copies in my hot little hands, I’ll do another giveaway, with prizes set aside exclusively for international entries.

Also, today I’m trying something new. It is called rafflecopter. You probably know more about it than I do, because I set it up this morning. I think it even works. If it doesn’t, we’ll … just roll with it?

You can get entry points by commenting here and telling me about a childhood memory, and also by tweeting (it’s all in the … rafflecopter?). Contest ends next Tuesday at midnight Eastern.

Okay, here we go!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Last Visible Dog

Posted on by

I’ve been away. I know this.

I’ve been away, writing an all-new secret book, full of all-new secret words and kisses and the kind of deep relational dysfunction that was all I ever, ever wanted to hear about at sixteen.

Now, that book is safely in the capable hands of Agent Sarah, and even though many esteemed writers of my acquaintance are often driven to anxious rocking and madness by this part of the publishing process … I kind of love it.

Not because I’m willfully contrary or a masochist, but because in that brief window of Circumstances Yet Unknown—for that one finite spoonful of time—this whole physical world/gainful employment/concrete consideration/behaving sensibly business is distinctly Not My Problem. I LOVE when things are not my problem!

However. I realize there’s a flip-side. That flip-side is: uncertainty.

I have a long, storied, and overly-complicated relationship with uncertainty.

(This is not a post about Fiendish.)

Let me tell that relationship to you.

(Later, I will make a post about Fiendish. MANY, even. Right now, though, this is a post about personal growth, the power of literature, and the confusing phobias of my youth.)

Continue reading →

I See You Over There, 2014

Posted on by

Today is 2014. Which seems vaguely implausible, since yesterday it was decades ago and I was nine and twenty-four and twelve and also eighteen and thirty, because historically, I have a very hard time noting/remembering/reconciling myself with the passage of time.

(I think it might be fake.)

Here are some of the things that happened this year:

Continue reading →