On Thursday, I went for lunch at the Boston Public Library. My second trip to the beautiful McKim building in less than a month!
My awesome YA novel, Forever Changes, 
was a finalist for the Boston Authors Club's Young Readers Award.
It was, of course, a great honor to have people recognize this book, which I still think is the best I've ever written. People from the club's reading committee came up and told me about how much they enjoyed the book, which was a real thrill. Really--I feel like most of what I believe about life and death is in this book, and, as I've said before, it's the only one of my books that contains no sentences that make me cringe.
But what was really cool about this whole thing was meeting all the other authors. The only problem: I spent loads of cash buying books so I could get cool signed copies.
So, while I haven't read any of these yet, I can highly recommend all of them as the works of awesome people who signed my copies!
YA Books:
Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman. 15-year-old Vitya, who lives in 1940's India, thinks she's getting an education till she goes to live with her grandfather who says no way. So she has to sneak upstairs to read books. Padma was very cool and a super interesting person to boot: she did a crocodile census! Why can't you do that?
Quest by Kathleen Duble. Historical adventure novel about teens surrounding Henry Hudson on his fruitless quest to find the Northwest Passage. Like a Slinky, it's fun for a girl and a boy!
Masterpiece by Elise Broach. James, an 11-year-old boy, and Marvin, a beetle with extraordinary artistic talent, team up to foil an art heist! I really can't wait to dive into this one.
Non-YA books:
Dear Darkness by Kevin Young: Kevin read one of his poems at the event and it was accessible, funny, and elegant. Like pretty much the total opposite of the impenitrable poems they run in The New Yorker. So this is a collection of poems about family, food, and grief. So basically it's right up my alley. When it's not bending over backwards to be difficult and academic, poetry is the most powerful form of literature. I've dipped into this a bit, and it is awesome.
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane. Yeah, that Dennis Lehane. This book is a historical novel set in the early decades of the 20th century in Boston, the Boston of molasses floods and anarchist bombings. I have to admit that despite knowing that writers are just people, I was kinda star struck at meeting this guy and having him ask me to sign a book for him. We talked about Franklin Park.
So a good time was had by all, and I got a bunch of signed books to read. I recommend buying all of these books, especially mine.
