This weekend was the Brooklyn Book Festival.  I met up with fellow Deb, Heather Duffy Stone, whose book THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU comes out February/09, a month before mine.  And, if you haven't already checked out The Feast of Awesome, please do so now -- there will be free giveaways coming sooooon, including very, very cool swag bags.

So.  ( Read more... )

So, we did watch another couple of episodes of The Wire, and while I did not glean any wise writing nuggets this time, I am thoroughly annoyed at what they did with Omar.  I loved Omar!  He was seriously badass.  He walked with a huge gun, was big on exacting his own brand of justice, and even with a limp he scared the beheevies out of the street ( Read more... )

We are all sick at my house.  I, of course, am the last one to recover because I am constantly bathed in germs.  Whenever anyone is sick, they get clingy and hang off me all day until they feel better, then off they go leaving a lingering imprint of their germiness on me.

Nonetheless.  On Friday, I hauled my tired, sick butt on down to the Lower ( Read more... )

Cheri Cheva's She's So Money is on my nightstand, waiting to be read.  Yesterday, I flipped to the back flap to read about the author: 
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My name is Neesha and I have an unhealthy obsession with many things: dark chocolate covered almonds, certain reality TV shows, Internet surfing, to name a few.  Adding to that list, I would like to include blogs that have anything to do with the intersection between any of the following -- race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, and other things ( Read more... )

Okay, first bit of awesome, exciting news: my book is now available for pre-order in Canada!!  This is mega-kewl for a number of reasons.  It means that (1) All of my family and many of my peeps live in Canada, so yayyyy for easy access!!  2) My northern brethren and sistren will get my book for a price that's equivalent to what Americans will be ( Read more... )

Seventeen-year-old Samar--a.k.a. Sam--has never known much about her Indian heritage.  Her mom has deliberately kept Sam away from her old-fashioned family.  It's never bothered Sam, who is busy with school, friends, and a really cute but demanding boyfriend.

But things change after 9/11.  A guy in a turban shows up at Sam's house, and turns ( Read more... )

At last, the cover for SHINE, COCONUT MOON is finalized!  And here it is, in all its lovely glory...


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Okay, I finally managed to get the entire survey up.  And it only cost me about three hundred hours and two very bleary eyeballs.

The link to all fifteen survey questions and the (revealing!  Interesting!  Surprising!) responses from our awesome teens are here.  Just scroll down till you get to the big green, What Do You Think? heading and, um, tell ( Read more... )

I haven't posted for the past two weeks because I've been in the Bahamas.  Personally, I can't think of a better reason not to be blogging.  But I am back now and thought I'd share some info I've managed to glean from you youths out there (giant thanks to the teens who participated and to HL at SAYA for all her assistance!).

So, we asked seven South ( Read more... )