Brian's Better Butterbeer Booster--Pyro-style and other . . .

ONE CHRISTMAS DINNER, many years ago, my father went a little overboard with the brandy--not in the consumption, but in the quantity with which he doused the plum pudding. And so, as he carried the platter into the darkened dining room, while blue flames danced around the tray, they also danced in a little stream onto the floor and left a trail of melted carpet.



I offer this tale as a caution: if you like fire, by all means enjoy the "pyro butterbeer." But don't set anything on fire that you don't want to burn.

More recently, about three years ago, I went googling for a butterbeer recipe to share at my "Lunch at the Three Broomsticks" club at school. I found many ideas, (sorry! can't remember where:( ) though I couldn't bring my favorite to school. I did, however, bring all my test-batches to the annual Heiss family New Year's Eve gathering for testing.

I'm presenting here the top tasting recipe:

BRIAN'S BETTER BUTTERBEER BOOSTER (I think that night we came up with even more b's, but I disremember now:)

You'll need:

• Good cream soda in large quantities


• Mrs. Richardson's or other good caramel sauce


• a few cups of Butterscotch schnapps


• pure vanilla extract


• butter


• a stout sauce-pan


• stove


• fire


• jars, mugs, ice


• tasters & helpers

What you do:

• Pour a couple of cups of schnapps into the sauce pan and set to heat on medium. How much cooking you do depends on if you want to boil/burn off the alcohol so this mixture is safe for house elves & children. Even if you don't, it won't be very stong (unless you're a house elf). Buttershots is about 15 % alcohol. If you mix the booster with cream soda at 1/10 ratio, this dilutes it to about 1.5 % or less, since some of the alcohol is going to evaporate, and there are other ingredients.


• If you want to leave it a little boozy:
  
  
  
  • warm up the schnapps, but don't boil or let it steam.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • Stir in some caramel sauce as it warms--maybe one or two overflowing, dripping tablespoons-full per cup of schnapps.
  
  
  • pour in a cap-full or so of vanilla
  
  
  • melt in a little butter--a very little because it hardens when chilled. You may want to leave this out unless you like your butterbeer hot; even then you can dot the top with butter.
  
  
  • stir it up.
  
  
  • slide the pan off the heat as soon as the caramel and butter are melted and stirred into the mixture.
  
  
  
  

• If you want it safe for house elves (almost alcohol free)
  
  
  
  • Do everything the same, but heat to boiling.
  
  
  • boil until it the mixture reduces to about 75% of it's original volume. Since alcohol vaporizes at a lower temp than water, the alcohol should be pretty much gone by now. Give it a sniff or a taste and see what you think.
  
  
  
  

• Pyro Butterbeer! If you like fire:
  
  
  
  • Add only the vanilla to the schnapps.
  
  
  • Heat it until just before boiling.
  
  
  • sniff it carefully! Smell that alcohol?
  
  
  • give it a good stir to get the fumes going and set it ablaze. Be careful! Use a long candle/grill lighter if you have one. Don't let your hair swing over the pot.
  
  
  • Turn off the light and enjoy the blue glow.
  
  
  • stir it around, taking care not to burn yourself or set your wooden spoon on fire. The burnt wood flavor is unpleasant. (use a metal spoon:)
  
  
  • When it goes out, stir it up and light it again. You can keep burning it until it won't light anymore, or you're bored.
  
  
  • Add the rest of the ingredients.
  
  
  • boil/burn/mix until reduced to 75% of original volume.
  
  
  
  

• When you finish cooking the booster, let it cool.

I like my butterbeer cold:

• Pour a little booster into your mug. (try about 1/10 ratio and add more if you like it strong and sweet)


• gently add cream soda.


• gently stir


• put in as much ice as you like--again, gently.


• You now have a mug of rich, creamy, sweet, and foamy butterbeer!

If you want to try it warm:

• Mix to taste with warmed cream soda and serve with a dot of butter. Don't boil the soda, or it will loose its fizz entirely.

If you're of legal/moral age, and you like a little extra cheer:

• add some good rum to taste, but watch out because this is very sweet and might give you a headache in the morning! ;-)

If you have suggestions for bettering the booster, and thus the butterbeer, please comment!

Finally, enjoy your butterbeer with good friends--muggle or magic! Or alone with your favorite book or movie. And watch those house elves!

Too Many Links! Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Movie! A Contest! & A Question . . .

Andrew Karre told me, and Sara of Sara's Holds Shelf told him about this first. But tonight I read about it on Rachel Cohn's myspace blog: the film adaptation of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist! Sara wondered, but sounds like it's going to be fantastic. When I brought this book to school last year, my students were practically fighting over it, and they are going to be really psyched about this flick. When I first saw this pic of Rachel and Kat Dennings, I thought Kat looked almost too beautiful to be Norah:



I like this picture because it shows me something else, not exactly Norah-like, but, well, you know, gangsta.



Also check out Andrew Karre's album and book coupling contest and win yourself a book!

Question: I'm keeping my livejournal, because I can post simultaneously. And I love my myspace like a baby blanket. But should I keep my blogspot, or direct my traffic to my mandabach.com website?

SUSPENSE! A DAY IN THE WRITER'S LIFE

Check out this blog by Rhona Westbrook about a sudden attack of angst, Walmart, revelation, and the comments on suspense. This woman has some good stuff going on!

AUTHOR OF THE MONTH!! :D

Here's another link that I'm excited about--this one to a website that has named me its AUTHOR OF THE MONTH!! :D The site is called Embracing the Child and the main feature of this honor is an interview.

Here's an excerpt:

ETC: The voice of Cassie, the main character, rings so true, especially her thoughts and emotions as she makes entries into her journal. How were you able to achieve that authenticity, writing in the voice of a teenage girl?

Mandabach: One of my old friends who just finished the book emailed me saying, "Are you sure you're NOT a 14-year-old girl?"

I'm pretty sure I'm not, but that's the exciting thing about writing fiction--going deep into your imagination, bringing everything you know and feel, and living that alternate reality via language as you attempt to communicate it.

So how did I achieve authenticity in the voice of a teenage girl? (check out the whole interview at the link above to find out . . . :)

Peace, everybody, and talk to me here or at www.mandabach.com!

<3
M

New Ink; Next Gig; Spokane Notes; Coronado, North Central, and Barker High Schools

FIRST OF ALL, here are links to a couple of new things out there:

• My longest and most in depth interview so far: Authorlink Interview


• Another, different, interview: ETC Interview


• More good ink: South Florida Sun-Sentinal Teenlink Review

NEXT GIG:

• My fall micro-tour is over, but I'm doing one more event in town before the close of the year:
  
  
  
  • Barnes and Noble @ the Citadel, on Academy Blvd.
    
    
    
    • December 15, Saturday @ 1:30-3:30ish.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• I hope to see some of the new friends I met today in Chapman's creative writing class at Coronado High School. What a great class. You guys really know how to make an author feel good: laugh a lot and at the right places and say, "Read more!" It was also fantastic to see old friends Mr. "Stay Black" Ken, Tiffany, Kara, and Emily. Love you all.

WASHINGTON NOTES:

Spokane was amazing--what a cool city. But it helps to hang out with the best people:

• My incredible friend Sam Ligon, author of the great novel Safe in Heaven Dead and editor of Willow Springs

• Sam's wife, Kim, and kids Jane and Paul, who are all brilliant.


• His friends, Kelly Chadwick, who introduced me to some fantastic wine, and


• poet Renee Rohl, who introduced me to her students at Barker Center.


• Other friends, novelist Jess Walter and his wife


• Ann, who used to live in my fair city and write for our hometown newspaper The Gazette. (Both she and Jess worked for the Spokane Spokesman-Review until former Gazette editor Stevie Smith came on board and began running ruining it.)

I had a great day visiting with creative writing students at Barker with Renee's class and also with Jim Creason's groups at North Central High School. Special thanks to Dylan, Pauline, Cassie, and (your dad-burned name slips my mind, but you're the best) who I met in class and who actually came out to the reading that night at Auntie's Books.

This event was a little different for me, with the reading showcased up front and with microphone, even, which made the power of the poet's voice truly tremendous.

Then it was a weekend of hanging out with my daughter who is the same age as Sam's girl, Jane. Or the girls spent time together, mostly, and Sam and I stayed up until three or four every night listening to music and talking. And talking. And talking. It's funny to think that I'm still friends with the guy I pulled a desk out from under in Mr. Johnson's actor's workshop class when we were in high school. But that he's still the most brilliant person I've ever met is no surprise.

Not Your Mother's Book Club and Spokane Bound . . .

I never got a chance to do a write up on my last trip, but the hostess with the mostest has done a better job here Literaticat on the Mandabach, Hopkins, Asher, & Lyga gig
with the San Francisco portion.

Here's silly me reading:

Tomorrow I'm off for the last stop on my fall 2007 micro-tour, Spokane, WA.

That where my best old friend Sam Ligon lives, and where I'll appear at Auntie's books on Friday night. I'll also be visiting two creative writing classes at two different schools, North Central and Barker Center. This is is my favorite part, I think, becuase it's so energizing to talk with the kids about writing. I'll miss my own students, of course, but the new groups are refreshing.

It's cold and snowy over in Spokane today, but looking at this pic from the area makes me wish I was going to be there in fishing weather. (Though I have fished in the snow!)



Peace, and wish me happy trails!

Q & A from Barrington High School Creative Writers, Part 3

It's been almost 2 months now since my visit to the old home town of Barrington and my beloved Barrington High School.

Or, disbeloved, unbeloved, nonbeloved . . . You get the picture.

I loved my English classes and my biology classes and my friends.

And I still love Baker's Lake, which used to have an island with couple of big trees on it, where herons nested. Both black crowned night herons:

And great blues:

But the herons loved it to death, and the conservationists love the herons, so they built these scaffolds for the rookery.


But let's get to some more questions from the BHS class of '08:

Have you distinguished yourself the way you wanted?

I joked about this question in class, mentioning my distinguished grey temples and beard, because I try not to think about winning renown. But the truth is, no—I haven't.

I would like to have written more and have garnered more recognition and money with my work than I have. (essentally none at this point.) I've written a novel that's as good as I could write it. It's been published, and I am grateful for that. But—I don't think I'm supposed to admit this—I'm jealous of writers who have bigger publishers and bigger budgets for promotion. But I'm also proud of my publisher's independence and that I have complete artistic autonomy. More than anything, I try my best to focus on the work for the work's own sake, and I believe that by loving the work, the process and the product, that I'll distinguish myself in my own esteem. If I retain any integrity at all, that's what matters most.

What do you think of the self-publishing option?

Sorry, but I don’t think much of it. I know somebody who self-published a good tween novel that my daughter loved, but I think she should have held out and pushed harder for a regular publisher. Unless you have something unconventional that you really believe in, and have the drive to do all the marketing work yourself, I think self publishing is best for those who have written something that they only want to share with family, friends, and close professional associates. But that's just me.

How do you find an agent in Chicago? What do you think of the Writer's Market books. How many query letters did you send out?

I think they are great, though I found my agent by using Jeff Herman's Guide to Agents, Editors, and Publishers.

But first, I tried to concentrate on the writing: on preparing to write a draft, and on getting the draft done. I want to clarify what I said before about giving myself permission to write a really crummy first draft: what I mean is that I try to avoid perfectionism and the paralysis of being self-critical. From the beginning, as I write about character and place, relationships and events, I strive for quality. I want real characters, characters that I love—I want a good story and good writing. But in that first draft, I don't try to get it perfect. I try to free myself to let the story come out, which means writing naturally and quickly. Then I'll go over it again and again and again, making my work as good as I can with my own skill and the help of people I trust to be honest and not destructive. These people also must also be readers (and writers) whose judgement I trust and who know how to talk about reading and writing.

Then, with OR NOT, I combed all the books trying to find agents who represented what I did, talked with everybody I knew who had published or knew people who had, googled the hell out of agents that I thought might be appropriate, and sent out 60-80 queries, in batches of 12-24. 6 wanted to see a chapter. 2 wanted the whold book. One became my agent and sold the book. Oh, and he's not in Chicago. He's in NYC.

How do you manage writing and other things such as jobs and school?

Luckily, I'm a teacher, so I had a summer to write my draft. And even then I had to sacrifice a lot of leisure time. During school, it's even worse. I have to give things up, some trivial, some that I miss. I don't watch TV. I watch fewer movies than I'd like to. I don't get out fishing, or skiiing, or hiking, or even walking very much. Sometimes I hardly have time to read, which is dangerous for a writer. My house is a wreck. My yard is an embarrasment. I don't get enough sleep.

Was it worth it?

Totally.

Do your parents approve?

My mom is sooooo proud. She is 85, raised six kids, and has always been a reader and a writer. She's kind of in awe because she feels that she never had the discipline to write a book, and we're a lot alike, so maybe she never thought I had it in me! My dad would approve, too, though he was on the conservative side, politically, and he wouldn't approve of Cassie and her parents' unabashedly progressive politics.

Have you ever been to a book signing?

Yes, but my first book signing is October 11. (I was in Barrington on Oct. 4. Now, as I revise this a get ready to post it, its Nov. 24th and I've had 7 book signings! They are so much fun.)

Be Thankful; Buy Nothing!

Do you love to shop? Hate to shop? Indifferent?
..


(this is an old video, btw, this year it is the 23rd)
Wouldn't it be nice to give it a rest? A one day shopping fast?Should there be exceptions? Buy only one special book and only from an independent bookstore? Buy only beer, locally brewed, from the tap? When I think of Katie, the proprietor of Village Books, or Frazer Dobson of Park Road Books, I think I would exempt them. But they're not in my neighborhood, so I ain't buyin' nothin' tomorrow.

ELLEN HOPKINS, BARRY LYGA, JAY ASHER, and . . .MANDABACH?

WOW. How did I manage to get myself on a bill with these talented and successful authors! Very exciting :D




And Frisco rocks, despite the Oracle convention. Not that I have anything against being surrounded by tech geeks who never take off their id badges per se, but remember when Oracle was somebody at Delphi? A seer, a priestess? No? Well, I don't technically remember either, but it's not exactly GREEK to me either.

And the oil spill! I feel so sorry for the poor birds :(

next question . . . from Barrington High School

THIS IS ENTRY TWO in my series of questions and answers from senior creative writing students of my alma mater, Barrington High School.


I DON'T KNOW ANYBODY in Barrington anymore except for my high school girlfriend, Claire, and my favorite English teacher, Dale Griffith. So I spent the night in the Barrington Motel, and took a cab over to the high school. My cabbie dropped me off at the wrong entrance, by the gym and the senior lockers, but the garrulous security guard had the authority—after checking his computer—and the technology to scan my Colorado driver's license and print me a visitor's ID sticker. Then another security staffer escorted me to the main entrance, and a third called Dept. Chair Jack Bowyer, who collected me and led me up the stairs that hadn't existed in my day.

Here's the second question that teacher Maggie Olberg gave me from the class:
What influences you? (Style & content)
Everything I read influences me a lot—or everything I read that's good and substantial, because the stuff that isn't just passes through me without leaving an impression. When I read, the language echoes in my mind. So I have to be careful what I'm reading when I'm writing.

Right now I'm reading I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek, and I can hear his voice, very lyrical. The good stuff becomes part of me, the characters are real people inside me, the worlds that are created become real places within me. I like writing that has a deep sense of place, urban or natural or both, and I like characters with a lot of love in them, or perhaps sympathy—with other people, with nature, with music and stories and all the arts. There will be alienation, disconnection, despair—but without what I'm calling love or sympathy, the alienation has no consequence.

Sometimes the language itself expresses love. I think Hemingway did that. One of my favorite stories, which is in a book that I borrowed from the BHS English resource center and never returned, is "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." It amazes me that I was so attracted to that story at so young an age, and I believe that even very young people often sympathize with the loss and disappointment of the age. The sympathy of the waiter in that story, the old waiter, carries the story—and the reader despises the young, self-involved waiter because he has none. Though the old waiter is preoccupied with nothingness, with emptiness, his emptiness is not nihilistic because he still feels the emptiness and sympathizes with those who also feel it.

Was this supposed to be style OR content? I think they are of equal importance. There is no style without content, and since the content is expressed via language, it can't be communicated without good writing (which is one way to define style) or without a voice that arises naturally from the subject and expresses the content.

And everything influences me. My best friend Sam, whom I met at BHS when I was a junior and he was a soph, influenced and continues to influence me. He's now the editor of Willow Springs and the author of an excellent novel called Safe in Heaven Dead.
But "everything under the sun", as it says in the finale of Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon, influences me. Growing up in Barrington, coming back, meeting new students . . . I could go on and on. (And usually do ☺)

Another Sell-out!

It's been tough keeping up on postings--just too busy.

I haven't even told about my book launch party at Hillside Gardens, where we ran out of books.



Then I went to Charlotte, NC for visit to Myers Park HS--amazing students--and a fab party at the Trennings with Park Road Bookstore.



And today, when I did my thing at Borders at the the Chapel Hills Mall in Colorado Springs, they ran plumb out of Or Not!

I guess without the amazing Frazer Dobson of Park Road Books around, I'm a sell-out!

Details later--my friend and I have some papers to grade!

Creative Writing Questions from Barrington High School Seniors

ON THE 4th OF OCTOBER, I visited with six creative writing classes at Barrington High School, about 40 miles NW of Chicago. I hadn't darkened the doors of BHS since I'd graduated in June of 1980, and coming back was a little weird.

It's always strange returning to Barrington, where I spent the first 18 years of my life in a big house my father built by Bakers Lake. Despite all the changes in the neighborhood, I seem to breathe memories in from the humid air, and the shape of the land (though much of it has been built over) and the sky that sits over it (the same way it always has) strikes me with strange familiarity.

Inside, the school was so different as to have little of this effect. But I knew it was the same place. And there were moments, such as looking out the window of Ms. Sultan's classroom and realizing it was my old typing room, when I could remember sitting there buzzed on coffee from The Breadbasket restaurant, making mistakes and borrowing Jena's typing eraser.


THIS IS THE FIRST of a series of blogs in which I respond to questions from BHS students:

How do you come up with a concept for your writing?

For the novel that I'm currently avoiding revising, I started with an image: a canoe lodged in tall cattails at the shore of Bakers Lake, and someone--me, I suppose--lying down in the bottom of the canoe. The tall, thin blades of the cattails exude coolness and green, but from the warm water the scent of decay rises: ripe with algae and the biology of fresh water, millions of organisms living in the water and the mud. The green of the cattails and the algae breathe out the fresh oxygen, converting the sun into energy, while microorganisms eat and decompose and die and are decomposed themselves.

In the canoe, the character--the more I think about him the further he goes from being me--is aware of everything around him. He knows the ecology, the relationships between the living and non-living things around him, and his imagination brings it all into his consciousness. He is himself alone in this place, but he is thinking about his friend, and something has happened. Maybe his friend has died. And a song they used to listen to comes to his mind, haunts him, " . . .story of her boyfriend, of teenage stone death games, handsome lad, dead in a car . . ." And he thinks of his best friend's girlfriend because of the "story of her boyfriend" line.

So my concepts come from memory, and changing memory by drifting deep into the scenes brought to my mind from memory and letting the possibilities of those scenes shift.

Aidan Chambers uses a repeating line, placed throughout his amazing novel, This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn: "All writing is memory." Some of the shifting is very deliberate--I take a memory of my best friend, and I say, "He can't be blonde, his hair is dark." Or I'm thinking about his girlfriend, (only it's the character's girlfriend now) and I'm doing the dishes and she's not coming to me, and I'm getting frustrated. Then I think her name might be Sophia,* and the image of a Sophia I once knew comes to me. Suddenly I realize that her name isn't Sophia, but that she looks like Sophia, and from that memory of Sophia's physical presence--not just her hair and her eyes and her body, but the way she carries herself, her gestures, the movement of her eyes--the character suddenly takes shape.


To BHS Seniors: Hope this answers your questions better than my random presentation!

*name changed to protect the innocent. ;-)

Mandabach's OR NOT T-shirt BANNED!! Is the book next?!?!?

Don't hate her because she's beautiful, hate her because she has the shirt, and you don't! lol


I thought it would be fun to get some t-shirts made up, so I worked on a design based on the last paragraph of Journal One (link here to it) of OR NOT.

To wit:
Now if I were mad, I would think there were mental viruses hidden between the bits in digital samples. There could even be microchips in our brains that are triggered by digital media to produce thoughts like: "Drink Sexy Cola and be Powerful!" "You must buy things to truly exist!" "The virtual and the actual are ONE!" "Security is Freedom is Marketing is Art is Power is America is Right is Peace is Security is Strength is Truth is Might is Liberty is Lifestyle is Property is Happiness is Automobile is Independence is Globalism is Diversity is Oneness is Jesus is the Almighty Clean of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap--Dilute! Dilute! Dilute! Dilute! Dilute!"

But I'm not mad. So I don't think that.

The shirt just starts with "Drink Sexy Cola and be Powerful!" and ends with "Dilute . . . "
On the back it says
. . . OR NOT
a novel for audacious teens and other young adults
by
Brian Mandabach

I think it looks cool, and I like that it starts catchy and I imagine people looking at it and being embarrassed about staring at your shirt and then looking away and wanting to look more and maybe looking at your back as you walk away. Or people you know will make you stop so they can read the whole thing. So, I think it's fun. And also, I like the irony of the ranting.

I gave one to my daughter, and guess what? After lunch a teacher noticed it and asked another teacher, and they agreed that it was INAPPROPRIATE, and they made her turn it inside out.

I have to guess that it was the word SEXY *gasp!* omg! But come on! It's not as if she had on some sweats that said, SEXY or JUICY right across the butt! This is a statement of protest against the absurdist imagery of advertising, multimediocrity, and Johnny Jingo public "discourse".

Or maybe that's what they objected to, but that might be expecting too much.

Anyway, I got kind of a kick that the shirt that I sent her to school in, that I designed using an excerpt from MY book, had to be turned inside-out.

If you've got one of the shirts, send me a picture. And if not, come see me at one of my events and pick one up with your copy of OR NOT.

Hope to see you soon.

peace, love, & vinyl,
M

events listed on my myspace profile as "shows" and at www.mandabach.com

Dumbledore Gay--is this news?

JK Rowling revealed some backstory that never made it into the novels, which, though not exactly short are too filled with broomstick sport and Harry YELLING in ALL CAPS to have contained details about the headmaster's (no pun intended) intimate life. Albus Dumbledore is gay.

Here's a link to a brief story about the revalation

Newsweek article with comments and discussion here

Now. Though I'm poking a little fun in the top paragraph, I've enjoyed all the Potter books. And I adore Dumbledore. I'm first and foremost a Mithrandir man (That's Gandalf in the Common Tongue), but Albus is my second favorite wizard. And as I contemplate my reaction to the news, I have to say that I don't care about him being gay at all. And I really like that I don't care. Even better would be if I didn't care that I didn't care--does that make sense? I'm thinking about one of the comments (from a 13 year-old) on the Newsweek story, about how much homophobia there is in middle school. When I got punched in the face for calling my scoutmaster's son a faggot, my dad told me what I had said (I'd had no idea what the word meant). But beyond the message that this epithet might get me punched in the face, and a pretty much non-judgemental definition, there were not a lot of messages out there telling me that love is just love. And there were a lot of messages teaching me to despise anyone who was "queer", including myself if I might have any queerness in me.

Back to the big ''news": the way Dumbledore rolls doesn't change anything about the way I feel about this beloved character, though it does make me sad to learn about his heartbreak. Too, I think this might further illuminate his empathy for Snape. Although Snape's heart was hurt in a different way, both of them lost in love.

What I'm wondering is: does anyone else think it's unusual for a writer to reveal backstory in this way? Or is it just unusual for people to notice? For it to be "news"?


In any case, as Roxy says:

Kitdlitophere Chicago O'Hare--Kudos to Robin Brande

Here's a link to my tardy blog on Kidlit '07:
Not really scared of Barry--Mandabach's too-long post on Andrew Karre's FLUX Blog ;-)

Peace, Love, and Vinyl!
Brian

BACKTALK!!! Trailer for/scene from ALEX RICHARDS's novel, by Alex Richards!

Even though I feel that--at this moment in time--everything should rightfully be about MY book, I have to give props to my girl Alex Richards and HER book.

It's an original take on teenaged NYC, and Alex is a filmmaker as well as a writer, so this is a very original take on the Bookomercial Book Trailer.
Short and sweet!
View it!
Send it around!

Invisible Children, Mandabach's literary debut, and you?

I'm getting excited about my book launch party. This should be a fun little gathering at an amazingly cool place: a nursery and garden with cool statuary everywhere, little copses of trees, and a gorgeous sunset-over-the-Peak-view!


There'll be music and sodypop and Cassie's favorite vegan food.

And you? Come on up the Colorado and join me! :)

Hosted By: Mandabach, author of OR NOT
When: Thursday Oct 11, 2007
at 5:00 PM
Where: Hillside Gardens
1006 S. Institute
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
United States
Description:
Mandabach, author of OR NOT

Click Here To View Event

Get the book! ... or not

I've heard that my book is in stores and I know it is available via internet shopping. Local librarians tell me that it's already reserved.
Cool.

I'm off to Kidlitosphere in Chicago, hosted by Robin Brande whose Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature is an excellent read. I've been way too busy to blog about it, though I've wanted to--not just because it is well-written and right-on, but because it has some odd similarities to Or Not. And some dissimilarities as well. If I had my students read both, we'd be able to make some serious venn diagrams.

I'm also going to teach 5 creative writing classes at Barrington High School, a place I haven't set foot in since graduation in 1980.
Damn.

And spend a couple of days in the city with my beloved, with whom I haven't had a vacation alone since 1996.
Damn.

Wish me happy trails.

Peace

It's a REAL BOOK!

Yesterday, I got a package:


My novel is now a book.

Very excited, of course. I still can't really believe there is a book with my name on it. I'm a writer, I suppose, and I should be able to describe it better. The dust jacket is glossy and covered with that girl who isn't Cassie, but whom some of the guys in my 7th period class liked the look of enough to want to read about. The cover itself is black. I like it. The pages are smooth, but not too smooth, and very white. I like the design, the set-up of the journals, and the weight of it. It's not a slim book--at 400 pages--but not too thick to seem intimidating, I think.

I'm NOT let down, but since I have been waiting so long and with such trepidation, maybe I am more relieved than ecstatic.

The thing that really energized me was how excited that 7th period class was when I told them about Or Not yesterday (just before I found out it had arrived!) Then when I passed it around today, it was simply very cool.

I warned them that it might be too mature for some of them, lol, and expressed my horror of the thought of them going home and telling their parents that their English teacher had written a book with lots of bad words in it, and they had to get it. (I told them how Robin Brande, in Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature will say something like, "he called him a male body part," while I just write what people actually say. I do think Mom and Dad, as well as some kids, won't appreciate me calling a dick a dick, so . . . I guess we'll see soon enough what sort of a reaction I get. :/ :D)

Scary and fun.

". . . the story is great and the writing superb!"

Can't argue with a quote like that, especially when the rest of the review is also really nice!
Check it out: review of OR NOT!



And my first interview.

Excerpt:

TR2: What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?

MANDABACH: I had a student who was told by a holier-than-thou classmate that she was going to hell. How can a person who professes to be inspired by a god of love be so mean? Not that the particulars of that incident are important—I see so much meanness, from girls being called fat to boys being called gay. But I see a lot of love, too. So, my students inspired me a lot in the writing of Or Not.

:)

John Nichols on Or Not

Dear Journal Friends--


WRITING is a magic journey, but waiting for the book to come out is a nerve-wracking time. Like other writers I know, I'm pretty good at convincing myself that my work sucks and that it won't find its way into more than a few stores let alone anyone's backback, bedside table, or desk.

But sometimes, it just feels good to have a book on the way, and sometimes even my limitless need for reassurance abates.

When I sent OR NOT to a big hero of mine, John Nichols, who is an amazing novelist and a champion of beauty and truth in both the human and natural worlds, I didn't really expect him to read it. Not only is he a busy man with a lot of demands on his time, but he almost never blurbs. He'd much rather be hiking down into the Rio Grande Gorge, with or without a fly rod, than reading some hack's first novel.

So I was pretty much floored to get a note from him only two weeks later--filled with good wishes and praise about my book. Including this:

"Cassie Sullivan is a lovely kid, aware of the earth and how to save it, but nobody's listening. Cassie's voice is funny, angry, sad, sarcastic, and perplexed as she struggles to find her own identity. And to find hope for the future despite all the yahoos surrounding her. You will laugh, you will weep, and you'll really enjoy this delightful and poignant novel about a kooky idealist who refuses to give up as she grows up."

My editor doesn't think Cass would like being called "a lovely kid," but take it from me: though Cassie hasn't read Nichols yet, she'd glow in his words. Nichols' uncompromising integrity shines as a light of inspiration to me. Without him, OR NOT would not exist. That he read it, and approved of it, is not only a personal thrill, but it helps reassure me that I'm on the right road.


Peace,

B

An Illustrated Conversation With Alexgirl Richards

After having a few conversations with Alex on our blogs and via email, I decided it would be fun to interview her and post our public conversation. Alex's super-fun and smart novel Back Talk came out in July from FLUX.



Introducing the interview section are the emails that went along with the questions and answers:

>On 8/27/07, BRIAN MANDABACH wrote:

> Hey, Alex! Sorry this has taken so long. I'm slammed now that school
> has started. I thought I would send these along. Some of them may be rather
> random & I didn't really revise, so some may not be {REDACTED}. Feel free
> to skip any that don't inspire you.


>From : Alex Richards >Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:55:41 -0400

>Hey Brian!
>Yowza! I've added my responses in italics below. Thanks for the interview!
>Yes, those were some very crazy questions, but fun, too. You're a nut.
>Anyway. Can't wait to read Or Not and interview you.
>Let me know when you're gonna post it and I'll set up a link.
>A


On 8/30/07, BRIAN MANDABACH wrote:
Great. I love it! Now, a couple of follow ups, and I'll call it "A
Conversation with Alex Richards"


From : Alex Richards alexgirl@
Sent : Monday, September 3, 2007 9:28 PM

Thanks Brian. The follow up Q's were great!
Have a great Labor Day.
A

THE INTERVIEW:

BRIAN: Getting straight to the heart of the matter, you just married a bloke from Bath. (as in UK, city of Roman spas--not as in "room" or "THE bath") Was or is he a DJ? Did you meet on the subway, or as he probably says, "tube"? How close is your real world English heart-throb to the dreamboat boy in Back Talk?


ALEX: Well, the similarities are more in his physical appearance, mannerisms, and personality. I wish I could say my husband was a cool DJ, but instead he's a cool physicist. And no, we didn't meet on the subway. I rarely make eye contact when I travel! We met at a Yo La Tengo concert in Prospect Park.

BRIAN: Physicist sounds more interesting than DJ to me. How's married life?

ALEX: Married life is great! I'd give it a 10 out of 10. I never thought I'd have so much fun introducing him as "my husband." lol


B: Why is Gemma from Idaho?

A: An homage to my best friend. She's from Burley, Idaho, and I wanted to give her a little shout out. It ended up making sense though. Gemma meets Dana for the first time at the ultra popular ski resort, Sun Valley, near Ketchum, Idaho, where Gemma is from.


B: How did you arrive at what I call the "Snarky Omniscient Narrator" of Back Talk?

A: It's basically me. I can be very snarky. My editor suggested I beef up that aspect, and so the snarky commentary went from a 6 to a 10 by the time I finished the book.

B: That's cool when an editor can set you free to be yourself. Andrew Karre
rules. But speaking of being yourself, I've to to tell you, it's rumored
that you're actually a dude named Richard Alexandria. From LA!!! Care to
respond?

A: Damn that blasted Richard Alexandria! Nope, never heard of him. Maybe if I'd gone for a pen name I could have rocked that one. No, I think If I were going to use a pen name, I'd go with something way more exotic, like Vegas Roberts--oh wait, that's the name of a character from one of my Potato Riot films.

B: How can I see your movies?

A: The World Wide Web is stocked with my movies! Check out www.potatoriot.com for the full collection.


B: Back to writing, which is harder: 1st draft or revision?

A: Revisions. Definitely. The first draft just spews out of you and it can never be "wrong," it just "is." But then when you're doing revisions, it's all about making it perfect--and I am a serious perfectionist.

B: What are you reading right now?

A: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl. I'm really enjoying the story so far. Also, Snow Flower & The Secret Fan, by Lisa See. That book is frigging awesome, and so well written. Next up: Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld. Uglies rocked.

B: What's in your cd player or the last thing you listened to on your ipod?

A: Well, I'm going to give two answers because the last thing I listened to was my gym mix (at the gym), which is full of embarrassingly cheesy pumped up pop tunes (like Sweetest Escape by Gwen Stefani and Fergalicious). But in the real world, the last thing I listened to was Cold War Kids. Oh, and Jeff Buckley.

B:Why do you blog?

A: Is this a trick question? Why do you blog? No, I started because I thought it'd be good book promotion. I'm not really sure if that's true, but now I'm addicted. Blogging is like a drug. And I've made so many awesome friends in blogtopia.

B: This was not a trick question, and my answer is a carbon copy, or a ditto--wait, can I update this to the digital age?--a facsimile of yours! On to another serious writing question: Which do you enjoy writing about more: clothes or clothes?

A:Are you making fun of me?


B: Yes. But though I loved reading BACK TALK, I didn't get some of the clothes
stuff. I guess that makes me curious--I want to hear why you write about
the outfits, designers, etc. Please?


A: There are certain things one pays extra special attention to. A well crafted, creative clothing design will turn a lot more heads than some run of the mill T-shirt. Maybe it can be equated to boys and cars. Por ejemplo: if you were into cars, you'd probably be more excited about a Lamborghini than a Ford Focus, right?


B: You're allergic to shrimp. I agree. But what about rock shrimp?

A: Now I know you're making fun of me.

B: Actually, not. I think shrimp are disgusting. I wish I was allergic so my
wife would stop bugging me about tasting hers. But a rock shrimp is more
like a tiny rock lobster (as in lobster tail, not as in the B-52's). They are delicious, and they are not the same animal, so I wondered if you're
allergic to them, too.

A: Well, I'm actually allergic to shrimp and lobster, so if rock shrimp is like lobster I'm going to have to say No. Though my allergist has invited me to sit in his waiting room with a bucket of shrimp to eat just to "see how it goes." I said No to that, too.

B: What are you wearing and why?

A: Odd interview question, but: denim skirt and a polka dot tank top, because it's freakin' boiling in NYC!

B: I think this came to me because your blogging friend Emma (who ROCKS by the
way, and who I always imagine hanging out with you in NYC proper, not just
in blogtopia NYC) always closes her posts with this information. BTW, I'm
wearing jeans, a blue plaid cotton shirt, and {REDACTED}, because it was casual
Thursday at school today, and it's cool enough here in Colorado so that I
didn't have to change into shorts when I got home.

A: Don't tell Emma you wear {REDACTED}. In fact, if you want to stay cool with the fashion community, I'd keep that bit of info to myself.

B: What's your favorite part of speech? Explain:

A: Expletives. They don't even have to be "bad words" in order to be really fun to say/write. Get creative!

B: Flagellate creativity! Why can you write fuck in a novel and not in an interview?

A: Good point.

B: America Vanderbilt?

A: Yes.
Oh, wait. Was that a question? She's awesome. I love the way America's character develops. At first she may seem like a bitch, but there is a lot going on underneath that sleek, heiress exterior. And how cool is that name. Come on.

B: Precisely. I love it.
Where would you rather look at Georgia O'keefe's paintings: NYC or New Mexico?

A: I've never even been to the O'Keefe museum in Santa Fe. Ooops! But honestly, I'd rather look at her hubby's photography. I love photography and Stieglitz was a pioneer.


B: How do you feel about Taos?

A: Boh-ring. Although they do have a good ski basin. And Julia Roberts.

B: They have Julia Roberts?


A: Yep. And her liiitttle dog, too!

B: Assuming you could change their ages to make them fit the roles (ie. Hugh Grant would be young enough to be Andy, uh, I mean the foxy boy in Backtalk), pick three actresses/actors for leading roles in a movie adaptation of Back Talk:

A: Oooh, I like this question! Hmmm... I think I'd pick a young Daryl Hannah for Dana Cox. Molly Ringwald for Gemma Winters. Or possibly Katie Holmes circa Dawson's Creek. And maybe Mischa Barton
for America Vanderbilt? Or Selma Blair. Wow, that's tough though. I'm gonna keep thinking.

B:Sorry! is that too much Mischa? Nah! Not possible.
What are you working on these days?

A: Just finished my second novel. Woo hoo! The characters are friggin'awesome, and I think people will really fall in love with my main character.

B: Sounds great--I love that feeling of loving your characters so much that you
want others to love them. Tell me a little more?

A: I would tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you.

B: And when you say you're finished, how finished? Finished with the draft? The first round of revisions?

A: Just finished with the first draft. That's why I can't really tell you any more about it. I think I'm going to be making changes, so I don't want to lock myself into anything. But the main character is a really awesome chica, and she wants to be a rock star.

B: You've worked in talk television, film, and literature. What advice do you have for Karl Rove as he moves into a new career?

A: Interesting yet bizarre question! I'd suggest that whatever he does, it be far, far away from politics. Flex the right brain for a bit, K-dog. Knitting perhaps?

B: That seems like a lot of questions. Thanks for doing this--I hope it's
fun. And I can't end on a picture of Karl, so how about this one of Selma Blair?


Peace,
Brian