Alexgirl's book!! BACK TALK

I have so much to say, after being off line and on vacation for a good long while.

But tales of the heavenly beach, all the books I read, and the stingray from hell will have to wait, because THE MOST IMPORTANT THING NOW IS

BACK TALK

by the hilarious and way too cool

ALEX RICHARDS!!

If it's not on the shelf, ask your bookstore to order it, ask your librarians to get it, grab Mommy's Visa and order it from Amazon, but get this book!



Goodbye small town hell . . . hello Big Apple!

Sixteen-year-old Gemma Winters couldn't be more ecstatic—and terrified—about scoring a summer internship at one of the hippest daytime TV talk shows, Back Talk with Kate Morgan. To top it off, she's staying in a palatial brownstone in Manhattan with celebutante Dana Cox (a virtual E! True Hollywood Story in the making) and world-weary millionheiress America Vanderbilt. Gemma's corn-fed naiveté melts away as she gets a taste of designer clothes, underage clubbing . . . and a cute Johnny Depp look-a-like.

The glamour fades by nine a.m. when Gemma becomes slave labor for harried producers. Not even her borrowed Manolo Blahniks can shield her from an office romance turned ugly and backstabbing fellow interns. When someone is unfairly fired and a show is at risk, Gemma goes out of her way to prove this small-town girl is more than just a "photocopy bitch."


Here's a link to Amazon:
BACK TALK


And here's an interview with Alex on Slayground, by that miraculous girl, Little Willow

Summer Reading: LOG THE HELL OFF!!

Livejournal, myspace, blogspot: they all SUCK!!!

Even as I write, indulging in this vampiric wastetime, I must briefly rail against!
Especially for an ADD person with a strong tendency towards hyper-focus, such as yours truly, it's hard not to get sucked in. So, I have begun unplugging my wireless at 5 pm. It's a start. While I love my internet friends, and I have fun reading interviews & book reviews by the likes of
Little Willow as well as the hilarious observations of Emma, I'm now reading like crazy.


I FINALLY finished I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, the touchingly innocent and simultaneously earthy (though never pornographic) memoir of Pamela Des Barres (who refused the advances of Mick Jagger because she was so in love with Jimmy Page!)


Then, it was Alias Grace by my favorite Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood. (The Boob Lady
is second, sorry!) She's amazing. I'm in awe of the combination of her research and imagination into pure seamlessness. And her mastery of voice in multiple points of view--including Grace herself, who is far from reliable--helps Atwood spin a tale in which I was far from certain what the truth was or exactly what the truth meant.

On to Stephen King and the finale of The Dark Tower. In the thrall of Mr. King and his gunslingers, I'm no good to anyone. I was was told yestereve, as I read myself into another world, oblivious to the familial chaos around me, "I think Daddy's checked out."

So much for the idea that I'd would be a better family member after unplugging the wireless. I was no good at all this morning either, on account of being up until after one last night reading until I had not the strength to make it into bed. Waking on the couch around five, I pulled myself out from dreams of Low Men, were-spiders, and portals to other times and worlds, and managed to make into bed with a sore neck.




Next, it's going to be one of my fellow FLUX authors Carrie Jones
or Brian Yansky, probably Carrie because now that I'm in Maine with King, I might as well stay there. Ayuh. :)

Escape! Isn't it best with a book? Forget about my former righteousness in getting offline--I just needed a better way to slip out of the real world. I do say so and thank ya!

The Real Goat Horn

This is the mountain that inspired the Goat Horn, which rises above Cassie's cabin.

Read my old pal Jeff's blog of his climb to the summit, and see his awesome pictures! Wow!

Then get outside and get some altitude!!!!!!!

A Half Birthday

Or maybe just a quarter-birthday. Certainly not an occasion for champagne or cake. In the life of a book, it's not much of an occasion.



Nonetheless, I feel like marking the "completion" of a reading draft of my next novel. The final pages are spitting out of the printer upstairs, and I am a little scared. For a year and a half, this story has been working, and I've only shared a couple of pages with my trusted Becky and my writing club. It's just a reading draft, but that means that I'm going to have to let my readers, um... look at it. And though I have loved working on this monstrosity that currently weighs in at 127,00 words, 355 pp. 1.5 space, I'm terrified that I haven't pulled it off.

I guess I'll have to trust the fact that I smile when I think of my characters and parts of their story, and trust my readers to help me figure out what I've got wrong.

Here goes nothing!

King Soopers Book Tour

So, while some of the cool people are at BEA, I decided to go on tour!

Check it out, from the bakery, to non-dairy, to produce--its the all vegan tour on West Uintah Street, View of Pikes Peak, USA--the anti-NYC!!!!!

Gothic Novels to put some chill in your summer:

Here's a link to a blog from the author of TANTALIZE with a killer list of gothic novels.

Cassie's Songs

I have published the first imix of songs that Cassie, my heroine, listens to on her record player. The irony never ends here, because digital media pervades our every synapse more and more with every passing moment, while Cassie remains stuck in her analog neverland . . .

So, I want you to hear the soundtrack of Cassie's life, and the best way to do that is through the computer, just as I want you to read the book, and the best way to spread the word is via the computer, and I want to hear from readers and old students and new "friends," and the best way . . .

The first of these songs is from The Worst of Jefferson Airplane (because they're radical like that, lol), a record that is widely available in thrift stores, e-bait, and record stores. Cassie listens to it with her friend Liz, who appreciates the some of Jorma's heavy guitar, and the general tripped-out feel.


The rest, in no particular order:

"Summer's Almost Gone" is a song that everybody should have on the mental ipod (you know, the one that plays in your mind, those songs that run through your mind), with Jim Morrison's smooth, deep voice giving you the essence of autumnal loss--the bluesiest season of all--before the first leaves even fall. Meanwhile, Robbie gives you some sweet slide guitar, John taps a subtle beat, and Ray fills in everything else with piano and organ. "Where will we be when the summer's gone?"

If you haven't felt like a "Teenaged Lobotomy," you haven't turned 13 yet. The Ramones took things back to the Fifties, by doing away with all the tripped-out extended guitar solo jams of the Sixties. Two minute is the average length of a Ramones song, many of which have the brilliance of urban rock & roll Haiku. Cassie was lightening up a great deal when she got into the Ramones, courtesy of Quill and DJ.

Todd Rundgren's Todd is another of the obscure records in Cassie's yard sale purchase. The electric keyboard intro of "Don't you ever Learn?" is longer than most Ramones songs. Todd seem to have financed, with a couple of hits, many hours of the music that is close to his heart--rambling, spiritual, electronic, and often very rocking forays punctuated with some powerful singing, lyricism, and guitar work that have made his hard-core, cult fans proclaim, "Todd is God."

Cassie loved Lightnin' Hopkins, and lots of his obscure records are out there still, scratched up, cheaply pressed, and beautiful because when you listen to them it feels like you are sitting there with ol' Lightnin' as he picks and sings you a story as wet and muddy as an East Texas swamp.

"In the Pines" or "Where did you Sleep Last Night" is one of those heavy, emotional songs, especially when screamed by the inimitable Kurdt Kobain. The lyrics, to my way of hearing it, are not so important in a literal or even figurative sense. They are evocative, and the image of shivering "the whole night through in the pines, in the pines where the sun don't ever shine" blends with the melody to create a psychic icon of loss, alienation, and despair that chills my heart. This song has been sung and recorded for a hundred years by too many people to count. Leadbelly claimed to have written it, and copyright is erroneously claimed by his estate even now. But it's folk music, written by folks, and so it is called a "traditional," meaning it was created by lots of people, and if one person first came up with the idea, nobody knows who that person was. . .