~~~Lara Zielin~~~

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Swine flu is no laughing matter, it’s true, but these masks? Come on. That’s funny. You gotta admit, you giggled.

Last night, I talked to fellow author and Carleton grad Sarah Quigley. Her new book, TMI, is hilarious and fun, and you can get it here.

Ah-hem. Anyway, after our conversation, I realized, oh jeez, there are some SERIOUS coincidences going on here. So I penned a letter about said coincidences to Laurie Hertzel, book editor for the Star Tribune. Because, seriously, this is beyond accidental. This is fate. This is worth an article.

Right? Let me know what you think. Cuz here’s the letter:

Sarah Quigley and I, both Minnesota natives, graduated from Carleton College the same year — 1998. We never had a class together, never held each other’s hair back at a party, never even lived in the same dorm. When we graduated, we both lived in Minneapolis for four years. For a portion of that period, we lived about a half-mile from each other in Uptown. We never met.

We both moved away from Minnesota around the same time (2002)–me to Michigan, Sarah to New York, then California.

We both wrote young adult novels that were picked up by the same publisher, Penguin. Sarah’s book is titled TMI. Mine is titled DONUT DAYS. We both appeared, mere pages apart, in Penguin’s recent spring/summer catalog.

Sarah saw something that tipped her off that I’d gone to Carleton, too. She emailed me, which was the first time we’d ever communicated. We realized our books would be coming out just a few short months apart.

Then I picked up her book and realized …

Both our young adult novels take place in Minnesota. Our protagonists are both from small fictional towns — hers is Pine Prairie, mine is Birch Lake. We both reference the cold. And Northfield, where we went to school.

Can I just say … OMG?!

It’s a little weird, even for me. I’m wondering if there’s a story here that the Star Tribune might be interested in. Sarah’s book is currently on bookshelves, and mine comes out this August. I’ve pasted our websites below, and both of us would be more than happy to supply any additional information about our books. Or lives. Or cats. Or how much we love Minnesota.

Thanks so much for the consideration, and I hope to hear back from you.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: So, as it turns out, donuts can solve the energy crisis. No, really. They can.

As part of the publicity for DONUT DAYS, Rob and I are sending out “donut seeds” (read: Cheerios) with the advance reader copies (also known as ARCs) of the book. We wanted to give away something that was cheap and easy to make, yet would have a punch — and these were perfect. We bought a box of cereal, some baggies from Michael’s, and Rob made labels. The picture to the left is of the cute donut tree he designed as well, to go on the labels, which say: “Blooms August 6, 2009.” That’s the release date for the book.

I gotta say, I love it!

If you’re hankering for some donut seeds, let me know and I can see about sending you some!

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: I am so glad I got hooked into the Debs 2009 community, a group of writers who all have books coming out in 2009. I love the advice, the information, and the support this site offers.

Rhonda Stapleton is one of the authors I’ve “met” through Debs 2009. She has a book, Stupid Cupid, coming out in late 2009, and she did this laugh-out-loud interview with her publisher, Simon & Schuster. When asked if she had one sentence of advice for new writers, her answer was (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Read a lot.”

I totally agree. I put Rhonda’s book on my reading list, as well as a bunch of other Debs’ books, and I’m also plowing through a pile of books I got from Swaptree (my fave site for trading books and getting reading material on the cheap).

I just finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which I loved, and I keep track of everything I read on my website, on this page here. I don’t pretend to review them (I’m SO not qualified) but I do try to provide a general synopsis.

In any case, mi bookshelf es tu bookshelf, and I’d love to hear what books you’re diving into (and loving) as well.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: This Taun Taun sleeping bag was supposed to be an April Fool’s joke but, dude, I totally want one!

I was interviewed by Michigan Public Radio recently on how authors interact with independent bookstores, versus the big chains. Click here for the interview (and/or text if you don’t want to listen to it).

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: What’s next after Twitter? How about Flutter?

I think a lot of authors have anxiety about their book covers, and perhaps rightfully so. While most publishers will allow the author to have input on the cover, the decision is, ultimately, in the publisher’s hands.

Now, let me preface all this by saying I *love* the cover of my book. No, wait, I luurve it. It’s perfect. It’s fabulous.

But not every author feels this way about his or her cover.

For example, a number of years ago I went to a book talk by author Lorna Landvik who said that she didn’t like covers of her first couple books because they looked so very similar. I’m sure this problem was rectified in subsequent printings of the books, but for a while there Lorna was stuck.

In my case, for my first book, Make Things Happen, I liked the cover just fine, but it’s when the publisher decided to change the title that I threw a fit. It was originally called You Never Know Who You Know. For a networking book, I thought that was pretty snappy. When they changed it, I was heartbroken. I gnashed my teeth, I fought, I wailed — ultimately to no avail. Because when you sign that contract, baby, a publisher has the right to do whatever they want.

Any other thoughts out there about this?