now i want to stay in bed and listen to the dogs snore

The book comes out a week from today and it's been thrilling and odd and unsettling. Lots of bloggers and reviewers got the book early, including this sixteen year old reviewer.  And you guys have been kind, unbelievably kind and supportive. I'm grateful.

Photo: Olivia Bee "The Magic Hour," Rookie

in portland

And the stories we tell ourselves are not the only stories. Uses for Boys

Are you in Portland? I'm going to be at Wordstock on October 13-14. Come if you can. I'd love to meet you. 

Illustration by Yelena Bryksenkova for Sad Girls

uses for boys

And here's the cover, designed by Elsie Lyons at St. Martin's Press with photography by Tess Kongteattikul. I love Tess's work which reminds me of another favorite photographer, Olivia Bee. More about the book (January 2013) here and here.

uses for boys

In 2008 I started writing a young adult novel called USES FOR BOYS and at the same time I started blogging. Often about my favorite writers, Grace Paley or Deborah Eisenberg. It helped keep me in the chair. But I had no idea when I started that I would meet such amazing people. Early on I met No Good for Me, Forty-Sixth at Grace, Woolgathering & Miscellany, Maud Newton, 2 or 3 Things I Know, A Cup of Jo, Sleep Deprivation and Stories of My Bullshit Youth, Porter Hovey, and Hollister Hovey, Shiny Squirrel, Hila, STNF, and of course, my beloved Ugly Earring. And then more recently, Nearness of Distance, Now Voyager, Victoria Thorne, mackin ink, M Dash, Look Mom, 16 House, Une Envie de Sel, Marvelous Kiddo, Le Temps Perdu, and Even Cleveland.

Today I sold my novel to St. Martin's Press and I keep thinking: I'm so crazy happy to have spent the last three years with you.

Photo by Larry Bercow