Video Interview and more fun stuff!

I just did a video interview as part of my favorite LA bookstore Book Soup's "What's Your Story?" Series where authors talk about a time a meaningful book just sort of fell into their lap. I really heart Book Soup and had a great time when I was there last year reading with Alexa Young. I couldn't afford to go out to LA to visit them this time around (I so wish I could!), so we did this long distance--it was taped by my fiance in our living room (with my kinda crappy camera hence I'm a little lispy-sounding). I'm really glad they offered me the opportunity to do this and I hope you enjoy it.

I also did a guest blog that is really important to me. There's a new blog site dealing with the topic of self injury called Razor Thoughts that I guess my "Ballad of A Scar" blog entry inspired. I'm really glad that me talking about my own struggle with self injury on my blog and writing a fictional portrayal of it in Ballads of Suburbia has led to more open discussion about. Anyway this is the guest blog I wrote, I hope you'll check it out.

And then there are three interviews that I had a lot of fun doing, so check those out as well if you can:

If you are a music lover, you'll want to check out my "Book Notes" on Largehearted Boy where I break down the songs that inspired me most while writing Ballads of Suburbia and why.

Here's one with Want My YA with some fun facts about me and also about my writing.

And here's one on Flip The Page that really asked some good questions about Ballads of Suburbia that got me thinking.

Lastly, thank you to everyone who weighed in on my Where Should I do Events question. I'm taking it all under consideration. Bay area/LA area people I will be back to California at some point no doubt. I've got lots of people I can stay with there. I think I need to give the East Coast some love next since most of the responses came from there, I just have to figure out it if I can do more than one city. But Madison, WI is definitely on the list too! Oh how I really really wish I could do a full tour and see all of you!

Of course my next readings are in the Chicago area. I really hope you can come to them. Turnouts have been so much smaller lately and it's a little sad :( Maybe you all are sick of me? Two books in two years was too fast? Okay enough of the guilt trip... But here's the info in case it worked :)

Tonight I am reading at 7:30 PM at the Tamale Hut Cafe at 8300 W Cermak in North Riverside. There's an open mic to follow, a great deal on great tamales, and it's BYOB.

Sunday at 2 pm, I'm reading at the Old School Records at 7446 Madison in Forest Park with Billy Lombardo and Don Evans as part of Arts Fest.

I'm really excited about Arts Fest in Forest Park this weekend. I really hope it doesn't get rained out, especially on Saturday because I want to take my friend's daughter. (She's like a niece to me, but we just started spending time together again after way too long.) What about you? Weekend plans?