Monday, September 17, 2012

Rookie Event This Thursday-- Help me choose what to read!

There is going to be a ROOKIE Yearbook One event in Oak Park, IL at 7 pm on Thursday! I just found out about it/was invited to read this morning and immediately started scrambling to get the evening off of work. It looks like I have managed to do that, so I will be reading and signing alongside the fabulous Jessica Hopper, the amazing Krista Burton, and our lovely founder/editor-in-chief, who is one of my biggest inspirations.... ::drumroll:: Tavi Gevinson!

The event is being put on by the fabulous indie bookstore, The Book Table, and will take place at Unity Temple, 875 Lake Street, Oak Park, IL on Thursday, September 20th at 7 pm.

You can get all of the details as well as buy tickets to reserve your spot ($10, which you can redeem at the event for $10 off the price of the book) on the Book Table's website.

As I've said about a million times before, I am so insanely proud and honored to be a part of ROOKIE. It is literally the most important, meaningful job I've ever had. I kind feel more strongly about it than even my own novels at times because my pieces are a part of something so much bigger and more awesome than I could ever hope to create by myself.

....And because of this, I AM FREAKIN' TERRIFIED to read on Thursday. I mean, Krista, Jessica, Tavi, all brilliant women, how do I even come close? So I want to pick the best possible excerpt from my best Rookie piece to read. (I'm reading for 5 minutes, so anything will prolly have to be excerpted because I write loooong). So HELP ME CHOOSE!!!!!

Right now I am leaning towards the first half of my "Road out of Grief" piece because I think it's probably the one I am the most proud of. Well that and "Secret Wounds" but I wasn't quite sure if I could figure out a way to excerpt that and get it to five minutes. But then I thought maybe I should do something funny, like my "Literally the Best Thing Ever: Star Trek: The Next Generation" piece. My genius editor Anaheed pointed out that funny always goes over well for public readings and I know she is right, but I am afraid that I'm not very good at being funny and when funny doesn't go over well, you feel extra lame. So yeah, I just don't know.... Thoughts? You can see a list of all my pieces here if you need a refresher in terms of which one YOU liked best/think would work best excerpted and read aloud.

Also, we at Rookie have a fun little Twitter campaign going. Perhaps you have seen our "Ask A Grown Man" segments with the likes of Jon Hamm and Judd Apatow? Well, we would like to get President Barack Obama to do one, too. What a cool campaign move, right? And many of our readers are newly 18 and ready to vote. Plus, as a politically active teen, I fully believe that teens under the age of 18 can make a difference too. Also it would just be really fucking awesome to see the prez on Rookie. If you think so too, tweet @BarackObama and tell him why you think he should do "Ask A Grown Man." Use the tag #Obama4grownman and maybe we can even get it to trend!

Here are some example tweets of both the fun and the serious variety:






Okay, hope to see Chicago area peeps at the  Unity Temple on Thursday, and hope to see everyone here giving me advice on what to read and going on Twitter to get the president to do AGAM!