CHATS 'N HATS...

I had the absolute best time last night...at my very first live author chat! Thanks to Read. Chat. Love, I got a chance to connect with my readers in real time...The thirty-minute scheduled talk about PLAYING HURT was incredible...then became an informal chat during which we dished on everything...Including our collective love of hats, in honor of the Royal Wedding!


(Yep, I've been up since three watching the wedding festivities. What can I say? I'm a girl...Love the dresses. Love the hats. Wish I had my own "fascinator.")


Thanks much to the readers who attended the chat...and hung out for more than an hour and a half, from start to finish!


...In addition to the chat, I've been all over the place online this week. I'm really not joking. Check it all out:


Interview at MarjoleinBookBlog; Emilie's Book World interview and PLAYING HURT review; guest post on "safe" college degrees at Lucid Conspiracy; a guest post on revision at Tina's Book Reviews; and PLAYING HURT reviews went live at Midnight Bloom Reads and Fragments of Life. You can also check out the full info on Fiction Folio's PLAYING HURT Tour, and review the entire Read. Chat. Love Event, with an author interview, letters to and from Clint, a guest post on how Project Runway can make us all better authors, and a convo with Clint himself!


My favorite post this week, though, is at Catherine Ryan Hyde's blog...she's got my buddy Jake and his 'Roo...


And while you're at it, don't forget to check out my very first post at my MG Author Blog, Smack Dab in the Middle!

IN MY EASTER BONNET

For some reason, I just can't get enough of spring this year. Seriously. And I'm not the only Schindler who feels this way...I'm pretty sure we've planted just about every flower known to man around the house...

Today? I'm listening to the rain on the window of my office, and am working up the remainder of the posts for my PLAYING HURT Blog Tour...and generally just feeling pastel-tinted and spring-like inside, because of the beautiful support I've received from my bloggers. I can't tell you guys enough how important you are to me.

...A full run-down of the week's posts are below.

Happy, happy Easter, everyone! May you get lots of chocolate bunnies...

PLAYING HURT Tour:

Princess Bookie,

Confessions of a Bookaholic,

Crazy Bookworm,

A Life Bound by Books: interview and review,

The Book Sp(l)ot,

and (as part of the Philippine Tour) One More Page

READING NOW VS. THEN: CATHERINE RYAN HYDE’S JUMPSTART THE WORLD

I’ve been so wrapped up in the release of PLAYING HURT—and the super-fun corresponding blog tours—I haven’t had much time to blog about anything else! (I can’t even begin to describe how truly cool bloggers have been about the release of PLAYING HURT. I’m not joking. My readers? The best. I’m so, so lucky…)

I’ve been wanting to write a post for some time about Catherine Ryan Hyde’s JUMPSTART THE WORLD. Thing is, every single time I start to write it, I get a woosh of all sorts of images: me sitting in the movie theater when I was in grad school, watching PAY IT FORWARD (I was already a fan of Catherine’s)…I remember the insanely exciting, scary, stressful months leading up to the release of A BLUE SO DARK, and the hope and—okay, intimidation—I felt approaching Catherine for a blurb. I think of all the exchanges I’ve had with Catherine via email and online in the months—good grief, A BLUE SO DARK is actually nearly a year old!—since she sent her incredibly encouraging blurb…

As for JUMPSTART, I loved it—as I absolutely knew I would. Some novels (I’m thinking of Anderson’s WINTERGIRLS or Suzanne Phillips’s BURN) you read because they instantly put an off-kilter feeling in your gut. You’re propelled forward to find out how the protagonist’s knotted-up mess will finally untangle. Although the storyline is equally as compelling, JUMPSTART has a vulnerability about it, a more gentle tug that draws the reader on to its conclusion. The sweetness is what I wanted to return to, each time I had to put the book down.

As for me, anytime I cracked the cover of JUMPSTART, I also thought about Catherine. I saw her hand in the pages…

Before I began writing full-time myself, authors were truly distant, almost sacred creatures. I saw novels as objects—as things. As I was growing up, and as I entered adulthood, authors seemed, for the most part, somewhat unapproachable. Not Catherine, though. And because of that, as I read JUMPSTART, I truly felt that the novel was living. Breathing.

I don’t think I’ll ever pick up a book again and think of it as a thing…

Thank you, Catherine…

How about you? Has meeting an author online or in person changed how you read?

(Aaaand...because the PLAYING HURT Tour is still rolling: Check out the interview at Yay! Reads. I'm also in the midst of a couple of international PLAYING HURT Tours...Check out my guest post on world building and the review posted at Amaterasu Reads (as part of the Philippine Tour). And, as part of the Canadian Tour, check out the interview and review at YA Booklover, as well as my guest post on Clint, my last-minute addition, and the review at Moonlight Gleam...)

STORY SIREN VLOG INTERVIEW + REVIEW + GIVEAWAY

Seriously: who doesn't absolutely adore The Story Siren? She's just posted my vlog interview (which you can also view below), along with a chance to win PLAYING HURT...and a message I wrote to bloggers, thanking them for spreading word about my books.

I honestly can't begin to tell you all how much it's meant to me...

Don't forget to check out The Story Siren's PLAYING HURT reivew!

ONE OF MY MOST ANTICIPATED READS + BLOG HOPPIN'

I cannot wait to dig into Medeia Sharif's debut, BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER. As a fellow Flux-er, I feel I've gotten to know her a bit over the past several months. She's been an incredible supporter of my books, and just one of those people I'm soooooo glad to have bumped into in the blogosphere. I'm telling you, if the book is half as cool as the author, I'm going to have BER on my shelves of all-time favorites!

Speaking of Medeia, she's got a super-fun interview up on her blog today, which includes a PLAYING HURT playlist...

And speaking of cool people I've met online, I had to recap last week's festivities at Bookgoonie. She spent the entire week highlighting PLAYING HURT! I'm not joking. Check it all out:

Music Monday,

Teaser Tuesday,

Words of Wisdom (Wednesday)

Book Review (Thursday),

Hot Guy Friday

And two great reviews have also just gone live: Michelle and Leslie's Book Picks and The Crazy Bookworm.

BLOGGERS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

I know a lot of bloggers feel like they've been taking some heat lately...Hearing they have no impact on sales, don't help promote novels... I'm one author who absolutely believes in the power of the blogosphere. 100%. The blogosphere is connecting my books with the appropriate readership...and is allowing me to have the kind of relationships with my readers I never thought, when I sold A BLUE SO DARK, would actually be possible (I didn't know the YA Book Blogging Community existed when I sold BLUE).

One example of a blogger helping to promote my books (and a reader I'm glad to have gotten to know) is Gabrielle at The Mod Podge Bookshelf. She's running my latest interview, in which I dish on my first job and where I'd love to be today, if not for writing (but...really. Come on. Who am I kidding? Like I wouldn't be writing. Holly not writing is like Holly not eating...)

And stay tuned for my interview at The Story Siren next week, in which I'll do some weighing in on the positive impact I see bloggers making on my work...

COFFEE BREAK WITH THE NAUGHTY BOOK KITTIES

Ahhhh...yet another fantastic stop on the PLAYING HURT Blog Tour...A coffee break with Brent at The Naughty Book Kitties, one of my favorite bloggers!

LOVIN' MY BLOGGERS (INTERVIEW + FIRST TWITTERVIEW!)

Yes, oh, yes, more interviews! (I can't even begin to truly describe how much I adore my bloggers...)

The first interview for my Canadian Tour has gone live at YA Booklover Blog...

And my first Twitterview has gone live at Stacked (along with a giveaway)!