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the thing about my brain that makes book events challenging

This week was the NYC Teen Author Festival, which is always a blast. It’s so much fun to get to see lots of my author and reader friends in one place, and it’s so inspiring to hear other writers discuss their craft and their new books. This year I attended Tuesday’s panel at the Jersey City WORD and the Saturday symposiums at the NYPL. I also spoke on a panel on Wednesday night, and I felt honored to be on a panel with writers whose work I admire so much. Finally, today was the blow-out Books of Wonder signing, which loads and loads of readers came to, and many of them said such nice things about my books, which made me feel great.

Even though this week was obviously so fun, I do find events like the Teen Author Festival to be stressful. And I wanted to take a moment here to explain why.

The reason is because I have a disorder called “prosopagnosia,” which is just a fancy word for face-blindness. And that is just a fancy way of saying that my brain doesn’t record and recognize faces in the way that most other people’s brains do.

Like everything else that happens in the brain, facial recognition operates on a sliding scale. Take, for example, attention spans. Some people have fantastically good attention spans. Most people’s attention spans aren’t fantastically good, but are sufficient. Some people have such poor attention spans that they are considered “disordered”; thus, the term “attention deficit disorder,” or ADD.

Facial recognition is the same way. Some people are amazing at it, like my high-school friend Emily. Emily can see somebody once on the subway and recognize him again two months later in another part of town. She can see an old classmate for the first time in two decades and recognize her instantly.

Most people aren’t as skilled at facial recognition as Emily. But, for the most part, they recognize a co-worker even if they run into her at the mall. If they’re introduced to a new person in the kitchen of a house party, they will recognize that person when they see her an hour later in the living room of that same house party. Stuff like that. I can’t do that. That’s what it means to have a facial recognition disorder.

If you’re interested in understanding more about how people with face-blindness figure out whom they are talking to, I recommend reading this webpage. I can reassure you here that I have a lot of ways to figure out who people are, based on context and haircuts and posture and all sorts of other clues.

And eventually I do learn who people are. There are some people with prosopagnosia who never learn to recognize themselves in the mirror. I don’t have that problem. I recognize my parents and my friends, even if I see them in a place I wouldn’t expect. When I meet somebody a number of times in one-on-one contexts, I learn his face.

But events like the Teen Author Festival are hard for me because I am seeing a lot of new faces all at the same time. And a lot of these faces look similar to me–i.e. white-skinned women with brownish hair. At my panel on Wednesday, I met a number of kind, complimentary readers. Some of them I re-met at the signing today. I didn’t recognize them. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t process our conversations, that their thoughtful words about my books didn’t resonate with me, that I didn’t pay attention to personal information they provided about themselves. On the contrary, I listen very carefully to the things readers tell me, and I take their words home with me. I just don’t associate those words and ideas with faces.

I love going to events where everybody wears name tags. I don’t always need to look at the name tags, but it makes me feel more comfortable to know that I can look if I need to.

I love doing signings where people in line write their name on a Post-It and stick it on the book’s title page, so I don’t have to ask, “Whom should I personalize this for?” and have them say, “Me, duh, your mom’s friend’s daughter; we’ve met like ten times, remember?”

If we’re at a book event where there are no name tags, and there are no Post-Its for you to write your name on, it never hurts to re-introduce yourself. I’d never be offended. If you say, “Hi, Leila, it’s so good to see you again! Belinda–we met at BEA,” then I can just say, “Oh my gosh, Belinda! It’s so great to see you again!”

I know it can sometimes be a nerve-wracking experience to meet an author. I remember the first time I met Dave Barry, who was (and still is) my idol–I thought I was going to throw up from nerves! I just didn’t want to say anything stupid to him, anything I would regret, and I didn’t want him to say anything that would disappoint me when I’d built him up so much in my mind.

We authors never want to be a disappointment. And I hate to think that I might ever disappoint a reader by not recognizing her, that I might ever make her think she’s not important enough to be on my radar. So I just wanted to put this out here, where all my readers can see it: you are important to me. And while I may not always remember your face, I will always remember you.

March 23rd, 2014 in | Permalink | Comments (3)

March and April events in NYC

I have a few events coming up in New York over the next few weeks, and you are all invited! Details:

March 18, 6-8pm, Mulberry Street NYPL, 10 Jersey Street
I will be doing a panel as part of the NYC Teen Author Festival. I’ll be reading and chatting about rock ‘n’ roll and revelry along with Holly Black, Rachel Cantor, Cassandra Claire, Bennett Madison, Libba Bray, and Natalie Standiford. ALL-STAR LINE-UP, folks.

March 23, 2:30-3:15pm, Books of Wonder, 18 W. 18th Street
I will be signing copies of THIS SONG WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE, along with about a zillion other authors. No reading, no Q&A, just a massive attack of YA authors signing their books. The full signing schedule is here.

April 1, 7pm, McNally Jackson, 52 Prince Street
My very dear friend and writing partner, Rebecca Serle, and I will be celebrating the launch on her newest novel, THE EDGE OF FALLING, with a conversation between the two of us, Q&A, book signing, and champagne. Details here.

Hope to see you there!

March 10th, 2014 in | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy 50th birthday, Harriet the Spy!

Today Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy, one of my all-time favorite books, turned 50 years old. In celebration, I wrote an article about the book and its creator for Al Jazeera America.

An excerpt from the article:

I always scoff at children’s books that try too hard to shove morals down readers’ throats. Children are too smart for that. And that’s something else that made Fitzhugh one of the greatest writers of the genre. She wasn’t trying to teach kids to be good. She was just telling a story. There are many ways in which Harriet and her friends never learn their lesson, which made the book controversial when it was first published and has led to its banning in school systems since then. Consider, for example, this exchange:

“Hey Janie, if you were going to slit somebody’s throat, wouldn’t you do it in the dead of night?”

“I’d poison them.” Janie didn’t even turn around.

I bet you would, thought Harriet. “But, Janie, they’d just trace the poison.”

“Not the one I’ve got.”

“Did you make a new one?”

“Yes.”

You can read the rest of the piece here: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/25/harriet-the-spy-turns50.html.

Happy birthday, Harriet!

February 25th, 2014 in | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leila Sales’ holiday gift guide

As I think we all know by now, books make great gifts. Here’s proof:

You may be wondering which books to put under your Christmas tree (or Hanukkah menorah, though frankly you’re about three weeks late to that). That’s why I’ve come up with this list of recommendations for you.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that I edited all these books. I guess that makes me “biased”? But I acquired them because they’re excellent books. And then I worked with the authors to make them even more excellent. So, yeah: these are some of my favorite books right now. And I worked on them. It’s a win-win.

What to get for…

your five-year-old babysitting charge.

This book is tremendously funny, the story is engaging, the characters are a riot, and it’s good for boys and girls. The author wrote BOY AND BOT, and the illustrator also did the newest Kate DiCamillo book. I love this picture book to death.

your friend who likes contemporary YA.

UNTIL IT HURTS TO STOP is Jennifer Hubbard’s third contemporary YA novel. This one is about a teen girl who basically has PTSD from being bullied so severely during middle school. It’s really wise. And it has excellent make-out scenes, which is crucial.

your ten-year-old nephew who’s already read every Wimpy Kid book a hundred times.

You may know who Bob Balaban is, since he’s been in like a hundred movies. He’s also a really funny writer, and I get to edit his series about a neurotic boy-turned-giant mutant reptile.

ballet fans.

BECOMING A BALLERINA is like a modern-day version of one of my favorite books, Jill Krementz’s A VERY YOUNG DANCER. The photographer for this book went backstage at Boston Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker (which I went to every year when I was a child growing up in Boston), and she got gorgeous shots of the rehearsals and performances. I often dream of being a ballet dancer. I have no turn-out, though. That gets in my way.

friends who love a good mystery.

TOKYO HEIST is a modern-day art heist mystery set in Japan. (I guess the title kind of gives that away…) I’ve never been to Japan– the only place in Asia I have ever been was a debate tournament in Kuala Lumpur– but this book makes me want to explore.

your ten-year-old sister.

RED THREAD SISTERS is a contemporary middle-grade about a girl who’s adopted at the age of 11 from her Chinese orphanage and is brought to America, where she has to adjust to going to school, speaking English, and being part of a family. When I was a kid I loved adoption books– I used to go to the library and look up “adoption” in the card catalog and check out everything that was available. So I love that I grew up and got to edit an adoption book of my own!

Okay, those are some of my holiday gift recommendations. What are yours? Or which books are you hoping to get as presents this year?

December 19th, 2013 in | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Song Will Save Your Life comes out today – plus, a contest!

My new novel, This Song Will Save Your Life, comes out in the United States today, September 17, 2013! To celebrate, I’m running a contest. Here’s how it goes:

Take a photo of yourself with a hardcover copy of the book. Tweet the photo to @LeilaSalesBooks by the end of the day on Tuesday, September 24, 2013, and you could win a signed copy of any one of my books, plus I’ll make you a custom mix CD. The more fun and interesting your photo is, the more likely it is to win… so start photographing, and start tweeting!

I’m so excited to bring this book into the world. I hope you love reading it.

September 17th, 2013 in | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Song Will Save Your Life launch events – Fall 2013

My new novel, This Song Will Save Your Life, comes out on Tuesday, September 17! I am so excited to get to share this book with the world. Fortunately, I’ll get to share it with the world through a lot of tour dates. Here are the events I have scheduled. Come say hi!

-Tuesday, September 17, 6:30pm, WORD in Brooklyn, NY

-Sunday, September 22, 2:00pm, the Brooklyn Book Festival in Brooklyn, NY

-Tuesday, September 24: 7:00pm, Children’s Book World in Haverford, PA

-Wednesday, September 25, 7:00pm, Wellesley Books in Wellesley, MA

-Thursday, September 26, 7:00pm, Paramus Barnes & Noble in Paramus, NJ

-Friday, September 27, 4:00pm, Books & Co. in Dayton, OH

-Saturday, September 28, 11:15am and 2:20pm, the Austin Teen Book Festival in Austin, TX

-Sunday, September 29, 4:00pm, A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, CA

-Monday, September 30, 7:00pm, Changing Hands in Tempe, AZ

-Tuesday, October 1, 7:00pm, Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, CA

-Saturday-Sunday, time TBD, October 26-27, the Texas Book Festival in Austin, TX
 
 
The September 24 – October 1 dates are part of Macmillan’s Fierce Reads tour, so you’ll get to see not only me, but also Alexandra Coutts, S. A. Bodeen, and Marissa Meyer.

The September 17 date is my big launch party. It starts at 6:30pm with a reading, Q&A and pizza at WORD. Then we’ll walk about 20 minutes down the road to No Lights No Lycra, an early-evening, alcohol-free, all-ages dance party for which I will be providing the playlist. No Lights No Lycra will end by 9:30pm. It is a Tuesday, after all. Come dance with me! RSVP here.

If this isn’t enough to get you excited, watch the book trailer, which was just released last week:

Are you ready for this, or what?

August 24th, 2013 in | Permalink | Comments (0)

summer writing songs

This weekend is our third annual writers’ retreat! Avid LeilaSales.com readers may recall the time we went on a writing retreat to Copake and had a dance party in our living room and/or the time we went on a writing retreat to Fire Island and gambled on hermit crab races. This time around we are in the Berkshires — “we” being Lauren Oliver, Jess Rothenberg, Rebecca Serle, Courtney Sheinmel, Lexa Hillyer, and Emily Heddleson.

So far today I have swum in the backyard pool, drunk a chocolate milkshake, lost a game of croquet, and written 1,500 words of a new YA novel.

Obviously all this writing requires some SUMMER WRITING MUSIC. Just in case you, too, are doing some SUMMER WRITING, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite albums for that purpose. SUMMER WRITING MUSIC needs to be a) summery (duh), and b) chill enough to write to. Here’s what I like:

What are some of your favorite summer writing songs? I have a lot more summer writing to do and would love some new recommendations!

July 14th, 2013 in | Permalink | Comments (0)

response to the Boston Marathon attacks

I wrote a response piece to Monday’s attacks on Boston, my hometown. You can read the piece on the Huffington Post, or I’m pasting the full text below.

My loved ones in Boston are all okay; I hope yours are, too.

****

Patriot’s Day has always been my favorite American holiday.

Only someone who grew up in Massachusetts would say that, since most people in the rest of the country aren’t aware that Patriot’s Day is a holiday. But in Massachusetts, it’s a big deal. For my entire childhood, we would get the third Monday in April off from school, so we could go cheer on the marathon runners.

Marathon Monday often coincided with my birthday, so for many years I would host a slumber party on Sunday night. Then on Patriot’s Day my sleep-deprived friends and I would head down the road and sit along Commonwealth Avenue to hand out cups of water to the runners and gorge ourselves on birthday cake.

I remember hearing explosions the night before my eighth birthday — not the kind of explosions that happened this week, but the other kind; the good kind. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and went to look out the window, and I saw a sky filled with fireworks. “They’re fireworks for your birthday,” my mother told me, but of course they weren’t. They were fireworks for the Boston Marathon.

Boston is a beautiful, grand, historic, sensible city. The most beautiful, I think, but I know that I am biased, and anyway it’s not a competition. Still, it’s hard to imagine a city more beautiful than Boston in the spring, when the dogwoods are in bloom, the Charles River is glittering in the sun and our few skyscrapers stand triumphant against the sky. Specifically, it’s hard to imagine a city more beautiful than Boston on Marathon Monday, when the streets are filled with people of all ages, pouring out their support.

I find it impossible not to cry at the Marathon, even on a happy day, when it goes the way it’s supposed to. The power of watching thousands of strangers streaming past me, achieving this extraordinary feat of human endurance and strength. Every year, it brings me to my knees. Personally, I can’t run for more than 15 minutes. But I can watch strangers run for hours.

And when you add in the reasons why people do it — I mean, you’d need a heart of steel not to cry. I’ve seen young men running alongside their aging fathers, matching them step for step; I’ve seen women running with shirts or hats honoring friends who died from AIDS; I’ve seen cancer survivors; I’ve seen amputees; I’ve seen some of the world’s finest living athletes. And the city gathers around them to call out their names and race numbers, to hand them orange wedges, to keep them going. This is a responsibility you have, as a Bostonian. I took it very seriously as an eight-year-old. I still do.

Nowadays, I’m usually not in Boston for the marathon. I moved to New York City six years ago, which is also a beautiful city, in its own way, but it’s different. New York is big. A lot goes on here, all the time. New York has its own marathon, but it’s easy to ignore or forget; this city is so big that a footrace involving thousands of people and spanning more than 26 miles is pretty easy to just not pay attention to. Boston isn’t that way. There are a million New Yorks co-existing at all times: uptown, downtown, poor New York, rich New York, Chinatown, Little Italy, hipster New York, yuppie New York, Broadway, Staten Island (which I hear is part of New York). But there is only one Boston.

I remember where I was on the September 11 bombings, of course. I was at my high school in Boston, about a mile from Copley Square. And I remember thinking (because these are the things you have to tell yourself, to feel safe), “That happened in New York because New York is dangerous. I’m glad I live in Boston instead.” But what I’ve learned as I’ve grown up is that anything can be dangerous, these days: office buildings or movie theaters or elementary schools or finish lines.

That’s a terrible thing to have to learn.

It’s a cruel thing to set off explosions in a public place, always. Everybody knows this. It’s a cruel thing to do to people who may have just completed the greatest accomplishment of their lives, to people who are out today to honor or support a loved one. It’s a cruel thing to do to so beautiful a city on so beautiful a spring day. The only explosions should be fireworks of celebration. That’s how it’s been for 115 years, and that’s how it should be forever and ever, for generations of children to come.

April 17th, 2013 in | Permalink | Comments (0)

NYC Teen Author Festival

The annual NYC Teen Author Festival is next week! This is my third year participating in the Festival, but my first year speaking on one of the NYPL panels. And what a panel it is, too. Here’s the listing:

Friday March 22, Symposium (42nd Street NYPL, Berger Forum, 2nd floor)

2:10-3:00: He Said, She Said

He:
Ted Goeglein
Gordon Korman
Lucas Klauss
Michael Northrop

She:
Susane Colasanti
E. Lockhart
Carolyn Mackler
Sarah Mlynowski
Leila Sales

moderator: David Levithan

I mean, how good is that lineup?!

What’s going to happen at this panel is super-secret, but I can reveal one thing about it: I’m going to be writing something completely new for it. In fact, all the authors on this list will be writing and sharing new pieces. If that doesn’t make you come out, I don’t know what will!

Hope to see you there or at one of the other stellar events next week. You can find the full schedule here.

March 15th, 2013 in | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Song Will Save Your Life cover reveal

Yesterday MTV.com’s Hollywood Crush blog exclusively revealed the cover for my third novel, This Song Will Save Your Life! I love this cover and am so excited to share it with you here.

For the cover reveal, I created an indie rock and britpop Spotify playlist to soundtrack the book. You can listen to it here.

Here’s a synopsis of the story:

You think it’s so easy to change yourself.
You think it’s so easy but it’s not.

Elise Dembowski is not afraid of a little hard work. In fact, she embraces it. All her life, she’s taken on big, all-encompassing projects. When she was eight years old, she built her own dollhouse. When she was thirteen, she taught herself stop-motion animation. And when she’s fifteen, she embarks on the biggest, and most important, project of them all: becoming cool. Except she fails. Miserably. And everything falls to pieces.

Now, if possible, Elise’s social life is even worse than it was before. Until she stumbles into an underground dance club, and opens the door to a world she never knew existed. An inside-out world where, seemingly overnight, a previously uncool high school sophomore can become the hottest new DJ sensation. Elise finally has what she always wanted: acceptance, friendship, maybe even love. Until the real world threatens to steal it all away.

In a refreshingly genuine and laugh-out-loud funny voice, Leila Sales delivers an exuberant novel about identity, relationships, and the power of music to bring people together.

This Song Will Save Your Life comes out September 17. I can’t wait for you to read it!

March 9th, 2013 in | Permalink | Comments (1)