Meet Writers GLW Likes!

If you're in the South come Labor Day, come to my town for the Decatur Book Festival! I haven't mention this here in too long, but this year's line-up is very, very exciting. Here's just a few folks from the teen/YA stage we've mentioned here at GLW who will be at the festival this year:

Barry Lyga will discuss his new book I Hunt Killers (reviewed by Trisha last month)
David Levithan, a Guys Lit Wire favorite, will debut his book Every Day
Kenneth Oppel has Such Wicked Intent, a follow up to his Victor Frankenstein prequel, This Dark Endeavor (reviewed by Debra last year when it came out)
Neal Shusterman, a prolific YA author, will be at the festival for the first time to talk about his new book, Unwholly. His book Unwind was reviewed several years ago by Becker

I'm also excited about two other authors that fall outside the purview of this blog, but I want to give them a special shout out: Dame Darcy has been doing some amazing, unique (aka-- if Charles Addams or Edward Gorey were into Victorian ghosts) cartooning for going on two decades now with her comic Meat Cake, and now she has a funky cool book I can't wait to see.

Joe Meno's Office Girl is the book I'm currently reading, and I don't think I've read a book that so captures what it means to be in your twenties in a long time (maybe Douglas Coupland's Generation X? Armstead Maupin's Tales of the City?). I've fallen in love with the two main characters, Jack & Odile, in all their neurotic, art-obsessed, end-of-the-millenium funk.The perfect time to read this? That Spring and Summer at the end of high school or college or when you've just been dumped or fired. Basically, any given moment in that decade from 17 to 27.

There's even an auction so you can bid to win an hour visiting with an author! Which would be even cooler if, you know, we were rolling in dough. NEVERTHELESS-- cozy up to a friend/crazy uncle with deep pockets and get them to bid so you can tag along.

Book festivals are great, because they become a place where you can swim in cool books, discover all kinds of new authors, find yourself chatting it up with somebody you didn't even know you knew (through their writings), and every person around you has got their face buried between pages of something great to read.