I’ve always wanted to be able to say that. Though it isn’t really true.

I did spend about an hour and a half on Monday morning at the world famous Jacques Torres Chocolate flagship store in New York City. There was a camera crew there – to record ME saying a bit about the STELLA BATTS series.

Also I got to see this for the first time – a mock-up of book 3, coming out this summer: STELLA BATTS: PARDON ME:

(Available for pre-order NOW!)

The first two books in the series were there too, as props for the video. But much as I love my books, I don’t even think they were the most interesting things in the store. Check these out:

Oh, they were only the most delicious chocolate chip cookies ever! Seriously, they rival Levain – and I didn’t think anything could! You can probably guess that the stack was noticeably shorter by the time I left Jacques Torres – along with the stack of chocolate peanut butter cookies. (You’re welcome, Adele Griffin.)

My publicist and I had written up a “script” together. Not quite a page, even in a large font. Still, I had the hardest time trying to remember it. Here I am, doing my best Meryl Streep:

I got mic-ed up, so the whole thing felt so legit. And the lighting was arranged just so. There were two cameras! On me! And a director counting down three-two-one-point. I was on!

“Hi, I’m Courtney Sheinmel and I’m here at the world famous Jacques Torres Chocolate flagship store here in New York City….”

Filming stopped and started a few times, due to the fact that I’m actually not Meryl Streep. Not even close. So I kept forgetting what came next. Or I’d remember, but speak it too fast, or too soft, or too smiley, or with too many “ums.” My thanks to Howard, Rose and my ever-patient publicist Audrey for sitting through I think about seven or eight “takes.”

My thanks also the the staff at Jacques Torres for their incredible hospitality and all the delicious treats.

Will post the video as soon as I have it!

Just got back from an AMAZING week in Chicago, where I attended the International Reading Association conference for the first time. My friends Leslie Margolis and Siobhan Vivian were also there, and it was wonderful to see them both—since neither of them live in NYC, I don’t to do that nearly enough.

I felt like a total rockstar when I was there, because the STELLA BATTS publishing house, Sleeping Bear Press, had made totebags featuring the Stella Batts covers! I loved walking around, seeing them slung over strangers’ shoulders. I resisted the urge to tap every bag-wearer on the shoulder and announce, That’s MY book! 

But I did take a picture. Check it out:

Oh yes, those are strangers, toting STELLA BATTS bags. (Those particular strangers were in line to get books signed by Leslie.)

Later that day, I signed copies of both STELLA BATTS NEEDS A NEW NAME and STELLA BATTS: HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW. But I don’t have any pictures. In fact, I was horribly delinquent in taking pictures for the rest of the week. (This is a new thing for me. I used to be the person who always had a camera with her, and who always took pictures. Not so much anymore, and I’m not sure when or why it changed. But that’s a subject for another post—or actually, that’s not a subject for any kind of post, since it’s a pretty boring subject.)

And then it was off to Naperville, where I did two days of school visits. I’d been so very nervous leading up to the week—I even went so far as to tell a few friends that I was dreading it. You see, I’d gotten an email from my publicist that the first school visit would be an auditorium filled with nearly 200 kids, kindergarten through fourth grade. It was just about the most intimidating audience I could imagine. Some people get pumped up by that kind of challenge. I am more the kind of person that wants to hide under her desk. Or even better, under the covers. In pajamas. My friend Amy says she thinks it’s good that I’m occasionally filled with dread, because then I can only be pleasantly surprised. But when I’m in the dread stage, I can’t imagine any kind of up-side.

But Amy was right; she was more than right: to say I was pleasantly surprised in this case is an understatement. I was blown away. The kids were wonderful—a credit to their teachers, and the wonderful librarian, Mrs. Watson, who helped organize the day. I gave my little presentation and read a bit from the book. You could hear a pin drop, the kids were listening so intently. It was one of the most gratifying experiences of my career. Then I signed books for a line of kids that zig-zagged around the auditorium. My favorite line came from one second grader: “I’m trying hard not to scream because I’ve never met a real-live author before, but I love your books!”

The next day, four more presentations were just as wonderful. Here’s a recap of one—aside from the fact that my books are not autobiographical, I think it captured the spirit of the day. (Another school posted a video of my talk, but I don’t like the camera angle, so I’m not posting it.)

I also want to mention that throughout the week, I was accompanied by the world’s greatest media escort, Cayt. Driving around with her was like hanging out with an old friend. And she had no fear of maps or getting lost. As someone who is obsessed with the black hole of lostness (that’s a term I made up, but I’m convinced it’s a real thing), I was in awe of her.

Despite the fact that it was one of the best weeks ever, I was really excited to come home. Cayt dropped me at the airport. There’d been reports of bad weather, but the sky was sunny and mostly clear. Sometime between my getting out of her car, and getting to the other side of security, all of that changed. By the time I was sitting at the gate, the clouds had thickened. There was a crash as lightning struck right outside the window, and then the rain started. It went on and on and on, and I watched the posted departure time get later and later and later. Over the loudspeaker, someone asked passengers to step away from the terminal windows. Here are the exact words used: “Please step away from the windows, due to unusually large pieces of hail.”

Unsurprisingly, my flight was eventually canceled. In nearly 35 years of traveling, that has never happened to me before. There was a crush of unhappy people in line to rebook flights and arrange hotel rooms. Not that I necessarily wanted to fly out in a hailstorm so bad that airport personnel didn’t want us too close to the windows, but it’s hard to be stoic when you just want to go home. The lady doing the rebooking was so nice about it. I wish I knew her name because I’d like to write a letter to her supervisor. Everyone was frustrated, and some people were yelling, and she kept her cool the whole time. So Delta Airlines, whoever was working Gate E12 at O’Hare the night of May 3rd, please give her a raise!

Leaving the hotel the next morning, overtired and a bit cranky, a Carly Simon song was playing in the lobby. It was a song I didn’t even know (that rarely happens when it comes to Carly) but the same wonderful, familiar voice. It made me happy to be there, right then.

I got home, safe and sound, and made it to my godson Brody’s fifth birthday party on time, which had been my number one anxiety when I was waiting to rebook my flight. Phew! A perfect end to a nearly-perfect week.

And as you can see on Brody’s face, we had cake to celebrate it all, too.

Work, Sometimes

I was sad all day, and why not.  There I was, books piled
on both sides of the table, paper stacked up, words
falling off my tongue.

The robins had been a long time singing, and now it
was beginning to rain.

What are we sure of?  Happiness isn’t a town on a map,
or an early arrival, or a job well done, but good work
ongoing.  Which is not likely to be the trifling around
with a poem.

Then it began raining hard, and the flowers in the yard
were full of lively fragrance.

You have had days like this, no doubt.  And wasn’t it
wonderful, finally, to leave the room?  Ah, what a
moment!

As for myself, I swung the door open.  And there was
the wordless, singing world.  And I ran for my life.

I like when I read things in the news that confirm things I knew all along. Like this morning, an article I read on the Huffington Post cleared up a longstanding debate between my friend Arielle and me—the debate over who gets to stand on which side when we pose for photos. (Not that we’re being stalked by paparazzi and have to pose for photos so often. But still, it’s a thing.)

I couldn’t wait to call Arielle. Here was our convo, just now:

Me: You know how we always fight over what side to stand on in pictures, because we both want to show off our good sides and stand on the left?

A: Yeah…

Me: Well, there was a study released today that most people have a more attractive left side than right side. So it’s not just us. It’s the human race overall.

A: I knew we were onto something! It’s nice to have empirical data.

Okay, it didn’t exactly clear anything up between us; if anything, it exacerbated the problem because going forward, I’m sure we’re each going to be more insistent on what side we stand on. We’re so vain. But we’re also so right.

I meant to post a poem a week.

I also mean to update this blog more often than I do…

BUT! I’m doing both of those things today, posting a poem that I love, which happens to be written by my lovely and amazing friend Lexa Hillyer.

Lexa is half the genius behind Paper Lantern Lit, the book packaging company she co-founded with Lauren Oliver. She’s also an award winning poet, whose collection, ACQUAINTED WITH THE COLD, will come out with Bona Fide Books this fall.

So without further adieu, here’s a piece from the collection:

Boy Hugging an Apple Tree

It ossifies in me like sap, this bright

green soccer field carved into

an apple orchard’s heart—envy-angled,

childless and silent.

Our first confessions buoy

bluely as we slip

through the day drinking cabernet—

triple-hooks: argument, stain, mouth.

Branches tear at us, tangle my hair

and the sun’s tarnish, blood-rich,

smears the trees. We eat darkness—

arched

and covetous of Jonah Gold.

For the Winesaps are unripe—red-skinned

but sour white inside.

As for Empires—every one of them has fallen.

Mud, crisp air, dank earth—and rot.

Tart, sweet sickening rot:

ants crawling over mounds of it. Then

somewhere an echo—

a boy named Leggo clings to a tree,

his round cheek pressed to the bark,

or perhaps his father’s calling:

let go, let go. But oh,

he will not.

I was shocked to learn that POSITIVELY won the 2012 Intermediate Sequoyah Book Award—so shocked, in fact, that when I first got the email, I didn’t tell anyone except my parents and my friend Regan, and then swore them all to secrecy. If it turned out to be a mistake, I knew they’d never bring it up again and no one else would ever be the wiser.

But the next day, I saw this official announcement on the Oklahoma Library Association website, so it seemed safe to post on Twitter and Facebook, and now to blog it, too.

The Sequoyah Award is a little bit like Oklahoma’s own Kids Choice Award—students are given a master list of books to read, then they vote for their favorites. How seriously cool is that? According to the website, THE HUNGER GAMES won in the same category last year. So you can imagine how blown away I am to be on the list this year.

Thank you, Oklahoma middle school students, for your love of reading and for recognizing my book in this way. It means so much to get this honor—particularly for this book, which takes on an issue that is loaded with meaning for me. It means more than I could possibly put into words.

As long as I remember to do it, I’m going to post a poem a week during the month of April, in honor of National Poetry Month. And there will probably be a lot of Mary Oliver for the month, since she’s my favorite. I read her every day, just to feel better about life. Here’s poem number one:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

My third post in three days! I can barely believe it myself!

But this seemed rather blog-worthy:  My friend Lindsay called to tell me she’d spotted STELLA #2: HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW, in her local Barnes & Noble. I haven’t even seen it on the shelves yet! (Really, I’ve been afraid to go looking for it, in case it’s not there. Ah, neuroses.)

This morning, as proof, she sent me this picture:

That’s Chase on the left, Avery on the right. Aren’t they adorable? And isn’t Avery the best dresser—I’m always trying to emulate her style. (And oh yes, readers of MY SO-CALLED FAMILY, that’s where I got the names Chase and Avery).

Here’s another one:

I figured Lindsay staged the picture, because she knew I’d love to see Avery bent over the book, Chase looking on. But she set me straight:  “I had a bunch of books spread out on the table at breakfast. Av picked STELLA herself and started reading the first chapter out loud. The kids nearly missed the bus because she didn’t want to put it down!”

It pretty much blows my mind that my SIXTH book is officially out in the world: STELLA BATTS: HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW.

It’s the second book in the STELLA BATTS series, published by Sleeping Bear Press. This is what it looks like, in case you want to head over to your local bookstore to pick up a copy, or order it online:

Isn’t it adorable? I can’t take any credit for the cover – it was illustrated by the wonderful Jennifer A. Bell.

Still not convinced you need a copy? Well, here’s the official book description:

Stella Batts is back!

One of the best things about having parents who own a candy store is getting to be an Official Batts Confections Taste-Tester. When her dad brings home Magical Glow-in-the-Dark Chewing Gum, Stella can’t wait to try it out – especially since her younger sister Penny is already blowing bubbles and making magic-gum wishes that keep coming true.

Except all the gum brings Stella is a lot of bad luck. First she can’t even blow a bubble. Then she falls asleep chewing a piece of gum that ends up wadded in her hair.

Things go from bad to worse. After a drastic haircut, the meanest boy in school tells Stella she looks like a boy, her best friend Willa announces she’s moving clear across the country, and Penny loses her beloved stuffed animal, Belinda.

It’s hard to believe in any kind of magic when the things you love start disappearing. But Stella knows that when the going gets tough, the tough get going – that’s exactly what she plans to do.”

I got to celebrate pub day, in style, with the wonderful Siobhan Vivian, who was visiting from Pittsburgh, and whose AMAZING book THE LIST came out the same day as STELLA.

Hooray for good friends and new books! Here’s to many more celebrations, Siobhan!

xo

It was a looooooong seventeen month wait in between seasons four and five. And okay, I wouldn’t say these past two new episodes have been the most riveting television. But still! Mad Men is back!

Peggy!

Don!

Roger!

Joan!

Pete!

Betty! (Oh, Betty. What happened to you?)

My friend Adele Griffin and her husband Erich decided to host a little premiere gathering—okay, that might have been with just a little bit of prodding from me. They told people that period attire was “encouraged.” Naturally, we took that to heart ourselves.

From the left: Adele, Julia DeVillers, and me.

We were also (shockingly) pretty serious about the food. In particular, we wanted it to be authentic to the 1960s. I think some others were not entirely into the overload of fondue and pigs in blankets. But if you ask me, every party should be a 60s food party!

That’s me and my friend Amy (aka Madden and Brody’s mom), who came sans kids. Adele’s daughter had recently had a playdate with Brody. And as Amy made her way around the room, she was told, over and over again, “Oh, I heard all about Brody.” For the record, it wasn’t just because I talk about Brody and his brother incessantly. Adele’s daughter was also smitten. See, Amy! Your kids are famous!

After consuming my weight in salami and cheese and french onion soup dip, we headed into the den to watch the show. We were on a delay and I was in charge of fast-forwarding through the commercials. A week later, it is still a source of pride that I didn’t mess it up…too much.

I don’t care what the critics are saying about the show this season, I am just loving the return of such dear friends.

Zou Bisou Bisou!