KARE 11 interview

Watch me live. I don't screw up too much. a little.

in Target today!

Jennifer Johnson will be gracing the luxe halls of Target today! I am psyched. I went to the endcap where it will reside, and there's like BESTSELLERS there! Memory Keeper's Daughter, Time Travelers Wife etc...I'm like...what? Me? I am so excited I briefly considered sneaking in and camping out in a tent nearby so I can watch shoppers buy my book! (seriously, so cool.) That or I may be hosting a dinner party at the Target Cafeteria. Maybe both.

Taiwan

Pretty Little Mistakes Hit #10 in Taiwan! My wonderful editor at Sun Color Publishing in Taiwan just sent me this JPEG of me (and Walter, of course) in the biggest newspaper in Taiwan! We made number 10 right up there with Twilight and Angels and Demons!

Thank you Taiwan!! We love you too!!!

Swanky Birthday Present

It's my birthday today and I just found out "Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being Single" made it into People "Style Watch" Magazine! It's out for a whole two months and has everything you need for summer! Woooot!
My Horoscope for the year:
Television journalist Anderson Cooper (1967) shares your birthday today. You're a wordsmith. You know how to enlighten others; you also know how to reach them. People find you entertaining and witty, and invariably seek out your company. You have a warm heart at high standards for yourself and others. However, you need the respect of your peers. (You never work in a vacuum.) In the year ahead, partnerships and close relationships are important.

and from another astrologer:
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (JUNE 3) You approach life practically this year, using your common sense to guide you. And yet, you are still open to magical occurrences and will not argue with miraculous developments. Because you display such intelligence, you will be promoted in July and again in October. June and September are the most romantic months. Capricorn and Aquarius adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 14, 3, 30, 15 and 9.

Nicest Review of All Time

Someone sent me this review and it is currently my favorite, because while being complimentary, it's also gritty and hard. like me. (and yes, YES, Katie S! If you're reading this, I would love to write the sequel, if only to thank you for this review!)

Good Reads
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/54813367.
JENNIFER JOHNSON IS SICK OF BEING SINGLE
Reviewer: Katie S.
This book was like becoming able to scratch that one spot on your back that was always out of reach - very satisfying despite the relatively inappropriate method used.

The review had set it up for me incorrectly though. It wasn’t that her tone changed towards the end, in fact it stayed perfectly consistent: brutally T.M.I.-ly honest. The sort of honest where it makes the tell-ing one feel better, and the listener feel possible worse. Because you really didn’t want to know those sorts of things, which range from superfluously excessive food-messiness to body smells and sounds to hysterically crude sexual references (for some, completely over-the-top I’d imagine), to biting class and other social human misbehaviors and eccentricities and religion and all that; all delivered with a clever deadpan wit that somehow brings us to the other side of the deeply plunging colorfully strobe-light-blinking abyss. With Heather as our guide, we do want to know all she tells us, and it feels great at the end -because- we know and because psychological slapstick can be as funny as physical and (likely most of all) because it wasn’t our life.

Heather’s writing style is impactful, constantly lobbing excrutiating moments at you (the reader) that take your breath away with how awful they are. And the way each episode is structured is like a multi-part firecracker. It starts with one single ingrediant. If you’ve caught on by this point, you’ll create images and arcs around what could happen based on that element. Then, she throws in two or three more. Then, she takes your story arc, bends it into some Escher creation, and the outcome is so -amazingly- much worse than you first thought of. It’s really mind-blowing, since it’s all relatively firmly anchored in the kind of mundane day-to-day real life aspects we all experience. Then it ends and the coast is clear until the next outbreak moments later of some other unadulterated catastrophe. Best of all, unlike shock-for-its-own-sake, Heather’s writing has a purpose and leads towards a great (albeit tragic) conclusion.

Excuse me a moment. Heather? Are you there? Listen, if you take reader requests, could you PLEASE write a sequel? Or a hundred sequels? I’m relatively fixated on the various potentials involved in what might happen … Next. Oh, god, I shudder to think, to an extent. But would really love to know. Of course, I’ll read anything you write at this point, starting with your previous book. But thought I’d put in my vote - a sequel would be awesome! Some things I was thinking about - insidious rebellion, maintaining meaningful ties despite certain bonds, and all the other parts of how she does do it (all the rest that lies ahead).. Since they only care about appearances after all, seems it would leave Jennifer with worlds of opportunity.

Ok, I’m back. So, here’s the story (in addition to what’s in the official review): Jennifer Johnson is the least prissy women either side of the Mississippi, and you’d better follow her example if you follow this invitation into her world. She has seen and experienced a lot, and processes it all with the jaundiced eye and crudely accurate and complete conversations with herself and her friends. Her closest friend, Christopher, is the ultimate gay bee, always true to her and their friendship. His partner Jeremy is sweet and well-meaning, but needs to read expiration dates more closely. Her work mate, Ted, has let himself blend in to the environment too much, and doesn’t rise above until really too late. Jennifer’s family is a cacophony of friction and distress but nonetheless, she is true to them when push comes to shove. Brad Keller? Oh, that’s Prince Charming. You know, like in the fairy tale. The fairy tale where the one-dimensional (and, to review, that one dimension is beauty of a thinness variety, certainly) girl finds her Prince Charming and lives happily ever after. This book is about that, only different. Much, much different: it’s a rework you could say, a customization to fit the modern day; or to fit as much as possible anyway.

One lesson I came away from this book with: there are two kinds of people in your life. Those who care and will become uncomfortable for you if it helps solve a problem or ease a pain, and those who are oblivious. And important distinction.

So this book, in reworking Prince Charming, is split into sections: find him, hunt him, nail him down. Your reaction to that? If you don’t think this book is for you, you’re probably right. Oh and by the way, this book has both women and men in it, and I’m sure there are men out there for whom reading this book would not cause any permanent damage. And I’d love to read the reactions of such men afterwards. I really think some would like it as much as I do, since they’re alive as well and everything.

Moments I loved (not in order):
The dog eating what it shouldn’t have thing
her dating profile-to-English translation phrasebook
how much it is true that saying “atleast life can’t get any worse” is always a bad idea
the clarity around the wrongness of the word ‘nuptial’
the employee team-building exercise
the muffin scene
the list of first date do’s and don’ts
the wedding Jennifer shouldn’t have tried to go to
the heavy-partying pity elf
the scene with Jennifer breaking up with Brad, especially the third person also there
Jennifer’s doll house catharsis activities
the Heart Bears thing
the green fluid explosion
the skeweringly accurate capture of the flavor of discourse about women ‘losing a little weight’
the firemen scene, which was part of an action that I feel really did move Jennifer forward, no matter how messy it got. It just simply was useful for her, despite all that.

and so many more

Personal gain: the insight into the choices I have in the workplace to try and work up from least useful to most useful emotions, the healing aspects of curiosity, and the power of ‘chunking-it-down.’ Wow!

So, all that is my attempt to help you self-select whether you’re right for this book or not. If you are, read at your next opportunity, you will be glad you did. If not, please don’t!
(less)

Come to the reading!

I no longer have the Plague, and I am ready to rumble. My reading is BACK ON! I hope you can come. I will be sharing insider-only information on the making of the book - like what snacks I like to eat in bed, and exclusive, totally true stories, like the time my mom stabbed the Pillsbury Doughboy at my brothers seventh birthday party.

WHEN: MAY 26th at 7:30 pm
WHERE: Magers and Quinn Bookstore, Minneapolis
WHAT: Reading for JENNIFER JOHNSON IS SICK OF BEING SINGLE
WHY: First/only reading of the book. FREE and drinks afterwards!

TWEET!

Follow Follow on Twitter!

Man Down

Buy my weird short story for .49 cents! This short story has it all! A hot sultry night in Savannah, a nearly-ruined pigeon, and one of my most poignant memories.My very first story on the Amazon Short Storyprogram! I am very excited. Imagine, for just .49 (cents) you can further unlock the secrets of my sick mind. To download the story (It's addictive!)you can click here or you can cut and paste this:

link:">http://www.amazon.com/Man-Down/dp/B000KX0IWM/ref=pd_rhf_p_1/103-4320261-9405462">

Heather McElhatton Speaks About Man Down:I was having dinner at a friend's house in Savannah, when we noticed a pigeon stuck in the tar on the asphalt beneath us. It was obviously hurt and upset, and yet no one at the party wanted to get up to help it. We went around the table and came up with excuses as to why it didn't matter, how we couldn't really help anyway. Everyone had a different idea of what to do. One person thought killing it was the most merciful. Another thought we should call the police. Then one someone said, "Oh to hell with it," and jumped up with his fork to go pry the pigeon free himself. This was a war he was going to fight. That fascinates me - which battles we choose to fight and which we walk past. There's a hundred little wars a day, and we each choose what to tackle. We can't take on everything - after all, it's the little things that kill you.

There's nothing like the moment you first see your book on a table in a bookstore. In this case, the good people at Barnes and Noble Calhoun Village in Minneapolis were the first in the nation to crack open a box of Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being Single.

For an author the sensation of "First Sighting" is strange, you look at your novel on the counter and it's as though you left your underwear out in the open...an unmentionable you never meant for others to look at and you have to fight the momentary urge to scoop up all your bastard copies and flee. But then you swallow hard, exhale and say "Okay. Here goes nothing." Then you (profusely) thank the booksellers and go have a goldfish-bowl sized glass of wine. I don't drink much anymore, so for me it's an herbal tea, but still. Any tonic for the nerves.

Taiwan News

This is a newspaper in Taiwan, and they asked celebrities to read Pretty Little Mistakes and see what ending they got. I can't translate too much of it, but I hope no one got the monkey sex.

Thank you Happy Reading Club! The Happy Reading Club in Taipei is meeting and studying Pretty Little Mistakes for the entire month of April. I am honored beyond belief!

HELLO SANXING BRANCH OF THE TAIPEI PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Tonight the Sanxing branch of the Taipei Public Library will be studying Pretty Little Mistakes. I wish I was there! I actually tried to find a plane ticket last minute to join them, but getting to China isn't is easy as it should be. Plus I'd want to take my Pug, Walter, and that would be a whole other obstacle, although if I could get him there he would probably become an international celebrity.

The library is located at: 4-5F No.6, Lane 156, Wuxing Street in downtown Taipei.

Glitter Writing

I wonder if she did this glitter thing to her vagina too. What if we were all jewel encrusted? blue diamonds on eyelids, crystal teeth, quartz hips, ruby lips, long braids of swinging rhinestones for hair. Shiny but scratchy. Bleedy. Rippy. Perhaps jewels are best left on magazine pages and in the earth.

Anyway, have you guys ever written for screen? It's a strange thing, to change your storytelling format. Many think you can't go from one to another, from fiction to screenwriting or poetry to documentary etc...and I can see why. It's like using totally different DNA to build the story.

I have all the books, Robert McKee etc..and while one part of me solemnly understands screenplays are a science, an exact mathematical structure that breaks when tinkered with....another part of me thinks all these rules can go bite it right along with all these blustery old men who shovel them out. I don't like being told what to do. Does anybody?

I do like this book:
"Aristotle's Poetics forScreenwriters," by Michael Tierno.

Cow Pug

Polish PLM

The Polish Publisher MUSA released Pretty Little Mistakes, and I just got a copy in the mail. The title: Drobne błędy.

I LOVE the cover. Love it! So clever. Reminds me of the Matrix, when Keanu Reeves is asked if her wants the blue pill or the red pill. I looked up the book on the publishers site...and of course I don't undertsand a word, so I translated it using babelfish. This is apparently what it says:

The force Small mistakes are treated like adventure game, which further obstacles and events are determined in our elections. Regardless of whether or spontaneous, whether the industry will lead to a completely unexpected solutions. What would be useful if the author on the view Baccalaureate instead of the picturesque Italian went to England? Whether it is the only one that knows no reason for the journey. How many alternatives are likely to have the fate of one person? Full of fun stories novel Heather McElhatton is a relation of the extraordinary adventure that is life.

Bablefish translates the title as: PETTY CASH PALES, which frankly, is a better title.

Chinese PLM

I got my copies of the Chinese edition of Pretty Little Mistakes in the mail today. I cannot read a word! Now I have to sit down and finish Million Little Mistakes, which I have promised you all ASAP.

Goin to Hollywood...

Very exiting news from the Hollywood Reporter:

NBC sets sights on 'Mistakes'
Network developing series based on McElhatton's novel
By Kimberly Nordyke

Oct 30, 2008, 12:00 AM ET
NBC is developing an hourlong drama based on the "do-over" novel "Pretty Little Mistakes," with "Friday Night Lights" showrunner Jason Katims supervising the project from the writing team of Bruce Marshall Romans and Kiersten Van Horne.

"Mistakes," from Universal Media Studios, is based on the novel by Heather McElhatton that lets readers decide which path the female protagonist will take at the end of each chapter. It starts out with a high school graduation, after which the reader makes one of two possible choices -- college or travel -- ultimately leading to 150 possible endings.

The project, which has received a script commitment from NBC, will reflect the readers'-choice sensilbity of the book, but producers are still in the formative stages of working out the logistics.

Katims is attached as an executive producer and will supervise development of the script. Fuse Entertainment's Mikkel Bondensen and Kristen Campo (USA's "Burn Notice") are attached as executive producer and producer, respectively.

Fox previously tried its hand at a scripted viewers'-choice project in 2001 with "Nathan's Choice," a comedy from Chuck Lorre that would have featured viewers voting online or by phone from one of two choices the protagonist would face in each episode. "Choice" got only as far as the pilot stage.

Roman and Van Horne, who previously created and penned the pilot scripts "The Track" for FX and "Pushed" for Fox, are repped by APA and New Wave Entertainment. Katims is repped by CAA. McElhatton is with APA. Fuse, which also has a first-look deal at Fox TV Studios, is repped by Endeavor.

FINALLY!

It's Finally done! My second book! It was like giving birth to the Chrysler building, or pushing a watermelon through a shopping cart. The most painful and yet oddly hypnotic experience you can imagine. It's available May 5th in stores, but you can preorder now! Here's the more official blurb. Enjoy!

Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being Single
by Heather McElhatton
Published by: HarperCollins
Available: May 5th, 2009 or PREORDER

Quirky, retro-junk loving Jennifer Johnson wanted to marry a wealthy man and write the great American novel, but instead she's approaching her thirties, still single and working in the marketing department of a mid-range Christian department store writing ads for mens black dress socks.

When she finds out her little sister AND her ex-boyfriend are both getting married on Valentines Day (not to each other, but still) she decides she must find true love...at any cost. So ensues a series of the most painful online dates imaginable, including a pudgy lawyer telling her to lose weight and a dashing Xerox salesman listening to her make up incredible lies.Then she meets Brad Keller...the store president's handsome son.

In an attempt to win him over, she makes herself over completely,  experiences an embarrassing moment with a ceramic elf, shows violent behavior towards her beloved doll house and the small inhabitants inside.

Worst of all, she develops an addiction to Cinnabons so severe, that the Cinnabon counter girl knows her by name.

Told in McElhatton's dark comedic voice, this is a cautionary tale of sex, survival and how getting everything you want might be the worst thing that ever happened to you. In stores May 5th, 2009.

I can die happy now. For reals. Kisses to Hans.

As a writer you get used to criticism, as Heather McElhatton, you get used to a LOT of criticism. I don't know if it's because the book is an alternate format, or if the chic-lit packaging offends blue bloods, or if the monkey sex scene and attacks on the catholic cult...I mean catholic church...offend the religious-right-whites or quite possibly the writing really just does suck, an idea that has fair weight, but I've been told my book is awful, terrible, no good and belongs in the sewer, or something lower and uckier than the sewer, if I can find it.

so it's nice when people alert me to nice reviews. Sigh. Like sweet cinnamonny-goodness. Almost makes the Christian moms book group who voted my book "most offensive to moms" bearable.

Taken from Hans's Blog:
_________________________________________________________
Good writers write to put books on the shelf that they haven't seen before. And sometimes the more motivated amongst us actually thrill the rest of the pack with that little gimmicky book we always dreamed about but seemed like too much effort. THANK YOU, HEATHER, for taking the labor off me and delighting me.
One of my first defining entries into reading in English was the "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles/ Choose Your Own Adventure" books. That was the kind of shameless but thrilling capitalistic cash-in that I'd been deprived of all my life and Gosh did I take to it like KRAZY! You could CHOOSE where the book went! CHOICES! There weren't a heck of a lot of choices in Cuba, I'm sure you can glean that.
So what do we have here?
A "Do Over" Novel with 150 endings. You start out as a girl just off high school and you can choose to either go to college or travel around a little. Say you go to college- do you major in arts or sciences? Okay, suppose you go with science. Do you devote yourself to working for your brilliant-but-heartless boss in his search for a killer laser signal that will stop hearts from beating from a mile away? Or do you steal the secret and sell it to the highest bidder? And then, well, guess what, on the way to the secret meet up that will make you a millionaire some drunken asshole on an RV rams into you and sends you and your killer laser secret to an early grave.

Or you could end up a happy matron in Italy.
A suicidal rock star.
A transexual granny in Maryland.

It's real easy to misunderstand this book, and not get it. If you just dip in and read one life or two, you might smirk- I went to Amazon and look at this, from Kirkus Reviews:

"[A]n occasionally clever book that will appeal only to a very limited audience of grown-up readers who are unfazed by its methodology....Interesting to read for about ten minutes, but some things really are just for kids."

Obviously the reviewer did only devote ten minutes or so to the book, and failed to notice the wealth of subtle wisdom and intelligent writing and cumulative power that this singular book has... because you CAN tooootally end up in a chick-lit life in Tuscany where you have to choose between Paolo the gardener with the big dick but no money, or 60 year old Arnaldo with his hands in all sort of pies.
This book COULD be a Cosmo diversion.
But that may be because you didn't read about the life that you spent in Iceland studying the old sagas and being accused of withcraft... or the life where you settle down with a big fat Aristotle-quoting trucker that cusses like his mama never taught him any better but is the REAL LOVE OF YOUR LIFE.
Or hell, you could be a homeless lady in Atlanta.
Or... Travel again, take detours, let yourself end up where you didn't think you might have.
It looks like chick lit, it's wrapped like chick lit, and it seems like it's a pain to explore, but Heather McElhatton has actually written a wise, funny, sad, novel about LIFE- and I have a TOTAL mind-crush on this woman.
Very, very entertaining, and only as superficial as you want it to be.
Bravo.
(A typical "doesn't-get-it" bad review on Amazon?) "I tried and a lot of those lives ended with a creepy death!"
Yeeeeeeeeeees ma'am.
Your life is going to end up in a creepy death too.
THAT'S LIFE!!!

Walter plays nice...for now...

Larkin gave me the most adorable littl eredheaded oll, and here is Walter being all sweet and cheerful near her. I hesitate to leave them alone however...image of the great Big Pig massacre still echo...

Passion Meets Purpose

Someone sent me this lovely Passion Meets Purpose article on PLM

Make More Pretty Little Mistakes - I Dare You
Passionate Theme of the Day: Pretty Little Mistakes

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” ~James Joyce

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” ~Albert Einstein

“I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones.”~ John Peel

Mistakes. That’s the PMP topic of choice today. What the hell is a mistake anyway? A quick Google search finds this little ditty of a definition: “A wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention”.

Have you ever used bad judgment or been ignorant or not been paying close enough attention? I know I have. So why all the hang up about making mistakes? Our western culture gets so hung up about not making mistakes. Being “perfect” (whatever that is) has become another addiction. Another source of anxiety and stress. The latest form of self-abuse.

What if we stopped worrying so much about making mistakes and just started living more dangerously? Not like stupid dangerous. I’m not taking about stepping out in front of moving vehicles dangerous. Not recommending running with scissors in a daycare or anything. I simply mean lightening up and taking some risks.

Today’s post was inspired by this video interview on Borders.com. Author Heather McElhatton wrote a “do over book for adults” called Pretty Little Mistakes. (I haven’t actually read the book yet, but now it’s on my list.) Remember those books when we were kids that had multiple endings? It’s like that.

Apparently McElhatton took six years off to write her great American novel and it was a total flop. She didn’t date, quit her full-time job, moved back in with her mom and spent all her free time writing. Six years later, somewhere near the age of 30, she shopped it around and didn’t get a single nibble. No takers. Zip. Zero. Nada. Big fat goose egg.

What was the prize inside that six year “mistake”? Acording to her, she hauled ass up to the attic (after she hauled her ass out of the puddle of tears on the bathroom floor) and found a linoleum remnant. She grabbed a couple of sharpie markers and used her makeshift whiteboard to mind-map/time-line her life all the way back to high school. That was the last time she remembered feeling like she knew where she was at (you folks from STL know how we love to end sentences with prepositions...it’s in my blood people). Where she remembered thinking, “OK...I’m finished with school. Now I can either…go to college or marry so and so, or blah blah blah…”.

Then she played out the different endings as if she had taken different paths. (Reminds me of the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow). So she fictionalized her multiple different endings and wrote THAT book. Sure she stumbled, but she didn’t let it keep her down.

If McElhatton hadn’t made that “mistake” she never would have white boarded out the idea for the book that DID get published. The one that DID resonate with publishers. The one that landed her the interview I saw on Borders.com and the one that got her two more book deals in the works.

Mistake? Nuh-uh. It was all part of the birthing process. Maybe she needed to get that first book out of her system to create the space for the “real one” to cultivate. Sometimes we’re in such a hurry to get “there”. We often overlook the stepping stones (that often are disguised as boulders, mountains, asteroids or cosmic blockage) that are simply part of the creative process.

I had a similar conversation with my friend Katie tonight about her hopes and dreams for her future and her business (and mine too). I remember telling her that everything she desires is already there. She just needs to step into it one day at a time. (Member THAT show? That’s another post).

It’s already on the map. She’s simply not clocked enough mileage to be at that destination point yet. The cool thing is (like McElhatton’s book) is that at any point Katie (or any of us) can turn, slow down, speed up, join up with fellow travelers, stop to camp and roast some marshmallows, star gaze, bird watch, meditate, go for a hike or skinny dip in a swimming hole along the way.

These places are our choice points. Forks in the road. Bends in the path. Occasionally we hit a pothole. Or a road closed sign. Or construction. But that’s all part of the adventure. I’m excited to read McElhatton’s book and see how many different ending’s I can try on for size.

What part of your story is unfolding? And if you’re less than satisfied, what choices can you make to change it? Which fellow traveler might you be able to hitch a ride with? Do you need to slow down? Speed up? Stop and smell the roses? Are you even on the road?

If you don’t have a map and are in need of some clarification send me an e-mail, I’m happy to lend you my flashlight…it’s kind of my thing. Maybe that’s a new branding statement for me… “Have flashlight. Will travel.”

Be well happy travelers. Make mistakes. Many. Lots. Zillions. If you’re not busy living in the here and now...falling down, getting back up and dusting your butt off again and again...what are you doing? Playing it safe? Is there such a thing? Live safely dangerous. It’s the only way to fly.

Peace, passion and one for the road,
Kam

PLM in Miami Herald

I saw this charming piece on PLM in the Miami Herald today. A literary vending machine has such a nice ring to it...and the different details connected from vastly different parts of the book are wonderful to see. I love Maggie-Me two-minute noodles. They are double fun!

THE PROMISCUOUS PALATE | BY DINKINISH O'CONNOR
Spend your rebate check on simple pleasures
Posted on Tue, Jul. 08, 2008reprint print email
Facebook Digg del.icio.us AIM
BY DINKINISH O'CONNOR
promiscuouspalate@yahoo.com

NONE / DINKINISH O'CONNOR | FOR THE MIAMI HERALD
The book Pretty Little Mistakes is like a literary vending machine where you -- the main character -- choose from 150 succulent endings. You'll eat Maylay apples and shrimp curries in Port Antonio, Jamaica, or you'll move to Malaysia as a volunteer for Green Peace, eating Maggie Me two-minute noodles and discovering ``Happiness like a raw strawberry bursting in your mouth.''

Even though it might seem that our car's $4-plus per gallon gas diet has taken more priority than our own, we cannot neglect the simple indulgences that make these inconveniences more palatable.

Unlike Heather McElhatton's do-over novel, you only get one chance to spend your rebate check. This week The Palate offers rebate-spending ideas that might add a little twist to your summer menu.

Read the rest of the article

Welcome Sun Color Publishing!

Welcome to Sun Color Publisher! Thank you for publishing my book and letting it stream into the streets of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Marcow! My editor, Mina Ho has asked me to right a preface for the Taiwanese edition, which I will gladly do. She told me Ya-Wen did a superb job keeping the tone of the book authentic, a very hard thing to do when you're switching languages. So well done Sun Color!

Ya-Wen!

Meet Ya-Wen, my wonderful Chinese Translator! She is translating Pretty Little Mistakes into complex-chinese. She lives in Taiwan with her dog, May Johnson. ("May" means "beauty", and "May Johnson" is a brand of milk powder.) I can't tell you how amazing it is to meet these wonderful people from all over the world who take your work and translate it, making it possible for other readers, who might not have been able to access it before. PLM will be launched in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Marcow this August, by Sun Color Publishers and edited by Miss Mina Ho. I'll have a link up when it's ready!