Megan Frazer

I am on vacation for a few days more, but wanted to pop in to remind people to enter the Find Secrets of Truth & Beauty in the Mall contest. I’ve had many facebook entries, but so far no one has found the poster in the mall. Sadness. To help you out, here are some cities where I know the poster is in at least some of the malls in the greater metro area. It isin other places, too, but these are the biggest cities:

• Atlanta
• Baltimore
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Denver
• Los Angeles
• Minneapolis/St. Paul
• Nashville
• New York
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• St. Louis
• Tampa
• Washington, DC

You know where it’s not? Maine! So I am counting on you to find it for me. For all the details, and to enter, click here.

First off, for those of you in New Hampshire and environs, I will be reading and signing tomorrow at Time of Wonder in Exeter, NH at 4:00. It’s a great bookstore, so come if you can.

Second, the lovely and talented Carrie Jones is organizing a book festival in Bar Harbor, and I will be there along with many talented and fun authors. Please come! I booked my hotel room this morning. The hotel has an outdoor heated pool that overlooks the ocean. Um, do you think I can do my reading in the pool?

My little contest got a mention in Publisher’s Weekly — as if you needed more of an incentive to enter. I hope this article inspires some really fun and creative photographs. So head out to your mall and find that poster!

Here’s your chance to win a copy of Secrets of Truth & Beauty and another great YA book!

Hyperion Teens is running an ad campaign in malls promoting several of their books, including Secrets of Truth & Beauty. So, I decided to hold a little contest. It’s pretty simple: find the poster, take your picture with it, and post it on your blog.

Here’s the nitty gritty:
How to Enter:

Go to your local mall and look at the posters on the directories. If you see something that looks roughly like this:

Take a picture of yourself with it (you can cover your face if you like to be all incognito.)

Then post that picture to your blog, myspace page, facebook page, etc., and email me (megan @ meganfrazer.com) or post a comment here letting me know that you have a picture posted.

But wait . . .

What if you don’t live near a mall, or have a supreme aversion to them, or your mall isn’t one with one of these posters in it? Well you can also enter by going to my facebook page and becoming a fan. (If you’re already a fan, just let me know you want to be entered).

If you post a picture AND become a facebook fan, well, that’s two entries.

The deadline: The promotion ends August 16th, so this contest will end then, too.

Who can enter? Anyone with a US Mailing address.

The Prize: I promised two books, so what’s the other one? Pick one of the other books featured in the ad, and it’s yours! You can choose from:

• Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover by Ally Carter
• Revelations by Melissa de la Cruz
• Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters
• Deadly Little Secret by Lauri Faria Stolarz
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart

If you win, you get to pick. So that’s two books for something as simple as becoming a fan on facebook, or as fun as taking a goofy picture of yourself at the mall. And really, the goofier the better. I may just throw in a subjective prize for my favorite picture.

Good luck and have fun at the mall. Have an Auntie Annie’s pretzel for me!

On Tuesday Secrets of Truth & Beauty was finally released. I went to visit it at my local Border’s, where the customer service people were so nice.

But, I could not just sit around and stare at my book — I had work to do! After Border’s, I went and gathered supplies to make chocolate goat cheese truffles and mini goat cheese cheesecakes for my launch party.

The launch party was the next night at RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, NH. I grew up in that area, and it was great to have the event so close to “home.”

I could not believe who came. Many of my family, and friends, parents of friends. It was also great to see my high school advanced writing teacher, Kay Morgan. I wrote my first novel in her class, and she was a great teacher. The most important lesson she imparted was the value of active verbs. She came with the librarian from the high school, Mrs. Kentner, who very kindly gave me a copy of Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas. Thalia graduated from the same high school as I did, although we did not overlap.

Also in attendance, author Kate Racculia, whose debut novel This Must be the Spot was just purchased by Henry Holt for publication in Spring of 2010! Yay Kate! We were in a writing group together when I lived in Boston, and she was a reader of an early draft. Another author friend, Deva Fagan, who wrote Fortune’s Folly, also came. Here we are together:

I did my reading, answered some great questions, and then signed. It was very busy, and kind of went by in a blur, but I had a great time. People often ask when it felt real — when I really started to feel like an author — well, after the past couple of days, it’s finally seeming real.

Thank you to everyone who came or otherwise has supported me. Love to you all!

Earlier this week I mentioned that I had visited a literary landmark in Maine . . . and ate blueberry pancakes! Well here I am at the Empire Grill in Skowhegan, Maine.

When Richard Russo’s novel Empire Falls was turned into a miniseries, they filmed in and around Skowhegan and Waterville. The Grill was built just for the film, and then new owners purchased it and kept it going as a restaurant.

I’ve decided to do an occasional blog series on books and movies that have either influenced me or which I admire, and Empire Falls will be the first one.

When I read the book, I felt like I was visiting the town, and hanging out with the characters. When I had to put it down, I actually missed the place and people as if they were real. I’d have thougths like, “I wonder what Tick is up to today.” The characters were all flawed, but also all redeemable (to varying degrees) which is what made them so compelling to me.

My draw to the town itself was more perplexing. If I could have gone there, I would have, even though it’s a depressed mill town that just about every one was trying to get out of. What Russo did so well was create a sense of community. He captured the benefits and the drawbacks of living in small town New England.

So that’s the admirations part. What about the influences? Well, I can’t say that I had Empire Falls on my mind while writing Secrets. Rather, as I was thinking about Russo’s book this weekend, and why I liked it so much, it occurred to me that I was trying to create that same sense of community with Jezebel Goat Farm and Hollis. If there was an influence, it was subconscious. I think, rather, that my love of the book and the world I created come from the same place: a desire for more community. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of these admirations and influences posts have something to do with small towns in  one form or another.

I dropped in over at Books by Their Cover to talk about food! Pop over yourself and tell us all what your favorite summer meal is.

In other news, it’s just over a week until book launch! If you’re in New Hampshire, come visit me at my book launch party.

Oh, and getting back to food, later in the week I’ll let you know about my trip to a literary destination in Maine where I had great blueberry pancakes. Any guesses where it was?

Launch Party!

I’m having a party and you’re all invited!

What: Launch Party for Secrets of Truth & Beauty

When: Wednesday July 8th at 7:00 pm.

Where: RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, NH

What’s in it for you: yummy goat cheese treats, door prizes, and happiness.

If you are a facebook person, you can RSVP here (I think).

Also . . . a contest!

The first person to see my book in the wild and send me a picture will win a copy of Secrets of Truth & Beauty! Just send your picture to megan @ meganfrazer.com (Librarians and booksellers are eligible, you just need to see the book at a library or bookstore other than your own).

I did a very lovely interview with Kate from Read This Book! (well, she was lovely — you’ll have to decide for yourself about me), which is now posted on her blog. There are also instructions for how you can win a copy of Secrets of Truth & Beauty. Head on over for all of the details!

Okay, it’s possible that I am the last person to see Juno, but I still want to write about it.

In my opinion, Juno isn’t really about Juno; it’s about Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman’s characters, the adoptive parents. Juno herself doesn’t have much of an arc: she makes her big decision at the beginning of the movie, and her character doesn’t change too much through out the film. What changes, really is her, and our perspective of Mark (Bateman). ***Spoiler alert if you actually haven’t seen it.*** Mark starts off seeming very cool, but by the end you realize he’s just afraid to grow up.

At least that’s how I see it. Conservatives have embraced it as a pro-life film. While others argued that it glorified teen pregnancy (the so-called “Juno Effect”).

And that’s what set the light bulb off for me: when you create a piece of art, you can’t control how others are going to interpret it. Yes this is lit-, film-, art-studies 101, and I knew it intellectually. But the timing of seeing this movie and having my book come out in a few short weeks made it clear to me on a personal level.

My book is out there, and now it’s not just mine anymore.