Celebrating A Wrinkle in Time

In February of 1962, fifty years ago this month,  a little book called A Wrinkle in Time was published under the radar by two up and coming publishers, John Farrar and Roger Straus.

The author, my grandmother Madeleine L'Engle, had fiercely believed in her book and suffered through 26 rejections, before luck had brought her to John Farrar. He agreed to publish it, but warned my Gran that it wouldn't sell very well.

Thankfully, he was wrong about the book, and very right to publish it.

Now A Wrinkle in Time is still one of the business' top sellers and the forward thinking team of Farrar Straus became Farrar, Straus, Giroux: the créme de la créme in the publishing industry.

Yesterday afternoon on February 11th, FSG put on a "celebration" at the distinguished Symphony Space, and live video-streamed the event to 85 book stores across the country. My family and I arrived to a packed house, and I was thrilled to see friends from our old neighborhood, as well as some of my Writopia Lab students in the audience. We had reserved seats in the second row with my brother Edward, right in front of my sister Charlotte and her family.

The event kicked off with a screening of the 90 Second Newbery Award video of A Wrinkle in Time, the brain-child of YA author James Kennedy, who hosted the first festival of kid-made videos last November. Betsy Bird, the fabulous children's librarian from the main branch of NYPL came out as the host for the afternoon and gave us some lovely words about her own connection to the book, and introduced us to the book trailer on the screen, followed by my sister Charlotte who spoke beautifully about the importance of community celebrations.

I was caught off guard by the amount of video and aural footage they had of my grandmother, hearing her voice fill Symphony Space, either from interviews or reading aloud from her book. Indeed, it made me feel as if she was in the room with us, and I remembered seeing her at Symphony Space LIVE, many times.

Betsy curated a panel of Newbery award winning authors Lois Lowry, Katherine Patterson, Rebecca Stead and R.L. Stine. It was an interesting panel because neither Lowry, Paterson or Stine had read Wrinkle as a child, so their perspective was much different from Rebecca's who is younger and was tremendously impacted by Wrinkle as both an author and a human being. (Just read When You Reach Me to find out why!)

Rebecca really shone on the stage, and even wore a 1960's dress with dark blue and green circles on it, reminiscent of the original cover. She completely rocked that panel!

You may think that would be enough for the event, but we were treated to more! The actress Jane Curtain did a stellar reading from WIT - the scene in which they tesser for the first time. Then we had another amazing performance from Greenwich Academy students, taking us through Meg's father saving them from IT but leaving Charles Wallace. And last but not least, the astute Leonard Marcus read us an excerpt from his forthcoming biography on M L'E entitled Listening to Madeleine, in which he compiled a book through a series of interviews. I already was excited to read it, but am even more now that I heard him read part of his interview with Sydney Offit - about what a remarkable speaker and performer my grandmother was.

Charlotte, Edward and I were whisked off to a table at the back of the theater where people could say hello while they were on line to get books signed by the authors from the panel, and we signed some posters and book plates as well. A lovely reception followed in the Thalia Café downstairs where it was fun to hob nob with lots of people from the publishing industry, and where my daughter Scarlett was the belle of the ball in her Wrinkle in Time tee shirt. (She was asked to be interviewed about Wrinkle by the publishers and immediately jumped up and down in glee, my little actress. Her favorite part of the evening? Why, the party and being interviewed of course!)

My favorite parts? Hearing my Gran's voice fill the room, seeing my sister on stage, my buddy Rebecca, Leonard Marcus, and the feeling that it really was a celebration.

If you were there, what were some of your favorite moments?

TOP TEN REASONS I HEART MY AGENT

Image by qthomasbower via Flickr

1. He wears snazzy suits and uses cool retro terms like "my dear",

2. Going out to lunch with him feels like a "date" and I get butterflies. That being said,

      2a) He has the same name as my brother, Edward

      2b) and he loves The Grateful Dead.

3. He sees the possibilities in my writing and understands what I'm trying to say
     
      3a) He is always reminding me that I am an author            and not just somebody who has written one book,
     
     3b) He trusts my writing process and never asks if I'm writing. He knows I'm writing,

4. He made me rewrite EDGES 2x before sending it out. (Ugh then, but thank you now!)

5. He pimped out EDGES and sold it to the first publisher, FSG,

       5a) is it too obvious to state that he knows all of the contractual mumbo jumbo and got us a great  
             deal?

6. He got Listening Library to pre-empt audio rights to EDGES, and introduced me to the awesome       Rebecca Waugh,

7. I'm not in the habit of bugging him, but when I need him, he's there,

8. He loves books, kids, and is passionate about what he does,

9. He is respectful, warm, compassionate AND

10. He is no wet noodle. He is in my corner, no ifs, ands or buts. He got on the phone with me today with publicity and kept the conversation specific, whereas if it had been just me, it would have been left vague.

Oh. You want to know what was said?

Waiting for Edges with Beth Potter

"It seems as if we have to wait forever for EDGES to come out," Beth said after a brief lull in conversation, over our afternoon "cocktail" of Pinkberry (frozen yogurt) and fruit. It was literally 100 degrees or more yesterday in NYC, and we were wilting.

I hadn't seen or talked to Beth in a while and had missed her. She had been assistant editor to Margaret Ferguson, my editor at Farrar, Straus, Giroux (FSG) and walked me through much of the "publishing" process. (Including changing the title, but I'll leave that story for another post!)

It was time to ask Beth out on a Pinkberry date. (As you would too, if you knew her!)

EDGES, although she has not made her debut in the world, has been "finished" for many months, waiting patiently for her corsage and introductions this coming December. (Beth admitted that EDGES was as ready as the books coming out in August are *but* everything has a time-line.)

We had been talking about our lives outside of EDGES and FSG. My moving, her apartment hunting, my writing projects, and Beth's new job. She was promoted to full-time editor a few months ago. Go, Beth!

". . . WE have to wait forever . . ."

I love how she says "we" - she's got my back. She believes in EDGES. Things will start to happen soon - ARCs will go out, EDGES will be reviewed and I'll start getting nervous, my baby will be out there in the world - will she be able to stand on her own two feet? Will she make friends?

At any rate, I'm so grateful to have Beth in my (and EDGES) corner! We'll just have to see about the rest . . . and keep reading and writing!

(Psssst. Another Pinkberry date tomorrow with someone special!)

(How do you like my abuse of parentheses tonight?)

Meeting The Publicist

She was waiting outside on the corner, looking at ease in the glamorous FlatIron District, home to modeling agencies and publishing houses, shopping and art. She was wearing a black pencil skirt with impossibly high heels and a light blue summer blouse. Pale skin, dark eyes and hair. Young.

"Jessica?" I asked. "Jessica Zimmerman?" Her eyes lit up and nodded. I was five minutes late, having rushed downtown from work to get there. We found a table inside the Ben Venuto Cafe and spent the next-almost-two-hours getting to know each other. She is new to Macmillan as of February, having come from St. Martin's Press.

"I'm an extrovert," I told her. "I'm willing to do almost anything. I love people." I know that authors have to do A TON of self-marketing and promoting. "Oh. But I might be shy talking about my book." Yeah, I have to get over that one!

There were no surprises, like "Oh yes, we are planning a HUGE book tour for you," or "Guess what - we sent Oprah the ARC and she wants to be your best friend!" But it's okay to dream big. If I didn't dream about being published after all, I never would be!

Mostly we talked about our lives and being passionate about what we do.

Then she talked about the "crossover" appeal of EDGES because it's not "fluffy", (meaning that adults will warm to it too.) Oh Jessica, I love you already! She wants to get magazine coverage for January issues, which come out mid-December. (If we go for December issues that come out in mid-November, people won't be able to by the book yet.) That would be crazy in the adult fiction world where buzz is king and the first week of release is crucial, but YA books "have longer legs."

Longer legs! I need me some of those to run down to meet Meg (my mentee) and get to the final CHAPTERS event for Girls Write Now! More on that tomorrow . . .