Someone else for a change

So last year sometime, I started hearing about this girl named Lauren Barnholdt. I heard about her a lot. She was near my age and, like me, she’d sold her first novel on the strength of its partial. She also hooked up with her agent to write a Writer’s Digest Guide to the YA novel, and, in her spare time, taught online classes on writing YA.

She runs a hilarious blog and is really quick on the uptake when it comes to finding ways to promote her book, such as a “voice post” of the first chapter and other swank ideas. (I think Lauren would call them scandalous ideas!)
Why I Like Lauren:
1. She’s my age!
2. She gives so much back to the writing community.
3. She has all the latest goss on Nick and Jessica.
4. Her excerpt (read it now, or listen to the voicepost) is fabulous!

What a gal! Lauren has since sold another deal for a middle grade novel, and is hard at work on other books. Today, I proudly, proudly present the Girlfriend’s Cyber Circuit Tour of Lauren Barnholdt and her debut, REALITY CHICK.

This is another book I’ve been dying to read. I’ve got it on my shelf, just waiting for me to meet my deadlines. I may in fact meet her at the RWA conference, which will be great. I can’t wait.

All-hour study fests . . . all-night parties . . .

Going away to college means total independence and freedom. Unless of course your freshman year is taped and televised for all the world to watch. On uncensored cable.

Sweet and normal Ally Cavanaugh is one of five freshpeople shacking up on In the House, a reality show filmed on her college campus. (As if school isn’t panic-inducing enough!) The cameras stalk her like paparazzi, but they also capture the fun that is new friends, old crushes, and learning to live on your own. Sure, the camera adds ten pounds, but with the freshman fifteen a given anyway, who cares? Ally’s got bigger issues — like how her long-distance bf can watch her loopy late-night “episode” with a certain housemate. . . .

Freshman year on film.

It’s outrageous.

It’s juicy.

And like all good reality TV,

it’s impossible to turn off.

So anyway, go check out Reality Chick, so that later on, you can say that you were an early adopter of the Barnholdt fandom. I’m telling you, this chick is going places. Her debut is a “Can’t Miss” Teen People Pick! Go Lauren!

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PS: Okay, just a tiny bit of me. I’m pick of the week at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind. The incomparable Sarah Weinman says this about Secret Society Girl:

“I had such a great time reading Peterfreund’s debut, which details what happens when one Ivy League junior gets tapped to join a formerly all-male, super-secret society. Why? The voice, for one, as Amy is a smart cookie who shows her mettle when it counts most, and great insights into what really bonds friends together. An entertaining read for teens and adults alike.”

Also, because this is just too much, my neighborhood has gone to the sharks: