Erin Bowman Takes the Dare!

This fabulous dare came in from Andrea, one of our readers, and it sounded like too much fun to pass up:

Write a short Dr. Seuss-inspired poem version of your book and post it on the blog.

I absolutely adored Dr. Seuss as a child. These stories were some of the first read to me, and the first I was able to read on my own. (Did you know Green Eggs and Ham has just fifty words, only one of which is more than one syllable?) And even with such a simplistic vocabulary, these books were drilling some very important lessons into my little head.

If Dr. Seuss books were titled according to their subtexts, via Buzzfeed

Ahem. Moving on to my dare...

I spent a little time browsing through a bunch of Dr. Seuss books, and finally settled on the one I thought I could rework to represent my debut novel, Taken.

So now, here is my Dr. Seuess-esque poem for Taken, inspired by Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!

Your birthday’s come.
Your birthday’s now.
You’ll go, go, go!
We’re not certain how. 

You will go by Heist.
You will go, ciao!
Gray Weathersby, you’ll be going now. 

You can try to fight it.
You can kick and scream.
But it’s still coming for you.
So don’t struggle,
Please! 

We don’t care.
You can’t escape that light.
You can’t escape that light even if you like.
If you try to run, it will still find you.
Just go, go, go.
Accept it, please do. 

Gray Weathersby, I don’t know how.
Gray Weathersby, you’ll be going now. 

You will go in a flash.
You will go in a blink.
You will go in a burst of light, I think.
If you wish not to, alas you’re stuck
Your birthday’s here, you’re out of luck. 

Don’t run away,
Please, Gray,
You’ll be going either way. 

Gray Weathersby
We don’t know how.
Gray Weathersby
You’ll be going now! 

We said go and go we meant.
The time had come.
So Gray…went.

Yeah, I might have had a little too much fun doing this. Another Thirteener will be up next week to answer a new truth or dare, but until then, you can always get your book-nerd fix on our Thirteeners tumblr.

Thanks again for the fun dare, Andrea!

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Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN is now available from HarperTeen, and FROZEN releases 4/15/14. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).

Full Moon + Valentine's Day = Our Kind Of Holiday

Here at Friday the Thirteeners we like to roll a little off-kilter. When we saw that the full moon was landing smack on top of everyone's favorite romantic holiday, we thought we'd take advantage of it with a little foray into the imaginative dating lives of the fake people we've created. Or if our book was going to date another book, who would they pick?

Mindy McGinnis:

It was suggested to me once at a book signing that Lynn from NOT A DROP TO DRINK would be an ideal girlfriend for Daryl from The Walking Dead. I think that could work - but first they'd sidestep around each other with weapons drawn for about two years before either of them admitted to liking the other.

Erin Bowman:

TAKEN would date THE MAZE RUNNER! They'd be besties!

Alexandra Duncan:

I think SALVAGE would probably get along really well with SHIP BREAKER, by Paolo Bacigalupi. They have a few key things in common - worlds ravaged by global warming and people living off the scraps or our former prosperity - but they also have enough that's different that they would have something to talk about. SALVAGE is a little more emotional than SHIP BREAKER, but I think they would balance each other out nicely.

April Genevieve Tucholke:

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA just had its heart broken by a Stephen King short story collection and is now going to hook up with Richie Cusick's THE LIFEGUARD, just for the summer.

Megan Shepherd:

THE MADMAN'S DAUGHTER is going on a date with THIS DARK ENDEAVOR by Kenneth Oppel. Dr. Moreau's daughter and a young Dr. Frankenstein? Yes, please!

What do you think of our choices?

Erin Bowman Tells the Truth: inspirational writing music

I'm answering a truth today, one that touches on one of my favorite topics ever: MUSIC! The question:

What songs are most inspiring for you to write to?

I tend to listen to a lot of instrumental music when I write. (Something about hearing lyrics messes with my writing mojo--I start listening to the singer and ignoring my story.) What sort of instrumental stuff, you ask? Typically movie and video games scores, and, for lack of a better label, "epic" music.

Alexandre Desplat, Ramin Djawadi, Danny Elfman, Clint Mansell, Javier Navarrete, John Powell, Hans Zimmer--among others--are some of my favorite film composers.

For FROZEN, John Powell was my savior. While drafting (and revising), I listened to the Bourne soundtracks on endless repeat. Here's a favorite:


I have a sci-fi WIP that, at least so far, I've written almost entirely to Mansell's Moon score. The theme has this creepy, building quality to it that I just love. (Wait for it to kick in around 2:15. So worth it.)


The soundtrack for Assassin's Creed 3 (Lorne Balfe) is also incredible, especially for drafting other-worldly tales. (I listen to this a ton while tinkering on my fantasy WIP.)


But more often than not, I default to my absolute favorite writing music while working: the epic music. These are the artists whose albums I can play back-to-back for hours on end and always remain inspired, the songs that are moving, haunting, and dramatic. Pieces that stand apart and yet also blend so seamlessly they never jarring me out of my writing groove.

Atop my epic trailer music list are Audiomachine, Two Steps From Hell, and Thomas Bergersen (who's actual one half of TSFH). Any album by these guys is pretty much guaranteed to get you inspired. I would not have finished my first draft of TAKEN3 without this music. True story.

Some personal faves:











And lastly, this song from Audiomachine IS the final chapter of TAKEN3. I sobbed while listening to this track. Bittersweet, agonizing, gut-wrenching tears.


So I've blabbed a lot. Hopefully it was anything but boring and you've found a few new artists to add to your writing playlist(s). And since I'm always looking to discover new music, is there anyone in particular you love to write to? Leave me suggestions in the comments, please!

Jenn will be up next week to answer a truth or dare, but until then, you can always get your book-nerd fix on our Thirteeners tumblr.

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Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN is now available from HarperTeen, and FROZEN releases 4/15/14. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).

Cover Explosion!!!

We promise we'll be getting back to the truths and dares soon. But we've had a recent explosion of cover reveals, and since they're far cooler than anything we could put together, we had to share. I mean, LOOK AT ALL THIS GORGEOUSNESS:

FROZEN, by Erin Bowman

(Sequel to TAKEN)

HOUSE OF IVY & SORROW, by Natalie Whipple
(a brand spankin' new story and world)

SPLIT SECOND, by Kasie West

(Sequel to PIVOT POINT)

LET THE STORMS BREAK, by Shannon Messenger

(Sequel to LET THE SKY FALL)

For more information on any of these books, just click the book titles--they're handy links to goodreads (and hey--you can choose to add them to your shelves, if you want!)

Happy Friday, everyone!!!

Today Is The Day To Get TAKEN!

by Mindy McGinnis

To misquote Norman Bates, "We all get a little jealous sometimes."

Yeah, we totally do. And before I had my cover for NOT A DROP TO DRINK, I had a serious jealous-freak going on with Erin's cover for TAKEN. You can see why.

It's beautiful, colorful, and foreboding as hell. As a librarian I took one look at it and said, "OK, my kids are going to gravitate right towards this one." And as a reader I knew that pretty packages don't always live up to the promise of the wrapping paper. But this time, there was nothing misleading.

Check out my librarian pitch of TAKEN below, then look back at the cover and tell me you don't want this in a somewhat inappropriate way.

Claysoot is not a place anyone would stay- unless they had to. The Wall keeps them in, the women, the children... but not the men. Because there aren't any.
One their eighteenth birthday the boys disappear in a flash of light. It comes with wind, and the shaking of the ground, and then they are gone. Any boys who try to escape this fate by climbing the Wall are tossed back within hours, curled into an eternal fetal position, burnt to death.

Gray Weathersby watches his older brother disappear, well aware that his time is coming soon. Even though Claysoot has little to offer beyond emotionless Pairings meant to boost birthrates, Gray isn't eager to be taken by a Heist. No one knows what comes after the Heist for the boys that disappear, but he knows if he's taken that he will never see Emma again, the only girl he's ever hoped to be Paired with.

Climbing the wall could be suicide, but the discovery of a strange note from his dead mother leads Gray to believe that there's more at work in Claysoot than he could have guessed. The Council leaders have their secrets, and now Gray has his. Armed with the letter and the breath of a chance of survival, Gray has to decide whether he'll risk climbing the Wall into the unknown, or let the certainty of the Heist take him away from Emma.

Oh, and my little jealousy problem? Yeah, that's all cleared up now. When I got my cover I went ahead and fell in love with it. Part of the reason why is because Erin and I have the same designer. Yep. We both love Erin Fitzsimmons, and you should too - because she's making bookshelves everywhere a little more beautiful, one book at a time.

So go find one of those shelves today in a bookstore, and grab up a little bit of pretty - what's underneath that gorgeous cover won't let you down!
_________________________________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins September 24, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, From the Write Angle, The Class of 2k13, The Lucky 13s & The League of Extraordinary Writers. You can also find her on Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook.

Erin Bowman Takes the Dare

The dare I'm tackling today comes from our very own Megan Shepherd: Write three haikus about your book. I thought this sounded way too fun to pass up.

TAKEN is split into four parts, and I'm going to use the titles of the first three sections as jumping points for the poems...

Of Heists

for boys of eighteen,

an unavoidable fate:

gone, vanished, taken

---

Of Walls

to climb would mean death

but it's beckoning, calling

the promise of more

---

Of Rebels

a boy named Gray stands

among trees, his bones aching

for answers, for truths

Okay, this turned out to be way more fun than I expected. Perhaps it was just the creative break I needed from all the promotion/marketing I've been doing leading up to TAKEN's release. (Just a little over a week to go!)

Jenn will be up next week to answer a truth or dare, but in the meantime, check out our brain new Thirteeners tumblr! Our love of books and pop culture doesn't sleep over there, so don't miss out. :)

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Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN, comes out from HarperTeen in April 16, 2013. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).

Erin Bowman Takes the Dare: Book Dominos!

Today's dare comes from a good friend of mine, Caroline Richmond. She dared me to set up my books like dominos and knock them all over. This proved especially difficult because I live in a very, very old farmhouse. Nothing is level, and the floorboards are ridiculously wide and uneven and there are old square-head nails everywhere that aren't quite flush with the wood. Getting these books to balance was a bit of a struggle. But I managed.

Here are my book-domino results via vlog! (Please pardon my general state of un-showered-ness and messy hair. I'm on deadline! ;) )



And here's a picture of the end result since I was having issues with the laptop camera:

I'm quietly cursing 13 Reasons Why for messing up an otherwise perfect YA formation.

A huge thank you to Caroline for this fabulous (and FUN) dare. I hope you all have a great weekend, and be sure to check back next week for more truth/dare madness!

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Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN, comes out from HarperTeen in April 16, 2013. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).

Erin Bowman Takes the Dare

Hi, guys! Today I'm tackling an entry from Kristen Lippert-Martin, who dared me to write my bio in the voice of a well-known literary figure. She gave me four different options, but this turned into such a fun exercise in voice, that I couldn't pick just one!

To begin, let's look at a snippet of my actual bio, as written by regular old me:

Erin is a twenty-seven year girl who likes to write. She grew up in rural Connecticut, where she spent most of her childhood telling stories. It is rumored that her first words were not "mama" or "dada," but "once upon a time." In middle school, when kids were going off to sleep-away camp for the summer, Erin was attending writing camp and penning short stories.

When not writing, Erin can often be found hiking, geeking out over good typography, and obsessing over all things Harry Potter. She drinks a lot of coffee, buys far too many books and is not terribly skilled at writing about herself in the third person.

Lovely. Now let's get to the good stuff. My bio, if I were any of the following...

Assuming you want to know, I guess I should probably tell you my name, and what I do, and how I got into this career and stuff, but truthfully, it's a long and boring story and I don't really have the energy to get into it right now. All I can say is I write. Have been since the day I could mumble "once upon a time." You probably find that lame. You think I'm lying. You think I'm the biggest phony alive. But who isn't a phony? Nobody, that's who.

So I write. And when I don't write, I obsess over pointless crap like good typography and Harry Potter and I drink a lot of coffee because it makes me feel somewhat alive, which is a blessing and a curse, and dammit, why am I still telling you all this? It's making me depressed as hell.

---

The act of writing a captivating story is nuanced as concocting the most complex of potions. I've appreciated stories from birth; their beauty and magic, the power of convincing dialog, the delicate entwining of plot threads, the hypnotic effect of pitch-perfect pacing. I've spent much time perfecting this craft, but maintaining focus can be trying on occasion. Especially with all the imbeciles in the world fawning over Harry Potter. How anyone could love that spoiled, arrogant, insufferable excuse of a wizard remains a mystery to me. Even after all this time.

---

The time has come to tell you a little bit about myself and the great honor it is to be writing novels for the masses. I pride myself on my utmost sense of style and impeccable manners--especially given my non-Capitol upbringing. Rural Connecticut can be full of heathens, eating food with their hands and exhibiting other vile behaviors. It's amazing I still have an appetite after my childhood there. But at least we had some delicacies. Like coffee and dessert. (Can you believe that some people are deprived of dessert?! The odds are not in their favor.)

---

No measure of time with words will be enough, so I'm planning on writing forever. I can't stay away from books...Don't want to. The smell of their pages. The warmth and comfort they provide. I should probably tell you something useful, something biographical, but I'm too busy sitting outside this window, brooding.

Photo Credits: Holden / Snape / Effie / Edward

So what do you think? Who's voice sounds the most authentic to you? 

A big thank you to Kristen for the fabulous dare. I truly had a blast writing these. (Kristen, if you email me via fridaythethirteeners [at] gmail [dot] com, I'll be sure to send an amazon gift card your way as a proper thank you!) 

Have a great weekend, everyone! And be sure to check back next week to meet our newest mystery author!

Erin Bowman Takes the Truth

It's that time again -- truth or dare time! Elodie had asked: Who is your secret crush from YA lit? Well, Elodie, you may have gotten more than you bargained for because I have far more than one. I'll let the vlog take it from here:



Huge props to Elodie for such a great question! As a thank you, I'm giving you a $13 amazon or B&N giftcard (your choice) so that you can buy one of these novels and fall in love with the characters just like I did! Just email me via our Thirteeners account -- fridaythethirteeners[at]gmail[dot]com -- so I know where to send your prize.

And to everyone else: Perhaps you would like to submit some more truth and dares for us? In the video I said we'd answer one next week, but I actually lied. It will be TWO weeks before you see another truth and dare because next week is Friday the 13th! We have a special post planned (complete with giveaway items!) so be sure to check back!

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Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN, comes out from HarperTeen in Winter of 2013. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).

Erin Bowman Takes the Truth

I was all set to tackle an embarrassing dare, but then this fabulous truth came in from Alyssa regarding book covers and the design process and I had to shift gears. This topic is very timely for me -- TAKEN is undergoing the cover design phase as we speak -- so let's get to it, shall we?

A hat tip to Alyssa, for prompting such a great discussion. As a thank you, I'm giving you a $13 amazon or B&N giftcard (your choice). Just email me via our Thirteeners account -- fridaythethirteeners[at]gmail[dot]com -- so I know where to send your prize.

And to everyone else: Perhaps you would like to submit some more truth and dares for us? We really do love them, even if some are cringe-worthingly embrassing.

That's all from me for now, but make sure you stop by on Tuesday when we announce our newest mystery author!

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Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN, comes out from HarperTeen in Winter of 2013. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).