Thank you! Oh my gosh, because of all of you, Queen of Babble Gets Hitched hit #20 on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list! That is just too fabulous for words!

But because I’m the original queen of babble, of course I have some words anyway: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

And for those of you asking if there’ll be a fourth book featuring Lizzie Nichols, well, right now there are no plans for one. The only storyline I can think of is that Lizzie writes a book about her life called Queen of Babble, and someone makes a movie of it, and her exes find out about it, and sue her.

Only I don’t think that would make a very good story, do you????

Okay so I just want to tell you that when I went to Ft. Lauderdale on Monday to do the satellite media tour for Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, HarperCollins put me up at the St. Regis, and my room, which was a super fancy suite overlooking the ocean (think Kate Winslet’s bedroom in Cameron Diaz’s house in the film The Holiday, with the remote control lights and curtains and everything) came with a BUTLER.

(Photo of my actual room, or one just like it.)

I have never had a butler before so to be honest I wasn’t sure what to do with mine. But he wouldn’t go away, and he seemed like he really wanted to do something.

So I gave him the dress I was going to wear on TV the next morning to iron. And he DID IT! It was so AMAZING!!!! I WANT A BUTLER ALL THE TIME NOW!!!

Anyway, after he finally left, I got into my enormous St Regis tub which looked exactly like this:

(my actual St Regis tub, or photo of one just like it.)

I was soaking in there with all the spa magazines they give you, having a fabulous time just zoning out and pampering myself when I heard all this booming and I swear I thought there was some kind of terrorist attack even though it was ten at night, and I put my fluffy robe and slippers on and hit the button to open my curtains and I saw this outside my windows!

(actual photo of storm at sea out my window, or one just like it.)

Yes! It was a full on storm at sea! And it went on ALL NIGHT LONG! Crackle! And then BOOM! So loud it made the walls shake!

And the surf raged outside my windows, just yards away on the beach below! I kept thinking about the wide Sargasso sea and Mr. Rochester and his crazy wife Bertha and I was sure we were all going to be killed, only not by a crazy woman, by a STORM!

I tried to go to sleep but it was hard with all the BOOMING of the thunder. It seemed like almost no time went by before my BUTLER was bringing my tea as part of my wake up call (YES! I SO WANT A BUTLER. Only not one who wakes me up so early)!!!!

(Photo of actual tea brought by St Regis butler, or one almost like it.)

Then I was off to do my media satellite tour which was, you know, every shade of stressful because basically you get your hair and makeup done (that’s the fun part!!!!) but then you have to be miked up and sit in this tiny room facing a big camera that you look into but you don’t see anyone. You just see a note card that says RICK and then a voice comes in your ear and RICK starts asking you questions about your book and for two minutes you’re on the air with RICK in SCOTTSDALE or where ever (RICK and his viewing audience can see you but you can’t see RICK) and then the notecard (held by the cameraman) changes and then it says TINA and for two minutes you’re on the air with TINA in GREENSBORO and TINA asks you the exact same questions as RICK did and you do this for four hours with however many newscasters on their local news shows as you’ve been booked for. Basically, it’s like a press junket. You stay in the same room, and the reporters change, but it’s all done by remote.

The only problem was there was NO GLUTEN FREE FOOD at the studio except grapes. Also melon slices but I hate melon except watermelon.

If you are new to this blog, you may not know that a few months ago I was diagnosed with celiac disease which is an autoimmune disease where you can’t eat wheat, barley malt, or rye, or your body will stop absorbing nutrients (it’s genetic, and very common. Currently they suspect 1 out of 100 people have it, most undiagnosed). The “cure” may sound easy enough—just stop eating wheat, barley malt, and rye—but it hasn’t turned out to be easy AT ALL, because there is wheat, barley malt, and rye in things you would never suspect, such as soy sauce, Rice Crispies cereal, movie theater popcorn (which totally sucks because I LOVE MOVIE THEATER POPCORN), cheese dip (wheat flour is added as a thickener), beer, the glue on the back of envelopes, imitation crab found in California rolls, commercial salad dressing, almost everything that is fried, many flavors of Doritos, the list goes on and on, but basically if I like it, it has wheat or barley malt in it (I’ve always hated rye so that’s been no problem).

So you have to read the ingredients on EVERYTHING, ask the waiter (who usually doesn’t know, and often makes you feel like you’re Sally from When Harry Met Sally, tiresomely asking for everything on the side), or look it up on the Internet before you put it in your mouth, unless it’s like, an apple.

So by the end of my four hours in the studio I was starving and ready to get to the airport, where I had my usual two hour wait for my flight, but I wasn’t worried because airports in Florida always have the one thing celiacs CAN eat….

…MEXICAN FOOD!!!! Yes, viva la TACO! Because celiacs can eat anything made with CORN such as corn chips and corn tortillas which means NACHOS. Mmmmm just thinking about delicious nachos is making me hungry right now.

I was quite excited when I got to the Ft. Lauderdale airport because I knew they had a Chilis and I knew Chilis has nachos and stuff.

Only guess what? ALL THEIR NACHOS ARE MADE WITH WHEAT FLOUR, not corn. In fact, every single thing on Chilis’ menu except the salads (with no dressing) and the baked potato (with nothing on it) and the hamburgers (with no buns) and steaks (with no sauce) have gluten in them (good thing I ordered and ate the chili thinking it would be gluten free. But it turns out it’s not. I checked their website. AFTER I ATE IT).

FATE KICKING MY BUTT AGAIN (because I used to think my best friend was faking being allergic to my cat. I thought the REAL reason she wouldn’t spend the night at my house was because we didn’t have air conditioning and she did, so we always had to spend the night at HER house. Now fate’s karmic retribution is that I have an autoimmune disorder that makes it so I can’t eat ANY of the foods I love)!!!!

There is good news though: I got to have a butler for a night!

Oh, and Queen of Babble Gets Hitched is number 20 on the New York Times bestseller list right now!

Did I mention the film rights for the Queen of Babble series have been optioned by Sharp Independent Films, and Kristin Bell of Veronica Mars and Forgetting Sarah Marshall has agreed to play Lizzie Nichols???

YAYYYYY!!!! I love her.

So eat a hot dog (WITH A BUN) and some ice cream (IN THE CONE) for me this July 4th and celebrate!!!!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

Did you see Queen of Babble Gets Hitched featured on Good Morning America today? What about in Parade Magazine on Sunday? Well, here’s a link in case you missed it (there are some other books on there that sound really good, too)!

–Speaking of which, how excited am I for Michele Jaffe’s new book, Kitty Kitty, the long-awaited sequel to Bad Kitty, which comes out July 1? VERY EXCITED. I’m still waiting for my copy to arrive, but the illustrious YA YA YAs got an advanced reader copy (luckies), and they gave it a
rave review!

I also can’t wait to read Michele’s first manga, featuring an all new adventure with Jas and the gang, in Catnipped!

–Here’s some more book news, but it’s not happy: Reader Jen writes from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that the main library there has lost two-thirds of its collection to flooding, including all the YA books! Jen says:

It’s incredibly sad to me for many reasons — because when I was a kid my family made a monthly pilgrimage to the Cedar Rapids Public Library to check out vast quantities of books; because as a reader it’s just sickening to see so many books lost; and because I worked at the library as a teenager and know every inch of the currently filthy muddy building.

Anyway, obviously lots and lots of awesome book-loving people read your blog so I was hoping you could possibly include a few lines about the library and information on donating. They are NOT accepting donations of books and media — they just don’t have any place to store it — but need any financial contribution that people can spare, no matter how small. Plus it’s tax-deductible!

More information is available in this article. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

And thanks for taking the time to let us know about this, Jen!
If you want to make a donation, mail your contribution to the Cedar Rapids Public Library Foundation. All donations are tax deductible and needed! Mail to 500 1st St. SE, Cedar Rapids, IA, 52401.

Please help if you can, readers! There’s nothing worse than a town without a library…except a library without books. So sad!

–So I’m writing this from the Conch Flyer Restaurant at the Key West airport because I’m off to a studio up north (Ft. Lauderdale to be exact) to do TV satellite interviews on Tuesday for Queen of Babble Gets Hitched. If you’re flipping around on your local morning news shows Tuesday morning (or later in the week), you just might see me (I’d post the exact times and stations I’m going to be on, but many of them are pre-taped to air whenever the stations feel like it).

–I’m so excited about the American Girl movie, Kit Kittredge!

I personally can’t wait until my nieces are old enough for me to start buying them American Girl stuff. Some people think the American Girl dolls have gotten “commercial,” but I don’t. $90 is a lot for a doll (and book), it’s true, but that’s why there are so many different ones—each girl can find the one doll that speaks to her and then she can befriend girls who have the other dolls and they can play detect-the-serial-killer, or whatever.

I just love that American Girl has a doll beauty parlor in their stores where any doll owner can bring her doll for repairs/beautification, providing a great source of entertainment for people like myself, who like to go and watch the “beauticians” employed at the doll beauty salon nod sympathetically as they listen to the girls describe the horrible hair accident that happened to their dolls’ head, and how they want it fixed.

Not to mention the American Girl café where girls can dine with their dolls (and family members). They have gluten-free menus available, including gluten-free birthday cake!

Finally, the girls learn about history through the books about their dolls (123 million in print and counting). Can you say that about Bratz? No. You cannot.

True, there was the great American Girl scandal of 2005, when American Girl donated money to Girls, Inc, enraging a certain segment of the population who believes Girls, Inc has a radical leftist liberal agenda. But American Girl did not back down, despite protests.

Obviously, what with the beauty parlor, the gluten-free menu, and Julie, the new hippie doll, some may still suspect there is a radical leftist liberal agenda at work at American Girl.

Which means Abigail Breslin must be American Girl’s Che Guevara!

This is undoubtedly true, especially since Kit is teaching girls to be, in the words of The New York Times, “brave, smart, determined and kind, but never off-puttingly full of themselves or intimidatingly superior”. A.O. Scott of the Times muses that his daughter’s American Girl doll becomes, at varying times, “an athlete, a musician, a clothes horse, a bookworm, a pet owner, a loner and a confidant.” In other words, a typical American girl. Nothing wrong with that, if you ask me.

–Mark your calendars…we’ll be having our first live chat in months on Sunday, July 20 at 4PM! We’ll be chatting about Queen of Babble Gets Hitched and whatever else people want. I may even spill some spoilers for Allie Finkle’s Rules For Girls: The New Girl (due in US stores in August) and possibly even Princess Diaries 10….

Now check out Michele Jaffe’s Kitty Kitty book trailer…then go to her YouTube channel!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

Some other stuff actually happened this past week besides Queen of Babble Gets Hitched coming out. And it all involved people with the name Liz.

On June 24, Liz Phair celebrated the 15th anniversary of her fantastic album Exile in Guyville by releasing a brand new remastered version of it (yes! You can finally buy it on iTunes!) with four new bonus tracks….

This is the theme album of my life. If you don’t think of the guy you’re crushing on the way Liz thinks of the guy in “Flower,” I guarantee he’s not the right guy for you. Think of it as the “Flower” test. I ended up marrying my Flower, and we’re still going strong fifteen years in, so the Flower test works.

(FYI, Exile in Guyville is explicit—some have said offensive, although they’re just threatened by female sexuality. If your parents will be mad at me for recommending this album, please play it while wearing earbuds, the way I do in airports so no one will know what I’m smiling about.)

The second amazing thing that happened on June 24 involved yet another Liz…are you sensing a pattern? Lizzie Nichols? Liz Phair?…and now Lizzie Skurnick–who writes my favorite column on Jezebel, Fine Lines, the retro-YA book review that appears every Friday afternoon–has gotten a book deal with none other than my adult editor and publisher, Carrie Feron at HarperCollins! Read all about it here. I can’t wait to read the book next summer when it comes out!

Will the awesomeness of people named Liz never stop? Because we still have Liz Sherman from Hellboy 2 to look forward to on July 11. I am so going to be at the Regal Cinema in Key West, my feet sticking to the gummy floor, for this one.

Meanwhile, over in the land ruled by Queen ELIZabeth, where I’m going (amongst other places…more on that in a later entry) for a book tour this fall, which will include the the Bath Children’s Literature Festival, someone is sponsoring this event called the Queen of Teen. I don’t quite understand what it is, being a foreigner and all, but I do know they’re asking girls ages 10-18 to nominate female authors for it. The girls who write the best 200 word nomination essay get to attend this grand event along with the author they nominated (so long as they are already in the UK at that time…sorry, airfare to the UK is not included in the prize).

So if you know of a girl aged 10-18 who will be in the UK on or around September 18, who would like to ride in a limo to a fancy dinner with me, here is the link to the form she can fill out to make that happen.

You can go here to read more about the event if you have questions, though I should warn you, many of your questions will go unanswered, as have mine, such as…What if James Patterson gets nominated for England’s first ever Queen of Teen event? Can HE be the Queen of Teen? What if the Queen of Teen is discovered to have posed for nude photos in her past, a la Vanessa Hudgens? Will her title be stripped like it was for another Vanessa? What if the Queen of Teen is incapacitated and can no longer perform her duties as Queen of Teen? Will her crown be passed on to the Queen of Middle Grade Books? Will JK Rowling be there, even though technically she is the Queen of Everything? And so on.

Hopefully answers to these questions will be posted soon, as they are distracting me from my book writing and forcing me to watch Animal Cops: Detroit over and over.

If you go to my UK site, www.megcabot.co.uk, you’ll find a new section called Meg’s Soap Box, which features all new, never before seen videos of me giving advice to the lovelorn, and whatnot. And under Fun Stuff, check out a video of the Most Embarrassing things that have happened to some of my UK readers! Their British accents are so cute! They say “knickers”! I am going there all the time now so I can practice for my trip in the fall.

I promised an excerpt to Avalon High, Coronation: Homecoming would be posted soon, and I wasn’t lying. It’s up now! Just click here (sorry it takes so long to load. It’s a big pdf).

And finally, to celebrate a week of Lizzies, here’s a link to a vintage Liz Phair video. Careful, they didn’t bleep out the bad words!

But when bad words come from Liz P, they’re poetry. Unlike when they come from me, like they did just now when I hit my knee against my computer. Then they’re just another example of my tendency to babble, like another Liz we all know.

More later.

Much love,

Meg

It’s here!

Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, the last book in the Queen of Babble series, is in US stores everywhere today!

In case you missed it, I made a little video about my own obsession with brides (which matches my heroine’s—although she has an excuse, being a professional wedding gown restorer, and all). I swear, I have seen every episode of Bridezilla, Buff Brides, and lately, my new favorite wedding-gown-themed reality show, Say Yes to the Dress, that has ever been shown. I am so obsessed with brides and their gowns, I want to enter this Queen of Babble/SugarLoot contest to win a Jessica McClintock wedding gown…even though I’m already married.

It really makes no sense whatsoever because I am not a wedding-y person. I have never even been in a wedding (except as a flower girl when I was eight), and He Who Shall Not Be Named in this Blog and I actually eloped.

Well, here, you can just watch while I explain (and by the way, that shirt is going straight to Good Will now that I have video proof of how it looks on me. What was I thinking?):

(And yes, Brady, who filmed that, did catch the bouquet. I don’t think he knows he has to get married now. Sorry, Brady!)

I guess I just can’t resist a long dress (worn only for a few hours, then ditched for life—or better yet, donated to fight against breast cancer).

Anyway, things on the Queen of Babble film front are very exciting, but I’m not allowed to talk about it. Which is like telling…well, like Lizzie Nichols not to talk about it. But I’m really trying. At least I haven’t blogged about it. Yet.

And I managed to keep quiet about it in Memphis, where I just attended two book signings sponsored by Justine Magazine (they’ve just started a new book club, Spark, check it out!) and Davis-Kidd Booksellers.

Honestly, I got to meet so many fantastic readers there, including Katie F, who made me the most beautiful princess box (she MADE it! It’s so purple and sparkly)! My readers are truly the best. No, seriously. They’re the BEST.

Here are some photos….

Me and Jana Kerr Pettey, Justine Magazine Publisher and Director

One of the fashion shows!

More of the fashion show!

Cute models (yes, I did squeeze myself in there)

Davis-Kidd Book signing

More Davis-Kidd Book signing….

Fantastic gluten free goodies! How nice of Justine Magazine (thanks, Janice!) was that?

Book group meeting!

I had a blast, as you can tell. But it’s good to be home, because I have a lot of work to do!

In other news, swallow any fluids in your mouth before you read the following:

New York Magazine is reporting that Alex and Simon of the Real Housewives of New York City are coming back for a second season. Finally, something to look forward to!

Still no word if Lucy Griffiths will be back to play Marian on BBC America’s Robin Hood Season 3, though. It’s not looking good as she’s signed on to be in another movie.

Poor Mimi La Rue, Tori Spelling’s pug, definitely won’t be back for another season of Tori and Dean, Inn Love. She passed away last week.

RIP, Mimi La Rue! You will be missed.

While most of you were going, “What? How could George Clooney dump Sarah Larson, there was just an in-depth profile of him in The New Yorker and they seemed so happy in his LA pad with his giant poster of Steve McQueen beaming down on them,” I was already on the case. It’s all right here in last month’s Harper’s Bazaar, where Sarah spilled the beans about how George makes a big deal about being environmentally friendly, but likes to fly on private jets (given the chance, who wouldn’t? What’s he going to do, risk being seated next to someone like ME????). Of course he dumped her.

Now he’s back on the market, ready to be snapped up by someone who knows how to keep her mouth shut (i.e., not me). So go get’im, girls.

Okay, when I saw this photo last month of the allegedly previously uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, I had some questions:

Like, who goes around in red body paint just for everyday wear? That seems like a lot of trouble. Usually full body paint is just for special occasions (i.e., self-tanner before a party), not when a plane you don’t even know is coming is flying over (especially if you’ve never even seen a plane before). What gives?

Now the news comes out that this village wasn’t so previously uncontacted after all. In fact, they’ve known about this village for a hundred years, and they even know the red paint signifies war and that the villagers heard the plane coming, got out the paint, and took away the Welcome mat, because they were scared it might be MTV dropping off some of those bratty My Super Sweet Sixteen kids for Exiled (totally understandable).

No wonder they got out the war paint! Seriously, I would not want that one girl who cried because she didn’t get the Lexus living with me for a month. I’d paint myself red just to keep her away, too.

Finally, another book of mine will be in stores today as well, the continuation of the Avalon High manga series, Coronation: Homecoming. Click here to read all about it (excerpt coming soon)!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

I spent the weekend fielding phone calls and emails from friends who were surprised to find a review of one of my books in their local paper (the New York Times). You can read the review here.

I actually knew in advance there was going to be a review of Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: Moving Day in the Sunday Times book review section, but I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t know until right before it came out what the review was going to say. Basically I was having a prolonged nervy b (thanks for that expression, Louise Rennison) over it.

Fortunately, I think Allie escaped unscathed. I’d like to give a big thank you to the review’s author, Lauren Mechling. Sadly I do not write sequels in my sleep or I’d have finished the one I’m currently writing a long time ago.

I do sometimes wish elves would come and write my books for me while I slept, the way they made shoes for that one guy in the Grimms fairy tale, so when I woke up all my work would be done. That would give me a lot more time to watch “America’s Next Top Model” and the 100th episode of “Made” and finally get around to watching “The Wire,” which everyone says is so good, and all.

But alas, this has never happened, even though I turn on my laptop eagerly each morning, hoping against hope to find my book done. I’ve finally added elves to my list of things I don’t believe in anymore, along with natural looking highlights and Manolo Blahniks that are actually comfortable, despite what Sarah Jessica Parker is always insisting.

I do not believe you anymore, Sarah Jessica! Those shoes cannot possibly be comfortable!

I also spent the weekend recovering from my first endoscopy, which, in case you’ve missed out on one of these, is when you go to the hospital and a gastroenterologist sticks a long tube down your throat, and looks around your GI tract with a camera (but you are unconscious so you don’t feel it). I had a Demerol drip (which I highly recommend) the whole time!

I had a whole lot of episodes of Intervention recorded to watch when I got home from the hospital because I thought it would be fun to watch a show about drug addicts while I was actually on drugs. He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog said I kept going, “I hafta get home…to watch… Intention…right now!” while I was in the recovery room.

But when I actually got home, I just passed out. For the whole rest of the day (and night), all I did was sleep. What a waste!

While recovering from my weekend in the valley of the dolls, I saw on the news that humans aren’t the only ones suffering in the Midwestern flooding.

Rescuers are doing all they can to help four legged victims, too. Check out this slideshow showing some of the pets being rescued (and reunited with their human families) and then click here to see how you can help, too (and find out how you can help their owners here)!

Don’t forget–always have your pet Evac-Packs and supplies ready just in case of an emergency or natural disaster! When Gem and Henrietta see their Evac-Packs come out during hurricane season, they both run in the other direction. Maybe it’s the mini football helmets from Dairy Queen we make them wear. But they’re for their own protection (kidding…about the helmets, not the packs).

Finally, I’m on my way to Memphis tomorrow! Look for me Thursday on WREG-TV Channel 3 (CBS) “Live at 9” (in the morning) and don’t worry, if you didn’t get tickets to the Hilton luncheon event, later on that day at 4PM at Davis-Kidd booksellers, there’s ANOTHER fashion show and book signing! Click here for more info, or go here!

So please meet me there if you can! I’m going to be fully recovered and will maybe even spill some secrets about the sequel to Airhead (which I am writing now, sadly not in my sleep and with no help from those crappy noshow elves) AND Princess Diaries 10.

Hope to see you there!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

I know what you’re thinking: Where on earth has Meg disappeared to?

Well, I’ve been in Toledo, where I met a ton of great readers (and some Lefty Librarians)!

Many thanks to everyone who showed up to see me (and special thanks to Amelia, Elizabeth, and Sara who brought me a ton of gluten-free goodies, as well as a beautiful poster that I could tell they’d worked on really hard!), and of course to everyone who had a hand in putting on such a special event!

Next week I’m off to Memphis for my June 19th events, where, if my turn-out(s) are even half as big (and as nice) as in Toledo, I’ll be hugely pleased!

Meanwhile, even though my publishing schedule may not indicate it, I’m all over the slow movement.

I know this sounds crazy given how many books I’ve written, but I can’t help that when I told my mom when I was in the eleventh grade that I wanted to be a writer, she made me take typing. Now I can type 80 words a minute. Mom was afraid, thanks to my seriously bad Math SAT scores, that she’d have to support me forever! She figured at least if I could type I’d be able to get a job somewhere other than Rax Roast Beef, where I did work for a short while before quitting over how fast they made me do everything (not to mention the green polyester pants they made me wear).

Whoa, Rax has a Myspace! Check it out! That one guy’s comments are hilarious. Actually, I think I used to work with him…Oh, no, wait, he was 2 years old when I worked at Rax. Never mind.

But I mean, in every other way except writing, I’m slooooooow (while working at Rax, they were always yelling at me to be faster, especially while putting that cheesy stuff on the baked potatoes for the people in the drive-thru. Dude, putting that cheesy stuff on the potatoes is an art. You cannot hurry it. My manager Deb just could not understand that. Deb and I had serious issues with each other).

For instance, I ride a bike everywhere now. And even though I own a Blackberry, I don’t know how it works, except to make calls. I have never written or received an email on my Blackberry. Why do I own one? Because T-Mobile automatically upgraded me to one, and I thought, “Cool! I’ll be like a lady business executive!”

But I can’t figure out how my Blackberry works. But I like it, because it’s pretty.

And while I haven’t given up on my dream of one day owning a driver’s license, I live on a two mile by four mile island. Where am I going to go if I DO get a license? Into the ocean?

And now that my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, where I frequently visit, is underwater, I’m probably better off getting a kayak anyway. Check out what happened there earlier this week:

White water rapids outside the student union!

Bloomington’s main drag, Kirkwood, outside Nick’s English Hut, my favorite place to get cheese dip and breadsticks (which I am no longer allowed to have anyway thanks to celiac disease. But I could just eat the cheese dip with fries, a recipe I made up while working at Rax).

Everyone gazing in wonder at the flood on Kirkwood (I saw soooo many movies at the Von Lee theater, which is now, sadly, a noodle shop. Anyway, see those gates, where the bus is, way in the background? Those are the Sample Gates, on which someone–NOT ME–spray painted in 1987 Bobby Knight is Scum From Hell. This incident was the inspiration for my book Pants on Fire, or Tommy Sullivan is a Freak, as it is known in the UK. But I will have you know I was FALSELY ACCUSED).

Of course people couldn’t help but wonder if this was all because my friend Sophia’s water broke this past weekend in Bloomington, when she gave birth to a little baby boy named Finn.

But honestly, I don’t think that had anything to do with it. It was all Mother Nature’s doing.

Anyway, come rain or shine, I’ll be at the Justine luncheon and then the Davis-Kidd book-signing in Memphis next week! Hope to see you there.

Oh, and here’s a video I made back when I was still allowed to eat cupcakes. Mmmmm, cupcakes, I wish I could eat twenty of them RIGHT NOW:

More later.

Much love,

Meg

It’s summer! Or at least it feels like it around here. I’ve got my new summer hair cut, which ended up making me look a little like Pat Benatar….

…or really more like Billie Jean from “The Legend of Billie Jean”…not the style I was going for exactly….

My hair looks like this. Only shorter. And redder.

I’m hoping with strategic use of mousse I can at least mold it into more of a Demi-Moore-from-Ghost-do, or something—

Well, okay, maybe that’s not the best look either.

Anyway, I know it’s summer, because I can’t seem to stay away from the pool….

…so it’s a good thing I’ve got my Alphasmart, which works on three double A batteries, so you can use it while floating on a raft. Hey, I’m not the most coordinated person, so I’ve even dropped mine in the water a few times and it still worked after it dried out. Thank God.

But if updates to the blog are spotty in the next few weeks, it’s because I’m in the pool busy writing Being Nikki, the sequel to Airhead, which should be in stores this time next year, or I’m jetting around the country, hanging with the residents of Toledo and Memphis.

If you live in or around either of these cities, DO try to come see me either June 10 in Toledo at the Stranahan Theater Great Hall, or the following week in Memphis at Davis-Kidd Booksellers at 4PM on June 19 (and earlier that day at a luncheon to which YOU are invited…sign up here).

Meanwhile, the busy bees over at Trashionista have already read and posted a review of Queen of Babble Gets Hitched here…Cute! I can’t believe it’s only seventeen days until it comes out!

Speaking of bees…for people who keep asking what I’m listening to: The Bird and the Bee, especially the song Again and Again. This may become my summer anthem. Love it!

If you’re looking for summer reading book giveaways, stop by Book Chic. They’ve gotten their hands on tons of Meg Cabot goodies and will be giving them away this whole weekend.

In book news, Jezebel did “A Wrinkle in Time” as their Friday Fine Lines this week. Oh my God I love this book. Meg Murry was my hero growing up. I wanted glasses and braces and my parents to stick me in an attic bedroom so I could mentally accuse them of thinking I was a witch and not mean it, like she did. And I so wanted to save Charles Wallace from IT!

Reading about this reminded me of another book I loved at the same age… The Far Side of Evil by Sylvia Engdahl. Holy smokes, did I love this book as a kid.

Unlike “A Wrinkle in Time,” which has some warm fuzzies, this book was hardcore sci-fi–but great. What I loved about it was how Elana’s captors put her in a sensory deprivation tank, but she ENJOYS this because it only makes her mental telepathy stronger, and she uses the opportunity to send out telepathic SOSes into space. Also how she’d roll crumbs of bread into “pills” that she’d give to her fellow prisoner who believed the pills would give her courage like Elena had—and because she believed the pills would make her brave, she WAS brave…until Elana ran out of crumbs. Then she had to be brave on her own. And she WAS brave, to her own surprise. Such an AWESOME and amazing book, and a perfect summer read for anyone brave enough to take it on.

Speaking of which, right now my friend Beth has given up her cable for the month of June as an experiment (an extremely insane one if you ask me) because she believes there is “nothing on in June” (wrong: the new season of Kathy Griffin starts June 12 and Weeds starts again June 16. But whatever).

I told Beth to download MTV’s series “The Paper” here. SO. INCREDIBLY. GOOD. And you don’t need cable to see it, just Internet.

Finally, it wouldn’t be summer without a new Queen of Babble book. Queen of Babble Gets Hitched (the final book in the trilogy) comes out June 24…and the page is up now!

Click here to view it, along with FOUR—yes, FOUR!—sample chapters! Enjoy!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

Congratulations to Ellen B, Amanda L, Haleigh L, Brittani Y, and Amy L, all winners in last month’s megcabot.com contest! They were just supposed to win copies of Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: Moving Day, but because I’m in such a good mood, they each got a copy of Airhead and an American Apparel Airhead T-shirt as well.

If you want to know why I’m in a good mood, read on. Though I warn you…it’s not for the faint of heart.

In the meantime, if you entered the contest and didn’t win, don’t despair! There’s always this month’s contest!

And for those of you interested in winning copies of the entire Queen of Babble series, including Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, go here!

I actually have a VERY few advanced reader copies of Queen of Babble Gets Hitched leftover….I know it’s short notice, but if there’s anyone who runs a review site who is interested in a copy, let me know.

Quickly (but importantly):

It’s finally here! In stores now:

Declare Yourself.

Speak. Connect. Act. Vote.

50 celebrated Americans—from Adrian Grenier to Hayden Panettiere to Alice Walker to me (I know! Me?), with a foreword by Norman Lear—share their perspectives on voting and civic involvement in this one-of-a-kind book. This collection of more than fifty essays and unique pieces explores topics ranging from “The First Time I Voted” to “Why the Personal is Political,” all straight from the pens of public figures you know and (hopefully) love (including America Ferrera and Amber Tamblin. Read their pieces here).

My essay is on the summer I spent working for Manpower, where I was a victim of an unspeakable act of sexism involving wet/dry vacs, and how if we want to keep things like that from happening again and again we have to vote NOW…because the people we elect today will be making the Supreme Court appointments that will effect all of our rights (including our daughters’ and their daughters’ rights) in the future. Read this book—and then Declare Yourself!

This is me with two adorable friends at about age 18, the time of the Manpower incident. Check out my stylish shades and killer center part.

So I guess I wasn’t the only one who went to see Sex and the City this weekend, since it was the highest grossing film of the week! I was practically the only person in the theater who was with a manfriend and not a girlfriend (and in flip-flops and not Manolos). I think I would have preferred to watch it on TV as an extra season rather than a movie, though. There were so many people in the theater, I couldn’t put my feet up!

Plus, the people next to me wouldn’t stop TALKING, and NOT about the movie (I am pretty sure they were drunk. At a matinee). We actually had to move. And then the next people we sat next to wouldn’t stop text messaging, DURING THE FILM. So we had to move again.

People next to me from the movie: I hate you.

Also this is why I see almost everything six months after everyone else, when it comes on Pay Per View.

Anyway, when we got home from the movie, I noticed Henrietta was coughing. It’s weird when cats start coughing because—well, normally cats don’t cough. I couldn’t really tell what she was doing until she barfed all over my Martha Stewart bath mat from Kmart. WHY GOD WHY? Why the bath mat? I’d just washed it, too. Well, okay, He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog had just washed it. But still.

Then she still kept coughing. And barfing. So I made an appointment at the vet, since this didn’t seem like normal behavior. But of course I couldn’t get an appointment until Monday.

Meanwhile Henrietta kept swanning around, coughing and throwing up (always on the bath mat).

So then I made the mistake of Googling coughing in cats.

Let me just tell you—Do not Google this. Congestive heart failure. Or a hairball.

But in Henrietta’s case, I was convinced it was heart failure. I started planning her cat funeral and my subsequent sabbatical from writing due to heart break.

So it was a very tense weekend.

Of course by the time the vet appointment rolled around, she’d stopped coughing AND throwing up (her last, massive barf–on my bath mat, of course—was a giant hairball). And the vet said her heart and blood work was all fine. This was after she both pooped and peed on him and the vet technician, because she was so pissed off about being at the vet when there was clearly nothing wrong with her. They so love her there, FYI.

So anyway. That’s why last month’s contest winners got copies of both Allie Finkle AND Airhead AND a free T-shirt. To celebrate Henrietta’s clean bill of health.

Who knows what will happen during next month’s contest?

Stay tuned.

More later.

Much love,

Meg

Well, you know what time it is:

That’s right! Sex and the City the movie time!

It’s finally here!

I’m so excited…

Can you tell?

These photos aren’t from the movie, though….

…they’re from the current issue of Vogue. Here’s a link to the article (it also features a video of the photo shoot with a Vogue-related scene from the movie and some banter between Chris Noth and Sarah Jessica Parker).

Sigh. So pretty! So impossibly unlike real life (if you ever tried to make out like that in any museum in New York the docents would totally make you stop)!

But that’s why it’s fun.

So we all know what we’re doing this weekend….

But what are you doing on June 19th? Well, if you live in or around Memphis, TN, and you haven’t made any plans yet, feel free to join me for lunch (and later on that day, come to a book signing)!

Your official invitation….

Click here for a link to a form to fill and mail in to make your reservation for a seat at the Justine REAL Girls luncheon (the book signing is free and no reservations are necessary).

I really hope to see you there!

And remember, if you can’t make it there, I’ll be in Toledo on June 10th!

And don’t forget:

Queen of Babble in the Big City is finally out in paperback (just in time for Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, coming June 24)!

While on the wedding front….

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz has finally admitted she’s pregnant, but those of us who get People Magazine already knew that because her baby bump was readily apparent in her wedding photos (she’s way more than three months along). However, People.com has cruelly refused to release these photos online (I really wanted to link to them, because she looks super cute in all of them. Maybe they’ll go online someday).

Speaking of baby bumps, this is where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are going to be living for the next three years:

It’s in Provence. It has 34 bedrooms. It costs $60 million if you want to buy it, but they’re just renting.

I don’t see a pool, do you? I mean, a lake is okay, but as everyone who lives in Florida knows, there is currently a deadly amoeba living in our lakes which has already killed multiple people.

If I were the Jolie-Pitts, I’d try to get my money back. Who knows when this bacteria will spread to France? If it’s anything like the Andromeda Strain, the movie (which started out okay but ended up being the stupidest TV movie ever, except the one where the city of New Orleans was hit by an earthquake and started sinking and they ended up spraying insulation foam under it in order to save it), it’s only a matter of time.

I was so depressed about the ruling giving that FDLS cult in Texas their kids back (so the men in it can continue preying on the teenage girls, who one justice wrote are “demonstrably endangered.” I mean, they could have just given back the little kids and the boys) that I was going to post a picture of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt and a note about how icky they are, because when icky things happen, I think you should always put a picture of Heidi and Spencer on your blog.

But then I found something to cheer us all up:

Clive Owen, peeking out from his hotel room in Rome to ask, “Has anyone seen my shirt?”

Anyway, let’s just hope Sex and the City doesn’t end like this:

That’s Ricky Schroeder, floating in a vat of blue goo at the end of Andromeda Strain.

Please don’t let Carrie and the girls end up floating in a vat of blue goo….

…even if they ARE doing it to save the world.

More later.

Much love,

Meg

There’s nothing like a relaxing “staycation” (which is how I spent my holiday weekend) now and then. You don’t have to pack or unpack, spend money on gas, wait in long lines at the airport, and you get to catch up on doing things like laundry while simultaneously going to see Indiana Jones, and getting hooked on Andromeda Strain (one of my favorite books when I was a tween. I must have checked it out of the library at least 20 times) on A&E (part two airs tonight, at the same time as the lost footage of The Real Housewives of NYC on Bravo! I am in a quandary).

But while I was relaxing and learning about crystal skulls and space viruses, the people at my publishing house were busy working on the cover for Being Nikki, the sequel to Airhead (which will be out at this time next year)!

(There’s nothing that makes a writer feel happier than having her publishing house working on the cover of a book she hasn’t finished writing yet. HA HA HA!)

The same cover model who played Nikki on the first book will play her on the next book…Ellie C., who is a seventeen-year-old part-time Ford model, and full time high school student and lacrosse captain (besides being super smart, Ellie is also super funny and sweet).

Check out these “out takes” from the shoot for Being Nikki:

Ellie (as Nikki) getting out of the limo….

Look how cute! The miniature poodle who plays Nikki’s puffball Cosabella!

And here’s Ellie with the puffball!

I totally can’t wait to see what the finished product is going to look like!

Here’s a very nice review of Airhead on the awesome site, YA Fresh (where they were also giving away T-shirts this weekend…I’m sorry if you missed it…I love this site and could seriously get lost on it for hours)!

But don’t worry…over at the fun new teen site Lolasland they’re giving away 15 copies of the gorgeous UK version of Tommy Sullivan is a Freak (that’s Pants on Fire to those of us here in the US), which Lola reviews here (thanks Lola)! Don’t miss out!

I read some fantastic books while lounging around taking breaks between working on Being Nikki this weekend. Right now I am on an essay collection kick. The two collections I read could not be more different, and yet I found them equally enjoyable and both laugh-out-loud funny.

The first was Chelsea Handler’s Are You There Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea (Judy Blume, I’m sorry she stole your title. But that IS pretty funny).

Chelsea, as you probably know if you’ve ever watched her comedy, is a dirty, dirty girl. So if you are under thirteen or a sensitive person, you probably shouldn’t read this book. Please don’t blame me if it offends you. All letters of complaint can be sent to Chelsea care of her publisher.

The two funniest (and yet also sad) chapters of the above book are the one where Chelsea gets busted for a DUI and has to go to jail (I never, ever want to go to jail now. Not that I did before—well, okay, I sort of did, so I could write about it–but I mean, Paris Hilton made it seem like staying in a kind of crappy hotel and not so bad. Chelsea’s description? Trust me, you NEVER, EVER WANT TO GO TO JAIL), and the one where she goes to a restaurant where diners are expected to eat in the dark. Why she does what she does there makes sense in context, but you have to read it to believe it. And do not read it in public.

I think the narrator of the other book I read, Happy Trails To You, would get along with Chelsea.

I have admired to the point of semi-stalking (without ever having met) author Julie Hecht since her short stories first appeared in The New Yorker. Her nameless narrator is a bit eccentric (after the 2000 election results, for instance, she takes to her bed–something we all felt, of course, but few of us actually did. So kudos to her).

But she’s eccentric in a way the author explains well and that you can perfectly understand (actually, so is Chelsea Handler. So the two books go well together). I’m always happy when a new book about this narrator (the last one was called Do The Windows Open) comes out so I can see how she’s been doing. It’s like checking in on an old friend. But an old friend who wants everyone to try Ezekiel bread, so not one you’d actually like to share a sandwich with.

Really, I’d like both Chelsea and the narrator of Happy Trails to be my friends. Each would be a hoot during any staycation.

Finally, can I just ask….how is it possible that Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, R.E.M. , and the B-52s ALL HAVE NEW ALBUMS OUT RIGHT NOW??? Did I slip through a time portal to 1985 again?

And could someone please tell my where I left my bustier?

That is all.

More later.

Much love,

Meg

To celebrate Airhead making the June 1 New York Times Children’s Chapter Bestseller List (thanks, everybody!), as well as the release of Queen of Babble in the Big City in paperback, here’s a new addition to my YouTube channel—another of my Literary Classics series, this one a tribute to the beloved children’s book, Heidi:

Have a great weekend!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

A lot of you email me with questions about writing books, such as: How do you write a book? How do you get a book published? Is it important to get an agent? Have you ever put one of your books down your pants to celebrate getting it published? etc.

In this entry, I’ll attempt to answer one of the questions I get asked most frequently, which is:

Do you have to do research when writing your books?

The answer is:

Yes, I do have to do research when writing my books.

But before I get into that, a brief comment on the Airhead tee shirt contest: It’s over. Winners have been notified via email. If you weren’t notified (check your junk mail box, too), you didn’t win this round. But don’t give up! We had hundreds (if not thousands) of entries, and they were all really good. It was nearly impossible to choose. And there will be more Airhead tee shirts given away soon (sorry, they are not available for purchase), on my site as well as others (check The Compulsive Reader and Book Chic…Book Chic’s give away is coming soon).

I’ll be giving away copies of Airhead the book, in addition to more tees, to a few lucky readers here, as well as in future entries of this blog. So keep coming back!

Now, back to research:

For Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, which will be out in late June, I had to do a great deal of research on the history of weddings, for reasons that will become clear when you read it.

For Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls, The New Girl, I had to research non-violent conflict resolution (also self-defense techniques, in case the non-violent conflict resolution didn’t work out).

For my new book, Airhead, I had to do research on a surgical-related topic. Sadly, revealing the nature of that topic would give away a big spoiler about the book, so I can’t tell you what it is.

Instead, I’ll post this picture of Blake Lively and Penn Badgley, who play Serena and Dan on the show Gossip Girl (and to whom something tragic happened in last night’s season finale). This picture was taken during their recent post-filming, NOT romantic getaway to Mexico (they claim they’re not a couple):

Remember: These two claim they aren’t dating.

As I am currently writing the sequel to Airhead, Being Nikki, I find myself doing research of various kinds. For instance, since a lot of the book has to do with fashion, corporate greed, bio-medical ethics, and modeling, I have been conducting some of my research by perusing this month’s many entertainment and beauty magazines.

Blake and Penn: Not dating. Just eating nachos.

From these magazines, I have gathered the following:

–Skin cancer doesn’t always just manifest itself as a weird looking mole. It can also look like a shiny spot, or even a rough patch on your skin that won’t go away. If you have either of these things, go see a dermatologist right away (my appointment is next Wednesday).

Blake and Penn: Just putting on the sunscreen. Not dating. Not dating at all here.

–I’ve also learned that everyone is excited about the new Sex and the City movie. Even some men, including He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog. When I said I was kind of bummed we’re in Key West and not in New York, so I wouldn’t be able to see it with my friend Beth, he said, “What about me? I want to go see it! I want to see what happens with Carrie and Mr. Big!”

So I’ll guess I’ll be going to see the biggest girlfriend movie of the summer with…my husband! Which is fun, too.

Blake and Penn: Hello. Still not dating.

–All the magazines are saying we need to read Jen Lancaster’s Such a Pretty Fat. I actually got a sent a copy of the ARC this book, but I didn’t have time to read it. And now I can’t find where I put it. Check out the hilarious YouTube video that goes along with this book. So cute!

My favorite part is when she uses sand in her mouth as an excuse to get out of working out. That sounds like something I would say. I want to read this book so much now, I am actually going to go BUY it.

Blake and Penn: ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NOT DATING.

–The magazines are also saying we should be sure not to miss the new MTV series Exiled! Exiled! will follow eight My Super Sweet 16 girls who — at the behest of their parents — were transplanted to primitive tribes around the world to eat, sleep, and experience the lifestyle of the teenage girls who live there year round.

MTV enlisted the United Nations and other nongovernmental organizations to help determine the “indigenous tribes” used for the show (when I was in college we were encouraged to use the words “ethnic groups,” not tribes, but I guess whoever writes MTV’s press releases didn’t go to IU, so didn’t learn this).

I would also like to add that if you’re ripping off your investors, don’t go on My Super Sweet 16, like this girl’s dad did. Busted! I bet there are a lot of people who’d like to see her turn up on Exiled!

–Meanwhile, I saw the trailer for the new 90210…haven’t I seen this show before? Isn’t it called…South of Nowhere? And it’s on the N? Or am I being too harsh?

Blake and Penn: STILL TOTALLY NOT DATING.

–Skin cancer aside, sunlight (in small doses) is good for you. Because it helps your body make vitamin D, and vitamin D is essential to combat (and help prevent) certain kinds of cancer, diabetes, and even multiple sclerosis.

But not when it comes from a tanning bed!

Did I mention the cancer my dad died from started out as skin cancer? So while sitting in the sun is my favorite thing in the whole world (literally–I freak out when the sun doesn’t shine for more than a day, which is why I had to move to Florida), I totally only do it for about ten minutes at a time without sunscreen. The rest of the time, I slather on the various SPFs (15 for some parts, 45 for others), and depend on Jergens Natural Glow to make up the difference.

So love the sun, because it loves you. But be sensible about it!

Blake and Penn: Awwww…It’s so cute how they’re not dating!

(Don’t the bottoms of his feet look soft? Oh, Penn!)

See how fun researching your book can be?

More later.

Much love,

Meg

Wow! There were so many entrants to the Airhead tee shirt contest, I’m still trying to read them all!

But I promise all winners will be notified by the end of this weekend, and their tee shirts shipped by next week.

Your entries (the ones I’ve managed to read so far—I wasn’t expecting quite this many of you to respond!) have run the gamut between funny, touching, and thought provoking.

The vast majority of entrants seem to have chosen Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, JK Rowling, Tyra Banks, Angelina Jolie, and Keira Knightley as the people they’d most like to swap lives with.

Quite a few of you insist you’re happy with the lives you have, thank you very much, and don’t care to have swapsies with anyone!

Many others of you, however, were willing to play along, and chose:

–Hayley from the band Paramore

–Gwen Stefani

–Your twin or sibling (lots of you want to know what your sister or brother is thinking/experiencing)

–Your boyfriend/girlfriend (for the same reason as above)

–Emma Watson

–Idina Menzel from the musical Wicked (many, many votes)

–Blake Lively of Gossip Girl

–Jenna Fischer from The Office (many, many votes. Also, did you see it last night? Did you want to die? I did. SO GOOD! But so FRUSTRATING with the proposal thing! What’s going to happen with Pam? ARGH!)

–Princess Charlotte of Monaco

–Authors Sarah Dessen, John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Stephenie Meyers

–Britney Spears (but only so you could fix her/live her life over and make the right choices!)

–Kate Middleton (Prince William’s girlfriend)

–Your cat

–As well as many, many votes for (get ready for it): Amanda Bynes, Natalie Portman, Johnny Depp, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman, Carrie Underwood, Victoria Beckham, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Avril Lavigne, Renee Zellweger, Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Jessica Parker, America Ferrera, Kathy Griffin, Queen Latifah, Tea Leoni, Jada Pinkett Smith, Michele Obama, Sarah Michelle Gellar, George W. Bush (but only so you can right his wrongs), Bono, Mary Alice from Ace of Cakes (yum, and I love her hair), Giada de Laurentiis (Nutella sandwiches!), Jamie Oliver, Rachel Ray, and many, many more…

…but like I said, I haven’t gotten to them all yet. How I’m going to pick only 30 from all of these is going to be tough! I may have to call in special forces.

But so far none of you have chosen who I would want to swap lives with…Nigella Lawson!

She can cook, which means she gets to eat whatever she wants whenever she wants (with no gluten issues), and even though her mom, her sister, and her first husband all died from cancer, which is really sad, she was able to move on and find love and happiness again. Also the BBC news called her “stunningly beautiful, warm, honest, likeable and amazingly normal” (also, she’s funny and laughs at herself). And look…mmmm, ice cream.

In other news, a young girl was discovered to have her undigested twin in her abdomen (she’s fine now). See? No one believed me when I mentioned this in my book All American Girl, but it CAN happen! (It actually did happen to a friend of mine’s college roommate.)

I was diligently working on Being Nikki, the Airhead sequel (can’t give you any details yet, but I will soon), when Gem, my husband’s cat (who spends the majority of her time outside, trying to trick anyone who walks by our house into petting her…so she can bite them) started shrieking so loudly I was convinced she’d been hit by a car. I ran downstairs to look for her half-smashed body in the street, only to see no sign of her.

So then I ran to the backyard, to find her staring balefully at Herbie, the cat from next door. They weren’t even in a fight! Herbie was sitting calmly a dozen feet away, while Gem was stretched out on the back porch like Cleopatra, shrieking lazily for no reason other than that Herbie was looking at her. When Gem saw me, she started to PURR!

Talk about a drama queen!

Yeah. I would never swap lives with either of my cats. Or Herbie, for that matter. They have brains the size of walnuts.

I found a fun quiz (you’ve probably all taken it before, but I haven’t), Which Disney Character Is Your Alter Ego. Even though she’s the Disney heroine who does the least action-y stuff, I wasn’t too surprised to find out I’m Sleeping Beauty. I love to sleep. Which sucks because I’m also an insomniac.

Thank God for Unisom, is all I have to say. It works much better than enchanted spindles.

Hope you have a good weekend!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

It’s finally here! Airhead is officially in U.S. stores everywhere TODAY!

The day their book is finally released in stores is always a special day for authors. We celebrate in various ways.

Some authors send themselves flowers (if their mom fails to do so first).

Some authors choose to pop open a bottle of champagne (and usually drink the whole thing themselves while huddled in a dark closet, muttering, “If only I’d put a comma in that third paragraph on page 105…If only….Why didn’t I? I’m such a loser!”).

Others spend the whole day glued to their computer screen, checking their book’s rank on Amazon over and over, only to end up buying 20 copies of it themselves just to see the little number thingie go up a few points.

But Book Release Day doesn’t have to be a day of self-rebuke and recrimination! I am determined to make mine a day of joy and celebration.

And to do so, I’m going to give away 30 of these splendiferous Airhead T-shirts….

Yes! They’re American Apparel women’s size M (but they’re stretchy, I promise) with the word Airhead written in metallic gold script across the front (nothing on back) and www.megcabot.com written in tiny gold letters on the bottom right side.

How can YOU win one of these T-shirts? I’ll tell you after these important announcements:

Join me tomorrow, Wednesday, May 14, at 4PM EST at www.gaiaonline.com for a two hour (or possibly more) author chat as well as a virtual fashion show (where participants can read downloadable sample chapters from Airhead and win Airhead virtual prizes for their avatars)!

My Gaia avatar. Doesn’t she look just like me? Look, she’s even holding a little copy of Airhead! Gaians, you can win the dress my avatar is wearing Update from Gaia: Actually, what you can win is a camera, not the dress–sorry for the confusion!–as well as the copy of Airhead, if you attend the chat and work it on the catwalk at the fashion show! Your fellow Gaians will be the judge of your avatar’s performance!

Wait…there’s more:

CosmoGIRL! Online Book Club is featuring Airhead as their May pick! Read their review; an exclusive interview with me; deleted scenes from the book NEVER published anywhere else (for good reason); a special “Airhead” recipe to prepare during your book club meeting; all conveniently located here!

And here are a couple other online reviews of Airhead, courtesy of the Compulsive Reader and Em’s Bookshelf. Thanks, you guys!

And now:

How to win your American Apparel Airhead t-shirt:

Just send me an email (meg@megcabot.com) with the words Airhead Tee in the subject line, telling me who you’d want to swap lives with, if you could swap lives with anyone.

Be sure to include your name, age, and HOME MAILING ADDRESS in the text, so if you win I can mail you your prize (once again: I cannot mail prizes to email addresses). If you’ve won, you’ll be notified. This contest ends at midnight on Wednesday night (the morning of Thursday May 15).

Some hints on how to win: Do NOT say you want to swap lives with me. You will not win if you do this. I’m looking for ideas for who I can swap lives with. So if you say people like Kimora Lee Simmons or Lauren Conrad, you will not automatically win, because I already said them here, so if you choose them I’m going to think you’re super uncreative.

But you will come VERY VERY CLOSE to winning if you pick glamorous rich hot business women and/or royalty or movie stars.

If you say someone like Mother Theresa, you will DEFINITELY NOT win because #1, she’s dead, and #2, even though she was super giving and kind, according to the papers found after her death, she wasn’t too happy with her life. So you better have some good arguments about why I would want to live her life.

Um, hello? I want to swap lives with someone who LOVES their life, don’t you? And has a house in Malibu or at least somewhere equally nice.

Got it? Good. Go.

Lastly, here’s a little something I thought you might enjoy: Em and Nikki, duking it out:

More later,

Much love.

Meg

Okay, I know, I know. I need to post more often.

But this has been a crazy week! From attending the IRA teacher’s convention to the Kentucky Derby (how come every time I watch a horse race, something bad happens? Starting in 1975 when I was eight with the whole Ruffian thing. So traumatizing. I am seriously not watching horse races anymore), to the crazy close election results the other night in Indiana, this week has been NUTS.

I’m so glad I’m home! Now I can get back to concentrating on filling that orange jug. If you want to know why and with what, read here.

Usually I post reviews for books and movies (and the occasional TV show) here, but this time I’m going to post a review for a teaching convention (as I’m resting my aching feet from it). Two thumbs up for the 53rd Annual International Reading Association convention, at the Georgia World Congress Center!

I must have met hundreds (maybe even a thousand) teachers and librarians, and signed a gazillion copies of Allie Finkle and of my new book, Airhead (check it out…we’ve got a message board for it! Feel free to join in if you’ve read it. And have you checked out the Publishers Weekly review it got the other week? No? Oh, well then, you have to, it was so sweet…here are the highlights: “Cabot (the Princess Diaries series) dishes up all the story ingredients her fans have come to know and love—romance, humor, believable teen dialogue and even a fantastical twist….Pure fun, this first series installment will leave readers clamoring for the next.” If you want to read the whole review, visit the Airhead page on my site, where it’s posted)…and walked a jillion miles of convention center carpet.

And, okay, Michael Kors platform wedges were maybe not the correct footwear for the occasion.

I am paying the price now.

In addition to the many marvelous teachers I met, I also got to hang with some fab authors at the various breakfasts, signings, and receptions I attended. I wish I had taken photos, but as usual, I forgot my camera (and I still haven’t figured out how to work my camera phone, although I did accidentally take this blurry photo of the Police Precinct building on Broome Street in Manhattan where Nikki and Lulu, from Airhead, live):

You can kind of see Nikki in the arched window in the center….

But the authors I ran into were (not limited to, and in no particular order, and any author whom I leave out is entirely due to post-convention fatigue amnesia, not because I did not value their acquaintance):
Lisa Yee

E. Lockhart (she and authors Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski are just heading off on a big book tour for this book so click here to see if they’re coming to a town near you)

Rachel Vail

Gail Carson Levine

Jon Scieszka
(who, incidentally, is the first National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress. This is a good job for someone who wrote a book about a stinky cheese man. His “tips for getting kids to read,” by the way, include:

Stop The Testing
All teachers and kids agree: “No Kid Left Behind” is the worst idea EVER! With all this testing, what kid’s got time to read?

Mandatory Reading’s Got to Go
You can plop your cat down in front of food, but you can’t make her eat. Forcing kids to read when they don’t feel like it only makes them resent reading. Let them read when and where they want to.

Broaden Your Definition of What’s Reading
It doesn’t have to be a classic (or 900 pages or on some boring Best 100 Books of Literature) to count: Humor, nonfiction (such as books on sharks), audiobooks (yes, audio books), newspapers, magazines, comic books: If it’s got words, it counts!

Embrace Different Technology
Surfing the web, text messaging, emailing, gaming…it’s all READING! People need to stop looking down on it just because it doesn’t fit the definition of a book. When “they” say reading is down amongst kids, what, exactly, are they counting as reading? Books only? Because reading is actually UP if they’re counting gaming, web content, mangas, etc….

Be a Good Role Model
Show children that reading is cool by reading yourself! And have you read TO a child lately? Part of my “My Favorite Teacher” speech was about how my favorite teacher used to read to us…in the fourth grade! I loved it!

Here’s a cool poem I wrote myself:

If the National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature says it, it must be true.
I can totally get behind these reading tips! Why can’t you?

(I’m a poet and I didn’t know it!)

Wendy Mass

John Green

Sonya Sones

Walter Dean Myers.
(One of the funniest moments of the whole convention—to me–was when I went to wait for Jacky my publicist to meet me at the Scholastic booth to drive me and Walter Dean Myers back to the hotel and I was standing under the Walter Dean Myers poster without my name tag on and all these teachers kept asking when Walter Dean Myers’s signing was going to be.

So I decided to help out the people at the Scholastic booth and I was going, “9AM tomorrow morning,” in answer to everyone’s questions about WDM.

And finally after I answered her question, this one teacher asked, “Aren’t you Meg Cabot?” and I said, “Yes, I am. Scholastic requires all its authors to work in the booth in addition to writing books,” which was a total lie. But then, I lie a lot.

And I don’t think she believed me. She asked if she could take my picture. I was letting her right when Walter Dean Myers walked up with Jacky and her car keys, which completely blew my cover about working there.

Anyway, there were many, many more authors I should totally add but my fingers are getting as tired as my feet so I have to stop now.

Whee! Told you the convention was fun.

Now I have to go because I hear some crazy stuff happened on Gossip Girl which thankfully I DVR’d. I have to watch it right away so I can know what everyone is talking about! I mean, I have to get back to work on Being Nikki, the sequel to Airhead, which is due, like, now.

But I want to leave you the latest YouTube video I just did to celebrate Queen of Babble in the Big City being released in paperback. Since it’s about a teacher (sort of) I think it’s appropriate I post it with today’s entry.

I swear the journal I’m reading from in this video is 100% real….You can tell because in 8th grade I had no idea what a threesome was, with the Luke + Leia + Chewbacca thing. Also, I didn’t know that Luke and Leia were related because Empire hadn’t come out yet.

Also, only the names in the journal entries have been changed to protect the innocent. And seriously, my boobs did not grow overnight: that halter top I’m wearing is like ten times too big. On the day of filming, though, I totally was all, “Oooh, stylish.” But I see now that halter top is a fashion don’t.

Okay, enough. Enjoy:

More later.

Much love,

Meg

As of Monday, I’ll be in Atlanta for the International Reading Association (IRA) annual convention!

I’ll be speaking there (along with some other fantastic authors) at the Scholastic Book Clubs Annual Breakfast Tuesday morning from 7:00AM-8:30AM (I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t 8:30AM the time Meg usually wakes up? Yes. Yes, it is. It’s going to be a fun adventure for all of us, especially Jacky, my publicist, who gets the fun job of meeting me at 6:30AM in the hotel lobby.)

But it’s going to be totally worth it, conference attendees, because we’ll be talking about our favorite teachers! And hey! Delicious food, witty speeches, and FREE BOOKS for everyone!

Conference attendees will also be able to find me right after breakfast at the Scholastic Reading Convention Center mini-theater reading from Allie Finkle’s Rules For Girls: Moving Day.

Then, from 9:15AM-11:00AM, I’ll be at the Scholastic Autographing Book (#2745), sleeping signing and giving away more books. I think the book I’m giving away will be advanced reader copies of Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: The New Girl:

In US stores August 2008

(Oh, yes, you read that right: I said “giving away”—while supplies last. I’ll be signing them, too!)

But if you miss me in the morning, I’ll be back at the Harper Collins Autographing Booth #1961 from 2:00-3:00PM later that afternoon. I have no idea what I’ll be signing and giving away there, but I bet it’ll be something good!

Don’t be sad if you’re missing out on the convention, though. I’ll be giving away more books and ARCs here on the blog (we’re still shipping out the winners from the last contest, so be sure to check your mailbox in the next couple of weeks if you entered…there’s still a chance you might have won….).

And you can always have vicarious Allie Finkle fun by going to Allie Finkle Rules! Since the site launched this spring, we’ve had over 13,000 kids join, with 18,000 new rules and counting submitted by readers. Some of them are truly hilarious (Kid Submitted Rule: if a new girl come’s to school to be the meanest bully ever, just get a sidekick that is cool popular and flipable), while others are heartbreaking (Kid Submitted Rule:treat new kids the way you treat your BEST friend because you dont know what you have till it’s GONE!!!).

Allie’s site is turning into a major social network for the under 13s, without the beat-downs (due to the fact that it’s fully moderated)!

(FYI, I can assure you that in Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: The New Girl, while Allie does encounter a bully, she does NOT get a Sidekick. But she might get that kitten she’s been longing for!)

Meanwhile, I’ve heard from readers that Airhead is showing up in bookstores everywhere! If you haven’t spotted it in a shop near you, keep in mind it’s selling online all over, and should be everywhere by May 13.

I’m superpsyched by the fact that the fantabulous blogging YA librarians, The Ya Ya Yas, seemed to like it!

There’s nothing better than a good librarian review, as librarians rule the world.

Speaking of which, I just found out that my book Jinx is one of 26 nominees for The Young Adult Library Services Association Teens’ Top 10 2008, the only booklist nominated by teens, and then voted for by teens during Teen Read Week, October 12-18, 2008. This is the hugest honor, and I’m so grateful! You guys rock!

This may not come as much of a surprise to many of you, but…I took a little time out yesterday to see a movie called Iron Man (never having read the comic books, I was surprised to find it referenced both “The Walking Dead” and something called Stark Industries, both of which are in my book Airhead. Well, in a different context. The Walking Dead in my book refers to popular people who subjugate their own opinions to fit in with the crowd, and the name of the company my character Nikki Howard works for is Stark Enterprises. Still, I was shocked. I didn’t know I was in a mind meld with Marvel Comics).

This is the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen! Christian Bale’s shirtless push-ups in Batman Begins are still very impressive, but no one beats Robert Downey Jr’s tortured brown eyes, or his character’s motivation for why he becomes a superhero. Even the US Navy fighter pilots who attended the same showing I did (Key West is 90 miles from Cuba. There are five bases here) loved it (while calling each other dorks for doing so. But they let me in a valuable secret: be sure to stay in the theater until the credits are over. There’s an important scene after the movie seems like it’s over that you won’t want to miss!)

And now I have to get back to work on Being Nikki, the sequel to Airhead, since it’s due, um, now.

Oh, Em! Don’t be sad! Your sequel will be out this time next year!

See you in Atlanta (I hope)!

And if not, see you right here…same place, different time!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

There’s so much going on I hardly know where to start. Of course there’s the Miley Cyrus topless photo scandal…

…although frankly, if I were Miley, I’d be more freaked out by the photos of her posing with her dad like he’s her high school boyfriend than by her alleged “topless” photos.

Seriously, think of your dad.

Then think of posing with your dad like this:

Could you do it? With a straight face?

No. Me either. I’d be all, “Dad, ew, gross, stop farting.”

But maybe when Billy Ray is your dad, it’s different.

But there is so much more going on than just the latest Miley scandal!

There’s the fact that Kathy Griffin and the Woz broke up! And he’s apparently marrying someone else! Why, Woz, why? You could have had gossip and laughter every day for breakfast. And now what are you having? Boring old oatmeal? For shame, Woz! It’s not worth it. Go back to Kathy!

And then there is the very icky news that just came out of that polygamist compound in Texas that 31 (at last count) of the 50 teen girls ages 14-17 that they plucked from there are currently pregnant or have already given birth! (Probably, although the blood tests have not come in, by the same couple of 50 year old guys. Ew, ew, and triple ew, and ditto what I said above about farting. Could you IMAGINE????)

I just wish Judge Judy were the judge on this compound case. She’d be like, “Older men having sex with teenagers? That’s disgraceful! That is disgraceful, sir! What were you thinking, madam, letting your daughter do that?” Then she’d make Byrd escort all the men off the compound (permanently), and then the women and children could just live there alone, and the kids would get all sorts of toys instead of having to get up at 3:30AM to mill flour every day. That would be so sweet.

Polygamist men, watch out: When Judge Judy and Byrd come to town, YOU ARE GOING DOWN!!!

Fortunately there is some good news. I have returned from the mother ship (or, as people who are not born there call it, the state of Indiana), where election fever is gripping the heartland. It’s lovely to see so many people caring so much about a presidential campaign for a change. I got to help by sticking labels on mailings and by pointing out to people who are not voting for my candidate of choice how wrong they are, something I think everyone always appreciates (okay, not really. But in my mind they appreciate it).

If you’re feeling down about the election or the state of the economy or the environment or just need a pick-me-up, I again suggest Alexander McCall Smith’s The Miracle at Speedy Motors. I just finished it and it was so good.

It did make me cry though (all the Precious Ramotswe books do, but in a good way. I don’t know why. As Precious put it in this book, sometimes things just pile up—something I think we can all agree on right now—and you have to cry).

I love these books because they follow my philosophy (or the one I try to follow), that kindness is the best policy. Although this isn’t always easy given how annoying most people are these days (like the gum chewer behind me on the plane yesterday). Still, if we’d all just try to be kind to one another, think how much better the world would be.

And Rachel Vail’s new book, Lucky, is out now!

I can’t wait to read it. I love Rachel’s books. Her writing is so crisp and spare, yet so affecting and touching—I can never put one of her books down without heaving a big sigh of happiness.

And this is just the first in a series about three sisters! This one seems to be based on something that really happened to Rachel (at least according to her blog), so that makes me thing this one should be especially good.

Meanwhile, reviews for Airhead (shipping now at many online retailers, coming to a bookstore near you by May 13, if not before—call your local bookseller and be sure to reserve your copy now [at no extra cost, of course]!) continue to roll in!

Here’s a fun one from 3 Evil Cousins (I love that name. I only have one girl cousin, and she’s the opposite of evil, so I could never have a blog like this)!

And here’s a great one from Kirkus:

Unlike her starry-eyed sister, down-to-earth Em Watts isn’t thrilled to be at Stark Megastore’s star-studded opening, especially since her best friend and secret crush, Christopher, can’t stop drooling over teen modeling sensation and Stark representative, Nikki Howard. Just as Em wonders how Nikki can captivate people so, she suffers an accident that sends her to a Manhattan hospital with life-altering injuries that intimately intertwine both women forever—(this line deleted due to being a major spoiler). This bizarre new relationship with Nikki forces Em, a self-identifying feminist, to reevaluate her life views and slowly to accept Nikki as more than just an airhead. Although quick to set up the accident and its repercussions, the text slows down to an even pace, introducing many juicy issues to be explored in the upcoming sequel, especially with respect to nefarious corporate activities. Although it relies on a somewhat far-fetched premise, the text’s abundant references to current pop culture and Em’s witty character keep this read both grounded and fun. (Fiction. YA)

This isn’t the first review to mention that the premise for Airhead is far-fetched, but I would just like to assure you, it is not. I don’t want to spoil the book for you by telling you what that premise is (it’s actually part of the mystery the heroine has to solve, or I would). But I spent days researching it, and the premise is not only possible, it HAS BEEN DONE.

Well, on monkeys. I’d provide you with the links to the data I read (which is online), but again, it would spoil the book for you.

And okay, the monkeys didn’t live very long, and personally, I don’t think they had a very good time. But I’m just saying. It’s been done.

So, it’s not far-fetched in any way. It is the FUTURE.

I’ve often wondered why people say books where girls turn out to be princesses, or get struck by lightning and turn out to have ESP—BOTH OF WHICH HAVE ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN DOCUMENTED, REAL LIFE CASES–are far-fetched, but never say books about boys who turn out to be wizards, or fly around on dragons, or turn out to be vampires or fairies, are far-fetched. Because there is actually such a thing as princesses and ESP. There is no such thing as wizards, dragons, vampires, fairies, or, sadly, Hellboy. Or Speed Racer. Or, by the way, zombies.

And just why doesn’t anyone think zombies are far-fetched? All of my