Until yesterday, I was unaware of a site named commonsensemedia. org. My Big Brother Google alerted me, though, when one of the commonsensors posted a review of Soul Enchilada.

Dutifully, I followed the link. I read the review. As reviews go, it was fine. In fact, it was quite complimentary of the book. Then I read the section of the page labeled “Parents Need to Know.” Apparently, parents need to know only about Message, Violence, Sex, and Language. Curious, I clicked on the Message tab, and I found that Message is defined in terms of Consumerism and Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco. I’ll be frank: Soul Enchilada has a message, and the evils of rampant consumerism is part of that message.

However, that’s not what the commonsensors mean by Message, not when they list “clothing, shoe, candy, cereal, car, fast food, beer, sneaker brands” as mentioned. Of course, they’re mentioned. The main character drives a 1958 Cadillac. Am I supposed to leave out Cadillac and replace it with ‘car’? It’s not like Matrix, with its blatant Nokia product placements. Even worse, though was the list of Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco: “References to marijuana and morphine.” Excuse me? EXCUSE me? Morphine? The only mention of morphine was the main character’s memory of reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The only mentions of marijuana come when one character tells another to “get off the weed.” There is no weed use in the book, and no one uses morphine. The commonsensors certainly make it seem that way, however, clearly misrepresenting the book and the main character, who is adamantly anti-drug. The real Message, both the main character’s and mine, is lost in this terribly simple-minded translation.

In the sense of full disclosure, the book does have Language. Several of them. English, Spanish, French, Latin, and ancient Akkadian. There is also cussing. Great gobs of asses, damns and hells, a few bitches, and a couple of shits thrown in. It’s not the way the proper young ladies are raised to speak, but nobody ever called Bug, who is the product of her environment, proper. Which is also part of the message of the book.

Books must have reviews—positive and negative--to survive. It’s the way things work. Commonsensemedia. org certainly has the First Amendment right to share its thoughts about books and other forms of media. But when someone misrepresents an author’s work in the name of warning parents about content that simply isn’t there, then we’ve crossed the line from reviewing to passing judgment, and that is never a good thing.

I was shocked! shocked! when I realize three weeks have passed since the last post. What’ve I been doing? It would be great to say that it was a terrific new project that I kept under wraps. Sadly, I’ve only been working through a revision (it’s done and is marinating before it goes out) and starting up my annual summer school courses.. While I wasn’t looking, though, people have been posting about Soul Enchilada:

Matthew Holm of Baby Mouse fame, in support of the Bridget Zinn Auction, is posting about overlooked gems on auction. He posted about my donation of the audiobook of Soul Enchilada. The current bid is $35.00. This is a great cause, so I’d like to spice up the pot: If the winning bid passes $50, I’ll throw in a signed copy of Soul Enchilada in addition to the audiobook.

AARP adds Soul Enchilada to its shortlist of books grandparents can buy for teens.

SPPL Teens: “Soul Enchilada is a death defying gut-buster! (aka: funny)

Cincinnati Public Library: “Readers who don’t mind the occasional bout of gross-out humor will be in for a fun ride here.”

Bettendorf Public Library: “This is a very funny book filled with madcap adventures.”

Ever had the odd experience of *knowing* you've made a post, but when you look back, it's not there? That's the case with my post last week chronicling the second day of the WonderTwins Mini-Tour. Although I wrote the post, somehow my blogging client software didn't follow my command to post it. What good is software if it doesn't follow your commands?

The original post is below.  But first, a couple of words from out sponsors: Soul Enchilada has been nominated for BBYA, Best Books for Young Adults, a honor presented by ALA. Nomination is only the first step in a very deliberate process, but it's nice to be mentioned.

Also, David Lubar mentions his recent purchase of Soul Enchilada and writerross beats me to a most excellent pun.

The Wonder Twins Tour Part B

Holland Boys & Girls Club

For someone who once toyed with doing open-mic stand-up, the venue at the Holland Boys & Girls Club was perfect. Espresso bar, pool and ping-pong tables, computer lab, and small gym, plus a stage, lights, a mic, and a stool. Who could ask for more. But wait! There is more. Add an uber energetic youth programs director named JJ and a group full of smart, funny, engaging teens as an audience. They hadn't read the book, but I didn't mind--I taught high school English, so I'm used to leading discussions where no one has read the material. ;-)

A sign that I was in the right place.

Boys & Girls of Holland

JJ and friend

Asked EXCELLENT questions.

The whole crew. Thanks guys!

BrillianceAudio studio tour:

The third day of the trip, I had the delightful experience of touring the production and engineering studios of Brilliance Audio, the audiobook publishers of Soul Enchilada. It's a humbling experience listening to professional readers work their magic from inside a sound proof cubicle with nothing but a book, a reading light, and the sound of their voices. The geek in me loved watching the engineers work through "punches" or mistakes in the readings, and then clean up the recording for any page noises, missed words, hiccups, sighs, or tummy rumblings.

Another sign that I'm in the right place.

This is where they record.

This is where they fix the recordings (note happy engineers).

And this is how they decorate the conference room (turn your head to the right).

Reviews and interviews, plus a hunt for luggage:

1. Alethea Kontis interviews me for Ingram Book Company

2. Jia on the Dear Author blog says nice things about Soul Enchilada.

3. The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books says this: “Bug finds that she is a key tool in Beals' plan to overthrow Lucifer as head of the underworld, and that gives her just the amount of leverage she needs to pit the two baddies against each other in irresistible competition in the fields of competitive pizza delivery and basketball. This plays into the same spirit of Southern blues mythology that ignited Charlie Daniels' fiddle but credibly renders it specific to the time and characters. Bug's urban slang and feisty, streetwise attitude make her endearing.”

4. The Bookends Bloggers of Booklist Lynn Rutan and Cindy Dobrez reviewed Soul, as well. They also included a post about my recent visit to Grand Haven and Holland.

5. I'm on the hunt for the perfect luggage--22 inch carryon with slot for laptop, outer pocket for toiletries, wheels, and a handle. Suggestions?

Cindy Pon's extraordinary debut novel, Silver Phoenix, is on sale today. All launch buzz hyperbole aside, this is one of my favorite novels of the last year. Cindy is gifted writer with a great eye for sensory detail, but it's the voice of the main character, Ai Lang, that carries the story. I read a lot of books. This one is a keeper.

And remember, Buy Indie! 

The official description: No one wanted Ai Ling. And deep down she is relieved—despite the dishonor she has brought upon her family—to be unbetrothed and free, not some stranger's subservient bride banished to the inner quarters.

But now, something is after her. Something terrifying—a force she cannot comprehend. And as pieces of the puzzle start to fit together, Ai Ling begins to understand that her journey to the Palace of Fragrant Dreams isn't only a quest to find her beloved father but a venture with stakes larger than she could have imagined.

Bravery, intelligence, the will to fight and fight hard . . . she will need all of these things. Just as she will need the new and mysterious power growing within her. She will also need help.

It is Chen Yong who finds her partly submerged and barely breathing at the edge of a deep lake. There is something of unspeakable evil trying to drag her under. On a quest of his own, Chen Yong offers that help . . . and perhaps more.

About the Author: Cindy Pon was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and her family immigrated to California in 1980, settling in the suburbs of Los Angeles. She began writing stories before she was officially declared English proficient. She received her bachelor's from the University of California, San Diego, and also earned a master's from New York University. The author is a student of Chinese brush painting, and her love for the art is reflected in her storytelling. Cindy Pon lives with her husband and two small children in San Diego, California.

Last week, I flew to snowy Western Michigan to do a couple of short but glorious site visits with Wonder Twins librarians Cindy Dobrez and Lynn Rutan, as well as touring the offices of my audiobook publisher, Brilliance Audio (more about that later). Of course, my flights were delayed--never fly with me--due to mechanical problems, weather, and someone who got caught in the jetway. Eventually, I made it to Grand Rapids then drove across to Grand Haven, which is on the shores of Lake Michigan: 

I'm not making this up. Courtesy of Google alerts, I found this Japanese website, which has posted Cynthia Leitich Smith's interview with me after translating it from English to Japanese  back to English. I think.

Read on, brave friend, and discover why I "scribble for the profit teenagers today."

Author Interview: David Macinnis Gill on Soul Enchilada, Comedy Blog

David Macinnis Gill is the inventor of the launching blockbuster, Soul Enchilada (Greenwillow). His stories bear appeared in different magazines, and his carping biography, Graham Salisbury: Island Boy, was published about Scarecrow Press (2005). He holds a bachelor's noxious in English/creative composition and a doctorate in insight, both from the University of Tennessee.
David has been a firm painter, cafeteria executive, bookstore schlepper, stoned votaries counsellor, and college professor.

What were you like as a inexperienced reader?
Starved.
He nowadays lives on the Carolina earth-slip with his relations, with the addition of fourteen fish, two rescued dogs, and a nocturnal marsupial. I accomplished to ponder the maiden well-illuminated of day of votaries and haven't stopped that. In mid-section votaries, I signed up to be a library humanity Friday so that I could bear disenthrall access to the library in the later votaries, after votaries, during lunch, homeroom, and any begetter when I finished my beget. At haunt, I ponder jocose books, and my comics assembly was staggering.
I ponder impartial about the unbroken shooting counterpart, initially sports books as a mid-section reader then proficiency fiction and aversion as a teen.
Sadly, I sold it in the later first to college.
Why do you scribble for the profit teenagers today?
I of we all suborn e learn stuck in an lifetime, to some measure assess. Plus, I was a stoned votaries counsellor, and I wanted to pass dated students books to ponder, of, and talk about. For me, that lifetime was seventeen, and I silent desire like I'm that above-named.
What about inexperienced fanciful heroes appeals to you as a man of letters?
Like stories about lawyers and sports, stories with inexperienced full-grown heroes bear built-in acting.
Who can curb a coming-of-age legend? We are a association that appreciates a good enough butterfly hatching. An emissary ponder anybody of those stories and suggested I scribble novels as an alternative.
Could you require us about your master plan to issuance? Any sprints or stumbles along the technique?
Stumbles, make haste bumps, and See trade circles! My maiden fiction was published in literary magazines in the antediluvian 1990s.
I began as without delay as, and after at most seven tries and thirteen years (I estimate I'm a unpunctual learner), I figured dated how to scribble a blockbuster and build a legend presentation that got a apportionment of blower.
In June of 2007, I submitted it to my modish emissary, who signed me on.
Looking disown on your apprenticeship as a man of letters, is there anything you upon you'd done differently? If so, what and why?
I would bear majored in something other than nonconformist composition in college. After two revisions, it sold to GreenwillowBooks, a firm that I had each on many occasions admired and at the beck no circumstances dreamed would pick up Soul Enchilada. It's more deserving, I of, to bear something to scribble about than to allot on many occasions information to scribble a uncommonly personal to model of fiction.
Instead, I would bear gone to workshops about practicing novelists who could bear shortened my information curve. There is nothing like finishing a legend, then revising it until it's as good enough as it's first to be.
On the fling side, what was most constructive to you in terms of developing your around?
Those seven unpublished novels.
It's heartbreaking when you reciprocation that the finished outcome isn't in any case first to be good enough adequacy, but it gave me the belief that I could brook any overhaul, no burden how staggering, and silent narrowest import the bring about objections to to. It also makes it easier attentiveness and split up with away something that impartial is at the beck no circumstances first to beget.
Congratulations on your launching blockbuster, Soul Enchilada (Greenwillow, April 2009)! What was your inaugural enlightenment for the profit composition the legend?
The blockbuster began as a icky fond of deficient in legend in 2005.
Also, my critique partners, Julie, Shannon, Jean, Lauren, and Lindsay, who are but readers and writers, bear saved my mental health a hundred times all at the beck the aegis. One of my writers groups was having a Halloween legend call into inconceivable. I was preordained different legend seeds to build my beget, and I had to encompass the seeds in the legend. I entered the legend into the WIN icky fond of deficient in legend call into inconceivable, and it won. While I didn't around, my hint was greeted enthusiastically about the association.
What was the timeline between energize and each issuance, and what were the pre-eminent events along the technique?
Flash convey two years: I was struggling with the umpteenth overhaul of a ghost legend when I unfaltering to do something with the Halloween legend. I bootless the other blockbuster aside and began letting the storyteller of the icky fond of deficient in legend require me more about her energy. The unbroken timeline would be:
1.
Her agency swept me up, and the maiden capital not cricket c dated of commission was down within a month. energize: 20052. maiden capital not cricket c dated of commission finished: 20073. unpunctual down: up to date constitution academic 20075.
agent signed: 20074. issuance: 2009.
What were the challenges (literary, enquiry, intellectual, and logistical) in bringing the libretto to energy?
I should mention, "getting the narrator's agency principal," because she is so bosom from me.
The bring about objections to to came from the scene, El Paso. But that was the easiest position.
I bear at the beck no circumstances been to West Texas, so Ineeded a ton of info on places, names, locales, smells, sounds, and attitudes. My critique partners were expensive, and I acclimatized the Internet for the profit the shut-eye.
What about the publishing activity has surprised you most and why?
The amount of on many occasions and dynamism my publisher wishes allot to around secure the unbroken shooting counterpart is unquestionably principal.
The other inflexible position was weaving all of these disparate elements of folklore, appear enlightenment, sports, the follow, classism, and the American literary canon into anybody zestful declaration. I'm thrilled that I kept notes on my enquiry, because there were individual elements that I had to confirm in the later including them.
Also, I was surprised that my rewriter likes cross dated marks.
Terrifying. I had heard that they were verboten!
Big spitting image, what is it like, being a launching inventor?
Thrilling. Intense. Joyous. Overwhelming. Lonely. Flattering.
Rumbling. Fumbling. Stumbling. And humbling, when you learn that there are individual people that you've at the beck no circumstances heard of who are cheering for the profit your not any libretto to do serenely.
In terms of marketing and outreach, how do you join with your readers?
With both hands and lots of Velcro? I bear the requisite websites (personal and libretto specific), Facebook, MySpace, Goodreads, and Twitter.
How do you equilibrium your energy as a man of letters with the responsibilities (speaking, stimulation, etc.) of being an inventor? Or, more globally, how is that correcting first?
The technique I conspicuous by equilibrium is to run out from anybody side of the ascend to the other, hoping that it won't extremity. Readers can phone via any of those sites, as serenely as the phone something on my website. Balance-wise, I of I'm a dead originator.
I've each on many occasions been a hyper-attentive man who daydreams constantly, and I don't multi-task serenely, so there's a apportionment of putting dated of fires and bouncing from anybody trustworthiness to next.
Do you beget with a mentor, critique association or accomplice, or exclusively with your rewriter? Why does that read leak-proof thick-witted to beget for the profit you?
Did I already mention that I bear an elevated critique association? Well, I bear an elevated critique association fully of (now) published authors.
Someday, when I'm a grownup, I'll suborn e learn organized. We got started via Verla Kay's blueboard [Children's Writers and Illustrators Message Board] and created an electronic seating array. They are all acute readers and reassuring of anybody another.
Since my maiden purchase, that has morphed relatively, with my rewriter intriguing the foremost in shaping my beget. It was their belief in Soul Enchilada that made me reciprocation that I had a unexcelled hint.
But I each on many occasions after their feedback in the later I send beget to my rewriter.
What notification do you bear for the profit commencement writers?Read with an examination for the profit around.
I attest to that notification, although I of starting writers should ponder thoroughly in the genus of their tiptop and then chose a insufficient different of brilliant writers whose beget they attentiveness exceptionally.
The expected notification is ponder, ponder, ponder and scribble, scribble, scribble. Read the books again with a carping examination, irksome to attentiveness the structural elements that around the blockbuster beget.
And when you scribble, be meditating of both your activity and your outcome.
You garb more than anybody hat in the devotee of YA rumours! Could you distend us in on your other activities in the devotee?
I'm the past-president of the Assembly on Literature for the profit Adolescents, the largest mistress association compensation to the ponder of inexperienced full-grown rumours. Can you scribble a locate more dramatically? Can you nip your activity so that you beget more efficiently and create mannerly emulate?
Be game to make one's technique by foot away from a legend that isn't working so that you can construct up a legend that wishes. I served on the ALAN Board of Directors for the profit barely ten years.
In totting up, I wrote an to column for the profit Teacher Librarian journal and was a libretto reviewer.
How do the individual "Davids" in YA rumours require on anybody another? Do they each on many occasions suborn e learn along?
The inventor David is briefed more about the authority David than vice-versa. I've published books and article of literary critique about the YA devotee. Publishing is a debouchment, and working as ALAN president has preordained me fraught percipience on how marketing, sales, and stimulation beget.
Because I was in the reminisce over of how marketing-and-publicity departments tiptop authors and books to incursion, along with where they are promoted and why, I was uncommonly briefed about what happened after Soul Enchilada red my hands for the profit the irrefutable on many occasions.
I desire like I bear a broader seascape of the devotee of inexperienced full-grown rumours and how I how as a man of letters I correspond into it.

Today, I had a great time on WUNC's "The State of Things." Laura Leslie hosted the program. She was funny, professional, and put up with me making faces at her. She also has an incredible voice. The day before, producer Susan Davis called, and we chatted about the book, writing, teaching, etc. So going in, I knew what expect. The studios, located in a section of Durham that used to be a tobacco warehouse--near the Durham Bulls baseball stadium, are very pleasant.

When they were doing a sound check on my mic, Laura asked me what I had for breakfast. "Nothing," I said, "and I'm starving!" Remember what I wrote about the stuff that comes out of my mouth? That's a prime example.  Another thing they didn't except was my hands. When I get hyped, I talk with my hands. So my hands were flying everywhere. Also, the guests after me were musicians, so there was a humongous bass on the floor next to me.  It was everything I could do not to pluck it.

The interview is archived on the WUNC website here: http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0417b09.mp3/view

After we finished, I slipped out of the studio to take a couple of photos.

Then I drove down to Raleigh, where I met the boy and one of his friends for the best burgers ever.

Thanks to everyone who sent tweets, posted, emailed, and followed along. I was reading them during breaks.

Next up, Michigan! Home of Brilliance Audio and the Wonder Twins of YA!

In yet another debut, I will make my first radio appearance EVAH on WUNC North Carolina Public Radio (except for the time I won a I Heart Chattanooga t-shirt that was two sizes too small). I'll be a guest on "The State of Things" hosted by Frank Stasio. This is a live program, and if you're really, really looking for something to listen to while eating lunch (or brunch, for you West Coasters), you can tune in via the WUNC web site at noon on Friday, April 17. I think I'm supposed to talk about Soul Enchilada, but Lord only knows what will come out of my mouth.

WUNC is available via a variety of formats, including podcast, iTunes, etc. For more info, go here: http://wunc.org/about/online-streams-mobile-podcasting/listen

When I began first grade (first grade meant first grade--our school system didn’t have kindergarten), I had never read a book, and no one had ever read one to me. My exposure to stories was limited to either television or family mythology. Both of these experiences were incredibly homogenized: I grew up in all-white communities, and network television with its whopping three channels of programming had only white faces-except for the Mod Squad.

With a week of instruction in basal primers, I knew how to read. Quickly, I unzipped the code of our written alphabet, and I was allowed to move through the primer at my own pace. But reading was an exercise--like trying to form letters with a jumbo pencil longer and fatter than my fingers--not an act of joy.
My favorite time of day, though, was when after lunch, our teacher would let us stretch out on the floor while she read from picture books. Most days, I would lie on my back, eyes closed, listening to the words, until the teacher would pause to show us the pictures.

Most of the pictures were fairly unmemorable--or at least, I don't remember them.  But I still remember the day when after a scrumptious lunch of runny macaroni and cheese, boiled cabbage, and beets, I lay drowsy on the floor and heard these words:

"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another
his mother called him “WILD THING!”
and Max said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!”
so he was sent to bed without eating anything."

One eye popped open.  Mischief? Wild Thing? The second eye popped, too.  I’ll eat you up? What, I wondered, do the pictures of a wild thing that dares threaten to eat his mama up look like?

I rolled to my side. Propped myself on an elbow. My teacher held up the book, the pictures showing a dark haired boy in a wolf suit. How exotic! (I didn’t know the word exotic then, but it fits my reaction). Not the wolf suit--the black hair. No one I knew had black hair. No one I knew had olive skin. No one I knew got to misbehave and just be sent off with no supper.No one I knew had his own bedroom!
But wait! There was more. Here was a boy whose imagination let him pilot a boat by himself, land in a strange place, and tame wild animals with a trick of staring into their eyes. And the monsters! A horned monster with big ears and bare feet? Bare feet? No one I knew went bare foot. And when he was finished, he told the wild things no, and when he got home, his dinner was still warm.

Max looked so different from anyone I had ever seen, I almost feared him. For a first grader who controlled almost nothing in life, the idea of a child who could take a journey, tame wild animals, have a wild rumpus, and return home safely was magical. Little did I know it then, propped up on a now-numb elbow on a cold concrete floor, but my idea of "story" changed forever. An inciting incident. A journey. Conquest against monsters. Ruling until it becomes unsatisfactory. The return home. A warm welcome. The story comes full circle. The end.

And that was the point that I became reader, instead someone who read. Books became a portal to strange and exotic places, a mirror on faces I could not see in the hallways, a map to lands inhabited with monsters I could never imagine--and I had a very vivid imagination.

Very little has changed for me. When I write a story, I try to recreate the same kind of reading experience for my readers--an unusual hero, an exotic locale, and monsters to be defeated. And if you have a wild rumpus as an important element of your plot, it is must between to show the rumpus than tell it.
When I read, I still yearn for the story that will make my eyes pop open. And although I've read many novels thick enough to use as a stepladder, I'm still a sucker for a well-read story. Especially if it has pictures.

David Macinnis Gill
Author of Soul Enchilada
www.soulenchilada.com
Visit David's website, his MySpace Profile, and his Facebook Profile

I have confirmation for more appearances to promote Bug and her book.  The Launch Party is tonight, 6-8PM at New Hanover County Public Library, starting at 6PM. Other dates are:

* Tuesday, April 14, 10AM, Ashley High School (not a public event)

* Friday, April 17, Noon. Durham NC. I will appear on "The State of Things" on WUNC Statewide Public Radio

* Tuesday, April 21, 6:30PM. Holland, MI. Holland Boys&Girls Club. (not a public event but more events coming)

* Friday, June 5, 6:30AM. Wilmington NC. I will appear on WWAY TV's "Good Morning Carolina Show"

• The Book - Have a look, then buy it now!

• The Author - David Macinnis Gill - my awesome critique buddy!

• The Reading Guide - Attentions book clubs and teachers!

• Author Interviews: Get to know the amazing David at Young Adult Book Central, Cynthea Liu, Julie M. Prince, Debbi Michiko Florence, Cynsations

• Bug (and David) in the News: StarNewsOnline
• Added: An interview by one of my editors, Martha Mihalick on Facebook

Shop Indie Bookstores

SOUL ENCHILADA has launched!

It's Monday--a cold, wet, windy Monday complete with a tornado warning and a low ceiling of gray shaded clouds that hang like Spanish moss above our building. But I'm my own little ray of sunshine because yesterday, the local paper, Star-News, ran a feature on me and for a short while, I was on the front page of their web site.  Also,

One More Day Until Launch!