July 15, 2005

At last! Thank God! In less than 24 hours you all can know everything I know and we can talk about it! I can't wait. I'm going to the Scholastic party in the early evening, then meeting my sister's train from Washington at Penn Station at 10:30. From there I plan to go to Toys 'R' Us in Times Square for the actual release at midnight -- it's like New Year's, that moment, all the waiting over and the anticipation released, even if you don't actually have the book in your hands yet. And when you get the book in your hands, ah . . . all the story and all the secrets, yours yours yours, at long last. I hope it lives up to everyone's expectations and look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

Of course Melissa Anelli will have the book at 7 p.m. UK time, and I fully expect her to call me and scream several times in the course of the evening. And R. J. Anderson always has interesting theories on the HP series (as well as by far the best fanfic I've read), so I look forward to seeing her thoughts too.

A little Arthur A. Levine Books boasting: Arthur was profiled in the Baltimore Sun here. (The picture, incidentally, must have been taken with him sitting on the floor in the Scholastic hallway, as that's our hall carpet (printed with the Scholastic mission statement) in the background behind him.) I was listed as a source in two USA Today articles about Harry Potter, here and here. Thanks to the truly heroic efforts of the marvelous Rachel Griffiths, our imprint website is finally fully up and running here. Thanks to the likewise brilliant efforts of Lisa Yee, she, I, and Scholastic CEO Dick Robinson appear in a photo (taken at ALA) on the Publishers Weekly website here. And this is as good a time as any to make the announcement: I have been promoted to Editor, Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, and I'm very pleased and proud. (Rachel and I went and got pedicures in celebration, so my toenails are currently a pearlescent aqua, the better to coordinate with the HP5 shirt I'm planning to wear tomorrow.)

Recent cultural events: Last night I went to the Housing Works Used Bookstore and Cafe to see a taping of the Air America show "Liberal Arts," starring Dar Williams and the very funny Chuck Klosterman. Chuck looks exactly like the stereotype of the pasty overgrown rock geek with big glasses -- an impression confirmed when he compared each of his past girlfriends to a different member of KISS -- but his previous book, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low-Culture Manifesto, made me laugh and nod in recognition more than any other book in 2003, and based on the excerpt I heard last night, I look forward to reading the new Killing Yourself to Live for the same reason. Dar performed three songs from her forthcoming album, whose title I unfortunately cannot remember, but I liked the one called "Teen for God" the best . . . and she was just as interesting and articulate in person as she is on "Out There Live."

And tonight Ben and I went to the Jewish Museum to see the Maurice Sendak exhibit, which I commend to anyone in the New York area before it closes on August 15. Being an editorial dork, I got most emotional and excited about the manuscript of Where the Wild Things Are with Ursula Nordstrom's comments on it, but there is plenty of interest to anyone with even the mildest interest in children's books, Jewish literature, or artistic interpretations of the Holocaust.

Finally, if you will indulge me in one last evil laugh for old times' sake: hee hee hee. :-) Enjoy Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, everyone!