Several years ago, Elsewhere received the Sakura Medal, an award given by the students of the various International Schools in Japan. I was delighted to receive this award because it comes with an actual medal* and, if you knew me, you'd know I like to obnoxiously bestow FAKE medals all the time. The "doing the dishes" medal, say. Or the very prestigious "cleared all the old television shows from my DVR" medal. Or the rarely given but hugely coveted "managed to not check Amazon.com for a month" medal.
Now, the strangely appropriate thing about this story is that a Japanese-language film version of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is currently shooting in Tokyo. The movie has been re-set to happen at an International School and, of course, translated to Japanese -- much else remains the same from the book. I know this because I wrote the screenplay. The movie stars Kenichi Matsuyama (as James now Yugi), Yuya Tegoshi (as Will now Mirai), and Maki Horikita (as Naomi still Naomi -- Naomi is a Japanese name; I picked it for the book because the Japanese characters translate to beautiful correction -- strangely appropriate again, I'd say). I am told that, if I were a Japanese teenage girl or even Japanese, I'd be screaming wildly at this cast. As the movie is set at an International School, there will be two young, well-known American actors in the cast -- more on them later. You can read a wildly inaccurate article about the movie from Variety that doesn't mention me or the book at all.
On other fronts, Love is Hell, the anthology I'm in along with Justine Larbalestier, Melissa Marr, Scott Westerfeld, and Laurie Faria Stolarz is now in stores and available for purchase online. I know this because I've been getting quite a bit of e-mail about my story and yeah, I'll try to post something in response to your very intriguing queries in the not so distant. Aside from the fact that he refers to me as Gabriel, Scott Westerfeld** does an awfully good job synopsizing the anthology on his blog. What I'd add to that is Publishers Weekly called the book "consistently supple" -- which sounds to me rather like a fine leather sofa and possibly an oxymoron, depending on which definition of supple one's chosen. Oh reviewers, how you tease me with your ADVERB + ADJECTIVE praise construction. Over the course of my career, I've been "playfully touching," "darkly whimsical," "effectively taut" -- actually, this is starting to sound sort of dirty; we had better quit here.
Now, the strangely appropriate thing about this story is that a Japanese-language film version of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is currently shooting in Tokyo. The movie has been re-set to happen at an International School and, of course, translated to Japanese -- much else remains the same from the book. I know this because I wrote the screenplay. The movie stars Kenichi Matsuyama (as James now Yugi), Yuya Tegoshi (as Will now Mirai), and Maki Horikita (as Naomi still Naomi -- Naomi is a Japanese name; I picked it for the book because the Japanese characters translate to beautiful correction -- strangely appropriate again, I'd say). I am told that, if I were a Japanese teenage girl or even Japanese, I'd be screaming wildly at this cast. As the movie is set at an International School, there will be two young, well-known American actors in the cast -- more on them later. You can read a wildly inaccurate article about the movie from Variety that doesn't mention me or the book at all.
On other fronts, Love is Hell, the anthology I'm in along with Justine Larbalestier, Melissa Marr, Scott Westerfeld, and Laurie Faria Stolarz is now in stores and available for purchase online. I know this because I've been getting quite a bit of e-mail about my story and yeah, I'll try to post something in response to your very intriguing queries in the not so distant. Aside from the fact that he refers to me as Gabriel, Scott Westerfeld** does an awfully good job synopsizing the anthology on his blog. What I'd add to that is Publishers Weekly called the book "consistently supple" -- which sounds to me rather like a fine leather sofa and possibly an oxymoron, depending on which definition of supple one's chosen. Oh reviewers, how you tease me with your ADVERB + ADJECTIVE praise construction. Over the course of my career, I've been "playfully touching," "darkly whimsical," "effectively taut" -- actually, this is starting to sound sort of dirty; we had better quit here.
Re: the photo. Readers of Memoirs will recognize this as the first scene of the book: James (now Yugi) runs to Naomi who is lying at the bottom of the stairs with the rescued camera. More pictures to come as I get permission to post them.
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*I've been fortunate enough to win several prizes over the years. (And really, how nice for me! I thought my prize-getting days had ended with the 1995 Spanish River High School Senior Awards Assembly.) The most recent thing I won was the Delaware Blue Hen Teen Book Award for Memoirs which came with a very nice certificate (Thank you so very much, Delaware teen readers and librarians!) -- but my favorite prize is the Georgia Peach Teen Book Award. Honorable Mention for Elsewhere came with a beautiful blown glass peach. In my opinion, all awards should come with blown glass fruit.
**I am rarely told I resemble anyone but I have, on several occasions, been told I look like the girl from the cover of Scott Westerfeld's Extras. Mostly this happened on my 2007 Book Tour -- I suspect it was because everywhere I went, Scott Westerfeld had just been there the day before on his own book tour for Extras. I was thus bombarded by tales of Scott Westerfeld's epic charm and wit. e.g. "Scott Westerfeld wore his pajamas! Isn't that awesome?" Or once, in a city Scott Westerfeld HAD NOT yet been, I asked, "So, was Scott Westerfeld just here?" And the librarian turned to the bookseller who had arranged my appearance and said, "No, but could you get us Scott Westerfeld next time? We LOVE him! And has anyone ever mentioned that you look like the girl from Extras?" So yeah, buy Love Is Hell. I'm liked, but I'd say Scott Westerfeld is well liked, and therein lies all the difference.
For comparison's sake, a picture taken of me by my mom from my birthday just past. I really should be liberally cropped and scowling more to be the girl from Extras.
The girl from Extras. She should be scowling less to be me. And she should really do something about that crazy eye.
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*I've been fortunate enough to win several prizes over the years. (And really, how nice for me! I thought my prize-getting days had ended with the 1995 Spanish River High School Senior Awards Assembly.) The most recent thing I won was the Delaware Blue Hen Teen Book Award for Memoirs which came with a very nice certificate (Thank you so very much, Delaware teen readers and librarians!) -- but my favorite prize is the Georgia Peach Teen Book Award. Honorable Mention for Elsewhere came with a beautiful blown glass peach. In my opinion, all awards should come with blown glass fruit.
**I am rarely told I resemble anyone but I have, on several occasions, been told I look like the girl from the cover of Scott Westerfeld's Extras. Mostly this happened on my 2007 Book Tour -- I suspect it was because everywhere I went, Scott Westerfeld had just been there the day before on his own book tour for Extras. I was thus bombarded by tales of Scott Westerfeld's epic charm and wit. e.g. "Scott Westerfeld wore his pajamas! Isn't that awesome?" Or once, in a city Scott Westerfeld HAD NOT yet been, I asked, "So, was Scott Westerfeld just here?" And the librarian turned to the bookseller who had arranged my appearance and said, "No, but could you get us Scott Westerfeld next time? We LOVE him! And has anyone ever mentioned that you look like the girl from Extras?" So yeah, buy Love Is Hell. I'm liked, but I'd say Scott Westerfeld is well liked, and therein lies all the difference.
For comparison's sake, a picture taken of me by my mom from my birthday just past. I really should be liberally cropped and scowling more to be the girl from Extras.
The girl from Extras. She should be scowling less to be me. And she should really do something about that crazy eye.
