The Divas

Sandy’s Take on Framily Values

2012-01-14T08:08:00.000-08:00

So, let’s get straight to the bad news: my dad died recently. Too recently to want to put a date on it, actually.

As someone who likes to cross bridges long before I come to them, I had worked out a Grief Management Strategy (GMS) well in advance. Basically, I go to work, avoid all mention of The Incident, work-out, and hit the hay early with a good book. Next day, repeat. (Thanks to Laini Taylor, by the way, for Daughter of Smoke and Bone—a great distraction in tough times.)

My repression machine is operating at peak capacity, fueled perhaps, by more sleep than I’ve allowed myself in years. Normally, I’m in the habit of trying to solve problems in the wee hours. This problem I cannot solve. It is entirely out of my hands. So I sleep.

Some people tell me it gets easier after a month. Some say a year. I just hope the GMS keeps working. I welcome any and all suggestions for speeding the process along.

If thoughts of The Incident intrude, I try to focus on my “framily.” This is a term Yvonne and I used in our books, LOVE, INC. & TRADE SECRETS, to describe the people in our lives who rise above mere friendship to become family. Friends + Family = Framily.

When the Incident occurred, my framily stepped up instantly. Hilary, friend since Kindergarten, offered advice on how to handle everything. She arranged for a room and refreshments for the wake, took care of many small details, and even hollered to quiet the room when it was time to deliver my speech.

Yvonne, coauthor and key framily member (along with husband, Dave), produced photos for the event, including a most embarrassing one of me in a pink bridesmaid frock. When I made my speech, Yvonne laughed so hard I thought she was going to bust a rib. Luckily it was a funny speech, so she was laughing with me, not at me, as is sometimes the case.

(Aside: a bit of advice worth sharing... If possible, buy a disposable outfit for such occasions. Many of us associate what we wore with an event, and there’s no point ruining your favorite dress. Yvonne suggested a local discount line, and I’ll be passing a $30 black dress to a second hand shop shortly.)

Then, when I decided to host 12 for dinner, Yvonne arrived with salad and wine, and busy hands, to make sure I didn’t face a mess in the morning.

Linda, another long-term Framily member, demonstrated support with coffee pods for my beloved Nespresso machine, and five (5!) boxes of chocolate. Both have an important place in my GMS.

And thus, I’ve survived week one.

Regular life is getting back in gear, which meant publishing a new book, TORCH. Now available on Kindle, TORCH is our first paranormal romance, and we’re quite excited about it. For those who expect humour from team Collins-Rideout, never fear, it’s there. Try as we might to beat it back, the funny always surfaces.

Anyway, unlike the black dress, I expect few negative associations with Torch based on timing. My dad was 100 per cent clear that his favorite among our books was SPEECHLESS—not too surprising, when it had a few parallels with my experience as a speechwriter. Only in the fictional version, the villains got punished, which was a great satisfaction to my dad.

We’ve lost a big fan of our writing, but here’s hoping we gain a few new ones in 2012. All the best to your families, and framilies.

Yvonne’s F-arty Friday: Live, in Concert

2011-10-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

My husband and I love music of any kind—rock, jazz, R&B, ambient, orchestral, trip hop, country…OK, not too much country, but you get the picture. We are music people. And for us, the only thing better than blasting tunes on our stereo or iPod, is hearing them live. Sharing a space with the performers is an exciting and often emotional experience. In fact, few things can make me feel more alive than the rhythmic pounding of a bass guitar, the soaring strings of an orchestra, or just a single, pitch perfect note as it floats and fades over an audience so entranced you could hear a pin drop at the end.

But one thing I’ve learned over the years is that all concerts are not created equal.

I’m sure it can be tough for performers on tour to play the same songs with the same level of enthusiasm night after night, but you know what? I don’t care. They’re professionals who get paid to deliver. And their ability to make an audience feel part of a special, collective experience is what sets them apart from talented amateurs.

Or at least, it should set them apart. Because I, the fan and ticket holder, haven’t had the pleasure of hearing them play the same songs in 10 other towns before they set up at a venue near me. But I have been listening to their music at home and in my car, gearing up for the Big Night, when I’m going to hear them live, in concert.

So please, professional musicians of the world, don’t phone it in.

Like most people, I work like a dog (though frankly, not my dog).

Right now, I’ve been working on a TV series, and one of the things that keeps me going when I’m shooting outside on a cold, rainy, miserable night is looking forward to a concert.

Sometimes, my crazy shooting schedule means I have to take a road trip to see a band I like because I can’t be free when they do hit Toronto. Two weeks ago, I did just that, driving 2.5 hours to see the Kings of Leon perform in London, Ontario.

My husband I had decided to make a big night of it. We booked into a hotel, had a nice dinner, and, humming “Sex on Fire,” strolled down to the local arena, anticipating that special live music experience.

There was nothing special about that concert. The band started on schedule, played all the hits, and hit the right notes. But there was no magic. No communion with the audience, no unique arrangements, no extra energy exerted, no amazing light show—not one thing that made the concert feel any different from listening to their CD’s on a good sound system at home. Even when eight thousand people sang along to one of their biggest hits, the band didn’t put the pedal down.

I guess they were saving themselves for their upcoming Toronto audience, because according to reviews, that performance really was something special. I’m not saying their London concert was terrible—just that it was average, and average is not what I paid for and not what I expect from a band at their level.

That said, I guess I’m lucky to know that concert was only mediocre, because it means I’ve attended enough amazing concerts to expect a higher standard.

The Dears, a favorite band of my husband’s, always rock the house, but they took “giving it your all” to the next level during one particular concert at a small church in Toronto, when they had just reunited. The positive energy and emotion made everyone in that small audience feel a part of something special.

Spirit of the West is another band that consistently delivers, and every performance feels like their absolute best—until the next one.

Ironically, some of my favorite concerts have been free. Patrick Watson played the Montreal jazz festival a few years ago and managed to make over 100,000 people feel like we were part of an exclusive club, sharing one incredible experience. And many of us couldn’t even see the stage! But it was evident from every note how much fun the band was having—so much that the organizers had trouble getting him off the stage.

In Italy this summer, we stumbled upon a Queen tribute band performing in a small town in Tuscany. At 1 a.m. the town square was jammed with hundreds of locals, ranging in age from 6 to 86, all clapping along to Radio Gaga. The Freddy Mercury clone pranced through dry ice in his tight white pants, feeding off the energy of the crowd who were in turn, feeding off the energy coming from the stage. It became a highlight of our trip.

So thank you, musicians of the world, for making life better by loving what you do. When you really pour your hearts into a performance, it fills us with energy and hope that makes the daily grind a little easier. But when your daily grind is getting you down, remember that your performance is the probably the highlight of the audience’s week, or month. Having that power is a gift and privilege. So bring it, will you?

Joy Adamson & the Long Road to Fiction

2011-10-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

True confession: I’m a crier, I’ve always been a crier, and nothing opens the floodgates faster than a touching story about animals.

Movies are the worst. Years ago, I went to see Dances with Wolves, with my coauthor, Yvonne. Remember the scene where the pet wolf (pass the tissues!) dies? I sobbed so hard Yvonne couldn’t see the screen for the fog. She leaned over and hissed, “Get a grip. It’s an ACTOR wolf.”

Too bad she wasn’t around to make the same observation a decade earlier, when I watched Born Free, sobbing into the green shag carpet in my parents’ living room. That moment where Joy Adamson drives off and leaves Elsa the lion running behind the land rover? It wrecked me. And the scene where they reunited, with Elsa giving Joy a big lion hug? My eyes are still puffy.

Books I could handle. In fact, reading Born Free and Joy Adamson’s other books made me realize that I was put on this earth to study animals in the wild.

I became a primatologist groupie, riveted by the adventures of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas, who studied chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans respectively. Until James Herriot, came along, with his stories of caring for animals in the Yorkshire dales. Maybe being a witty country vet would suit me even better!

Sadly, my ambition to work with animals hit the brick wall of reality in 11th grade. While I did well in Bio and Chem, Physics and Math were disastrous. How would I survive a Science degree?

Plus, there were some personal barriers to my whole study-animals-in-the-wilds scenario. For example, I was the kid who wouldn’t play in the sandbox because I didn’t like to get dirty. And when my family bought a cottage without plumbing, I tried to shut down all bodily functions while there to avoid using the outhouse.

My parents would snicker and say, “You can’t use a diffuser in the bush, you know.”

Finally, there was the issue of anthropomorphizing. I projected human emotions onto every creature, from bugs to bats. I was never going to get used to seeing them in pain, or tearing each other apart.

So there I was, career goals shattered, right before college apps. I did the logical thing, and studied English. On some level, I guess I knew that what I loved about all these writers was their storytelling, and I hoped that I might be able to do something similar without giving up heels and mascara.

Still it was a long journey through Africa, Borneo and Yorkshire and the corporate jungles before I realized what I should be doing is projecting human emotions onto fake humans through fiction.

It all worked out in the end, but I like to give our characters an easier time of it, at least on the career front.

Anyone have a story to share about an ambition that didn’t turn out exactly as you’d planned?

For the first five comments or e-mails, we’ll offer a free copy of Trade Secrets, our new novel, about three teens with lofty ambitions, who also happen to be moonlighting as love experts.

ROYALLY EXCITED

2011-09-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today these two Canadians are chuffed to bits to announce our first appearance on the bookshelves of the United Kingdom, with the release of Love, Inc.

British blood flows in our veins, so making our literary debut there is a big deal. As such, we’d like to salute the UK with a list of our favorite things:

1. A good cup of tea
2. Royal weddings
3. Fish and chips (hold the mushy peas)
4. All things Harry Potter
5. Robert Pattinson
6. Adele
7. Cadbury’s chocolate (especially Flake)
8. All things Jane Austen (and Colin Firth)
9. Hunter wellies
10. Allison and Busby, our UK publishers

Cheers for everything, eh?

Singing Praises

2011-07-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Adele,

Now that I’ve broken up with the Barefoot Contessa I have more time to devote to my girl-crush on you. (Don’t worry, it’s not THAT kind of crush. Just a sincere appreciation of your great musical gift.)

As Yvonne, my co-author, can attest, I’m normally not big on female singers. In fact, except for a brief youthful dalliance with the screaming girl band, Heart, guys have always dominated my personal playlist.

But Yvonne’s been singing your praises, so to speak, since your first album dropped, and when I finally decided to give you a listen, Rolling in the Deep blew me away. Before you could say “See Sandy Procrastinate,” I’d given you the full iTunes-youtube-wikipedia fan-girl treatment.

I wanted you to know that one of your songs probably saved my relationship. My guy and I had a bit of a scrap and I’m ashamed to admit I played the break-up card. I kind of/sort of/maybe meant it at the time, but then I heard THE song. You know the one I mean—the one that makes people realize they’re completely in the wrong after just 20 repetitions and forces them to apologize. I’d name it, but it feels oddly personal even though I’m blogging about it.

Anyhow, it’s all good now on the romance front. My guy isn’t at threatened by my girl-crush because he knows you’re way out of my league. Plus I’m too old for you (see Heart reference above).

But maybe we could all be friends. Obviously, Yvonne and I own your albums, so I was hoping you’d consider giving our books a try? I know, I know, we’re “rom-com” and you’re “heartache,” but something tells me you’re hiding a great sense of humour under that angst.

The good news is that you’ll be able to pick up our latest, Love, Inc., in London bookstores in September. Check out the cute cover our UK publisher, Allison and Busby, has designed.

If you happen to crush back on us—no pressure, but here’s hoping—The Black Sheep and Girl v Boy are set to follow.

Personally, I think you could do with a big dose of the Collins-Rideout happily-ever-afters.

Not to disparage your angst in any way. It certainly helped cure mine. And Yvonne couldn’t be more grateful, because usually she’s the one who has to slap some sense into me. Far better to do it with song.

All the best, and take care of that voice,

Sandy

It's Not You, It's Me

2011-07-10T06:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Barefoot Contessa:

I’m sorry to break the news this way, but we’ve got split up. You probably never even knew were an item, but I’ve worshipped you since last Christmas, when my co-author, Yvonne, gave me your first book.

I’ll miss you terribly, and I owe you a lot. Thanks to you, I have a hobby that—unlike writing—doesn’t make me want to drive a six-inch chef’s knife into my eye. Thanks to you, I gotten over the shame of being a failed vegetarian (your Sunday rib roast was superb!). Thanks to you, people actually like coming to my place for dinner.

But my devotion to you has really eaten into my writing time, if you’ll pardon the pun. Did you know there are nearly 1200 reviews of your recipe for Beatty’s Chocolate Cake on the Food network site? I bet you haven’t read them. Unfortunately, I have. I was looking for a solution to rock hard frosting. Beats me how that can happen with half a pound of butter and six ounces of quality chocolate, but then, I’m not you. Six months in the kitchen can’t turn a novice into a pro.

But you’ve seen me through some tough times this year and I’m grateful. While my mom was on chemo, the only thing she wanted to eat was your roasted squash soup, so I made weekly batches. And when she started feeling better, I tempted her with your highest butterfat recipes. Dad and I packed on every pound Mom lost during her treatment, but cooking turned out to be surprisingly therapeutic for all.

Anyway, Mom’s back in the kitchen and using your recipes herself, so it’s time I got down to work. This is the longest writing break Yvonne and I have taken in 10 years and re-entry’s been tough. Knowing we’re on a lot of summer reading lists puts the pressure on. People keep asking what’s next. Soon we’ll have an answer, if only I can keep my hands off the stand mixer and on the keyboard.

By the way, have you read any of our books? Not to guilt trip you or anything, but we own 10 of yours between us, so you could return the favour. Give Love, Inc. a try. The protagonist, Zahra, dreams about having her own cooking show. Maybe Yvonne was thinking of you when she suggested a character who cooks. I remember thinking, “boring,” but 40 Barefoot Contessa recipes later, I admit I was wrong.

So listen, have a great summer, and let’s check in this fall to see if the magic’s still there. I can’t deny I’m feeling some heat for Alton Brown these days, but rest assured, you’ll always be my first culinary love.

Thanks, and all the best,

Sandy

Yvonne’s Ridiculously Easy Mother’s Day Brunch Recipe

2011-05-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I invited a small group of friends and family over for a celebration. Sandy, though rarely known to pass up a free meal, declined to join us at 5:30 a.m. In fact, she responded by sending me an article on the importance of sleep. But with both my dad and my husband being British, acknowledging the pomp and pageantry of the Royal Wedding was more important to my health than a little shut-eye.

So, in the days leading up to the big event, I made scones, sourced clotted cream, strung up the bunting (little red, white and blue flags), unfurled our Union Jack, and dusted off the china tea cups.

My parents had decided to spend the night at my place to get a little extra sleep. It was a good plan, but my dad woke up at 2:30 a.m. convinced that it was 8:00 a.m. and roused my mom. They got showered and dressed, too drowsy to notice the stars twinkling overhead through our TWO skylights. By the time reality hit, they were sitting alone in living room. Mom passed the time by reading the official wedding program aloud to my dad. My husband heard voices and, as the old saying goes, if you can’t beat ‘em….get up and pre-heat the oven.

Luckily, making breakfast didn’t require anyone to be alert. We’d assembled a dead simple breakfast “Strata” the night before that ended up getting bigger raves in my home than Kate’s dress.

So if you want to treat your mom to a special brunch on Sunday, but worry you don’t have the time (or skills) to pull it off, this recipe is definitely for you!

Strata for Eight (from housebeautiful.com)

A great make-ahead dish, this tastes best if you prepare it the day before and let it soak overnight before baking. Like many egg dishes, a strata can incorporate all sorts of different ingredients, so there's a lot of flexibility here.

5 cups of cubed French bread (with crust)
Grated cheese (see Variations)
10 large eggs
1 quart whole milk (I used skim and the result was still great)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt
Filling ingredients (see Variations)

1. Butter a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Put the bread cubes in the dish and sprinkle them with the cheese. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, mustard, and salt. Pour the egg mixture over the bread cubes. Sprinkle the filling ingredients over the egg mixture and fold them in gently. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours.

2. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

3. Uncover the baking dish and bake for about 60 minutes—until the mixture has puffed slightly, is golden brown on top, and doesn't shimmy with uncooked custard when you shake the pan. Tent the dish with foil if the top is browning too quickly. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Yvonne’s Variation:
I sprinkled 2 cups gruyere cheese over the bread cubes, mixed in a cup of cooked ham and added 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme. Delish!

Five Variations suggested by housebeautiful.com:

BACON, CHEDDAR, MUSHROOM, AND TOMATO
Sprinkle 2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese over the bread cubes. Distribute 1 cup crumbled cooked bacon (6 to 8 strips), 1 cup sautéed sliced white or shiitake mushrooms, and 1 cup chopped tomatoes over the egg mixture.

CHICKEN, BROCCOLI, CORN, CHILES, AND JACK
Sprinkle 2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese over the bread cubes. Distribute 1 cup frozen corn kernels, 1 cup cooked broccoli florets, two 4.5-ounce cans (drained) chopped green chiles, and 1/2 cup shredded cooked chicken over the egg mixture.

HAM, SWISS, AND ASPARAGUS
Sprinkle 2 cups grated Swiss cheese over the bread cubes. Distribute 1 cup blanched asparagus pieces, 1 cup cubed ham, and 1/2 cup caramelized onions (see below) over the egg mixture.

FONTINA, SPINACH, SALAMI, AND ROASTED GARLIC
Sprinkle 2 cups Fontina cheese over the bread cubes. Distribute 1 cup frozen chopped spinach, 1 cup Italian salami (cut into matchsticks), and 1/2 cup roughly chopped roasted garlic cloves (see below) over the egg mixture.

VEGETABLE-BLUE CHEESE
Sprinkle 1 cup crumbled blue cheese over the bread cubes. Distribute 1 cup cooked cubed celery root, 1 cup sautéed sliced zucchini, and 1/2 cup sautéed sliced onions over the egg mixture.

Caramelized Onions
Melt 3 tablespoons unsalted butter with 2 tablespoons olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add 1 large onion, thinly sliced, turn down heat to medium-low, and sauté slowly for 20 minutes, until the onion caramelizes a bit.

Roasted Garlic
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a square of foil, large enough to make a bundle around however many bulbs of garlic you plan to roast, on a work surface. Cut about 1/4 inch off the top of the garlic bulbs and place them on the foil, cut side up. Sprinkle each bulb with about 1 teaspoon olive oil, and gather the foil to make a bundle. The bundle doesn't need to be airtight, but it should be gathered at the top. Roast for about 1 hour, until soft. Then remove the garlic from the oven and let it cool, still bundled up, for at least 10 minutes. Open the bundle, separate the cloves, and peel them by popping the garlic out of the skins. The garlic should be soft and golden brown. Roasted garlic keeps for up to a week in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

A Little Love for LOVE, INC.

2011-04-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

Yvonne and I are excited Love, Inc. is on the nomination list for the Young Adult Library Association’s (YALSA’s) Teen’s Top Ten.

For those in the know, this is like the People’s Choice awards for teens who read. In other words, cool teens.

Okay, take another look at the list.

Notice that Yvonne is rubbing spines with Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games series.

Notice that Love, Inc. is one of very few books on the list that’s not paranormal or dystopian.

Notice that... my name is missing.

Ah well. I suppose it beats being called “Sally” Rideout (after the astronaut, Sally Ride), which happens a lot.

Details aside, we couldn’t be happier that there’s room for a romantic-comedy on the YALSA list. Read as many of these books as you can this summer and place your votes Aug. 22 through Sept. 16.

In the meantime, check out some recent reviews of Love, Inc.:

...Through Love, Inc., the girls discover their own strengths and work with them to understand the confusing world of relationships, including their own. Several subplots keep the book flowing and interesting. The three main characters are well-developed, each with her own quirks and fortes, and the supporting cast members are also refreshingly multidimensional. Not necessarily a quick read, but still a worthy one for teens wanting a book that is fun while still containing some substance.
-- School Library Journal

.. This is a breezy read with strong appeal for those looking for something "clean" to enjoy.
-- VOYA

Quick Q&A with Yvonne

Q: How do you feel about Love, Inc. being described as “breezy” and “clean?”
A: It’s kind of like a shampoo commercial, but it beats “flat and greasy.”

Q: Does the word "substance" give you a bit of a head rush?
A: I’m still on a high. We’re more used to seeing the word “fluffy” in reviews. As if fluff were a bad thing! Obviously, we believe that fun and substance can co-exist in fiction.
Q: What did you have to do to get Sandy’s name lopped off the list?
A: Every librarian has a price. (Sally is a bit of a deadweight anyway.)

Q: Are you burying the worst reviews?
A: Duh. What author—er, co-author—wouldn’t? There’s one that said Love, Inc. reads like a travel... Well, never mind. It’s there for anyone who cares to look for it.

Q: After 9 books, aren’t you beyond caring about reviews?
A: Hahahaha. No.

F-Arty Friday – Sandy Confesses to AIC (Art Inferiority Complex)

2011-04-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

Yvonne has written about art with confidence in her recent series of F-arty Friday blogs—a confidence I know she’s gained from visits to many galleries and perusing her extensive collection of arty-books. And possibly from the source of all wisdom, Wikipedia.

The signs of her passion were obvious long ago. Very early in Yvonne’s career, she chose to invest her meager savings in a couple of Henry Ranger paintings that spoke to her (not literally). At the time, I believed that money would have been far better spent at Banana Republic. But now I realize that the clothes she might have bought would be in a dump site, whereas the art continues to adorn her walls.

I’ve never had Yvonne’s comfort level in galleries. In fact, I live in fear that the art police will recognize me as a poseur and throw me out.

This fear is not entirely unfounded. Once, during one of our many road trips to Buffalo, Yvonne and I took a break from what I consider culture—specifically cross-border shopping—and hit the local Albright-Knox gallery. While we were basking in the glow of some great work of art, a security guard accosted us for the heinous crime of... chewing gum. He followed us to the trash can and watched as we spit it out, an expression of supreme contempt on his face. Then he followed us from room to room, making sure we didn’t break any more rules.

Yvonne recovered quickly but my Art Inferiority Complex sticks to me like, er... chewing gum. I overcome it in other countries, and recall visits to galleries in London, Paris and New York City quite fondly. But at home, I’d rather appreciate Starbucks than art.

Still, when Yvonne’s husband uttered the magic words “free admission” recently, I was happy to join him at the Art Gallery of Ontario. It had been many years since I’d last visited and a renovation has turned it into quite a spectacular site.

We were lucky enough to catch a special exhibit on the work of David Blackwood, a Canadian printmaker whose art explores the struggle for survival between humans and nature in Newfoundland, one of the most exposed and hostile environments on earth.

I got chills standing in front of some of his pieces—and I don’t mean figuratively. His depictions of snowy Newfoundland really draw the viewer in.

The only thing that would have improved the visit for me was a tour guide. I learn more by listening, but spare me the headphones. Because the major benefit of a tour guide for someone with AIC is that being part of a crowd makes you feel like you belong.

So my advice to fellow artophobes is to visit galleries with friends, keep visits short, and join a tour when you can.

And never, ever chew gum. Also, touching the art? Bad idea. But that’s another story.

F-arty Fridays: Yvonne thinks Gaudi Designs Buildings that Rock!

2011-04-16T08:42:00.000-07:00

One of the things I like most about traveling (apart from the “Holiday Calories Don’t Count” rule) is discovering new artists and designers. During a trip to Barcelona, Spain, it was architect and designer, Antoni Gaudi, who wowed me. His work spanned the late 1800s and early 1900s, and left a unique stamp on the entire city.

My visit just happened to coincide with the 100^th anniversary of Gaudi’s death, so many of the private buildings he designed were open to the public. Gorgeous curves, bright mosaic tiles, and artfully tangled ironwork made these buildings irresistible, and I made it a point to see as many as possible.

Both admired and criticized in his own time, Gaudi’s goal was to create structures that integrated with their surroundings. He often achieved this by also designing the elements that adorned them, like stained glass, mosaics, ceramics, and wrought iron. Even chimneys and doors became works of art.

Casa Milà &

Casa Batlló

The philosophy of integrated design was popular with the Art Nouveau movement that sought to make art a part of ordinary life. Art Nouveau rejected traditional, rigid art forms in favor of the

flowing, organic forms of nature.

Gaudi was influenced by Art Nouveau, and is also considered a forefather of the Catalan Modernisme movement, which embraced a bohemian attitude toward society. Its followers either set themselves apart, or attempted to change it.

However, Gaudi remains difficult to categorize as his work was also influenced by gothic art, oriental structures, medieval French architecture and other designers of the time. All of this resulted in a style was as unique as Gaudi himself.

Here are just a few of my favorite Gaudi creations:

Park Güell

The failed housing site ended up as a public space, where broken pieces of ceramics from local factories were used in the mosaics and cutting down trees was strictly forbidden.

Casa Milà (La Pedrera)

Also known as La Pedrera (The Quarry), this amazing apartment building (see chimney's above), does not contain a single straight line. Instead of load-bearing walls, it rests on pillars and arches.

The balconies on the outside resemble undulating waves and in order to allow light into all the rooms, the units are arranged around two central courtyards.

Casa Batlló

Both interior and exterior of this building feature a mix of expressionist and Art

Nouveau styles.

Sagrada Familia

This grand cathedral is probably the most famous of Gaudi's creations. He took over the project from another architect in 1883 and continued to work on it until his death in 1926. When Gaudi was run over by a tram, people mistook him for a vagabond and few stopped to help. Yet when he died from his injuries a few months later, thousands lined up to pay their respects as the procession made its way from the hospital to a crypt in La Sagrada Familia.

Since Gaudi’s death, a variety of different architects have continued his work on the project and the building remains under construction today.

F-arty Friday – Yvonne takes you outside of the gallery

2011-04-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

People often tell me they don’t like art and when I ask why, they usually say it’s because they get intimidated or bored in stuffy galleries, especially when “museum fatigue” sets in after the first hour or two.

Even the most ardent art fans feel this way sometimes, because there’s only so much visual information your brain can absorb at once. I recall a visit to Madrid’s famed Prado museum where, after a few hours of taking in masterpiece after masterpiece, I wept openly—not at the magnificence of Rembrandt, but rather at the splendor of green sign pointing the way to the museum’s café.

I learned an important lesson on that art-heavy trip: museums and galleries are best taken in small doses. What works best for me is to take in one special exhibit, and a few choice picks from a permanent collection. Better yet, I like to spread my visit over a few days. Luckily, a lot of galleries have clued into this fatigue phenomenon and sell tickets that are valid for more than 24 hours. At home in Toronto, I solved the problem by becoming a proud member of the AGO where I can visit any time I want. My hubby and I often drop in for less than an hour to see something specific.

But if galleries still cause you to groan mentally, some of the best art can be enjoyed outside, and for free. For example, a gallery-phobic friend of mine recently returned from a trip to Grenada raving about the underwater sculptures of Jason de Caires Taylor she saw while snorkeling.

A few years ago, I worked on a film in Vilnius, Lithuania, where I visited a sculpture forest called Europos Parkas. It was one of the most peaceful and magical places I’ve ever seen.

Speaking of magical, I’d love to visit Fogo island, off the north-east coast of Newfoundland, where The Arts Corporation offers residencies for artists and workshops that anyone can join. To me, the island itself now looks like a work of art, with its new studios and renovated traditional buildings.

For now, I’m getting my outdoor art fix closer to home. In Toronto, there are some amazing sculptures scattered around. Some of my favorites were created by Douglas Coupland.

Here’s my dog enjoying one of Coupland’s recent pieces.

And then there’s the new Sugar Beach, which has transformed an old parking lot in one of the city’s former industrial areas into an urban beach on Lake Ontario, attracting people to an area that was formerly forgotten.

If you find yourself with some free time this weekend, why not head outside and find something beautiful in your own home town?

Yvonne’s Magazine Dive Uncovers Culinary Treasure

2011-04-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

Magazines tend to pile up around my house when I’m working, but every once in a while, I give myself an afternoon to catch up. I make a pot of tea, curl up on my sofa, and sift through my favorite glossies, happily tearing out articles that inform, photos that inspire (especially home design ideas, much to my hubby's chagrin) and recipes that make my stomach growl.

One recent magazine dive produced gold in the form of a sweet potato soup recipe. It sounded nutritious and economical, looked delicious, and best of all, called for ingredients I already had on hand.

We often sing the praises of the Barefoot Contessa here but it’s high time we shared the love with Lucy Waverman. Over the years, I’ve tackled many of her recipes and they always get rave reviews.

So if you want whip up a bowl of something fabulous tonight, try this:

Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup
By Lucy Waverman (from Food & Drink magazine (LINK TO RECIPES SECTION), Autumn 2010)   

Ingredients
2 tbsp (25 mL) olive oil 
1 cup (250 mL) chopped onion
 1 cup (250 mL) chopped carrot 
3 cups (750 mL) peeled and chopped  sweet potatoes 
1 tsp (5 mL) chopped ginger 
¼ tsp (1 mL) chili flakes 
½ tsp (2 mL) cinnamon 
½ cup (125 mL) red lentils 
5 cups (1.25 L) vegetable stock
 ¼ cup (50 mL) whipping cream*  
Salt and freshly ground pepper 
1 tbsp (15 mL) lemon juice
 1 tbsp (15 mL) maple syrup  

Garnish*  
1 tbsp (15 mL) vegetable oil 
¼ cup (50 mL) sage leaves  

1. Heat oil in a pot over medium heat. Add onions and sauté for 2 minutes or until they begin to soften. Add carrots and sweet potatoes and sauté for 5 minutes.  

2. Add ginger, chili flakes and cinnamon and sauté for 1 minute or until fragrant. Add lentils and stir to coat with oil.   

3. Add stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until vegetables are very soft and lentils have exploded.   

4. Purée soup in food processor or with hand blender. Return to pot, stir in whipping cream and season with salt and pepper. Stir in lemon juice and maple syrup. Reheat when needed.

  5. For garnish, heat oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat and fry sage leaves for 30 seconds or until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Place on soup.  

Serves 6

  *For a fast and healthy dinner, skip the cream and the garnish. I did and no one complained! 

Yvonne shares Love for Charley Harper

2011-04-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

“Minimal Realism” is a term coined by the humble, charming and talented Mr. Charley Harper to describe his art, which reduces his subjects—usually birds and animals—to the simplest possible visual terms.

Charley loved a good pun, and claims that much of his work was inspired by the caption first.

Love From Above

Catnip

Born in 1922 in rural West Virginia, Charley hated farming and couldn’t wait to move on. His typical humor shows in his description of choosing an art school:

“…I sent away for folders from various art schools that I found down in the hills. And there was one that came from the Art Academy of Cincinnati that had a self-portrait of a beautiful young girl on the front cover. And I thought, “Well, this is as good a reason to pick Cincinnati as any.” So I came here. And after I got here, she was an upperclassman, and she never paid a bit of attention to me. But I met Edie. My future wife.”*

Although Charley and Edie were married for 60 years, it wasn’t love at first sight. Their friendship developed in art class, and in Charley’s words, “we just became accustomed to each other.” Perhaps not the most romantic beginning, but years later, Charley still called Edie his best friend.

Two years into art school, Charley was drafted in the Army. The chaplain in his Division offered to carry Charley’s art supplies in his pack, thereby allowed the young artist to continue to draw, which helped him deal with the horrors of wartime in Europe.

After the war, Charley graduated from art school and married Edie. Their four-month honeymoon along the West Coast of the US to Florida inspired what Charley considered some of his most important work.

Grand Canyon

Visiting national parks continued to inspire Charley, and his posters for these parks are familiar images to many of us today. In fact, during my own honeymoon in Costa Rica, my husband and visited this park and fell in love with this poster.

Years before I knew who Charley Harper was, his work graced my wall. It continues to amaze me that this picture takes all the of the best elements of that magical place, and boils them down into such a deceptively simple collection of images.

When asked to describe this unique visual style, Charley said:

“I don’t see the feathers in the wings, I just count the wings. I see exciting shapes, color combinations, patterns, textures, fascinating behavior and endless possibilities for making interesting pictures. I regard the picture as an ecosystem in which all the elements are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced, without trimming or unutilized parts; and herein lies the lure of painting; in a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe.”

Thank you, Charley Harper, for making my universe more beautiful!

*From Charlie Harper, An Illustrated Life -- Todd Oldham

Yvonne Offers Three Cures for Lunchbox Letdown

2011-03-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

Do you brown bag it at lunchtime? Are you getting tired of the same old, PB&J or ham and cheese sandwiches? Well here are three fresh sandwiches ideas that will wake up your taste buds and make your Cafeteria Fry friends jealous.

Curried Chicken (makes 2 sandwiches)

*This one requires a little planning ahead in that you’ll need to cook chicken breasts or thighs (ideally skinless and boneless) in advance. I cook four or five at a time and freeze them to have meat on hand for several lunches.

1 cup cooked chicken, cubed*
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1 tart apple or pear, cubed
1 tbsp chopped cilantro (or basil) *optional
1 tbsp chopped pecans or walnuts *optional
1-2 tbsp plain, low fat yogurt or mayonnaise
1-2 tsp curry powder
ground pepper to taste

Mix curry power and pepper with yogurt or mayonnaise and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Spoon mixture onto seven grain or whole wheat bread and enjoy!

*I like to prepare 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts with a tbsp of olive oil, combined with ½ tsp smoked paprika, ½ tsp regular paprika and about 1 tbsp of fresh chopped thyme or oregano, or 2 tsp. of either herb, dried. Bake at 350ºF for 25-30 minutes, until juices run clear.

Tuna Salad (makes 2 sandwiches)

1 tin of albacore tuna packed in water, drained
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1 pickle, finely diced
½ - 1 tsp dried dill
1 tbsp pickle brine
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 – 2 tbsp low fat yogurt or mayonnaise

Flake tuna with a fork. Add celery, pickle, brine and juice. Combine with yogurt or mayonnaise. Spoon mixture onto a spelt or whole wheat bagel or pita.
Avocado and Tomato

1/3 ripe avocado, sliced (the rest of the avocado will keep in fridge for at least a week)
Sliced tomatoes
Freshly ground pepper

Cover two pieces of grainy rye bread with the avocado slices and top with fresh ground pepper. Store tomato slices in a small airtight container and place on top of avocado just before eating. Delish!

*This combo is even better with a slice of cheese and a few arugula leaves.

These are just a few of my favorite concoctions. Use them as a jumping off point to create your own. And if you have a Panini press... I am so jealous!

Sandy’s Kitchen Addiction

2011-03-22T01:14:00.000-07:00

Before I moved last summer, I lived for more than a decade in a place with a tiny kitchen that I nonetheless managed to cram with tools and gadgets that I’d use a few times and forget. (Case in point: Yvonne recently returned a juicemaker I didn’t recall owning, let alone lending.)

It was a sickness that I ultimately controlled by writing so many books that I didn’t have time to troll kitchen stores.

Still, when I moved, I had 18 boxes marked “kitchen.” This is remarkable considering I never really cooked, and baked only sporadically.

Worse, I’d done a pretty major purge. In my college neighborhood, anything let by the curb disappeared in minutes. It mitigated my shame to know that the following nearly-new kitchen tools found good homes with needy students:

• Breadmaker
• Handmixer
• Espresso makers (3)
• Coffee pot
• Bodum coffee press
• Electric Grills (2! I was vegetarian – how much grilling did I anticipate?)
• Waffle maker
• Whisk, zester, cherry pitter, melon-baller and other assorted tools
• Baking pans of every shape and size

I unpacked boxes in my new, bigger kitchen, I was surprised at how little space I had left over. Yet, as I began to cook and entertain, I found there were gaping holes in my collection, including a few items I’d ditched!

An edited list of kitchen stuff I’ve acquired since the move:

• Whisk, meat thermometer potato masher, garlic press (oops – that makes 2!), cutting boards, and various other utensils
• Non-stick fry pan
• Roasting pan
• Ramekins (to make pannacotta for Yvonne)
• Nespresso coffee maker (love it so much I’ve proposed to it)
• Le Creuset pot (ditto)
• KitchenAid stand mixer (with ice cream maker attachment – completely unnecessary and so much fun!)

Amount of unused kitchen counter space: zero

Amount of unused cupboard space: zero.

Number of items I’m missing from a New York Times list of 10 essential kitchen tools: 7.

Specifically:
• chef’s knife
• large stock pot
• large cast-iron skillet
• paring knife
• solid wooden spoon
• microplane grater for citrus zest and hard cheeses
• quality kitchen scale

I suppose I should prioritize these over the food mill I’ve been craving, especially since I’ve liberated a rusty specimen from my mom’s basement and it still works.

I also borrowed mom’s immersion blender, and found it has enough power to lift my house off its foundations.

I really want one of my very own.

I believe that immersion blender would change my life.

And that, my friends, is a sickness.

Yvonne’s Long Cold Hunt for Culture

2011-03-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

After four weeks on a movie set in Northern Ontario, I got a serious craving for a hit of culture last week. So I decided to visit to the Algoma Art Gallery, which is just down the street from my hotel, here in Sault Ste. Marie. The gallery’s website showed some intriguing images, giving me hope that it would turn out to be a local gem.

Pulling on my boots and parka, I braved a swirling blizzard to reach the gallery, where I crammed six bucks into the donation box near the front door. Heading into the main gallery, I found exactly none of the paintings posted on the site. Instead, there were three very small collections of works. One was interesting, the second mediocre and the last… Well, let’s just say I wished I’d spent my six bucks on a latte and muffin at the local café. Ever optimistic, I checked out the gallery’s gift shop hoping to buy gifts for my camera crew companions. I came up empty, as no one would thank me for Christmas leftovers, semi-precious stones, or moose-themed table accessories.

Fifteen minutes after I’d arrived, I was back out in the snow.

With a population of over 70,000, there must be some talented people in this city, so it’s disappointing that the local gallery isn’t making more effort to promote them. I caught a glimpse of what could be in their most clever installment—a totem pole made of car parts.

It was hidden in the back of the gallery, among the garbage bins.

Pushing Gallery Letdown aside, I trudged over to the museum and slapped down another Latte & Muffin fee to view the museum galleries, which, while interesting, failed to deliver much in the way of education. Although there was information about how people lived in the area through the years, and a good display on the Edmund Fitzgerald, I left feeling that I’d didn’t know much more about the city than when I arrived. In fact, I found the most interesting tidbit on a plaque outside of the museum, which described how thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans were rounded up as “enemy aliens” in World War I and interned at the Sault Ste. Marie armory.

Later that day, I received an e-mail from the charming couple that owns one of the best cafés in the Soo, along with a happening night club. And guess what? Culture does come to town after all, in the form of some really great music!

From jazz to indie to folk, here are some of the diverse artists featured bringing their talent to the Great White North:

http://www.myspace.com/markberubemusic

http://www.myspace.com/elizabethshepherd

 http://www.myspace.com/goodlovelies

http://www.myspace.com/laurenmannmusic

http://brownman.com/electryctrio/

If music isn’t enough, I suppose I could grab a hockey stick, curling broom, or ice fishing rod, and succumb to the local passion for winter sports.

But you’re more likely to find me in my hotel room with the heat cranked up and a cup of tea, soaking up popular culture on my wide screen TV!

Bite This! Sandy Makes the Best Soup Ever.

2011-03-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

Lest you think my culinary crush has waned, fear not, the Barefoot Contessa still reigns in my kitchen. And as winter lingers on in these parts, I’ve been testing her soup recipes.

In the past week, I’ve chopped and roasted vast quantities of squash and root vegetables, producing some very tasty brews. But it’s the tomato soup below that stands far above the steaming crowd.

Even junk food addicts love it. Why? Sprinkle with parmesan and it becomes pizza in a bowl!

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Ingredients
• 3 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons good olive oil
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups chopped yellow onions (2 onions)
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 (28-ounce) canned plum tomatoes, with their juice
• 4 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• 1 quart chicken stock or water

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Toss together the tomatoes, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread the tomatoes in 1 layer on a baking sheet and roast for 45 minutes.

In an 8-quart stockpot over medium heat, sauté the onions and garlic with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the butter, and red pepper flakes for 10 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Add the canned tomatoes, basil, thyme, and chicken stock. Add the oven-roasted tomatoes, including the liquid on the baking sheet. Bring to boil and simmer uncovered for 40 minutes. Pass through a food mill fitted with the coarsest blade*. Taste for seasonings. Serve hot or cold.

*Note: If you don’t own a food mill, just use a immersion blender and prepare to floss tomato seeds and greenery out of your teeth.

Note 2: Proceed with extreme caution when using an immersion blender with hot liquids.

Note 3: A tomato soup explosion—and I’m not saying I had one—can cause one’s kitchen to look like a set from Dexter.

Note 4: A food mill—essentially a strainer with a press and a hand crank—seems like a stupid investment until you’ve had a tomato explosion. But how is it possible that such a contraption can cost $200 at Williams-Sonoma?

Note 3: Stay tuned for more on my addiction to kitchen gadgets.

F-Arty Friday: Have a Seat!

2011-03-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

The Husband and wife team of Charles and Ray Eames made huge contributions to architecture, photography, industrial design and furniture design. They are best known for the last, becoming two of the most influential furniture designers of the mid-twentieth century. Many of their sculptural chairs, made of plywood, plastic and metal, have become icons of modern interiors.

You will probably recognize more than a few of these as they’ve been widely replicated since the 1950’s.

Charles was an architect and photographer who also designed movie sets, while Ray was an artist, designer and filmmaker. They married in 1941, and together honed the technique of wood molding, using thin sheets of wood veneer formed under heated pressure. They were so successful at this that the US Navy commissioned them to make splints and stretchers during World War II.

In 1949, the couple designed and built their own home in California as part of the Case Study House Program, sponsored by Arts and Architecture Magazine. One of the goals of the study was to find housing options for all the soldiers returning to the US after the war. Each house was designed for a hypothetical client, and the Eames designed theirs to suit their lives at the time: a working couple with grown children, who required studio space and a living space. Another goal of the study was to use technologies that had evolved from the war for something besides killing people, so the Eames House was designed to be made entirely from off-the-shelf pre-made parts. It demonstrated that a house could be prefabricated and still be a successful home.

According to the website for the Eames Office: Their design and innovative use of materials made this house a mecca for architects and designers from all over the world. It is considered one of the most important post-war residences built anywhere in the world.

In the artists’ own words:

“Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that way you might change the world.” -- Charles Eames

 “What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.”--Ray Eames

Bite This! Sandy’s Culinary Crush

2011-03-08T10:11:00.000-08:00

A writer who isn’t writing is like a loaded weapon without a target. For the past decade, I’ve never NOT had a project on the go, but with Yvonne working on a movie in northern Ontario, we’re taking a bit of a break.

Some people would kick back, read books, catch up on the TV she missed. Not me. I’ve got energy to burn and need to directly it wisely, lest I become as neurotic as some people probably already think I am.

So I decided to learn to cook.

Before Writing, there was baking, but I’ve never had much interest in preparing food with nutritional value. Besides, Before Writing, I was a vegetarian and tofu gets boring fast.

Yvonne, on the other hand, has been into cooking—and watching cooking shows—for years. Until recently, when she described her kitchen escapades, all I heard was “wah-wah-wah.” I only tuned in once, when she happened to mention the lemonade for her bourbon sour recipe came from the Barefoot Contessa.

It was a really good bourbon sour.

Now I have a nice kitchen, time to entertain, and a carnivorous appetite. So when Yvonne gave me a Barefoot Contessa (AKA Ina Garten) cookbook for Christmas, my target was clear.

It was love at first recipe. The Contessa is perfect for the novice cook, with short recipes, simple instructions, and pretty pictures. Visit the foodnetwork.com and you can find hundreds of reviews of her recipes, offering helpful tips.

My Contessa highlights: beef bourguignon; roast chicken; roasted vegetables; chocolate layer cake, and squash soup.

My Contessa lowlights: gingerbread cake (spicy goop – have I lost my baking mojo?) and gritty espresso ice cream.

Yvonne probably deletes without reading my lengthy e-mails describing my kitchen feats, but I’m planning a welcome home feast for her return.

Till then, it’s all Contessa all the time. And with Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson on deck, I may never go back to writing. Reaching my word limit on a given day is satisfying, but it doesn’t fill a plate at a dinner party.

My favorite Barefoot Contessa recipe to date is Beatty’s Chocolate Cake. But as this effort is really about cooking, I’ll share instead her recipe for roasted vegetables. Who knew fennel could taste so good?

Oven-roasted vegetables

Ingredients
• 2 small fennel bulbs, tops removed
• 1 pound fingerling or small potatoes
• 1/3 cup good olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound French string beans (haricots verts), trimmed
• 1 bunch thin asparagus, ends removed, cut diagonally into 3-inch pieces
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the fennel bulbs into 6 wedges each, cutting through the core to keep the wedges intact.

Place on a sheet pan. Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise and place them on the pan with the fennel. Drizzle the olive oil on the vegetables, then sprinkle with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Toss with your hands.

Roast the vegetables for 25 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender, tossing once while cooking. Toss the string beans and asparagus with the roasted vegetables and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the green vegetables are tender. Sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese and roast for another minute or two until the cheese melts.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve hot.

F-arty Friday: Yvonne Turns the Lens on Richard Avedon

2011-03-03T18:19:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite photographers is Richard Avedon, who revolutionized fashion photography after the Second World War. Handsome enough to be a model himself, Avedon’s groundbreaking work for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue set a new standard in the trade. It’s often said that his photos defined the American image of beauty, style and culture.

Here’s what Avedon himself said about the subject:

I was overwhelmed. (Fashion Editor) Mrs. Vreeland kept calling me Aberdeen and asking me if a wedding dress didn’t make me want to cry. They’re all serious, hardworking people—they just speak a different language.

So I took my own models out to the beach. I photographed them barefoot, without gloves, running along the beach on stilts, playing leapfrog. When the pictures came in, Brodovitch laid them out on the table and the fashion editor said, ‘These can’t be published. These girls are barefoot.’ Brodovitch printed them. After that, I was launched very quickly. Those candid snapshots were in direct contrast to what was being done. I came in at a time when there weren’t any young photographers working in a free way. Everyone was tired, the war was over, Dior let the skirts down, and suddenly everything was fun. It was historically a marvelous moment for a fashion photographer to begin. I think if I were starting today, it would be much harder.

Avedon’s true passion was portrait photography. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to see an exhibit of some of his portraits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was one of the most powerful and emotionally stirring exhibits I’ve ever seen.

Of his portraits, Avedon says:

My photographs don’t go below the surface. They don’t go below anything. They’re readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. But whenever I become absorbed in the beauty of a face, in the excellence of a single feature, I feel I’ve lost what’s really there…been seduced by someone else’s standard of beauty or by the sitter’s own idea of the best in him. That’s not usually the best. So each sitting becomes a contest.

One famous face Avedon shot several times belongs to Brooke Shields. On working with the photographer, Shields told Interview magazine, “When Dick walks into the room, a lot of people are intimidated. But when he works, he's so acutely creative, so sensitive. And he doesn't like it if anyone else is around or speaking. There is a mutual vulnerability, and a moment of fusion when he clicks the shutter. You either get it or you don't.”

Brooke obviously got it, because here’s what Avedon had to say about his subjects:

When the sitting is over, I feel kind of embarrassed about what we’ve shared. It’s so intense. Snapshots that have been taken of me working show something I was not aware of at all, that over and over again I’m holding my own body or my own hands exactly like the person I’m photographing. I never knew I did that, and obviously what I’m doing is trying to feel, actually physically feel, the way he or she feels at the moment I’m photographing them in order to deepen the sense of connection.

Avedon’s photographs tour art galleries and museums all over the world. If you’re lucky, there may even be some of his photographs in the permanent collection of a gallery near you.

And if a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up. I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible.

*All Avedon quotes and photographs from http://www.richardavedon.com.

Bite This! Yvonne’s English Hubby’s Cracking Omelet

2011-03-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

This is a standard in Yvonne’s house. When we’re too lazy to shop or cook a big meal, we open the fridge and grab eggs and cheese and any veggies that might be hanging around. In minutes, my husband has whipped up a simple meal worthy of guests.

Or at least, Sandy.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

6 eggs or 4 full eggs and 2 egg whites

3 tbsp milk or water

pinch salt

1 tsp. freshly ground pepper

2 tbsp grated cheese

1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme or 1 tsp. dried

*Optional: Assorted chopped peppers, zucchini, cooked broccoli or mushrooms, or chopped ham.

Whisk all ingredients together well.

Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 tbsp olive oil and a small pat of butter.

When the oil is warm, pour in the egg mixture. As the mixture firms up, in approximately two minutes, lift the edges with a spatula to let more of the liquid pour off the surface of the omelet and onto the pan.

If adding chopped veggies or ham, sprinkle them over the omelet at this point.

When top is almost cooked, fold omelet over and cook for another minute.

Inside of omelet should still be slightly moist.

Serve warm with salad.

F-Arty Friday: Ed Burtynsky, Fellow Canadian and Fabulous photographer

2011-02-24T18:32:00.000-08:00

Edward Burtynsky’s work is inspired by global industrial landscapes. Through his lens, the scars people leave on this planet somehow look beautiful.

Nickel tailings in Sudbury, Ontario.

Burtynsky’s website notes that “he links his early exposure to the sites and images of the General Motors plant in his hometown to the development of his photographic work. His imagery explores the intricate link between industry and nature, combining the raw elements of mining, quarrying, manufacturing, shipping, oil production and recycling into eloquent, highly expressive visions that find beauty and humanity in the most unlikely of places.”

I’ve been a Burtynsky fan for years. I love the fact that his images not only astound me with their beauty, but inform me about the world. Through his art, I’ve learned about the politics behind the displacement of a million people during the flooding of the Yangtze river in China to create Three Gorges Dam.

I also learned about the dangerous work of the poorly paid workers in Bangladesh, who turn decommissioned oil tankers into scrap metal.

To me, the best art makes learning not only painless but fun.

Visit Burtynsky’s website to see what I mean. Better yet, rent Manufactured Landscapes, a fascinating documentary that follows the artist to China, where he studies the people, the factories and the stories behind Shanghai’s urban renewal.

*All photos from www.edwardburtynsky.com

Bite This! Sandy serves up a big slice of cake

2011-02-20T18:29:00.000-08:00

While Yvonne is away, working on a film in the Great White North, Sandy has been cooking up a storm in her new kitchen and this weekend, she wiped up a meal fit for a king. But since there's no royalty lurking in her neighbourhood, she served up this meal to her guy and my lucky husband. The crowning glory on the menu, was our favorite Barefoot Contessa's scrumptious coconut cake. A cake that my husband described in a text as "bloody lovely".

Was I jealous, picking up this text, in the middle of an icy cold day on set? You better believe it! With frost bitten fingers, I banged out a quick text to Sandy, demanding a cake of my own, when I get back to Toronto!

If any of you want to impress your friends (and their family), here is the recipe:

Ingredients
• 3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the pans
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pans
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup milk
• 4 ounces sweetened shredded coconut

For the frosting:
• 1 pound cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
• 1 pound confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 6 ounces sweetened shredded coconut

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 (9-inch) round cake pans, then line them parchment paper. Grease them again and dust lightly with flour.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high speed for 3 to 5 minutes, until light yellow and fluffy. Crack the eggs into a small bowl. With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl once during mixing. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well. The mixture might look curdled; don't be concerned.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk to the batter in 3 parts, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. Fold in the 4 ounces of coconut with a rubber spatula.

Pour the batter evenly into the 2 pans and smooth the top with a knife. Bake in the center of the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, until the tops are browned and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool on a baking rack for 30 minutes, then turn the cakes out onto a baking rack to finish cooling.

For the frosting, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the cream cheese, butter, vanilla and almond extract on low speed. Add the confectioners' sugar and mix until just smooth (don't whip!).

To assemble, place 1 layer on a flat serving plate, top side down, and spread with frosting. Place the second layer on top, top side up, and frost the top and sides. To decorate the cake, sprinkle the top with coconut and lightly press more coconut onto the sides. Serve at room temperature.

Bite This! Get Smashed

2011-02-14T05:43:00.000-08:00

The most delicious way to prepare potatoes!! This works well with small new potatoes or fingerlings. If you are using bigger potatoes, make sure they are a variety that are good for roasting and cut in half (or thirds if the spuds are really big).

Method:

Preheat oven to 425 Degrees.

Chop a variety of fresh or dried herbs to taste (we like thyme and rosemary), and place in a small bowl. Add a generous tsp. of chopped garlic, fresh ground pepper, and about ½ tsp. smoked paprika (optional, but highly recommended). Mix ingredients together with a fork.

Scrub potatoes (leave skins on) and place in a pot of cold water with a generous pinch of sea salt. Bring to a boil and boil for about 5 minutes, until potatoes are par-cooked. Test by piercing a potato with a knife. It should go in with a little resistance (as opposed to just sliding in easily the way it would when the potatoes are fully cooked).

While potatoes are cooking, place a large cookie sheet with a good lip, in the oven to warm up.

Drain par-boiled potatoes well.

Remove hot cookie sheet (with an oven mitt!) and place several tablespoons of olive oil on the hot cookie sheet to coat.

Place thoroughly drained potatoes on the cookie sheet and using the bottom of a bottle, or a meat tenderizer, push down on each potato until they are just lightly smashed open. Pour another few tbsp. of olive oil over the smashed potatoes, sprinkle with the herb/garlic mixture and a little more sea salt, and bake in the oven until cooked, about 25 minutes.

Turn them throughout the cooking time, to allow all sides to brown evenly.

Remove potatoes from the oven and prepare yourself for the onslaught of compliments. Crispy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside. Mmm…Need we say more?

F-Arty Friday – Art and Love and Destiny with Christo and Jeanne-Claude

2011-02-11T05:45:00.000-08:00

If you’ve ever wondered about fate, consider that artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude were born at the same hour on June 13, 1935, in different countries. They met twenty-three years later, when Christo was commissioned to do a portrait of Jeanne-Claude’s mother and the rest, as they say, is history.

The two artists lived together and worked jointly on many art projects until Jeanne-Claude’s death in 2009. Their work challenges what many of us think of when we hear the word “art.” If that word conjures up images of old oil paintings hanging on stark gallery walls, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work will make you think again.

How about wrapping up a famous building in 100,000 square meters (1,076,000 square feet) of fabric?

Or how about decorating two valleys (one in California, and one in Ibaraki, Japan), with over 3,000 umbrellas, and getting almost 2,000 people to open them all at sunrise on the same day?

Or adorning New York’s Central park with 7,503 saffron fabric panels, mounted on saffron colored poles, to represent the gates for the park that were planned, but never installed?

This is art you can experience, on a large scale—for free!

According to the artists’ website:

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's works are entire environments, whether they are urban or rural. The artists temporarily use one part of the environment. In doing so, we see and perceive the whole environment with new eyes and a new consciousness. The effect is astounding. To be in the presence of one of these artworks is to have your reality rocked. You see things you have never seen before. You also get to see the fabric manifest things that cannot usually be seen, like the wind blowing, or the sun reflecting in ways it had not before.
The effect lasts longer than the actual work of art. Years after every physical trace has been removed and the materials recycled, original visitors can still see and feel them in their minds when they return to the sites of the artworks.

There is no other way to describe that the feeling of that effect other than to say it is magical.

Each projects took years to come to fruition, because of permits and environmental impact studies. In fact, it took 24 years to get the permit for the Wrapped Reichstag!

The artists paid for their projects with their own money (earned from selling Christo’s work to collectors, dealers, museums and galleries), because they wanted total freedom over their ideas, devoid of any input or restrictions from others.

Today, Christo continues to work on a project the couple planned together, called Over The River. ) If he secures permits, he plans to suspend 5.9 miles of fabric panels high above a forty-two mile stretch of the Arkansas River in Colorado. He hopes to exhibit Over The River for two weeks in August, 2014.

If you’re interested in learning more about this latest installation, or getting involved, visit http://www.christojeanneclaude.net.

***All photos from www.christojeanneclaude.net

Bite This! Two ways to get dressed without the help of a bottle

2011-02-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

Salad dressing is one of the easiest things a person can make, and yet many of us don’t even think about making our own, and turn instead, to the vast array of bottled dressings available at the grocery stores. But these dressings, while tasty, often contain more preservatives than natural ingredients.

So the next time you’re looking for something yummy and healthy to coat your greens, why not make your own dressing? Both of these dressings are so easy and delicious, you’ll wonder why you ever bothered with store bought!

BALSAMIC DRESSING:

Ingredients:
¼ cup good olive oil
¼ cup balsamic vinegar (fig balsamic is particularly nice)
2 tbsp sherry vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1 – 2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
I tsp. mustard (we like a grainy Dijon)
¼ tsp. dried herbs, like thyme, oregano or basil - *optional

Whisk all ingredients together thoroughly and toss over greens to coat by tablespoon to coat. Makes enough for several salads.

Refrigerate what you don’t use in a covered container, like an old jam jar, for up to one week.

LEMON TAHINI DRESSING:

Ingredients:
2/3 cup unsweetened soy milk
5 tbsp lemon juice
1 garlic clove
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 - 1/2 cup tahini
1/2 tsp sesame oil

Place all ingredients in a blender (or hand blend) and puree for 1 minute at high speed.

This dressing is amazing on salads, but also it makes a great topper for cooked veggies and you can even use this to coat chicken or fish before baking.

Keeps in the refrigerator for one week in a covered container.

Quiz Part 2 — What’s your LOVE, INC. specialty: Matchmaking, Mediation or Revenge?

2011-02-03T18:19:00.000-08:00

In Love, Inc. Kali is the resident expert on matchmaking and relationship start-up. She’s a thrill-of-the-chase kind of girl, and the only thing she likes as much as flirting with a new guy, is setting someone else up. If you need help finding a good match, or attracting someone you already know, Kali's your girl.

Do you have what it takes to be a matchmaker?

a) Does it stress you out when the dryer eats one of your socks, destroying the pair?

b) Are you disgusted by people who fail to recognize flirting a valuable life skill?

c) Do you consider Valentine’s Day a national holiday and start planning for it in October?

d) Can you usually predict which of your friends’ relationships will last?

e) Do you want Cupid’s job?

Answer Key:

If you answered “yes” to three or more of the above, you’re a matcher in the making.

Matchmakers need to have a lot of confidence, even a hint of arrogance, to convince people they know what’s best in the romance department. Matchmakers get their buzz by taking two seemingly random pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and watching them click them together. Matchers believe a couple is greater than the sum of its parts. Making a match is magical—when it works. When it doesn’t, watch out. People take a bad set-up so personally!

Matchmaking used to be well-respected, and still is in some cultures, but many see it as meddling. It takes a string of bad relationships or a long stint withering in the desert of singledom to inspire an appreciation for a good matchmaker. Online dating is all well and good, but computer formulae can’t bring wisdom, knowledge, experience, and intuition into the equation.
Once you’re on top of your game, you’ll be everyone’s favorite bridesmaid. But in the early days, subtlety is a matchmaker’s best friend. Bring your unsuspecting victims together at an event, introduce them, and fade into the background. If it works out, you’ll get half the credit. If it doesn’t, you’ll get all of the blame. It’s all in a day’s work.

Speaking of work, your natural people skills, powers of perception, and endless optimism will serve you well in any career. You’ll shine in corporate headhunting or as the host of any reality show about dating.

Bite This! Yvonne's Cookie Curse

2011-01-30T15:50:00.000-08:00

If you’ve read the first chapter of Love, Inc (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?), then you’ll know all about Zahra and her dreaded Cookie Curse.

We didn’t have to look far for the inspiration for this one. There was a time in my teens when I liked to show a guy I liked him by baking up a sweet treat. It took me awhile to realize that the Baker always got burned by the Bakee—often within days.

Maybe the guy saw a proposal in a cookie jar. Or maybe my rudimentary baking skills were to blame, rather than any curse. But to be safe, I decided to retire my mixing bowls and measuring cups—for nearly a decade.

That’s when I met this cute, funny guy with a catchy British accent and began a long distance relationship. It seemed worth risking the Cookie Curse. So when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I dared to bake again.

By this time, Sandy and I were roommates, and I was able to draw on her long experience with the fine art of baking, not to mention her vast array of gadgets (egg separator anyone?). Under her watchful eye, I whipped up a batch of double-chocolate cookies and shipped them off to England.

And look what happened:

The curse was broken.

These days, we’re big fans of this recipe from Oprah magazine. Here’s a streamlined version of it. Tailor the recipe to the tastes of the guy you like. If he’s conservative, stick to chocolate on chocolate and you can’t go wrong. If he’s a bit daring, try dried cranberries. And if you think he could be The One, splurge on dried cherries. Sure, they’re pricey, but seriously, can you afford not to go all out on Valentine’s?

Chocolate Wonders

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (preferably 70 per cent cacao or more)
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1-3 cups of chunky ingredients (such as semisweet chocolate chips, toasted nuts, dried cranberries or cherries – be creative!)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. Combine the chocolate and butter and melt over double boiler or in microwave oven set on low. Watch carefully, stirring occasionally, until melted. Set aside to cool until barely warm.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

4. Combine eggs and vanilla in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until just combined. Add sugar and beat until thick, a minute or two. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the melted chocolate into the eggs and stir until just combined. Add the flour mixture and stir with spatula until just blended.

5. Fold in the chunky embellishments with the spatula until evenly blended. Drop the batter onto prepared pans in heaping tablespoons, leaving two inches between cookies.

6. Bake the cookies until the tops look set and slightly cracked and dry, 16-17 minutes. Leave to cool on the baking sheet before moving to a cooling rack.

Makes about 20 big cookies.

F-Arty Friday – Meet Banksy, Street Artist Extraordinaire

2011-01-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our first F-Arty Friday blog, which as you’ve hopefully guessed, stands for Fabulous Arty Fridays.

Last week, we launched Bite This! in honor of Zahra, Love, Inc.’s main character, whose passion is cooking.

Another key player in Love, Inc. is Sydney Stark, whose passion is art, so we’ve decided to dedicate Friday’s blog to arts.

Some people frown on Syd’s preferred medium: graffiti. In fact, spray painting on public property is illegal in Austin. But that just fuels Syd’s fire to express herself through “street art.”

In Love, Inc. Syd’s idol is the British graffiti artist known as Banksy, an artist she admires so much she named her beloved Rottweiler after him.

What’s not to love about Banksy, a funny, smart, subversive artist, who’s managed to sneak his work onto the walls of museums including the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City? He even managed to “tag” the animal enclosures at the central park zoo in Barcelona!

Here’s what Banksy himself says about his line of work:

Despite what they say graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission.

Thanks, Banksy, for making the world a more interesting place!

*All photos from: http://www.banksy.co.uk/

Quiz — What’s your LOVE, INC. specialty: Mediation, Matchmaking or Revenge?

2011-01-26T07:24:00.000-08:00

In Love, Inc. Zahra is the company mediator, keeping the peace both between clients and between her volatile partners, Syd and Kali. Zahra's special skill is helping to get a relationship back on course. But when a romance has really hit the rocks, she's also good at negotiating the split. She deserves a gold medal for running interference!

Do you have what it takes to be a mediator?

a) Are you someone who sees the world in shades of gray, rather than black-and-white?

b) Do you sometimes feel like a hairdresser/therapist/bartender because everyone in your family or group of friends confides in you?

c) Can you see both sides of any situation and stay calm, no matter how many feathers are flying?

d) Have you ever brought two friends or family members back together by helping them understand each other’s point of view?

e) Do other people’s disagreements feel like messy, unfinished business?

Answer Key:

If you answered “yes” to three or more of the above, you are definitely mediator material.

Mediators are able to stand outside a situation and observe it objectively, rather than taking sides and getting emotionally involved. Mediators can see what each side really wants and can explain it in neutral terms that people are willing to hear. Better yet, mediators can turn a battle into a win-win situation by figuring out how each side can compromise just a little to make sure both sides are happy.

If you are a natural mediator, you will be the most popular person in your family and probably the sun around which all your friends orbit. People will lay their problems at your feet and expect you to solve them. That can be as stressful, as witnessing a disagreement is hard enough without getting involved. But it’s also empowering, because people trust you with their secrets and know you’ll help them sort things out. Everyone loves a peacemaker, and the more you develop your skills, the less likely you are to get caught in the crossfire.

What’s more, highly refined mediation skills can end up making you big bucks in your career. They’re pretty useful in a relationship, too!

Bite This! Yvonne’s Herbed Cheese Soufflé

2011-01-24T09:01:00.000-08:00

When I was a teen, I didn’t have much interest in cooking. In fact, when my older, and more domesticated sister-in-law gave me The Good Housekeeping Cookbook for Christmas one year, I smiled, thanked her with Academy Award worthy enthusiasm, and mentally filed the gift under “D” for dust catcher.

But months later, on a boring Sunday afternoon, I was struck with an unfamiliar desire to cook something. My German mother—a fabulous cook—was excited, and itching to teach me how to make her classic schnitzel, or a goulash. I had no interest in learning how to make any of the household standards (Why risk being asked to pitch in with the cooking on a regular basis?). Instead, I dusted off that rejected cookbook picked a recipe that intrigued me—mostly because it was something my mom would never make: A Classic Herbed-cheese Soufflé.

It sounded exotic, and I figured if I could get that sucker to rise, I could impress all my friends.

So I tested the recipe out on my family, and miraculously, it rose perfectly! It rose perfectly again when I made it for a friend and again, when I made it for another. In fact, that soufflé was so impressive and reliable that it quickly became my signature dish. Just add a salad, and voila! You’re a super chef. Sandy can attest to the quality of the product, because she was one of my first culinary victims. (Sandy’s note: So true: it was a magnificent creation!)

This past fall, after reminiscing about that recipe, I found a soufflé dish at a garage sale and decided to make my old standby. And guess what? It was just as easy and perfect as I remember.

So if you want to impress your friends and family (and yourself), I will now share the secret to my culinary success, courtesy of a well-used Good Housekeeping Cookbook:

Classic Herbed-Cheese Soufflé

¼ cup butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
Dash cayenne pepper
11/2 cups milk
2 4-ounce packages of shredded Cheddar cheese (2 cups)
6 large eggs, separated
*2 tbsp chopped parsley
*½ tsp thyme leaves
(*Note: a few teaspoons of dried herbs, like basil, oregano, Italian seasoning and thyme also work fine)

About 1 and 1/4 hours before serving:

Preheat oven to 325°F. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, into hot butter, stir flour, salt and pepper until smooth. Slowly stir in milk and cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce is smooth and thickened. Add cheese and heat, stirring, just until cheese melts. Remove from heat.

In small bowl, with fork, beat egg yolks slightly. Into egg yolks, beat small amount of the hot sauce; slowly pour egg mixture into sauce, stirring rapidly to prevent lumping. Stir in parsley and thyme. Set aside.

In large bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat egg whites just until stiff peaks form. With rubber spatula, gently fold cheese mixture into egg whites; pour into 2-quart soufflé dish or casserole. With spoon, make 1-inch-deep circle in top of cheese mixture, 1 inch from side of dish. Bake soufflé for 1 hour or until puffy and golden brown. Serve immediately.

Makes 6 servings.

(This will rise up beautifully—over the top edge of your dish—but as soon as you cut it, it will deflate!)

Our Two Cents

2011-01-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

If you’ve been reading our blog in recent weeks, you may have noticed we’ve started offering useful tips on everything from dressing up for New Year’s Eve on a budget, to last week’s blog on how to throw a tropical get together.

Dispensing advice isn’t new to us. In fact, our first book, Totally Me: The Teenage Girl’s Survival Guide, is basically 230 pages of strategies for handling relationships with guys, friends and family. We’re good listeners and we’re happy to offer creative solutions—often completely unsolicited!

Our drive to coach is probably what inspired our latest book, Love, Inc., in which Zahra, Syd and Kali freely dispense advice on all things love-related. The girls aren’t always right, but they always have an opinion. Check out their sometimes-extreme advice to common relationship problems on the Love, Inc. Fortune Teller game here.

Although we, too, have plenty of strong opinions on relationships, in our blog we’re going to stick to less combustible subjects. Like art, for example. Or photography. Or music. Or our personal favorite, food.

Like Zahra, in Love, Inc., Sandy loves to bake—the higher calorie the result the better. Yvonne prefers to rattle pots and pans on the stovetop, and can whip up a fast, healthy meal in the blink of an eye.

Between us, we’ve tried a lot of recipes inflicting the results on tolerant loved ones. Now we want to share some of the best with you, so that you can impress your friends and family. Don’t worry, all our favorites are suitable for a novice chef. Because our philosophy on hosting is to keep it simple, so that you can enjoy hanging with your guests.

Today’s recipe is for the Marmalade cake that Sandy served Yvonne and her husband on Saturday night. The recipe appeared in Food and Drink Magazine:

Marmalade Cake

1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 cups all –purpose flour
1 ½ tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup plain full-fat yogurt
½ cup Seville Orange or 3 Fruit Marmalade, peel chopped

ORANGE SYRUP
3 tbsp marmalade
3 tbsp orange liqueur

ICING
3 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
¼ to 1/3 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F
2. Cut a round of parchment paper to fit the base of a well-greased and sugared 9-inch cake pan.
3. Cream sugar and butter together with electric beaters until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well between additions.
4. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda in a separate bowl. Beat one-third of flour mixture into batter, then half of yogurt; continue alternating between flour mixture and yogurt, finishing with flour mixture. Stir in marmalade.
5. Spoon batter into cake pan. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Et cool for 10 minutes in pan while making syrup.
6. Combine marmalade and orange liqueur in a small pot over medium heat, stirring until marmalade dissolves. Bring to a boil and boil for 30 seconds to burn off alcohol. Strain out any peel.
7. Run the edge of a flexible knife between cake and pan to loosen. Invert cake onto a rack and peel off parchment paper. Turn cake right-side up, place on rack over a plate and use the point of a skewer to make small holes all over top of cake. Brush top and sides of warm cake generously with syrup. Leave to cool completely.
8. Whisk together icing sugar, butter and enough milk to make a slightly runny white icing. Spread over cake so that it drizzles down the sides. Decorate with candied orange rind, if desired.

Serves 8

In the unlikely event there are leftovers, they can be stored at room temperature in a cake tin.

Arctic Winds bringing you Down?

2011-01-13T07:44:00.000-08:00

Beat the winter blues by hosting a tropical get together!

1. Set the mood with the right e-mail invitation. Using a free site like evite.com, select something with a summer or beach theme. Warn your guests that they’ll be coming to a warm climate, and ask them to dress appropriately.
2. Get blooming. If you plan ahead, you can pick up spring bulbs from your local garden center three weeks before the party and plant them in containers. When the party rolls around, you’ll have tulips and hyacinth blooming in every corner. Alternately, pick up some fresh flowers—or even some fake ones from the dollar store. Most dollar stores also sell plastic lei’s, or garlands. Pick some up for your guests.
3. Let there be light, and lots of it. The summertime sun isn’t available, but you can still create a summery mood with fun patio or twinkle lights. Paper lanterns always look great too.
4. Be playful. Add a few beach balls into the mix, or an old Twister game (but be sure to put away all breakables first). If you happen to have Wii games that fit the summer party theme, include those too.
5. Load on the props. Drape colorful beach towels over your chairs, or better yet, set up some lawn chairs inside. If possible, bring the patio umbrella inside too. If you’re the superstitious, leave it closed!
6. Make a playlist of all the songs that contain the word “summer,” “sun,” “heat,” “hot,” or “beach.”
7. Put on your parka and barbeque hotdogs and burgers. If that won’t work, settle for the stove. Then make a fresh salad or better yet, corn on the cob, or try a corn salad. This Barefoot Contessa version is always a huge hit. Dessert is easy: a big platter of sliced fruit, or kebobs, with skewered strawberries, pineapple, mango and melon.
8. Fire up the blender. Look for cocktail recipes online, or try Yvonne & Sandy’s Favorite Virgin Daiquiri:

Toss two cups of fresh or defrosted strawberries or raspberries in a blender, with a cup of ice.
Add a splash of orange juice.
Top up the blender container with limeade (prepared from frozen concentrate – available where you buy frozen lemonade).
Blend until slushy.
Serve in tall glasses with paper umbrellas that you picked up from the dollar store when you bought those leis.

No blender? Try a Virgin Cosmo instead, by combining cranberry juice with a splash of orange juice, and the juice of one lime. Dip the rim of your glass in lime juice first, and then in granulated sugar.
9. Pull out your summer gear. Sundress, or shorts? Your call. Shades: mandatory.
10. Turn up the heat. Literally. Use a couple of space heaters to warm up the room where you’ll be hosting your party. Then add a fan to simulate those soft, summer breezes.

Kick off your flip-flops and enjoy!

Goodreads can be Free Reads!

2011-01-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

Don't forget to sign up before the end of the month to enter our latest contest to win one of three copies of Love, Inc.  

Here's what some Goodreads reviewers are saying:

  "Love, Inc. is super sweet and super satisfying." Tiger Holland, 5 stars

  "Love, Inc. ...was such a fun read. I loved it!" Ashley, 4 stars

“…this was a very charming, fun and satisfying read." Nely, 4 stars  

"This book was a cute and fun read. ... It has some great advice, some good revenge, and great friendship!" Savannah (Books with Bite), 4 stars  

Broken Fingers, Sequels and Giveaways

2011-01-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

Like all authors, we love hearing from happy readers. We love it even more when the notes are funny. After all, we write comic novels!

So this just came in from Brianne, and we can’t help sharing.

Okay.
Hi, I just finished reading "The Black Sheep" IN ONE DAY! I am basically starving to read of what happens between Mitch and Kendra! I mean, You cannot just let the book end that way, I suppose you could, but PLEASE Don't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would be absolutely excited if you wrote a sequel. I am so curious to see what happens between Maya and Kendra. PLEASE. I do not know how many times I can say please. Can you tell me any way to persuade you into writing a sequel, I will be on it!
So. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE write on
Or unless you guys broke your hands, or some other tragic thing to where you cannot type or write.
BUT PLEASE!

Sincerely,
Brianne
Ps. PLEASE
Thank You(:

We had to tell Brianne a sad truth about publishing: authors don’t usually decide whether or not to write a sequel. Publishers make that decision based on a book’s sales. The more people who buy the book—or borrow it from the library—the more likely it is that authors will get to revisit a story. That’s the business side of writing.

So our advice to booklovers in general is to tell their friends about their favourites to spread the word. And our advice to Brianne in particular is to push Kendra and Mitch out of her mind for now and give our new book a try. Luckily all fingers are fully operational on Team Collins-Rideout, although we do have trouble keeping our hands warm, here in snowy Toronto.

Brianne has inspired us to give away a couple of copies of LOVE, INC. over on goodreads.com

A Tribute to "Real Zahra" now that LOVE, INC. is officially on the shelves!

2011-01-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

LOVE, INC. officially arrived on bookshelves yesterday—at least in the U.S. Here in Canada, our home and native land, it might be another week. (It is dogsled season.)

As a reminder, here’s what the book’s about:

Zahra, Kali, and Syd would never have met if their parents' marriages hadn't fallen apart. But when the three girls collide in group counseling, they discover they have something else in common: they've each been triple-timed by the same nefarious charmer, Eric, aka Rico, aka Rick. Talk about eye-opening therapy.

Cheerful, diplomatic Zahra is devastated. Rico had been her rock and sole confidant. How could she have missed the signs? Free-spirited, flirtatious Kali feels almost as bad. She and Rick hadn't been together long, but they'd felt so promising. Hardened vintage-vixen Syd is beyond tears. She and Eric had real history... Or so she'd thought. Now all three girls have one mission: to show that cheater the folly of his ways.

Project Payback is such a success, the girls soon have clients lining up for their consulting services. Is your boyfriend acting shady? Are you dying to know if your crush is into you? If you need a little help to make-up, break-up or meet someone new, look no further than Love, Inc.

What isn’t mentioned here is that Zahra is also struggling with a culture clash at home. Her maternal grandparents have arrived from Pakistan with an agenda: they want to introduce Zahra to their culture. To her mind, it’s less an introduction than a hostile takeover; Zahra considers herself more like her Scottish-American dad.

Take a look at our author photos. As you can probably tell, Yvonne and I have little first-hand experience with the culture clash Zahra’s facing. And yet, we see it around us all the time, because Toronto is an extremely cosmopolitan city. We wanted to reflect some of that tension in this story.

Obviously, it’s tricky for an author to step into another culture and capture its nuances, especially in a comic way.

That is where “Real Zahra,” our cultural attaché, came in. As we noted in the book’s acknowledgements, Real Zahra not only let us borrow her name, she graciously answered all of our questions. This was probably challenging at times, as Real Zahra is an elegant and refined 20-something who has lived in Toronto for ages and gets along well with her family.

Yet when we asked her to put herself in the mind of “Fake Zahra,” a rebellious and belligerent 15-year-old, Real Zahra consistently rose to the challenge. She also took the time to describe many traditions and foods in detail that Wikipedia could never provide. If we proposed an event and Real Zahra declared, “That would never happen,” we took her seriously and made changes accordingly.

In other words, she helped to make the story authentic. At the end, she even read a draft to make sure we hadn’t made any truly egregious errors.

So, once again, our sincere thanks to Real Zahra. We couldn’t have done it without you!

And if anyone has a bone to pick with Fake Zahra, put the blame squarely on us.

Who Doesn’t Like a Freebie?

2011-01-04T07:08:00.000-08:00

We’re spending release day trying to score some deals in the stores.

To keep you busy while we’re gone, we hereby offer Chapter One of Love, Inc. for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Cover Love – in which Sandy Brags about the LOVE, INC. Cover Design

2011-01-03T12:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we got an e-mail from someone who said many so many nice things about LOVE, INC. that we blushed briefly. The book doesn’t come out until tomorrow (January 4th), but the reader had an advance copy and we particularly appreciated this:

The cover was cute and fit perfectly with the book. Zahra looked on the cover just as described in the book. The cover showcased two major parts of the book. There couldn't be a more perfect cover!

Now, normally, we can’t take a bit of credit for our book covers. Authors, unless they’re way more important than we are, generally have little say in the cover design (or even the title for that matter). We’ve liked the book covers our publishers have designed, with one notable exception. I won’t single it out, but if you check our books section, you’ll probably be able to figure out which one it is.

This time around, our then-editor asked us for ideas for the LOVE, INC. cover. I’m the first to admit that I’m design-challenged, and I turn to Yvonne for advice on everything from clothes to carpets. So my role in the cover brainstorming session was to sit back with my no-foam, extra hot latte and shoot down Yvonne’s ideas—until she came up with something irresistible. (Don’t worry, she gets plenty of opportunity to shoot down my ideas).

At first, we wanted to feature a trailer on the cover, because in the book the girls run Love, Inc.—their matchmaking, mediation and revenge business—out of a trailer parked in Kali’s backyard.

When the trailer idea didn’t fly, Yvonne came up with the idea of an ice cream truck, which had the added advantage of profiling Zahra’s passion for baking. We asked if the jars on the truck could hold cookies, because Zahra believes her love life is under a “cookie curse”: whenever she bakes cookies for a guy, he dumps her.

Luckily our publisher found the perfect model, who has Zahra’s long, curly red hair. We suggested the menu board, which helps to explain what the book is about. In fact, we even weighed in on wheel size.

It is the first time we’ve ever been so hands-on with a cover. We’re grateful for that opportunity and thrilled with the result.

Of course, if other people hate the cover, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Specifically Yvonne. Please direct all hate mail to her.

What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

2010-12-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

If you think no-date means no-fun on New Year’s Eve, think again. Then pick up your phone and call your friends, because some of our most memorable New Year’s Eve parties weren’t at all romantic.

Today, we’ll share two of our favorite friend-celebrations with you.

The first is a classic: the potluck supper. Put a fresh spin on it by using a little imagination.

Start by choosing a theme for the evening, such as:

· a region of focus, like Italian cuisine.

· the recipes of a particular chef. The Food Network site offers all kinds of recipes by celebrity chefs, like Jamie Oliver and Ina Garten, AKA the Barefoot Contessa.

· foods that are all the same color.

· an interesting era. (The medieval feast never gets old, especially when you take away the cutlery and make your guests eat with their hands.)

When we were roommates, we once threw a 70’s themed party, where everyone brought food from that era—including a huge glazed ham decorated with maraschino cherries and marshmallows. Disgusting, but hilarious!

After you’ve chosen a theme, you can decorate your dining room accordingly, create a theme-related playlist, and consider dressing the part. A 70’s party isn’t complete without a disco ball, and medieval feast must have a wench!

With potluck, the host never gets stuck with all the work and expense, however. Be sure to assign everyone a course. If your group is small, you may only need four courses. If it’s a big group, try doing what the big chefs do and create a tasting menu featuring many very small courses. Think soup in shot glasses, a scoop of salad on a romaine leaf, a skewer with a few chunks of grilled chicken and a veggie or two. Sorbet makes a great palate cleanser between courses and a pasta course is always a winner, especially before the cheese course. Sliced fruit makes a nice break before dessert, followed by espresso cups filled with hot chocolate. As the host, you can decide if you want to assign a specific dish to each guest, or simply share the theme and some general guidelines and allow your friends’ creativity to rule.

The second friend-celebration still involves divvying up the work and cost, but this time, you’ll get some exercise too. If you all live within walking distance of each other, why not plan a “progressive dinner”? This is where you have a different course at each house, giving everyone a chance to host.

Again, you’ll need to improvise, depending on the number of people participating. Let’s suppose there are six of you.

· Host One offers a fancy drink. (And by fancy, we don’t mean alcoholic—go online to find hundreds of tasty booze-free drinks).

· Host Two offers up hors d’oeuvres.

· Host Three makes an interesting salad (and yes, salad can be interesting!).

· Host Four makes a one-dish main course, like a pasta, curry or stew.

· Host Five treats you to a yummy dessert.

· Host Six closes out the evening with something bubbly for a toast, along with chocolate dipped strawberries.

Turn on the TV and watch the ball drop in Time’s Square, before playing your favorite tunes and dancing off those calories into the wee hours.

Now that sounds like a Happy New Year to us!

Haven’t got a thing to wear?

2010-12-29T21:53:00.000-08:00

It’s party season, people, and if you’re anything like we are, you’ve probably already worn all of your favorite outfits to the various social gatherings that inevitably occur this time of year.

Now, New Year’s Eve is looming and you want to wear something different. Something fresh and unique. Something with a WOW factor. But unless you managed to score gift cards to clothing stores for Christmas, you’re probably a little cash poor today.

Well, fear not fair fashionistas, because we have a budget-friendly solution.

First of all, pick a basic item to design your outfit around: a great pair of jeans, a cool black skirt, or even some glittery tights. Then host a spontaneous Swap Party. Invite your friends over and ask them to bring at least three stylish items they’re willing to lend out for an evening. In that “swap” pile, you are likely to find something that works well with your basic item.

Next, hit up your mom/aunt/sister for some cool costume jewelry to accessorize.

If your outfit still isn’t doing it for you, head out to some local thrift stores. Combing through jammed racks takes patience, and you have to be able to envision a piece away from all the clutter, but the effort can really pay off. We’ve come back from the hunt with cashmere sweaters, great wool coats, and sequined tank tops. A small budget can stretch a long way.

But if you strike out at the thrift store, don’t despair, because there’s always the consignment store. It costs more, but it will be better organized so you can find what you need without having a meltdown. We’ve have scored some major label jeans, dresses, shirts and even unworn shoes for a fraction of the retail cost.

Last, for a bit more cash and a lot more caché, try visiting a vintage clothing store. Add zing to your look with a cool hat, or a giant cocktail ring, or maybe a fifties Mad Men-esque sweater or dress.

It can take work to pull together the perfect outfit on a budget, but in the end, you’ll be an original—and the envy of all the girls who took the easy way out at the mall. Especially when they show up at the party wearing the same dress!

Get Stacked this Holiday Season

2010-12-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

Haystacked, that is. If you’re looking for another yummy, chocolately treat to make for the holidays, consider the haystack. These quick, easy and popular cookies are affectionately known among our friends and family as “blobs.” It wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

Here’s what you’ll need:

300g (1 bag) of butterscotch chips

300g (1bag) of high quality semi-sweet chocolate chips (or the equivalent amount of dark chocolate bars, chopped up into small pieces)

2 1/2 cups of crunchy chow mein noodles, broken roughly in half.

2 1/2 cups of salted peanuts

Line two or three cookie sheets with parchment paper or wax paper.

Melt butterscotch chips and chocolate chips together in a double boiler over low heat (or in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on a low setting). When the chips are nearly completely melted, remove from the heat and stir until smooth.

Add noodles and peanuts and stir until they are completely coated with the chocolate mixture.

Spoon the mixture onto the prepared cookie sheets, using a heaping tablespoon to create each haystack.

Refrigerate until firm and then store in an airtight container, in the refrigerator.

They keep for about three weeks, if you don’t eat them all first!

Yvonne’s cheap, original last minute gift idea

2010-12-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

It’s crunch time on the gift front, and if you’re low on cash and strapped for ideas, why not stick your head in the clouds. Word clouds, that is. Otherwise known as Wordles.

So, what’s a Wordle? It’s a visual depiction of a set of words that have been grouped together in a meaningful way.

Wordles are fun, personal and attractive. Most important of all, they’re easy to do!

Here’s a set of Wordles I made for Sandy to commemorate each of our nine books:

Pretty cool, huh?

To make these, I visited http://www.wordle.net/ and fed content from each book into the wordle application. Then I customized the color palette to match our book covers. The words we used the most showed up in the biggest font.

But you don’t have to have an entire manuscript on your hands to create a wordle. You can make a meaningful wordle for friends or a family just by using the lyrics of your best friend’s favorite song, or your mom’s favorite poem.

Check out this one I just made in honor of the holiday season:

To make your own wordle:

Click CREATE
Type in the words you want to use.
Repeat the most important words several times so that they will be prominently featured in the word cloud.
Click GO.

Wordle automatically removes common English words and numbers, so if you want these to appear, click on LANGUAGE and make your selections.

Click on FONT to customize the look. I used “Telephoto” for the book wordles and “Coolvetica” for my Christmas wordle.

Click on LAYOUT to rearrange words in a manner you find most appealing to the eye. I used half and half for the books wordles, with straighter edges, but rounder edges and mostly horizontal for the Christmas one. Once you’ve found the layout you like the most, you can hit “re-layout with current settings” to move the words around.

COLOR allows you to choose from a pre-existing palette, but you can customize the palette by selecting “edit custom palette.” Click on each sample color to change. Once you have selected your swatch color, you can hit OK to keep it, or enhance the shade a little by selecting HSB, and moving the little ball onto the specific shade you’d like. When you’re happy with your choice, hit OK and do the same thing for the rest of the four colors.

When you’re finished selecting your palette, you have one last choice. Hit the COLOR button again and at the bottom you see that you can select your exact palette, or vary it by several degrees.

Finally, you can save your wordle to the public gallery or print it. To make a PDF, select the PRINT button on the website page, and then select PRINT on your computer. Click on the PDF button to save and voila, you’re done!

If you like your work of art, stick it in a cheap frame to really make a statement. Or make a greeting card out of it.

Now… stop reading and start creating.

Under Construction

2010-12-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

The release of LOVE, INC. is just weeks away and reviews are trickling in. Here’s what Kirkus had to say:

Following her parents' separation, Zahra is forced into group therapy, where she meets Kali and Syd. The three girls quickly find that fractured families are not all they have in common - it turns out that they are all dating the same guy. Despite their differences, they find they are all good at one thing: revenge. After trashing their boyfriend's reputation, they decide to offer their services to others. The specialty at Love, Inc., is initially payback, but the three jilted girls find they have a wider range of love-related services to offer. Genuinely endearing, narrator Zahra reacts authentically to betrayal, her parents' separation and the confusion of assimilating her Pakistani and Scottish- American roots. Smart dialogue and a hip cast of characters keep the story engaging...

Our web elves have been busy updating our website and creating a whole new micro-site for the new book. Although it’s still a work-in-progress, the website is live at LoveIncBook.com. Check it out!

In the next week or two, we’ll be launching a “fortune teller” game on LoveIncBook.com. Do you find yourself asking tough questions like:

· Who should pay on a first date—him, or me?

· Can I dump a guy by e-mail or text?

· I kissed a guy who has a girlfriend and now he wants to dump her for me. What do I do?

If so, Zahra, Syd and Kali—LOVE, INC.’s mediation, revenge and matchmaking experts—are ready to give you a unique spin on these, and dozens of other questions.

Sign up to follow us on Twitter and you’ll be the first to know when the game goes live. LOVE, INC.’s opinionated panel welcomes any and all questions on Love, Friends, Family and Life in general.

Meanwhile, to win a free copy of the LOVE, INC., enter the giveaway at http://teens.freebookfriday.com/

Love, Inc.

2010-09-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Sorry the blogosphere has been so quiet here lately, but we have been busy putting the final touches on our next book, LOVE, INC., and writing the sequel. The minute that is done, we will be hard at work building loveincbook.com, a new micro site that will feature some fun games -- and lots of information about the new series. Look for the book in stores and the new site to go live by the end of the year.

In the meantime, here's a link to our first reader review of LOVE, INC. Thanks, Tiger!

Yvonne & Sandy

Zahra, Kali, and Syd would never have met if their parents' marriages hadn't fallen apart. But when the three girls collide in group counseling, they discover they have something else in common: they've each been triple-timed by the same nefarious charmer, Eric, aka Rico, aka Rick. Talk about eye-opening therapy.

Cheerful, diplomatic Zahra is devastated. Rico had been her rock and sole confidant. How could she have missed the signs? Folksy, flirtatious Kali feels almost as bad. She and Rick had only been on a few dates, but they'd felt so promising. Hardened vintage-vixen Syd is beyond tears. She and Eric had real history... Or so she'd thought. Now all three girls have one mission: to show that cheater the folly of his ways.

Project Payback is such a success, the girls soon have clients lining up for their consulting services. Is your boyfriend acting shady? Dying to know if your crush is into you? Need match-making expertise? Look no further than Love, Inc.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

2010-03-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

Now that I’m in a great relationship myself, I want exactly the same thing for my best friends.

One of my two best friends already has a fabulous boyfriend who gets along great with J. My other best friend—let’s call her Katie—mostly wouldn’t hang out with us because she felt like the “fifth wheel.” So then I felt bad even talking about how much fun we’d had later.

There was an obvious solution to the problem: all I had to do was set Katie up with one of J’s friends so we could all hang out together. Brilliant, right?

There were just a couple of minor glitches.

First, Katie outranks all of J’s close friends. (It’s a simple fact). On the periphery, however, there was this one guy who seemed like he had promise. I could see bits of glitter shining through his dusty exterior and knew that with a little pressure from the right girl, this lump of coal could become a full-fledged diamond.

The second glitch was that J refused to play along. He said that if the set-up didn’t work out, things would get awkward. J tends to a glass-half-empty kind of guy (“A realistic,” he says), whereas I am an optimist (“A romantic,” he says). My theory was that if it did work out, two people could be happy together. Besides, we’re all adults. How bad could it be?

Since J wouldn’t help me throw these two potential soul mates together, I did what any confirmed optimist would do: I staged the accidental encounter. (Well, accidental for J’s friend. Katie would never have forgiven me if I hadn’t given her enough notice to get her hair and nails done.) One Saturday afternoon when the guys were bowling, Katie and I stopped by the alley to say hello. We were basically in the neighborhood anyway.

J was grumpy at first but even he couldn’t deny that Katie and his pal totally hit it off. The pheromones were so thick the bowling pins were falling over.

And so we were six—three happy couples hanging out. It was even more fun than I expected.

For exactly two weeks.

That’s when J’s friend’s glittery bits disappeared. “Coal” criticized Katie’s flamboyant hair, although she’d had a purple streak in it the night they met, and he liked it then. He made fun of her fashion sense, when everyone knows Katie’s cutting edge. The last straw for me came when Coal discouraged Katie from trying out for the Dunfield’s show choir. Now, Katie knows she’s never going to win American Idol, but if the girl wants to perform, her boyfriend should back her 100 per cent.

I can’t even describe how upset I was when I realized that I’d set my best friend up with a jerk. At first, I couldn’t tell if Katie knew it, and I worried she’d succumb to his stupid put-downs. I lay awake imagining her on her wedding day, all mousey and subdued because Coal had snuffed out her spark.

I knew I had to get up the nerve to tell her Coal is unworthy, even though I normally have a policy about not dissing my friends’ boyfriends.

J wasn’t exactly sympathetic: “That’s what you get for messing in someone else’s love life,” he said. Still, he likes Katie and I could tell he felt bad that his friend was treating her like crap.

If I had a friend who behaved like Coal, I’d cut him or her off immediately. But guys are different. They compartmentalize. J likes Coal because the guy’s a good basketball player and fun at a party. He doesn’t have to like every aspect of someone’s personality to be friends.

So it was up to me to have the talk with Katie, and when I did, we were both relieved. It turns out she’d only put up with Coal’s shabby behavior as long as she did because of J. Once she knew I was behind her, she dumped his grimy caboose immediately. Being a class act, Katie broke up with him face to face and graciously. Coal’s less classy response: “You’ll never meet someone else like me again.” Katie and I sincerely hope that is true.

I hoped Coal would run back to the pit he crawled out of. Instead, he started hanging around MORE, all bitter and sullen, dissing Katie whenever he could. And so we came full circle, with Katie refusing to join us again. That’s when J drew the line. Without any prompting from me, he told Coal not to come around until he cooled off.

In the end, it is awkward. J’s mad at me because he had to put Coal in a time out, and because the rest of his crew are giving him grief about putting “the wife” (i.e., me) ahead of his friends.

So I hereby retire as a matchmaker. When friends are involved, it’s just too risky. Instead, I’ll let Katie find her own perfect match and cheer her on from the sidelines, where I belong.

2010-03-02T05:36:00.000-08:00

Taming Your Inner Chimp

As promised in my last column, I’m going to share a few pointers on having a human-to-human conversation that leaves both parties feeling okay, not bloody and mauled, as in a chimp attack.

I’ve been practicing this method for weeks now, and I won’t lie: it’s hard work. But we didn’t
spend thousands of years escaping the rain forest to revert now. That two per cent of DNA we don’t share with chimpanzees is what drives us forward.

So, imagine you’re about to confront your boyfriend about a difficult issue. Maybe you saw
him flirting with someone and you are NOT going to put up with that. So you swing down from the trees, ready to attack.

You: “I saw you flirting with that girl.”

Him: “I was not flirting. I was talking. There’s a difference.”

You: “Yeah, the difference is you were groping her. That makes it flirting.”

Him: “I patted her shoulder. In a brotherly way. Why are you always so insecure?”

You: “I wouldn’t be so insecure if you didn’t flirt. You’re an… animal.”

It’s a chimp attack, people. And things will only get worse unless you take the following steps:

Shut up and Listen
You think you know exactly what motivated your guy to behave the way he did. You don’t. And you won’t find out if you’re screeching and gnashing monkey molars.

So dial it back and listen. You can still attack later if you find out that your suspicions were
justified. The chimp inside is always coiled and ready to spring. Just wait before you turn it loose.

Start with Curiosity
Fight the temptation to throw canned messages back and forth: “You were flirting/No I wasn’t.” It’s a circular argument and it will either go nowhere or escalate.

Instead, try an open-ended question, where you might actually learn something. With the situation above, you could say, “What’s new with Amy?” Your guy might say, “She’s bummed about her parents’ splitting.”

Watch your Delivery
So you say, “It’s great that Amy feels she can confide in you.”

Looks nice on paper, right? But if your tone is sarcastic, it says exactly the opposite.

Even if you manage to sound sweet, if your eyebrows have collapsed into your chin, it contradicts your message and comes out meaning, “Why is she whining to my boyfriend?”

Result ≠ Intent
If you see your guy’s hand on a girl’s shoulder, your first thought might be that he’s trying to make you jealous because that’s how you feel. Jealousy probably came in handy in the rain forest but not so much at Dunfield.

Your feelings may be hurt, but that might not have been his intention at all. Maybe his worst
crime was not thinking about how you might see things.

Shift your focus from how you feel to finding out what he intended.

Explain without Blame
You: “Wow, I’m glad you told me about Amy’s family. I have to admit I was worried when I saw your hand on her shoulder.”

Him: “Babe, I could never think about Amy that way.”

And it’s another happy ending in the concrete jungle.

Effective communication isn’t easy and it’s made me realize that despite all that body hair, chimps have it pretty good in some ways. For starters, they don’t have to worry about all this stuff because they don’t mate for life. But no one ever said evolution was easy!

2010-02-23T06:06:00.000-08:00

Chimp Attack

Have you ever had a conversation that starts out innocently and turns into a raging battle before you know it?

If you have a brother or sister, I’ll bet you have. They push a couple of buttons and— wham!—you’re screaming so loud the skin peels right off your tongue.

This happens between my sister and me all the time. I never understood the dynamic until today. My mom took this seminar about effective communication at work, and conveniently left the course material on the kitchen table.

Apparently, it all starts with something that resembles the chimpanzee aggression sequence. A chimp sees certain triggers and attacks, and once the sequence has begun, there’s no stopping it until it has run its course.

Keeping in mind that humans share 98 per cent of our DNA with chimps, it’s no big surprise that we might follow similar patterns in a fight. When we feel threatened, we get defensive and strike back. Fast. Speaking from experience, it feels impossible to stop the attack sequence, even if you sort of realize mid-brawl that you misread the cues.

Let me give you an example. My sister, Grace, has been dumping her shifts at Dan’s Diner on me since the first week I started working there. (That’s probably why she got me the job.) I’d plan my whole week around my work schedule and then I’d get stuck with her shift, too, and it would throw everything off. I was forever canceling plans with friends or getting up early to do my homework because of Grace.

So now, if she says something like, “I’ve got plans for tomorrow. I need you to…” I don’t even wait for her to finish the sentence, I explode!

Lu: “Forget it. I have a life too you know. You can’t take always take advantage of me.”

Grace (gearing up for her own attack): “You have it so good. No responsibilities. Always looking out for yourself.”

Lu: “Are you kidding? I’m always covering your butt. Find another sucker to take your shift.”

G: “My shift? What are you talking about? All I wanted was for you to lend me your blue sweater.”

Lu: “Oh.” (The chimp may see the miscue at this point but the adrenalin is pumping and there is no ABORT switch.) “Well, that’s my favorite sweater, so the answer is still no.”

G: “I need it for a meeting. I

want to look boring and conservative like you.”

L: “So you think you can insult me and borrow my clothes?”

G: “I think you should stop being so selfish for a change.”

Cut to half an hour later when it finally sinks in that Grace is paying me a backhanded compliment. She was nervous about the meeting and wanted to look good, and with going to school and having a young kid, even with two part-time jobs, she doesn’t have spare cash for nice clothes. Thanks to working so many of her shifts, I do.

In short, our conversation went so far off the rails that it’s tragic. And it wasn’t an isolated event. Grace and I fight like chimps every couple of weeks.

Hopefully not anymore. Thanks to mom’s seminar material, I plan to have more constructive conversations with my sister.

In my next column, I’ll share some tips on derailing the chimp sequence that will help you keep your discussions from going the way of the apes.

2010-02-14T17:18:00.001-08:00

Why Guys Don't Call

A friend of mine met this guy awhile ago and they hit it off so well that he asked for her number and promised to contact her soon. The very next day he texted her, asking if she wanted to hang out. She waited the requisite hour, so as not to look too eager, and then answered, sure, she’d love to hang out.

That was two weeks ago. The guy NEVER responded.

Why? Why contact her in the first place if he’s not interested?

This happened to me a couple of times before J came into my life, so I knew what to expect. Within 24 hours, my friend activated the Myth Machine. “Maybe he was in car accident,” she said.

“Sure,” I said, since I’m a loyal friend. “He might have broken his thumbs and can’t text.”

“Maybe he had to go out of town, and there’s no cell signal,” she said. “Or maybe his grandmother died and he is too sad to call.”

It’s also possible that aliens scooped him up to create
hot-but-cold clones for their distant planet but I doubt it.

On some level, my friend knows that this guy would call if he wanted to. Even if he’d met an untimely end, his last, dying words to his best buddy would have been, “Tell X I’m sorry I couldn’t hang out, will you?” At least, that’s what a gentleman would do. Apparently it’s asking too much of some teenage guys. Notice I say “some.” Rather than attack all guys, as Newshound would have, I now have to dig a little deeper. Why would a guy would ask for someone’s number if he didn’t intend to follow through?

I took the question to my panel of experts, a term I use loosely. These guys are experts on nothing more than being male but I figure they have at least some idea of how the average guy’s mind works.

As full disclaimer, my expert panel is composed of J’s friends. J himself declined to be on the panel. For the sake of our relationship, he can no longer be frank about romantic situations. But he’s often a bystander during the consultation and while he refuses to formally weigh in, I can read the signs. When his pals are deliberately steering me down the wrong path—and they always try—J’s eye-rolling, forehead-rubbing and stifled guffaws give it away. Eventually, with these clues, and the relentless questioning that proves my skill as a journalist, I get to the bottom of the story. Our agreement is that if J lets me interrogate his friends, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt for being more evolved than the average guy. Luckily, he is.

In this instance, the panel’s answer was deceptively simple: guys don’t call because they get distracted.

The Myth Machine has already taken this into account. Of course a hot, smart, funny guy is busy. He’s doing homework, joining clubs and working part-time. On top of that, he’s probably running an animal rescue mission, starting a recycling co-op and volunteering at a senior’s home. No wonder he hasn’t had a second to contact you. But you know he will, and when he does, he’ll prove he’s been thinking of you non-stop, too. (By this point the Myth Machine is working so hard, it’s ready to combust.)

Sadly, my expert panel says the truth is a little less glamorous. The hot, smart, funny guy has met someone else, but it’s equally possible that he got sidelined by play-offs (any sport), a party, or zombie movie-fest.

At the other end of his distraction, he will suddenly remember that he never got back to you. Only now he thinks it’s too late—that it says he’s not interested. He’s afraid you won’t be happy to hear from him, or that you’ll interrogate him about why it’s taken so long to call and obviously, he won’t have a good answer.

So he weighs his options. How likely is he to run into you again? Do you have friends in common? Sometimes the potential future embarrassment is enough to make him call at this point. But if he can get away with disappearing into the void, he probably will.

If Scoop were still writing, he’d tell you what his friends told me: if you made a big enough impression—and that smart, funny, hot guy is truly open for business—he’d follow up fast. He wouldn’t want to risk someone else getting hold of you first. If he doesn’t—and I quote my panel here—“Dude ain’t worth your time.”

So my advice: give the guy a week max and then power down the Myth Machine. Save your kilowatt energy for someone who deserves you.

Lu’s Views

2010-02-12T03:43:00.000-08:00

Happy new year!

We’ve only recently emerged from the black hole of revision. While we’re recovering from the ordeal, we’ll turn this space over to Luisa Perez, of Girl v. Boy fame. Although we don’t necessarily endorse all her views, we’re glad Lu has plenty to say so we can kick back… and wait for the next round of revisions.

You'll be able to find her regular columns here, but we will also be publishing them in this blog.

So without further ado, over to you, Lu.

New Beginnings

Welcome to my inaugural column. Okay, it probably doesn’t fully qualify as a column when it’s only posted online, but newspapers are becoming obsolete anyway. An aspiring journalist has to start somewhere.

Make that start over somewhere. As some of you know, I wrote a column for the Bulletin under the pseudonym Newshound for a few months, which turned into a battle of the sexes with a certain male reporter nicknamed Scoop. When the battle got out of hand, Principal Alvarez killed the column and sentenced us to join the staff officially.

Now we have to put our real names, or “bylines,” on our articles. That means accepting peer review from students and other staffers, including one Mr. Joey Carella. J is a smart guy and I appreciate his advice on any subject, which should put to rest those rumors that we’ve broken up. We are definitely still together, romantically speaking. Journalistically, however, we are usually miles apart. J has strong opinions, some seriously misguided. We disagree about fifty per cent of the time. Luckily, the other fifty is what really counts.

Our esteemed editor, Mr. Sparling, made us comment on each other’s columns and we had so many “helpful” suggestions that we kept missing our deadlines. The four columns that made it to print were so boring, I started to get hate mail. (The Luisa Perez Sucks campaign only made me stronger by the way.) It was a quandary: we couldn’t be Scoop and Newshound anymore, yet we couldn’t be ourselves with everyone looking over our shoulders.

Eventually Mr. Sparling gave up on the column idea and assigned us to regular reporting. Now J covers the sports beat, while I cover arts—mainly music, thanks to the free passes I get from my sister.

I like reporting, but I still believe I have views to share that can help Dunfield students. So I met with Mr. Sparling and made a pitch for having my own space. I even quoted the great author, Virginia Woolf, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

Obviously I’ll never get a dime for this work so I figured the least Mr. Sparling could do was cough up a figurative “room” of my own. Everyone needs space to be herself and have her own thoughts without someone (especially her boyfriend) second guessing every word. Maybe I appreciate having my own space more than most people because I spent 14 years sharing a room with my extremely opinionated sister.

Anyway, working the Woolf angle did the trick, although Mr. Sparling soon realized I hadn’t actually read her books. I tried, but Woolf is a tough, tough slog. Maybe even she realized that, because she ended up filling her pockets with rocks and walking into a lake to drown. Sad, but true.

I’m not that complicated, and as Mr. Sparling keeps reminding me, I’m not here to write fiction. My mandate is to share reasoned views on topics of interest to all Dunfield students. I have strict orders to Keep it Civil.

To Newshound fans—yes, there are a few—I promise to try to tell it like it is about guys and relationships. Sometimes, I’ll only be able to get the dialogue started, and you’ll have to pick it up in the halls where the Civil Police have restricted jurisdiction.

Let the debate rage on—as long as it doesn’t implicate me in any way. This is my room and I want to keep it!

Pioneer Spirit

2009-12-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

Sandy and I have been feeling a bit sorry for ourselves lately. The Christmas season is upon us, yet in recent weeks, the sound of jingle bells has been drowned out by the sound of computer keys tapping.

So on Saturday night, we took a trip back in time, with our moms and my husband, to clear our heads and remember what the season is really about – friends and family.

And food.

Our destination: Toronto ’s Black Creek Pioneer Village, which holds a “Christmas by Lamplight” event every year. The site replicates a typical village of Ontario ’s settlers with actual buildings from the late 1700’s to the mid 1800’s.

Bundled up in our woolies, we strolled along the wooden plank sidewalks with our lantern. We sang carols in the church, danced a jig at the inn and misbehaved in the schoolhouse.

(Aside: In case you can’t read it, the slate shamelessly promotes Girl v. Boy, which came out in paperback TODAY.)

While munching on mince tarts, shortbread, Turkish delight and roasted chestnuts, we also learned something: Pioneers had it hard.

Imagine long, cold winters in a one-room cabin with your parents and six siblings.

Imagine visiting the town doctor to have a tooth pulled with what appeared to be massive pliers. (The same doctor, by the way, had to run a second business on the side because he couldn’t make ends meet on treating patients.)

Imagine waiting a full week for “news,” because that’s how long it took to set the type of a newspaper.

Still, Susanna Moodie and her sister, Catherine Parr Traill—pioneers in the Ontario backwoods—managed to write books by the light of a smelly oil lamp, with their children (14 between them!) sleeping nearby.

Suddenly, tapping away at a computer in my nice, warm house doesn’t seem so bad.

Time to stop complaining about my life. Instead, I’ll put on some cashmere, fire up my coffeemaker, and get back to work! (Can you roast chestnuts on a space heater?)

Calling all Reviewers

2009-12-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

The trade paperback of Girl v. Boy should arrive on bookshelves any day because we received a big box of copies this week.

Just to refresh, the story is about an aspiring journalist, Luisa Perez, who gets a little carried away in an anonymous column in her school newspaper and has to deal with the fall-out.

If you’d like to get your name in print by reviewing the book for your school newspaper, send us an e-mail with your name and snail mail address and tell us a bit about your newspaper (e.g., the location and circulation).

Same goes for YA book bloggers: if you’d like a free review copy, send us your snail mail address AND the URL for your website.

Send your request to: yvonne_sandy@collinsrideout.com

The Black Hole

2009-12-15T06:21:00.000-08:00

So, where is Yvonne, you may wonder? Stringing festive lights and building gingerbread houses?

Not exactly. She’s in the black hole of revision and she isn’t speaking to me. You know how women giving birth sometimes turn on their husbands in savage rage for getting them into that situation? It can be like that with co-authors, too.

Some writers enjoy the revision stage. We’re not among them. Fortunately, we’ve gotten off lucky with most of our books, and normally have light revisions. This is probably because there are two of us: the two-headed monster goes over a manuscript so many times that we catch most big problems before an editor has to point them out.

This time we ran into a problem. The book had a mind of its own and along the way, we sprouted a third head. The new one looked like Medusa, with snakes dancing all over.

Yvonne bravely took the first shift. Down she went into the hole, armed with a machete to decapitate the third head and kill as many snakes as possible. It’s a disgusting job, but someone has to do it.

My role at this stage is to stand beside the hole shouting encouragement and helpful tips: “Don’t kill Brody! We need him.” Or, “Try a scavenger hunt! Everyone loves a scavenger hunt!”

Yvonne may not be speaking, but she can still flip me the bird. I don’t have to see it to know it’s there.

Yesterday, she emerged from the black hole with 70 pages and a sour expression. “I’m going to decorate my Christmas tree,” she said, handing me our baby. “Good luck with this.”

I waited till I had a grande mocha in hand before uncovering it. It’s a good thing I was at Starbucks or I might have screamed: the baby is unrecognizable. Limbs were severed and major organs replaced. There’s blood on every page.

 At the moment, this is one ugly baby. But on the bright side, most of the snakes are gone.

Now I must descend into the black hole of revision and charm the rest of them. Hopefully Yvonne can locate a pungi on eBay—the wind instrument made from a gourd that snake charmers use—and toss it down to me.

If she knocks me out, all the better. I don’t want to be awake for this.

What about Boys?

2009-12-05T13:23:00.000-08:00

People often ask us, “Do guys read your books?”

The short answer is, we don’t know. Probably not too many, judging by the fact that we’ve never received an e-mail from a male reader.

Yvonne’s husband tried and failed, succumbing to estrogen poisoning at approximately page 200 of Speechless, our first novel. (He is hugely supportive in other ways!)

But there is definitely one guy who has read our entire body of work, and today is his birthday. My brother is two years younger than me, which makes him 27—again.

So, 27 years ago, my parents, in their wisdom, named the new arrival Randall, fully intending to call him Randy. “How cute,” they thought: “Randy and Sandy.” Maybe it was cute when we were toddlers, but by the time we were going to parties together in university, it wasn’t cute anymore. “This is Sandy,” Yvonne would say, “And her brother Randy, and his friend Andy.”

Skinny little Randy grew up to be quite a bruiser, although I didn’t fully process that until I got a call from a guy who works with me. Let’s call him “Dean.”

Dean: “Hi Sandy. I’m calling about your brother.”

Sandy: “My brother? How do you know my brother?”

Dean: “We play on a recreational hockey league together. He, uh, plays pretty rough.”

Sandy: “Randy? But he’s not a big guy.”

Dean: “Have you seen your brother lately? He’s six-two and lethal.”

ASIDE: This is how I still think of my brother.

Sandy: “Lethal?! Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?”

Dean: “Sandy and Randy... You don’t forget that.”

Sandy: “Humph. Well, my brother’s never picked a fight in his life.”

Dean: “Maybe not off the rink. On the rink he’s a brute. So I was thinking…”

Sandy: “Dean. Tell me you’re not asking me to call off my brother. It’s sports. You guys have a system for working it out, right? A secret guy code?”

Dean: “If I end up with a dislocated shoulder…”

Sandy: “I’ll help you type your press releases. Bye, now.”

It’s crucial to observe the family code of honour:

Stage one: Defend from outsiders.

Stage two: Attack from within.

I called my brother immediately.

Sandy: “Are you trying to kill my colleagues?”

Randy: “What, that Dean guy? Did he come running to you for help?”

S: “Is he right? Are you a brute on the rink?”

R: “Hockey’s a contact sport. If he doesn’t like it, he should try archery or something.”

S: “Well, I have to see him in meetings. If my boss asks how he got a black eye, you know what he’s going to say.”

R: “He’s a wimp.”

S: “Vent your testosterone on your own colleagues.”

R: “Fine. I’ll go out of my way to check everyone except Dean.”

S: “Wait a second… I know how you operate. You’ll make a BIG SHOW of avoiding Dean on the ice, thereby emasculating him completely. No. You’ve gotta check him once in awhile, just not as hard. Then he can keep his pride.”

R: Sigh…

S: “No visible bruising. Do you hear me?”

R: “Blah blah spare-the-whiner blah.”

So there you have it, folks: a snapshot of the guy who sits down and churns through each and every one of our books.

After reading Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid: Daughter of the Diva, he e-mailed: “I don't want to sound surprised or anything but it was quite enjoyable. While certainly the subject matter was different than my usual blood-and-guts, all-action reading, it was a pleasure to read.”

Yvonne, who’s known Randy since he was only five-foot-six, frequently says, “That scene with [insert name of any of our bratty male characters] sounded just like Randy.”

It’s a good thing we write teen fiction, because this particular source of inspiration permanently topped out age 27.

Happy birthday, bro!

Something Good about Winter

2009-12-02T07:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome, December! As I’ve said before, Yvonne and I loathe winter, but December gets a free pass, what with all the parties and presents.

This year, there’s another cause to celebrate: Girl v. Boy is coming out in paperback in a few weeks. If you’re in the U.S., it should be on the shelves by the 22nd. We Canadians will probably have to wait a few more days for the dogsleds to deliver.

Here are a few reviews of Girl v. Boy. The bolding is all mine!

Booklist

Chicago sophomore Luisa Perez generally avoids school activities. Then she is asked to anonymously cover the school’s efforts in the citywide literacy fund-raising challenge for the school paper. Though initially reluctant, Luisa becomes columnist “Newshound,” and soon two competitions are on: one between the boys and girls to raise money; the other between Luisa and her anonymous male counterpart, “Scoop,” to get the story. As the columns become more provocative, tackling gender and relationship issues, Luisa determines to uncover Scoop’s identity. Her discovery may not surprise all readers, but even those who saw what was ahead will appreciate Luisa’s hard-won insights, particularly those about looking beyond appearances. Luisa’s descriptive first-person narrative provides compelling reading as she and the supporting characters experience struggles and achievements, at school, at work, at home, and in romance. The interspersed, dueling columns are snappy and edgy, and they empower Luisa and her friends to examine priorities in relationships, learning, and life. This enjoyable, thought-provoking battle of the sexes highlights literacy’s importance and the power of the written word to hurt, heal, and inspire.

Children's Literature

Chicago's Dunfield High School has a reputation for its abysmal school spirit, and the kids don't care. In fact, sophomore Luisa Perez makes it a point to avoid extra-curricular activities. Instead, she waits tables to help support her family—and waits for her FB (future boyfriend) to appear. Then, surprisingly, the superintendent of schools levels a challenge: Which high school can raise the most money to support literacy? The reward is huge: two extra weeks of vacation during winter break. At Dunfield, the girls take on the boys for an exciting contest. Two anonymous school journalists (Luisa and one boy) cover the competition. Rapidly, they turn from fund-raising reporters to gender combatants. "Girls versus boys" becomes "girl v boy," and the spicy tit-for-tat column becomes so popular that Dunfield becomes a fundraising powerhouse. The ending satisfies, as loose ends are woven in, Dunfield wins extra vacation, and Luisa gets her CB (current boyfriend). The authors of this book take high school readers, primarily girls, on a fun and saucy romp. The pace is lively, and the vocabulary is intelligent. Imaginative new events pop up in each chapter, making this book hard to predict and hard to put down. In addition, sexy flirtations run through the story like a Valentine-red ribbon. Give it a PG-13 rating for language. However, this otherwise likeable work disappoints in that only the central character (Luisa) is well developed. An array of other characters begs to be known better. There would be plenty of opportunity to do that in a sequel.

Kirkus Reviews

When offered a chance to write an anonymous column for the school paper chronicling Dunfield High's efforts in Chicago's citywide literacy challenge, 16-year-old Luisa Perez jumps at the chance. She hopes to distance herself from her family's legacy of academic underachievement as well as to differentiate herself from the ten other Luisa Perezes in the school. The competition between the girls and boys heats up, as each group tries to outdo the other in fundraising. Luisa offers the girls' perspective for the paper, while another writer provides the male point of view. As if juggling her writing, a part-time job, school and a sudden rush of possible F.B.s (future boyfriends) were not hard enough, Luisa has to contend with her sister, Grace, who moves back home with her young daughter. Readers will dope out the identity of the boy writer long before he is revealed in the narrative, but a strong voice and quirky characters keep the plot moving despite the absence of dramatic tension. Smart dialogue and realistic scenes add to the story's appeal.

Snappy, saucy, spicy, sexy and smart? Not bad!

So if you’re looking for a snappy, saucy, spicy, sexy and smart gift for a friend, you’ll know exactly what to choose. And don’t let those gift cards sit around gathering dust!

Stellar X 2

2009-11-28T17:22:00.000-08:00

Until today, Yvonne and I have pretty much been stars only in our own minds. But now we’ve discovered that we’re nominated for The Stellar Book Award — British Columbia’s Teen Readers Choice Award.

And the really great news is that TWO of our books have been nominated – The Black Sheep and The New and Improved Vivien Leigh Reid: Diva in Control.

From now till April, teens throughout B.C. can read, rank, review, and discuss favourite nominees. We hope lots of west coast teens will discuss us, and when they’re done with that, they can discuss the fabulous Susan Juby, who’s also nominated. If we have to lose (but how could we, with TWO books in the running?), we want to lose to Susan.

I’m not trying to influence anyone here, but I love Vancouver and visit often. You guys have the mountains and the ocean, whereas in Toronto, we’ve got… snow. Soon, anyway. The only thing Yvonne and I hate more than winter is… Well, nothing, actually. But now we can look forward to spring and perhaps winning a Stellar.

Enjoy a long winter’s reading B.C. teens — and thanks for making this bleak, late November day starry.

For the Writers on Your Gift List

2009-11-10T11:28:00.000-08:00

Yvonne is a master gifter. She has a talent for choosing unique gifts, wrapping them beautifully, and making the giftee feel special.

For someone raised on practical gift-giving, reciprocating creates a lot of pressure. My parents favoured sensible gifts—vacuums, garden hoses, flashlights, can openers, maybe a sweater to liven things up.

That’s what I’m working against when I’m shopping, and Yvonne has learned to steel herself as she peeks into a gift bag and discovers yet another inspiring find from the housewares department. She always rallies, though, and the duller the gift, the more she raves about its utility later. “I still use those measuring cups,” she says, brightly. “Very handy.”

I’ve stepped up my game since the measuring cup debacle a decade ago, but I can’t keep pace with Yvonne, who’s barely hitting her stride.

Recently, with help from husband Dave, she came up with the perfect birthday gift for a writer: framed “word clouds” of our Vivien Leigh Reid series.

I hadn’t heard of word clouds before, but all you have to do is go to wordle.net plug in your text (in this case a manuscript) and voila:

Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid: Daughter of the Diva

Now Starring Vivien Leigh Reid: Diva in Training

The New and Improved Vivien Leigh Reid: Diva in Control

This is a gift with layers.

First, Yvonne is encouraging me to buy a house with a wall upon which to hang my word clouds. It’s a vote of confidence (AKA a kick in the butt) in my long battle against mortgage phobia.

Second, it’s a visual keepsake of a series we loved writing. Seeing “Annika,” “Darling,” “acting,” “film,” “cut,” and “guys” hanging over my desk will take me back into Leigh’s world for awhile and motivate me to recapture that sense of fun.

Finally, the gift is useful in a way Yvonne never intended. These clouds highlight some words we overuse, because the program gives prominence to those that appear most frequently. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see “just,” “maybe,” “anyway,” “already,” “probably,” “always” taking up so much space in my clouds.

Luckily, we’re about to revise the first book in our new Love Inc. series and still have time to seek out and destroy as many of those words as possible. It’s not just a matter of good writing, anymore. I have to think about the clouds overhead.

Not that I’m likely to receive framed word clouds for The Black Sheep or Girl v. Boy from Yvonne for Christmas. A master gifter never repeats herself.

Summer Slaving – Yvonne’s Resume

2009-06-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

June is here and for many, that means finding a summer job. If you’re super-organized, maybe you already have one lined up, but if you’re a procrastinator like me, it’ll be a last minute scramble.

I wouldn’t recommend my approach. It led to career opportunities like selling manure in a garden center and luggage in a mall. I handled a switchboard, did endless real estate title searches and taught kids how to play the organ.

One year, I left it so late that the only one willing to hire me was… my dad. Trust me, getting a ride to work every day wasn’t worth the trade off of spending the best months of the year stuck in a stuffy little office with no one to talk to but my father. The social deprivation was torture for a chatterbox like me and it wasn’t long before the crucial filter that saves us from disclosing too much personal information to our parents malfunctioned. I started blathering on about whatever crossed my mind—including boys. At sixteen, boys crossed my mind a lot.

After a few weeks, I got so comfortable over-sharing with my dad that I didn’t confine my confessions to the office. In fact, I was casually comparing one of my classmates to Hugh Grant when we rounded the corner in a store and found a group guys from school eavesdropping on the entire conversation. Thanks to the insanely long memory guys have for life’s embarrassing moments, I paid for that indiscretion right through senior year. And naturally, the Hugh Grant look-alike ran for the hills after hearing the story.

Fortunately, there were plenty of other crush-worthy guys around, and soon I was back to my old tricks and telling my dad all about “Gavin,” the hottest guy on the football team. I mentioned Gavin’s shady rep and declared myself up for the job of reforming him. (Hey, it can happen—look at Lila and Tim on Friday Night Lights!)

Sounding just like a pal, my father offhandedly asked Gavin’s age. I over-shared that not only was Gavin nearly 19 he was also back for a “victory lap” at school. Like magic, my real dad resurfaced and I suddenly found myself working late and on weekends. It was a total abuse of employer power—and it worked. My quarterback figured out he was never going to score and moved on.

I accused my dad of ruining my life, but looking back it was all for the best. Although Gavin did eventually graduate, his final senior yearbook named him most likely to do jail time.

Besides, my dad made it up to me three years later, when our good relationship landed me my best summer job ever. When I turned nineteen (legal drinking age in Ontario, Canada), my father took me to a fancy hotel bar and bought me my first drink. At the next table was the director of a large social service organization who was so impressed that a teen was hanging out with her dad (not such a stretch when there’s free liquor involved!), that she gave me her business card and offered to get me a job anytime.

True to her word, the next summer she set me up as a camp counselor for single moms on probation. My job was to lead educational programs for the moms and it was tough going at first. I’d led a fairly cushy and protected existence in the suburbs and I couldn’t exactly relate to what the participants had gone through. They knew it, too, and gave me a pretty good hazing. But I stuck it out—and not just because of my empty bank account and my crush on a hot male counselor.

That summer job ended up being the most rewarding of all. Getting to know the women and hearing their stories made me grateful for everything I’d taken for granted in my own life. It also taught me not to judge a book by its cover. By the end of the summer, my “campers” let me know I’d touched their lives, too. I was richer not only for the paychecks, but also for experience.

As icing on the cake, I had a hot new boyfriend I didn’t need to reform at all.

Free Book Friday

2009-03-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

Head over to teens.freebookfriday.com to win an autographed copy of GIRL v. BOY or THE BLACK SHEEP.

Thanks so much to Jessica Brody, author of THE FIDELITY FILES and founder of Free Book Friday, for giving us a chance to describe how we manage to write together without killing each other. It’s a timely reminder for us, since we just started working on our new “Love Inc.” series.

So check out the site and enter to win. We’ve even thrown in a couple of BLACK SHEEP T-shirts for runners up.

  Have a great weekend, everyone!

Go Librarians!

2009-03-03T19:24:00.000-08:00

Sandy and I have a special place in our hearts for librarians.

Now.

I’m ashamed to say that wasn’t always the case. Blame it on a negative early experience.

We were just 13 and 15 when we met while working in a public library. At that point, it would be fair to say that work wasn’t a top priority for us. Goofing around, now that was a priority. Chit-chat about boys, music, movies and hairstyles? Also a priority.

So we would spend 80 per cent of each shift chatting, and the remaining 20 per cent working our butts off to get our shelving done in the least amount of time possible. From our perspective, it was a great arrangement.

Unfortunately, the head librarian disagreed. Mrs. Hinds, better known to us as The Fossil, had issues with our constant chatter. She also disapproved of the notes we left for each other on the staff bulletin board. For a librarian, you’d expect more appreciation of limericks, haiku and free verse. Especially as the thinly-disguised subject of so many of them.

Instead of fostering our sociability and creativity, however, she started scheduling us on different shifts. This had the unintended result of increasing the volume of haikus. So then she cut off our bulletin board privileges.

When we started switching shifts with colleagues so that we could work together, she instituted the no-switching-without-approval policy.

In other words, she won. The new, humorless regime eventually drove me to find a new job, teaching uncooperative kids how to play the organ.

It was enough to make anyone appreciate libraries.

Okay, so we learned a lot. We learned to put the customer first. We learned to balance procrastination with hard work. And we learned that very little rhymes with “fossil.”
We also learned we like working together. But when we eventually teamed up to write again, it wasn’t limericks. (Although I do wish we’d kept some of those early efforts.)

Today, the same library proudly displays a photo of us taken by a current librarian at one of our book signings. So all is forgiven.

Now we are free to love librarians, and we do. One of our favorites is Mrs. Hill, a middle school librarian who has written some nice reviews of our books, and recently posted an interview with us. Please visit her blog here.

Thanks Mrs. Hill!

Then hop over to The Ninja Librarian for a nice review of GIRL v. BOY.

Please rest assured we have a far better work ethic now. When we meet to discuss a book idea, we spend at least 50 per cent of our time talking about work, and the other 50 talking about music, movies, hairstyles and cute guys. Hopefully by the time we’re fossils, we’ll be putting the work part first. We’re a work-in-progress.

The Team Expands

2009-01-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

Yvonne and I have a lot in common. We both love long walks, cashmere, Starbucks, and slightly burned cookies. But, as I mentioned previously, we differ in one fundamental way: Yvonne is a dog person and I am a cat person.

Yes, I love dogs—and rabbits and tropical fish and gerbils. I wouldn’t mind giving a ferret or parrot a try.

But for me, these would have to come in addition to a cat.

Yvonne, on the other hand, will probably never own a cat. If pressed, she might say this is my fault.

When we met, she was quite fond of Patches, the cat next door. But once we became roommates, there was a constant string of strays in our rundown neighborhood and I couldn’t say no. Most of them were sickly and needed vet visits and pills or eye ointment. All of them needed new homes.

Then there was Hugo, the one I kept.

Yvonne and I had found a new place in a better neighborhood and I moved in first. When she moved in, she called me at work.

“Your cat is attacking me,” she said. There was a scream and then a click.

He had her cornered in the kitchen when I got home, and was making little leaps at her. It was like a welcoming ritual, only with claws.

They became pals eventually, but Yvonne never fully appreciated Hugo, even after he caught a mouse in her bedroom.

“Your cat, your problem,” she said, stepping over the maimed rodent and locking herself outside.

So when it came time to re-cat last fall, it was kind of Yvonne to play chauffeur. We drove out to the suburbs, where I had located my new orange tabby. I had also agreed to collect his little sister for a colleague who wanted a kitten.

Here we are right outside their first home.

Notice how Yvonne is keeping me between her and the cats. It’s almost like she knew they were about to lose noxious fluids from every orifice.

We were barely in the Mini when Yvonne said, “Do you smell that?”

It was hard to miss, and it got worse fast. There was barfing and yowling and panting and jangling of the crate door. It was hard to believe two tiny creatures could make such a fuss. Although it was a cold night, we hit the highway with the windows down.

By the time we reached my place, there was silence. The kittens were in the back corner, motionless.

“Want me to come in and see if they’re okay?” Yvonne asked, revving the Mini for take-off.

I said I’d take a cab to the emergency vet if I had to. She’d already gone above and beyond.

I opened the door of the crate expecting the worst, but Stella hopped right out. She explored a little, cleaned herself up, and started to purr. It didn’t take long for me to decide that two cats are better than one.

But we’re definitely going to need a bigger place when the dog arrives.

And we may need a different chauffeur if the household expands to include ferret or parrot.

There’s only so much any coauthor should have to take.

Kicking off the Season

2008-12-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas is nearly upon us and Sandy and I have been busy ho-ho-ho-ing and shop-shop-shopping!

Is it just me, or does December always go by at warp speed? Not that I'm complaining, because I'm a sucker for this time of year. Sandy always teases that I spend too much time lingering on street corners that sell Christmas trees, because I LOVE the smell! I love the decorations, the lights, the parties and yes, even the music (though not so much when it cranks up the day after Halloween!).

This December feels extra-special, because we kicked it off with a visit to Bessborough Public School in Leaside, Toronto.

The Grade 8 book club invited us to lunch to talk about The Black Sheep. We had a great time, talking books with the girls over pizza and homemade biscotti.

Thanks to all the girls and their wonderful teachers, Cathy and Tina, who made us feel so welcome. You put us in the best of spirits and after all, it's friends — both old and brand new — who really make this season special!

P-Rated

2008-10-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

You may wonder what it is we’re doing when we’re not blogging, which, let’s face it, is most of the time. Regular bloggers we are not.

Yvonne spends a lot of her free time watching cooking shows, something she describes as “food porn.”

I’m useless in the kitchen, but I have my own addiction: pet porn.

It’s been a problem for close to a year now, since my beloved cat, Molly, died at age 15. After a respectful period of mourning, I made my way over to www.petfinder.com to check out my options. With Molly gone, I had the opportunity to get the dog I’ve always wanted.

Now, the dog I’ve always wanted is perfect. It doesn’t yap, growl, eat garbage, have “accidents,” roll in disgusting things, smell “doggie,” or require a huge amount of exercise.

Yvonne, owner of Dexter, a prince among mini-schnauzers, scoffed at my list. “You probably want it to purr,” she said.

Which would certainly be a plus. But I haven’t found a dog that does on petfinder, or any of the other rescue sites I visit regularly.

In the past few months, I’ve considered Akitas to Whippets and every mix in between. I’ve sent some appealing ads to Yvonne, including one for a Jack Russell terrier that was both housebroken and trained to use a litter box. It had a vast repertoire of tricks. “Too high maintenance,” Yvonne said. And in view of my inexperience with dogs, that Jack would have been running my life in no time.

Then along came the perfect little red-headed mutt. I filled out the out adoption form and sent it to the dog rescue organization. No one answered my calls. It was as if they could sense my unrealistic expectations.

Sucked ever deeper into the world of pet porn, checking “my sites” was the first thing I did when I logged on every day. Some dogs were too big, others too small. Some were too active, others had separation anxiety.

Finally I realized I’d fallen into a great time-sapping sinkhole. What I was really doing was procrastinating. There is no such thing as the perfect dog.

So I gave it all up, cold turkey.

And turned my attention to finding the perfect cat.

To my mind, all cats are perfect, but some are more perfect than others. My smoky gray Molly was perfectly devoted to me; unfortunately she loathed everyone else, including the cat-sitter. If I went away, Molly would pull out her fur and refuse to eat.
When she died, I agreed to adopt a mellow orange male tabby from a neighbor. Roberto had a big build and a bigger purr and in less than a week, my parents had stolen him. But that is the subject of another blog.

Afterwards, I casually surveyed vets, friends and colleagues and many agreed that orange male tabbies have the best temperaments.

As it turns out, I am not the only one in on the orange tabby secret. It took time to find one, but persistence and pet porn paid off. I met my orange male tabby last week. I’m happy to report that at six weeks, he’s adorable. Mellow, however, he is not. A blur of constant motion, he was more interested in beating up on his sisters than in meeting Yvonne and me. Still, I’ve decided to take a chance on him.

That said, I’m still in the market for the perfect dog. It doesn’t have to purr, but it must look good with orange.

I'm out of Jail

2008-09-24T18:20:00.001-07:00

No, I wasn’t doing time for a crime. I was doing time on a movie that takes place in a prison. A five week sentence, to be precise. So while Sandy has been bear spotting on pastoral back roads at her cottage, I’ve been wandering cellblocks like these:

So much for the glamour of the film business, huh? This is a deserted old jail a few hours outside of Toronto and a number of films have been shot here, including the recent release, Blindness.

Although it feels a little strange when you first wander the empty corridors alone (especially at night), I got used to it surprisingly quickly. The only area of the jail that I found to be creepy was “the hole” -- the place in the basement of the building where they sent prisoners for solitary confinement. Of course, it didn’t help that the basement no longer has functioning electricity, so pushing our equipment through pitch black corridors and first seeing the cellblock by flashlight, added to the effect.

But even with our movie lights burning, the hole is a depressing place. The tiny cells resemble cages in which there is just enough room for a small cot and not much else. There is no natural light down there and no toilets or sinks in the cells. Instead, there is just one community toilet at the end of the hall, which is right out in the open. If that isn’t reason enough to stay on the straight and narrow, I don’t know what is!

Okay, there is one other thing about prison life that scares me straight....the meals. As a passionate foodie, I can’t imagine existing on the gruel they serve in those places. Unfortunately, the catering on our film wasn’t much better. It was so bad, in fact, that I opted out of the lunches altogether and brought my own meals instead. But a girl can only get so creative when she’s living without a kitchen (hello sandwiches, yogurt and cold soy burgers). I thought I was going to get scurvy from lack of fresh fruits and veggies. And now that the movie is wrapped, all I can think about is great food.

To that end, my husband and I went out for a great dinner with my parents. Since it was a rare warm night and the summer is almost over, we opted to dine on the backyard patio, but as it turns out, I wasn’t the only foodie there who was obsessed with thoughts of a good meal...

Normally, I’d find scavenging raccoons quite cute, but on this occasion, nothing was coming between me and my beet salad...and my bruschetta....and my garlic shrimp. The owners of the restaurant managed to scare off the intruders quite effectively with a flashlight, though they nearly scared my mother off too, when four fat raccoons wobbled off across a cable that was a mere six feet over her head.

Despite the urban wildlife, it’s great to be home. And now I’m off to enjoy my freedom in the kitchen, where I’ll be cooking up a storm!

Did You See That?

2008-08-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve needed glasses for a few years, now. Okay, make that ten years. I wear them when I’m driving because I figure I owe it to everyone else on the road, but beyond that I mostly don’t bother. If life is slightly blurry around the edges, that’s fine by me.

It might be a different story if I looked good in glasses. No need to go into detail here about my oversized, misshapen cranium. Suffice to say that even Yvonne had to admit I have challenges in the frames department. I can’t wear contacts, either.

I was managing pretty well until this summer, when I started to notice what I wasn’t noticing. During my typical daily walk at the family cottage, for example, I saw a pair of riders on horseback approaching in the distance. As they crested a hill, however, I realized it was actually four humans and two dogs on leashes.

On the road the following evening, I said to my mother, “Check out that cat. Why is it walking so funny?”

Mom’s eyes narrowed behind her thick lenses. “Because it’s a crow?”

I agreed I should give my glasses a try, at least during solitary strolls on the country roads. Who knew what else I was missing?

The next day my prescription shades revealed distinct leaves on trees that used to be masses of green. The hawk soaring overhead turned out to be an osprey and the reddish blur in the distance came into focus as a deer. It was practically a National Geographic special.

I was heading down the hill that leads to the main road when I heard twigs snapping. Turning my corrected vision to the left, I quickly located the culprit. A black head with small ears loomed over a fence a few yards away. The creature was on its hind legs, watching me with small brown eyes.

Without my glasses, I might have mistaken it for an unusually agile Labrador retriever. With my glasses, I could positively ID it as a black bear. A young black bear, but a bear nonetheless.

Here’s where I saw it:

I’ve read those tips about what to do when confronted by a bear (usually a sidebar with a report of a bear mauling), but I didn’t pay much attention. In the dozens of summers I’ve spent at my cottage, I’ve never once seen a bear. Maybe I missed some that were actually there, but I doubt it. That kind of news tends to get around.

Faced with the real thing, I couldn’t remember what to do. Whistle? Clap? Sing? Crouch? Run? Play dead?

While I weighed my options, the bear climbed over the fence and walked across the road in front of me. It watched me the whole time.

Soon it was behind me, moving quickly up the hill and deeper into the bushes. I continued down the hill, my head swiveling exorcist-style. The young bear didn’t worry me that much, but the prospect of meeting its mother didn’t appeal. (What kind of mom would let her youngster roam the roads at noon in a well-populated area, anyway? There’s a perfectly good garbage dump ten miles down the road. Bear heaven.)

Turning at the bottom of the hill, I headed toward home. Walking a lot faster than usual, if you must know. Practically running.

I was about to cross the highway when I heard more twigs snapping. The sound was louder this time, so I figured it had to be the mother bear.

Out of the bush came the same young bear—or its identical twin. Once again it crossed the road in front of me, this time even closer. It didn’t even look at me. Obviously I am not much of a threat.

Here’s where I saw it the second time:

It took my legs a few seconds to pick up the signal from my brain but when I finally crossed the highway, I saw the same group of people I’d mistaken for horses a few days earlier.

“I’d pick up that Chihuahua if I were you,” I said. “There’s a bear in the bush.”

The man gave me a skeptical look and I wondered how many other annoying facial expressions I’d missed in my years of not wearing glasses.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “The people I rented the cottage from said there aren’t any bears around here.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, keeping watch over my shoulder. “I’m wearing my glasses.”

And I’ll be wearing them during all my walks from now on.

Cottage country is no place for vanity.

The Red Leaf

2008-08-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

There’s a commercial that runs on Canadian television this time of year featuring a close-up of a woman screaming in horror as she points to something off screen. Then the camera cuts to a shot of a maple leaf that’s turned from green to red.

I love that commercial because I am that woman.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love autumn. In fact, it’s my favorite time of the year. But despite all the things I love about it — antiquing on a crisp, sunny Saturday, eating my body weight in fresh Macintosh apples, and shopping for this season’s coolest boots, to name just a few — there is one huge drawback. Autumn’s arrival means that the warm weather is behind us and then (dun, dun, dun...)

Well, you get the picture.

Here in Toronto, a sure sign that summer is coming to an end is the opening of the Canadian National Exhibition. It runs from late August to Labor Day and — cue the horrific red maple leaf — the CNE started yesterday.

I was there for the opening night. My husband and I had tickets to a Radiohead concert, which took place at an outdoor amphitheater on a man-made island in Lake Ontario that is linked to the CNE by several bridges. The venue is called Ontario Place. (Sandy spent a couple of summers working there as a pedal boat wrangler. But hey, that’s the subject of another blog!)

As for Radiohead, the concert was fantastic. When we heard the band was coming to Toronto last spring, I was disappointed that we could only get tickets for the lawn that surrounds the theatre, as opposed to the assigned seating that’s under cover. The lawn “seats” became an increasing worry the closer we got to the concert because Toronto seems to have acquired a monsoon season. We’ve had thunder storms nearly every day this summer and last night was no exception. It was pouring during our dinner in a café near the exhibition grounds.

But as we made our way to Ontario Place, the bad weather began to lift.

And by the time we got to the lawn (more of a muddy field at this point) I was thrilled by our tickets. The night was clear, the band was amazing, and although it would have been nice to be closer to the stage, the backdrop of our city made the night more special.

Special enough to make me forget—at least for awhile—that the days are getting shorter and another great summer is almost over!

Geena, you're the latest winner in our book giveaway contest. Email us your address and we'll send you a copy of Girl v. Boy.

Summer Reading

2008-08-01T05:59:00.000-07:00

It’s a long weekend here in Canada, so I’m off to the family cottage. Yvonne won’t be so lucky. Last time I asked, she was getting ready to shoot a movie scene in the middle of a fountain in a busy downtown square. There was muttered talk of rain towers and hand-held craziness. If you’ve read All I Want to Do is Direct, you’ll know what her typical shooting day is like. And as far as I could tell, there are no big stars on this shoot to make up for the pain. Much can be endured when Scott Speedman, Brad Pitt or Richard Gere are at the other end of the camera lens.

Meanwhile, I’ll be on the deck reading. This photo above doesn't do full justice to the view, but it'll give you an idea.

My summer list so far: Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner, Love the One You’re With by Emily Giffen, The Host by Stephanie Meyer, The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and my favorite so far, This is How I Live Now by Meg Roseff.

Plus, after much resistance, I recently succumbed to Friday Night Lights, a TV series some of my favorite authors have raved about on their blogs. Love it!

Must get on the road before the rest of Toronto, so I’ll spread the long-weekend-cheer by offering another book giveaway. Leave a comment or send an e-mail telling us which of our books you’d most like to read and we’ll draw a winner.

Quick Update

2008-07-19T05:47:00.001-07:00

The winner of a free copy of GIRL v. BOY is Meredith! Send us your address, Meredith.

More giveaways to come soon!

Happy Release Day to Us

2008-07-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

Girl v. Boy is on the shelves!

As anyone who’s read our “Vivien Leigh Reid” series or The Black Sheep knows, our books often have a Hollywood slant. This is mainly because Yvonne works in the film business and we’re both fascinated by that world. But this time, we’ve left Hollywood behind. You won’t find any flighty actors, demanding directors, or pushy producers in Girl v. Boy.

In this book, our “star” is Luisa Perez, an ordinary teen in an ordinary high school who gets to do something slightly out of the ordinary: write an anonymous column in the school paper.

Anonymous is the key word, here.

While Lu has never been one for strong opinions, once she has a pen in her hand and the alias, "Newshound," she has a lot to say—mostly about guys. Some of it is controversial, but who can blame her when her male counterpart, "Scoop" is a total jerk? He uses the column to insult Newshound and brag about his romantic exploits. Lu retaliates by bragging about her own love life. So what if she exaggerates a little? It’s not like anyone will ever find out who's behind the column. Because if they did, well, Lu would be in BIG trouble. Especially with her boyfriend.

One girl, one guy, two anonymous columns in the school newspaper. Watch the sparks fly!

To celebrate release day, we’ll give away a free copy of Girl v. Boy. Send us an e-mail or leave a comment and we’ll enter your name in the draw.

The winner of last week’s What I Really Want to Do is Direct giveaway is Carol. Send us your mailing address, Carol.

Lights, Camera....and more contest action!

2008-06-26T21:31:00.000-07:00

This week, Sandy and I will be giving away copies of What I Really Want to do is Direct, our second novel for adults.

While Speechless was loosely based on some of Sandy's experiences as a government speechwriter, this book was inspired by my experiences in the film business. And though this is a work of fiction, certain events in the book did really happen to me in real life. In fact, part of the fun of writing this was seeing if Sandy could guess which of the crazy happenings on set were true, and which ones I invented.

For those of you who’ve already read it, I’ll let you in on a few secrets. The story about the “alien” who insists on staying in character—to the point of trying to sneak his costume home for the weekend—is totally based in reality. In real life, the character was actually a knight and the actor tried to sneak his custom-forged armor off set so he could wear it around town and stay in character.

And then there’s the famous diva character from the book who tapes up her face every day to achieve the look of a facelift. She too exists in real life, although I can’t give you her name because some secrets just can’t leave the set. But this I can say: when you’re reading the book and you’re trying to decide which stories might be real, for the most part, the crazier the story, the closer it comes to reality.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone in the film business is crazy, although quite a few could benefit from some time on the couch. Like the well-known director who brings his teddy bear collection to set, props each one up in a director’s chair in front of the monitors and consults them regularly about the shot. Or the A list actor who reduced someone in craft services to tears because her egg white omelet contained air bubbles. Or the other A list actor who had someone in craft services fired for not washing grapes.

But I digress. My point is, for the most part movie making only seems like a flakey business. It’s actually run with an almost military-like precision. The hours are long, and the jobs are demanding. Mistakes cost a lot of money, so people are frequently fired. When you combine that tension with a lack of sleep, strong artistic personalities, and settings that run the gamut from depression-era brothels to futuristic zombie colonies, it’s not surprising that crazy things happen.

And not just to actors and directors. As part of a film crew, abnormal just becomes normal. After all, it’s still work, whether you’re reporting for duty on a mountain top, a sewage factory, or a ship on the Atlantic. Still, it sometimes surprises me when someone mentions my own extraordinary experiences. Recently, when some camera assistants were swapping war stories, one of my colleagues brought up the time I was nearly swept overboard by the backwash of a helicopter landing on a coastguard cutter. Then I reminded my colleagues about the time an overzealous camera operator tried to get a better shot of a grizzly bear and inadvertently shoved a colleague into the electrical fence that was meant to protect him from the bear.

What I really wanted to do in this book was give readers a look at the other side of filmmaking—where there’s little fame, less glamor but a lot of other rewards.

Here's what it says on the back cover:

Roxanne Hastings has wanted to be a director ever since she started storyboarding home movies and demanding that her teacher recast her grade-school play.

The climb up the film crew ranks has been slow and grueling, but Rox has made it to assistant cinematographer. It's quite a coup, but what she really wants to do is direct.

Rox is convinced that the big budget action movie rolling into town is her big break. But then longtime friend, Libby McIssac, offers Rox a screenplay and the best seat in the house: the director's chair. Given the chance to call the shots, Rox does what any wannabe filmmaker would do. She says yes. To both projects. (And the one guy she knows she shouldn't have.)

Can Rox juggle two lives? Either way, it will be an award-winning performance!

Despite the back lot backdrop, Roxanne is just another gal trying to get ahead in the world. It’s a story that anyone can relate to—especially people with big dreams that keep colliding with reality.

If you’d like to find out what happens to Roxanne, drop us a line or leave us a comment. And if you have a crazy story about YOUR work you’d like to share, we’d love to hear it.

Last week, we loved the comment we received about The Black Sheep covers from Carmen Alexis Tsang. Carmen, you've won the copy of the new Black Sheep paperback, so please drop us another line with your address and we will send you the book.

Summer Makeover

2008-06-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

The Black Sheep has lightened up for summer with a fresh new look. That’s right, the paperback version has arrived in bookstores!

But just as in real life, a makeover doesn’t mean anything has changed on the inside. The Black Sheep is still the same story about love, reality TV, annoying parents—and sea otters. (Don’t worry, the sea otters are minor characters).

Here’s what the back cover says:

Fed up with her parents and all their ridiculous rules (they keep a binder full of them), fifteen-year-old Kendra Bishop writes away to The Black Sheep, a reality TV show that offers the chance to swap families with another teen. But when the camera crew shows up at her Manhattan apartment, Kendra starts to have second thoughts.

Too late! Kendra is whisked away to Monterey, California, to live with the Mulligan family in a household that couldn’t be more different from her own. Of course, when Kendra falls for Mitch, the Mulligans’ seventeen-year-old son, it only complicates things further, especially since Mitch despises the reality TV show and everything it stands for. But given the chance, Kendra might just be able to juggle first love, her new stardom, and a pushy TV producer who will stop at nothing for higher ratings.

We loved the sheep on the original cover so much that Yvonne actually brought him to life in a video. (Yes, it’s a boy—can’t you tell?)

But this is a good look too. It’s bright and fun—possibly the best fit for what Publisher’s Weekly called “A cheery fish-out-of-water romance.”

So tell us, what cover do you like best? Leave a comment or send an e-mail and we’ll draw two winners—one for the paperback and one for the hardcover.

P.S. The winner of last week’s Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid: Daughter of the Diva giveaway is Cyndi. E-mail your address, Cyndi.

The Inspiration that Keeps on Giving

2008-06-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

As the spring book giveaway continues, it’s time to talk about our third book and first novel for teens, Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid: Daughter of the Diva.

In typical Collins-Rideout fashion, we decided to write this one on a whim. The short gap between our two adult novels felt teen-sized. And we knew we’d have no trouble capturing the voice of a fifteen-year-old girl. Why the confidence? Because Yvonne and I made a choice long ago to remain immature permanently.

That’s harder than you think.

Sure, it was easy enough when we met at 13 and 15. Then, we were immature without even trying. And believe me, it showed.

At the time, we were working at a public library in a Toronto suburb. I was initially suspicious of Yvonne because she was a cheerleader, and I dislike peppy people on principle. But she was hiding a cruel wit beneath her pom-poms and it wasn’t long before we were behaving so immaturely at work that the evil head librarian began scheduling us on separate shifts.

We credit this separation for launching our coauthor career because we wrote hilarious (at least, to us) notes and limericks and pinned them to the staff bulletin board. When asked to desist, we started putting unsuitable books “on hold” for patrons for the joy of watching the head librarian place the notification calls. (e.g., “Hello, Mr. Cox, it’s Mrs. Tanner at the library. We have A Woman’s Body on hold for you.”)

We reveled in our immaturity and expected it to last forever. Given our antics through high school and college, we had every reason to think it would. But eventually we graduated and got real jobs. I worked in government and Yvonne in a bank. The future of immaturity looked bleak.

Fortunately, we came to our senses quite soon and blew off those jobs for something more appropriate. Specifically, I handed out towels in a gym and Yvonne tended bar. We rented a house together downtown, and devoted an entire room to two bicycles and a cedar chest full of booze. We lived on Kraft Caramels and Smarties. Every so often, we’d host a massive party to give ourselves a reason to vacuum.

Those were good times—immature times—but they had to end. Nothing kills immaturity faster than an empty bank account. Besides, we were starting to hear complaints from the suburbs: “Aren’t you ever going to grow up?”

Bending to pressure, we downsized to a smaller place and got real jobs again. We worked long hours. We ate vegetables. We got pets, relationships, washing machines and car loans. In short, we grew up.

Then, one night, as were nodding off in front of the TV at 9:30, it struck us that we were old before our time. “We can’t give up that easily,” Yvonne said. “We have to fight this.”

The only solution was to make immaturity a priority in our lives. We had to commit.

“Politically Incorrect Thursdays” were an important first step. It meant staying up late and maybe having a drink and some caramels for old time’s sake. It meant saying outrageous things that we’d never dare think on regular weekdays. Who knew regressing could feel so good?

Rejuvenated, we took our act on the road, behaving immaturely in a number of locales, including several cities in Texas and right up the coast of California.

But vacations are easy. It’s the daily grind of responsibility that puts immaturity at risk.

That’s where the teen books come in. Writing one gives us a license to think like a teen for months at a time.

In Daughter of the Diva, Leigh Reid is quite a brat and we truly enjoyed slipping into her head. Sadly, by book three in the series, Leigh has become more mature than we are.

These days, we make it a point to surprise each other now and then with small acts of spontaneous immaturity. Just yesterday, I opened an e-mail from Yvonne to find she’d done unspeakable things with a hideous photo of me that I’d (stupidly) shared. It was iMac “art” worthy of the Immaturity Hall of Fame. Vanity prevents my sharing it here.

Anyway, here’s what Daughter of the Diva is about:

Leigh can think of a million ways she'd rather spend a summer besides visiting her movie-star mother, Annika. But her dad insists the two need some "mother/daughter bonding time" and packs fifteen-year-old Leigh off to Ireland, where she'll become her mom's personal assistant on the set of her latest film, Danny Boy. It could be worse. Annika may be a distant, self-absorbed diva, but Sean, her young co-star, is the hottest guy Leigh has ever met.

Things heat up when Leigh lands a bit part in the movie, and soon Leigh and Annika are sharing scenes, scripts—and the spotlight. With tensions rising on the set, Annika and Leigh must finally grow into their most demanding roles: mother and daughter.

Leave a comment or send us an e-mail and we’ll enter your name in a draw for a free copy of the book.

And now I’m off to plot my revenge on Yvonne.