Beth Revis

Celebrate Transparent's Release: Art & Words

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:17:00 +0000

Today on the blog I have the very great pleasure and honor of hosting an author I've admired for years. Natalie Whippleis the author of TRANSPARENT, a book about a girl who's born invisible in a world where having super powers can be very dangerous indeed. It made me cry on the airplane. Twice. And it also made me laugh. On the airplane. Once, while I was also crying. The people sitting next to me thought I was insane, and I have never seen anyone leap up out of their seats so quickly after landing.

While I loved the set-up of the book--invisible people are awesome, yo!--the scene that was the most powerful to me was also the most human, and had nothing at all to do with super powers. Hurry up and read this book so I can talk to you about how awesome that scene was (which, sadly, is also totally spoilerific and I can't talk about it here).

In addition to being a brilliant author, Natalie's also a fantastic blogger (hers is one of the blogs I read pretty dedicatedly), she looks great in heels, and she's an amazing artist! And Natalie's here today to talk about the connection between art and words--and to showcase a beautiful piece of original art she made for TRANSPARENT's release! (Which is today. So, you know. GO BUY IT NOW PLEASE.)

Art And Words

by Natalie Whipple

When most authors are asked what their characters look like, I imagine they have “real people” references. Actors, models, singers—I see writers compare their characters to famous, good looking people. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but I have a confession to make:

I see all my characters as cartoons.

This is an inevitability, since animation has been a big part of my life. Okay, it still is. Give me an animated “kiddie” show, and I will gladly watch it and revel in the art and how it gives mood to the story. Let me watch anime over CW dramas. Please, for the love, don’t make me “grow up” and stop watching cartoons.

The truth is, I’m pretty sure animation has had a bigger impact on my writing than books. I wasn’t a ravenous reader growing up, like many of my fellow writers. Don’t get me wrong—I loved stories—but I found something infinitely more interesting when it was a piece of art, whether moving or still.

I gravitated to comics adapted into animated TV shows, like my beloved X-men and Spiderman. I gobbled up fun stuff like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, Dexter’s Laboratory, Rugrats, Invader Zim, and The Powerpuff Girls. I had to see every Disney movie, and I still remember when Pixar released Toy Story. Blew. My. Mind. Anime entered my life fairly early on, thanks to my mom finding My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Castle In The Skylong before Disney bought rights to them (and subsequently butchered the English dub of Totoro with the Fanning sisters, ugh). Then I found Sailor Moon, and it was all over.

Anime became my art of choice from about 12 years old and on. I devoured any anime I could get my hands on. I pretty much dedicated my teen years to becoming a better cartoonist, creating dozens and dozens of characters that I swore someday I’d write a real story for. And I did. The people I drew inspired me to write “episodes” of the anime I would someday create. My friends would read them and beg for more. I still have some of those old, horribly written pages—my first real attempt at long fiction. Eventually those episodes became chapters, and the chapters became books.

My first published novel, Transparent, is debuting now, and I think it’s safe to say that anyone who reads it will see the comic/anime influences. Honestly, all my writing is unavoidably infused with the art I’ve spent so much of my life creating. Scenes unfold like comic action sequences in my head. My characters have exaggerated cartoon features when I imagine them. I think even my chapters end where I imagine a “commercial break” would come.

So yeah, my writing is very much informed by my art, and I suppose my art is informed by my stories. They’ve always gone together for me, and I think it gives my books a unique flavor.

And since I’m talking art and words today, I had to draw something special. The picture in this post is from Transparent,specifically Fiona’s first day of school. I had a lot of fun trying to create an image for an invisible girl. All these years I haven’t actually drawn her because I wasn’t sure I could do it justice, but I hope you like what I came up with.

Thanks so much, Beth, for hosting me today. It means a lot that you’d let me use your blog space to talk about myself. You’re so generous like that.

May & June Thingies!

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:48:00 +0000

There are many thingies happening in the immediate future! Thingies that I want to make sure to share with you!

First: Charleston. Or, as I will no doubt be calling it, Chah'ston. Like "dahling."

May 23

5:30-7:30pm

ICONS Tour with Margie Stohl

Featuring: Kathy Reichs, Michelle Hodkins, and Beth Revis

at Blue Bicycle Books

More info

If you're in the Charleston area, please come say hi! And also--I won't be at this year's Y'all Fest, and this is the only thing I've got planned for the area this year. Just a heads up, since I've been at all the previous Y'all Fests.

Second: Spartanburg, SC. I'll be a part of their teencentric events. Here's more information from their website:

TEENS Teen Summer Reading kicks off with bang at our first after-hours teen event. Skype with authors Heather Brewer and Michael Grant, and meet author Beth Revis in person. We’ll also have a photo booth, a caricaturist, a DJ, snacks, a free autographed book for each teen and lots of other fun stuff. For teens ages 12-18 or entering grades 7-12 only. Attendance is limited to 200 teens. Contact Name: Susan Myers. Contact Phone: 864-596-3506. Contact Email: teens@infodepot.org.Saturday, June 1, 2013, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM. Headquarters Library.

June 1

7:00pm-10:00pm

TeenCentric Kickoff

Featuring via Skype Heather Brewer and Michael Grant, and me, in person

at the main Spartanburg Library

More info

Next! A book launch! For DEFY THE DARK, an anthology edited by Saundra Mitchell, featuring a short story by me, called "Night Swimming." The anthology features some of my favorite YA authors, as well as one of my last stories set in the world of Godspeed, called "Night Swimming," about Kayleigh and Harley and an unnamed (and gender ambiguous) narrator.

Defy the Darkgreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

June 18

Defy the Dark on sale!

And finally, I have one more event. This is in my hometown area of Asheville, NC, and I'll be with two of my favorite people!

June 24

starting at 7:00pm
Book Signing
With Nova Ren Suma, Stephanie Perkins, and me!
at Malaprops Bookstore
More info

I'm super excited about this one--I love having awesome people like Nova coming to my home turf :) And I believe this is her first trip to Asheville....we'll have to do something special her to welcome her to town.

I'm still working on a handful of summer events, but I'll be doing less travel throughout the end of the year as I get ready for the next big thing...

Carrie Ryan's "What Once We Feared"

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:06:00 +0000

Yesterday, author Carrie Ryan released a new e-short set in THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH world. The story, "What Once We Feared," is available now, and it has my husband, the resident zombie expert, saying:

"I really liked the ending. It was realistic. It's not like everyone ended up driving off in a Winnebago into the sunset. It was cool. It was the way a zombie apocalypse would actually happen. It's the best one of her short stories I've ever read. I don't know. I just really liked it. When you type that all up, make it fancy and make it sound good. I don't word. I don't know how to say it.
I just really liked it."

--The Husband, Resident Zombie Expert

For the record, this is my fave Carrie Ryan story, too :) You can read more about Carrie's inspiration for the story here and you can buy your own copy here--just $1.99!

On Plot Holes

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:00:00 +0000

So, the husband and I were recently watching Doctor Who, as we are wont to do.

And we noticed something.

Something big.

And glaring.

And, sadly, rather frequent.

A plot hole.

Well, actually, several of them. Sadly, in the past few seasons, the Doctor's been riddled with them. Rules are established in one episode and ignored in another. Characters feel one way, then change their minds with seemingly no reason. Logic sometimes fails.

Now, first things first: no writer is perfect (and no show is, either). But thinking about my issues with Doctor Who led me to this comment showrunner Steven Moffat tweeted, and that led me to the idea for this post.

Found via stfu-moffat.tumblr.com
(Also more here.)

Moffat makes an excellent point here--actually, several. First: All stories have plot holes.

True.

Cracked has a great (nsfw) article on 5 Gaping Plot Holes many movies have that we easily forgive. Of course we don't really question why all the bad stuff happens to the same guy in all the Die Hard movies. Despite the fact that Joss Whedon made fun of it in Cabin in the Woods, we forgive the horror movie victims when they split up and go down the dark alley alone.

All stories have plot holes.

But.

One of my favorite quotes when thinking of stories is by Mark Twain: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.”

When creating a story, one thing the writer must consider is believability. All stories require the reader to suspend his or her disbelief for a certain amount of time. And the reader will forgive certain things. Is it really likely that everything happens to the main character in a short amount of time? No. Is it really likely that a teenager can solve all the problems in a YA novel? Honestly, not really. But the thing is, in a story, we're likely forgive certain things. We know we're reading a story, so we're okay with the timeline being shortened or the characters being quick witted, because we want the story.

There is, of course, a limit to the reader's suspension of disbelief. In a fantasy, we'll believe in magic for that world, but there needs to be a system to how that magic works--you can't just wave your wand and have everything fall into place. In a sci fi, we'll believe in warp drive, but (unless you're Anne McCaffery) don't add dragons. And a contemporary romance can have a happily ever after, but probably not Jedi mind tricks.

It comes back to logic. There's a famous principle applied to writing called "Chekhov's Gun"--it comes from Chekhov's famous quote in which he says that if you see a gun in the first act of a play, it must be fired before the end. In this conversation, what it means is that you have to layer in the clues. You need to show the possibilities before the characters live them. If you set rules for your world, you have to follow them.

Let's go back to the second part of Moffat's tweet: "[plot holes] are only visible to the bored."

As long as the reader is entertained, the suspension of disbelief works. When I'm reading a romance, I want my happily-ever-after, and I'll forgive a pile of coincidences to make it happen. But every reader has a limit. When the reader reaches that limit, however, there's no going back. Therefore, establish the rules, the logic, the world, and the characters, and follow the rules you, as a writer, make.

That said: story comes first. While it is true that I've descended into a loop of pointing out the plot holes in Doctor Who with my husband, it's also true that I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for the next one. Plot holes exist in all fiction. How many and how big is a judgment call on the part of the writer--just be aware of what you're doing, and the choices you make as a writer.

This post is a part of my series on writing.

You can find the rest of the writing tips and information here.

YA ICONS TOUR: Take me to Your Reader!

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:27:00 +0000

Friends don’t let friends tour alone! That’s right, in honor of the May 7^th launch of ICONS, Margaret Stohl’s new sci fi series; she’s called up some of her most iconic friends – who also happen to be some of your favorite authors. And so, if you happen to live in LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Provo, NYC or Charleston – they’re coming to you! The tour launches on May 7^th in San Francisco at Books Inc.

Icons is set in a post invasion world where people fear the unseen aliens that now control them. The story follows Dol a grass girl who leads a simple life away from the Hole, what used to be Los Angeles. Dol is not a normal teen, she somehow survived The Day when no one else in her family did. Along with Ro, another orphan from The Day, she stays hidden from the world at the Mission. But not all is what it seems with Dol and Ro. They are a secret hidden away from the Ambassador and the rest of the world.

When Dol and Ro are taken to the Embassy they discover they are not the only ones who are special. Caught between the known and unknown Dol must decide who she trusts and just how far she is willing to go to save the only home she knows.
Check out the interactive map and tour stops below. Also be sure to enter the giveaway which includes a Kindle, autographed copy of Icons and much more

View YA ICONS TOUR: TAKE ME TO YOUR READER! in a larger map

YA ICONS TOUR EVENTS
San Francisco – Tuesday May 7 at 7:30 pm – Icons Launch at Books Inc – A Not Your Mother’s Book Club (NYMBC) event – Margaret Stohl with Andrea Cremer, David Levithan, NinaLaCour.

San Francisco area – Wednesday May 8 – Keplers – Margaret Stohl with Melissa de la Cruz, Leigh Bardugo, Kim Derting, Kami Garcia.

Seattle – Thursday May 9 at 7:00 pm – Pierce County Library – Margaret Stohl with Leigh Bardugo, Kim Derting, Marissa Meyer.

Seattle – Friday May 10^th at 6:30 PM – Third Place Books – Margaret Stohl and Kim Derting in conversation with a Special Guest Moderator. Details TBA.

Los Angeles – Saturday May 11^th – Dark Delicacies – Margaret Stohl with Melissa de la Cruz, 5 pm, Signing only.

Los Angeles – Sunday May 12^th – venue TBA – Margaret Stohl with Ransom Riggs, TaherehMafi, Melissa de la Cruz, Marie Lu, Alyson Noel, Kami Garcia.

Salt Lake City – Tuesday May 14^th – the King’s English – Margaret Stohl with Ally Condie, Shannon Hale and Stephanie Perkins.

Provo – Wednesday May 15^th – Provo Library – Margaret Stohl in conversation with Stephanie Perkins.

Rochester Teen Book Festival – Saturday May 18^th, all day – Nazareth College, Rochester, NY - see website for more information.

New York Area (Long Island) – Sunday May 19^th – Barnes & Noble Carle Place – 2 pm - Margaret Stohl in conversation with Eliot Schrefer and Barry Lyga.

New York City – Monday May 20^th – 7 PM - Books of Wonder – Margaret Stohl with Gayle Forman, E. Lockhart, Robin Wasserman, Barry Lyga and Tonya Hurley.

Charleston, SC- Thursday May 23rd – Blue Bicycle Books – Margaret Stohl with Beth Revis, Michelle Hodkin, Kathy Reichs and Brendon Reichs – A Yallfest event!

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Kansas City Events!

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 03:29:00 +0000

(Sorry for the late notice on these, guys--I've been on the road, and thought I had these scheduled to post sooner.)

Tuesday April 30th
Kansas City Libraries, Trails West Branch
11401 E 23rd St, Independence, MO 64111
Come for a Q&A session with yours truly, followed by a signing and various shenanigans!
More details here.
Note: the address on the website is wrong--I just confirmed with the librarian that the address in this post is the correct one.

Wednesday May 1-Saturday May 4
RT Booklovers Convention
I'll be on various different panels throughout this event at the Sheraton KC Crown Plaza, and don't miss the fantastic HUGE booksigning event with hundreds of authors on Saturday!
More details here.

The Weird, Wild West

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:57:00 +0000

This was announced while I was away, so I'm playing a bit of catch-up here. But I wanted to make sure everyone knew about this awesome new anthology I'll be in, coming out next year!

Dead Man's Hand is a Western anthology...but a weird one. The stories all take place in the wild, wild west, but there's a twist--each one has a fantastical element. As editor John Joseph Adams says in the press release,

“The weird western is the forefather of steampunk, with a history that includes Stephen King’s Dark Tower and Card’s Alvin Maker,” editor John Joseph Adams explains. “But where steampunk is Victorian, weird westerns are darker, grittier, so the protagonist might be gunned down in a duel, killed by a vampire, or confronted by aliens on the streets of a dusty frontier town.”

Of course when I was invited to submit a story, I was all for it. First of all, Westerns are the way to my father's heart. But second of all, Firefly and Serenity were totally weird westerns, and they are my model for all things good.

My story in the anthology is called "The Man With No Heart." And it will be my first published short story that doesn't take place in the world of Godspeed. Instead, it tells the story of a man on a quest that takes him to the bottom Grand Canyon, following tiny mechanical spiders that should be impossible...but then again, he's impossible, too. And it was fact-checked by my father, who's read every Louis L'amour in print.

The anthology won't be out until next year, but the line-up is amazing. It's such an honor to be with such a long list of amazing, brilliant authors. You can read more about the anthology here, and you can add the book to your GoodReads list here!

Why Are You Blogging?

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:28:00 +0000

Are you blogging because you enjoy it? Good. Carry on, my wayward son.

Are you blogging because you think you "have" to? Quit blogging.

Are you blogging because you think publishers or agents consider it a requirement? Quit blogging.

Are you blogging because you think it will sell your books? Quit blogging.

Are you blogging because you feel like you owe it to your readers to blog? Quit blogging.

My point? Blogs don't sell books. Blogs don't get you a book deal. You should only be blogging if you enjoy blogging. Yes, it can be a marketing tool. But there is a lot of other ways you can get your name out into the world without blogging. I recently had a conversation with a friend who told me she spent a considerable amount of time working on blogs...to the detriment of working on her book. And she didn't enjoy blogging. It was a task, a choice.

My advice? Quit blogging. If you don't enjoy it, you won't make good content (which is true of nearly everything--if you have no passion for what you're doing, typically, you will not do it well). If you go into blogging expecting to sell books, then you're like that person on Twitter who only tweets about her own books. That's not respectful of your readers or yourself.

There is advice on the internet and sometimes from real people that is along the lines of If you want a book deal, you have to have a platform. Blogs are a great platform!

This is b.s. You know what sells a book? A good book. That's it. Blogging is an easy answer. That doesn't make it the right one. If someone tells you that you need a blog to sell a book, kick that person in the shins. They're lying to you.

Just write. Write the best book you can. Quit worrying so much. Just write.

How Much Can Two People Do?

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:59:00 +0000

As of my writing of this, it seems as if the police are tracking down two suspects in the massacres at Boston and MIT. Two people did this. Two people planted bombs at an event that was memorializing the children victims of a previous massacre. Two people killed and maimed dozens of others. Two people held the entire nation in fear, as we saw a fun, athletic, family event torn to shreds. Families were literally and figuratively blown apart. Our hearts clenched and our breaths held and I am sure there was a moment when we all, each and every one of us, wondered when the next attack would hit, if we would be the next victims, or our loved ones.

Two people did this.

It a vivid reminder of the power of two single individuals. That it takes so few people to destroy so much. It's easy to destroy. I can rip apart a piece of paper in a second, but I cannot ever make it whole again. Those two men ripped apart lives, and nothing any person can do can bring them back.

Two people did this. Just two.

But the question isn't "how much can two people do?" Not really. We know how much two people can do to destroy and hurt and terrorize. We have seen it, not just now, in this instance, but time and again. We know how much two people can do to destroy.

The real question is: how much can one person do?

One person can spread joy. One person can inspire. One person can light up the whole world. Bombs burn quickly and then are nothing but dust and ash. But joy and love and faith and hope can light up the whole world with just a spark.

Two people can pull a curtain of darkness over the entire nation. The entire world.

But one person can bring light. And it only takes a flicker, a flash, a gleam--and darkness is destroyed.

It is not a question how much hate two people can bring to the world. It is only a question of how much love one person can.

How much you can.

Be the light. Be the hope. Kill the darkness.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cross-posted from my tumblr.

Listening to the Books!

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Just a quick note to let y'all know...

The girls at Author are Rockstars interviewed me for their podcast, and you can download it (for free!) here.

And speaking of audio things...

The audio books for my entire trilogy are currently on sale at Audible! Click here to see them--if you have an Amazon account, it's super-easy to purchase iTunes-ready audio books from Audible, and now's the best time to get my books, as they're the cheapest I've ever seen them!

And another audio thing...

I've had the very great pleasure of being interviewed by the WAMC/NPR for each of my books. I recently completed an interview for SHADES OF EARTH, and although it's not online yet, you can check here for when it's available. Meanwhile, there are the previous interviews available:

Interview on ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Interview on A MILLION SUNS

YA2U Program Details & Live Events Announced!

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:36:00 +0000

We are so excited that's it's nearly time for the big YA2U events that we've been working on since January! It's going to be so great to meet everyone who voted for us, and visit the schools that really made an effort for us to come visit.

We only wish we could visit everyone--you guys were awesome, and make us really want to road trip around the globe!

As we stated earlier, we're doing two live events, and a video event. The video event will be sent by DVD to the Lewisville Library and School systems, and a shortened and edited version will be uploaded for everyone to see as well.

Here's the information for the live, public events:

COOKEVILLE, TN

Location: Algoode Middle School Auditorium

Directions: 540 Dry Valley Rd Cookeville, TN 38506

Date: Tuesday, April 9

Time: 6pm
Books Sold On-site By: Books-a-Million

Event details: We'll start with a panel discussion about our works and writing, then move on to audience Q&A. Please bring your questions! This event is not ticketed and is free and open to the public. You may bring outside books for us to sign, however, please support the bookstore at the event as well.

SHELBY, NC

Location: Central Office Building, in the New Board Room

Directions: 400 West Marion Street, Shelby, NC

Date: Wednesday, April 10

Time: 7pm
Books Sold On-site By: Fireside Books and Gifts

Event details: We'll start with a panel discussion about our works and writing, then move on to audience Q&A. Please bring your questions! This event is not ticketed and is free and open to the public. You may bring outside books for us to sign, however, please support the bookstore at the event as well.

Notes: There is parking behind the building (parking lot behind the building off W. Sumter Street) or on the road to the right directly past the building (it's a one way street). Seating limited to 200 people.

YA Scavenger Hunt: Spring 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This tri-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive one signed book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are TWO contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the BLUE TEAM--but there is also a red team for a chance to win a whole different set of twenty-five signed books!

If you'd like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt homepage.

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE

Directions: Below, you'll notice that I've listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the blue team, and then add them up (don't worry, you can use a calculator!).

Entry Form: Once you've added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.

Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by April 7, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.

SCAVENGER HUNT POST

Today, I am hosting Carrie Jones on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt! Carrie Jones is the NYT bestselling and internationally best selling author of the NEED series and other books. She is a distinguished alum of Vermont College of Fine Arts, lives in Maine, has won random prizes, and really acts like a puppy. It's sort of sad, really. Some day she'll act human. Probably when she is ninety-eight.

Find out more information by checking out the author website or find more about Carrie's book here!

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

The hunt is now over, so Carrie's exclusive content is hidden! Go to her website for more information.

CONTINUE THE HUNT

To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author!

Tweet #YASH

WIN EXTRA PRIZES

The Hunt's an exciting time, and I'm in the giving mood! Fill out the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win a signed copy of SHADES OF EARTH, my latest novel, as well as exclusive DEFY THE DARK swag! If you find my post hidden in the hunt, you'll see a sneak peek at the short story I have in the DEFY THE DARK anthology. Full terms here.

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Icons Blog Tour: With Prizes!

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Icons is the exciting solo novel from New York Times Bestselling co-author of the Beautiful Creatures series, Margaret Stohl.

Icons is a science fiction story that starts with The Day. Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day people dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.

Icons takes place in a distance future that is all too realistic and raw. Within this bleak world live four children, hope where none should exist. Each of the Icon Children are defined by what they can do.

Meet the LOVER

To meet of all the Icon Children visit:

Fangirish.com

PagetoPremiere.com

BethRevis.com

Hypable.com

Each site is hosting a giveaway for an arc and an Icons bracelet.

For all of the latest information on Icons visit Iconsnovels.com , Icons Series on Facebook and follow @iconsnovels on twitter.

Pre-Order Icons: Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

Praise for Icons"Fans of Stohl's Beautiful Creatures series will find many of the same elements here -- paranormal romance, a fast pace, and intriguing characters -- but within a distinctly science-fiction setting. The strong messages of questioning authority, daring to resist injustice, and loyalty to one's group will resonate with teens who loved The Hunger Games." (Booklist )

"Epic in scale and exquisite in detail -- a haunting futuristic fable of loss and love." (Ally Condie, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Matched trilogy )

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This prize is sponsored by the Icons Blog Tour, not me; their rules and regulations apply.

Save NASA

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Another reason why I wanted to feature NASA in March was because, sadly, NASA's taken a budget hit recently. If you're a US citizen and value all that NASA has to offer, please consider signing this petition that is being sent straight to White House, letting President Obama and the government know just how important NASA, space exploration, and science is to us all.

SUPPORT NASA HERE

Meanwhile...

I also know you guys are quite eager to find out who won the month-long NASA/Breathless Reads contest I hosted throughout March. I'm happy to say that the winner is...

LIZ N!

I've already contacted here by email. Thanks so much, everyone, for playing along and celebrating NASA with me! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Exploring NASA

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 05:02:00 +0000

As you know, I declared March NASA month, and spent every day on the blog celebrating all the wonderful ways NASA has been a part of my life--from the inventions to the exploration, inspiration to dedication. NASA seriously is my favorite government program (is it weird to have a fave government program?), and I really, sincerely, believe that the world is a better place because NASA exists.

But another reason why I wanted to celebrate NASA was because I got the chance to explore the Johnson Space Center! This was such a dream come true, and when Kate offered me the chance to see the center, I jumped at it. I happened to be in Texas on a retreat with several fellow writers, so I grabbed Victoria Schwab and Carrie Ryan and roped them into coming, too. (Note: all pictures courtesy of NASA, unless they're crappy and noted as mine.)

Here we are in the lobby of the Mission Control Center,
along with our informed tour guide who patiently answered all our questions.

I don't think it'll be possible for me to express in words just how much this trip meant to me. It's one thing to read about the dimensions in the space shuttle; it's another to nearly have a panic attack from the claustrophobia inside it! I was left with such a strong impression of what it means to be a part of NASA, both in terms of the history-making legacy and the extreme conditions the astronauts put on themselves just for a chance to slide into the unknown of space.

Inside the live control room, as they prepare for a live show
with Commander Hadfield on
board the International Space Station.

Here's Commander Hadfield just before he goes live on NASA TV.
He's just, you know, chilling in anti-gravity. Like you do.

I'm probably going to be way too sappy for this post. But the thing is, it was sort of overwhelming to imagine the lives of the people involved. I love to slip into other people's lives--it's why I write--and of course I spent the entire time envisioning stories.

There were definitely times when I totally zoned out while our tour guide was speaking--not because what she was saying wasn't interesting, but because I was so caught up in where I was, and what could happen here, and what had happened, that I slipped into the stories of this world. At the live Mission Control, I started thinking about what would happen if the lights suddenly flashed red. If, on the screen with Commander Hadfield, we heard a tap-tap-tapping...from outside the space station. This was a place filled with possibilities, and possibilities are the best kinds of stories.

One of the desks in Mission Control is THOR.
Thermal Operations and Resources.
With a Thor Hammer.
Because NASA is cool.

After viewing the live Mission Control room, we went to visit the historic Mission Control, the one used for the Apollo launches.

I found this room just as fascinating. While the current Mission Control room is full of possibilities, this one was full of history. So much happened in this room. The first launch. The first tragedies. The highest of highs. "Houston, we have a problem." Breathless prayers. Crushed hopes.

Peering into the inside of one of the computers.

This is the picture I took of the inside.

It really amazes me how much NASA did with so little. Guys. See the inside of the computer above? I mean. I'd be willing to bet that my MacBook is more powerful. And you don't see me sending people to the moon.

Notice the rotary-style phone system built into the consoles.

I also found this feature hilarious:

Tubes! Like the little tubes and canisters that some banks use (and also, by the way, the inspiration for Amy and Elder's grav tubes on Godspeed). There were these stations of tubes on several of the consoles. Our tour guide told us that often, the people in Mission Control couldn't leave. Their jobs were too important; they had to stay at their station. So, anything that could fit in the canisters could be sent up to the people working. Not just important papers or other business-y things. Sandwiches. Sodas. Live frogs and snakes. Whatever.

Oh, those whimsical NASA scientists. :)

But of course, this Mission Control isn't just a place where scientists mailed frogs to each other in canisters. It's also a place where some of the most important historical events of our age happened.

Apollo 13 is one of those moments. Apollo 13 encountered trouble en route to the moon when one of the oxygen tanks exploded. This is, as you can imagine, quite serious. Whether or not the astronauts could even survive landing became a question. Survival came down to the stamina of the astronauts and the ingenuity of the people in mission control.

I just...I can't imagine that moment. Ever since I first learned of the Apollo 13 mission, I always imagined what it must be like for the astronauts, to realize that they might die on this mission. But here, in the Mission Control room, what I realized was the horror of the men and women on the ground. To hear "Houston, we have a problem," and to realize that you're hearing the words of men whose lives depend on you.

Over the water fountain in this control room--the same water fountain used during that time period--there's a framed plaque, with a mirror affixed to the top. The mirror came from the Apollo 13 module. The plaque reads:

This mirror flown on Aquarius, LM-7, to the Moon April 11-17, 1970, returned by a greatful Apollo 13 crew to "Reflect the Image" of the people in mission control who got us back! --James Lovell, John Swigert, Fred Haise

High emotion always captures me. It was so easy to blur my vision here, and think of the people who sat in those seats (those original seats--none of this was a recreation! It was all original, from the desk chairs to the water fountain...including the big red phone at the Flight Director's seat!)

When we first saw the phone, we all approached it reverently. We gathered around and took pics. Then they offered to let us take a picture with it. Victoria sits down prettily and smiles. Carrie picks it up, all charming. Then I go and make a complete ham of myself. NO REGRETS YO.

The best picture of me ever.
Photo credit: NASA.
Best photo credit for the best picture of me ever.

We got a chance to walk around this room, and it was just so awe-inspiring. Everything is original, down to the chairs and the water fountain. It truly was being in a place of history. I stood in history. I sat in history's chair. I played around on history's telephone when I should have been paying attention to the tour guide telling us about history.

Speaking of history, see those framed papers behind my and Carrie's heads?

Right there. Upper right. Story about them below:

Each of the Flight Directors is basically king of the Mission Control room. What he (or she--yes, there have been women Flight Directors) says goes, absolutely, without question. In such a dangerous situation as NASA missions, you have to have one person to make quick decisions that are absolutely obeyed. This person carries the weight of everyone's lives on his or her shoulders.

Funny story: each Flight Director has a color code-name. The first three were Red, White, and Blue. Since then, nearly all the colors have been claimed, including Indigo and Chartreuse! Each color can only be used once--those framed documents in the picture above are the retired colors of past Flight Directors. They've since run out of colors (except Pink--no one's claimed Pink), and now use other things, such as minerals and rocks (Iron and Granite) as code names for the Flight Directors.

Not-so-funny story: Remembering that some of the Flight Directors--who are very real people--carry the weight of NASA's tragedies on their shoulders.

After Mission Controls of the Present and the Past, we headed to the NBL--the Neutral Bouyancy Lab, a.k.a. the astronaut swimming pool.

I love the center badge. A scuba diver and an astronaut. Awesome.

I didn't get a good picture of it, but one of the first things we saw was the hypobaric chamber and hyperbaric chamber. In the photo below, these two chambers are under the "Welcome to the NBL" sign.

The hyperbaric chamber is on the left, and looks like a submarine. This is used to treat people with decompression sickness (a.k.a "the bends")--very needed for the scuba divers in this massive pool. But Victoria and I were totally enamored of the hypobaric chamber, the rectangular building to the right. The hypobaric chamber basically recreated the effects of altitude sickness. And then they give you a written test. No, really. When you get altitude sickness, you apparently don't know things you normally know, like colors, shapes, or something random, like which states start with the letter M. Knowing what information you lose when you get altitude sickness helps you know when you're sick--and unable to make the key life-or-death decisions an astronaut needs to make. (And also, it helps you know about how long you have until you pass out. Because you're totally going to pass out.)

Now behind the chambers is the biggest pool I've ever seen.

Water...as far as the eye can see...

Guys. This pool. It's huge. It holds...wait for it...more than six million gallons of water. (More fun facts here!)

And inside the pool? A full-size replica of the American part of the International Space Station. Just sitting there underwater. The ISS underwater.

Look how clear the water is. It was beautiful.

The pool actually freaked me out a bit. It's hard to see in the picture because the water's so clear, but the water's depth and the reflective surface actually created this weird optical illusion. I couldn't look at the water while we walked beside the pool. I had to look at my feet while walking, and only look at the water while standing still. Weird!

I 100% took this picture because it looks a little bit like an AT-AT from Star Wars.

So, why is the ISS underwater? BECAUSE IT MAKES FOR THE COOLEST POOL PARTY EVER, AM I RIGHT? No, seriously, it's because the astronauts can simulate the feel of anti-gravity in the water using weights. It's that whole "neutral buoyancy" thing. The astronauts suit up, go under water, and train, simulating typical tasks they'd need to do outside the space station. They get the effect of anti-grav and practice doing the actual tasks they'll need to do in space. All because of one super-awesome pool!

A typical picture of me: looking around like a star-struck child the whole darn time.

Of course, it's pretty hardcore to work on the ISS, event underwater. Here, our guide's explaining the way the astronauts suit up. After stepping into the lower-half of the suit (aka "astronaut pants"), they get into this rig, where the upper part of the suit is attached with the help of others. It's considerably easier to get the suit on when you're in anti-grav!

The rigging the astronauts use to suit up.

One difference between me and an astronaut:
An astronaut requires rigging to suit up for work.
I'm doing good if I'm out of my pajama pants by noon.

When getting into the pool involves a crane, you know you have a cool job.

The astronauts all start here: the hatch that leads from the space station to outer space. The scuba divers help the astronaut get into this hatch, which is just where the astronaut will start his mission when he's in orbit. From there, the astronaut has to maneuver him or herself around the outside of the ISS using tethers and the yellow handlebars in the picture below.

Of course I thought of Harley every time they mentioned the hatch.

The NBL is just for the astronauts to train on the outside of the International Space Station. The inside is an entirely different training situation. Not underwater.

Click to embiggen--a panoramic view of where the mock-ups of the shuttles and space station are. To the right, under the American flag, is the ISS mock-ups. To the left is the shuttle mock-up.

The mock-up of the ISS used by the astronauts for training.

Because the astronauts only wear space suits when they're outside, they don't need the NBL to train for the inside--there's more room and it's easier to maneuver around (although, of course, there's also no gravity in the ISS, so throughout the inside of the mock-up, there's "handlebars" for the astronauts to use while they move around).

The ISS was surprisingly large--I mean, I would definitely get hives if I had to stay there long-term, like the astronauts do, but I've lived in smaller apartments.

Me, Carrie, and Victoria, in the Japanese research lab section of the ISS,
in front of the hatch that leads to the American hub.

To give you an idea of the size of the ISS, this model hung from the ceiling. Near the center (click on the pic to embiggen), there's a little astronaut in a space suit. The entire model is scaled to size.

Hello, astronaut!

The thing that really struck me while touring the ISS was how economical the engineers were with space. Every single square inch had a purpose. It really does require a different mindset. Of course the space station is in orbit, in a zero-gravity environment. Of course that means there's not really an up or down. There's not a ground or ceiling. Which means there are storage compartments and useful space on all four walls--up, down, left, right.

Example: the sleeping compartments. The quilted white boxes in the picture below are the individual sleep compartments of the astronauts. Each astronaut only has this small "room" as his or her private space. There's one on the ceiling and on the floor (below the glass, which is only there because we were walking on it, and we have gravity) because there is no up or down, floor or ceiling in space.

The four sleeping chambers for four astronauts.

The inside of the sleeping compartment. Tiny!

Watch out V! There's a sleeping astronaut over your head!

Like the sleeping chambers, the hatches are all around--up, down, left, right. Each one leads to a different section of the ISS.

Can't you just imagine an astronaut floating through?

One thing I didn't realize before this tour was just how different the American/European/Japanese part of the ISS and the Russian part of the ISS was. I knew there were different sections of the space station, and that Russia was in charge of one and America in charge of the other, but those sections are vastly different. While the Japanese research lab and the American hub of the ISS was clean, white, and streamlined, the Russian side was...

You can almost see the Iron Curtain.

...carpeted.

Seriously.

Carpeted.

Floor-to-ceiling beige carpet.

I still don't know why.

But there you have it. Russian space stations are carpeted. Don't say I never taught you anything.

Click to embiggen, and see the switches with Russian labels.

Additionally, the only table on the whole space station is in the Russian side. Whenever the astronauts celebrate something--such as holidays--or just have the free time to share, they share a meal at the table. Of course, when they share a meal, they float. They hook their feet on bars under the table, and snap their metal trays to the magnetized surface of the table.

HOMEY!

Me, Victoria, Carrie, and Kate, all ready for our astronaut ice cream!

The Russians really did make their entire side of the ISS different. Even the sleeping compartments are different--not quilted things bolted to the wall, but a sort of walk-in closet.

Personally, I think the Russian sleeping chambers are bigger than the American ones.

After the space station, we got to go into a mock-up of the space shuttle!

See the blue-and-glass walkway in the background?
Everyone else had to watch from a distance! I felt like a rockstar as I got to go inside the shuttle!

I couldn't stop taking pictures of hatches.
(Although this was taken by our NASA photographer. Her pic was much better than mine.)

While the ISS surprised me by how big it was on the inside, I have to say that the shuttle shocked me by how cramped it was. The ISS used every single bit of free space, but it allowed room for living, too--space to live, move, breathe. No such space existed on the shuttle. It was achingly claustrophobic.

The shuttle was split into to sections. The lower part held the sleeping chambers, storage for experiments, food, etc. The upper part was the operational controls of the shuttle.

The red bumps on the floor we're all looking at indicate where more chairs for the astronauts to use during take-off and landing would be. The rectangular lockers to the right held all the research materials, food, supplies, etc., the astronauts needed. Each astronaut could bring up only what would fit in one locker.

A sleeping bag in the shuttle.

The entire kitchen. Above our tour guide's hand is a water system that could directly inject hot or cold water into the dehydrated food. She's indicating the small oven used in later space shuttles for additional cooking.

You are looking at an astronaut's bathroom.
Bet you didn't expect to see that when you woke up this morning.

After climbing a (very difficult to maneuver around on) ladder, we reached the upper section of the shuttle, which holds more switches than I knew existed.

So many switches that they had a stick just for using them from their seats.

I got to pose with the switcher-stick!

I had another one of those tingly awe-inspiring moments when I saw where the captain sat. The seat was narrow, with a joy-stick type thing in the center between the legs, and buttons and switches and dials everywhere.

Everywhere.

Victoria and Carrie take control of the shuttle...

...until I shoved them out of the way. You may call me Captain Beth.

With Kate as my co-pilot!

I cannot express just how claustrophobic this part of the tour was. I honestly had a little-mini-freak-out. I had to stare at the windows and remind myself that I could leave, and I wasn't stuck, and they weren't going to send me into space, and I could totally escape if I had to, and breathe.

Ugh. I am definitely not cut out to be an astronaut.

We're all standing as far apart as we physically can.

Honestly, I wish I could adequately express what this was like. But the best I can do is this: Behind all those thousands of switches and buttons and dials and Very Important Looking Things, there is a very definite sense of the thickness of the walls. And they are thick. Steel and steel and more steel. It is reasonable for me to think that, if I had to, I could break free from my house. I could punch out the windows or saw through the wood or something. But I knew with every sense of my being that, should the hatch be locked, I could not ever escape the thick steel walls of the shuttle.

That was what the trapped feeling felt like.

Needless to say, I was rather relieved when we left! After the shuttle, we had a chance to look at the module the NASA engineers are currently working on.

It is named ORION guys.
ORION.

It was even smaller and more claustrophobic than the shuttle mock-up.
Fortunately, we weren't allowed inside.

I 100% took this picture because this dude reminded me of Boba Fett.

We had one last stop before the end of the tour: Rocket Park!

Best park name ever.

Open to the public, the Rocket Park has the actual Saturn V, restored and there for everyone to see.

It is large.

Very large.

Me, Carrie, Victoria, and Kate posing behind the thrusters.
That sounds bad.

Carrie and Victoria chatting with HUGE GIANT ROCKET SHIP THRUSTERS BEHIND THEM as you do.

Birds and a rocket.
Oddly appropriate for two different books I'm working on now.

I was fascinated by the birds flying around the rockets.

I am so, so, so lucky to have had this chance to explore NASA. If you are ever in Houston--go. See this highlight of American history. Immerse yourself in the possibility of exploration. Discover all this world--and the universe--has to offer.

Never stop dreaming. Never stop reaching for the stars.

Event!

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 23:00:00 +0000

When: THIS Saturday, at noon
Where: Sylva, NC, at City Lights Bookstore
What: A super fun panel with me, Carrie Ryan, and Megan Shepherd! Come out to meet us, hear us talk about YA lit, and get your books signed!
MORE INFO: Click here!

NASA Month: Why it's Important

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

All this month, I'm NASA! This means every weekday in March will feature a new post about NASA, and I'm hosting a giant giveaway in order to encourage people to spread the NASA love. For more information on the giveaway, check out this post.

Today's post was inspired by fellow League member and author Meagan Spooner.

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The Importance of Space Exploration

I've never seen The West Wing, but I was delighted to watch this clip courtesy of Meagan Spooner about the effect of exploring space. I dare you to watch it and not get goosebumps.

And in case you'd like to hear the song they're talking about, listen below:

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This post is a part of the month-long celebration of NASA I'm hosting on my blog. In order to encourage people to celebrate NASA, I'm also hosting a giveaway!

One grand prize winner will receive all the books in the recent Breathless Reads tour, as well as ARCs of two anthologies and a signed Breathless Reads poster:

As well as swag from NASA, courtesy of Kate @ Ex Libris:

To celebrate NASA creatively: you could blog about why you like NASA, you could reach out to an astronaut for an interview, you could make space fan art, you could sing a song about NASA, you do a vlog, you make a list of all the ways NASA rocks...any of this counts! Just celebrate NASA in some awesome way, post it online, and include the link in the Rafflecopter. I even set that part of the entry open for multiple entries, so you could blog and vlog and Facebook and tumblr and Pinterest about NASA and they all count. The only requirements: post a link back to this contest, and put the full URL of the site in the Rafflecopter. Full details here.

To enter: be sure to read the full rules and terms of the contest here. Then fill out the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

NASA Month: Beyond the Stars

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

All this month, I'm NASA! This means every weekday in March will feature a new post about NASA, and I'm hosting a giant giveaway in order to encourage people to spread the NASA love. For more information on the giveaway, check out this post.

Today, I'm interviewing Karen Burnham, who is currently employed at NASA, working on power systems on the space station, electrical analysis for the pyrotechnic group, and is a subject matter expert for the electromagnetic compatibility group.

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NASA: Beyond the Stars

When most people think of NASA, they think of astronauts and giant telescopes. What are some of the other functions of NASA--what else does it do, and how do people who work with NASA do more than just look at the stars?

My work at NASA has been focused on manned spacecraft, since I work at Johnson Space Center, which is where astronauts are trained. However, I rarely actually meet astronauts! Instead I work with other engineers, trying to design very complex systems where all the sub-systems play nice together. For me, that involves making sure that the pyrotechnic systems are as safe as possible. (There are explosives used in almost every space vehicle, they can be a very precise and powerful tool for many different applications.) This means making sure that firing lines are shielded from interference, protected from lightning strikes, and cannot be set-off by build-ups of static electric charge (like the shock you get from doorknobs on dry days). Pyrotechnic explosives are unforgiving: when they need to work, you need them to work perfectly. When you need them to not work, you need them to be as safe as possible. Luckily, when it comes to explosives on manned vehicles, NASA has a perfect safety record, and I'm proud to be part of that.

Looking farther afield, I think one of the most important functions of NASA now is supporting the space-based environmental research of Earth's climate. All the weather satellites that help predict the weather, and all the observations satellites that tell us about how wind patterns, temperature signatures, and ice cover are changing; those are generally planned and launched with NASA's support. They have been critical for us to learn how our world is rapidly changing.

Can you describe a particularly fascinating aspect of your career?

I really can't express how proud and psyched I've been to work with the pyrotechnic systems at NASA. I have a BS in Physics and an MS in Electrical Engineering, which has set me up perfectly to study how electromagnetic waves affect electronic systems, and how to protect those systems from unwanted interference. I still have a lifetime of learning ahead of me, since every project is unique and there is a vast universe out there of things I need to know. But the upside is that I get to do things like conduct tests on explosives to determine their sensitivity to different kinds of radio frequency energy.

NASA has been using the same design of pyrotechnic initiator since the Apollo missions. We call them NASA Standard Initiators (NSIs), and they are incredibly useful--about 150 of them were present on every Space Shuttle mission. We had information from testing in the 1960's and 1980's about how the communication frequencies used during Apollo and the Space Shuttle affected the NSIs. I got the job of doing the testing to update our knowledge for the frequencies used by the Space Station and the new Orion missions.

This was a tricky proposition, because very specialized equipment is needed to handle the NSIs safely and effectively. I had to design special adaptors that were manufactured here on site. A whole lot of people helped me track down all the equipment needed, and both the pyrotechnic engineers and the electromagnetic engineers all spent some time helping out with solving different problems as they arose. But in the end, we were able to expand our knoweledge about the NSIs, their behavior, and their vulnerabilities. Probably one of my best days at NASA was when we finally got all the right pieces put in place, and were able to set off an NSI in the lab using S-Band radiation (roughly the same frequecy used by an off-the-shelf wifi router).

What's the best way for a teenager who'd like to be a part of NASA to join the program?

There are a lot of programs out there that aim to encourage student participation at NASA. Probably the most important is the intern and co-op programs, where late high school and college students can take semester-long jobs at NASA, get paid for their time, and learn about out engineering tasks from the inside. You can find more information about the JSC program here: http://pathways.jsc.nasa.gov/index.html

Also, lots of student have benefitted from the different Space Camp programs run in Huntsville, Alabama (around Marshall Space Flight Center) and Florida (Kennedy Space Center): http://www.spacecamp.com/

Also, please check out Women@NASA: http://women.nasa.gov/ There are mentorship programs there that can connect young men and women interested in science directly to mentors working every day in the science and engineering fields.

Is there any part of working that NASA that feels as if you're living in a science fiction novel?

Aside from setting off explosives using radio waves? (I still love that part.) I do remember taking my parents on the JSC public tour. We were leaving mission control, but the tram couldn't leave because the wheelchair lift had gotten stuck. The astronaut who had just been guiding the tour inside wandered out, looked it over, quickly fixed the problem, gave us a wave, and then wandered back inside. It was great to remember that while astronauts are often pilots, many of them are also scientists and engineers and very, very useful people to have around.

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Karen Burnham is an electromagnetic compatibility engineer working at NASA's Johnson Space Center. She completed a BS in Physics in 2001, worked as a radar engineer for Northtrop Grumman until 2008, and then completed an MS in Electrical Engineering in 2010. She has been working at NASA since 2009. In her spare time she is a reviewer of science fiction literature, writing for venues such as Locus Magazine, Strange Horizons, and SFSignal.com. She lives in Houston with her husband and young son. You can find her blog here: http://spiralgalaxyreviews.blogspot.com/

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As well as swag from NASA, courtesy of Kate @ Ex Libris:

NASA Month: NASA in the Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

All this month, I'm NASA! This means every weekday in March will feature a new post about NASA, and I'm hosting a giant giveaway in order to encourage people to spread the NASA love. For more information on the giveaway, check out this post.

Today we have a special guest post by author and fellow League member Peggy Eddleman! She's posting about NASA in film.

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NASA in the Classroom

by Peggy Eddleman

NASA was hugely important to me growing up. Watching lift-offs on our classroom TVs, and hearing my teachers talk excitedly about space and everything NASA was accomplishing gave me a sense of wonder that still means a lot to me. It made me dream and imagine and have a thirst to discover that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I would hate to be without it.

But somehow when my kids were younger, they were without it. That sense of wonder that came from NASA was missing, and it made me so sad. Space shuttle lift-offs weren’t broadcasted in their classrooms, and their teachers didn’t talk about it with the same kind of excitement. But I loved that they went to the school they did, because it is home to the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center where kids and teenagers come from all around to not only learn about space, but to watch planetarium shows and run spaceship simulators. I knew that by the time they were in fourth grade and for many years after, its director would instill in them that sense of wonder and the love of NASA.

I asked the director, Victor Williamson, why it’s so important to have a love of space and of science fiction.

My interest in space didn’t begin in the classroom, nor from watching the Apollo missions to the moon. My interest in space sprang from the original Star Trek series I watched religiously as a child. Every week, I journeyed into the depths of space with the brave crew of the Enterprise. I was there when they fought heroic battles of survival. I was there when they encountered strange new alien life forms. I was with them when they ventured where no man had gone before.

This prophetic series was the catalyst for an emotional reaction that motivated me to learn more. These emotions caused me to look for answers to the age old philosophical questions of who we are, where did we come from and where are we going. I was on a quest to learn about and explore space on my own through books, magazines and every space television show I could find on PBS.

Science Fiction caused me ask the right questions. Science has helped me look for the answers. That is why I teach space science within a framework of science fiction. This curriculum mind meld of fantasy and reality creates an emotional wonder in children. It opens their young minds to the endless possibilities of what lies out there. It reminds them that the universe is everywhere, and perhaps one reason we are here is to help the universe understand itself.

There are few subjects that cause students to pause and wonder like space. Watching their eyes and mouths open wide when they comprehend the vast distances to the stars, or the power of a black hole, or the physics of gravity, or the fusion of heavy elements in a star’s furnace, is an extra paycheck for a teacher. It is in those “Ah Ha!” moments. I see in my student’s faces a desire to embark on their own personal voyage of discovery in search of something incredible, just waiting to be known.

Victor Williamson The Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center

I love that he teaches space science within the framework of science fiction. NASA and science fiction will forever be linked. And because of that, it opens readers’ minds to the endless possibilities that are out there.

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Peggy Eddleman’s debut, SKY JUMPERS (Random House Children’s Books), comes out in September 2013, with book two releasing in September 2014. You can find Peggy online onFacebook, Twitter, and on her personal blog. Besides writing, she enjoys playing laser tag with her family, doing cartwheels in long hallways, trying new restaurants, and occasionally painting murals on walls. She lives at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah with her husband and their three children.

______________________________________

This post is a part of the month-long celebration of NASA I'm hosting on my blog. In order to encourage people to celebrate NASA, I'm also hosting a giveaway!

One grand prize winner will receive all the books in the recent Breathless Reads tour, as well as ARCs of two anthologies and a signed Breathless Reads poster:

As well as swag from NASA, courtesy of Kate @ Ex Libris:

POISON Blog Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

We interrupt NASA month with a very important post--a blog tour stop in honor of Bridget Zinn's debut, POISON.

As many of you know, Bridget very sadly passed away before the publication of her first novel. Which is tragic for many reasons--not only did the world lose this beautiful and caring person, but we also lost the chance to have more delightful novels like POISON.

While I didn't have the chance to know Bridget personally, I did know her story. She tells the story of her path to publication here. We both got our book deals at around the same time, and I remember reading of her deal and thinking how wonderful the book sounded. POISON is a funny fantasy--something the world needs more of--and by all accounts, Bridget was equally funny and charming.

Around the same time Bridget got the very good news of her book deal, she also got the very bad news of cancer. And while she fought hard, she sadly lost the battle against the disease before the release of her novel, in May of 2011.

And that's why it's so important for us, the ones that remain, to spread the word about POISON. Because it's not just a novel about a kick-butt teen girl fighting to save her kingdom with the aid of potions and a piglet, alongside a very funny and charming young man (who's named for Fred Weasley). This novel is Bridget's dream. A book is hugely personal thing to release into the world, and publication is the very real and visceral product of that dream. Bridget's not around any more to celebrate--but we are, and we can lift her dream as high as we can.

POISON is a treat of a novel--it has a clever plot, funny, whip-smart characters, and a charming voice. It's exactly the sort of book I would have treasured as a teen. Here's the full synopsis:

Sixteen-year-old Kyra, a highly-skilled potions master, is the only one who knows her kingdom is on the verge of destruction—which means she’s the only one who can save it. Faced with no other choice, Kyra decides to do what she does best: poison the kingdom’s future ruler, who also happens to be her former best friend.

But, for the first time ever, her poisoned dart . . . misses.

Now a fugitive instead of a hero, Kyra is caught in a game of hide-and-seek with the king’s army and her potioner ex-boyfriend, Hal. At least she’s not alone. She’s armed with her vital potions, a too-cute pig, and Fred, the charming adventurer she can’t stop thinking about. Kyra is determined to get herself a second chance (at murder), but will she be able to find and defeat the princess before Hal and the army find her?

Kyra is not your typical murderer, and she’s certainly no damsel-in-distress—she’s the lovable and quick-witted hero of this romantic novel that has all the right ingredients to make teen girls swoon.

"'Can she save the kingdom with a piglet?' reads the cover tagline of Poison, the YA debut from the late Bridget Zinn. Ridiculous? Yes. Still, there's something refreshing about its silliness amidst the interchangeable do-or-die taglines that seem to have become a staple for YA books these days."

—Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life

You can find this book in retailers nationwide, online, and anywhere else books are sold. I really encourage you to check it out--I recently finished, and I can guarantee there will be laughs, gasps of surprise, and pure joy while reading. And after you've read it--or before--help spread the word about this novel and author!

This post is a part of the month-long blog tour celebration in honor of Bridget Zinn's POISON, organized by Inara Scott. You can find out more about the tour here, or you can check out the rest of today's stops by clicking the links below.

Becca “I’m Lost in Books”
Brook Gideon “Dead Gideons”
Natalie J. Damschroder, for Everybody Needs a Little Romance
Damaris “Good Choice Reading”

NASA Month: Twilight Zone

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

All this month, I'm NASA! This means every weekday in March will feature a new post about NASA, and I'm hosting a giant giveaway in order to encourage people to spread the NASA love. For more information on the giveaway, check out this post.

Today we have a special guest post by author and fellow League member E.C. Myers! She's posting about NASA in film.

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NASA & The Twilight Zone

by E.C. Myers

Television is one of the best reflections of the time in which it’s made. Case in point: the original Star Trek series was set in the far future, but its episodes often dealt with topics that concerned Americans in the late 1960s, when it was broadcast, such as war and racism. By exploring serious issues in a science fictional setting, the producers and writers could disguise moral messages as mere entertainment, allowing them to sneak controversial stories past network censors and conservative television stations.

The program that defined the way science fiction would be used for provocative social commentary in television was The Twilight Zone. It’s one of my favorite series and a formative one for me, and it remains a classic today. War and prejudice were also common themes on the show, but it also often featured astronauts and spaceships, with stories about trips to other worlds and alien visitors, which interrogated our ideas of what it truly means to be human. It’s no wonder that the writers were so preoccupied with speculating about the effects of space travel and the possibility of extraterrestrial contact: The Twilight Zone (TZ) debuted on October 2, 1959, only a little more than a year after NASA was formed on July 29, 1958. Space was on everyone’s minds.

In fact, the first episode of TZ raised the very question of whether we were ready to be among the stars. (Warning: Spoilers follow. Even though twist endings are a staple of TZ, the show was broadcast more than 55 years ago, so…) In the striking debut, “Where is Everybody?”, a man wanders a seemingly abandoned town. As he slowly suffers a mental breakdown, it’s revealed that it’s actually all in his mind; the man is an astronaut in an isolation chamber undergoing an experiment that simulates the loneliness of space travel—and he isn’t handling it very well at all.

There are many terrific episodes focused on astronauts and a space program that is strangely similar to NASA. Here are just a few of my favorites, and I’ll hope you check them out and the rest of the series if you haven’t seen it before. Episodes are streaming free on Hulu and Netflix, and most of them really do hold up well five decades letter.

“And When the Sky Was Opened” by Rod Serling, based on a short story by Richard Matheson: A spaceship disappears on its first space flight then reappears. When it crash lands on Earth, one of its three astronauts, Harrington, feels strangely out of place and discovers that his parents don’t remember him—just before he disappears. His co-astronaut Forbes is the only one who realizes he’s missing, or has ever even existed, and even the newspaper now refers to only two astronauts. He tries to convince the third astronaut, Gart, that one of them is gone, but Gart doesn’t believe him—until Forbes disappears too! Gart, reportedly the only astronaut to return to Earth, who is beginning to freak out, soon disappears too, along with the ship. Eerie!

“Third from the Sun” by Rod Serling, also based on a short story by Richard Matheson: Faced with the threat of a nuclear attack that will destroy the planet, a scientist plans to escape with his family aboard a spacecraft. Their destination: a planet 11 million miles away, third from the sun. A place called Earth. (No way!)

“I Shot an Arrow into the Air” by Rod Serling, based on a story by Madelon Champion: Four astronauts crash on what they believe to be a barren asteroid. With limited supplies, one of them kills the others to survive. He sets out on his own and eventually encounters evidence of civilization: telephone poles and a sign for a place called “Reno.” It turns out they had never left Earth at all! Oops! (See also: Planet of the Apes.)

“People Are Alike All Over” by Rod Serling, based on a short story by Paul Fairman: Two astronauts crash on Mars and one of them ends up as the new exhibit in a zoo! (Sounds like people were really worried about spaceships crashing, huh?)

“The Little People” by Rod Serling: Two astronauts land on a planet to make some repairs to their ship and discover a race of tiny people, which one of them, Craig, terrorizes and forces to worship him as a god. His companion leaves him there and soon another ship lands. It bears two astronauts who are giants, one of which accidentally kills Craig, to the delight of the tiny beings he abused.

“The Parallel” by Rod Serling: Gaines blacks out in his space capsule and wakes up on Earth to find things are not exactly the way he left them. He has a different rank, Major instead of Colonel; his wife is practically a stranger to him; and his daughter insists that he isn’t her father. He becomes convinced that he has somehow slipped into a parallel universe and attempts to return to the world he remembers. Gaines blacks out and finds himself back in his orbiting space capsule, which he safely returns to Earth. Just as he begins to think he imagined the whole thing, they receive a transmission… from Colonel Gaines.

“The Long Morrow” by Rod Serling: An astronaut falls in love with a woman before departing on a mission that will keep him away from Earth for 40 years. Wanting to stay the same age as his beloved, he voluntarily opts out of the suspended animation that would keep him young. But when he returns to Earth, now an old man, he learns that the woman had placed herself in suspended animation until he came back to her. Alas, he is now too old for her! (If only they had talked to each other before he left! This episode also has the distinction of being referenced on another of my favorite shows, Gilmore Girls, when Logan gives Rory a toy rocket in a romantic gesture that baffles and upsets her because she didn’t remember watching this episode with him.)

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E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and a public library in Yonkers, New York. His young adult science fiction novels, Fair Coin and Quantum Coin, were published by Pyr Books in 2012. You can find him all over the internet, but especially at http://ecmyers.net and on Twitter@ecmyers, as well as blogging about Star Trek athttp://theviewscreen.com.

He currently lives in Philadelphia with his wife, two doofy cats, and a mild-mannered dog.

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This post is a part of the month-long celebration of NASA I'm hosting on my blog. In order to encourage people to celebrate NASA, I'm also hosting a giveaway!

One grand prize winner will receive all the books in the recent Breathless Reads tour, as well as ARCs of two anthologies and a signed Breathless Reads poster:

As well as swag from NASA, courtesy of Kate @ Ex Libris:

NASA Month: NASA for Writers

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

NASA for Writers

Today, I want to spread the news about a very cool workshop specifically for writers. The Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop is, according to the official website, "an education/public outreach effort supplementing Mike Brotherton’s space-based astronomical research. Our primary goal is to teach writers, editors, and those with audiences of all types about modern science, specifically astronomy, and in turn reach their audiences."

I've spoken to several authors who've participated in the workshop in the past, and everyone's really loved it. The workshop this year will be in Laramie, Wyoming (imagine the clear night skies for this!) and will feature Christian Ready as the guest lecturer.

If you're a writer--or anyone else who has the ability to reach a wider audience and can spread the information on good sciences further--please consider applying to this excellent program.

And if you need more convincing, check out these author's experiences:

Alma Alexander's posts about Launch Pad 2008 (very well organized; I highly recommend this one!)
Rachel Swirsky live-blogged her 2010 experience for Tor.com
David Levine did the same for his 2008 experience.
And Jeff Vandermeer did a series of posts on his experience here.

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As well as swag from NASA, courtesy of Kate @ Ex Libris:

NASA Month: NASA & the Movies

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

All this month, I'm NASA! This means every weekday in March will feature a new post about NASA, and I'm hosting a giant giveaway in order to encourage people to spread the NASA love. For more information on the giveaway, check out this post.

Today we have a special guest post by author and fellow League member Lissa Price! She's posting about NASA in film.

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NASA and the Movies

by Lissa Price

Small wonder that the movies have had a love affair with NASA. But did you know that NASA also has a love/hate affair with the movies? Here are two lists that NASA created in 2011. One is their “best science fiction movies” of all time and the other is their “worst” list.

List 1

1) Gattaca (1997)

2) Contact (1997)

3) Metropolis (1927)

4) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

5) Woman in the Moon (1929) (the first film to use the countdown that NASA later copied)

6) The Thing From Another World (1951)

7) Jurassic Park (1993)

List 2

1) 2012 (2009)

2) The Core (2003)

3) Armageddon (1998)

4) Volcano (1997)

5) Chain Reaction (1996)

6) The 6th Day (2000)

7) What the #$*! Do We Know? (2004)

You probably guessed that List 2 is their “worst” list. In fact, they use Armageddon as part of their training program, quizzing trainees to find all the impossibilities in the film (approx. 168).

Some films dealing with space exploration or NASA

Contact
Moon
Space Cowboys
Apollo 13
The Right Stuff
October Sky
Gattaca
Space Camp
2001
Alien
Deep Impact
Red Planet
Destination Moon
Independence Day
Solaris
Mission to Mars
The Astronaut’s Wife

If you have a favorite film or one that wasn’t listed here, tell us in the comments.
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Lissa Price’s debut novel STARTERS is an international bestseller published in over thirty countries. Dean Koontz calls this YA futuristic thriller “a smart, swift, inventive, altogether gripping story.” STARTERS was chosen by Barnes & Noble and the Chicago and LA Public Libraries as one of their Best Books of the Year for Teens. It won awards in Germany and France where it was one of the top ten books of the year. The sequel, ENDERS, will be published in Europe this Spring.

Lissa loves water sports and travel that involves furry creatures. Visit her at www.lissaprice.com or LissaPriceAuthor on FBt or @Lissa_Price on Twitter.

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This post is a part of the month-long celebration of NASA I'm hosting on my blog. In order to encourage people to celebrate NASA, I'm also hosting a giveaway!

One grand prize winner will receive all the books in the recent Breathless Reads tour, as well as ARCs of two anthologies and a signed Breathless Reads poster:

As well as swag from NASA, courtesy of Kate @ Ex Libris:

NASA Month: Interviews & Asteroids

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

All this month, I'm NASA! This means every weekday in March will feature a new post about NASA, and I'm hosting a giant giveaway in order to encourage people to spread the NASA love. For more information on the giveaway, check out this post.

Today, I have the great honor of interviewing Paul Abell, Lead Scientists for Planetary Small Bodies at NASA Johnson Space Center, and Amy Sisson, Science Fiction Writer and Librarian. This time, I asked all about asteroids and their impact (haha, get it?) on our Earth.

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Interviews & Asteroids

Paul Abell, Lead Scientist for Planetary Small Bodies, NASA Johnson Space Center
Amy Sisson, Science Fiction Writer and Librarian
March 2013

1) How likely is it that a large asteroid or meteor--of the kind that wiped out the dinosaurs--will hit Earth again?

The object responsible for the Chicxulub impact that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago is believed to have been about 10 km (6.2 miles) in diameter. Fortunately, there aren’t too many near-Earth asteroids of this size still flying around out there, and the large asteroids in the asteroid belt are generally in stable orbits and aren’t a threat to us.

A screenshot of the Chelyabinsk asteroid

But an object doesn’t have to be that big to cause massive destruction. The object that exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia just last month caused an awful lot of damage (but thankfully no deaths), and it was only about 20 meters (65 feet) in diameter. It exploded high up in the atmosphere before it could hit the ground, but even so it injured more than 1,500 people, and produced a shock wave with far more force than the nuclear bombs that were detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. If this had happened at a lower altitude right over a big city like New York or Houston, the casualties would have been a lot worse.

On average, objects the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor will hit the Earth once every 100 years – which may make people think that “OK, we’re safe from that size object for another hundred years.” But the frequency of these impacts is on average. That means that one could hit us today and another one could hit us tomorrow, and then maybe we would go a couple of hundred years without a hit. This means we need to be on alert all the time, because we can’t predict when statistics are going to work in our favor and when they’re not.

2) What kinds of things does NASA have in place to protect Earth from such an event? Is the movie Armageddon a likely scenario or just crazy Hollywood?

Armageddon was crazy Hollywood, placing story and excitement over any resemblance to reality. The size, speed, and physical nature of the asteroid were very unrealistic, as was NASA’s fictional method of dealing with it. For starters, no country currently has a space vehicle that could send astronauts flying after a speeding asteroid that way.

But the movie did get two key factors right. First, they mentioned, and it’s true, that NASA simply does not have the funding to watch every part of the sky at all times. Even with unlimited money, asteroids are small, dark, and moving fast against the backdrop of space, making them difficult to spot. Ideally, NASA would like to build and operate a space-based telescope to help find the potentially dangerous asteroids that travel very close to or near our own orbit. Such a telescope would work 24 hours a day and could effectively look for asteroids coming from the general direction of the sun. This is something ground-based telescopes can’t do, because we can only use them at night.

Armageddon was also correct that if a massive asteroid is speeding towards us, we most likely won’t be able to just blast it with a nuclear bomb. In the movie, Bruce Willis and his team first drilled down into the asteroid so that the nuclear bomb would split it into two halves that would both miss the earth. That was fun for the movie, but it’s not the way NASA would do it. In reality, it would be better to use a nuclear bomb to simply nudge the asteroid off course slightly – but to do that, we would need to know about the asteroid well in advance, so that a little nudge while the asteroid is still far away would make it miss us by a safe margin. That’s where the funding for early detection comes in.

So yes, NASA thinks about this stuff all the time. What they don’t have is a space shuttle-like vehicle that can send people to an asteroid at the last minute, or even a rocket that could definitely target an asteroid with a nuclear bomb. They do have many theoretical scenarios in place, but what they will be able to do when the time comes will depend a lot on what funding and what technology is available at the time. Having as much advance notice as possible of an incoming asteroid is the key, and that means funding is required to try and survey all the near-Earth asteroids that are out there. There’s a saying: Asteroids are nature’s way of asking ‘How’s that space program coming along?’”

3) Is it possible in the future for astronauts to visit large asteroids? What might they discover?

It’s very possible for astronauts to visit large asteroids. In fact, in many ways it would be easier to do that than to send astronauts to Mars, or even back to the Moon. NASA has spent a lot of time and effort over the last few years developing the concept of a crewed mission to a near-Earth asteroid. Since asteroids are always moving, we can’t just fly from the Earth straight to an asteroid, so we have to understand their orbits and pick an asteroid that we can get to and from in a reasonable amount of time. NASA will need a space vehicle capable of supporting a four-person crew for a round trip that would last several months, with food, water, fuel, and shielding against solar and cosmic radiation.

What will they discover? To plan the mission correctly, they’ll need to have a good idea in advance whether the asteroid is rocky or metallic in its composition, so they’ll probably first send out a robotic spacecraft to check things out. Finding water (in ice form or trapped in rock) would be a terrific bonus, because water-rich asteroids can eventually be used to supply fuel and drinkable water to astronaut crews on even longer missions, such as to Mars. Learning how to get at and use that water can help NASA figure out ways to use similar resources on Mars’ two moons (Phobos and Deimos, which are both actually captured asteroids), which could help us get astronauts to the surface of Mars and to other destinations in the solar system.

But back to that asteroid… Well, there won’t be much gravity there, and there certainly won’t be razor-sharp shards of metal flying around the asteroid the way it happened in Armageddon. But even so, the first human trip to an asteroid will be equally exciting, and sure to result in scientific discoveries that haven’t even occurred to us yet.

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This post is a part of the month-long celebration of NASA I'm hosting on my blog. In order to encourage people to celebrate NASA, I'm also hosting a giveaway!

One grand prize winner will receive all the books in the recent Breathless Reads tour, as well as ARCs of two anthologies and a signed Breathless Reads poster:

As well as swag from NASA, courtesy of Kate @ Ex Libris:

NASA Month: Moondance

noreply@blogger.com (Beth Revis) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Moondance

HUGE thanks to Genn Albin for pointing me to this amazing video! Canadian Astronaut Cmdr. Chris Hadfield performed with the Chieftans...from SPACE aboard the ISS!

This video just gave me goosebumps, and definitely deserves more views. Check it out!

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As well as swag from NASA, courtesy of Kate @ Ex Libris: