Apr 18, 2007 03:10 PM
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New York, 9:34 PM
Tue Feb 9
57 posts in the last 24 hours
Last night was Prom Night for Manhattan's Young Adult authors! This prom wasn't like high school prom, though. It was held on the Lower East Side, no one arrived in a limo, and you could openly purchase and drink alcohol. Also, everyone there was pretty much a grown-up. The party was a benefit for Advocates for Youth, a group that works to protect young people's right to sexual education. It also celebrated the publication of 21 Proms, a collection of young adult short stories, sales of which will also benefit the charity. Oddly enough, Deadspin editor Will Leitch and Gawker co-editor Emily Gould both found themselves at this event. What follows is their ill-advised morning-after postmortem. Will anyone sit with them in the cafeteria ever again?
BuyCatch: So my apologies for not being able to chat with you more last night, Ms. Gould. It is difficult for a shy boy like myself to cut through your fanbase.
Memily: Heh, fanbase. [Note: Emily doesn't actually have a fanbase — Will is employing a literary device called "hyperbole."] I don't think either of us really has the fanbase of Prom King John Green! [Note: John Green wins awards for his writing and also is just generally very endearing, so he's like a rock star among his fellow YA writers.] The funniest part is how much some of the ladies there OBVS hate his wife.
BuyCatch: Ha.
Memily: "You stole our dream date John Green! We hate you!"
BuyCatch: That is absolutely true. I think by the end of the night he was kissing babies and signing boobs.
Memily: It's such an interesting scene. I mean, it's actually a scene!
BuyCatch: Yeah, I never realize there's a scene until I actually show up at one of those. Someone who I'd never met told me last night, "I thought your story really didn't fit with what they were doing with this book. It's a little too adult." Hey, good to meet you too!
Memily: Who SAYS something like that? Oh: hopeless loser dorks.
BuyCatch: I suspect there are some unresolved high school issues amongst some of that crew. Just a guess.
Memily: What tipped you off, the evening of tiara'd swaying to 'In Your Eyes'? The, uh, CAREERS IN YA NOVEL WRITING? I know unresolved high school issues are what led me there!
BuyCatch: Yeah. Someone else, at another reading a few months ago, mentioned that they didn't think, because I was writing another book that wasn't YA, I was "devoted" enough to "what we're doing." It's a cause!
Memily: I'm so disturbed yet oddly charmed by that.
BuyCatch: Of course, I also had five different people last night ask me where my wife was, so I suppose I've done an effective job of avoiding them for a while. [Note: for a while last year it seemed like Will might get married, and then it didn't.]
Memily: Those people clearly haven't been keeping up with YA AUTHOR SCANDALSHEET WEEKLY magazine.
BuyCatch: I know. You know, the people who run that magazine, they're all parasites. They're all going to hell.
Memily: They should really think about what they're doing with their lives.
BuyCatch: They really should. WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LEAVE ME BE.
[later]
BuyCatch: Does 'settling scores with old girlfriends' count as "unresolved high school issues?" I suppose it probably does.
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