13 Questions with Marlene Perez

Marlene Perez is the author of DEAD IS THE NEW BLACK. She lives in Orange County, California, where she's always on the lookout for vampires roaming her sunny suburb. So far, she hasn't spotted any. www.marleneperez.com

1) what's your book about?
DEAD IS THE NEW BLACK is the first book in a trilogy.

2) favorite Halloween candy?
mini mint Three Musketeers bars or those mellocreme pumpkins.

3) favorite spooky novel?
LOST BOY LOST GIRL by Peter Straub creeped me out. But my childhood favorite was WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE by Joan Aiken.

4) fangs or fur?
Fangs. Vamps rule and werewolves drool.

5) Monster Mash, Thriller, or The Time Warp?
It's a tie. I love The Time Warp, but Thriller has Vincent Price doing a voice-over.

6) cape or no cape?
cape. I'm old-school.

7) Bela Lugosi or Gary Oldman?
Gary Oldman! I know Bela Lugosi is the premiere vamp, but Gary Oldman rocked the house as Sid Vicious, Dracula and Sirius Black.

8) Trick or Treat?
treat.

9) favorite costume?
Hmm. On me or someone else? My best friend and I (our names both start with M) once dressed up as M&M candies. Not very scary, but fun.

10) favorite scary movie or television show?
SCARY MOVIE: THE LOST BOYS
TELEVISION SHOW: Buffy, of course

11) what really scares you? (like spiders or the dark or whatever)
Lots of things. I'm a wimp. Spiders, heights, people who don't vote.

12) what’s your favorite way to spend Halloween night?
The people in our neighborhood all hang out together, then a group of parents & kids go trick-or-treating. I stay home and hand out candy. Then after the kids have gorged themselves on chocolate and have crashed, my husband and I watch a movie.

13) what’s the scariest thing that ever happened to you?
When I was growing up, I lived in an old farmhouse that was haunted.

13 Questions with A.M. Jenkins

Bio: A.M. Jenkins likes Halloween best out of all the holidays. It
requires little work, and the payoff is tons of chocolate.


1) what's your book about?
I've got three out right now that deal with the supernatural:

Night Road ("vampires" take a newbie on a road trip).
Repossessed (demon takes over a teenager's body).
Beating Heart (dead girl stalks living guy).


2) favorite Halloween candy?
Right now, Milky Ways.


3) favorite spooky novel?
For spooky, I like true crime. Nothing says scary to me like serial killers.


4) fangs or fur?
Me personally, I'd be a werewolf. But if I had to choose a romantic
partner, I'd choose a vampire just to be on the safe side. I'm not sure
how much body hair werewolves have normally.


5) Monster Mash, Thriller, or The Time Warp?
Werewolves of London!


6) cape or no cape?
No cape, not nowadays. That's just freakin' weird.


7) Bela Lugosi or Gary Oldman?
Louis Jourdan!


8) Trick or Treat?
Treat (see above, #2)


9) favorite costume?
Anything with fake gore. The gorier the better.



10) favorite scary movie or television show?
Scariest movie ever: The Changeling, with George C. Scott.


11) what really scares you? (like spiders or the dark or whatever)
City ordinances about not wearing saggy pants. I lie awake nights,
terrified that my tax dollars are being used to nag somebody about their
pants.


12) what’s your favorite way to spend Halloween night?
Handing out stuff that's not candy, like glow-in-the-dark eyeballs,
while I eat the candy I bought to give out.


13) what’s the scariest thing that ever happened to you?
Having to give a keynote dinner speech to 400 sleepy, full-bellied
librarians.

13 Questions with Kristopher Reisz

Find out more about Kristopher Reisz at http://www.kristopherreisz.com


what's your book about?
Unleashed is a werewolf love story set in the crumbling, beautiful city of Birmingham. It's got lies, truth, a mushroom god, and as much merry hell as I could fit into 300 pages.


favorite Halloween candy?
Anything shaped like an eyeball.


favorite spooky novel?
I read Nick Mamatas' Move Under Ground earlier this year. It has Jack Kerouac fighting Cthulhu. If the sheer bad-assery of that idea didn't just knock you out of your chair and hurl you into the wall, my heart weeps for you.


4) fangs or fur?
Dainty little blood-sipping fangs or inch-long, bone-crusher, meat-ripper fangs? I've always preferred werewolves over vampires. How anybody can respect a monster that cleans under his fingernails is beyond me.


5) Monster Mash, Thriller, or The Time Warp?
I'll be difficult and pick Werewolves of London.

cape or no cape?
Cape does not allow wearer to fly.


7) Bela Lugosi or Gary Oldman?
Is this a real question? Gary Oldman is a good actor and probably a very nice guy. Bela Lugosi is a legend. It's like comparing apples to Jesus. The Jesus of creepy.


8) Trick or Treat?
Or? Who says there has to be an 'or'?


9) favorite costume?
Once I dressed up like a barrel of toxic waste. That costume got extra points for being environmentally savvy AND having lots of room for candy storage.


10) favorite scary movie or television show?
The Real World


what really scares you? (like spiders or the dark or whatever)
Heights. All my nightmares are about falling. Or different body parts turning into Jell-O. But my answer's still heights.


12) what's your favorite way to spend Halloween night?
Looking out for house-rollers and egg-throwers. Keeping watch over the night makes me feel a little like Batman.


what's the scariest thing that ever happened to you?
Once I was visiting Glasgow, fell down some stairs, and got a concussion. I left the hospital with four stitches in the back of my head and no idea where I was. I spent the night trying to find my hotel, but I kept blacking out, then realizing I'd walked God-knows-how-many blocks without remembering.

I wound up at a police station, but don't know how. The police dropped me back off at the hospital, who just sent me out again. It was a long, ugly n

13 Questions with Cynthia Leitich Smith

Cynthia Leitich Smith is the author of the YA Gothic fantasy novel
Tantalize (Candlewick, 2007, 2008) and "Haunted Love," which appears in
Immortal: Love Stories with Bite, edited by P.C. Cast (BenBella,
2008)(exclusive to Borders/Waldenbooks).
Visit: http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/

1) what's your book about?
Tantalize is the story of Quincie P. Morris, who's trying to help save
her family's Italian restaurant by launching it with a vampire theme.
But just before the debut party, the chef is brutally murdered, and the
question lingers--is the murderer a vampire in wolf form or the hybrid
werewolf who's also Quincie's first love and best friend. Tantalize is
the first of three companion books, including Eternal (Candlewick, 2009)
and Blessed (Candlewick, TBA) in an overarching storyline, all from
Candlewick Press. Here's also a graphic novel adaptation in the works.


2) favorite Halloween candy?
Mini Snickers.


3) favorite spooky novel?
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause.


4) fangs or fur?

Both.


5) Monster Mash, Thriller, or The Time Warp?
Thriller.


6) cape or no cape?
Cape.


7) Bela Lugosi or Gary Oldman?
George Hamilton.


8) Trick or Treat?
Treat!


9) favorite costume?
Vampire.


10) favorite scary movie or television show?
Classic: "The Lost Boys" (1987)
Contemporary: "The Faculty" (1998)


11) what really scares you? (like spiders or the dark or whatever)
Heights, germs, enclosed spaces, children under 3, lettuce.


12) what’s your favorite way to spend Halloween night?
Watching spooky movies with my very cute husband--having already had a
party for my pals the weekend before.


13) what’s the scariest thing that ever happened to you?
Farrah hair.

13 Questions with Annette Curtis Klause

Bio:

Annette Curtis Klause was born in England and came to the U.S. as a teenager bringing her warped imagination with her. She has published four novels and several short stories in an attempt to rid herself of her demons. Apparently it's not working, so she'll just have to keep on writing.

Web Site:
http://www.childrensbookguild.org/klause.htm

1) what's your book about?
I'm working on two novels right now, but none are close enough to print for me to talk about--but be prepared for more weird romance and some very strange sisters. I do have a short story in an anthology coming out from Candlewick next year. The collection is called Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists, and Other Matters Odd and Magical. My story is "The Mummy's Daughter". and if you have read my book Freaks, Alive, on the Inside! you'll guess who she's related to.



2) favorite Halloween candy?
Skull Pops


3) favorite spooky novel?
Ghost Story by Peter Straub or Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand. I'd say anything by H.P. Lovecraft, except he wrote short stories mostly.


4) fangs or fur?
Fur


5) Monster Mash, Thriller, or The Time Warp?
Time Warp


6) cape or no cape?
It depends what's under it.

7) Bela Lugosi or Gary Oldman?
Geez--how can a girl choose?


8) Trick or Treat?
Trick


9) favorite costume?
My Bat Fairy costume I made from an old pink bridesmaid dress and lots of black felt.


10) favorite scary movie or television show?
Suspiria directed by Dario Argento and released in 1977.


A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the staff of the school are actually a coven of witches bent on chaos and destruction
It's totally surreal and visually disorienting with some great shocks. The psychedelic soundtrack is amazing and the incredibly tacky wallpaper in the spooky old school is one of the scariest parts of the movie. LOL


11) what really scares you? (like spiders or the dark or whatever)


Wow! So much scares me. I am a total coward. That's why I write books, so I can be vicariously brave. I think what scares me the most right now is a certain candidate for Vice President. Spiders I'm cool with, though.



12) what’s your favorite way to spend Halloween night?

Well, if I can't go to a rip roaring costume party with a loud punk band, then I like to be dressed as a ghoul, standing by my front door, next to the Victorian Child's coffin I bought on eBay, holding a witches cauldron full of candy in my arms, a skeletal hand emerging from the pot. I whip open the the front door growling as soon as someone knocks and I count how many children fall backwards off my steps. Yah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!


13) what’s the scariest thing that ever happened to you?

In college, one of my overly-trusting house mates made friends with a guy who turned out to be nuts. We didn't want him visiting the house because he was creepy and violent. I remember one night after he had taken irrational offense at something someone at the house had said. He came to the house and stood on the street outside, screaming that he was going to kill us. We didn't know if he had a weapon or not, so we locked the doors and crouched by the windows peering out, hoping he wouldn't find a way in. He wouldn't leave and kept on screaming threats and finally someone called the police. It was like being in a mad slasher movie.

13 Questions with Kimberly Pauley

Kimberly Pauley loves a good book you can sink your teeth into. She majored in English at the University of Florida and took as many classes in adolescent fiction (and science fiction) as she could find. As her alter-ego, the Young Adult Books Goddess of YA Books Central (yabookscentral.com), she has been reading and reviewing books since 1998 and meeting tons of great authors. Sucks to Be Me is her first novel, though she has published various poems and short stories over the years that she will even periodically admit to. She now lives in Illinois outside of Chicago with a husband who loves her even though he hasn’t read a young adult book since he was about twelve and can’t quite comprehend what the whole fuss is about, a brand-new baby boy already completely surrounded by children’s books, and a devious cat who looks a lot like a tub of lard.

Website Address: www.kimberlypauley.com



1) what's your book about?

Mina is a high school junior who has a pretty normal life, other than that her parents are vampires. When the local vampire Council discovers her existence, they give her a month to decide whether or not she wants to be one too. And they make her take vampire lessons to help her in her decision. Add in normal teenage girl stuff like drama over boys and stress over prom, and you've got Mina in the middle of a crisis. What's a girl to do, when blood is the last thing on her mind?

2) favorite Halloween candy?

Those really horrible peanut-buttery-ish (and I say "ish" 'cause they really aren't all that peanut buttery) candies in orange or black wrappers. Do they still make those?

3) favorite spooky novel?

Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Hands down. Love it.

4) fangs or fur?

Fangs!

5) Monster Mash, Thriller, or The Time Warp?

The Time Warp, definitely. I actually own the soundtrack...and the movie.

6) cape or no cape?

Um...no cape...Didn't you see The Incredibles? Capes can kill you.

7) Bela Lugosi or Gary Oldman?

Bela Lugosi.

8) Trick or Treat?

Treat, definitely (I have a total sweet tooth)

9) favorite costume?

I have this kind of combo vampire / devil costume that I've worn at Halloween a couple of times (I got the horns at a Renaissance Festival). I have a picture of myself in it, but I was about 4 1/2 or 5 months pregnant at the time, so I am SOOOOOO not going to show that one to anyone.

10) favorite scary movie or television show?

Scary? Um...I'm not a big scary movie / tv show person, really. But I guess I could say Clive Barker's Hellraiser, but ONLY because a) I love Clive Barker because he is awesome (I interviewed him once and he's just so cool) and b) the movie is partly responsible for me meeting my husband Tony.

11) what really scares you? (like spiders or the dark or whatever)

Stupid people.

12) what’s your favorite way to spend Halloween night?

Passing out candy.

13) what’s the scariest thing that ever happened to you?

When I was about 13 or 14, I thought I saw a ghost in the middle of the woods at night (of course, you might be asking 'what the heck were you doing out in the middle of the woods at night??' and you'd have a very good question there).

Teen Read Week Books with Bite

Celebrate Teen Read Week at the YA Authors Cafe

Our guests will be:

Monday, October 13- Kimberly Pauley, author of SUCKS TO BE ME
Tuesday, October 14-Annette Curtis Klause, author of BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE and FREAKS
Wednesday, October 15-Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of TANTALIZE
Thursday, October 16, Kristopher Reisz, author of UNLEASHED
Friday, October 17, A.M. Jenkins, author of NIGHT ROAD
Saturday, October 18, Marlene Perez, author of DEAD IS THE NEW BLACK