A Guest Post by Joy Preble

Well, Zoe, you asked for a guest post. And I suppose that both you and that obsessively hard worker that I refer to as Publicist Paul (aka the guy who recently received my gift of a dozen cupcakes and even though he was supposed to share them with my copy edit team I have a feeling that he ate most of them himself and then lapsed into a sugar coma during which he may have possibly fed Jameson’s to his puppy Teddy even though he like totally denies this) are expecting a post about Dreaming Anastasia, I think this post may be a little different.
Okay, I will be mentioning Dreaming Anastasia. (Like in this parenthetical comment where in I remind your readers that it’s now out on the shelves and it is a totally kick ass story about a normal high school girl named Anne who discovers she’s not all that normal, a fairly clueless but handsome hottie named Ethan who’s got one heck of a secret and has been looking for Anne for a very long time, and of course, Anastasia herself, the Russian Grand Duchess who’s not quite as dead as the history books say. Plus a great witch named Baba Yaga. And lots of running around and scary stuff. And as one reviewer has mentioned, lots of hot moments where Ethan shoves his hand through his really amazing thick hair) But I’m going to start somewhere else.
Because as I just clicked over to your blog, I see that you are a nerdfighter. And if you’re a nerdfighter, that means you’re a John Green fan. And Zoe – I am a John Green fan! And John Green is a fan of Maureen Johnson. And I am a huge Maureen Johnson fan. And the two of them wrote Let It Snow, along with Lauren Myracle. And Zoe – I am a huge Lauren Myracle fan. In fact, Let It Snow, is like the world’s perfect laugh my self silly book. Especially because it is the one that I got John Green to sign at TLA last spring. And John’s story takes place in part in Waffle House, which is like my favorite place ever because you can have hash browns a zillion different ways, double pecan waffles, raisin toast, and you can watch them make it right in front of you and if that isn’t amazing breakfast theater I don’t know what is. Plus it’s a house. With waffles.
Which finally leads me to my story. The story that lets you know that while I may not be an official nerdfighter, I am definitely a nerd. A geek. A fangirl supreme. (Let me interject here that it is entirely possibly that John Green may actually have a restraining order on me. It is of course, equally possible that he has no memory of the incident I’m about to impart and that the whole event is embarrassing only to me. Luckily the story works either way. Honestly, even if it doesn’t, if you’ve read this far, chances are you’re going to keep on going, if only to mock me mercilessly once you get to the end)
And you know I’m sensing that the whole John Green story is going to be a real let down after all this build up. This is one of the things my copy edit team nagged about. That I take a joke – like the one about Anne’s sweater in Dreaming Anastasia – and then I just don’t let it go soon enough. So let me just say that here’s what happened. John Green was set to sign during the time most people on the TLA floor went to the Bluebonnet luncheon. So there he was during the last five minutes of his time – all alone! Ah, I said to myself, this is the perfect opportunity to talk to him. I will tell him hello. I will have him sign my copy of Let it Snow. (okay full disclosure, I had just gotten that copy a minute before that because it was only $3, but knowing that probably diminishes the effect of this tale so forget I said anything) I will say “Hey, I have a book coming out later this year. I am going to be one of you. A member of the tribe, so to speak. You have inspired me and your vlogs are really, really funny, especially the one where you tell a fifteen year old girl how to get boys to like her.” And then John will embrace my wisdom and friendliness and blow off the rest of the conference and we’ll find a Waffle House somewhere in the greater Houston area and he’ll call Maureen and Lauren and they’ll fly in and we’ll all eat hash browns together. In my head this is what was going to happen.
In real time, I said some of this. We took a picture. I repeated how amazing he was until he had an “I am really, really scared of this chick” smile plastered on his face. And then his handler kind of made me move on.
Zoe – I may not be as funny as John Green. But I am a nerd. And Ethan – my handsome hottie in Dreaming Anastasia – well, he is definitely a reflection of my nerd self. The part of me that’s constantly in need of do-overs. Ethan would have scared John Green too, you can bet on that.
But as John will understand when he gets his copy – which maybe he already has and is reading with Maureen and Lauren while eating waffles somewhere – that is why readers will love Ethan. That is why Anne will let him mess with her world.
So read Dreaming Anastasia. John Green would want you to.