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Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Thompson

Tales from my first book launch party

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decorations

Two of the worst pos­si­ble things that could hap­pen to a book event in Seat­tle hap­pened on the day of the Be a Change­mak­er launch par­ty: one of our major bridges was closed for con­struc­tion, and the sun was shin­ing! Still, an amaz­ing num­ber of ultra-ded­i­cat­ed friends and intre­pid fans braved the traf­fic night­mare and will­ing­ly (or per­haps begrudg­ing­ly) sac­ri­ficed one of the last sun­ny Sun­days we are like­ly to have for months. And I am oh-so-grate­ful to each and every one of them for it!

decorations
Look at the pret­ty decorations!
I start­ed with a brief thank you. I could have gone on for hours thank­ing every­one who played a part in this book, but I decid­ed to spare those in atten­dance and kept the list as short as possible.
presentation
Here I am giv­ing my presentation.
Then I gave a short read­ing from one of the In My Expe­ri­ence side­bars in the book. I start­ed get­ting choked up and did­n’t want to break down into ugly cry in front of all those peo­ple, so I cut it short­er than I had intend­ed. Run away!
Josie Gillett for YUP
One of the inspir­ing teens pre­sent­ing her organization.
My favorite part was when four local teens, whose orga­ni­za­tions are among those fea­tured in the book, pre­sent­ed a bit about what they do and where their groups are head­ed. They were all great speak­ers and held the audi­ence in rapt attention.
signing closeup
I signed some books.
Then, it was time to sign books! I was so afraid I would spell some­one’s name wrong, I even asked on the easy ones that I knew for sure I knew how to spell.
signing line zoomed out
I signed a lot of books!
By the end, though, my eyes were start­ing to cross. I had­n’t made any mis­takes, so I let my guard down. One of the very last peo­ple in line is one of my dear­est friends, whose name hap­pens to be EXACTLY THE SAME AS MINE. Yes, you guessed it: I spelled it wrong. For­tu­nate­ly, she has a good sense of humor, so we’ll prob­a­bly be laugh­ing about it for years to come.
Many heart­felt thanks to every­one who came and to Secret Gar­den Book Shop for host­ing. I’m gen­er­al­ly not much of a par­ty per­son, and I real­ly dis­like being the cen­ter of atten­tion. (Those giant posters of my face were a sur­prise from my hub­by… eek!) But every moment of that launch event was a treat, and the expe­ri­ence is some­thing I’ll trea­sure for the rest of my life. 

The BE A CHANGEMAKER Blog Tour

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Be a Changemaker cover

Be a Changemaker coverI’ve been sur­prised and hon­ored to be includ­ed on a pletho­ra of fan­tas­tic blogs as part of a blog tour to help launch Be a Change­mak­er into the world. There are guest posts writ­ten by me on a vari­ety of top­ics relat­ed to the book, as well as inter­views, reviews, quotes, and, yes–book give­aways! Be sure to check out all of the tour stops, and please give these love­ly blog­gers some love, won’t you?
Here’s what has already been posted:

9/8/2014
Review, author inter­view, giveaway
9/9/2014
Review, guest post, giveaway
9/10/2014
Reviews, teach­ing tools, guest post, giveaway
9/11/2014
Review, resources lists
9/12/2014
Review
9/12/2014
Guest post
9/13/2014
Review, give­away

 
And here’s what is still to come:

9/15/2014
Review, give­away
9/16/2014
Review, give­away
9/17/2014
Author inter­view, giveaway
9/18/2014
Guest post, giveaway
9/19/2014
Author inter­view, giveaway
9/20/2014
Guest post, giveaway

Blue Slip Media logo
 
This incred­i­ble line­up has been assem­bled and man­aged by the love­ly ladies at Blue Slip Media. Thank you, Sarah and Barbara!

The Emu’s Debuts launch party for Be a Changemaker

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Emu's Debuts bannerOne of the most reward­ing expe­ri­ences of being a debut author has been par­tic­i­pat­ing on the Emu’s Debuts group blog (for clients of Erin Murphy Lit­er­ary Agency who are in between deal and pub­li­ca­tion). Last week, my fab­u­lous friends and fel­low Emus threw me THE BEST LAUNCH PARTY EVER to cel­e­brate the upcom­ing release of BE A CHANGEMAKER! (They went a week ear­ly, since Lind­sey Lane’s EVIDENCE OF THINGS UNSEEN is releas­ing at the same time. I’ll be help­ing them cel­e­brate that launch next week!)
They were all so gen­er­ous, authen­tic, and hard-work­ing in bring­ing the dai­ly posts to life (as they are with every­thing they do!), and I was thrilled anew every morn­ing to see what they had put togeth­er. In case you missed them, please go check out their posts. They’re fun, infor­ma­tive, and inspiring!
Here’s the roundup:
On Mon­day, Lind­sey Lane (with some back­up sup­port from Tara Dair­man), post­ed Wel­come to the World: BE A CHANGEMAKER by Lau­rie Ann Thomp­son!, which includ­ed sto­ries of and inter­views with five oth­er Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency authors who are chang­ing the world in their own mean­ing­ful ways:

Tues­day fea­tured sev­er­al videos com­piled by Megan Mor­ri­son, BE A CHANGEMAKER: Words of Wis­dom. The clips con­tain con­tri­bu­tions from fel­low Emu Debuts blog­gers offer­ing their own words of wis­dom, shar­ing quotes that moti­vate and inspire them, and giv­ing advice they wish they’d got­ten at the begin­ning of their jour­ney. Great stuff, and so per­son­al! It’s a great way to get to know these won­der­ful peo­ple a lit­tle better.
For the Wednes­day post, BE A CHANGEMAKER: Cel­e­brat­ing with Quotes!, Jen­nifer Cham­b­liss Bert­man com­piled and cre­at­ed a col­lec­tion of gor­geous images fea­tur­ing quotes that inspire and moti­vate the mem­bers of the Emu’s Debuts blog team. If you want to spice up your Face­book or Pin­ter­est feeds (or your office walls!), there are some fan­tas­tic finds here. Plus, they includ­ed the expla­na­tions behind why the quotes are so mean­ing­ful for them, mak­ing them even more special.
For Thurs­day’s post, Pen­ny Park­er Kloster­mann, gave read­ers a sneak pre­view of Be a Change­mak­er with excerpts of the first 25 pages as well as the event plan­ning chap­ter. Her post, BE A CHANGEMAKER: A Tool for Change, gives a sense of how the book can be used as a tool by indi­vid­u­als, teams, and classrooms.
On Fri­day, Tama­ra Ellis Smith closed out the par­ty with Music to Be A Change­mak­er By, an inspi­ra­tional and moti­vat­ing Spo­ti­fy playlist of songs rec­om­mend­ed by the Emu’s Debuts blog­gers, along with the expla­na­tions of why they includ­ed them. Span­ning gen­res and emo­tions, you’re sure to find some­thing of inter­est here–I know I did!
I’m so grate­ful to the awe­some authors at Emu’s Debuts! Thanks to them, the Be a Change­mak­er pre-launch week was bet­ter than I ever could have imag­ined. I’m look­ing for­ward to each and of every one of their debuts–coming soon!

Why write Be a Changemaker for teens?

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To cel­e­brate the Unit­ed Nations’ Inter­na­tion­al Youth Day, I wrote a guest blog for the Beyond Words blog explain­ing why I wrote Be a Change­mak­er specif­i­cal­ly for young read­ers. Here’s an excerpt:

We know that young peo­ple have always been at the fore­front of soci­etal change. Ado­les­cence is a time when peo­ple begin to ques­tion and cri­tique the morals and stan­dards of the soci­ety in which they are liv­ing. Teens and young adults start to appre­ci­ate the com­plex­i­ties of social prob­lems and the trade­offs that come with var­i­ous solu­tions to those prob­lems. In addi­tion, young peo­ple are known for cre­at­ing, adopt­ing, and cir­cu­lat­ing the cul­ture of their times, be it the peaceniks of the 60s or the hip-hop move­ment of today.

Mod­ern youth, how­ev­er, are more empow­ered than ever to shape the world as they see fit…

To read the whole thing, click here.

Emmanuel on US National Amputee Soccer Team

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Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah, the sub­ject of my upcom­ing pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy, EMMANUEL’S DREAM, is an ath­lete who was born in Ghana, West Africa, with a deformed leg. As a young man, he want­ed to change the way dis­abled peo­ple were treat­ed in Ghana, so he rode a bicy­cle near­ly 400 miles all around his coun­try to prove that being dis­abled does­n’t mean being unable. Since then, he has con­tin­ued to be an advo­cate for the rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and has launched his own foun­da­tion, with plans to build a school in Ghana for abled and dis­abled chil­dren alike. He now spends most of his time based in San Diego, CA, trav­el­ing the Unit­ed States as a moti­va­tion­al speak­er and rais­ing funds for his charity.
This spring, the Unit­ed States Nation­al Amputee Soc­cer Team invit­ed Emmanuel to play for them. He just returned to San Diego from a train­ing ses­sion in Mary­land, and he’ll join the team when they com­pete in the 10th Amputee World Cup in Mex­i­co in late November.
Good luck, Emmanuel, and to the rest of the play­ers on the US Nation­al Amputee Soc­cer Team!
Read more about Emmanuel and his World Cup Soc­cer expe­ri­ence here, includ­ing some great photos.

Goodreads giveaway for Be a Changemaker ARCs

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Goodreads buttonGood news: There’s a give­away going on right now on Goodreads for two ARCs (advance read­er copies) of Be a Change­mak­er! This is a pleas­ant sur­prise, because a) I did­n’t know there were any ARCs left, and b) the pub­lish­er set this up with­out me hav­ing to do any­thing (thank you, Simon & Schuster)!
If you’d like to try to win a copy for your­self, just click here. Hur­ry, though… the give­away will close to entries on August 19th. Good luck!

It’s the Be a Changemaker launch party!

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BE A CHANGEMAKER cover

Please come celebrate the release of my first book:

BE A CHANGEMAKER cover

Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 14th, at 2 p.m.

Seat­tle Cre­ative Arts Center
2601 NW Mar­ket St
Seat­tle, WA 98107
(Click here for direc­tions and park­ing information.

Eat, drink, min­gle, hear more about the book from the author, and—best of all—meet some local teens who are already chang­ing the world!

I hope to see you there!

If you can’t make it and would still like a signed copy, you can order from Secret Gar­den Books here (please indi­cate how you’d like it per­son­al­ized in the “oth­er notes about your order” field and leave an extra week or two for delivery).

First reviews for BE A CHANGEMAKER

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BE A CHANGEMAKER cover

BE A CHANGEMAKER coverI’ve had great feed­back from friends all along (you know who you are–thank you!), but I’ve been anx­ious­ly await­ing that first third-par­ty judge­ment of BE A CHANGEMAKER: HOW TO START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS. The first pro­fes­sion­al reviews feel huge to me, kind of “make or break” moments, where the tone gets set for all that may fol­low for that par­tic­u­lar book. I doubt that’s actu­al­ly true, as most review­ers prob­a­bly pride them­selves on bold­ly stat­ing their own opin­ions no mat­ter what oth­ers before them have said, but it sure feels that way me. If noth­ing else, you can always point back at those first pos­i­tive reviews if sub­se­quent reviews are less than favor­able, right? So, you can imag­ine my huge sigh of relief when that first major pro­fes­sion­al review land­ed in my inbox, and it was­n’t com­plete­ly dreadful!
For me, the first one to come in was from Kirkus, some­what noto­ri­ous for not pan­der­ing to authors’ frag­ile egos. I pre­pared myself for the worst and opened the email. If you’d like to read their full review, click here, but here’s an excerpt:

“Teens look­ing to make a dif­fer­ence will find inspi­ra­tion as well as real-world strate­gies for real­iz­ing their dreams of being the change they want to see in the world.… Inspi­ra­tional as well as prac­ti­cal.”
—Kirkus ReviewsKirkus header

That one was soon fol­lowed by a sec­ond pos­i­tive review, from Com­pass Book Rat­ings. Their full review can be read here, but here are some quotes from it:

“Thor­ough, com­plete, orga­nized, on-target–pick an adjec­tive, because they all apply in this case.…
A superb ref­er­ence book that should be a sta­ple of libraries, school coun­selors, and any­one who rubs shoul­ders with young people.”
—Com­pass Book Ratings

I’m hon­est­ly grate­ful to any­one who takes the time to read and review the book, regard­less of his or her opin­ion of it, but it is extreme­ly encour­ag­ing to have great reviews like this under my belt mov­ing for­ward. Thank you, Kirkus! Thank you, Com­pass Book Ratings!
 

EMMANUEL’S DREAM popping up in some exciting places!

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My upcom­ing pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy, EMMANUEL’S DREAM: THE TRUE STORY OF EMMANUEL OFOSU YEBOAH, has been pop­ping up in a few excit­ing places lately!
First, I recent­ly got to see–for the first time–how the illus­tra­tions by Sean Qualls are pro­gress­ing, and the art­work is noth­ing short of amaz­ing! I was sit­ting in a qui­et cof­fee shop work­ing on my lap­top when I got my first glimpse, and it lit­er­al­ly brought tears to my eyes, in all the best ways. I want­ed to dance around the place and scream with excite­ment! I love the bold col­or palette he’s using, the expres­sions on the char­ac­ters’ faces, and the way he chose to show parts of the sto­ry in sil­hou­et­ted back­ground images. It’s breath­tak­ing! Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I can share any of it with you just yet, but I can’t wait to be able to. I hope you like it as much as I do.
Sec­ond, the book is now list­ed on Goodreads! I hope you’ll click on this link or the but­ton below and add EMMANUEL’S DREAM to your “Want to Read” shelf.

Goodreads button for Emmanuel's Dream

Third, the book is avail­able for pre-order! If you’d like to reserve a signed copy, you may now order EMMANUEL’S DREAM from Secret Gar­den Books (please leave an extra week or so after the pub­li­ca­tion date for deliv­ery, and indi­cate how you’d like it per­son­al­ized in the “oth­er notes about your order” field). It Is also avail­able for pre-order on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Powell’s, or direct­ly from the pub­lish­er, Schwartz & Wade/Random House.
Keep an eye out for more excit­ing news!

On overnight success (Surprise! It’s a lot like failure.)

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I post­ed over on the Emu’s Debuts blog yes­ter­day about what makes an “overnight suc­cess.” If you missed it, here’s a lit­tle excerpt:

Both of last week’s posts here were about fail­ure, or at least the con­stant per­ceived threat of fail­ure that so often makes it hard for us to move for­ward. I’m going to con­tin­ue the theme, but on a slight­ly dif­fer­ent note. Our own Emu Empress, Erin MUrphy, once said some­thing along the lines of, “For every suc­cess, there is a wait­ing peri­od that feels like fail­ure.” And in a post on this very blog almost three years ago, she fol­lowed that up with, “But it’s NOT! It’s just waiting!”
Roosevelt quote about failure and successWhen she wrote that post back in 2011, I’d only been with the agency for a few months. One year from now, I’ll have three books pub­lished. That doesn’t seem like very much wait­ing, espe­cial­ly to those famil­iar with the pace of the pub­lish­ing indus­try. Many of my writer friends have walked up to me and said some­thing to the effect of, “Wow, you’re on FIRE!” Some say things like, “I guess you’ve been busy late­ly!” Oth­ers ask, “So, what’s your secret?” as if I’m hold­ing out on them. A few say, “Boy, did you get lucky!” nev­er think­ing that some authors might be a lit­tle bit offend­ed by that. (I nev­er am: Yes, indeed, I have got­ten very, very lucky!)
So, in the inter­ests of dis­pelling myths and keep­ing things real, I thought it might be help­ful to break down my “overnight success:”

You can read the rest of that post here.

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