Divergent Official First Look Tease! And National Book Festival Details

There will be some Divergent movie footage featured before the MTV Video Music Awards this Sunday at 8pm ET! The video above is just a little sneak peek.

So excited!

In other, probably less exciting news, I will be at the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. this year on September 21st. More info about what exactly I'll be doing, and when, and where, here: http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/author/veronica_roth

Book Recommendation: STARGLASS by Phoebe North

Starglass, book of amazing writer and human being Phoebe North, is out today! I read this a long time ago and pretty much immediately sent in a blurb (FYI, blurbs = those quotes from other authors that end up on book jackets and websites and so on). It is a wonderful, fascinating, well-written book.

Here is the cover:

Here's what it's about:

Terra has never known anything but life aboard the Asherah, a city-within-a-spaceship that left Earth five hundred years ago in search of refuge. At sixteen, working a job that doesn’t interest her, and living with a grieving father who only notices her when he’s yelling, Terra is sure that there has to be more to life than what she’s got.

But when she inadvertently witnesses the captain’s guard murdering an innocent man, Terra is suddenly thrust into the dark world beneath her ship’s idyllic surface. As she’s drawn into a secret rebellion determined to restore power to the people, Terra discovers that her choices may determine life or death for the people she cares most about. With mere months to go before landing on the long-promised planet, Terra has to make the decision of a lifetime–one that will determine the fate of her people.

***

And here is my blurb about it:

"Starglass is a richly imagined, beautifully written book. It’s science fiction, mystery, and coming of age story all wrapped into one; creative but also firmly grounded in a real human experience, with all its loss, pain, and disillusionment—but also beauty, hope, and belonging. A wonderful story."

***

If that sounds like something you're into, there's more info about where to get it here (under the synopsis). Happy Book Birthday, Phoebe!

First Look at Jeanine Matthews, plus Comic-Con Details

Image by: Jaap Buitendijk, courtesy of: USA Today

First of all: check out this article about Kate Winslet as Jeanine Matthews in USA Today!

I was able to see a little bit of Kate’s Jeanine while on set, and she was incredibly good. I feel like this should shock no one, considering her level of talent, but still: wow. And even better? As a person, she is so warm and lovely.

All’s well in Divergentland! I'll be at San Diego Comic-Con this week, and here is my schedule, if you're going. I'll try to post some updates during the Con on my Twitter feed: twitter.com/veronicaroth

So. Excited.

Allegiant Tour!

First of all, I woke up to wonderful news from my editor this morning that Allegiant is going to the printer today! That means that it is OFFICIALLY DONE, and is right on track to hit shelves on October 22^nd of this year. I have only one thing to say about this:

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Second, I am pleased to announce the official tour stops and dates for the release of Allegiant! They are:

Tuesday, October 22nd @ 8:15PM

92^nd St. Y

1395 Lexington Ave.

New York, NY 10128

Wednesday, October 23^rd @ 7:00PM

Barnes & Noble – Store 2884

7700 West Northwest Hwy. Ste. 300

Dallas, TX 75225

Thursday, October 24^th @ 7:00PM

The Castro Theatre, hosted by Books Inc.

429 Castro St.

San Francisco, CA 94114

Saturday, October 26^th @ 2:00PM

Tivoli Theater, hosted by Anderson’s Bookshop

5021 Highland Ave.

Downers Grove, IL 60515

I will also be the keynote speaker at YALLfest in Charleston, South Carolina, along with the fabulous Rae Carson, on Saturday, November 9^th!

A few notes:

*All of the events listed (with the exception of YALLfest) are ticketed, which means you have to get a ticket in advance, so you should check each location’s website for more information about when tickets go on sale and what they include.

 *You can read my post about event guidelines this year here. Other things to expect: strange faces (I make them), lame jokes (I make those, too), and GOOD TIMES.

It’s going to be a good autumn, guys. I can’t wait.

Short Stories!

I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO TELL YOU GUYS THIS FOR MONTHS.

Short version: there are going to be Divergent e-shorts!

Four of them!

And they will be about…drumroll, please…

Four! 

(See what I did there?) 

And the first one will be out on September 24th!

Long version: when my publisher approached me hoping that I would be able to write some extra Divergent content from them, I considered a few options for what I might write about, or whose perspective I might choose. Over time it became clear to me that the character I was most interested in exploring further was Four. Two reasons: first, I know his perspective is the one a lot of you are interested in reading (I get asked if I'm going to write anything else from his perspective all the time!), and hey, you're my readers and I like to write things you want to read; second, I was excited by the idea of expanding my own understanding of him, the way I did when I rewrote the knife-throwing scene from his perspective for the Free Four e-short.

For me, Four has never just been Tris’s love interest or a way for sexual tension to enter the story. He has always been a whole person with a history that affects him (and Tris) in significant ways, and a co-mover of the plot along with Tris. These stories are helping me to delve into his character in a way I never have before, and to build up parts of the world that Tris never experienced due to her limited perspective. Interestingly enough, they also affected the content of Allegiant, giving me more to draw from—awesome, right?

These stories will be longer than Free Four (Four’s retelling of the knife-throwing scene, which was only thirteen pages), and the first one will be out on September 24th. You can learn more official info here, too. And of course, I'll keep you informed of the other stories as information becomes available, too.

Divergent Movie Stills So Far

In case you missed this yesterday, Entertainment Weekly put up your first look at Theo James as Four in Divergent! I decided to put up all the stills that have been released so far here, but I recommend following the links beneath each image to the original post associated with them, because they all contain interesting/fun information about the movie.

Also, the still photographer for the movie, Jaap Buitendijk, is extremely talented. (And very kind.) Just putting that out there.

 

(Source: EW, image credit: Jaap Buitendijk)

 

 (source: EW, image credit: Jaap Buitendijk)

(source: EW, image credit: Jaap Buitendijk)

Fan Voted Tour Stop! Plus: About Events This Year

I am really excited to announce that my publisher, HarperCollins, is launching a fan-voted tour stop campaign today! What that means is that you (if you live in the US-- more on that later*) can get your friends, your family, your shockingly intelligent cat, your neighbor Bob, your fifth period English teacher, whoever you want, to vote for your state, and if your state wins, I will go there on my Allegiant tour this year! I love this because it means that places that don't usually get author visits have the chance to make that happen.

Also, if you vote, you'll be entered to win a trip to one of my tour stops, too!

All of this is taking place here: http://www.epicreads.com/divergent/sweepstakes/

Segue: this feels like a good time to talk about my events this year. They're going to be a little different than they have in the past-- basically, there are going to be two rules. One is a "one book per person" rule (meaning that I'm signing and personalizing one book per person), and the other is a "no posed photos" rule. (Posed photos are when I take a break from signing and lean over the table/walk around it to take a picture with you.)

There are two reasons for these rules. The first one is time. I am extremely lucky in that my book events have gotten sort of...big. Which is amazing. But that means that the thirty seconds it takes to set up a photo, the sixty seconds it takes to sign a few books, is multiplied not just by 50 or 100, but by several hundred, and that can add a couple hours to an event that's already pretty long.

Another thing that has happened as a result of the growing size of these events is that they have become much more stressful for me. For a long time I watched rockstar authors take All The Photos and sign All the Books and they were so good at it and so calm while they were doing it that I got mad at myself for not being the same way. But recently I've accepted that everyone has a different capacity for certain things, and everyone's stress/nervousness is triggered by different things. I have isolated the things that stress me out (really long signings, lots of photos), and am trying to accommodate my own limits into my events so that I'm still able to be friendly and upbeat while I'm doing them (instead of entering panic mode).

I really hate imposing limits on my interactions with you guys. I mean, we have a special bond, right? (I think so!) But events were starting to become unmanageable for me, and we threw around a lot of solutions here on Team Divergent-- like not doing them at all, or limiting the amount of people who can come to each one-- but this is the solution we've landed on, and I'm happy with it because it means that a lot more people can come to the events, which is good for everyone, including the bookstores that will be hosting us.

Thanks for reading. When I mentioned this photo-related nervousness on Twitter last week during BEA, so many of you were so sweet about it, and I really appreciated that. As always, I love chatting with you guys when I see you in person, and it's totally fine to take pictures of me while I'm signing or speaking, neither of those things makes me nervous at all.

I can't wait to see which state I will be traveling to!

*I know, US only stuff is sad for those of you who don't live in the US. But I'm hoping to be a little more international in the near future!