LITERATURE + LECTURES

Blue Willow Bookshop presents a book signing and discussion featuring Meg Cabot.

Wow! Does it get any better than this?

Come by to see Meg Cabot, author of countless books for kids and adults, as she talks about her latest book, Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Best Friends and Drama Queens.

Allie Finkle is excited when a new girl, who comes all the way from Canada, joins her class at Pine Heights Elementary. Now Allie won’t be the new girl anymore!

But her excitement turns to dismay when the new girl, Cheyenne, starts telling everyone in the fourth grade what to do! Soon Cheyenne has everyone, including Allie’s best friends, Caroline, Sophie, and Erica, believing that if they don’t do what she says, they’ll be what Cheyenne accuses them of being - babies!

But Allie isn’t sure she’s ready to be all grown-up yet. Not if it means chasing boys at recess, not playing her favorite games anymore, and especially...not being herself!

Meg Cabot was born on February 1, 1967, during the Chinese astrological year of the Fire Horse, a notoriously unlucky sign.

Fortunately she grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, where few people were aware of the stigma of being a fire horse -- at least until Meg became a teenager, when she flunked freshman Algebra twice, then decided to cut her own bangs. After six years as an undergrad at Indiana University, Meg moved to New York City (in the middle of a sanitation worker strike) to pursue a career as an illustrator, at which she failed miserably, forcing her to turn to her favorite hobby--writing novels--for emotional succor.

She worked various jobs to pay the rent, including a decade-long stint as the assistant manager of a 700 bed freshmen dormitory at NYU, a position she still occasionally misses.

She is now the author of nearly fifty books for both adults and teens, selling fifteen million copies worldwide, many of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers, most notably The Princess Diaries series, which is currently being published in over 38 countries, and was made into two hit movies by Disney.

In addition, Meg wrote the Mediator and 1-800-Where-R-You? series (on which the television series, Missing, was based), two All-American Girl books, Teen Idol, Avalon High, How to Be Popular, Pants on Fire, Jinx, a series of novels written entirely in email format (Boy Next Door, Boy Meets Girl, and Every Boy's Got One), a mystery series (Size 12 Is Not Fat/ Size 14 Is Not Fat Either/Big Boned), and a chick-lit series called Queen of Babble.

Meg is now writing a new middle grade series called Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls, as well as an edgy new YA series, Airhead, both of which debut in Spring of 2008.

Her new paranormal series, Abandon, debuts in Summer of 2009.

Meg currently divides her time between Key West, Indiana, and New York City with a primary cat (one-eyed Henrietta), various back-up cats, and her husband, who doesn't know he married a fire horse. Please don't tell him.