Fan Art I've Found

I like to check Deviant Art sometimes to see what people have drawn based on my books. Here are some I've found recently. If YOU have a drawing, you can always send it directly to me!! :) I love to get them!



Gamer Girl by Mari Mancusi by ~BlueFireFoxChibi on deviantART

Gamer girl cover by ~Darkness-Rakiri on deviantART

More Romantic Times Convention

A couple more pics from the Romantic Times Convention in Orlando.

What romance book covers looked like in the eighties. Ew!! Mustache!!




ME - as RAYNIE THE VAMPIRE SLAYER!! w00t!!! (With and without mask...)








Staking author Leanna Hieber as she attempts to do her edits.





Texting fairies

Back from Romantic Times Convention

I'm back from the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention where I spent a week hanging out with readers and writers - giving workshops and going to costume parties. So much fun! Plus it was in Orlando so the weather was amazing! Got to go swimming and on my last day I went to Disney World! w00t!

I'm waiting for my friend Liz to post pics so I'll have more to show you. Here's a couple I found from other people's sites. The first is me and Liz dressed as gothic lolita fairies. (Everyone thought I was a french maid though!)





And here's me - much more conservatively dressed! - at the booksigning.




I moderated the Young Adult Writing Panel and had some terrific panelists. Melissa Marr, Rachel Vincent, Stacey Kade, Jennifer Lynne Barnes, Lucienne Diver, and Caitlin Kittredge. I love when I am on panels where I learn something myself!

There was also a great urban fantasy panel I participated in, moderated by Richelle Mead of Vampire Academy fame. She is so pretty - I love her red hair! It was a fun panel as well.

Speaking of hair, Caitlin Kittredge had amazing pink streaks in hers. Which was completely awesome. She's working on a Steampunk book for teens - can't wait for that!

Melissa Marr told me when she grew up she wanted to dress just like me. Which was funny since a few hours before I said to my friend, "When I grow up I want to write just like Melissa Marr." I think she has a better chance of my wardrobe than I do of equaling her literary prowess, but oh well. She was so nice and interesting and smart. I would have loved to take her class back when she was teaching. I'm reading her third fairy book - Fragile Eternity - now. If you haven't started reading this series, you really should!

More to come soon...including video!!! :) For now, I'm exhausted and glad to be home! Still - I can't wait for next year!

MARIANNE

TWITTER!!!

Are you on Twitter yet? For up to the minute stuffz on me - you can follow:

mariannemancusi

What I'm reading...

I'm currently reading the third book in Rachel Caine's awesome MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES series. This is not your typical vampire romance cause in Morganville, Texas, vampires are the bad guys, not the romantic heroes. Well, some of them anyway. It's not one of those series where everything is as black and white as it first appears.

I read the first book in the series when it first came out and liked it. But then recently I picked up #2 and #3 and wow! It just gets better and better!! The story's becoming more complex and the characters more intriguing. I'm hooked!

There's like six or seven books in the series so far - I need to get reading!!

MARI

Cosplay

Since we're talking about cosplaying, I thought I might show you pics of some other costumes I've done over the last few years. I love dressing up and going to parties or cons. Sometimes my friends and I even host our own theme parties!!

Dressed as Rayne for a New England Romance Writers of America convention:



At the Book Expo of America, wher my friend Liz and I signed our SHOMI novels (mine was called Moongazer) for our publisher. They even made a poster of us, which I wish I had gotten to keep!

In this outfit, I'm especially fond of the legwarmers and my hair in little buns. I recently chopped my hair so I can't do that anymore!



This outfit, worn to the national Romance Writers of America conference, got a lot of both negative and positive attention from attendees. Some older romance writers were REALLY MAD that Liz and I cosplayed at the booksale. Evidently they didn't feel it was a look becoming to an author and that we were bringing down the credibility of the whole romance genre!! Some people wrote that they'd never buy our books again! This is just another example of how there's a chasm between romance writers that target older readers and those who target younger ones - like me! :)

In any case, I don't think this outfit is really very risque...Kind of typical Japanese school girl...



Gothic Lolita is my favorite cosplay look. I did this one at Comic Con in San Diego, a year and a half ago.



And here's the same dres without the jacket/sleeves.



Day two, same Comic Con event.



Here's a modified version of the Book Expo outfit - with this amazing skirt I ordered from Japan. I wish you could see it close-up. It even had strings of beads.



Not really a costume, but I'm thinking to use this picture for my author photo on the new re-packaged Blood Coven Books.



Again, not really a costume, but me in a corset, dancing at a goth club called Necromantic. (Don't you love the name?)



Last year I hosted a "Future Party" where everyone had to dress as if they were from the future. Here's me and my boyfriend Jacob.



I had fiber optic glow things for my hair, too!



Not really a costume - I wear my skeleanimals hoodie almost everywhere.



At a vampire ball...



One of my favorite outfits of all time - I'm dressed as my character KARMA KITTY in an anthology story I wrote about a manga artist who turns into her character when she dons a pair of magic gold boots in KARMA KITTY GOES TO COMIC CON. (You can find the story in the anthology "These Boots Were Made for Stomping."



Dragoncon! Me and Jacob ready to hit the parties!





And last, but not least, this is the Gothic Lolita dress I got in Japan. Worn to Dragoncon.



So there you have it! Cosplay fun! ^_^ Which outfit is your fave?

xoxo
MARI

Just ordered this Gothic Lolita dress...

For the convention I'm going to. I <3 to Cosplay! =^_^=





Do you like? Will post pics of me in it once it arrives from Japan...

MARI

Orlando Booksigning - April 25th!

Anyone from Orlando, Florida or nearby? You can meet me at a big multi-author booksigning I'm doing in Orlando on April 25th from 11am - 2pm. I'll be signing GAMER GIRL and the Blood Coven novels. And if you already own copies, you can bring them in to the signing so you don't have to buy them twice.

Here's the address:

Wyndham Orlando Resort
8001 International Drive
Orlando, Florida 32819
800 989 8816 x 12

Hope to see some of you there!!!
xoxo
MARI

GAMER GIRL mentioned in AP article!

Gamer Girl got a nice mention today in an Associated Press article on Scholastic Book Fairs. Pretty cool!!! Hopefully lots of newspapers will run the story.

You can read the whole article here. But here's the blurb for my part:

They purchased Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" novels, the latest "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and Linda Gerber's "Death by Latte," a mystery set in part at a Seattle coffee shop. Ashley Zhang, another seventh grader, bought Mari Mancusi's "Gamer Girl," featuring a lonely high-schooler who becomes a star when playing online games.

"I borrowed it from a friend and thought it was fascinating. I like that it's about a girl who really wants to fit into the world," Zhang says.

Yay for Ashley Zhang!!! Ashley, if you're reading this - email me or leave me a comment and I'll send you something special! I'm so honored that you mentioned GAMER GIRL to the reporter and want to thank you! :)


MARI

Any errors in the Blood Coven series?

Hi all,

As you know, we're re-releasing Boys that Bite, Stake That, and Girls that Growl. I have a limited time to make any changes to the books - correct any typos or change any pop culture references that may now be out of date.

For example, in Stake That, there's a page near the end that says "Magnus" and should read "Maverick"!

So...if you come across any typos or errors or out-of-date references, let me know ASAP and I'll submit them to the publisher.

:)
MARI

New Book Video for BOYS THAT BITE

Hi guys,

Well, I've been experimenting with the video editing software I bought and created this book video for the re-release of BOYS THAT BITE!! Check it out and let me know what you think. :)

I will eventually be doing a individual video for each book in the series.





hugs!
MARI

Molly!

I thought you guys might like to see a photo of my baby - Molly! :)





Isn't she cute!! She's almost thirteen years old now - quite the senior citizen! But she's still frisky, at least when her arthritis isn't acting up. She loves to cuddle, too and is really soft.

I've had her since she was only a year old. The people who had her before me neglected her and treated her badly - and she almost died of heartworm disease! So it was so lucky I was able to find her and give her a good home! Now she's SOOO spoiled - I bet she doesn't even remember the old days of being tied to a tree and abused. Hope not, anyway!!

Tell me about your pets!!
MARI

Done! w00t!

Sorry I've been a slacker on the blog front for the last few days! I've been hard at work on doing my revisions for BAD BLOOD, which, I'm happy to say, I passed into my editor yesterday! w00t! Now she will send the final version on to the copyeditor, where they make sure all my grammar and facts are straight! Once they do a round of editing, I get the manuscript sent back so I can approve (or not approve) all their changes.

I have a love/hate relationsuip with copyeditors. Some are amazing and will save your life pointing out continuity errors like "Aren't her eyes brown, not blue?" Other times they'll change the most ridiculous things. Like, for the instant messages in GAMER GIRL, the copy editor wanted to change everyhing into perfectly correct punctuation and spelling. Like, she was so not into !!!!!111!!!11 as an acceptable exclamation. She didn't understand what <3 was or any of the other abreviations/slang I used and so she tried to change them all into proper English. As if. That's where the power of STET comes in. If an author writes STET next to a change, that means DON'T MESS WITH THE ORIGINAL, MISS COPYEDITOR! :)

Soo we'll see how the Bad Blood copyeditor does. There's actually no IM'ing in this book so she should have an easy time of it. (The twins are in Vegas for almost the entire story, and thus not near a computer.)

In any case - BOOK FINISHED AND TURNED IN!!! One step closer to it being released.

Now I'm going back to the book I was working on before BAD BLOOD got sold. It's called The Camelot Code and is an Arthurian adventure.

MARI

Japan Week Continued

Are you enjoying these glimpses of Japan? Today I wanted to show you video of a cemetary I found in Tokyo. It's a LOT different than an American cemetary, as you will see. Very gothy, too. It'd definitely make for a good place for a vampire coven, don't you think? Who knows, maybe one of these tombs has a secret door, leading down into the blackness....



Japanese Cemetary from Marianne Mancusi on Vimeo.

More Japan fun!

What the heck, let's make this a Japanese theme week, why don't we? Here's a video of when Liz and I went to the Harajuku section of Tokyo. You may have heard of Harajuku - it's where all the anime/manga loving cosplayers dress up and hang out. There are two main sections of the neighborhood worth checking out - first a shopping area with amazing stores (mostly catering to teens - especially the gothic lolita crowd!) and second a big square by the train station where all the cosplayers hang out to have their pictures taken.

Here's a little slideshow video showing both - first the stores and then the cosplayers. Check it out! Which is your favorite costume?



Harajuku from Marianne Mancusi on Vimeo.


MARI

Tokyo Vampire Cafe

I thought you guys might enjoy this! When I was in Tokyo this past summer, I was able to go to an actual vampire cafe!!! It was sooo cool - I had to take a bunch of photos!! Here they are, along with the story of my visit!

If you guys are interested, I can post more photos and stuff from Japan too! Just let me know!! It was an amazing trip and I hope you all can go visit too someday!

~~

MY TRIP TO THE TOKYO VAMPIRE CAFE

Being a vampire lover, when I found out there was an actual vampire cafe in Tokyo, I realized had to go!! The problem was, it wasn't a touristy place and so it was a bit difficult to make the visit happen. First, I had to have our Ryoken host (A ryoken is like a Japanese bed and breakfast) make the reservation for me as all of the website was in kanji. Luckily, they had a prix fixe meal plan so we didn't have to choose what we wanted to eat. Then there was getting there. It was in the Ginza section of town, but there was no English directions on how to get there by subway. No street address either! (The way they address places here is really confusing and it seems the whole city has no idea how to get anywhere.) My friend and I decided to take a cab and even the cab driver, after a long discussion with our Ryoken host, still had a hard time finding it. Oh and it was pouring rain, to make matters worse!

But we finally made it! We went up the escalator and entered Dracula's chamber. It was really cool inside - all black and crimson. They sat you down in a private booth and pulled red velvet curtains closed to seal you in. Then they'd bring you the courses -- almost all of them had some kind of vampire theme. (A lot were shellfish, which I can't eat, but there was enough other stuff that I didn't starve.) The waiters were all dressed as gothic butlers and the waitresses as French maids. It was a LONG dinner - over 2 hours long for all the courses.

Anyway, a few pictures below! More if you click one of them and go to Flickr.




















Liz eating pasta with chopsticks!


Dracula Dessert!! :)


Me holding up the Japanese version of Boys that Bite!

~~
So there you have it! A real life vampire cafe! What do you think??? Would you go visit if you were in Tokyo?

MARI

BAD BLOOD

I should be getting my edits for BAD BLOOD by Monday from my editor at Berkley But in the meantime, she sent me the back cover copy for the book! Check it out and let me know what you think!!! :)

BAD BLOOD

Sunny McDonald is in the ultimate forbidden relationship. Her boyfriend Magnus is a vampire, and the leader of the Blood Coven. Their differences have never been an issue, until now…

When the Blood Coven decides that Magnus needs a mate to be his co-ruler, Sunny’s humanity puts her out of the running. The Coven’s chosen candidate is Jane Johnson, a magna cum laude graduate of Oxford University who just happens to look like a vampiric celebutard.

Sunny is suspicious of a Rhodes Scholar who can’t answer the most basic poly-sci questions, but Magnus brushes it off as petty jealousy. Still, when the Blood Coven goes to Las Vegas for a vampire convention—where Magnus and Jane’s bonding ceremony will be the main event—Sunny and her sister Rayne secretly tag along. And Sunny’s not going home before she learns the truth about Jane. Because not everything stays in Vegas—especially bad blood…

Zombie Giveaway Winner!

I had Random.org pick our winner and it is BROOKLYN GREEN! Congrats girl! And thanks for everyone who left comments. I hope the rest of you will pick up Amanda's book anyway -- trust me, you won't be sorry! :)

Brooklyn - can you email me (mari@marimancusi.com) your address so we can get you your autographed book?

I'll be having more guest authors soon - so everyone check back often for more chances to win!

xoxo
MARI

The Zombies are Coming!!! Enter and WIN!!!

Today I have a special treat for you. An interview with author Amanda Ashby who's book "Zombie Queen of Newbury High" has just hit store shelves. I was able to score an advanced copy of the book when I attended Comic Con in NYC about a month ago so I got to read it early! And let me tell you - it's super funny. If you like the humor in my books, you'll love this!






I asked Amanda to stop by and do an interview with me. (Well, virtually stop by - she lives half a world away from me in New Zealand!) Here it is, for your reading pleasure. AND BONUS!!! She's giving away a SIGNED COPY of her ZOMBIE QUEEN to one lucky commenter!!! So read the interview and then leave a comment! I'll announce the winner tomorrow!!


For those who haven't read it, tell us a little bit about Zombie Queen of Newbury High.

ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEWBURY HIGH is the story of what happens when Mia Everett tries to do a love spell to stop herself from getting dumped just days before prom. Unfortunately, instead of doing a love spell, she accidentally turns her entire senior year into zombies. Seriously, it could’ve happened to anyone. Then she has to work with zombie hunter hottie, Chase Miller to try and find a cure before she becomes first course on the zombies new flesh-only diet.

What inspired you to write this book?

Honestly, it all started out as a bit of a joke because there is something so inherently funny about the word zombie and it always makes me laugh. However, the more I joked about zombies, the more I realized it would be fun to actually write about them and so I sat down my horror movie addicted husband and we brainstormed out an idea. And can I just add, that this in itself is a marvel since my husband normally hates brainstorming with me and apart from the zombies, the only other time he has been remotely interested was when I asked him what would be the best way to blow up the world (a subject on which he knew just a little bit too much information for my liking!!!!

Who's your favorite character in the book and why?

Oooh, tough question. I love my heroine Mia because I can totally relate to her. She’s just a normal girl who gets herself into a totally ridiculous situation and is then forced to try and fix it. However, I also love Mia’s best friend Candice who was so over the top and outrageous that every time she spoke I laughed! And the other thing I really liked was that despite their differences Mia and Candice are really good friends who would do anything for each other and I really like that!


Zombies are sooo hot right now! What do you think is the appeal of these braindead creatures?

I know! It’s so funny because when I first wrote this book I’d never even seen another zombie book and suddenly (and completely by accident) I seem to have stumbled onto ‘the new black’ sort of thing! As for their appeal, from a horror point of view I think zombies are pretty scary because while they might not think much, they’re hard to stop, they’re always hungry and they seem to multiple at an alarming rate, so it’s a bit like being caught in a never ending nightmare.


Do you have a favorite zombie book or movie?

Shaun of the Dead is hands down my favorite zombie movie, closely followed by Fido and then 28 Days Later. Also, after careful consultation it has been decided that Serenity can count as a zombie movie so that needs to be in my list because of the whole ‘Nathan Fillion is gorgeous’ thing!!!!

As for books, I love Mark Henry’s Amanda Feral books. Stacey Jay’s You Are So Undead to Me is hilarious (and has such a great cover). I also really, really love SG Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament and next up on my zombie reading list is Carrie Ryan’s Forest of Hands and Teeth, which I just know is going to be amazing!

Your heroine is a big Buffy fan? Are you, as well? If so, what's your favorite episode? And gotta ask - Spike or Angel?

Hahaha – yes, in one of those strange co-incidences I am a big Buffy fan! Actually when I first wrote the book I just had Mia being a TV addict but my editor wanted me to be a bit more specific and suggested I have her watch something like Buffy. Er, okay, if she insisted!!!!! As for my favorite episode, that’s so hard to decide. I’d probably have to go with the end of season two where Buffy has to kill Angel. It is just the perfect moment of tragedy that it never fails to get me.

As for the big Spike/Angel question, I’m Angel all the way and my David Boreanaz obsession has been well documented. Actually Marta Acosta over at Vampire Wire even made up a lovely Naked David Boreanaz club for me, which I think was very kind of her!!!!!

Are you watching Joss Whedon's new show, Dollhouse? If so, what do you think about it?

Can you hear that wailing noise? That’s me because Dollhouse hasn’t been released yet in New Zealand, which makes me very, very sad! However, hopefully we’ll get it soon or else I’ll be buying the boxed set just as soon as I can.

Okay, back to you and your books! You started out writing women's fiction with "You Had Me at Halo". Why did you make the switch to teen books? Which do you think is more fun to write?

Strangely enough YOU HAD ME AT HALO started life as a young adult book! That’s what my agent signed me on and that’s how she submitted it, but the publisher who ended up buying it wanted me to turn it into women’s fiction by making the heroine 22 instead of 16 and adding 30,000 words. Of course all I heard was the bit about them wanting to buy it and so I did the revisions!

Then while I was waiting for Halo to come out, I decided to write another young adult book just because I had so much the first time around – and this time we actually sold it as a ya which was even better!

I do like doing women’s fiction as well but I honestly think my voice and my ideas are more suited for the young adult market. Plus, it’s where I really love being. I’ve always watched a lot of teen television/movies and most of the books I read are young adult as well so it just feels like a good fit (plus gives me the perfect excuse to watch Gossip Girls and call it research!!!)

You live in New Zealand, but your books are published in America. How does that all work?

It definitely has some drawbacks not living in the same country as where my books are published. For instance I can never just say, ‘oh, I’m going to have lunch with my editor/agent today’, which is what every author dreams of doing!!!! Also, it means I can’t do any physical promotion like book signings or stalking people into buying my books (oh, hang on, apparently that sort of thing is frowned upon over there, so perhaps it’s a good thing I’m over here!!).

Apart from that though it’s all been quite easy. I’ve long learnt to operate on New York time not New Zealand time and since most things are done via email it hasn’t really been a problem. Though, actually the other tough thing is learning to ‘write American’. There are a lot of spelling and grammatical differences that I’ve had to learn. For instance we say ‘mum’ not ‘mom’ and you guys like the letter Z where as we prefer S and we also use a lot more Us as well (organize/organise and labor/labour).

Lots of my readers are hoping to become authors themselves someday. What advice would you give them?

The single best advice I can give you is to remember that you’re telling a story. It’s so easy to get caught up in worrying how to sell your book, or what font you should use (or what you should wear to the Oscars when your book is naturally turned into an award winning movie). But you need to forget about that stuff (well maybe not the Oscar dress, because let’s face it, it never hurts to be organized) and concentrate on creating a story that is so compelling that an editor has stayed up all night just to find out what happens. Of course figuring out how to do that isn’t always easy, but the more you remember your job is to tell a story, the easier that will become.

What's up next for you?

My next young adult book is about a girl who goes to an elite slaying school and wants to follow in her dead mom’s footsteps by becoming a dragon slayer. Instead she gets stuck chasing after four-inch fairies. Not exactly the stuff high destiny is made of! But soon she starts seeing a different kind of fairy – of the killer variety. Unfortunately, due to her earlier complaining (think girl who cried wolf but worse) no one believes her and she is forced to fight the killer fairy on her own while trying to figure out how it figures into her own mom’s death.

Meg Cabot!

Are any of you Meg Cabot fans? I, myself, adore her books and was psyched when I had a chance to interview her for my television show a while back. She was super nice in person -- warm, personable, and fun! Totally didn't have any of that "big time author" snobbery AT ALL. She even told he she would go home and read Gamer Girl! :) (Of course, she may have just been being nice - but still!!!)

Anyway, I had to hold the TV segment until her new book, "Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls #3 - Best Friends and Drama Queens" was released. But now it's airing tomorrow on the Better TV show (where I work) and so I'm allowed to show you the clip! I'm not in it, of course, since I'm a producer and thus behind-the-scenes (I prefer it that way!) but I'm the one who asked her the questions and wrote the script. (That is my real life beyond writing books, lol.)

Check it out! And let me know what your favorite Meg Cabot book is! I just recently read AIRHEAD and loved it! There's a sequel - BEING NIKKI - that's out in May and I can't wait to get it!!





MARI