Contest Winner

Thank you to everyone who entered and shared your beautiful moments with me. I loved reading all of them! I used random.org to pick the winner of the $25 Sephora giftcard and the signed ARC of THE LIFE OF GLASS. And the winner is: Jessica Kennedy! Jessica, I've sent you an e-mail so write back with your address, and I'll get the prize out to you.

Three-Months-and-Counting Contest

THE LIFE OF GLASS will be out on February 9, 2010, exactly three months from tomorrow, so to celebrate I'm having a contest!!!

THE LIFE OF GLASS is a book about sisters, high school, loss, and first love. (You can read the jacket description if you click here.) But, above all, I think it's really a book about beauty, about what it means to feel and be beautiful both inside and out.

In the book, the main character Melissa never saw herself as a beautiful person. She was always the smart one, the funny one, the tomboy. And yet, it seems like everyone around her is beautiful: her mother was once a beauty queen, her older sister is obsessed with competing in beauty pageants, and as she starts high school, her best friend Ryan starts ignoring her after he begins dating the beautiful new girl at school.

Melissa is someone I can relate to a lot, because back in high school, I felt the same way. It seemed like so many girls around me were beautiful and perfect: beautiful straight shiny hair, gorgeous tall figures, perfect clothes. And I was always the short girl with the frizzy hair, who felt the most comfortable in jeans and sweatshirts. (Lucky me, though, I didn't have a mom and a sister who competed in beauty pageants.)

And this is why I love fiction: in the book Melissa eventually does get her moment to shine, to feel beautiful. (And her older sister, Ashley, the beauty queen, gets her moment to finally feel what it's like not to be beautiful.)

So now for the contest: I'll be giving away a signed ARC plus a $25 giftcard to Sephora!

Here's what you can do to enter:

+1 Leave a comment sharing a moment when you felt beautiful

+2 Link to this contest on your blog
+2 add my countdown widget (on the left sidebar) to your blog
+2 add The Life of Glass to your Goodreads list

+5 Tweet about this contest
+ 5 become a new follower of this blog
+5 become a new follower on Twitter (click here)

+10 blog about The Life of Glass and why you want to read it!

Please leave your entries and points in a comment on this post.

Contest Ends November 18th at Midnight. Good luck!

THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS Giveaway

The lovely Book Butterfly is hosting a THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS giveaway at her blog. Check out the interview she has with me, and comment for a chance to win one of two copies of THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS. Also, check out the pictures she put up with the interview -- pictures of me and my sister from from when we were in elementary school!!

Dear Diary

Recently, Jill Wolfson, the author of the fabulous book Cold Hands, Warm Heart, asked me if I would participate in a "Dear Diary" feature on her blog and share some excerpts from my teenage diary. I said yes, and searched out my old diary and began reading through it. And then I sort of freaked out thinking about how embarassing it would be to share!

But I changed the names and did it anyway, because I thought it was a cool feature and because Melissa, the main character in THE LIFE OF GLASS keeps a journal that's an important part of the book. (Thankfully, Melissa's journal is much more interesting and less ditzy than mine was!)

You can read my post w/the diary excerpts on Jill's blog here.

And stop by and check out my website which now has a whole new look to match THE LIFE OF GLASS!

Cover Art Imitates Life

Over at The Novel Girls this week, it's my turn to give something away for our month-long blogoversary celebration, and I'll be giving away an ARC of THE LIFE OF GLASS! It's really easy to enter -- all you have to do is comment on a post over there this week and/or do any of the other things listed on our sidebar. Plus, if you enter, you'll also be put into a drawing to win $100 to Amazon at the end of the month. Click here to head on over to The Novel Girls and enter.

And since I'm talking about THE LIFE OF GLASS (which I seem to be doing a lot lately. . .), I wanted to share something with you about the cover. First let me say that I absolutely LOVE the cover -- I think the design team at HarperCollins did a fabulous job. But the first time I saw it, I was struck by this strange sense of it being familiar. It took me a few days, but then I figured out what it was. The girl's profile on the cover, looks almost exactly like my mom did when she was younger. I remembered seeing some similar looking pictures of her in an old photo album, and I finally got her to scan some in and send them to me. So here, you can see for yourself.

Here's THE LIFE OF GLASS cover (Look closely at the girl's profile shot):

This is my mom in the late 1970s (And that baby in the picture is me!):

And here are two pictures of her a bit earlier, circa 1973:

What do you think? Can you see the resemblence? To me it kind of seems like this cover was meant to be!

Reality TV: My Summer Fun

Head on over to The Novel Girls to check out my thoughts on Ellen DeGeneres replacing Paula on Idol. We're having a month-long blogoversary extravaganza, so while you're there you can comment on my post or become a follower to enter to win this week's prize (a signed copy of A BUMP IN THE ROAD by Maureen Lipinski) AND the grand prize, a $100 giftcard to Amazon.

And I'm also going to post my take on reality TV here. This is what I was about to post at The Novel Girls until I heard the AI news. So here you have it, my fascination with celebrity reality TV:

In the fall, winter, and spring, when “real” TV shows are in season, I limit my reality show consumption. In the summer, though, I am admittedly, a reality TV junkie. And since there’s nothing else on, I actually let myself believe that these shows are good! This summer I relished Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, Denise Richards: So Complicated, and Guiliana & Bill.

I guess there’s something about watching celebrity lives that fascinates me, because, yes, I got joy out of watching Tori Spelling deal with her toddler’s tantrums and thinking about how similar our lives are. (Of course, I don’t have my own live-in baby nurse, but you get the point.) There’s also something about living vicariously through a celebrity’s life. Kathy Griffin may think she’s D-List, but she got to do some pretty fabulous things and hang out with some fabulous people this past season. And she’s funny, so what’s not to like about a reality show that makes me laugh? I set my DVR to watch as many reality/celebrity shows as I could find this summer, and I may have actually even procrastinated writing to watch them.

But I have to admit, I’m excited it’s September now and actual scripted shows are coming back with new episodes. There’s no contest for me between Merideth Grey and McDreamy and Tori and Dean. MerDer wins hands down! And by the end of this month, I’ll happily worm myself back into my favorite fictional characters’ lives, and will all but leave reality TV behind until next May. Of course, if a really good new celebrity show comes on, I’m sure I’ll still record it. It’ll just have to get in line in the DVR queue behind all my real favorite shows.

Contest Winner and THE LIFE OF GLASS news!

First, thank you so much to everyone who entered my The Life of Glass ARC giveaway! It's so great to see so many people excited about the book, and I wish I had an ARC to send to each and every one of you. . . but I had to pick a winner, so I used random.org and it picked. . . Kristen. Kristen, I'm sending you an e-mail -- but please send me your address to jill(at)jilliancantor.com and I'll get the ARC out to you!

If you didn't win, I'll be having more giveaways this fall. Check back here in October for another ARC giveaway. And this month, over at my group blog, The Novel Girls, we're celebrating our one year blogoversary with a giveaway extravaganza. Each week one of us will give away a prize (five total) for the whole month of September -- and then everyone who enters for the entire month will be entered into a drawing to win a $100 giftcard to Amazon!! I'll be up the week of September 14th, and I'll be giving away an ARC of The Life of Glass & a copy of The September Sisters to the winner!

I'm also really excited to share a blurb for The Life of Glass from the fabulous Cecilia Galante. Her book, The Patron Saint of Butterflies, is one of my all-time favorites! Here's what she had to say about The Life of Glass: "The Life of Glass is a beautifully rendered novel. Cantor is pitch-perfect, capturing the thoughts and mind-set of her characters with a precise familiarity that will have teenagers nodding their head in recognition and adults wistfully looking back. A must read."