When Melissa Walker (far right) and Mari Mancusi (2nd from left, purple dress) realized in the summer of 2007 that they both had YA books coming out from Berkley, Walker—who had just sold her first novels—invited Mancusi out for a drink and pumped her for advice about how to get her books noticed. “And Marianne knew everything,” Walker recalled Tuesday night, at a joint party to celebrate the publication of Violet in Private and Gamer Girl. “She was like the queen of promotion.” (Longtime GalleyCat readers may remember how Mancusi managed to send shockwaves through a romance readers’ convention just by wearing a mini-skirt.) “Book people are so helpful,” Walker continued. “Magazine people are more, what do you want from me? Are you trying to climb over me? But book people always have a new librarian you should talk to, or a new indie bookstore to contact.”
The party was held at Butter, or “the restaurant on Gossip Girl” as Mancusi jokingly referred to it, and in honor of the Gamer Girl theme, the tables in the downstairs lounge were stocked with Connect Four, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and various other amusements.
Among the YA writers who came to cheer Walker and Mancusi on: Scott Westerfeld and Diana Peterfreund (pictured), plus Anisha Lakhani (one of the Connect Four players), Maureen Johnson, Bennett Madison, and Deborah Gregory. Westerfeld’s wife, the equally acclaimed novelist Justine Larbalestier, handed me a copy of Love Is Hell, a benefit anthology for College Summit to which they had both contributed, and told us “this may be the only good short story I’ve ever written.” We don’t know about that, but “Thinner Than Water” is awfully good, and we hope whoever’s running the World Fantasy Awards pays attention…