Meg's Diary

Tiara Madness

Happy New Year everyone! What did you do to celebrate the ringing in of 2009? I, like everyone else, watched a drag queen get dropped from the roof of a bar in a big red shoe.


Did you see her? Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper interviewed her live from Key West on CNN! Piece of Key West trivia (shhh…don’t tell anyone…): Sushi’s real name is Gary.

Anyway, the Tiara Auction has started! And people are already bidding! Not that it is a contest, but some of the most popular tiaras include:


Chesley McLaren’s Big Top Tiara


Chris Van Allsburg’s Bird on World Tiara


Princess Marie Chantel of Greece’s Tiara


Vera Wang’s Gorgeous Couture Tiara


Actress and author Meg Tilly’s Gold Leaf and Floral Tiara

…as well as several others.

Mo Rocca has just blogged that his tiara is the best. I can see that the bidding will probably become heated (particularly since Mia Thermopolis has entered the fray. She obviously is in possession of her dad’s Black American Express Card again). You can see all the bidders IDs (so far) on the auction home page.

But it’s only the first day. Who knows what will happen?

A few late additions to the auction include:


Judy Blume’s luminous Princess of the Sea Tiara

And


Actress Anna Sophia Robb’s cute All American Girl Tiara

Great job, everyone! Keep on bidding! Only 29 days to go. As libraries have their budgets slashed, more and more programs are being eliminated, just as the recession deepens, and people need these vital programs more than ever (I myself spent hours in the library as a teen, and was often there until closing time. What a nightmare if libraries have to start shutting down early because of funding problems)!

Special thanks for shout-outs to Teen Book Reviewer, Readergirlz, and iheartdaily for covering the event! Even Fashionista has gotten in on the act.


Hillary Knight’s T-Haira

In honor of the New Year, I thought we might take a peek into the mail bag, since it’s been a while. All of these letters guaranteed real and unedited!

Here is a letter I found from someone named Bad Mommy. It appears to be in reference to my last blog entry:

Dear Meg

I do not think it is very nice to say you throw up a little in your mouth when you think about your mother and your old teacher living together. I bet your mother is a very patient, loving, kind, talented, organized, prompt and creative person (who looks much younger than her real age and who makes you gluten-free cookies), and so you should not say unkind things like that about her love life. Old people may be very sensitive about things like this.

An anonymous reader

Even though this reader is trying to be anonymous, I have a suspicion she is really my mother, who earned the nickname Bad Mommy because she is a terrible correspondent who takes so long to get back to her friends when they write to her that eventually they email me via this website to ask if she is still alive. I see through her trickery here and am not going to fall for it.

Here is another one that came from someone named Tommy Sullivan:

You used to mock me every time I googled my name… LIES! Blasphemy! That is no longer the case. I have reclaimed my name. It is a great victory for Tommy Sullivans everywhere.
Yours truly,
Tommy Sullivan

I never thought when I named a book Tommy Sullivan Is a Freak (the UK title. In the US they changed the title to Pants on Fire) how it might effect the REAL Tommy Sullivans of the world.

Now I am duly chastened and have written Tommy an apology. He has won.

Dear Meg
This is a link to the Dan Band video for Please Don’t Bomb Nobody this Christmas. It’s pretty funny and has MANY celebrity guests, incld. Neil Patrick Harris (who rips his shirt off at one point!!) Matt Perry, Meg Ryan, the pussycat doll that does the interviews Nicole something, Christina applegate, Larry Millar, Kathy Njami, Ricki Lake, Sheryl crow and the list goes on. thought you might enjoy. Anne

Anne is so cool! I love the Dan Band (I saw them on Bravo) and am on their mailing list. However, Dan never comes to where I live, so I have yet to see them live. On a side note, Dan is married to Kathy Najimy (she is most famous for being the funniest nun in Sister Act). If you have never seen their act, you’re really missing out, it RULES (they are three men, led by Dan, who perform songs traditionally sung by ladies. It is a riot).

I am a twelve year old boy and a very big fan of you and your leadership in politics. I collect autographs and would love to have yours in my collection. Can you please send me and my brother, Michael, an autographed photo? Thank you.
Sincerely,

Ken

I am torn between wanting to send Ken a photo (I actually don’t really have photos of myself, just a postcard of myself and Henrietta, which is a bookmark) and being kind of weirded out that he thinks I’m a politician.

ok, so i have a problem about my sister. I know that you probably get hundreds oof e-mails a day, but i REALLY need your help. I don’t know what to do with her. SHe is sooo over sensitive, and honestly, by now, all i want is for her to stop bothering me this much and being mean to me. I seriously don’t know how much more my self-esteem can take.

I never had a sister so I don’t know how to answer this. I had two brothers and they were younger than I was and like all little brothers, they were, by nature, usually annoying. I spent a lot of time in my room wearing head phones and writing novels, trying to ignore them.

I guess I would suggest rewarding your sister when she is behaving in a manner you find acceptable, and ignoring her when she is not. This is called positive reinforcement. It works with dogs, and, I find, with siblings. Whatever you do, do not allow your sister access to any of your money.

I am currently working on a book..and im having a hard time picking a setting for it. How do you choose these places? I’ve been debating for awhile now wheather or not I should should choose a real place or make one up. DO you have any advice on that? I would appreciate it alot.

If you are going to set your book in a real place, make sure it’s a place you’ve actually been to and can describe in detail. Otherwise, people who have been to that place will be able to tell you have never been there from all the mistakes you make (for instance, if you set your book in New York City, and you have your character run through the river in Central Park, everyone who lives in New York City is going to be like, “WHAT A LOSER,” and want their money back, because there is no river in Central Park).

You can, of course, do a lot of research, but it’s easier just to set your book in a place you’ve been, or to set in a made up place or set it a few hundred years ago, so there is no one left alive to tell you that you got it wrong. That is my two cents from having once set a book in Alaska, a place I’ve never been, and even though I did a lot of research on it, I still got some hate mail from some Alaskans (well, one piece of hate mail. Most people from Alaska are very very nice).

Forever Princess is in some US Stores now! So, I get to work and they are closed for another hour, so I decided to go to Barnes & Noble on the other side of the freeway to kill time (and because I didn’t have anything to read). So I look on the shelf, and I see Forever Princess!! So I went ahead and bought it 🙂
I just started it and it’s good!!

But I thought i’d let you know that some US Book stores have it on shelves now 🙂

Audrey

Thank you for the alert, Audrey! I’ve heard that Ransom My Heart has been spotted in some US stores as well! I can’t wait to see a copy! I still haven’t gotten mine. (Well, I got some Forever Princesses but no Ransom My Hearts. Maybe they got shipped to Mia Thermopolis in Genovia by mistake).

Hi Meg!
Wow, I have just finished reading the last of the Princess Diaries books…Forever Princess. I live in the UK by the way so that is why i have read it early! I really loved the book, it was amazing! I loved the ending but at the same time it was quite sad knowing this is the last book! It ended exactly how it should have though! I am truly greatful for your writing and wanted you to know how much i loved the book! Hope you had a great christmas and a happy new year!
Xx Alice

Thank you, Alice. You’re so nice!

But you don’t need to feel sad because I’ve gotten so many letters like this that the wheels in my head are spinning, and I’m already thinking of new books about Princess Mia. Princess Diaries, The College Years, perhaps? Who knows.

But first I have to finish the many books I’m currently contracted for. So it will be some time before I ever get to PDTCY. But thanks for the encouragement!

And now I have to go start packing for my trip to NYC (yes! I leave soon to do radio and TV satellite tours, which is when you sit in one room and all the radio and TV stations call into you).

Then I’ve got those big book signings at the NYPL and in Long Island! Hope to see you there! I’ll be updating here along the way, so talk to you soon.

Happy tiara bidding!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

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