Sleeping Cowgirls

Good Lord! It has been quite a week. It’s not even officially ALA’s Banned Books Week yet (Sept. 25-Oct.2), but already everywhere I go, all I hear is “This author’s books have been banned!” You can read my interview with the Story Snoops here, where I discuss my personal experiences with (and greatest fears about) […]

Princesses, Unicorns, and Zombies

I’m leaving today for my big signing in Denver (can’t believe it’s tomorrow . . . click here to find out all the juicy details!) to benefit Craig Hospital . . . . . . and also to sneak in a visit my brother (yes, the cop) and my nieces and my mom (who is […]

Thanks, Olympics

Dear Olympics, Now that our relationship is coming to an end, I just want to thank you. I will admit that things got off to a rocky start between us. All I really knew about you at first was that you were going to pre-empt a lot of my favorite shows (30 Rock, Mercy, etc), […]

Sometimes, Bad Can Be Good

This past week He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog has been passing a bunch of kidney stones. He already has a broken ankle. So, living with him has been a little bit like living with one of those monkeys at the zoo. You know, the ones who look all cute and cuddly […]

Insatiable

Busted! I was kind of trying to keep a low profile about my adult Summer 2010 release because a) I’m still tweaking it (it’s kind of hard to finish a book when your husband breaks his ankle!), and

Too Much Awesome

Remember how the Wonder Twins (helpers to the Super Friends) would get together and save people? Well, it seems like whenever my brother and I get together, instead of saving people, we make people fall down. And break something. Take the last time my brother and I got together at my house: My grandma fell […]

Bloopers, Brothers, Brazilians, and Boyfriends

So I didn’t see any movies at all this weekend—except Rachel Getting Married, but that was on Starz or HBO or something, and it’s been out forever, so that doesn’t count. I have to say, if Kim (Anne Hathaway’s character) was my sister, not only would I NOT have invited her to my wedding, I […]

Cancer Girl

So a few months ago, my mom is talking to me on the phone about, oh, I don’t know, her boyfriend, aka my former teacher, or whatever, when suddenly she goes, “Oh, remember that time the doctor had to pull your ovary out of your bellybutton?”

Harry Potter and the Gushy Stuff

I’m keeping busy writing Runaway, the sequel to Being Nikki, and revising Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls #5 (which just had a title change—from Birthday Bash to Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out, which is more appropriate given that there’s both a great deal of glitter and girls acting fake in it). And I […]

Romance, Trauma Porn, and Brazil Dates!

So many people have sent me this article (or the link to the original one it refers to)! Books about “dark” subject matters (like “13 Reasons Why,” about a girl who commits suicide, and “If I Stay,” about a girl in a coma) are hot in YA right now! There’s even a name for this […]

Advice, Please!

Whenever I was feeling sad because a boy had said something mean to me or dumped me or asked some other girl to the prom and not me, my mom would make me a cup of hot cocoa in a special Mary Englebreit mug we used to have that looked like this: It had this […]

Thanks

Wow. So, I don’t know about you, but I found out I had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving…. …and not just that, unlike Real Housewife of Atlanta Kim W., my hair isn’t falling out…at least, not anymore. (When I had lyme disease, hair loss was one of my symptoms. So if you’re […]

Bad Mommy

You guys are so sweet! So many of you have been writing in with tips on how to overcome my cough from hell! And I’ve been taking your advice (everything from dark chocolate to caffeine). I’m on the mend and can’t thank you enough! And a lot of you wanted to know if you could […]

Tiny Boxes

Cough! Cough! Okay, so do any of the cold and cough medicines you can buy over the counter actually work anymore? Because I’ve been trying all the various members of the Robitussin and Sucrets family, and so far I’m still hacking away like Mimi in La Boheme (well, you know, if she’d really exhibited the […]

Dumbledore is Gay!!!!

I knew it. I don’t mean to brag or anything, but my gaydar is seriously fine-tuned thanks to all the guys I’ve dated over the years who turned out to be same-sex oriented (I’ve gotten much better now than I used to be. Now I just assume every guy I meet is gay until he […]

Do Some Good/Happy Bday, HWSNBNITB

Did you know over 3,000 people sign up to win the six free copies of my books that I give away here every month? Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t keep trying, but you might want to even out the odds a little. Anyone wanting to get their hands on an autographed advanced reader copy […]

Greetings from the Lair

I am still trapped in He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog’s lair. Unlike other heroines who have been brought to the lairs of superheroes–such as, say, Katie Holmes in the excellent (except for Katie Holmes’s character) movie Batman Begins–I have not been knocked unconscious. Except this would have been awesome because, as […]

G’Day, Mate!

Greetings from Australia, where my new book, JINX, is also on sale now! (Well, I am not actually in Australia at the moment…but my book is.) You didn’t know JINX was going on sale down under so soon? Well, it sort of slipped my mind, too. But here’s the Aussie cover to prove it! Mmmm, […]

Pardon my French

Sorry for the lack of updates, but my server crashed. The result is that it has been impossible for me to post updates to my blog to the site (you might have noticed the site has been loading kind of slow). Many thanks to Jared for fixing it. You rock, Jared! This is not the […]

Officer Friendly Speaks Out on Paris Hilton Case

Confused by the recent events in the Paris Hilton case, I turned to my brother–soon to be a sergeant on a Colorado city police force–for clarification. Me: Matt, do you think they are treating Paris Hilton unfairly—penalizing her, even—and making an example out of her, just because she is a celebrity, by making her serve […]

Tour! Mary! Jinx! Sascha Rothberg! Rainbows!

I normally don’t post on Saturdays but there’s just so much news this morning I don’t know if I’ll have room for it all if we stick to our normal weekly schedule, so here goes: Thanks so much for your support of Officer Friendly. Sadly, he won’t be able to stop by your blog or […]

A Visit From Officer Friendly

I know given the tragic events of this past week, it’s hard not to feel a little afraid right now (in spite of what I blogged about just last Monday). That’s why I’ve asked Officer Friendly to stop by this blog. You all remember Officer Friendly, don’t you? He used to stop by your kindergarten […]

HWSNBNITB

Can you believe it’s been nearly four years since I started keeping this blog? And that in all that time, I have never posted a photo of my husband (who also prefers not to have his name mentioned) here? A lot of people have written to me to ask why He Who Shall Not Be […]

Migraines

It’s kind of convenient that all this surgical drama erupted during my family’s visit last week here in Key West, because this week I was scheduled to have all these medical tests anyway. So as a consequence, today I knew exactly where to go for my MRI. I got an MRI because I have been […]

So Tired

Grandma took off this morning via air ambulance for her home near Denver, Colorado. What’s an air ambulance, you ask? Welcome to my world, where–since my 84-year-old grandmother tripped in my home, breaking her wrist and pelvis–I have spent the past week getting a crash (pun intended) course in emergency medical transport, catheters, and platform […]

Family Bonding

Congratulations! If you're reading this, it means you've managed to find the new megcabot-staging.htnwbil5-liquidwebsites.com. Pat yourself on the back — you don't know how many people have written to me asking, — Where did your site go?? Actually my site is right where it's always been — right here at megcabot-staging.htnwbil5-liquidwebsites.com. The only thing that's […]

Thanksgiving 2006

Things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season: Dirty paws. Glasses. When they're on, it means I'm working and not to bother me. I LOVE them. Making the Lone Star Reading List (This is actually better than getting banned!) Princesses. Or just people who dress like them. Moms. Readers. From the kind who “rescue” dogs […]

Oops

This past weekend…. He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog overheard me on the phone with a reporter who was interviewing me about HOW TO BE POPULAR. After I'd hung up, the following conversation ensued*: (*It should be noted that, by mutual agreement, I do not read HWSNBNITB's poetry, and he does not […]

Dead Dad Club

Father's Day is always bittersweet for members of the Dead Dad Club. The Dead Dad Club was formed after my friend lost his dad suddenly. And then my dad died kind of suddenly, too (well, suddenly to me), and when my friend found out, he said, “Welcome to the Dead Dad Club. Now I'm not […]

OBNOXIOUS AUNTIE TIME

Hello. I am back from my grandfather's funeral. Thank you very much for all of your condolences and well-wishes. Gramps will be missed, but he had a pretty great life, and it was nice to see so many friends and family, in spite of the sad reason we were all there. The best part was […]

GRAMPS

My grandfather died in his sleep Sunday night. He'd been sick for a long time, so it wasn't a big surprise. What was a surprise was how long he managed to hang in there, in spite of all the things that were wrong with him. Gramps was a tough old bird. He was the model […]

Festival/Real Life Teen

So I'm back from the National Book Festival in Washington DC (well, not really. I'm writing this from the airport, waiting to board my plane back to Key West. But I'll be back by the time you read this, since this airport doesn't have wi-fi, so I can't go online). Anyway, I had a very […]

True Conversation

I had quite a busy weekend—my first ever dinner at a yacht club on Friday night (and I was the only one NOT in Lilly Pulitzer…I wore my ABS halter dress. Oh, and Lilly Pulitzer flip flops. But still) and my first ever Key West pool party on Saturday (yeah, I wore a Lilly sundress […]

AUNTIE MEG

I just spent the day with three boys under the age of five. When I say my day, I mean my ENTIRE DAY, from when I woke (at the unheard of—to me, anyway, unless I have to catch a plane–hour of seven am) to their plaintive cries of “More Cheerios, Mommy!” until now, just slightly […]