7 Things You Don't Know About Micol Ostow

7 Things You Don't Know about readergirlz diva Micol Ostow
1. I've been an avid horror reader my whole life, but it took 30 books under my belt (including ghostwriting gigs) before I was ready to try a scary story of my own. That book, Amity, releases this August! (Pre-order your copy now!)

2. I have a French Bulldog named Bridget Jones -- after the book, not the movie! You'd be surprised how many people totally forget that the book came first! Grr.

3. I can sing along to all of the songs from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode. By heart. No judgements, thanks.

4. I got my start in kidlit writing as an editor. The very first book I edited on my own was celebrity bio of Jim Carrey.

5. I recently sold a chapter book series called LOUISE TRAPEZE to Random House. The only thing more terrifying than writing horror will be trying to conquer the 5-7 year-old market!

6. The house I live in in Brooklyn is over 100 years old and thus the floors are all slanted. My daughter will grow up with no true concept of physics or gravity.

7. I ran the NYC marathon in 2003 (26.2 miles). These days, a typical run for me is 3 miles or so. And when I'm not running, I am the most sedentary creature around. Just one of the reasons I love reading so much!

iheartdaily recommends!

Just grabbed iheartdaily's newsletter this morning and was delighted to see our own Micol Ostow's Family recommended! Woot!

Be sure to check it out as well as the other two shivery suggestions, Dreamland Social Club, by Tara Altebrando, and Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma. Must reads!

Happy Release Day! FAMILY by Micol Ostow

Hooray! We're celebrating Family's release day with Readergirlz Diva Micol Ostow! Read about some of the books she read while writing her latest novel.

A chilling, lyrical novel of cult love loosely based on the Manson Family murders, Family is an unflinching look at troubled girls, tainted dependencies, and the dangerous ties that bind.

Watch the trailer with us (if you dare) and look for blood-splattered bookshelves this week. Family is here!

rgz TV: Micol's Trailer for Family!!!

Totally awesome, right? Shout out for Micol!

Family: Micol and David Ostow

Helping me close out this month's family series are siblings Micol and David Ostow.

Rumor has it I was less-than-thrilled about the birth of my baby brother. The details are hazy to me, seeing as I was three at the time, but the story goes that I'd been staying with my grandparents while my mother was in the hospital. We got the call that she'd given birth, and my father announced to me that I had a new little brother. To which I replied, "I want to live with Grandma and Grandpa now." ¹

That pretty much set the tone in our relationship from childhood through the college years.² I'm not sure what changed exactly, or when, but these days my brother is not only my writing partner³ but also one of my very best friends. And I have learned that a bonus in working with a partner who also happens to be your brother is that you are granted carte blanche to occasionally revert to your five-year-old self amidst times of stress.

Family has to love you, even when you're not being a mature and professional adult-type person.⁴

1. (It didn't fly.)
2. (His, not mine.)
3. (SO PUNK ROCK, an illustrated novel, due out this July!)
4. (Thank GAWD!)

- Micol Ostow

I disagree with Micol. Family does not have to love you. My very unscientific observations suggest that the odds of being born into a community of people who are prepared to love you for who you are and who – in their tolerance – deserve the same, are fairly slim.

For better and for worse, we Ostows have beaten those odds.

For better because the freedom to pursue our chosen paths has given Micol and me not only a clear perspective on our own selves, but on one another as well. And it turns out we're not so different. Our shared sense of entitlement, cynicism to the world at large, and tendency to laugh at the expense of others are the keys to any success with which So Punk Rock is met. Without the opportunity to harness all this negative energy and to deflect it outwards, Micol would still be throwing blunt objects at me – as she did when we were children - and I would still be sleeping with one eye open.

For worse because, having given us carte blanche to explore our creative sides, our parents paved the way for a long history to come of sibling competition. This was first evident when my sister, age 10, declared that she "could write circles around anything I drew." At the time, my 7-year-old self couldn’t make sense of the figurative nature of this comment and could scarcely understand why Micol wouldn't prefer the more standard medium of ruled paper to my pretty good drawing of Garfield which didn't call for any embellishment as far as I could tell. At 30 years old, I think I finally understand what she was getting at, and let’s just say the race is on to see who can exploit their talent faster and more effectively. (She's winning so far.)

Luckily - and perhaps in anticipation of this - our parents bequeathed to us another long-standing Ostow family institution: Therapy.

- David Ostow

Visit the websites for Micol, David, and So Punk Rock (and Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother)

Follow the series of family posts.

Family: Lesley M.M. Blume

The literary family that I've adored continuously - from childhood to the present -- is J.D. Salinger's Glass family. I still really love that one footnote in Franny and Zooey" that describes each of the seven children: Franny, Zooey, Walter, Waker, Boo Boo, Buddy, and of course, Seymour. When I was at Cambridge, I wanted to stage a play based on 'Franny and Zooey,' but then I heard that Salinger sues the hell out of anybody who tries to dramatize anything based on the Glass family, so that was that.

I was amazed, then, when Wes Anderson dished up a remarkably similar family of child geniuses in his film The Royal Tenenbaums -- and came through it unscathed by Salinger's legal team. I loved the Tenenbaums with as much gusto as I loved the Glasses - from Margot with her play dioramas to Chad with his dalmation mice to Richie with his ballroom of paintings.

If I had to put my finger on what attracts me to these families, I'd have to say it's their combination of unbridled creativity and utter dysfunction. The narrative of enormous-yet-squandered brilliance and potential has always been very interesting to me, and I explore it a lot in my own writing. The Glasses and Tenenbaums have also been a big influence on me as I've created my own child-savant characters in my books: Cornelia in Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters is an expert in words; Franny in The Rising Star of Rusty Nail is a piano prodigy; and the title character in Tennyson is an uncannily sharp writer whose talents belie her age.

-- Lesley M.M. Blume

Follow the series of family posts.

Family: Beth Kephart

Every meaningful relationship is born of, and returns to, trust. Family, for me, is composed of the people whom I trust. So that my husband, son, father, and siblings are there in my heart home, absolutely. But so are those with whom I dance two times a week - the teachers with whom I feel free to make mistakes, the other dancers who yearn as much as I do. Sometimes I don't even know what we are all yearning toward - I can't name it or define it. But I look around and I understand that we are all in that same wanting place, and that we trust each other, and that the conversations we are having, the lives we are living, will be tangled up together for a long time. That we are, in other words, family.

- Beth Kephart

Follow the series of family posts.

Family: Holly Cupala

I have always thought of family as reaching beyond genetics and including friends. Several years ago, I realized family was even more. My husband and I lost our first daughter at birth, and I have never seen such an outpouring from our families, friends, colleagues, writing community, neighbors, and complete strangers. They called and visited. They sent cards. Meals. Flowers. Books. Every expression of kindness imaginable, to let us know we were not alone. When I think of that time, I think as much of the love as I do of the sadness. Now I know: a family is defined by love.

- Holly Cupala

Follow the series of family posts.

Family: Lorie Ann Grover

Family is either
what you are blessed to be born into
or those people you surround yourself with
who nurture
your body,
soul,
and aspirations.

I am flocked by
my natural family,
my Church brethren,
and then dearest friends
that I am thankful
to count as family.

- Lorie Ann Grover

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. ~ Gail Lumet Buckley

Follow the series of family posts.

Family: Courtney Sheinmel

A few days ago, the two-year-old son of one of my dearest friends was rushed to the hospital. (Before I go any further, let me just tell you that the baby is fine; he got an absolutely clean bill of health.) Moments after the ambulance came, my friend's husband called to tell me what was going on. I dropped the phone, ran outside, got a cab, and raced to the hospital. On the way over, I started to think about what I would tell the receptionist at the ER. I desperately wanted to be with my friend and her son, and I was afraid the emergency room staff wouldn't understand that we were such close friends that really we were family.

The thing is, I've always had a really broad definition of family. I don't think you need to share DNA or be legally related to someone to be their family. Tonight, just before I sat down to write this, I looked the word "family" up in the American Heritage College Dictionary. It was a pretty long entry, so I'm not going to reproduce the whole thing here, but this was my favorite part: "Two or more people who share goals and values, [and] have commitments to each other. . . ."

There are a lot of people in my life who fit this definition, people who are my family in the truest sense of the world, people for whom I am grateful every single day.

When I got to the hospital, I went straight back to the pediatric ER. I spotted my friend sitting on a gurney, the baby asleep in her arms. I sat down next to her, just like I belonged there. A few minutes later, a nurse came over to take the baby's vital signs. He woke up and started to cry. "It's okay,” the nurse said. "Settle down. Your family is here."

Yes, I thought. We are.

- Courtney Sheinmel

Follow the series of family posts.

Family: Daphne Grab

There are four members of my family who I have never met and who I most likely will never even set eyes on: the birth parents of my children. We adopted our kids from Kazakhstan four years ago and I think almost daily about the people who created my kids, gave them safe haven before birth and brought them to a place to be cared for when they were no longer able to offer that safety. In their staggering loss they gave me the greatest gift of my life and they are part of our home, our dialogue with our kids about our family, and our hearts. We kept the names given to our kids by their birth moms (and maybe their birth dads?) so that our kids could always have a connection to the parents who were there at the very beginnings of their lives and who will forever be an essential part of our family.

- Daphne Grab

Follow the series of family posts.

Family: Melissa Walker

What does "family" mean to you?
Family includes the people who will drop everything when you need them -- and the ones who recognize when you really need them (even if you say you don't).

Who do you consider to be the members of your family?
Blood is definitely important - I would call on anyone in my traditional family, and I know they would answer. I also am lucky enough to have some friends - both lifelong and more recent - whom I know would do the same.

- Melissa Walker

Follow the series of family posts.

Family: Jackie Parker

I think I might be a little confused when it comes to what the idea of family is. I have blood family and friend family. I have Washington family and Michigan family - and family in between. I have online family and real life family. I have so many different circles of family that surely I must be mistaken, as how can one person be that lucky? Ultimately, family to me are those who nourishes my body, mind and soul. Family are those who comfort me, who I turn to, who I trust. Family are those who help make my life balanced, thoughtful, honest, and fun. I don't need church or state or my neighbor down the block to tell me who makes up my family - my heart knows all on its own.

- Jackie Parker

Follow the series of family posts.

Read this month's book pick, Red Glass by Laura Resau, then discuss the theme of family all month long here at the readergirlz blog.

Family Ties

Last month, I published a series of posts about hope - what it meant to different people, and what made them hopeful.

Now, throughout May, we'll be discussing Family, this month's theme at readergirlz. I'll ask various authors and friends:

What does "family" mean to you?
Who do you consider to be the members of your family?

I will be posting their answers at both my blog, Bildungsroman, and the readergirlz blog. Stay tuned!