WIN! OWN MY OEUVRE! WIN!

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE! HERE’S TO ANOTHER SEASON OF SIN! To ensure your weeks ahead are filled with books, I’m giving away to my entire YA oeuvre. One winner at semi-random will receive a copy of my current novel SWOON, as well as 6X: The Uncensored Confessions, 6X: Loud, Fast, and Out of Control, Orange Is the New Pink and, just to put a little chill in your heat, Mistletoe, the novella collection that boasts Melissa de la Cruz, Hailey Abbott and Aimee Friedman as well as yours truly. One runner-up will win a signed copy of SWOON.

How to win? Details:

* Tell the world. To enter, please promote this contest by posting about it on FaceBook, Twitter, and/or MySpace, or if you don’t “social network,” tell your friends. Yes, technically this reduces your chances of winning because it tips more people off to the contest. But karmically it hugely enhances your chances of winning because it shows how much you like my stuff and want everyone else to like it too.

* Correctly answer the Very Simple Contest Questions below. (You needn’t have read my stuff to get the right answers, as they’re easily found on my website.) Then email your answers to nina@ninamalkin.com. All correct answers received by midnight on Sunday, June 27, 2010, will go into a box along with one of my utterly unbiased pussycats, and the pussycat will select the winning entries at random. (No pussycats will be harmed in this contest; pussycats love boxes and little scraps of paper!)

Very Simple Contest Questions:
1. What does Dice smell before she ever lays eyes on Sin?
2. What are the names of the four members of 6X?
3. Where does Babylon of Orange Is the New Pink get to spend her summer?
4. Who drew my portrait?

I look forward to receiving your entries.

SWOON ON!

10 Ways to SWOON

SUMMER IS SWOON SEASON—the perfect time to lose it, utterly and completely, to bliss. Ahead, 10 ideas for achieving the SWOON state that have always worked for me.



1) Go skinny-dipping. Not feasible? Do something else naked you’d normally do clothed. Baring all helps you revel in the glory of your own body. Clean your room naked. IM someone naked. Sleep naked. Read naked. Whatever you do, avoid the mirror—this isn’t about judging or even admiring yourself; it’s about being yourself.
2) Roll down a grassy hill. You needn’t be a giant panda, but if you want to watch one for inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3k50IfMbS8&NR=1 WHEEEEEE!!!
3) Lie very, very still. Okay, you’re at the bottom of the hill now. No gadget. No other people. No nothing. Let your senses take over. See the natural world. Hear birds, bees, crickets, what-have-you. Smell the proverbial roses and everything else. Feel the tickly grass. Taste it.
4) Talk to your crush. Just do it, damn it! The first few syllables may feel like puking up very sharp pebbles. After that, you’ll fall into this flow akin to an out-of-body experience. And you’ll have done it! Yes!
5) Perform. Getting up in front of folks to strut your stuff is weirdly freeing. Read a poem, rock out, juggle, tell a joke. Then take a bow.
6) Dance your ass off. In the club, at a party or alone in your room. Let the rhythm own you; let the beat into your blood. Continue for 10 minutes minimum, until you’re sweaty and giggly and high on your own endorphins.
7) Scream your head off. If you need a setting, go whitewater rafting or ride your roller coaster of choice (mine is Coney Island’s inimitable Cyclone).
8) Frolic with another species. Swimming with dolphins may not make your vacation plans, but if there’s a cat, dog, goat, duck, et cetera at your disposal, cavort with the creature—it’s as close as you can get to being in a cartoon.
9) Kiss and kiss and kiss... This one has clarifiers: First, you must feel completely ready to kiss. Second, there must be somebody you truly want to kiss. If these prerequisites have been met, do kiss—and only kiss. Even if you’ve been with your kissable one forever, revert to the just-kissing stage and rediscover the swoon therein.
10) Read SWOON! A novel of possession and obsession and betrayal and revenge and desire and sacrifice and pure, complete, impossible love, SWOON had me in thrall while writing and I'm told it creates similar reactions among readers.

That's my list. Got your own? Lemme know. In fact, it's a contest — and you can enter, thanks to the lovely & literary Meg, who's hosting the event on her blog. Go here now: http://book-mac13.blogspot.com/2010/05/swoon-this-summer-contest.html