Let’s take a quick break from what’s on the docket (THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS) to look a little further into the future! Because in the future, you will be able to read my sixth novel, THE BRIDGE!
Here’s the announcement from Publisher’s Weekly:
Nick Thomas at Scholastic/Levine has bought Lambda, Stonewall, and PEN Center USA Literary Award-winning author Bill Konigsberg‘s new YA novel, The Bridge. The book is about two suicidal teens who meet atop the George Washington Bridge, disrupting each other’s plans and literally splitting the universe into three storylines with dramatically different consequences. Publication is scheduled for 2020; Linda Epstein at Emerald City Literary Agency brokered the deal for world English rights; the Taryn Fagerness Agency is handling translation rights.
I’m writing it now, and…man. This is a challenging one! The three “what if” scenarios are challenging enough, but on top of that, writing about depression and suicide really takes a toll on me. I have to go into a pretty sad, lonely, dark place.
But I’m doing it. And the reason I’m doing it is because I know these feelings, and I know a lot of teens know these feelings, and I want to focus on the repercussions of that very permanent decision. The consequences of our actions on not only ourselves, but others, because the split-second decisions these characters make do, in fact, change the world.
I’m still, as I write it, figuring out how. But what I do know, already, is that every life matters. My life matters and impacts the world, and even if you don’t believe it now, yours does, too.
So that’s what I’m working on now. Much, much more about that next year. But for now, you can expect the posts on this blog to focus on THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS, and, potentially, hopefully, some forthcoming news about OPENLY STRAIGHT that will make me (and some of my readers, I’m quite sure) dance in the streets.