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November 22, 2006
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06-26-2006
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Incredible! The Be More Chill movie script has been revised and is going out to studios now. I hope to have an announcement soon about the sale of the film; remember, this is the book as envisioned by Steve Pink, writer of High Fidelity and director of the forthcoming film Accepted, and backed by the Weitz Brothers, producers of American Pie! Yes, I know we're not on IMDB yet, but God willing (or somebody willing; I don't know how far God gets in Hollywood) we will be soon.
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05-23-2006
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Steve Pink, Be More Chill screenwriter, has sent me a completed draft of the script! This is huge! Next steps: getting it sold. Support Steve by seeing his movie Accepted, premiering August 11, 2006. It stars Justin Long, better known these days as the younger guy in the iLife ads. (Strangely enough, the older guy is my high school English teacher's wife, writer John Hodgman.) The better Accepted does, the easier it'll be to sell Be More Chill. But we're pretty confident about it.
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05-03-2006
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The Be More Chill movie script is 90% completed! Auteur Steve Pink, whose directorial debut, Accepted, bows in theaters this August, is putting the finishing touches on the thing and it's looking extra-special fantastic. See Accepted this summer (Lewis Black, Ann Cusack) to support Steve and start prepping--a Be More Chill movie could be coming as soon as 2007.
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02-05-2006
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Be on the lookout for Steve Pink's movie Accepted, in theaters soon. Steve is the screenwriting and directing force behind the Be More Chill movie, which is currently in development. We are close to finishing the screenplay and will be finished by April. We are experimenting with one major change to the book. Steve felt constrained by the age of the characters--it turns out that a lot of the book is R-rated and getting a studio to place it in high school is pretty difficult (the nipple ring scene, etc.). To put the humor where we want to be, we are making Jeremy in his early 20s instead of in high school. Don't kill me, it works. Same story, only now the squip is a little more serious--it persuades Jeremy to max out his credit cards, doublecross his coworkers and have lots of sex. The results are sparkling and I can't wait to get them on a screen for you! Steve and I are contributing scenes to the final product now.
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August 1, 2002
[click cover for book party pics]
"Ned Vizzini is a young genius! And if he was old, he would be an old genius. Teen Angst? Naaah... is zany, tender, and hysterically funny."
-- Jonathan Ames
"[O]ne of the few truly genuinely funny and unpretentious books I have read in many years."
-- Esme Raji Codell, author of Educating Esme and Sahara Special
"The chapter on taking your girlfriend to prom is effin' GREAT. Worth the price of the book alone."
-- Marty Beckerman, author of Death to All Cheerleaders and Generation S.L.U.T.
Published by Random House.
This sort of came out of nowhere. Teen Angst? Naaah... had been released in its trade format by Free Spirit two years before, and I had busted my ass getting the word out about it on radio interviews and at schools. Then Judy, the president of Free Spirit, told me that Random House wanted to buy the book and put out their own version. I said great. I went into the RH offices, which had a coffee machine on which you could select light/medium/strong for one of eight flavors (including amaretto) and get frothy white-chocolate hot chocolate.
My new editor, Marissa Walsh (who went on to publish the Not that I'm Jealous or Anything anthology and is now pursuing her own writing), did a great job making some changes to the text (mostly dates, which I wanted to get out of the book so it would age a little better) and we released it with a big party at Siberia Bar in Mahattan. You can see the party pictures if you want--I think many of them capture my friends at the peak of their attractive youth.
Later on at the party Tracey, the Siberia owner, brought me into the bathroom and tried to get me to write a book for him for $15,000. Fun times. He claimed to have some serious dirt on Hillary Clinton.  |
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July 5, 2004
[click cover for hi-res image]
The UK version of Be More Chill was published by HarperCollins UK. It came with its own Flash movie, which was cool. (Unfortunately all that remains is this screenshot.)
I traveled throughout England 6/28/04-7/3/04 to promote the book and got to see the Firth of Forth, one of my favorite bridges when I was a boy, among other sights. Here are the pictures on flickr:
England Trip Summer 2004
Do you have the UK edition of the book? Email me. |
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June 1, 2004
In Germany, Be More Chill was published Bertelsmann Jugenbuch Verlag (or "Random House" to you).
The German version of Be More Chill is called "Cool: Und was ist mit Liebe"? (According to my brother, that means "Cool: And what's with Love"?)
The copies has a vellum jacket with all the text; when removed, the jacket reveals the wraparound faces of, uh, a very Germanic Jeremy and Christine:
Also, the translator of the German edition had some hilarious questions about words I used:
Hi, Ned Vizzini,
you wrote a great book! I translate it into German and there are some questions I would like you to answer as fast as possible as they gave me a terrible short deadline…
Here we go:
p.25 Who is Rick James?
47 dur
64 phillies
70 pimpin’
85 seeing eye dogs
87 poonanti
107 hairy necessaries
118 GLAAD
126 palsy, palsy-ish
214 For a guy, there’s something dangling in front of your face or something sticking out your ass.
It would be most helpful, if you could interpret or circumscribe these expressions, so I can see if I am on the right track or not.
Do you have the German edition of the book? Email me. |
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June 27, 2005
In Italy, Be More Chill has been published by Mondadori, Italy's largest publishing group, with the title "Datti Una Mossa".
I've been getting very cool letters from Italy like the one below. Thanks so much to everyone who has gotten the book in Italy; I really apprecaite the mail.
Hi Ned!First of all,I want to tell you that I'm Italian,so please forgive me if my English isn't perfect.I bought your "Be more chill" (in Italian,obviously)just yesterday and I have already read it.Last night.Well,it's great,congratulations,even though the end it's a bit...oh,you know what I'm talking about! :-) !
Ok,the reason why I'm writing is that I'm 19 years old and I really,really love writing books.Both novels and short stories.I've been writing since I was 7 and I won 2...can I say "competitions"?I'd really like to become a writer,because it's the only things that makes me free and makes me fly,if you know what I mean:I think so.
Do you have the Italian edition of the book? Email me. |
© Ned Vizzini 2000-2006
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Rachel
of FL
says: My grandma bought me this book for my birthday and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I saved it till school started (8-14-06) and i read it all week the first week of school. Instead of paying attention in class i read ur book instead. Sad I know but it was so good i couldn't put it down. Your book has my friends grasping for it but I don't know what i would do if i lost it. This book was great! oh yeah, favorite part. hmm thats a toughie. It would have to be the part wherehe goes to the party and takes ecstacy and the spuip speaks spanish to him. that is absolutely hilarious. anyway great novels IKOAFS was great to. we read that one in my class last year for an asignment and that was my favorite assignment all year! ~*~Rachel
Rachel's myspace
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Jack
of CA
says: my favorite part of BE MORE CHILL is when he stops in the middle of the play and tells Christine about his affection towards her. I was so pissed cuz it was so stupid for him to listen to the squip and think that Christine would some how fall in love with him.
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Brandon
of CA
says: i have two favorite parts in the book but heres one of them. When jeremy first gets the squip and the squip is teaching him about proper posture. and then jeremy says to the squip "i feel gay" and the squip says "the gayer it feels the better".
Brandon's myspace
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Jonathan
of AR
says: I just finished reading your latest one, that was hilarious, favorite part: near the end where Craig was making out with Noelle and he says " it really does feel like a cheek" between that and some of the beginning: wonderful . And Be More Chill, gotta love the parties and when he first gets the pill, and let me see, Teen Angst? Naaah... I loved the prom part, the parts of it when you talk about your family and stuff.
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Alexis
of VA
says: I was in the Barnes and Noble in Richmond, Virginia the day you came to sign books. However, I was there about four hours too early. There was a massive display of your work and I picked this book up and bought it. It looked like an interesting, funny book of things that had actually happened to you. I did want to read it in four hours and come back and ask you all kinds of questions, but that didn't work out too well. I love the book so far. I'm only about a third of the way done but it has made me laugh out loud more than a few times. I'm going to look forward to finishing it but at the same time, not. This book has me reading it every free time I have and I love your writing style. So this is a thank you and a praise all in one. Come back to the Richmond area soon if you can. Keep on truckin' too.
Alexis's blog Alexis's myspace
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Rowell
of RI
says: My favorite part of Be More Chill, is when Mr. Reyes speaks in his falsetto voice "Maaaaaa!", when I try to imagine it, I can't help laughing. This is my favorite book. No Doubt. Im going to try Jimmy Heere's squip moves on some of the ladies.. :) "Maaaa!"
Rowell's myspace
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Violet
of NY
says: my favorite part of the book was... oh, let's see... THE WHOLE THING, aka my LIFE! I live in Park Slope, took the Stuy Test, attend Pure Energy Martial Arts (Tessa Gordon's still there), and have done numerous other things that you describe in Teen Angst?Naah...
Never have i identified more with a boook than with this one. I read books for escape, but it's like escaping right back into... you guessed it, My Life!
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Kathleen
of United Kingdom
says: I didnt have a favorite part of this book, it was all amazing, i know that I am going to read this book over and over.
Kathleen's website
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Matthew
of New Zealand
says: My favourite aspect of both Be More Chill and Teen Angst? Naaah is that the parents (particularly the dads) are portrayed as decent people who are even funny and understanding, rather than as the hysterical losers/ screw up parents that are so ubiquitous in books aimed at young adults.
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Janine
of CA
says: I would say my favourite part would be the whole Aunt Linda
conversation. I mean, I can totally relate. My family acts the same
way. And its the plot revealer... where he's just really honest (...and kinda harsh) about how he sees himself. It's the point where the book
really takes a surrealist turn.
That's my two cents... and more.
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