EUGENE: Hey there. Good afternoon. Welcome to Book Talk, coming to you live from Book World, distinguished venue of THE ANNOYANCE BUREAU. We're here today with Lucy Frank and a select group of characters from her books. Here from LUCKY STARS, we have moi, your moderator, Eugene Kim, kazoo master and best friend to Jake Kandell. Next to Jake we have that diva-in-the-making, Kira Stickles and her dad, and our illustrious chorus teacher, Ms. Hill. The girl with the glasses and the Victoria's Secret bag is Iris Diaz-Something-owitz, from JUST ASK IRIS. The kid in the wheelchair is her friend, Will. The guy with the webbed feet and orange bill is Dirk --
KIRA: (whispering): Eugene, we can all read the nametags.
MS. HILL: And would you please stop rattling those little Nik Naks boxes in your pocket.
LF: It's fine. Don't worry about it. Hello, everyone. I'm so happy to --
EUGENE: (rattling the mints): The thing is, Ms. Frank, Jake and I have this English project on you, which is unfortunately sort of due tomorrow, and I know I'm supposed to be asking things like where you were born, and if you write with a pencil or on the computer, and what is your quote-unquote writing process . . .
UNCLE MAX (OY,JOY!): Writing process, eh? Listen to him!
JOY: (giving him a poke): Shhh!
EUGENE: . . .but after reading all your books, your quote-unquote body of work --
UNCLE MAX: And he's a reader, too! Joy, do you know this boy?
EUGENE: . . . what I'd like to know is, do you think of yourself as a strange person?
LF: Well, uh . . .
IZZY GRIBITZ (adjusting his toupee): What's strange to me is why there are so many people here from her other books, and only yours truly and Lucas from THE ANNOYANCE BUREAU. And speaking of annoying, Lucy, why'd you name your first two books after vegetables?
UNCLE MAX: At least she stopped with two. My book could have been "Oy, Cauliflower."
IZZY GRIBITZ: Just be glad you're not dead, Mitnick. In the first draft she bumped you off, remember?
JOY: Uncle Max died? Is that true, Lucy? And is it true I whined?
EMILY: (I AM AN ARTICHOKE/WILL YOU BE MY BRUSSELS SPROUT?): Is it true that you wanted to call BRUSSELS SPROUT "Song of the Birds?"
KIRA: And that you were going to call LUCKY STARS "Duck it!"?
JAKE: And that I was named T-t-t-tristan S-s-s-switzer? Wwwhy would you do that? It's b-b-b-b-b. . . hard enough - -
KIRA: She probably didn't know you stuttered. If mean, if she didn't know you and I were going to get to be --
EUGENE: Get to be what?
MS. HILL: Ms. Frank, since we're talking about names, do I have a first name?
IZZY GRIBITZ: Eugenia. She looks to me like a Eugenia. Or a Euphonia. I like that. Music, Euphonia --
JOY: I can't believe I whined. That is so not me!
IRIS: Will whined. And shot people with his peashooter. Before he met me.
SARAH: (ARTICHOKE/ BRUSSELS SPROUT?): Excuse me. Guys, I was her first character. I've been waiting ten years to ask this. Lucy, am I you?
EMILY: Or am I?
LF: Actually . . .
SARAH: I mean, fell in love with the cello. Like me. Took the train in to New York City every week for cello lessons. Like me. To get away from your boring little town. Exactly like me. Wrote poems that everyone made fun of, worked as a mother's helper, had a self-centered, pushy boyfriend . . .
LF: More than one actually . . .
EMILY: Yeah, Sarah, but the whole eating issue? The anorexia? I'm her.
JOY: Which of the following does Lucy Frank have in common with Joy Cooper? 1, coolness issues; 2, younger brother who's everywhere you want to be; 3, a thing for personality quizzes; 4, A way with words; 5, All of the above.
IRIS: Uh uh. Nosy as she is? Peeping around in people's lives? Eavesdropping, staring, starting up conversations with people she doesn't know? Talking to the neighbors?
WILL (JUST ASK IRIS): She never went up and down the fire escape looking in people's windows.
IRIS: Only because she never had a fire escape.
IZZY GRIBITZ: Forget it, kiddies. I'm her. She's me. A, Optimistically pessimistic. B, More than a tad annoying. C, Perpetually riled up about one thing or another. And what about that green-and-orange plaid jacket of hers? Not to mention that the first meal she ever cooked for anyone was a cocoanut and salami omelet --
UNCLE MAX: Oy, I'm glad she didn't bring the refreshments.
WILL: Are there refreshments?
EUGENE (handing him a handful of Nik Naks) : Getting back to the strangeness thing . . .
LF: If I could say something? First of all, I have never, ever, even when my mother was dressing me, worn orange-and-green plaid anything. As for the omelet, all I can say is --
EUGENE: Truth is stranger than fiction?
LF: Let's stick with the fiction. The stories are made up. My characters are not me. I may use incidents or people from my own life as a jumping-off point, but they almost immediately morph into something else altogether.
EUGENE: Moving on to strange animals, then. Because it's not just Dirk. Every book of yours has animals. And they're all like, out of control. Why is that? They talk, they squawk, they spin, they bite --
JOY: They hump people's legs - -
MS. HILL (rapping her baton on the table): Could we please try to keep this on a higher level?
THE CAT LADY (JUST ASK IRIS): Ms. Frank loves animals. There has never been a time in her entire life when she didn't have at least one cat. And if I'm not mistaken, she also kept a bunny rabbit hidden in her college dorm room. It started off as one of those cute little pet shop Easter bunnies, but before she knew it --
KIRA: Is that what gave you the Dirk idea?
LF: Actually, I was walking down the street wondering how on earth I was going to get Jake and Kira together --
EUGENE: With me. Don't forget me.
LF: . . . when I saw a man carrying a large, white --
RUSSELL STICKLES: Speaking of ideas. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Kira's Dad and I'm real glad to be here with all of you tonight. Some of you may not have caught my act down in the subway, but I'm a singer-songwriter, and Lucy --
KIRA: Former act, Dad! No more subways, remember? And you're supposed to call her Ms. Frank!
RUSSELL: Absolutely. No disrespect. Ms. Frank, I've got this killer idea for a book, which would also make a fantastic film, and I was thinking, if you wouldn't mind passing it along to your agent - -
LF: Getting back to what I was saying, okay, I'll admit, there is a part of me in every one of you. But even though I was pretty weird about food, I was lucky enough not to have an actual eating disorder, or stutter, or sing on a subway platform. That was research.
IRIS: And nosiness.
LF: Yes, but I also read a lot, and interviewed experts, and talked to kids. For LUCKY STARS, I spent almost a year sitting in on middle school chorus rehearsals and hanging out in subway stations.
LUCAS: She went to middle schools for my book, too, and asked kids what annoys them.
JAKE: J-j-j-just a minute. You're Lucas? From THE ANNOYANCE B-B-BUREAU? I did a b-b-book report on you! Listen, man, if there is any way you could g-g-g-get me one of those irkostats --
EUGENE: Yeah! We could make Ms. Mintzer fly, we could make Kira . . . Hey, Ow!
LF: You know, I'm trying to say something serious here. The books aren't about me. They're about what's on my mind. For example, feeling fat even when you're not, feeling as if there is almost nothing in your life you can control, and if you could only lose weight, or find a boyfriend, it would change things, or in LUCKY STARS, having so much to say and not being able to get any of it out. And I write about all the infuriatingly stupid, irritating, wrong things, and life feeling so hard and annoying that a kid might want to jump out of his world into an imaginary one with magical devices. And of course I love writing about love.
IZZY GRIBITZ: Whoa! Back up there, Toots! Are you saying I'm a figment of Lucas's imagination? Are you saying there's no irkostat? Lucas, am I your imaginary friend?
LF: . . . and kids having to be more grown up than their parents. And feeling different and alone. Wanting someone to get them out of here!
UNCLE MAX: You know, I was expecting her to be a little funnier. And speak a little better. I see now why she does all that re-writing.
IZZY GRIBITZ: Never mind re-writing. Has she written anything lately? Besides LUCKY STARS, I mean?
LF: Well, actually, I am working on . . . but, you know, I'm not all that comfortable discussing --
IRIS: I'll tell them! It takes place in California. At like, Venice Beach and Santa Monica. The girl's name is Francesca and her mother's supposed to be a Hollywood talent agent, except she has no clients, and they have no money, so, after she makes them crash this crazy celebrity birthday party, the mom decides to get her fortune told, and the fortune teller steals her wallet, and Francesca decides to get it back, except that she's stuck taking care of her little brother, who doesn't want to be a boy any more and thinks he's a pelican --
LF: Iris! You were looking over my shoulder again?
IRIS: I know, and I know you've never done anything where, like, one person from one book helps out another person from another book, but it's the perfect job for me! I mean, Just Ask Iris, right? People need something done, I do it. I could take care of her little brother, I could figure out how to get her mom's money back, and they wouldn't have to pay me or anything. If you could just get me out to California, Lucy --
KIRA: Getting money back? I'm excellent at that. And I'm great at getting parents in line --
EMILY: I could try talking to that pelican boy. I know about tough mothers.
UNCLE MAX: You know, my girlfriend, Rose, has a sister in Santa Monica.
LUCAS: I'm ready for another adventure! Jake, if I can get hold of that irkostat, wanna - -
IZZY GRIBITZ: Hey! People can't just jump back and forth from book to book. Tell them Lucy. Yours truly being the exception. I'm the one with the powers. Detect, Protect, Inspect, Correct. And now that I've got the Correct function working, mostly, sometimes - -
MS. HILL (rapping her baton): One at a time, people! Lucy, baby, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you need help controlling your characters!
EUGENE: Yeah, you guys keep cutting her off, coming up with weird stuff out of left field. Jake and I are supposed to have this written up by tomorrow - -
LF: Tell me about it! Hey, you wanted to know about my writing process. I'm afraid to say, this is it.
UNCLE MAX: Oy. No wonder it takes so long to write a book.
KIRA: (whispering): Eugene, we can all read the nametags.
MS. HILL: And would you please stop rattling those little Nik Naks boxes in your pocket.
LF: It's fine. Don't worry about it. Hello, everyone. I'm so happy to --
EUGENE: (rattling the mints): The thing is, Ms. Frank, Jake and I have this English project on you, which is unfortunately sort of due tomorrow, and I know I'm supposed to be asking things like where you were born, and if you write with a pencil or on the computer, and what is your quote-unquote writing process . . .
UNCLE MAX (OY,JOY!): Writing process, eh? Listen to him!
JOY: (giving him a poke): Shhh!
EUGENE: . . .but after reading all your books, your quote-unquote body of work --
UNCLE MAX: And he's a reader, too! Joy, do you know this boy?
EUGENE: . . . what I'd like to know is, do you think of yourself as a strange person?
LF: Well, uh . . .
IZZY GRIBITZ (adjusting his toupee): What's strange to me is why there are so many people here from her other books, and only yours truly and Lucas from THE ANNOYANCE BUREAU. And speaking of annoying, Lucy, why'd you name your first two books after vegetables?
UNCLE MAX: At least she stopped with two. My book could have been "Oy, Cauliflower."
IZZY GRIBITZ: Just be glad you're not dead, Mitnick. In the first draft she bumped you off, remember?
JOY: Uncle Max died? Is that true, Lucy? And is it true I whined?
EMILY: (I AM AN ARTICHOKE/WILL YOU BE MY BRUSSELS SPROUT?): Is it true that you wanted to call BRUSSELS SPROUT "Song of the Birds?"
KIRA: And that you were going to call LUCKY STARS "Duck it!"?
JAKE: And that I was named T-t-t-tristan S-s-s-switzer? Wwwhy would you do that? It's b-b-b-b-b. . . hard enough - -
KIRA: She probably didn't know you stuttered. If mean, if she didn't know you and I were going to get to be --
EUGENE: Get to be what?
MS. HILL: Ms. Frank, since we're talking about names, do I have a first name?
IZZY GRIBITZ: Eugenia. She looks to me like a Eugenia. Or a Euphonia. I like that. Music, Euphonia --
JOY: I can't believe I whined. That is so not me!
IRIS: Will whined. And shot people with his peashooter. Before he met me.
SARAH: (ARTICHOKE/ BRUSSELS SPROUT?): Excuse me. Guys, I was her first character. I've been waiting ten years to ask this. Lucy, am I you?
EMILY: Or am I?
LF: Actually . . .
SARAH: I mean, fell in love with the cello. Like me. Took the train in to New York City every week for cello lessons. Like me. To get away from your boring little town. Exactly like me. Wrote poems that everyone made fun of, worked as a mother's helper, had a self-centered, pushy boyfriend . . .
LF: More than one actually . . .
EMILY: Yeah, Sarah, but the whole eating issue? The anorexia? I'm her.
JOY: Which of the following does Lucy Frank have in common with Joy Cooper? 1, coolness issues; 2, younger brother who's everywhere you want to be; 3, a thing for personality quizzes; 4, A way with words; 5, All of the above.
IRIS: Uh uh. Nosy as she is? Peeping around in people's lives? Eavesdropping, staring, starting up conversations with people she doesn't know? Talking to the neighbors?
WILL (JUST ASK IRIS): She never went up and down the fire escape looking in people's windows.
IRIS: Only because she never had a fire escape.
IZZY GRIBITZ: Forget it, kiddies. I'm her. She's me. A, Optimistically pessimistic. B, More than a tad annoying. C, Perpetually riled up about one thing or another. And what about that green-and-orange plaid jacket of hers? Not to mention that the first meal she ever cooked for anyone was a cocoanut and salami omelet --
UNCLE MAX: Oy, I'm glad she didn't bring the refreshments.
WILL: Are there refreshments?
EUGENE (handing him a handful of Nik Naks) : Getting back to the strangeness thing . . .
LF: If I could say something? First of all, I have never, ever, even when my mother was dressing me, worn orange-and-green plaid anything. As for the omelet, all I can say is --
EUGENE: Truth is stranger than fiction?
LF: Let's stick with the fiction. The stories are made up. My characters are not me. I may use incidents or people from my own life as a jumping-off point, but they almost immediately morph into something else altogether.
EUGENE: Moving on to strange animals, then. Because it's not just Dirk. Every book of yours has animals. And they're all like, out of control. Why is that? They talk, they squawk, they spin, they bite --
JOY: They hump people's legs - -
MS. HILL (rapping her baton on the table): Could we please try to keep this on a higher level?
THE CAT LADY (JUST ASK IRIS): Ms. Frank loves animals. There has never been a time in her entire life when she didn't have at least one cat. And if I'm not mistaken, she also kept a bunny rabbit hidden in her college dorm room. It started off as one of those cute little pet shop Easter bunnies, but before she knew it --
KIRA: Is that what gave you the Dirk idea?
LF: Actually, I was walking down the street wondering how on earth I was going to get Jake and Kira together --
EUGENE: With me. Don't forget me.
LF: . . . when I saw a man carrying a large, white --
RUSSELL STICKLES: Speaking of ideas. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Kira's Dad and I'm real glad to be here with all of you tonight. Some of you may not have caught my act down in the subway, but I'm a singer-songwriter, and Lucy --
KIRA: Former act, Dad! No more subways, remember? And you're supposed to call her Ms. Frank!
RUSSELL: Absolutely. No disrespect. Ms. Frank, I've got this killer idea for a book, which would also make a fantastic film, and I was thinking, if you wouldn't mind passing it along to your agent - -
LF: Getting back to what I was saying, okay, I'll admit, there is a part of me in every one of you. But even though I was pretty weird about food, I was lucky enough not to have an actual eating disorder, or stutter, or sing on a subway platform. That was research.
IRIS: And nosiness.
LF: Yes, but I also read a lot, and interviewed experts, and talked to kids. For LUCKY STARS, I spent almost a year sitting in on middle school chorus rehearsals and hanging out in subway stations.
LUCAS: She went to middle schools for my book, too, and asked kids what annoys them.
JAKE: J-j-j-just a minute. You're Lucas? From THE ANNOYANCE B-B-BUREAU? I did a b-b-book report on you! Listen, man, if there is any way you could g-g-g-get me one of those irkostats --
EUGENE: Yeah! We could make Ms. Mintzer fly, we could make Kira . . . Hey, Ow!
LF: You know, I'm trying to say something serious here. The books aren't about me. They're about what's on my mind. For example, feeling fat even when you're not, feeling as if there is almost nothing in your life you can control, and if you could only lose weight, or find a boyfriend, it would change things, or in LUCKY STARS, having so much to say and not being able to get any of it out. And I write about all the infuriatingly stupid, irritating, wrong things, and life feeling so hard and annoying that a kid might want to jump out of his world into an imaginary one with magical devices. And of course I love writing about love.
IZZY GRIBITZ: Whoa! Back up there, Toots! Are you saying I'm a figment of Lucas's imagination? Are you saying there's no irkostat? Lucas, am I your imaginary friend?
LF: . . . and kids having to be more grown up than their parents. And feeling different and alone. Wanting someone to get them out of here!
UNCLE MAX: You know, I was expecting her to be a little funnier. And speak a little better. I see now why she does all that re-writing.
IZZY GRIBITZ: Never mind re-writing. Has she written anything lately? Besides LUCKY STARS, I mean?
LF: Well, actually, I am working on . . . but, you know, I'm not all that comfortable discussing --
IRIS: I'll tell them! It takes place in California. At like, Venice Beach and Santa Monica. The girl's name is Francesca and her mother's supposed to be a Hollywood talent agent, except she has no clients, and they have no money, so, after she makes them crash this crazy celebrity birthday party, the mom decides to get her fortune told, and the fortune teller steals her wallet, and Francesca decides to get it back, except that she's stuck taking care of her little brother, who doesn't want to be a boy any more and thinks he's a pelican --
LF: Iris! You were looking over my shoulder again?
IRIS: I know, and I know you've never done anything where, like, one person from one book helps out another person from another book, but it's the perfect job for me! I mean, Just Ask Iris, right? People need something done, I do it. I could take care of her little brother, I could figure out how to get her mom's money back, and they wouldn't have to pay me or anything. If you could just get me out to California, Lucy --
KIRA: Getting money back? I'm excellent at that. And I'm great at getting parents in line --
EMILY: I could try talking to that pelican boy. I know about tough mothers.
UNCLE MAX: You know, my girlfriend, Rose, has a sister in Santa Monica.
LUCAS: I'm ready for another adventure! Jake, if I can get hold of that irkostat, wanna - -
IZZY GRIBITZ: Hey! People can't just jump back and forth from book to book. Tell them Lucy. Yours truly being the exception. I'm the one with the powers. Detect, Protect, Inspect, Correct. And now that I've got the Correct function working, mostly, sometimes - -
MS. HILL (rapping her baton): One at a time, people! Lucy, baby, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you need help controlling your characters!
EUGENE: Yeah, you guys keep cutting her off, coming up with weird stuff out of left field. Jake and I are supposed to have this written up by tomorrow - -
LF: Tell me about it! Hey, you wanted to know about my writing process. I'm afraid to say, this is it.
UNCLE MAX: Oy. No wonder it takes so long to write a book.
Copyright 2005 Lucy Frank
