David Levithan

TOUR DATES

02/24
London, England
EVENT DETAILS TK

03/22
Philadelphia
7:30 PM
FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA

For up-to-date tour details, check out my Facebook.

The Lover's Dictionary is here!

The Lover’s Dictionary, my first book about post-teenagers, has now hit stores. As with many of my novels, it started as a story for Valentine’s Day – it was February 1 st, and I knew I only had two weeks to write something, so I opened up a book of “words to know” and decided to take random words and apply them to a relationship. The result? The story of two people who have been together for a little over two years, told entirely in dictionary form. All the ups, all the downs, and all the in-between. Amazon already named it one of their books of the month and Booklist gave it a much-appreciated starred review. To purchase your copy, please go to your local bookstore, or you can get it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Buy the book: amazon.com | bn.com

Check out my Twitter for The Lover’s Dictionary

In honor of The Lover’s Dictionary – and because it lends itself so nicely to Tweeting – I’ve started a Lover’s Dictionary Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/#!/loversdiction. These are not excerpts from the book – I’m doing my own riff, making new definitions that are still in character for the narrator of the book. Please check it out!

In Stores: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, written with Rachel Cohn

Welcome to the world of Dash and Lily. It’s New York City (of course), and the winter holidays are almost upon them. Dash is wandering the aisles of The Strand, his favorite bookstore, when he finds a red notebook full of intriguing questions for possible boyfriends. He answers, and sets down some challenges of his own for the notebook’s author (a girl named Lily). An intense correspondence ensues. Rachel Cohn and I had a blast writing this one, and hopefully it is just as much of a blast to read. If it all seems rather spontaneous (to the point of combustion) that’s because, once again, Rachel and I didn’t plan it out at all – we just let our characters take us where they wanted to go, and do what they wanted to do. And, man, they took us to some strange places, and did some strange things . . . all in the name of love. Or holiday spirit. Or dares. I, of course, dare you to read it. Read an excerpt >

Buy the book: amazon.com | bn.com | borders.com | powells.com

Will Grayson, Will Grayson, written with John Green

Two boys with the same name – that’s how the idea for Will Grayson, Will Grayson began. I’ve always been fascinated with this kind of duality, since one of my best friends is named David Leventhal. I knew I didn’t want to write both characters myself, so I asked my friend John Green if he’d be interested in being the other character. Now, almost five years later, the book is coming out into the world. One Will Grayson (John’s) is scared of emotion and scarred by love. The other will grayson (mine) is angry, bitter, and, deep down inside, really wanting to be in love and in life. The two meet in, of all places, a porn store. And Will’s best friend, Tiny, entirely steals the show. I won’t say anything more than that, but I hope you really enjoy it.

Buy the book: amazon.com | bn.com | borders.com | powells.com

Books That You Need to Read Now (That I Happened to Edit)

I’m really excited about the books that I edited that are coming out in the next couple of months. In March, check out Alice Hoffman’s spellbinding Green Witch, which is the follow-up to one of my all-time favorite novels, Green Angel. If Alice conveyed a perfect post-9/11 allegory of grief and loss with Green Angel, with Green Witch she shows how this can, slowly and cautiously, turn into mourning and recovery. In April, the Baby-sitters Club returns after ten years with The Summer Before by Ann M. Martin. As many of you know, I got my start at Scholastic editing The Baby-sitters Club. It’s really wonderful to be back. In May, I have two very different books to shout about. The first is Deborah Wiles’s Countdown, which is an extraordinary documentary novel about an 11-year-old girl weathering all sorts of challenges during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. It’s a “documentary novel” because the action is interspersed with photos, quotes, maps, and other evidence of the time. It’s really unlike anything you’ve ever read before. And finally, if you’re looking for a twisted, dark, incredibly satisfying mystery, check out Eliot Schrefer’s The Deadly Sister, about a girl who must work to help her sister be proven innocent of murder… or help her get away with it. It’s fantastic.

I’m not tweeting, but I’m on Facebook

As many of you have noticed, I don’t really update this page as often as I should. And I presently refuse to be on Twitter – I just don’t have the time to do it in a way that isn’t half-assed, so I’d rather not do it. But I do try to keep my Facebook page updated, so I encourge you to friend me there and keep posted that way.

Love is the Higher Law

Love is the Higher Law was published by Random House on August 25th. It's the story of three teenagers in New York on 9/11, and how their lives intertwine in the days and weeks and months that follow. I know this sounds grim, but it's really the story of things coming together even as it feels like the world is falling apart -- because that's how it felt to be in New York at that time, both tragic because of the events that happened and magical in the way that everyone became their better selves in the face of it. It's a love story between friends, a love story for a city, and a love story for love itself, and the way it can get us through things, however daunting or shocking they may be. Or at least that's what I aimed for. I hope you'll read it and let me know if I got there.

Buy the book: amazon.com | bn.com | borders.com | powells.com

Two new stories. Two new anthologies.

I'm very happy that two of my stories have ended up in anthologies this fall. Both of them are amazing books, and I'm really proud of the work I did for them. For those of you who wondered what would come after the stories in How They Met... well, here are the first ones. "Quiz Bowl Antichrist" is in Geektastic, edited by my wonderful friends Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci, and including stories from some of my favorite authors, including M. T. Anderson, Libba Bray Cassandra Claire, John Green (you may have heard of him?), Kelly Link, Barry Lyga, Tracy Lynn, Wendy Mass, Garth Nix, Cynthia & Greg Leitich Smith, Scott Westerfeld, Lisa Yee, and Sara Zarr, as well as comic art by Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley. Did I just list them all? Yes. BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL THAT GOOD.

The other anthology is Michael Cart's How Beautiful the Ordinary, which is a bold new collection of LGBTQ stories for teens. I am honored to be alongside authors such as Francesca Lia Block, Gregory Maguire, Julie Ann Peters, Jacqueline Woodson, and Margo Lanegan. It's out in October.

IN STORES