Geography Club By Brent Hartinger

[Yaima President]

Theclassic YA series about a gay teen and his collection of smart, dorky friends. The first book in the series was adapted as a feature film, and the third book won the Lambda Award.

The people who could actually find the book seemed to love it, but it sold modestly, and both it and the paperback version quickly went out of print. Years later, I self-published a reprint version with a cover I designed myself.

But the elephant is definitely on the move in all three of their lives. Just who is Wade and what are he and his friends planning? What is Leah hiding? And why is Gunnar taking naked pictures of Kevin in the shower?

This idea excited me a lot, in part because I could write about completely different issues. But it also seemed like both a good marketing gimmick and a great writing challenge. Had any other author ever done anything like this before: written the same character but had him jump genres, from young adult to new adult?

The book was another big hit, which, frankly, was pretty damn gratifying, especially after my experience at HarperCollins, and in the greater kidlit publishing community, which had pretty much convinced me I was a terrible writer and with nothing whatsoever interesting to say.

Author Brent Hartinger first introduced the character of Otto Digmore in 2005, in his Lambda Award-winning books about Russel Middlebrook. Back then, Otto was something pretty unusual for YA literature: a disabled gay character.

"If we get caught, they'll throw us in jail. On the other hand, we'll have been involved in one of the craziest Hollywood stories I've ever heard, and maybe someone will want to turn that into a movie!"

Problem is, once production is underway, it quickly becomes clear that the director is ruining Russel's script. If the movie ends up being the bomb that both Otto and Russel expect it to be, it could destroy both their Hollywood careers forever.

But Otto and Russel aren't willing to take that chance. Together, they hatch a crazy plan to make a good movie behind the director's back. But how far are they willing to go to save their careers? Are they willing to become exactly the kind of scheming backstabbers they always said they hated?

Since 2003, I\u2019ve published nine novels featuring a character named Russel Middlebrook and his quirky friends. The books are divided into three different series, as Russel ages. Click on a title or jacket below to jump down to detailed information about each book, including the real story behind its publication. Or simply scroll down to read the story of these books \u2014 and my career \u2014 in chronological order.

A funny and poignant stand-alone series \u2014 also for teens and adults \u2014 about Russel Middlebrook\u2019s gay, disfigured friend, Otto Digmore, as he struggles to make it as an actor in Hollywood.

Then his online gay-chat buddy turns out to be none other than Kevin, the popular but closeted star of the school\u2019s baseball team. Soon Russel meets other gay students too. There\u2019s his best friend, Min, who reveals she\u2018s bisexual; Min\u2019s soccer-playing girlfriend, Terese; and Terese\u2019s politically active friend, Ike.

Geography Club is for anyone, gay or straight, who\u2019s ever felt like an outsider \u2014 a fast-paced and funny tale of teenagers who may not learn any actual geography in their latest club, but who discover plenty about the treacherous social terrain of high school, and the even more dangerous landscape of the human heart.

In 1990, I helped co-found one of the world\u2019s first teen gay-straight alliances, and it inspired me to write a young adult novel about it. In 1995, that novel won the Judy Blume Grant for Unpublished Novels, and I got a sweet, very encouraging note from Judy herself. Award in hand, I sent the book to hundreds of agents and editors, and almost everyone loved it, but they all rejected it, saying over and over again: \u201CSorry, there\u2019s just no market for a book about gay teenagers.\u201D

By 1999, I had finally landed an agent, even if she\u2019d never sold a book before. This time, rather than writing a whole book, we tried to sell a book pitch to editors: Geography Club, another book about a gay teen. Once again, we received dozens of rejections. But one editor, Steve Fraser, fought tooth and nail to get his publisher, HarperCollins, to pay me a paltry $5000 advance to write the book.

Convinced they were going to pull the offer at any second, I wrote the whole book in three weeks \u2014 I finished the manuscript before my agent had even received the contract. The day the contract was signed was also the day I turned in the completed manuscript.

It took almost three years before HarperCollins finally published the book, which came out in early 2003, and the published version is almost exactly what I wrote in those three weeks. There was very little editing, which I now find a bit frustrating, because I can see the book\u2019s many flaws.

Incidentally, I\u2019m still kind of annoyed by the book\u2019s now-iconic cover, which used an intern at HarperCollins as a model. He looks like Russel, but I think makes the book seem too serious, and far angstier than it actually is. I meant for the book to be funny!

But the book also has an appealing innocence \u2014 maybe my own na\u00EFvet\u00E9 as a writer and the book\u2019s lack of any real editing makes Russel seem more honest and engaging. Anyway, there\u2019s no denying the book was a huge hit, going into three printings in its first week of release and eventually selling over 100,000 copies.

Russel Middlebrook is back, in a stand-alone sequel to Geography Club, and he\u2019s off to work as a summer camp counselor with his best friends Min and Gunnar. He\u2019s sick and tired of being openly gay in high school, and a peaceful summer at Camp Serenity is just what he needs to relieve the stress that comes from being an \u201Cout\u201D teenager.

But he doesn\u2019t count on sudden new rivalries with Min and Gunnar, or having to chase after a cabin full of unruly campers. And he especially doesn\u2019t count on a fellow counselor as hunky as Web Bastion.

Things do happen at Camp Serenity, especially at night. Brent Hartinger\u2019s third novel is a story about Indian legends, skinny-dipping in moonlit coves, and the mysteries of a secret society called the Order of the Poison Oak. But more than anything, this witty page-turner is about bravery in the face of unexpected danger, the passion of a sizzling summer romance, and, most of all, the courage to be yourself.

But for reasons I didn\u2019t understand, my publisher, HarperCollins, was very negative on the idea of a series \u2014 indeed, they didn\u2019t even want to sell it as a sequel. They insisted this only be a \u201Ccompanion book.\u201D I begged them to at least write \u201Csequel\u201D on the jacket, which they did, but I also thought their cover looked amateurish and cheap. And yup, it didn\u2019t look anything like the cover to Geography Club \u2014 because it wasn\u2019t really a series or a sequel, remember? Then my editor got fired, and the book was essentially \u201Corphaned\u201D \u2014 passed to another editor, someone with no vested interest. This is almost always a terrible thing for a book.

Even so, I heard through the grapevine that the YA critic at Entertainment Weekly loved the book and was planning to run a rave review \u2014 a huge deal in the time before social media. But then that critic was fired, and the review never ran. Meanwhile, an important industry review outlet trashed the book \u2014 saying, sure, teens might like the cheesy romance, but it was too saccharine to be taken seriously \u2014 and suddenly HarperCollins, and my new editor, seemed to lose all interest in the book and, frankly, in me.

The book was finally released, but I was inundated with emails from confused fans saying they couldn\u2019t find the book for sale anywhere. This was before ebooks, so if you couldn\u2019t get your hands on a physical book, you couldn\u2019t read it. I wondered: had bookstores not ordered it? Did they not realize the book was a sequel to Geography Club, which had been a big hit? I know Amazon is supposed to be Ultimate Evil\u2122 \u2014 and I definitely have issues with them \u2014 but if not for them, I wonder if anyone would have read the book at all.

It\u2019s a horror-movie extravaganza in the second sequel to Brent Hartinger\u2019s Geography Club. Two complete books in one recount the stories of best friends Min and Russel who sign up to be extras on the set of a zombie film \u2014 and learn that there\u2019s nothing scarier than high school romance!

In the first book, Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, Russel must choose between his long-distance boyfriend and a close-to-home ex named Kevin who wants to get back together. In the second book, Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, Min struggles to accept her cheerleader girlfriend\u2019s decision to stay in the closet.

\u201CHartinger has a knack for teen dialogue, and his characters spring to life \u2014 even in costume as the undead. At the heart of Zombies is the teen friends\u2019 respect and caring for each other, which, these days, is downright refreshing.\u201D

\u2013 USA Today

So I wanted to do something really audacious \u2014 and fun and funny \u2014 to get attention for this second sequel. My idea? Two different books released simultaneously, covering the time Russel and his friends get jobs as extras working on a B-movie zombie flick being shot in their town, and the hijinks and romantic complications that ensue. One book would be told from Russel\u2019s POV (Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies) and the other from his friend Min\u2019s POV (Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies).

3a8082e126