So once every week or so with no warning, I do a live webcast on blogtv. I just post the link to my twitter, and sometimes I'll upload a quick temporary video about it, and then people come.

Yesterday, I read a lot of poetry--Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson and e.e. cummings and Yeats--and then we talked about each poem for a few minutes. Shortish poems are ideal for these discussions, because I can read them a couple times and everyone can be on basically the same page pretty quickly.

I also called my unprecedentedly brilliant editor Julie Strauss-Gabel and let a couple thousand people pepper her with questions. She then told everyone the terrible dark secret that often when Julie reads early drafts of my manuscripts, I will annotate sections with [make funnier] or [will fix later] or [something like this but not this].

The live show also featured a long period in which I answered questions asked via twitter or inside blogtv's fast-scrolling chat, and somehow I missed several interesting Q's, so I thought I'd provide A's now.

Q. Noticed that Into the Wild is in the acknowledgments of Paper Towns and been curious about your opinion of Chris McCandless?
A. I think McCandless made poor choices, but I also think he made defensible choices. This is the discomforting thing about the disappeared--they make us examine why we have chosen the world. The disappeared undercut a lot of our assumptions about what constitutes a successfully lived life, and their choices shouldn't be too easily dismissed. I think McCandless (like Margo) was young and a little stupid. Even so, their choices took a kind of courage that mine haven't. It reminds me of what Housman wrote about a different kind of courage:

"Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young."

Q. why do you have so many Jews in your books?
I don't know. I have a lot of Christians and Muslims, too. I've definitely shown a bias toward monotheism. I'll work on that.

Q. Could you please grow a beard?
A. Sarah says no.

Q. If I haven't read in awhile, how do I get back into it?
A. Start by trying to read either The Hunger Games or The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon. If neither of those work, we'll take a different strategy. Let me know.

Q. Is it weird having so many teens looking up to you as a role model?
A. It's a great honor to have a seat at someone's table, but let's not exaggerate our significance by for instance using the royal we: Most of these tables have (and should have!) lots of seats.

Q. What is your view on Jessica Simpons' weight gain?
A. When I look deep down into the very core of my being, into the darkness which is me, I truly do not give a shit.

Q. Have you seen the Australian cover of Paper Towns?
A. Yes! Paper Towns just came out in Australia. Yay! Thanks Australia!


Oh, and also! You can see some more q&a'ing here. As always, you can leave any questions you might have in comments.