NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL: Book Party on Feb 1!

Please celebrate my third novel, North of Beautiful today when it hits the shelves. What better way to celebrate than a party?

Where: Barnes & Noble in Bellevue, WA, 626 106th Ave. NE, (425) 451-8464

Why: North of Beautiful, of course!

When: Sunday, February 1, 3-5 p.m.

If you can’t make it to the party, but still want the book, pop into your favorite bookstore or order it from www.bn.com, www.amazon.com, and www.indiebound.org. Drop me an email at justina [at] justinachenheadley [dot] com by Feb. 14, and I’ll snail mail you an autographed bookplate.

Tell the world what True Beauty really means!

Just shoot a 90-second video describing what’s truly beautiful to you—your friends, your family, your world, your favorite book, yourself!

Load your video on YouTube and you could win great prizes, including a cool iPod Touch! PLUS, Justina will donate $10 for every uploaded video (up to $1,000) to Global Surgical Outreach to help fund facial surgeries for kids in the third world.

Here's what to do:

1. Shoot your 90-second video and post on YouTube.

2. Send a link to north [at] marthabee [dot] com and we'll upload it to the North of Beautiful channel.

3. Get your friends to vote on your video!

4. Check out all the rules on Justina's website!

www.youtube.com/northofbeautiful

Sweethearts & Girl Overboard

Look at the Valentine's Day ad that Little, Brown Books created for Sara Zarr's SWEETHEARTS and my GIRL OVERBOARD. How sweet is that. Now, I just need to find the cookie on Sara's book cover.

Poetry Friday: I Didn't Know

I Didn't Know
by T.Y. Headley

I didn't know I loved the woods,
rustling and murmuring to me.
I didn't know I loved the streams,
bublling, whispering, and flowing.
I didn't know I loved the trails,
winding, circling, observing, guiding.
I didn't know I loved the wind,
running through the morning.
I didn't know I loved the animals,
scurrying through the undergrowth
curious to the last.

Find Beauty Challenge

So...I vowed to tie community service to every book I publish. In honor of the imminent release of NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL, I'm giving you a sneak peek at the FIND BEAUTY CHALLENGE.


You tell the world what's really beautiful to you.
In 90 seconds.
On YouTube.

You might win fabulous prizes...like an iTouch.
AND you help a child in a third world country.

More soon...

A shout out to:

• Little, Brown Books for Young Readers to helping with the prizes!
• Kim Edberg for creating the logo!
• Martha Brockenbrough for manning the YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/northofbeautiful.

NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL: Book Blog Tours

Please visit me on my Book Blog Tours for North of Beautiful.

Week One was coordinated by the Beautiful Mitali Perkins in the midst of her own book tour for Secret Keeper.


NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL BOOK BLOG TOUR

February 2: Kickoff at Mitali's Fire Escape


February 3: Shelf Elf, Kerry Millar


February 4: Archimedes Forgets, Sarah Rettger


February 5: Bibliophile, Jennifer Rothschild


February 6: Teen Book Review, Jocelyn

Week Two of my Book Blog Tour was spearheaded by Sara Easterly. Is she not glowing miraculously, especially given having just had a baby? (And if you like her orange baby bag, thank you very much! I claim that one: I special ordered that one for her, bugging the designer so that my girl got the FIRST one. Sara also coordinated the Seattle portion of my Girl Overboard tour.)

February 9: The Bluestocking Society

February 10: Mythbuster Beauty http://www.mythbusterbeauty.com

February 11: MotherDaughterBookClub.com

February 13: Stephanie's Books

Today I am thankful for girlfriends who say, "Justina, let us celebrate."

Numbers & Nibbles

A few weeks ago, I blogged about My Mountain--knowing what I want and how I'm working toward getting there.

As part of that, I hosted a workshop at my house last night: NUMBERS & NIBBLES--What Every Woman Needs to Know About Her Money. My girlfriend, Sherilyn Anderson, a VP of Goldman Sachs, shared her thoughts.

Here are the best tidbits of many, many:
1. Women need to be physically fit AND fiscally fit. Know your budget: what you have in the bank, what you're saving, what you're spending.

2. Save now for your future. That $3 latte could be $50 that you could have saved in the future!

3. Visualize retirement: what kind of life do we want to be living? (I want to be in a condo, still writing every day!) Know your budget for that retirement. Take that number and divide by 0.035. That's The Number you must have as your net worth to fund your retirement.

Today I am grateful for my friends who share their smarts.

Purpose Driven Society

I loved what my brother, Dave Chen, wrote on his blog as he reflected on Inauguration Day. Just imagine that: our country, a Purpose-Driven society. That we lived by our old values of kindness. Empathy. Citizenship. That our public policy and foreign policy reflected that.

Obama won’t return our nation to its past glories, but he can do something even greater, and that is lead us to our next greatness.

as he has already said many times…and we may not be hearing him…we need to translate that hope into the true grit that gives us the resolve to tackle these very real, deep changes in big parts of our culture, society, and economy…all in the backdrop of a very much changed new world order and physical environment.

will he lead us into a “new” contract with americans…and the world. maybe to steal a concept from rick warren: will he lead us to build a purpose driven society


Today I am grateful for a new face for America, for hope, for our next greatness.