Introducing...Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser's New Web Series: MY DARKLYNG!

So I'm a really big fan of Lauren Mechling's Dream Girl and Dream Life: they are just such smart, well-written, and funny teen chick lit of sorts with a dash of the magical/paranormal. So when Lauren let me know that she has another project coming out, I was super excited about it! What's cool and different about it is that it's being serialized on the web! Check out what Lauren has to say about MY DARKLYNG (plus find out the fun premise behind the story), and then read an exclusive interview with one of the real teens who plays one of the characters!

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Laura Moser (my hilarious 10th Grade Social Climber co-author) and I are co-writing a teen thriller that will be running in serialized form all summer long on the web site Slate. It is called MY DARKLYNG and it will publish on Fridays, starting today, June 4.

My Darklyng is a creepy thriller about a normal 16-year old-girl named Natalie who, as embarrassing as it may be, obsessed with the "Dark Shadows" vampire series. She ends up becoming friends with the gorgeous cover model on every "Dark Shadows" book and gets sucked into the Dark Shadows world. It's a dream come true--until her life starts to get really scary and crumble apart.

It's unlike anything I've ever written before--and not just because it isn't a comedy. We wanted to give the story an element of texture that's impossible to do when you're working on a regular printed book. So we have real teenagers "playing" the characters--they are making videos, photographs and keeping Twitter and Facebook pages. Follow the characters so you can follow the ups and downs of Natalie's life in between publication days. Here are the Twitter pages--they're really fun so far.

@eternalnat (main character Natalie Pollock)
@mydarklyng (the demented and brilliant vampire author Fiona St. Claire)
@tillax (Fiona's sweet supportive sister Tilly)
@thejameskay (the vampire cover model James Kay).

The big multiplatform YA thriller MY DARKLYNG launches today on Slate, You can read chapters here--and new chapters will be posted every Friday. So definitely bookmark the page!

Being a multimedia bonanza, the project also has Twitter feeds, videos, photographs, Wikipedia pages, and more. There are also real live teenage girls playing the main characters. I am presenting you an exclusive interview with Hannah, who plays the main character Natalie and is also serving as our art director. She's been taking buckets of photographs to go along with the story. (You can watch them--along with some truly scary pix--upload on her Facebook page here.)

Without further ado. . .

What's your name? Hannah Grosman [girl on the right in the picture]


How old are you? 16

How did you meet Lauren? I actually met her through my school. She graduated from the school that I go to and wanted someone from here to help.

What's your take on this weird multimedia project? Do you think kids will be into it? I think it's AWESOME! The multimedia side of the project is so different than anything else that I've ever seen, and it will definitely attract a lot of readers.

Whats your favorite cheesy YA book? I'd definitely have to say that my favorite YA novels are the Twilight series. Who doesn't love vampires?!

What kinds of pictures have you been taking? I've been taking the type of pictures that my friends and I would take for our own Facebook pages. They are quirky and cute shots that show Natalie and her friends joking around and being teenagers!

Whats the biggest similarity between you and Natalie? It's actually quite scary how similar Natalie and I are... we both have secret obsession with nerdy books, we both run track, the similarities are endless!

Biggest difference? Natalie is way cooler than I am! I absolutely adore her character.

[For the record Hannah is totally lying. She's The Coolest.]

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Thanks, Lauren and Hannah, for visiting my blog today! Be sure to keep your eyes open on the blogosphere for other guest posts regarding this series, and above all, check it out on Slate!