We here at Kidlit Network are THRILLED to announce that Michelle Schusterman’s THE EX-KAT series has sold to Penguin!!!!

From Publisher’s Marketplace:

Michelle Schusterman’s THE EX-KAT FILES, about a girl who blogs her way around the world’s spookiest locations as she follows her father, host of a ghost-hunting web show, only to receive ominous warnings and discover that the show has a sinister and mysterious past that threatens them all, again to Jordan Hamessley at Grosset & Dunlap, in a three-book deal, for publication in Summer 2015, by Sarah Davies at the Greenhouse Literary Agency (World excluding UK).

A longer blurb:

When Kat Laskey’s dad tells her his new job is hosting the web show Local Haunts and they’ll be living on the road visiting the world’s most haunted places, Kat packs her bags without a second thought. To keep her Grandma (a self-proclaimed spook-a-holic) and her friends back in Ohio up to date on her adventures, Kat starts her own blog: The Ex-Kat Files, with “a behind the scenes look at the creepiest show on the web.”

But the ghostbusting life isn’t as glamorous as Kat expected. The show has gone through three hosts in three seasons, and it’s on a tight budget thanks to deadly low ratings. Plus, Kat still has to deal with school – and an annoying classmate, the producer’s nephew Oscar Bettencourt. Oscar’s habit of playing pranks that involve scary masks and a lot of screaming is not something she finds amusing.

But Oscar seems to be pretty serious when he tells Kat about the curse. At first, Kat doesn’t believe his stories about why the previous three hosts left the show. But the more she looks into it, the more they sound like classic cases of possession. And her dad is starting to act kind of strange. Even weirder is the fact that The Ex-Kat Files is getting a ton of comments from fans of the show…but one anonymous commenter has some ominous warnings. The more Kat digs, the more she realizes Local Haunts has a dark past all its own. And saving her dad – and the show – means facing the skeletons in all of their closets.

Lucky us *wink wink* Michelle Schusterman is none other than KLN’s MiSchu: the other better half of this blog’s hosts! So naturally, KLN gets the first scoop!

The Ex-Kat FilesTell us a little about your main character, Kat. Why is it EX-Kat in the title?

Better half my foot, lady. 🙂

Kat is “Ex-Kat” for three reasons! First, the title (both of the book and her blog) is a play on “The X-Files” – appropriate for a girl investigating paranormal phenomena. Second, Kat’s living abroad – aka, an “ex-pat.” (Fun word play is fun.) And third…I won’t give away the farm here, but the “ex” does have another, more personal meaning to Kat.

Though you don’t have a cover to reveal yet, word is they are going to be something pretty unique and cool. Can you give us some details?

Yes! The series will be in a “paper over board” format (hardcover without jackets, ala Gustav Gloom or A Series of Unfortunate Events). And rumor has it there may or may not be effects. (Like this.)

(I’m a little bit way excited about that part!!)

Kat’s show involves her traipsing all over to check out the haunted locales. Are you an avid traveler yourself? What’s the creepiest place you’ve visited?

I was an ex-pat for a few years, and that experience is definitely what inspired Kat’s story. (The ghosts came later!) Creepiest places I’ve visited, hmmm…a 15th century cemetery in Glasgow in winter, a former slave market in Salvador at night, Alcatraz – oh! And once I played a game of poker with a ghost in Seattle. He won. True story.

Thank you Amanda!!!!!

😀