Joelle Anthony

My agent sold my YA novel!

Details are here: http://www.joelleanthony.com

Thanks for linking to me Kerry! I've actually moved Need To Read to my website, so if you've dropped by to check out my blog, step on over here: http://www.joelleanthony.com/need-to-read

And if you're looking for my husband and his music that Kerry posted about, you can visit his myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/victoranthonymusic

cheers,
Joelle

Hi, All. This doesn't have anything to do with writing, but I've started a new blog called Sunday Soup. You can visit it here http://sundaysoup.livejournal.com/ Every Sunday my husband and I have an open house and I make soup and bread. This blog is all about it.

cheers,
Joelle

Hi, Everyone,
Thanks to those of you who stopped by with questions for the agent Elana Roth last week. The Q&A is now posted on my website and if you want to know more about her or agenting in general, stop by and have a look. Also, today, Tuesday, from 3-5pm EASTERN you can ask a comment in the comment section and Elana will do her best to answer it. I hope you'll stop by!

cheers,
Joelle
http://www.joelleanthony.com 

^Q&A

This is very big and very exciting! Elana Roth, a new agent at Firebrand Literary has agreed to answer your burning questions. Well, okay, only the ones pertaining to writing, the writing business, publishing, agenting, query letters, etc. If you’re in the market for an agent, this is an excellent opportunity to find out more about Elana and see if she might be a good match for you.

Here’s how it works. You go to my contact page and send me your question (if you have more than one, there will probably be time to ask it live later on, so just send the one you want answered the most). I am accepting questions until 5pm Eastern time on Friday, March 21st. Elana will do her best to answer them all and I will post her answers right here on Tuesday, March 25th. On Tuesday, during a dedicated time period (to be determined), you can post additional questions in the comments section and Elana will do her best to answer those too.

Here’s a little about Elana Roth:
Elana is graduate of Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary, and is nearly at her 10 year mark in New York City. She started her career at Nickelodeon Magazine, researching wacky and even gross stories. Most recently, she just finished a 5 year stint as an editor at Parachute Publishing, where she worked on R.L. Stine’s Rotten School and many other series for kids of all ages. She has recently joined Firebrand Literary and if you’re interested in querying her, please follow their guidelines.

Again, please use my contact page to help me keep everything straight. Thanks!

You know you’ve made it when someone asks you to guest blog on their fabulous website! Okay, okay…I volunteered while she’s away on her book tour, but just the same, stop by Eileen Cook’s website where yours truly is guest blogging about the difference between the YA we grew up on, and the YA available today.

Oh, and make sure you come back here on Friday (if not before). I’ll be interviewing writer, Alan Gratz, author of SAMURAI SHORTSTOP and SOMETHING ROTTEN.

Something's got me mad and it will make you mad too. Stop by my website to get yourself riled up.

Joelle
http://www.joelleanthony.com

If you're at all interested, I've finished my lovely writing room and I've got before and after pictures on my website.

cheers,
Joelle
http://www.joelleanthony.com

Who am I to refuse to answer questions (and maybe win a prize)? This comes from http://thebookbinge.blogspot.com/2008/01/holiday-contest-brought-to-you-by-book.html

Christmas Meme:

1. What is your favorite Christmas romance to re-read each year? I don't have a specific book, but we usually break out a Betsy-Tacy book and read one of the Christmas chapters.

2. What is your favorite Christmas movie/show? Like everyone else, I'm a big fan of A Christmas Story.

3. What is your favorite Christmas cookie? My mum's almost all butter cookies. She makes them using powdered sugar so they melt in your mouth.

4. When do you start Christmas shopping? November.

5. Do you re-gift? Absolutely!

6. What is your favorite Christmas song? My husband's Christmas song that he wrote for Christmas at the Almanac Music Hall (http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-At-Almanac-Music-Hall/dp/B000S57ZJQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1198919520&sr=8-1) - It's Christmas Time Again.

7. When do you get your Christmas tree? We have a silver tree with a spinning light from the sixties that was my husband's when he was a little kid. We leave it up until March or so...by then someone usually knocks it over so we put it away.

8. Wrapping presents: Love it or hate it? Wishy-washy...

9. Who is the hardest person to buy for? My husband. He has very little in the way of great wants.

10. Christmas tree: Real or artificial? Artificial, see above.

I've written about all of these books on my website since I last posted here, if you're interested:

LOVE IS A MANY TROUSERED THING
GENTLE'S HOLLER
IF WE KISS
MISSING YOU
GEMINI SUMMER
CODE NAME CASSANDRA
SAFE HOUSE
 
http://joelleanthony.com/need-to-read

The only bad thing about this book is I’m done reading it and I wish I had three hundred more pages to read. This is an amazing book, full of hilarious but very authentic characters, vivid detail and amazing writing. I finished it earlier today and while I was putting the groceries away I kept finding myself thinking, “I have to get this done so I can go read my book.” and then I would realize that I already finished it. Get it. Read it. Love it. It is Canadian YA, but is available in the US, so get going!

visit my website at http://www.joelleanthony.com

I believe this is Lawrence’s first book, but he has had many published since it came out, including two sequels. He was recently nominated for The Governor General’s Award in Canada for his latest offering, Gemini Summer. Because Lawrence and I live in the same neck of the woods, and my new librarian pal told me she’d introduce us, I thought I better get reading! This one was available off the shelf, so I started with it. It’s a very exciting book and while I guess you could call it a boy book, anyone with a sense of adventure will like it. So get reading! What are you waiting for?

I'm in contemporary YA fiction overload and will probably read something like Nevil Shute or John Rowe Townsend just to give myself a break from high school. However, I did just read ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE, WAR AND HIGH SCHOOL by Janette Rallison. It was very funny (as usual) and a nice twist on Taming of the Shrew (no violence!).

And then, last night, I read the new Meg Cabot book, PANTS ON FIRE. Very typical Cabot chick lit, not too many surprises, but funny. I read it in one sitting and I'm still thinking about bits of it. All in all, a lighthearted way to spend Saturday night. Ahhh...just like high school...dateless and reading on Saturday night. Of course, my husband probably wouldn't have appreciated it if I'd had a date anyway. :-)

I know I'm slow, but I've just discovered Meg Cabot's Where-R-You series. The thing is, for some reason, I thought it was going to be kind of gross or yucky, you know...missing children? So I'd always just skipped over it. Turns out it's more like The Mediator series which is my favorite of hers! I just race through the first one, WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES. How fun! Must see about getting the rest, but I'll have to alternate them with other books or I start dreaming about this stuff. Do series do that to you? It's like I get so wrapped up in them, it's all I can think about.

I will say right off that I’m a huge Rachel Vail fan because her books are so good. I can’t tell you why I like this one so much because I don’t want to spoil anything, but it is definitely one for your reading list. If you’ve read it and want to talk about it, drop me an email.

Funny. Hilarious. Laugh out loud. Need I say more? Okay, I will.

This is a book about a girl who wants to be an actress, and it takes place primarily in her high school theatre department. And for once, it's well done. I know that I may sound like a snob, but there are a zillion books out there that take place in high school theatre departments and they are usually lame, inaccurate, use the wrong terms, unbelievable, or rely on the same old thing as the rest of them. This is not any of these things. Probably because the author clearly did theatre herself. I mean, I could tell that without the blurb in the back that says:

Janette Rallison was in various dramatic productions in high school. She loved to be in the spotlight and actually wanted to be an actress....and so on and so forth.

Well, duh. She knows her stuff. Oh, and if you don't know my history, then you might be wondering who am I to judge other people's theatre books...well, I have a BA in theatre and was a professional actress for a while. Also my husband has worked as a professional actor for the last four years, so I think I'm qualified to say that you just don't call it "play practice" unless the character doesn't know any better. What I mean is a student might call it that, but if your drama teacher supposedly acted on Broadway, well, they would call it rehearsal. I know we can't be experts on everything, but some things you really have to know about to write authentically about.*

Anyway, enough of my rant, back to the book. I seriously had a smile on my face the whole time I read it. And this morning, when I woke up and the power was out, I was thrilled! I built a fire in the woodstove and went back to bed with the book and read it until I was done. I even ate my lunch in bed while reading it (sorry about the crumbs to the husband)

I am looking forward to reading more of Rallison's books.

*In the back of Kathleen Karr's book BOXER is a photo of her actually boxing. You can tell when you read the story that she knows about boxing and she didn't get it from a book.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, or visited my website recently, you will have seen my list of my favorite books of 2006. These are books I read that year, not necessarily written then. Anyway, one of them was the historical fiction young adult novel, GILBERT AND SULLIVAN SET ME FREE by Kathleen Karr. I'm happy to say, she's done it again (although, this book came out in 2000, so maybe I should say, "she's done it previously".)

This is a fantastic read. Karr has a way of just dropping you right into 1880's New York City and letting you mix with the world of her characters. This is a great read for anyone, but a boy - maybe even a reluctant reader boy - would find this an especially good read. I highly recommend it!

I finished the third book in the series on Victorian London (A LONDON HOME IN THE 1890s) and I think I might've liked it the most. The author visited the World's Fair in Chicago in the 1890's, traveled to Switzerland for many weeks on 15 pounds, and got married. It was an extremely enjoyable read.

Today, I read my critique partner's manuscript and then I have a big stack of library books to start on. All after writing, of course! Yay, more YA. I can't believe the nonfiction binge I've been on, and it's been fun, but I do miss my YA.

A few months ago I stumbled upon a boxed set of books in a used bookstore. I can't tell you why they interested me, and I can't tell you why I had to have them, but I bought them anyway and I'm finding them extremely enjoyable. They are three memoirs entitled A LONDON CHILD OF THE 1870s, A LONDON GIRL OF THE 1880s, and A LONDON HOME OF THE 1890s. I believe they were published in the late 1930s-early 1940s.

The author is a learned scholar and while her stories are often amusing, many, many of them go over my head. There are lots of anecdotes that end with a punchline that references either a literary classic, something in Latin, something in Greek, or something of the time period of which I am absolutely ignorant. But there is enough here to keep me turning pages rapidly. It hasn't been that long since I was in London, so I can sometimes imagine bits and pieces of her descriptions, which is always fun.There is a lot in this book about Cambridge too, and I was there last fall (very briefly) which makes it sort of personal to me.

What I find interesting is the fact that they live in East London and to them, West London might as well be another city. That was the transportation factor of the time period. I think about how I whizzed around from one part of London to the other lickety-split with my tube card and how it was a journey to them to do what we do in a few minutes now. Not to mention the expense!

One part that struck me in particular was only about two pages long. It was about the fear they had living in London while Jack the Ripper was about. You read so much history, and hear stories and theories nowadays, but reading just that short passage made it real somehow. You could feel her fear coming back to her as she wrote about it thirty years later.

Anyway, if this is your sort of thing, you might want to have a look about for these books. I'll post about the third one if I have any more to say on it.