Joy Preble's Blog, page 49

Thanks to everyone who participated in the "Who's your Favorite Werewolf" contest in honor of the release of Judith Grave's debut YA, Under My Skin! Lots of werewolf love going out to Shiver's Sam, with some mention of a couple of old favorites like Buffy's Oz and Michael J Fox as Teen Wolf from the classic and kitschy (who doesn't love some good kitsch?) movie of the same name. And my pal Beth gave a great shout out to the uber cool not quite a wolf but definitely a shape shifter Sam Merlott...

Today I'm welcoming Class of 2k10 co-prez, Judith Graves, whose YA paranormal, Under My Skin, has just released from Leap Books! Judith and her cohort in crime Kitty have been my mentees (is that even a word?) this year. (Oh, yeah, cause 7 1/2 months of a book on a shelf makes me a freakin' expert!) But I digress. And once I un-digress, make sure to read to the bottom because we're doing a VERY COOL giveaway in honor of UMS!! Check. it. out below!

First, a little about the book - and check out...

If you ask, you receive! And so I did - pictures from TLA. Thanks to Tanya Adams at Follett for sending along the first one of me signing a few extra books for them and to Stephanie Pellegrin for the second one!

Me at the Follett Booth - right before they gave me the three chocolate bars
Me and Steph Pellegrin... and what's that book called again?

Tomorrow, I'll be interviewing Judith Graves about her debut, Under My Skin, so drop by the old blog to find out how things are going for her...

If you read this blog, you know that the good and bad of my world have quite collided lately ( ie - book 2 contract/thyroid cancer and surgery) So I really wasn't sure if I'd make TLA this year. (for the uninitiated - Texas Library Association conference) A number of weeks ago, my wonderful little team at Sourcebooks had arranged for me to sign Dreaming Anastasia at the Follett booth. The Follett folks have a huge booth, know all you wonderful librarians intimately and just put on a great sho...

Well, this is it! Our last installment of my interview with girl genius cover artist Cathleen Elliott. Thank you Cathleen, for taking time to answer all my questions, share your work secrets and super secret raw images. And thanks to all my peeps at Sourcebooks for finding and hiring Cathleen to create the Dreaming Anastasia and Haunted covers! I could drag this out, but I won't. Without further ado, here's the rest of what Cathleen said. And at the end - don't cheat by scrolling down early!!...

Today Cathleen lets us see the covers that didn't make the cut and explains her thought process behind each one. I seriously had NO IDEA about how this works. I had, however, seen a couple of these, but not all of them. So here we go:

Here are some variations I presented for Dreaming Anastasia. It helps illustrate the strategy of what I hand in and sheds light on how a final cover is selected. In this comp you can see my attempts at turning a dark story into a bright whimsical cover. Now...

This is Cathleen Elliott - aka girl genius - aka the creator of the Dreaming Anastasia cover - aka the creator of the soon to be revealed Haunted cover. Trust me when I say, this woman rocks! Cathleen took time out of her busy artist/designer/baker/sculptor/every other creative endeavor known schedule to let me interview her about her creative process. It's beyond fascinating. During the next few days, we'll get to see how she thinks, works, and creates. She pulls back the veil on how she...

So way back in January, I was getting ready to do the Montgomery County Teen Book Festival. I was really really excited because this was a huge event and I was going to be appearing with the likes of Melissa Marr and Cassandra Clare and Sara Zarr. Big doings! Plus I was secretly working like mad to finish up Haunted, the Dreaming Anastasia sequel because although we were still negotiating the contract (a process that was, for many reasons * cough, money, cough* very slow going), the book had ...

New York! I love you. Even if I never found Cash Cab - and trust me I looked! - everything else was fabulous. Bagels at H&H and Zabars. Central Park. Top of the Rock. A green Empire State Building. Taxis and subway rides and drinks at the famous Algonquin Hotel. The Sourcebooks Fire Launch Party extravaganza at Books of Wonder. The After Party. Seeing rats the size of horses in the alley while Publicist Paul and I looked for cab. (Okay, yes, we stopped to look. Really - kinda cool.) Times...

So here's the thing about taking pictures. It works better if you upload them from your Canon elph and actually share them with people. So today I present a little photo essay update of the past month or so. (with apologies to anyone to whom I blithely said, "Hey, I blog. Can I take your picture?")
Me and the delightful Kathy Whitehead (Art from the Heart) at Houston SCBWI in Feb. More Houston SCBWI - me w/Varsha Bajaj (How Many Kisses Do You Want Tonight) & my buddy Janet Fox (Faithful ...