Interview with Andrea Howells & Leah Beth Evans

I recently read two children's books, written by two young authors. I can't imagine my kids writing and publishing a book, so I wanted to ask these young ladies a few questions. I will be posting my review of their books in the next few days.

Andrea Howells

At what age did you start writing?
10

Do you plan on writing more books?
ON DIFFERENT TOPICS MOST LIKELY

Where did you get the idea for your story?

IT CAME FROM A DREAM AND FROM ALL MY OTHER READINGS

Did you help with the design (book cover, illustration)?

YES I DESIGNED THE COVER AND THE ART WORK

What are your favorite things to write about?

FANTASY LIKE WEREWOLVES AND CURRENTLY INTO STEAMPUNK



Laura Beth Evans

At what age did you start writing?

I began writing before i even went to kindergarten

Do you plan on writing more books?

I have actually written quite a few other stories.I hope to someday get them published.

Where did you get the idea for your story?

I thought of it after reading about the rainforest in my 4th grade class.

Did you help with the design (book cover, illustration)?

No,all credit goes to Colleen for this question. She did such a wonderful job!

What are your favorite things to write about?

I like writing about anything that just comes to my mind. But generally my writing consists of children's stories, religious and artistic poems(music,theatre,etc.)that i can relate to, and occasionally mystery stories.

~ And Then Everything Unraveled Review ~

Title: And Then Everything Unraveled
Author: Jennifer Sturman
Released: July 1, 2009
Rating:
Synopsis: Delia Truesdale has no idea her life’s about to change forever. She’s too busy enjoying the California summer. Her Internet tycoon mother, T.K. Truesdale, is out of town, and that means Delia can spend all her time at the beach, surfing.

That is, until everything unravels. Her mother suddenly goes missing, and everyone thinks she’s dead — except Delia, who knows T.K.’s way too organized to simply disappear. But Delia’s still sent to New York to live with her two aunts — a downtown bohemian and an uptown ice queen. And in case that’s not bad enough, she also has to deal with a snooty new school and trying not to fall for the wrong guy. Oh, and finding her mother.

As she delves deeper into the tangle of conspiracies and lies surrounding T.K.’s disappearance, Delia begins to suspect that the wrong guy may be the right guy ... and that some secrets — especially the dangerous ones — were never meant to be unraveled.

I have to admit that I loved the setting mostly because I grew up in Silicon Valley. I remember the start-up internet families living in their McMansions with Priuses parked in their driveways. This is the world that sixteen-year-old Delia lived in until a tragic accident left her mother missing. Because her father had already passed away, Delia found herself at the mercy of her mother's will which stated that Delia would move to New York City. The will also stated that while Delia will live with the bohemian aunt, Charley, her education will be in the hands of her mother's other sister, the no-nonsense, social climbing Patience. The interactions between the extreme personalities of Charlie and Patience create some of the best scenes and dialogues in the book.

So, you can imagine Delia's shock in switching not only lifestyles, from surfing on the West Coast to shopping around SoHo in New York, but also the dramatic switch in schools. Enrolled in what was both her mother's and aunts' private school of choice, she meets new friends - the geeky genius Natalie and the helpful and handsome Quinn. Together the three friends begin to piece together what happened to her mother. While everyone else, assumes that she died, Delia with the help of a quirky psychic and an equally quirky detective begins to solve the mystery of clues her mother left behind.

I thoroughly enjoyed Delia's voice, which was consistently smart, funny and very logical. I liked the secondary characters and the setting. Why the three stars? Well, the ending. The ending reminded me of those After School Specials. You know, the two part ones? This book uses exactly that style of ending. There are still lots of loose unresolved plot points and I almost expected to see a page titled - "on next week's episode of...".

But, if you like a young adult novel with a tinge of mystery and smart quirky characters, by all means pick up And Then Everything Unraveled. Just don't expect things to be tied up in the end.

My Trip to Oprah

WOW, the day is finally here, New Moon Premieres tonight at midnight!!!! I cant wait to hear what y'all think of it!! As some of you may have heard, I went to the Oprah show last Friday that Stephenie Meyer, author of The Twilight Saga, was a guest talking about The Saga and the movies. I went with a fellow TwilightMOMS moderator who was the one who got the tickets. We had a BLAST! (It's things like this that make me LOVE TwilightMOMS that much more!) And here's my account of the events and then my No Spoiler Review of the movie.

Sara (sheacox) and I (secsec1) had a once in a lifetime experience on Friday, November 13, we got to see Stephenie Meyer LIVE at the Oprah Show. The experience started on Thursday when the audience attending the show got a prescreening of New Moon at a theater in Chicago. Sara and I met at the theater (this was the first time we’d ever met, we have been chatting online for a few months, but we had never met) and then spent our time chatting in line chatting about EVERYTHING. Once in the theater we it was kind of starting to sink in that we were about to see the movie that we’d been waiting a year to see, and then we found out we were going to watch it with Stephenie Meyer!!! That’s right, about 5 minutes before the movie was supposed to start, I noticed the emergency exit door open and the cameras pointing at it like someone was about to come out the door. So Sara and I start speculating, is it Stephenie or Chris (we had hear Chris Weitz, New Moon Director, might be in town also), it was Stephenie. She announced that this was her first time seeing the movie in its completion and with an audience. She was sitting about 5 rows behind where Sara and I were sitting. (Non-spoiler review to follow). Sara and I were still pinching ourselves on our way out of the movie.

The next morning we got up early to head into Chicago to go to the taping of The Oprah Show. We got there when we were supposed to, but we were towards the end of the line. But it was fun chatting with all the people in line. We talked about The Saga and explained it to people who didn’t know anything about it. Sara talked about how she teaches the books in her classroom and we also just talked about life in general. When we got to go into the studio, it was mostly full but we still got GREAT seats. We were sitting on stage left right next to the railing 3 rows up. The seats allowed us to see Stephenie as she talked (Oprah had her back to us) and gave us a great view of the whole show! Stephenie gave away the boxed set of The Saga to a school on the show, and the audience also got in on the fun, we also received the Boxed Set! As Stephenie and Oprah left the stage, they both walked right by where we were sitting, it was pretty cool! If you have the show DVRed or recorded, and want to take a second look, you can see us towards the end during while the karaoke winner is singing. Oprah comes over and stands by our section and listens and when they pan to her, you can see us (I’m wearing a red shirt and Sara is to my left as you look at the TV, I have a red streamer in my face for a few seconds). This is at about minute 53 or so.
After the show we received our books and were told to head over to the Oprah store because Stephenie was doing a signing for the audience. So we head over and get in line. Stephenie personalized each book and chatted with the fans as they went through the line. When we got up to her, we said we were TwilightMOMS and she seemed super excited to meet us and told us to say hi to Lisa and Georgia (our founder and one of our amazing admin!). We were able to get some pictures of her signing, but no pictures with her.
Sara and I ended our day with some lunch and relived our fangirl moments that we’d had over the last 24 hrs. It was a great two days and we can’t WAIT everyone to see the movie, we are DIEING to talk about it!!!!!

Non Spoiler Review:

Start to finish New Moon is AMAZING!!!!!!! Everything works so well together and Chris Weitz does a wonderful directing job. He really captured the spirit and the feel of New Moon the book. Sara and I sat in aw of the entire thing and are super excited to see it again on the 20th! It’s full of action, love and heart break, if you cried reading the book, you will cry watching the movie, so bring some tissues!!!! This is very much a movie for both Team Edward and Team Jacob fans alike.

Twilight on Oprah (more videos and discussion with Stephenie!)