Jo Knowles's Blog, page 61

I lied again :-) Friday 5 edition

Next week is going to be even more crazy than this week. So, I'm going to attempt to do this now. :-)
Here's the run down of fantastic books I've read lately:

1. Bug Boy, by Eric Luper ( eluper)

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I am so excited that I got a chance to read Eric's wonderful book. I LOVED all the details about the horse-racing business—how young some of the kids were who worked at the tracks, all the shady dealings that went on, how the horses were treated, the lengths the jockeys went to in order

Craft, Career & Cheer

Cynthia Leitich Smith has posted our interview up as part of her Craft, Career and Cheer series.

Thanks, Cyn! It was a huge honor to participate.

I lied

I'm not going to have time this week to say more about the awesome books I mentioned last week. But next week I will for sure!

2 weeks left of summer vacation. This makes me very sad, though it'll be good to get back into a real writing routine and actually get some work done. :-)

Recently my books had a nice mention in EarlyWord: The Publisher/Librarian Connection titled, "Crossover." It's funny because I hadn't thought of my books in that way. But I like it! ;-)

This is also about the third time

Book Launch Picnic :-)

It started with preparing lots and lots of food, fretting about the impending rain, and worrying if anyone would come or if too many people would come and would be miserable crammed in our house and what to do with all the kids if they couldn't play outside. In short, I was kind of a wreck. ;)

First to arrive were Ferrilyn and Dave, who brought a lot of fresh corn. Here's Dave trying to fit it all in one pot. We ended up using two.


F & D arrived early to help us set up. Here is the table BEFORE pe

Friday!

I can't believe how many good books I've read lately. I tried to do a post about them and link to Indiebound, but I'm having trouble and don't have time to figure it out. So I promise next week I'll make lots of recommendations. :-) Hint: They are written by LJ-ers eluper, melissawyatt and metteharrison. :-)

Next up:



Rebecca and I did a book swap and I am SO EXCITED to read this. I'm loving all the incredible buzz it's getting.

In entertainment news, we are having a huge party here tomorrow to cele

Libba Bray is Going Bovine

Oh, how I love Libba Bray.

Here is one reason why: http://shelf-life.ew.com/2009/08/19/libba-bray-going-bovine-trailer/

Another reason, besides the fact that she is:

a. brilliant
b. kind
c. funny
d. beautiful inside and out
e. giving
f. musical
g. able to eat pixie sticks

and about 5 million other things, is that she is just a good person. And she deserves every awesome thing that comes her way.

Watch the trailer. Behold the bravery and the brilliance. And then pre-order GOING BOVINE, which is going to be

Salt Lake City Retreat/Family Reunion

This past weekend I went to my agent's annual retreat in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is what the view looked like from my hotel room:


We ate lunch on this deck:


And looked out at this:


But incredibly enough, we actually got a lot done. Every day we had meetings with different topics and people with various expertise shared their knowledge. Here are Shannon and Dean Hale explaining what it's like to collaborate on a project. They felt it was best to explain via interpretive dance.

They are my new hero

Giving thanks and a send off

August 11 is finally here! And Jumping Off Swings is finally out in the world. So much in my life has changed since I began working on this book back in, oh, what was it? 2001 maybe? My toddler is 10. I live in a new house, in a new state. I have an agent who is also a dear friend. And I've met all of you.

Thank you everyone, who traveled along this journey with me. And thank you for letting me travel on yours. I hope you will hit the little speaker on the slideshow below, because the song is so

Please let this be real!

This morning when I checked my e-mail there was a Google Alert for Jumping Off Swings. I know, I know, I really should turn these things off. And that's exactly what I thought as I clicked the message, getting that familiar feeling of dread that it may not be good news. And then I saw that it was a link to Publisher's Weekly, and I REALLY kicked myself for not turning alerts off. Because in my head, I was thinking there was no way they would ever like my book. But in my alerts you can see the fi

Guest Blog at Teenreads

Greetings from NH!

I found out yesterday that my blog post is up at TeenReads, in which I try to answer a hard question.

I am very nervous about it.

I've also had two cups of coffee this morning and feel extremely wired.

That is all.

:-)