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Anna Sheehan

Goodreads Author

Born

in Milwaukee , The United States

Website

http://annasheehan.com/

Genre

Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy

Influences

Diana Wynne Jones

Member Since

August 2013

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To tell of myself:

As Walt Whitman said, "I am large, I contain multitudes!" The epigraph of every writer, really.

I was conceived in northern Alaska, and was born to a bohemian veterinarian mother in a hospital on the shores of Lake Michigan. I endured numerous hellish years of school, and I can say with reasonable veracity that I have forgiven all my teachers and even the poor children who had to figure out how to deal with me.

Instead of a social life, I swam in books. I became a devoted follower of Diana Wynne Jones and Douglas Adams. I studied acting and Shakespeare with the Young Shakespeare Players of Madison, Wisconsin, and it deeply impacted my direction in life. I then discovered historical re-enactment, where I hung about in velvet, ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

Your take on critical reviews - do you read them, and do they bother you?

Anna Sheehan I do read reviews, though not obsessively. Mostly I consider a review a conversation with a reader -- one sided, perhaps, but I presented them with a …moreI do read reviews, though not obsessively. Mostly I consider a review a conversation with a reader -- one sided, perhaps, but I presented them with a story, and they have a response. This means that even critical reviews are not only valuable, but very intriguing, and I welcome them as much as positive reviews, particularly when they're well thought out and cogent.

Another thing that should be made clear is that I don't expect everyone to like my books. I write things that are controversial, that are thought provoking, bittersweet, sometimes disturbing, pushing the boundaries of people's comfort zones. Someone who likes the scene where my characters get all sappy will not like the scene where there's then a major betrayal, and vice versa. This means that I expect to get a lot of luke-warm and mixed reviews, where someone liked one thing and didn't like another. I'm trying to make people think.

I very much believe that if everyone who read my books liked them then I would have done something wrong. If everyone likes it, then there's nothing thought-provoking, and all I've done is write milquetoast claptrap that is only meant to please, not meant to enrich. I hope to make some people uncomfortable, or bored, or annoyed. I expect some people will be unable to handle this or that, and will put the book down. And a good critical reader might point out something that I genuinely should have repaired in the book, and if that's the case, then it's good to know it so I can evolve as a writer.

Give me critical reviews, positive, negative, mixed, and indifferent. I expect people to think, one way or another, about my books. And every reader has the right to hate my books, and say so openly. I'm a big girl. I can take a little criticism. (less)

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Do you ever get frustrated with editing a book? say, if you've written something, and then, in editing, you suddenly come across a plot hole big enough to swim in, what do you do?

Anna Sheehan Those plot holes are easy to fix, actually -- you go back, insert, polish, add some foreshadowing, and usually 'tisn't that difficult to repair... at …moreThose plot holes are easy to fix, actually -- you go back, insert, polish, add some foreshadowing, and usually 'tisn't that difficult to repair... at least for me. I actually tend to have a more polished first draft than most authors, I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm editing in my head, I don't know. Once I got halfway through a book on a ship, got through to the climax, and realized I'd clean FORGOTTEN to put a key character -- who was about to die heroically -- onto the ship in the first place. I'd put him in the first chapter, but forgot to get him on the ship. That was the worst time I ever had rewriting in a hole. Fortunately, he was in the synopses, so I just had to find the places he was supposed to be in, and occasionally have him chirp in a line of dialogue here and there.

The worst editing job I had was on No Life But This, where my editor wanted the book to go in a direction the book didn't want to go into. I tried and tried, but the book died every time I did. It wasn't until I switched editors -- a painful and unpleasant experience, let me tell you -- that I was able to make the book come together again. Which isn't to say that you shouldn't edit your books, or if you think you can make a change you should fight your editor anyway. I always say if you can make the book better, try, and editors usually know what they're about. (less)

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Combine Editions
Anna Sheehan’s books

Average rating: 3.79 · 7,907 ratings · 1,305 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	A Long, Long Sleep (UniCorp, #1) 3.81 avg rating — 7,460 ratings — published 2011 — 32 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	No Life But This (UniCorp, #2) 3.28 avg rating — 306 ratings — published 2014 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Spinning Thorns 3.88 avg rating — 141 ratings — published 2015 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Untitled Sheehan 3 of 3 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Untitled Sheehan 3 of 3 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Anna Sheehan's Blog

A Long Long Sleep for a Low Low Price

In good news for my American readers, my first novel – A Long Long Sleep – is on special offer again. Purchase links for Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, iBooks, and Kobo can be found in Candlewick Press’ e-Volt newsletter here.

The special price of $1.99 ends at the end of the month but, if you subscribe to future editions of the newsletter, you’ll get a new set of deals in your inbox in

Series by Anna Sheehan

UniCorp (2 books)
by

Anna Sheehan (Goodreads Author)

3.79 avg rating — 7,766 ratings

Quotes by Anna Sheehan (?)

“I haven't finished revisiting Sleeping Beauty. As a faerie tale, that one is rife with inherent difficulties. After all, the world doesn't stop just because one person is asleep.”
― Anna Sheehan, A Long, Long Sleep

tags: fairy-tales, legends, sleeping-beauty, young-adult

60 likes

“I am free. I am haunted. But if nothing else, I am wide awake.”
― Anna Sheehan, A Long, Long Sleep

tags: rose-fitzroy

59 likes

“I didn't want the sun to rise. I didn't want the world to continue turning. I wanted the whole planet put into stasis until I could catch up.”
― Anna Sheehan, A Long, Long Sleep

tags: stasis, truth, world

57 likes

See all Anna Sheehan's quotes »

Polls

March BOM group read

by Anne Bishop

7 votes, 70.0%

by Amanda Sun

2 votes, 20.0%

by Suzanne Wright

1 vote, 10.0%

by Anna Sheehan

0 votes, 0.0%

10 total votes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
SOS: Serious Over...: AUGUST 2011: New Releases	52	174	Aug 23, 2011 01:21PM
Wild Things: YA G...: October group read winners!	28	97	Sep 26, 2011 08:30PM
Romance Readers R...: 2011 September Monthly Challenge: Participant's Thread	474	280	Oct 12, 2011 01:36AM
The Seasonal Read...: Fall Challenge 2011 Completed Tasks - DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC!	2264	772	Nov 30, 2011 09:05PM
Romance Readers R...: Willy Wonkers Chocolate Challenge (Quarterly) NEW	428	286	Dec 16, 2011 10:12AM
Wild Things: YA G...: Reading Challenge #10: Report Points Here	190	123	Jan 03, 2012 10:01AM
The Seasonal Read...: Winter Challenge 2011: Completed Tasks -DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2888	769	Feb 29, 2012 09:03PM

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Anna’s Quotes

“I don't like cleaning or dusting or cooking or doing dishes, or any of those things," I explained to her. "And I don't usually do it. I find it boring, you see."

"Everyone has to do those things," she said.

"Rich people don't," I pointed out.

Juniper laughed, as she often did at things I said in those early days, but at once became quite serious.

"They miss a lot of fun," she said. "But quite apart from that--keeping yourself clean, preparing the food you are going to eat, clearing it away afterward--that's what life's about, Wise Child. When people forget that, or lose touch with it, then they lose touch with other important things as well."

"Men don't do those things."

"Exactly. Also, as you clean the house up, it gives you time to tidy yourself up inside--you'll see.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

33 likes

“The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets. Farther along and stronger, bonged the gongs of a throng of frogs, green and vivid on their lily pads. From the sky came the crying of flies, and the pilgrims leaped over a bleating sheep creeping knee-deep in a sleepy stream, in which swift and slippery snakes slid and slithered silkily, whispering sinful secrets.”
― James Thurber, The 13 Clocks

17 likes

“You mere device," he gnarled. "You platitude! Your Gollux ex machina!”
― James Thurber, The 13 Clocks

tags: fairy-tales, whimsy

15 likes

“I am the Golux, the only Golux in the world and not a mere device”
― James Thurber, The 13 Clocks

7 likes

“You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much.”
― Tove Jansson, Tales from Moominvalley

302 likes

More of Anna’s quotes…