Cicely Loves Books

Top 10 things or places that remind you of your book Shakespeare’s Globe! The recreated theatre in London. It’s magical. Pretty much any well-worn high school theatre auditorium. Trapdoors. I see any trapdoor now and automatically assume it’s a time travel portal. All black, high top sneakers! Emma’s favorite shoes. Theatre tehcies wear all black, so you can’t seeing them moving and working backstage. Skulls. Alas, poor Yorick. Cannons. The Globe playhouse caught on fire in 1613 because of a special effects cannon misfiring during a production of Henry VIII . Then it had to be rebuilt! There’s a reference to this fire in SAVING HAMLET. Pixie hair cuts. Emma’s story starts with a super short hair cut. Outer space themed cafes. There’s a special spot in the fictional town of Belleport, MA, where my main SAVING HAMLET characters go to rehearse and gossip about their play. The smell of garlic. Elizabethan England really smelled. 10. Hamlet . There are two productions of Hamlet happe...

And now for some of Eoin Colfer's top 10 favorites: 1. Top 10 fictional characters you would have over for dinner: Mycroft Holmes. Doctor Jeckyll (not Mister Hyde.  Harley Quinn. Commissioner Gordon. Aunt May. Doctor Watson. Caesar (Planet of the Apes) Tony Stark, The Wizard of Oz, The wicked Witch of the West. 2. Top 10 things you can’t live without: Macbook, beard trimmer, nice trainers, anti-magnetic field bracelet, electric toothbrush, water bottle, Barocca, white t-shirts, comic book, novel. 3. Top 10 things or places that remind you of your book: Dublin, Wexford, Saltee Islands, Malibu, Sam Beckett Bridge, bookstores, inside my head, my office, in the the car on the sidelines of my son’s training pitch. 4. Top 10 favorite reasons to be an author - own boss, meeting the fans, travel, meet cool writers, never growing up, book gifts, collaborations with other writers, taking over franchises, merchandise of your own characters, book people. 5. Top 10 must-haves while writing: P...

Top 10 fictional characters you would have over for dinner 1.             Turtle Wexler from The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (I know, she’s T.R. Wexler now, but she’d still be fun to talk to) 2.            Mrs. de Winter from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (and maybe she’ll finally tell me her actual name!) 3.            Sula from Sula by Toni Morrison (she would definitely stir things up) 4.            Merricat Blackwood from We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (but I’d definitely have a food taster handy) 5.            Meg O’Keefe nee Wallace from A Wrinkle in Time, etc. by Madeleine L’Engle (I’d take her at any age, really) 6.            Will ...

And now a fun Fast 5 Q&A with author Daniel Kraus: Last thing that made you cry: Wow, we’re really going to start off on a tough one, huh? Well, I had to put one of my dogs to sleep pretty recently. He was old and had had a tumultuous life—he was a shelter dog, he got very seriously attacked once by another dog, and was always edgy around other living creatures. But he sure liked his people! There’s something particularly poignant about being so utterly in control of another being’s life—they’re really counting on you to do what’s right, no matter how hard it is. He was immortalized, though, in my book Scowler—he’s an actual character in the book—so I’m hoping he’s a minor celebrity in Doggie Heaven. Last trip you took: It was a trip up the California coast, from L.A. to San Francisco, and what was cool about this trip is that I got to follow the footsteps of Zebulon Finch in the last section of At the Edge of Empire. If you haven’t read the book yet, Zebulon gets involved with a ...

ABOUT IF I FIX YOU: When sixteen-year-old Jill Whitaker’s mom walks out—with a sticky note as a goodbye—only Jill knows the real reason she’s gone. But how can she tell her father? Jill can hardly believe the truth herself. Suddenly, the girl who likes to fix things—cars, relationships, romances, people—is all broken up. Used to be, her best friend, tall, blond and hot flirt Sean Addison, could make her smile in seconds. But not anymore. They don’t even talk. With nothing making sense, Jill tries to pick up the pieces of her life. But when a new guy moves in next door, intense, seriously cute, but with scars—on the inside and out—that he thinks don’t show, Jill finds herself trying to make things better for Daniel. But over one long, hot Arizona summer, she realizes she can’t fix anyone’s life until she fixes her own. And she knows just where to start . . .   LINKS: Amazon | B&N ABOUT ABIGAIL JOHNSON: Abigail was born in Pennsylvania. When she was twelve, her family traded i...

I can't believe it's the end of the series! But I'm so happy to welcome Martina Boone back onto the blog to talk one last time about the Heirs of Watson Island series. 1.   What have you learned in the last 3 years of publishing that you wish you could go back and tell debut author Martina Boone? Wow. So much. I think I’d have to tell her to relax, let go of the book, and focus on writing. It’s so easy to get caught up in promotion and marketing and social media, in the novelty of having the honor of interacting with readers. Publishing a YA series has been such a mindblowingly wonderful experience, and I’m aware every single day how fortunate I am. But that in itself can be paralyzing, and my brain too easily tells me that I don’t deserve it. I would tell that naive, new me to have the courage to keep writing every day. 2. Which character has grown the most over the course of the Heirs of Watson Island ? Barrie. She has the biggest ARC because, when she first came to Wats...