Summer Teen Reading Party Moves Into June with Guest Author, Anne E. Johnson!

Whooo Hooo!! Summer Teen Reading Party is still in full swing with guest author Anne E. Johnson visiting my blog today!! She has written an MG novel, Ebenezer's Locker, published by MuseItUp Publishing's, MuseItYoung.


Here is more about Anne E. Johnson:

Anne E. Johnson's Bio:

Drawing on an eclectic background that includes degrees in classical languages and musicology, Anne E. Johnson has published in a wide variety of topics and genres. She's written feature articles about music in serials such as The New York Times and Stagebill Magazine, and seven non-fiction books for kids with the Rosen Group.  Her short stories, in various genres and for both children and adults, can be found in Underneath the Juniper Tree, Spaceports & Spidersilk , Shelter of Daylight, and elsewhere, and she has upcoming works in and several magazines and anthologies.

Ebenezer’s Locker is her first published novel, but she has two more due out this summer:  a humorous, noir-inspired science fiction novel, Green Light Delivery (Candlemark & Gleam, June 19), and a tween medieval mystery, Trouble at the Scriptorium (Royal Fireworks Press, August).

Anne lives in Brooklyn with her husband, playwright Ken Munch.

Anne, you live in the place where I was born!! And you live with another writer!

INTERVIEW:

1. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I've only known I've wanted to write fiction for a few years, but I've been writing non-fiction for about twenty years.

2. Did anyone influence you in your writing? Who was it and how did they influence you?
First, my father influenced me. He is a journalist, so the ideas of writing for a living, writing every day, and writing fast were all normal for me. And then there are my favorite authors of fiction. There are many, but among the top few are Anthony Burgess (for his language and humor), Ursula K. LeGuin (for her characters' complex psychology), and Frank Cottrell Boyce (for his quirky imagination and his sensitivity to a child's point of view).

3. What made you decide to write a tween paranormal mystery?
Mainly, I liked how different it was from anything else I'd written. When I started working on Ebenezer's Locker, I'd just finished writing a medieval mystery, Trouble at the Scriptorium (coming out in August), which had no magic in it. I wanted to do something contemporary and fantastical for a change.

4. How did you first become published?
My first publications were books-for-hire I wrote for the Rosen Group in the 1990s. They were non-fiction works for tweens, on a wide range of topics. Rosen hired me because I had solid research skills. I spent a couple of years buried in the New York Public Research Library system to do those books, which was a great experience.
My first fiction publication was a short story called "Airsick Over Planet Ekka," in Spaceports & Spidersilk a few years ago. You can now see that story reprinted in my series Aliens & Weird Stuff, available at Kindle and Smashwords.
Ebenezer's Locker will be my first full-length published fiction.

5. Please take us through a typical writing day for you.
Unless I'm in the middle of a major round of editing, or if I'm working on a special deadline, my day is typically divided into two families of tasks. In the morning, I do promotional work. This is a broad term which for me means any kind of positive Web presence. It might be doing an interview like this one, scheduling guests on my own blog, updating my website, posting on FB or Twitter, or researching other opportunities for new or published works.

6. Are you a “plotter” or a “pantser”?
Being obsessively organized about all things in life, I tend toward being a plotter. That said, I'm willing to change my plan as I go, if I find it's not working out.

7. When you are not writing, what do you like to do?
I love going to the theater with my husband. It's a great reason to live in New York City! I also love to cook and bake, and I play music as often as possible. I'm a pretty good singer and a really terrible pianist. And, of course, I read as much fiction as possible.

8. What is your favorite color and why?
Green has always been my favorite color. My favorite green is what I call "Robin Hood green," or "fern green," an intense color slightly tinged with yellow. The only explanation I have is that my eyes are green. It would be interesting to see if there's any scientific research to back that up!

9. Are you working on another book? If so, would you please tell us about it.
In terms of my writing, 2012 is turning into the year of the sequel. I've completed a sequel to Trouble at the Scriptorium. I'm halfway done with the sequel to my adult noir sci fi, Green Light Delivery. And I now have plans for a sequel to Ebenezer's Locker. Of course, I have a stack of other novel plots to work on, but they'll have to wait until 2013, I guess.

10. What have you done to market your books?
I do everything I can handle to market my books! I use Twitter, a Facebook author page, and Google +, I try to be a presence on several writers' forums, I hand out bookmarks, I do live readings whenever possible. And on and on.

Oh, and I do blog tours! Thanks for the opportunity to be here, Barbara.

You are entirely welcome! I love learning more about any writer I meet.

Let's learn more about your new book, Ebenezer's Locker.

Blurb:

A hundred years ago, Corbin Elementary School's building housed Dr. Ebenezer Corbin's School for Psychical Research. It seems that a couple of old spirits are still wandering the halls. It's up to Rhonda Zymler to find out what they want.

Ebenezer's Locker follows the adventures of Rhonda, a sassy sixth-grader who's having trouble finding her place and identity. Getting to know these spirits becomes Rhonda's quest. The more she digs, the more perilous her task becomes, and to complete it she must take two trips back in time. This story blends the realities of an economically-challenged modern American town with supernatural elements. What Rhonda finds not only gives her life a sense of purpose, but changes the fortunes of her entire town. 

Excerpt:

Last period on Fridays we had gym class. I didn’t mind it much for most of the year. But when the weather turned hot in May, I couldn’t stand all the running around. All I wanted was to cool down. It would have been different if we could have gone swimming after school. Sadly, there weren’t any public pools in Marklebury. We had to go all the way to Lancington just for a swim. So we got hot and stayed hot.

As usual, we changed into T-shirts and shorts in the girls’ bathroom. The high school had gym locker rooms, but we didn’t. Once we changed, we all tromped out onto the school’s back lot to jog in a big circle in the 90-degree outdoor oven. I was actually relieved when our gym teacher, Mr. Turner, sent me back inside to fetch the kick balls from the supply closet.

Breathing in the wonderful air conditioning, I opened the door of the little room and clicked on the light. Right away, I spotted the net bag with the kick balls. But as I reached for it, the door slammed shut behind me. And suddenly it was cold, so cold all my blood turned to jelly. Just as suddenly, I burned. Every bit of me sizzled. And then a strong wind started blowing from one side of the closet to the other, knocking me against a wall.

The light bulb swung sideways and lit up a row of boxes on a shelf. In huge red capital letters, words had been scrawled across the cardboard:

IT’S NOT E’S LOCKER. IT’S MINE.

The wind swirled into a hurricane. Baseball gloves, gym uniforms, and lacrosse sticks  blew upward from the floor and downward from the shelves. Balls of all sizes, golf clubs, and bowling pins circled and crashed into each other. I covered my face partly with my arms, but I couldn’t stop staring at this magical storm. Over and over I screamed, batting bats and gloves out of my face.

A case of gallon jugs of cleaning fluid teetered on the brink of a shelf next to a box of bowling balls. Suddenly CRACK! The shelf came loose. Cleaning fluid bottles slid toward me. Bowling balls came hurtling down at me. I rolled up like an armadillo and hoped for a quick death.

And then total silence.

I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t even hurt. Just to be safe, I stayed balled up for a couple of minutes in case the tornado started up again or something else broke loose. But there was no motion besides my shaking body and no sound besides my gasping for air. Peeking out of my invisible armor, I looked for a pool of spilled cleaning fluid and chunks of cracked bowling balls on the floor around me. Nothing but soccer balls and baseballs. I glanced above me at the broken shelf. It was propped up with a golf club, and the heavy boxes had been pushed back to a safe position. Somebody had saved me from the angry ghost!

But who would save me from the angry gym teacher? The door of the supply room flew open, and Mr. Turner braced himself with both hands on the door frame. His mouth fell open so wide I could have fit a softball in it. There were several to choose from near my left knee.

From my position on the floor, Mr. Turner looked like King Kong. It didn’t help when he roared at me. “What is going on? I gave you a simple task. The kick balls are right in front of you. Why did you have to go messing the whole place up?”

King Kong must have noticed I was about to cry so he turned back into Turner. “Okay, okay,” he said in a softer voice. “You grab the kick balls and take them out onto the field. I’ll call Mr. Besserman to work on this disaster.”

I got up without meeting Mr. Turner’s gaze. My knees shaking, I dragged the heavy mesh bag of balls over all the loose debris and past him.

“I hate ghosts,” I kept saying as I struggled with my load.

Anne, I got totally lost in that excerpt! I can't wait to see who the ghosts are and why they are causing trouble in the school.I'm putting it on my TBR list.:)

Anne's Links:

You can visit Anne E. Johnson at her website: http://anneejohnson.com/

For updates on her publications and appearances, like her Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/anne.e.johnson.9

You can purchase Ebenezer's Locker at The Muse Bookstore

and at Amazon

Thank you so much Anne for being my guest author. It's always great to meet someone from Brooklyn.:) 

Until the next time, my last guest author in June will be Wendy Lahrnar next week.