Category Archives: News

Cool Stuff, News

Book News!

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Apparently it’s been months since my last blog (September? How did that much time slide by?) but I guess that goes along with the theme that I’m not a very good blogger and really only crawl out of the woodwork when I have something to tell you. Well guess what? I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!

While Small Medium at Large is out in the world and people still seem to be reading it (thank you!) I’ve been working on some other things and one of those things will be published by Simon and Schuster’s Aladdin M!X imprint in 2017  December 2016! If you’re not familiar with the M!X books, check out the website (see, those exclamation points were intentional).

The book is called Crushing It and is a tween version of Cyrano de Bergerac – see the official deal notice at Publishers Weekly. I can’t tell you too much about the story yet, but it will be fun and funny and will likely include some awkward moments and maybe a cat. You’ll just have to wait and see.

And if you believe it, some kind soul has already put it up on Goodreads (which means you can add it to your TBR list, you know, because you’re already worried about what you’re going to need to read two years from now).

This isn’t the Oscars, so I’ll keep this short, but I would like to extend a HUGE thank you to my agent, Caryn Wiseman for facilitating this. She has been tirelessly working toward getting my books out there and I so appreciate having her on my team.

And now, just because this is how I feel today:

dancing_bird

Cool Stuff, News, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE

Trees and Tours and News, Oh My!

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First, let me start with the Oh, My! Has it really been this long since my last blog post? Wow. Yeah, I guess it has. I’d like to blame my lack of communication on being really busy and that’s part of it, but mostly I didn’t have enough cool stuff to share. Until now.

So. Where to start.

cropped-myrcaheader1

Cool Thing #1 – SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE has been named an Honour* Book by the fine kids of Manitoba in their Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Awards. Cool, right? MAKING BOMBS FOR HITLER by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch won, which is awesome and so well deserved, but my book was one of two honour books (with UNGIFTED by Gordon Korman). I can’t begin to tell you how amazing this is.

redmaple
Cool Thing #2 – As you may know, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE is a Red Maple nominee in the Ontario Forest of Reading program. Another huge honour for me and my little book about ghosts, boys and bras. So I was afforded the opportunity to do a little bit of touring last week up to North Bay and Parry Sound to celebrate at their Festival of Trees. I didn’t take near enough pictures, but here are a few. I always have a great time hanging out with book-lovers of all kinds and I have to say that this event made me feel like quite the rock star. Look at all those fans! Thank you to the Near North School District for making this happen. What a great couple of days!

 

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And this isn’t even the whole crowd. I was told there were about 1600 kids there. Amazing!

Here’s a smaller crowd of SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE fans who came to my presentation and sat in the front row (check out their cool SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE buttons!). <3!

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Here I am with fellow Red Maple nominees, K.L. Armstrong and M. A. Marr (LOKI’S WOLVES: THE BLACKWELL PAGES)

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And a group photo with the rest of the authors (K.L. and M. A. had to leave early) and some of the event organizers. Thank you Near North!

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Also, I was fortunate enough to do some school visits in Sudbury on my trip. Check out the cool artwork some kids did to tie in with my book:

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Here I am with Ms. Vigna’s ASD class. These kids were so great and engaged and asked some of the best questions. I loved meeting you!

St Benedict ASD

AMAZING! Thank you so much to these great kids. I loved meeting you all and chatting about books.

There will be more Forest of Reading events next week and I’ll update again once I have more pictures.

Until then, thanks for making it to the bottom of my post. Here’s your reward, a dancing chicken:

 

Chicken_dances

 

*These cool things are happening in Canada, so I’ll be using my Canadian spelling here.

Cool Stuff, News, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE

I’ve always loved trees and nature, but now especially.

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AG00412_Happy Autumn!

Yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving and I have a lot to be thankful for, despite it being a tough couple of months. I’m not going to go into great detail here, but I lost my mom fairly suddenly in September and if you know me or follow me on Facebook, you know we were close and well, it sucks.

Okay, so that was some detail, but I don’t want to get all maudlin on you; I’m here today to talk about the things I’m thankful for*:

  1. Turkey
  2. My husband, who makes a mean turkey
  3. Family and friends who have been amazing these past weeks
  4. Being shortlisted for the Fiction list of the 2013 Hamilton Literary Awards (which take place on my birthday–attention universe!). I’m in excellent company on this very small list of three and am amazed to be on there. Go Hammer!
  5. That I was able to go to NYC last week and have a really good time, including seeing ANNIE! Check out Katherine Longshore’s cool recap because I’m too lazy to do one of my own (includes goofy dancing video–must see).
  6. redmapleThat SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE has been chosen to be on the 2014 Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Red Maple list.  This is one of those things that I crossed my fingers for, hoping it would happen, but didn’t dare believe it would. This is HUGE and to be recognized here at home in Ontario is so special. I’m honoured and in such great company with wonderful fellow Canadian authors that I really feel like we all win. I’m also so glad I attended the 2013 award event in support of my author friends, so I have a good sense of the impact of this program. I’m so, so, so excited and I know my mom is watching and she is, too.
  7. This means more readers for SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE. So cool, right? My little book about bras and boys and ghosts and kissing. Still feels weird to me that people who are not immediate family members want to read my book.
  8. There is a Chinese food buffet that we go to called…wait for it…RED MAPLE! I think it’s kind of the law that I need to go there and celebrate, right? Just as soon as I eat all of this turkey…
  9. YOU. Thank YOU for being here and for supporting me and my book. Even though SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE came out last year, it’s still finding its way to readers and I’m so thankful for that. I wish I could hug you all, but failing that, anyone want a drumstick? Some turkey soup? Casserole? A turkey sandwich, perhaps? Please?

*As I finished writing this list, it occurred to me that I should note that these items are not in any order of importance.

Cool Stuff, News, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE

News and looking forward to fall (yes, already)!

Hi.

I am SUPER excited to announce that SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE has been named as a nominee in the Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Awards for 2014. I’ve never been to Manitoba, but am thinking I should consider some westerly travel.

Next up is some day job news. In that I no longer have one. As often happens in the corporate world these days, big companies restructure and move people and offices around, so I was given an opportunity to, um, not work there anymore. This has been one of those blessings in disguise that people talk about, as it has given me the opportunity to bring together two of my favorite things–authors and organizing–and start a business. That’s right, I am the JL in JL Author Services, providing administrative support to busy authors. For more info, check out the website: JLauthorservices.com.

I have other stuff on the go, too. You know, the writing thing and all the fun stuff that goes along with that writing. Now that my days are freed up some, I’m excited to be able to do virtual Skype visits and in the Hamilton, Niagara, GTA areas in Ontario, I am looking to book in-person school visits to start in the fall. These are handled by Authors’ Booking Service, so please get in touch with them to book me or for more information.

And if you are in the Southern Ontario area, I’ll be at the Telling Tales Festival on September 15th with a bunch of other cool authors, so mark your calendars as I’d love to see you up in Rockton!

I have some other stuff in the works for this summer, but you’ll have to stay tuned as I don’t have all the details just yet.

Also, as of the time of writing this post, the SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE e-book is still on sale at all online retailers:

Indie Bound (for Kobo)

Barnes & Noble

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca

Thanks for making it to the end of this post. Since you did, I’d like to reward you with this dancing frog. You know, just because.

dancing frog

Cool Stuff, News, Random, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE

A lot of laughs at a low price!

Last night I stumbled on a SALE – my book is only $2.39 for Kindle right now. That’s right, $2.39. That’s like the price of a latte or a bunch of other things that are just not as fun or SML Levysatisfying as a cute and funny e-book about a girl who gets hit by lightning and can then hear ghosts.

What else can you get for $2.39? I did the work for you and here’s what you can get:

Annie’s Homegrown Snack Crackers

A square foot of some nice travertine flooring

A device that I think has to do with fishing, but kind of scares me

A Whopper

But really, why do you need any of those things when for that money, you can get hours of entertainment and a scene where a girl shops for bras with a couple of dead old ladies? Right?

If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the Kindle Reader ap thingie and can read on your phone, tablet or computer, so if you’re reading this blog post, you can easily read the book. That said, if you prefer to hold a real book, it’s still a very reasonable price to get a copy for yourself or your tween.

p.s. The book is on sale RIGHT NOW, but I truly have no idea how long it will be on sale for, so A. act now if you’re thinking about it and B. if you miss the sale, please don’t blame me-I have nothing to do with the prices of my book.

Thank you to all of you who have spread the word about this sale – it means a lot to know so many of you support me and the book!

Cool Stuff, KidLit Cares, News, Random, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE

What’s Up With Joanne Now?

Hi everyone!

*whew*

It’s been a busy few weeks, to say the least. If you don’t know why, um, where have you been?

In addition to doing some signing events and going to NCTE in Las Vegas, Kate Messner and I headed up a fundraiser for Superstorm Sandy relief, for which we raised ***drumroll*** over $60,000! Round 2 alone raised $23,282. Pretty awesome, right?

I’m SO thankful for Kate and the rest of the people who made the auction amazing. We had a ton of donors who offered up their time, services and great stuff to help us reach this goal. Please check out the auctions (please note – the auctions are all now closed) to see who our donors were—SO MUCH talent and generosity—I’m honored that they all came forward to help out.

If you did miss the auctions or didn’t win one of the awesome prizes donated by publishing industry rockstars, the Red Cross is still collecting donations and the money is much needed, so please donate if you can*.

So now that’s over, I’m going to take a bit of a break to get back to writing. Hopefully I remember how to do that, because it feels like it’s been a loooooong time.

Wishing you all the best for your holiday season and remember, nothing makes a better gift than a book. Like one about ghosts. And bras and first kisses. If you agree, you can find SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE at your favorite book retailer (see my main page for handy links) or if you want a personalized copy, get in touch with my SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE Indie Bookstore Headquarters, Bryan Prince Books and they’ll set you up with a signed, personalized copy (they’ll ship anywhere, because they’re awesome like that).

AND it is the season for giving, so consider giving a book, ANY book to a children’s toy drive so we can all spread the joy of reading.

Joanne Levy Author PhotoAll my very best,

Joanne

 

*Or you can check out YA for NJ (http://www.facebook.com/YaForNj) and Publishing Gives Back (http://publishinggivesback.blogspot.ca/) for ongoing fundraisers.

Contest!, Cool Stuff, News, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE

Small Medium at Large Book Birthday Two Weekstravaganza!

Hi and welcome to the Book Birthday of SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE!

It’s finally here! SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE releases June 26 in Canada and July 3 in the U.S.!  To celebrate, I’m all over the internet this week and next, talking about my brand new book baby.

Want to join in the celebration? Sure you do!

Check back, as I’m going to be adding links to new posts for the next two weeks as they pop up. And stay tuned as I get ready for THE BIG FINALE, when I’ll be giving away LOTS OF STUFF! Like books, and swag and maybe a t-shirt and sock monkey. You’ll just have to wait to see, but, yes, that’s right – there will be a Prize Pack of Awesomeness!

Until then, if you’re itching to win something, I’ve just posted the July Street Team check in.

And there are lots of giveaway opportunities below.

IMPORTANT: If you happen to buy a copy of SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE (thank you!), save your receipt for the big finale–I’ll tell you why soon!

Blogs I’m visiting – thank you so much to everyone who has hosted me! I have had a lot of fun doing interviews and posts:

Class of 2k12 – Talking about my release day(s)

Red House Books – Book memories

Get Lost In a Story – Interview

Cari’s Book Blog – Interview

The Nerdy Book Club (Giveaway!) – Guest post

Watch. Connect. Read. (Giveaway!) – Interview and dorky video

Sharpread – Review

Ex Libris (Giveaway) – Interview

Project Mahem – where I talk about writing funny

Reading Away The Days (Giveaway!)

Moonlight Gleams – Lilah’s guest post

InkyGirl Interview

Lavender Lines Q&A

Sarvenaz Tash’s Blog (Giveaway!)

A Thousand Wrongs (Giveaway!)

Cool Stuff, News, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE

Sometimes Cool Stuff Happens To Me

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Some cool stuff happened that I’d like to tell you about.

First, blogger extraordinaire, Evie from Bookish surprised me on Twitter with this tweet: Book Thong I made for @JoanneLevy and am planning to trade it for some extra cupcakes at her awesome Launch:

HOW COOL IS THIS? Right? Evie, thank you – you’re getting a big hug AND extra cupcakes for this. I can’t wait to see the real thing (AND YOU) at my launch.

So that’s one cool thing, how about another? Yep. So here’s the review from Kirkus, those people who even call themselves “The world’s toughest book critics.” You know I bit my nails to the quick when I was waiting for this one, don’t you?

But I needn’t have worried!

Yadda, yadda, yadda…stuff happens (I’m paraphrasing) and then… “In a fresh, frank and funny first-person voice, Lilah tells of her ghostly encounters from the perspective of a normal Jewish girl coping with abnormal powers. Droll middle school drama.“

Amazing, right? FRESH, FRANK and, most importantly, FUNNY! I’m over the moon at this good stuff.

Thank you Evie, Kirkus and the Universe for this awesomeness, and for you, who I can share it with.

Cool Stuff, Launch Party, News, Random, SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE

Have your say – a very important poll!

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So. You know there’s a launch party for SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE, right? Of course you do. And you know you’re invited, right? Yeah, you knew that, too.

But, did you know that there will be cupcakes?

Probably.

But what you didn’t know, is that I want YOU to help me decide what kind of cupcakes there will be. So I’ve put together this nifty poll. I know these ALL sound delicious, but just pick your very favorite flavor and the most popular ones will be what I order for my party.

Come on! Be heard!

Even if you can’t make it, feel free to vote anyway!

Cool Stuff, News

Rocking the Drop!

Like several of my Class of 2k12 sibs, I’m rocking the drop tomorrow.  What does that mean? It means that in honor of Support Teen Lit Day on Thursday, April 12th, I’m going to be putting a couple of books out there for people to find. That’s right – I’m dropping FREE books into the wild to be found and enjoyed. For more info, check out ROCK THE DROP.

UPDATED with my ROCK THE DROP photos:

Eileen Cook’s funny AND Gothic UNRAVELING ISOBEL

Lisa McMann’s amazing suspense DEAD TO YOU