MMGM: GIVEAWAY & INTERVIEW w/ JOANNE LEVY

- Interview w/ Leigh Bardugo, author of SHADOW & BONE

- Win a copy of HANGING OFF JEFFERSON'S NOSE ( Ends 7/2)
- Win a copy of NIKOLAS & CO. by Kevin McGill (End 7/6)
- Win a copy of LIES BENEATH by Anne Brown (Ends 6/25)

 Welcome to Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM), a weekly event hosted by author Shannon Messenger. For a list of other MMGM posts, click HERE.

SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE
by Joanne Levy
Bloomsbury
Ages 8 to 12
Release Date:  July 3rd

After she’s hit by lightning at a wedding, twelve-year-old Lilah Bloom develops a new talent: she can hear dead people. Among them, there’s her overopinionated Bubby Dora; a prissy fashion designer; and an approval-seeking clown who livens up a séance. With Bubby Dora leading the way, these and other sweetly imperfect ghosts haunt Lilah through seventh grade, and help her face her one big fear: talking to—and possibly going to the seventh-grade dance with—her crush, Andrew Finkel.

This week marks the release of Joanne Levy's debut middle grade novel Small Medium At Large.  Joanne shares a few thoughts on her book and writing with us today. Don't miss the chance to win a copy of the book. Details are at the end of this post.

1.  Tell us about your book in one sentence. After being hit by lightning, Lilah Bloom can suddenly hear ghosts, including her dead grandmother and the father of her major crush!

2.  What inspired you to write this story. I woke up one day with the title in my head. I was working on different projects at the time, so I put it aside, but it never stopped nagging me! About a year later, I figured I’d better write the book to go along with it. The book started out as a YA, but thanks to the wisdom of a very smart editor (and not even the one who bought the book) who thought my voice would work better for tweens, I rewrote it as MG.

3.  Tell us a little about your journey to publication. Oh, it’s been a long, long, long road. I’m talking about a decade and many bumps along the way. I believe SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE was the 12^th and 15^th book I wrote (YA version was #12 and MG was number #15). Even once I rewrote SM@L, we had a couple of almost-sales, but it still took almost ten months to finally find a wonderful home at Bloomsbury.

4.  What books did you read when you were young? I read The Chronicles of Narnia over and over (and over and over) and loved them so much that I even bought a new set as an adult. I was a big fan of fantasy stories and as a teen, I devoured Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books and Guy Gavriel Kay’s THE SUMMER TREE Trilogy, reading them over and over until they fell apart.

5.  What books do you enjoy reading now? I still enjoy fantasy-type books, but my tastes are much more varied now. For pure escapism, I’m totally into historical romances and J.R.Ward’s books. But being a member of The Apocalypsies, The Class of 2k12 and The Debutante Ball means I am surrounded by amazing debut books. There is so much awesomeness out there right now from new authors and more to come. Recently I read Lynne Kelly’s CHAINED (MG), SCARLET by AC Gaughen (YA) and LITTLE GALE GUMBO (Adult fiction) by Erika Marks and was totally blown away by all of these books. My TBR pile is huge and I’m loving reading all these debuts and am very much looking forward to reading THE ROCK OF IVANORE, too!

6.  What can we expect from you in the future? Well I’m in limbo right now, but I’m still writing MG and some YA. Nothing is set in stone yet as coming next from, so I can’t really share any news, but I’ll be keeping people posted on my website at joannelevy.com and my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JoanneLevyAuthor

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:

Wait a minute, I thought as his words sunk in. I was hit by lightning?

I stared at Dad.

He nodded. “Really.”

I turned and looked at my mom. “I’m sorry about your honeymoon.”

“She’ll get over it. She’s concerned about you,” someone, a woman, said.

My mom’s lips weren’t moving, so I swivelled my head around; there were no other women in the room.

“What did you say?” I asked Mom.

“She didn’t say it. I did. Oh, Lilah.”

I was looking at my mom, and there were no words coming out of her mouth, yet a female was speaking to me.

Okay, what’s going on? I was clearly losing it…

“I guess you can’t see me,” the voice said. “But I’m here. Lilah, it’s me, your grandmother, Dora.”

Huh?

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

To be eligible to win a copy of Joanne Levy's book, just fill out the rafflecopter form below.

This giveaway will run through July 9th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway