Five for Friday! And IWALT Bookmarks!

So Soho Press is still keeping the cover for next year's  IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS under wraps as best they can. ARCs are sneaking into the world to early readers/blurbers, and the come January to everyone else. But they approved these awesome bookmarks, created by my friend and writing partner Kristin Rae!

Yeah, they're pretty awesome and they hint so nicely at the cover while still not giving it away, so look closely! Very excited!

And in #2, a quick photo recap of last week's Texas Book Festival which was supremely awesome and such an honor to be part of!

Catching some sun with capitol behind us with me, A.G. Howard, Cory Putnam Oakes, Mari Mancusi, PJ Hoover

Our Blood is Thicker than Water panel in the signing tent: me, Heather Demetrios, Renee Watson

And yes, that is Margaret Atwood. 

Meeting fellow Soho author and all around awesome author and human and very tall guy, Adam Silvera

3. It is still summer in Houston. It should move on to Fall. Like NOW.

4. Looking forward to Comic Con Austin and then McAllen Book Festival and then some time to just write, write, write.

5. And between all the above and a brief jaunt to Florida to just hang on the beach in Ft. Walton where it's just you and the white sand and the birds and the sea turtles and it's heaven, I am also now getting better from strep throat/sinus infection. But yeah, it was worth it! 

Captain Kirk Liked My Wings and Other Comic Con Austin Tales

Been toiling on revisions for FINDING PARIS, my contemporary road trip/mystery/romance that comes out in Spring 2015 from Balzer and Bray. Yes, I am revising in 2013 for a 2015 book! That is a good thing, people.

But this single-minded focus on top of holiday hoopla and other family things means that I have been a bad blogger and have not told you about Comic Con Austin, which occurred the weekend before Thanksgiving and at which I and the other Writing Ninjas of Texas hung out in costume, ate copious amounts of chocolate and fan-girled William Shatner, Norman Reedus and James Marsters and also met amazing fans and readers and other stellar humans. And supported a fabulous local Austin indie bookstore-- The Book Spot-- owned and run by Danny and Julie Woodfill, who sell books for us all weekend each year and who support books and literacy and local Texas authors in their wonderful shop in Round Rock. I can't thank them enough!

I love Comic Con! I really, really do. I know there are some who mock the fan experience, but I have to tell you that when Cory Putnam Oakes and I stood in line so she could get an autographed pic of William Shatner for her mother, who was/is a huge Trek fan, we were rather blasé at first. We were deep into publishing gossip and catching up and casting our eye rolls at the 60 something guy in full Enterprise regalia… UNTIL WE GOT UP CLOSE. Close enough to snap this contraband pic since technically you're not supposed to take pics if you're only paying for an autograph. (their rules, not mine)

And then-- and I am not exaggerating-- we were like two thirteen year old girls. I am telling you, it was crazy. I look at Cory and she looks at me and now we're squealing. And when Captain Kirk chatted us up and told us we looked really good (which he said TWICE), we squealed some more. And shook his hand. And stood there while he signed the picture and then spent the rest of the morning reliving the thrill. Yes! It was thrilling. I'm not going to lie to you. Captain Freaking Kirk. Liked our angel wings.
(in full disclosure, so did a lot of random guys in costume who asked us to pose for pics while we walked the convention floor. But whatever)

Here is what CAPTAIN KIRK said looked good:

And here are a few other pics from the weekend. You should go next year. You really should!

Zombie Kari Anne Holt

Mari Mancusi and friend

Me, my SWEET DEAD LIFE costume and TARDIS

This Ain't My First Rodeo, Predator

And it's Dread Pirate Roberts...

The Fates: PJ Hoover, Jessica Lee Anderson

Julie of Book Spot, Jessica Lee Anderson, Cory Oakes and friend

PJ Hoover and Mari Mancusi channeling her Mother of Dragons

The lovely Jo Whittemore and guess who

In Which I Tell about Austin Comic Con

Austin Comic Con was crazy, amazing, funny, and definitely an event I want to do again. Thanks to fearless leader PJ Hoover, the Writing Ninjas of Texas came, saw, conquered, and got great booth space overlooking the stuffed Tribble store and just behind the aisle where all the Buffy people were signing. If you are not a geek like me, this may sound trivial. Trust me when I say it is not. Thank you times a zillion to all the comic book, sci-fi, paranormal, steampunk and other fans that stopped by. A huge bow of thanks to Danny and Julie of Book Spot in Round Rock for selling books at the event and helping organize (including that contraband cooler of water and Diet Dr. Pepper... shhhh...). And to my fellow Ninja: PJ Hoover, Madeline Smoot, Jessica Lee Anderson, Mari Mancusi, Kari Anne Holt, Cory Oakes: You guys rock my world! I have seriously never had so much fun or laughed so hard for three days! (Even if I did have to wear my evil rusalka (Russian mermaid) costume for so many, many hours!)

And now for a little picture fest:

Me, zombie KA Holt, PJ Hoover, Mari Mancusi, Cory Oakes

Five minutes with James Marster -- aka Spike of Buffy -- and this autographed photo, courtesy of Peter Katz who knew what a ridiculous fan girl I am! (note my Baba Yaga chicken leg hut Tshirt)

Hanging out with my buddy R2D2

Me, Jo Whittemore, PJ Hoover, Danny and Julie, Cory Oakes, Mari Mancusi, and in the front: Jessica Lee Anderson, Madeline Smoot and KA Holt - best zombie ever!

Thanks to Danny and Julie of Book Spot!!

KA Holt, Cory Oakes, Madeline Smoot, me, PJ Hoover, Jessica Lee Anderson

Captain Jack Sparrow saying hi to Jessica Lee Anderson...

Kari Ann "Zombie" Holt is getting a bit peckish.... Jessica looks tasty...

Hello James Marsters.... You were quite gracious during our chat!

And over in Artists Alley, my favorite Austin literary duo and mentors: Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith!! (who were across the aisle from Peter Mayhew, otherwise known as Chewbacca!)

Austin Comic Con

Comic Con is coming!! Comic Con is coming!!

Would love to see everyone at the Austin Comic Con next weekend, 11/11- 11/13 at the Austin Convention Center. The Writing Ninjas will be be performing a stealthy but deadly assault at booths #521/523 where we will be signing copies of our books, giving away swag, candy and other prizes of awesome and basically taking the Con by storm. Ninja style, of course! Come on by and say hello. Check out my zombie glasses and Russian rusalka costume. Get a HAUNTED t-shirt! Who are the Ninjas? We are: Jessica Lee Anderson, Jason Henderson, KA Holt, PJ Hoover, Mari Mancusi, Cory Oakes, Joy Preble, Madeline Smoot, Tracy Deebs!

Want to read more about it? Go here.

Want to know more about the entire Comic Con event? Click on the banner above.

Hope to see you there! Spread the word. The Ninjas are coming. Better beware!!

Tuesday Tidbits

1. I am going to bring my left over candy to Comic Con next weekend. I swear I am going to do this. I am not going to eat all the cookies and cream mini Hershey bars on my own. I swear I am not.

2. Is anyone surprised that Kim Kardashian is getting divorced from Kris Humphries?

3. Am baking a devil's food cake for hubs' birthday. Wondering how I will cool it with a nosy puppy in the house.

4. Am in revisions for three projects right now. This is crazy making. But kinda fun. In that childbirth kind of way.

5. Tazo Green Ginger tea. Oh yeah.

6. Austin Comic Con is coming!! Stay tuned for Wednesday's Comic Con post. November 11-13 at the Austin Convention Center. I will be there. I would love to see you!!

More Crossroads and Upcoming Events

Happy Monday! New to the Crossroads Blog Tour? Click on the banner above to find out how to play! Swag!! Grand Prizes!! Amazing paranormal authors including yours truly!! Arranged and sponsored by Judith Graves and Bridge Social Media!

My schedule for the rest of the tour is:

10/24: Book Swarm

10/25: Kid Lit Frenzy

10/26: Narratively Speaking

10/27: Electrifying Reviews

10/28: Just Your Typical Book Blog

10/29: Late Bloomer Online

Thank you to all these amazing and intrepid bloggers for their support!! You rock!!!

And in the coming days: more on Austin Comic Con and my fellow Writing Ninjas of Texas!

If it's Monday You Must be a Winner

Thanks to everyone who participated in the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon contest!! Your answers were amazing! The winner of the signed copy of PJ Hoover's Emerald Tablet is Christine, who told a fascinating Hollywood tale!
The signed copy of Jessica Lee Anderson's Trudy is Carrie, who had another fantastic road to Kevin Bacon!

And Valerie Kemp wins the signed (by me!) copy of HAUNTED for her star-studded 6 degree tale.

Sir Bacon would be proud!
All winners need to email me with your mailing address at joypreble at gmail dot com.
Thanks for playing!!

In other news, I'll be conducting a Teen Writer Workshop at the South Regional Library on Lake Robbins Rd. in The Woodlands, TX, on Thursday 10/20 at 6 PM. If you're 13-18, call the library or go over there to register. Not only are we going to write together, but I'll be giving away an entire bag of Sourcebooks YA titles that my editor Leah Hultenschmidt and my publicist Kay Mitchell have sent as prizes!!

And Comic Con in Austin is coming.... More on that soon.... the Ninja Writers of Texas will be going crazy at our booth. Zombie jerky, zombie contacts, zombie glasses, mermaid costumes, greek goddess costumes, Baba Yaga t shirts... plus me, PJ Hoover, Mari Mancusi, Jessica Lee Anderson, Kari Ann Holt and more... November 11-13... Austin Convention Center.

And click on the Crossroads icon on the blog sidebar to find out how to play and win as Crossroads 2 revs up on 10/22!

Author Interrupted

In between projects. I haven't been in between projects for awhile. Okay that's a lie - I'm not exactly in between, I'm just waiting for editors to confirm that what I've sent them either sucks or shines and so.... here's what one does when one is in between:

• got my hair highlighted


• worked on my materials for two conferences and the teen writing workshop I'm giving next week. (if you live in Houston and are between 12-18, come to South County Library on 10/20 at 6!! There will be prizes!)


• Started getting ready for Austin Comic Con!!! I get to eat zombie jerky off KA Holt's fingers!


• Made folders with plastic sleeves for various parts of my life that needed organizing.


• began to dig out the crap in my office. Oh the piles of crap.


• learned how to safely remove flashdrive from new macbook pro (the one thing I've found so far in which pc really excels is in anal retentive safety instructions)


• watched last night's ep of Ringer. I don't think I even know what's going on anymore and I'm curious how they could maintain this level of confusion through more than one season but I love watching SMG so it's all good. SMG and her not so dead twin's stepdaughter smiling and washing WHORE off a white picture. Could it get any better?


• Got tired of DWTS. It's okay if it's rigged. But does it have to be so obvious? And this comment is from the woman who watched Skating with the Stars!


• Speaking of SWTS, I have also spent time reading about the maybe or maybe not lost at sea/our GPS stopped functioning with Bethenny Frankel and her crew. And Bethenney I LOVE you, I really do. But why was your therapist on the cruise? Is that what people do these days? What does this mean for me? I don't even have a therapist. But I might go on another cruise some day (although what could equal the Bachelorette cruise from last March, the one where we headed out from Long Beach as the tsunami hit California? No cruise I know of), and what will I do. Maybe I need a therapist. So I can tell her/him that I can't afford to take him/her.


• Organized my tax receipts (early!) while watching Ringer... and beyond...


• Got excited by the three commercials for Vampire Diaries during Ringer. The teaser dialogue goes something like this: Stefan -- I'm going to have to feed on you Elana! And there's a timer! And I'm sweating for some reason! And Klaus is still a bastard! And I bet Damon will save the day! And damn your neck looks inviting!

til next time...

Goodbye August -- Hello September

Summer has been brutal here in Texas. It has been between 95 and 107 since May here in Houston. Worse in Austin and Dallas. A few weeks ago we were at the Rangers game in Dallas and it was still 103 degrees at 10PM. That is HOT. We're on mandatory water restrictions. And it just won't rain... although they say some is coming this weekend. Last Wednesday night, we actually got a brief storm while I was at critique group at the library. No joke - everyone rushed to the windows and cheered when it started to pour.

So I'm happy to see September roll in. September brings everything I love - fall (less thrilling here in Houston than in Chicago where I grew up, but...), high school football, cooler weather, new clothes in the stores, Halloween, Thanksgiving, my birthday, a new tv season (Vampire Diaries looks very promising, as do a number of other fantasy shows including Grimm)... and yes, the pumpkin spice lattes at Sbux.

Publishing revs up again after Labor Day, so that's fun, too. Actually, pretty much everyone I work with has been at their desks lately, but there will be a little break here starting tomorrow until Tuesday, I'd imagine. And then - bam!

I'll be telling you what I've been working on! I'll be doing edits for Again and Again (Dreaming Anastasia 3). I'll be pitching some new projects. *crosses fingers*

And Comic Con!!! In November, I'm headed to Austin Comic Con with PJ Hoover, Jessica Lee Anderson, Tracy Wolff, Kari Anne Roy, Jason Henderson, Mari Mancusi and Madeline Smoot. We are the Writing Ninjas of Texas. We have a booth! We will be meeting and greeting and selling books and merchandise and an e-sampler of our collective work. And I will be wearing my rusalka costume! A rusalka is a malevolent Russian mermaid and a particular rusalka plays a crucial role in HAUNTED (out now) and in AGAIN and AGAIN (out next year)

Plus October brings the Crossroads Blog Tour 2! More on that soon.

Fall will also see the introduction of our new Houston YA writers collective, the YAHOU's!! You can already follow us on Twitter ( @YAHous) and our FB page will be up soon. All I'll say in this post, but I am just thrilled about our group, and I'll be posting more about it soon.

What are you looking forward to this fall? Comment and let me know!

Tuesday talk

Began the huge office closet purge. Found the novel I started sophomore year in college. My ode to bad breakups and guys who just can't commit and the girls who fall for them. guys = the guy I'd broken up with. girls= nineteen year old me.

Nervously awaiting the edit letter on Again and Again. (which I hope I won't have to re-write again and again...)

Do you watch Covert Affairs? You must! Tonight Augie flashes back to the story of how he became blind. And takes his shirt off. Oh Augie.

Got sucked into season one of Real Housewives of NYC - it's like tv crack, I tell you. You start while you're cleaning the closet (see above) and find yourself no longer cleaning, just watching. And okay, I'll admit it - Andy Cohen and Watch What Happens Live? I love this. Mazel of the week, jackhole of the week... why do I find this so funny??

Shifting gears to other projects is hard once you've had your head in one book for so long. But shift I must.

Had to actually jog home from my walk because it began raining. Which is good because we are in this horrible drought. And my lawn is brown and crunchy. And it pisses me off to see people whose lawns are green and lush because we are on water restrictions. And the only people whose lawns look good are those who believe the rules are made for suckers like me.

Sarah Mlynowski's 10 Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn't Have) is absolutely brilliant. I love, love, love this book. I had no time to read but still I tore through it, unable to put it down.

I found the absolute best hideous 80% mark down purple prom dress to use for my malevolent Russian mermaid (aka - rusalka) costume for Austin Comic Con. It has one diagonal strap that is covered in huge purple 'gem' stones. I LOVE this dress for its tackiness. Now I need to rough it up some. Yay!

Must write.
Til next time...

And the Winners Are

Wow! Since this contest was mainly about PJ Hoover and her new YA dystopian, Solstice, I put her in charge of the contest hat! And I guess she's just magic, cause we ended up with 5 winners!


Drum Roll Please.......


The winners of the Solstice trading cards - one for each character and all with uber cool secret codes and special stuff - are:


Jim Danielson
Lieder Madchen
Bee
April X

And the winner of Solstice Trading Cards AND a signed copy of Haunted (from yours truly) is...

Tasnim

Congratulations to all! If you are reading this, please email me your addresses at joy at joypreble dot com so we can send your prizes.

And stay tuned to this blog for a guest post and giveaway with Janet Fox, in honor of her new historical fiction YA, Forgiven, which is the companion book to last year's Faithful. And later in the month, I'll be hosting fellow Houston YA writer, Christina Mandelski, whose debut novel is the fabulous The Sweetest Thing.

Plus lots more... Trust me, it's going to be one amazing blogalicious summer!

And coming in the fall, I am very, very excited to announce that I will be going to Austin Comic Con in November!! More soon, so stay tuned.