Writing, reading, running, cooking. Expensive clothes bought cheaply on ebay. Making fresh pasta. Cooking magazines. Chocolate with nuts. Chocolate without nuts. Sea Monkeys. Leather jackets but not leather pants. All shades of blue. Gossip. I have an inordnate fondness for potatoes, but am not, as far as I know, Irish.
Music
Modest Mouse, the White Stripes, Elivs Costello, Aimee Mann, Franz Ferdinand, Tori Amos, The Shins, The Fratellis, Beth Orton, Cat Power.
Movies
Layer Cake. Borat. Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Holes. 28 Days Later. 28 Weeks Later. Sean of the Dead. Pieces of April. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (you've got to see this movie!)
Television
The Simpsons, Lost, Thirty Rock, The Office, 24, So You Think You Can Dance, Desperate Housewvies
Books
The Hunger Games, the dead and the gone, Life As We Knew It. And of course my books, including: Learning to Fly, Circles of Confusion, Shock Point. I also love Looking for Alaska, This is How I Live Now, Mind Games, Fake ID, The Hidden series, The Tomorrow series by John Marsden, Garnet Hill by Denise Mina, anything by Scott Turow, Blood Brothers. My kid reads Dear Dumb Diary books and they make me laugh my butt off.
Heroes
Librarians. People who fund schools in Muslim countries. Education is going to change the world a lot quicker than bombs ever will. Journalists who write articles that change lives, even if it's just a story about a disabled man's scooter being stolen, which causes readers to offer to buy a new scooter. Stories like that always make me tear up.
April April is excited to say that her new book, Face of Betrayal (with Lis Wiehl), is on the New York Times bestseller list! Posted at 9:26 PM May 6 view more
About me:
If you would like to send me a message, and your profile is set to private, MySpaces won't let me answer you. So friend me as well as send me a note.
[Haben Sie "Breakout" gelesen? Befreunden Sie mich, bitte! ..Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.]
I blog a lot about writing, if that's something that interests you. And there's the occasional random topic thrown in for fun.
I'm a writer. I write mysteries and thrillers. I'm also probably the oldest non-creepy person on MySpace.com.
I was raised in Medford, Oregon, which used to be pretty small, and still is. When I was in grade school, I wrote really bad rhyming poetry and a couple of stories. I sent one about a six-foot tall frog who loved peanut butter to Roald Dahl, the guy who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I still have the postcard he sent to me after he read it. He even showed it to the editor of a children's magazine. She wrote and asked if she could publish it. For no money, which probably should have been a good indication about the pubishing world.
After that, I slowly stopped writing. I didn't know anyone who had ever been published. I figured people who wrote books must be a lot smarter than me and had probably gone to Harvard. When I got a job in a hospital helping people check in, a lot of them seemed pretty close to checking out. It was a weird job, where it was slow one minute, and then the next someone who was dying or having an emergency would show up. (Look - I shot myself with a nail gun!) I worked swing shift, and they didn't care what I did when it was slow. Most of the other girls read the magazines in the hospital gift shop. I brought a notebook and stared to write. And finally I wrote a book about that job.
That book didn't get published, and neither did the next one. The one after that got me an agent. And my fourth book sold to a publisher in three days. It was like an overnight success that took years to happen.
After writing five mysteries and thrillers (Circles of Confusion, Square in the Face, Heart-Shaped Box, Buried Diamonds and Learning to Fly), I published a young adult called Shock Point.
It's about Cassie, a 16-year-old girl who figures out her psychiatrist stepfather is hiding some bad outcomes for a drug he is testing on his teenage patients. When she tries to go the newspaper with what she has found, he plants meth in her room and ships her off to a boot camp for troubled teens.
There are many schools like Peaceful Cove. They sell themselves as being able to turn your kid around at a bargain price in a third-world country. What they don't point out is that the only regulation these schools have come from the countries where they are located. In the past decade, at least eight of these schools have closed or been shut down after abuses have come to light.
The editor made me tone down some of the worst abuse in my story. But in real life, for example, one student was locked in a dog cage for a week, hog-tied for three days, had his thumb twisted by a staff member until it broke, and had his teeth knocked through his lips by a staffer who smashed his face in the ground repeatedly.
In Torched, 16-year-old Ellie ends up going undercover in a group a lot like the Environmental Liberation Front. ELF is active in the Northwest.
In April 2009, you can also look for Face of Betrayal, the first in a new mystery series for adults coauthored by me and Fox News legal correspondent Lis Wiehl.
You can contact me at me at my Web site, aprilhenrymysteries.com, or april@aprilhenrymysteries.com. I also blog every day at aprilhenry.livejournal.com.
this layout is from whateverlife.com!
Who I'd like to meet: Readers, writers, librarians, teachers, booksellers, old friends, and new friends. I'd especially like to meet (online or in person) a blind teenager, because that's what my next book is about.
Thank you for being a new MySpace friend.
It's been a juggernaut, but "IF THE RAINS DON'T CLEANSE" (my novel about my parents' experiences as schoolteachers in 1950s Africa) is finally marked as "IN STOCK" at Amazon.com. Over the 4th of July weekend they sold out and for almost a week I was horrified that would-be readers were seeing a red "OUT OF STOCK" message when they tried to get a copy.
But all is now well, RAINS is getting strong reviews and a grown-up readership, and I'm thrilled.
I invite you to visit my MySpace blog to read a sample chapter or two ... and listen to an audiobook excerpt. Thanks.
Hi April, thanks for accepting my friend request...wonderful to have you in my virtual circle of friends, here on myspace. I look forward to reading future blogs, and learning more about your work.
Just wanted to let you know that my new book, NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL, is out! Take a look at the Find Beauty Challenge on www. youtube. com/northofbeautiful. What are you writing now?
Hi April! Wishing you an abundant and joyful holiday season. :) Liz PS I'm celebrating my deal with St. Martin's for Death Will Help You Leave Him, the follow-up to Death Will Get You Sober.
P.S. I can't believe you have a postcard from Roald Dahl. That is absolutely amazing, and now I'm annoyed with myself for never writing to him as a child.
P.P.S. *Waves down to Janette below. Hey Janette!*
Thanks for the add! Beth Fehlbaum, author Courage in Patience, a story of hope for those who have endured abuse http://courageinpatience. blogspot. com Chapter One is online!
