Joy Preble is the author of a medium-long list of young adult novels including the Dreaming Anastasia series, the Sweet Dead Life series, Finding Paris, and It Wasn’t Always Like This, which was called “epic and addictive” by Beautiful Creatures’ author Kami Garcia and “a suspenseful treat with a gooey romantic center” by the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books. She lives in Houston, where she teaches writing and is also the Children’s Programming Director at Brazos Bookstore. In no particular order, Joy loves books, movies, travel, pizza, clever cocktails, silly jokes, and people who make her laugh, including her delightful family and neurotic basset/boxer.
A few more things about Joy:
She was born in Chicago. This means she knows where Lake Michigan is, has seen a few Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, and has strong opinions about pizza and hot dogs.
She has worked as a teacher, director of education, assistant JV girls’ volleyball coach, counter-help at McDonald’s, and assistant at Northwestern University’s Office of Development where part of her job was to keep track of famous alumni shenanigans and their $ contributions to the school.
She has also been a bookseller, research assistant, and once took a summer job as a marketing intern where mostly she watched TV eight hours a day, folding and ironing scarves with a team of seamstresses who spoke nothing but Polish.
When Joy was seven, she wrote her first play. It was about Thanksgiving, and it was pretty awful. Her Star Trek fan fiction was a little better. But she kept writing.
She loves road trips, weird museums, and giant ball of twine tourist attractions. She is also fond of sci-fi, vampire fiction, fairy tale retellings, musicals, movies, bad game shows, pancakes, and carnival food on a stick.
Mostly, she is excited that you are visiting her website, reading her books, and maybe even inviting her to come visit your school or event.