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Joanna Kenrick

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About Me

NEW BOOK SCREWED OUT NOW! Marsha is fifteen. She and her best friend Faith have this competition going on - who can shag the most boys? Marsha's losing, and in a rash moment she boasts she could pull any bloke she liked. So Faith bets her she can't shag Rich, a boy in their year. Marsha can't back out without losing face, so she sets about trying to win her £50. But Rich isn't like Marsha's usual conquests. Shy and unassuming, he runs a mile at the sight of Marsha's usual tactics. Marsha has to change the way she behaves if she wants Rich to even speak to her, let alone take her to bed. Rich's family is so different from her own too - fun and cheerful. Marsha's own home life is miserable and lonely by comparison, although she's never realised how much she longs for 'normality'. Getting to know Rich means facing some buried feelings about her own mother and the night she died. And the awful guilt that she's carried ever since... Make no mistake, SCREWED is explicit and shocking, but ultimately uplifting as Marsha gradually learns that you don't have to continue doing things that don't make you happy. EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT Publisher: Faber & Faber ISBN: 0571239803Hi there - I write books for children. I also teach English (secondary school) and I live in Oxfordshire. There's a fantastic view from my back garden, and when I am feeling down or uninspired, I go and stare at it for a bit! I like cheese, comedies and champagne cocktails, and I LOVE sleeping. I get grumpy when I haven't had enough sleep.Read more about me and my books at www.joannakenrick.comMyspace Graphics
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My Interests

WRITING obviously, and READING. I also like crafts - making cards and jewellery, principally. I like films in the evening with a bottle of wine. I like talking to kids. I like hot chocolate and thunderstorms.

I'd like to meet:

Lots of other children's writers so we can compare eccentricities (and I can be jealous if they have a garden shed in which they write). David Tennant, because he's yummy. Kevin Brooks, because I think his books are genius. Especially 'Lucas'. Go read 'Lucas', everyone.CURRENTLY READING: Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) BOOKS I HAVE READ IN 2008: Service of all the Dead (Colin Dexter) The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn (Colin Dexter) The Dead of Jericho (Colin Dexter) Last Seen Wearing (Colin Dexter) Ellen's People (Dennis Hamley) Thief of Time (Terry Pratchett) Equal Rites (Terry Pratchett) The Truth (Terry Pratchett) Soul Music (Terry Pratchett) A Voice in the Distance (Tabitha Suzuma) At the Firefly Gate (Linda Newbery) Mrs McGinty's Dead (Agatha Christie) Montmorency on the Rocks (Eleanor Updale) Montmorency (Eleanor Updale) The Death Collector (Justin Richards) The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose (Mary Hooper) The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) I Am the Great Horse (Katherine Roberts) Coming of Age (Valerie Mendes) Peter Pan in Scarlet (Geraldine McCaughrean) Framed (Frank Cottrell Boyce) Stella (Catherine Johnson) Sara's Face (Melvin Burgess) Magenta Orange (Echo Freer) The Falconer's Knot (Mary Hoffman) Waves (Sharon Dogar)BOOKS I READ IN 2007: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Marina Lewycka) Public Enemy Number Two (Anthony Horowitz) The Passionflower Massacre (Nicola Morgan) The Girls (Lori Lansens) The Secret of Monster Mountain (Three Investigators series) The Mystery of the Singing Serpent (Three Investigators series) Five on a Treasure Island (Enid Blyton) The Rilloby Fair Mystery (Enid Blyton) The Wish House (Celia Rees) The Sound of Laughter (Peter Kay, autobiography) Incantation (Alice Hoffman) Game Girls (Judy Waite) this is what I did: (Ann Dee Ellis) the Lost: the Dark Ground (Gillian Cross) Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie) From Where I Stand (Tabitha Suzuma) Ten in a Bed (Ahlberg) The Story of my Life (Anne Cassidy) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (JK Rowling) Leaving Poppy (Kate Cann) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (JK Rowling) Cut Off (Lynda Waterhouse) The Tenderness of Wolves (Stef Penney) A Swift Pure Cry (Siobhan Dowd) Missing Abby (Lee Weatherly) Doing It (Melvin Burgess) The Assassins of Rome (Caroline Lawrence) The Pirates of Pompeii (Caroline Lawrence) The Thieves of Ostia (Caroline Lawrence) Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott) The Chaos Code (Justin Richards) Do The Creepy Thing (Graham Joyce) Twilight (Stephanie Meyer) A Nicer Way To Die (Sam Mills) Toonhead (Fiona Dunbar) Set in Stone (Linda Newbery) Angel Blood (John Singleton) The Road of the Dead (Kevin Brooks) Rubies in the Snow (Kate Hubbard) Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Truss) Anybody Out There? (Marian Keyes) Careless (Anne Cassidy) The Dying Game (Catherine Johnson) They think I'm too easy (Lorna Read) A Note of Madness (Tabitha Suzuma)

Movies:

Dirty Dancing, Bridget Jones' Diary, Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, Minority Report, Pirates of the Caribbean, Enigma, Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Titanic (I know, I know), True Lies (it always makes me laugh)

Television:

Spooks, Waking the Dead, Judge John Deed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Father Ted, Black Books, Green Wing, Vicar of Dibley, Blackadder, Dr Who, QI, Whose Line Is It Anyway? (sadly missed), Midsomer Murders

Books:

Anything by Kevin Brooks, Celia Rees and Tim Bowler. The Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix. Philip Pullman's stories for younger children, particularly The Firework-Maker's Daughter. Ooh, and his Sally Lockhart series. The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper, Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson, Anne of Green Gables, The Swish of the Curtain, The Ordinary Princess, Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy, Green Angel by Alice Hoffman. Anything by Agatha Christie (my guilty weakness and my bathtime reading), You Don't Know Me by David Klass

My Blog

maternity leave and new projects

Hooray! I am finally on maternity leave - and that's the reason I haven't written for aaages. I have been spending a lot of time on school stuff, making sure my pupils are all up to date with coursewo...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Sun, 18 May 2008 04:20:00 PST

Back to school

Last week I was back at school for the beginning of the summer term - only four more weeks before I start maternity leave! Which I will be glad about, because I am starting to feel quite fat and uncom...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:32:00 PST

I meet two of my heroes!

Yesterday I dragged my husband along to hear Kevin Brooks and Melvin Burgess talk about teenage fiction at the OLF. I am SUCH a huge fan of Kevin’s - Lucas is one of my Wow! books, and everythin...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:21:00 PST

Sunshine, Screwed and Snow

We’ve just come back from a lovely restful week in Portugal where we sat around all day in the sunshine, reading books - bliss! I finally read I Am the Great Horse by Katherine Roberts, a fellow...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:20:00 PST

Nursery Painting and Happy Easter!

I haven’t updated for a while, partly because I have been quite busy, and that has somewhat wiped me out. This pregnancy thing saps all your energy, you know! It doesn’t help when people s...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:10:00 PST

Red Tears is shortlisted!

Very exciting news - RED TEARS has been shortlisted for the Lancashire Children’s Book of the Year Award 2008! I am so very chuffed - it doesn’t seem to have made much of an impact award-w...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:55:00 PST

Snowdrops, Screwed and Something Exciting!

I went for a walk the other day (with my new digital camera) and saw some lovely little snowdrops: Sadly, our garden is looking a little worse the wear since the high winds, and it looks like the fen...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:54:00 PST

Happy New Year!

Well, it's been a while since I updated so let me see if I can remember what's happened in between! Firstly, the proofs of SCREWED arrived and they look pretty cool. I shall add the front cover to my...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:57:00 PST

MY SHED ARRIVES!! oh, and Alton Towers was good

Of course, I should have written immediately on return from Alton Towers, because a far more exciting thing has happened since then - my shed has finally arrived! Here is a little teaser:But before I ...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Thu, 04 Oct 2007 01:42:00 PST

a salutary lesson

Well, that'll teach me. The answer is, of course, to get on the phone. Emails can be ignored, but if the person you want to speak to is actually sitting at their desk, then once they've picked up the ...
Posted by Joanna Kenrick on Thu, 04 Oct 2007 01:40:00 PST