Edward Willett

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My bios of Johnny Cash and Andy Warhol are out!

Both are listed as "In Stock" on Amazon and I have my author's copies, so it must be true! Here are the covers (and the back-cover copy) for each: Johnny Cash: The Man in Black When country music legend Johnny Cash took the stage at Folsom State Prison in 1968, he solidified the public's perception of him as a rebel who followed his own path. Born in Arkansas during the Great Depression, Cash endured poverty, the death of his older brother, and a difficult relationship with his father. He turned to gospel and country music to express the pain, and after many years of struggling, his songs of hardship ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 13:17, August 23rd, 2010 under Blog | Comment now »

Audiobook of Jimi Hendrix: Kiss the Sky now available

I had a nice surprise in the mail today: the audiobook version of my children's biography of Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix: Kiss the Sky. The book was published by Enslow Publishers; the audibook was created by Recorded Books. [caption id="attachment_9899" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Narrator Ezra Knight"][/caption] Narrator Ezra Knight does an absolutely fabulous job, not surprising considering what an accomplished actor he is. In fact, as I started listening to the book, I had to get out my print copy because it sounded so good I actually thought they must have rewritten the introduction--but no, ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 11:53, July 22nd, 2010 under Blog | 4 Comments »

That other biography-writing Edward Willett

I am not the first Edward Willett to write books; nor am I the first to write biographies. Long before I squalled my first cries in the foothills of the mountains of New Mexico; long before I first set crayon to paper as a boy of six in the public schools of Tulia, Texas; long before we made our weary way north, north, through plains and hills (but mostly plains) from Lubbock to Saskatchewan; long before that fateful day when, the weather not being clement, I and my friend Richard Straker set ourselves to write short stories, an act from which ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 22:56, November 14th, 2008 under Blog | Comment now »

My Janis Joplin bio arrives!

Today I received my author's copies of Janis Joplin: Take Another Little Piece of My Heart, the biography I wrote for Enslow Publishers. Another book out--the first of five or six bearing my name that should appear this year.Here's the back copy:Born in Port Arthur, Texas, Janis Joplin spent much of her adolescence looking for a place where she belonged. In 1967, she found that place onstage, singing with Big Brother and the Holding Company, a band from San Francisco. Joplin became a household name after the Monterey Pop Festival, and her star burned bright until her untimely death in 1970 ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 21:56, January 30th, 2008 under Blog | 2 Comments »

Cover of my Janis Joplin book

As I noted in the previous post, my children's biography of Janis Joplin, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart, will be out from Enslow Publishers as part of their American Rebels series sometime this year (currently, Amazon says May).I just discovered the cover art has now been posted on Amazon, and here it is!This is the same series that my biography of Jimi Hendrix, Kiss the Sky, published last year, is part of, and the same series I'm writing books about Andy Warhol and Johnny Cash for this year.

Posted by Edward Willett at 17:22, January 3rd, 2008 under Blog | Comment now »

Cover of my Janis Joplin book

As I noted in the previous post, my children's biography of Janis Joplin, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart, will be out from Enslow Publishers as part of their American Rebels series sometime this year (currently, Amazon says May).I just discovered the cover art has now been posted on Amazon, and here it is!This is the same series that my biography of Jimi Hendrix, Kiss the Sky, published last year, is part of, and the same series I'm writing books about Andy Warhol and Johnny Cash for this year.

Posted by Edward Willett at 11:22, January 3rd, 2008 under Blog | Comment now »

Looking ahead to 2008…

...it appears I will be writing two more books for Enslow's American Rebels series, for which I wrote the Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin biographies: one on Johnny Cash and one on Andy Warhol.Should be fun!Now I should really finish the two pending Enslow books I have to write...

Posted by Edward Willett at 15:41, September 13th, 2007 under Blog | Comment now »

A review of my children’s biography of Jimi Hendrix…

...has appeared in VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates), "The library magazine serving those who serve young adults."My Enslow book Jimi Hendrix: Kiss the Sky is reviewed along with Karen Clemens Warrick's James Dean: Dream As If You'll Live Forever. Both are part of a series called American Rebels, for which I also wrote my upcoming biography of Janis Joplin.Reviewer Heather Pittman says, in part:"Willet's" (sic--I have a perennial problem with people dropping the second "t" from Willett) "description of Jimi Hendrix is also objective. Hendrix's difficult childhood, drug problems, and lack of business sense are depicted along with his career as an influential artist responsible for changing music forever with his ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 4:04, September 9th, 2007 under Blog | Comment now »

A review of my bio of Orson Scott Card

I came across the first review I've seen so far of my children's biography Orson Scott Card: Architect of Alternate Worlds today at Barnes & Noble. It's by Kristin Anderson and comes from School Libary Journal:This solid and well-researched biography does an able job of balancing information on the subject's numerous publications with the events in his personal life. A great deal is included about the importance of Mormonism in Card's life and work, although sometimes the level of detail included about the religion and about the publishing industry assumes an understanding of those topics not present in most adolescents. Card's Ender's Game is popular with teens, and this book will help them to understand how he ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 5:05, January 18th, 2007 under Blog | Comment now »

The first sentence I wrote Sunday…

The members of the band didn’t think Simon understood their music.Janis Joplinning, still...5,137 words today.I'm sick of the 1960s.

Posted by Edward Willett at 6:28, November 20th, 2006 under Blog | Comment now »