Edward Willett

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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 »

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 nice little review of Magnesium

My editor at Rosen Publishing passed along this review of my children's science book Magnesium yesterday:"This is the second book in this series that I have reviewed and again, the author has done a fine job of explaining what can be a complex and confusing subject. Although not a scientist, I enjoyed the anecdotal information provided with an explanation of the element, its discovery, importance and uses. The colorful illustrations help to illustrate the concepts being discussed and will help make this useful for student reports." - Sheila Morken, K-12 Librarian, La Center Schools, Lower Columbia (Washington State) Review GroupThese kind of educational series books (of which I write quite a few) don't always ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 17:17, April 19th, 2007 under Blog | Comment now »

The latest additions to my oeuvre…

...arrived this week, to whit my thrill-a-minute educational books Neon and Magnesium, both published by Rosen Publishing.The books are part of Rosen's series "Understanding the Elements of the Periodic Table."It looks like I'll soon be working on another Rosen book plus two more for the other educational publisher I do quite a bit with, Enslow Publishers, plus I've got to get some proposals finished up for novels and other things, so...keeping busy.UPDATE: Bizarrely, today (March 21) I received a second ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 21:25, March 20th, 2007 under Blog | Comment now »

The Chronicles of Narnia vs. His Dark Materials

Philip Pullman explictly says his fantasy trilogy (I seem to remember reading somewhere that he doesn't like it to be called "fantasy," but fantasy it is, however he feels about it) is an atheistic answer to Lewis's allegorical and Christian Narnia series.I enjoyed His Dark Materials for the most part, but I think Catherine Seipp has perfectly captured my feelings on how the two stack up against each other (and note I would never have thought of stacking them up against each other if Pullman hadn't made a point of how much he detests Lewis and everything Narnian):I’ve read the Narnia series repeatedly over the years...But leaving religion entirely out of it, I can’t imagine ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 20:54, December 22nd, 2006 under Blog | Comment now »