FALLING FOR ALICE launches April 24, 2015 from Vine Leaves Press. Follow our Tumblr in the A-Z Challenge all this month for chances to win Alice in Wonderland-inspired gifts…including a copy of FALLING FOR ALICE.
Not only did the very talented Jessica Bell design the edgy, brilliant cover of FALLING FOR ALICE, her song is featured on the FALLING FOR ALICE book trailer, AND, her publishing company Vine Leaves Press, believed in us enough to give FALLING FOR ALICE a home. Thanks, Jess!
If Jessica Bell could choose only one creative mentor, she'd give the role to Euterpe, the Greek muse of music and lyrics. This is not only because she currently resides in Athens, Greece, but because of her life as a 30-something Australian-native contemporary fiction author, award-winning poet and singer/songwriter/guitarist, whose literary inspiration often stems from songs she's written.
Being the daughter of a semi-famous rock 'n' roll duo from Melbourne, she grew up surrounded by song. For a while it seemed logical to travel the musician's path, especially when her first band, spAnk, hit it off in the Melbourne indie music scene back in the late 90s. Although she spent her years writing and recording dozens of songs she decided she also had a love for the written word, and began to pursue a career as a writer.
She started as a poet, drawing from her musical background and etching her thoughts and feelings into verse. Those stanzas soon turned into sentences and paragraphs, and eventually into published books. Her literary voice is said to overflow with "lyrical descriptions, unique metaphors, tight dialogue, and an abundance of sensory detail." She has also been told she has the ability to take a seemingly ordinary three-chord type story and turn it into a main stage event.
In addition to her four novels, two poetry collections (including Fabric, which was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards in 2012), and her bestselling pocket writing guides (Writing in a Nutshell Series), she has published a variety of works in online and print literary journals and anthologies, including Australia’sCordite Review, Writer’s Digest, and the anthologies 100 Stories For Queensland and From Stage Door Shadows, both released through Brisbane, Australia's, eMergent Publishing.
One of Jessica's proudest moments was when, in November 2013, her poem, Sugar (which was published in a poetry anthology called Women’s Work, edited by Libby Hathorn) was broadcast on ABC National Radio’sPoetica program.
Jessica Bell is the Publishing Editor of Vine Leaves Literary Journal, the Coordinator of the Writing Day Workshops which take place throughout the United States, and she makes a living as an editor/writer for English Language Teaching publishers worldwide, such as Pearson Education, HarperCollins, Macmillan Education, Education First and Cengage Learning.
For more about Jessica, check out her website. And to learn more about Vine Leaves Press, click here. And of course, please add FALLING FOR ALICE to your Goodreads...here.
