A Spooky Cover Reveal: Sarah Cannon’s TWIST!

Sarah Cannon has a new book coming, February 11, 2020, and we’re here to show you its full awesomeness below!!

Here’s the flap copy:

Oklahoma, 1983:

Eli has a dream. He’s going to be the next Stephen King, and he’s just created his best monster yet!

Neha has a secret. Her notebook is filled with drawings of a fantasy world called Forest Creeks, and it’s become inhabited by wonderful imaginary creatures. But her new friends are in danger…

Court has a gift, both for finding trouble and for stopping it. And when she accidentally ends up with one of Neha’s drawings, she quickly realizes that the monsters raiding Forest Creeks are coming from Eli’s stories. 

When these three creative kids come together, they accidentally create a doorway from Forest Creeks into the real world, and now every monster that Eli ever imagined has been unleashed upon their town!

Now for a short interview and then the amazing cover…

Janet: What inspired the book? And why is it set in 1983?

Sarah: 1983 was an amazing year for pop culture and music, and it was pivotal in another way, too. It was the last year before the 1984 Cable Act was passed, after which cable TV became a standard fixture in American households. Running cable nationwide was the largest private construction project since WWII, can you believe that? At the same time, television content was being deregulated, so it was much easier to cross-market toys to kids through shows. It changed a lot about the way kids play and the way they pretend, and since I was a middle grader in 1983, the “before” and “after” are very distinct in my memory. A lot of the kids’ pet projects in TWIST are things me and my friends did, too, and naturally I always wondered what would happen if we “crossed the streams,” Ghostbusters-style, between one kid’s hobby and another’s. That’s how TWIST was born!

Janet: Tell us more about your protagonists. Give us a feeling as to what they’re like!

Sarah: Eli, Court, and Neha are pretty representative of the dozens of kids in my Tulsa neighborhood back in the early 80s. They’re biking-around-getting-into-things kids, two of them are latchkey kids, and they’re also nerdy kids back before being nerdy was cool. But what I love most about them is the way they complement each other. Court is well-intentioned and brash but sometimes awkward, Neha is passionate in the defense of the people and things she loves, and Eli is a somewhat beleaguered older brother who cares about his sister but would seriously kill for some quiet time to write. Kids were unsupervised and unscheduled a LOT more often in the 80s, and when you found a group of friends you clicked with the way Eli, Neha and Court click, life was 8000 times more interesting. I’ll add that I know many people who don’t think of diversity or cities when they hear the word “Oklahoma,” so it was important to me to reflect the diversity of the neighborhood I grew up in. That said, I want to point out, as I have before, that writing an inclusive cast is not the same as writing with a diverse lens, so while I hope you’ll love TWIST, I also hope you’re reading the amazing surge of Own Voices fantasy out there right now!

Janet: I love STEAM books. What’s “STEAM-Y” about TWIST?

Sarah: This is another thing that’s so important to me about this book. I moved around a lot as a kid (Neha and I have that in common), and I found that various aspects of intelligence were valued differently in different places. I was a bookworm and a writer, and some schools offered me special opportunities because of that– while passing over some of my peers. In other places, I was grandfathered into math- and science-based programs where I was totally in over my head, but there didn’t seem to be any designated space for kids whose primary talents were in the arts. And of course, we know that kids in the margins are under-identified for any kind of enrichment opportunity. For all of these reasons, I did my best to write an adventure that’s not an either/or proposition, but one in which both the arts and sciences are important, and kids work together on a common problem.

Janet: Tell readers a bit about you and your other books.

Sarah: Sure! TWIST is my second novel. The first is ODDITY, which is set in New Mexico and centers around Ada Roundtree’s quest to find her missing sister, Pearl. This process is complicated by how very weird (and often dangerous) Oddity is. Think zombie rabbits, giant spiders, and a city council composed of evil puppets. In short, it’s a lot of spooky fun. As to the “more about me” part, I’m obviously fairly odd myself. I live in a part of my city that’s named after the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and we have a local “Haunted Neighborhood” tour. I love gardening, cooking/baking, and knitting.

Now for this wonderful cover (drumroll, please):

Sarah: I love this cover so much. I had to show the full wrap, because look at the gorgeous baby snakes! The cover artist captured them perfectly! Court calls them “The Serpenteens,” and they’re some of my favorite “Creeps” (the friendly creatures who live in Neha’s sketchbook.) Geneva Benton was so thoughtful about the cover illustrations, including the 80s elements, like the ribbon barrettes Neha is wearing! You should all follow Geneva at @gdbeeart and check out more of her gorgeous art at https://gdbee.store/ ! She has stickers and prints and all kinds of things. (I may have already placed an order myself!) Her art is joyous and makes me smile every time I see it.

I love this cover, too, and can’t wait to read TWIST!! Sarah adds:

I’d also like to announce a giveaway, in honor of TWIST’s cover reveal! Comment on this post with either:

1. One thing you love about the 80s, or
2. One Own Voices book you’ve loved this year!

I’ll randomly select a winner and send you an ARC of TWIST and a treat from the cover artist’s store, and I’ll make a $25 donation in your name to We Need Diverse Books, which supports diverse authors and publishing interns with grant funding, among other good works. I also want to point out that Paypal users can set up their account to make a recurring $1 donation to WNDB every time you make a purchase!

Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Twist-Sarah-Cannon/dp/1250123305/

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250123305

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/twist-sarah-cannon/1130769015?ean=9781250123305