JOAN HOLUB, CHILDREN’S BOOK AUTHOR
A GREAT School visit making zero the hero masks
BIOGRAPHY:
New York Times best-selling author and award winner Joan Holub has written 220+ books for children from age two through middle school age. Joan is co-author (with Suzanne Williams) of the popular Goddess Girls middle grade series of 31 books and the Heroes in Training series of 18 books.
Joan’s best known picture books include Zero the Hero, I Am the Shark, and Little Red Writing. She has written ten of the popular Who Was? series books, her favorite being Who Was Babe Ruth? At the younger end, she’s the author of the This Little Trailblazer series of 10+ board books. She writes fiction, nonfiction, and fiction-nonfiction blends.
Joan’s books have been named Junior Library Guild Selections and Bank Street College’s Best Children’s Books of the Year. Zero the Hero is a Mathical Book Prize Honor Award and Little Red Writing is a School Library Journal Best Children’s Books of the Year, with starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and School Library Journal.
Joan’s first job was as an art director at a graphic design firm in Texas. She moved to New York City to become an associate art director designing books and working with editors and illustrators. Along the way, she got ideas for stories and submitted them to publishers, who turned them into printed books.
When she’s not writing, Joan is line dancing! She attends various classes, events, and marathons throughout the USA, and making new friends along the way. Recently, Ed Sheeran made a surprise appearance to dance at one of her favorite LD venues!
Follow Joan on Facebook and Instagram to learn more.
WANT TO KNOW HOW JOAN TURN IDEAS INTO BOOKS? READ ON…
1. I often begin with a title. Like GODDESS GIRLS. I thought: what could a series with that title be about? What kinds of problems and adventures could the immortal Greek characters 8-13 years old have? How could those problems be solved?
2. HOW DID YOU START WRITING BOOK SERIES WITH SUZANNE WILLIAMS?
We met at a writers’ event (SCBWI) in Seattle. We started talking
and that led to hanging out. One day I asked her if she’d like to try to write a book series together. She was surprised, but said yes. That was my lucky day. Right away, we wrote ATHENA THE BRAIN, our first book in the Goddess Girls series—a girl-power Greek mythology series set at Mount Olympus Academy, a middle school where Zeus is the principal. In all, we have co-authored 6 book series: GODDESS GIRLS, LITTLE GODDESS GIRLS, HEROES IN TRAINING, SCHOOL FOR MAGICAL MONSTERS, GRIMMTASTIC GIRLS, THUNDER GIRLS and a new series coming soon. We work via email and phone since we live far apart.
3. WHAT I NEED TO WRITE A BOOK: Interesting/unusual characters, a big problem, and a way to solve that problem in the end. Humor and a great title help! For chapter books like HEROES IN TRAINING and middle grade books like GODDESS GIRLS, I write an outline. For a picture book, I make a fake black-and-white book called a dummy with words and pictures to help me figure out the story. (Look at the bottom of this page to see samples from my ZERO THE HERO dummy). Ideas are the easy part of writing. Developing an idea into a story with a beginning, a middle, and a satisfying end can be hard. Go for a thinking walk. Ask smart friends for suggestions. Sooner or later something will spark your story in a new direction.
4. DO YOU DO SCHOOL VISITS? Yes! Please click the CONTACT link in the green bar at the top of this page for info.
