Sellout launch party and signing

HueMan Bookstore in Harlem

SELLOUT online book birthday party -you're invited!

Start Time: Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 12:00am
End Time: Saturday, July 31, 2010 at 11:30pm
Location: Where books are sold

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SELLOUT!! ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!!

DESCRIPTION OF BOOK:
NaTasha Jennings doesn’t fit in with the white kids in her small suburban hometown. When she runs into trouble at school she is humiliated, frustrated, and lost. She does the only thing she knows to do…run away and hide. But she escapes to Harlem with her grandmother Tilly and runs right into a whole new set of problems in the big city, where everything is unfamiliar. Tilly decides NaTasha needs to get back to her roots and volunteers her to help at a crisis center for girls in the Bronx, mingling with girls who are troubled and tough as nails. These girls are nothing like NaTasha’s friends from home. Now, she doesn’t fit in with the black kids in the city either. NaTasha has to learn to survive in her new environment and decide whether she will tough it out with her new peers or run right back home again. It’s a summer that will change her life forever.

HOW TO GET YOUR COPY:
*ONLINE orders - http://www.amazon.com/
*BOOKSTORES - If SELLOUT isn't on shelves, ask a bookseller to order!
*MY WEBSITE - http://www.ebonyjoywilkins.com/ on books page

REVIEWS:
1. “Sellout is real, honest, and bold—an unforgettable debut.”
—Coe Booth, author of Tyrell and Kendra
2. Kirkus Reviews – June 15, 2010
SELLOUT by Ebony Joy Wilkins: NaTasha has well-meaning parents and a supportive best friend, so being nearly the only African-American teen at school only occasionally gives her problems. Her grandmother Tilly has misgivings, however, and when she witnesses NaTasha’s difficulties with a dance recital, she insists on taking her back to Harlem to volunteer at Amber’s Place, a program for troubled girls. It's not easy for NaTasha to fit in: The others criticize her speech and clothes and nickname her “Sellout.” Tilly will not let her quit, though, and she gradually connects with the girls. With an important project and a first date, NaTasha’s visit becomes richer than her life back home. Details she learns about her grandmother and mother provide insight as she develops a stronger sense of herself. Here is the normal teen coming-of-age story placed in a context of race and class. NaTasha’s doubts about her mother’s focus on shopping and appearances successfully present a character open to the change she experiences. Some at the center are predictable tough-girl characters, but the dialogue is authentic, and NaTasha’s growth feels right. (Fiction. 12 & up)
3. Write your own - and email me or post on Amazon

Enjoy and thank you for the support! Feel free to pass this invite along to all of your friends!! Everyone is invited!

New photos

A friend of mine got some new shots of me in Brooklyn!

Kirkus Review of Sellout

The first review of Sellout is in:

NaTasha has well-meaning parents and a supportive best friend, so being nearly the only African-American teen at school only occasionally gives her problems. Her grandmother Tilly has misgivings, however, and when she witnesses NaTasha’s difficulties with a dance recital, she insists on taking her back to Harlem to volunteer at Amber’s Place, a program for troubled girls. It's not easy for NaTasha to fit in: The others criticize her speech and clothes and nickname her “Sellout.” Tilly will not let her quit, though, and she gradually connects with the girls. With an important project and a first date, NaTasha’s visit becomes richer than her life back home. Details she learns about her grandmother and mother provide insight as she develops a stronger sense of herself. Here is the normal teen coming-of-age story placed in a context of race and class. NaTasha’s doubts about her mother’s focus on shopping and appearances successfully present a character open to the change she experiences. Some at the center are predictable tough-girl characters, but the dialogue is authentic, and NaTasha’s growth feels right. (Fiction. 12 & up)

Motivating quotes for writers

A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper - E.B. White, author of Charlotte’s Webb and Stuart Little


Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something – anything – down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a sh**ty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head - Anne Lamott, author of Bird By Bird


Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do - Mark Twain


We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance - Natalie Goldberg, author of Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life


The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you’re rewriting a novel you will never be stuck - Ernest Hemingway

Midland Daily News article

This article on SELLOUT appeared in the Midland Daily News this morning:

By the Midland Daily News
By Lori Qualls
lqualls@mdn.net

Ebony Wilkins knows all about not fitting in while in high school. And she's OK with it.

Wilkins grew up in Midland, and went to school at Adams Elementary and Northeast Middle School. But it was when her family moved to Indianapolis and she attended high school there, that she found herself on the receiving end of hurtful names.

"Lawrence Central was a racially mixed school," Wilkins said. "I think that it's always easier for others to shy away from things they don't understand. I spoke differently and I was the new girl and unfortunately, teens will be teens. They called me names and weren't as welcoming as I would have liked."

It was these experiences that inspired her book "Sellout," which will be released July 1 by Scholastic Press. The book tells the story of NaTasha, the only African American in her suburban school. That doesn't bother NaTasha, the book jacket states, but it troubles Tilly, her grandmother from Harlem. Her grandmother decides NaTasha needs to get back to her roots on her summer vacation instead of getting manicures and lattes at the mall. So, NaTasha volunteers at a Bronx crisis center for troubled girls and it is there that she begins to question why she's in a ballet troupe when she'd rather be playing volleyball or why she hasn't had a boyfriend in her all-white neighborhood back home.

"The main character in the story is torn between two worlds," Wilkins said. One, a small town, predominantly Caucasian, and the other, the big city with its mix of all types of people. "(NaTasha) is at an age where she tries to find herself and her place in two different worlds."

Wilkins, 33, said the book is based "very loosely" on her own story and that it is mostly fiction.

"The general idea is based on my personal experience (in Indianapolis)," she said. "I didn't fit in then, I don't fit in now. But that's OK. It's OK to be different."

That is the message she wants middle and high schoolers to get. The book is geared toward readers ages 12 and older.

Wilkins, who interned one summer at the Daily News while working on her bachelor's degree in communications from Purdue University, has taught school for the past nine years, three years at the high school level in Indiana, and six years in early childhood education in New York City. She earned a master's degree in creative writing from New School University in Manhattan, and it was there she met a Scholastic editor who also served as her instructor. She wrote "Sellout" as her thesis project, and her instructor loved the story and bought it for Scholastic.

She said she always has wanted to teach and write, but wasn't sure of how she would blend the two. Those two paths have intersected, and Wilkins plans to move from New York to Chicago, where she will pursue her PhD. in education at the University of Illinois, hoping to ultimately teach at the university level. She also just announced on Facebook her engagement to Jayson Canady, who lives in Chicago.

She's in the early stages of writing a story for preschoolers and also is keeping open a sequel to "Sellout."

Her parents, David and Lois Wilkins, live in Freeland.

For more information, ebonyjoywilkins.com

It's a signing launch party!

I will be hosting a signing launch party to celebrate the release of SELLOUT. If you are in NYC June 24, please stop by, buy a book, and listen to me read.

What: SELLOUT signing launch party
Time: 6 - 8 p.m.
Date: Thurdsay, June 24
Place: Hue-Man Bookstore (Hue-man Bookstore http://www.huemanbookstore.com, 2319 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, New York City, NY 10027, (212) 665-7400)