#AMMConnect Spring 2018 Bio

AUTHOR MENTOR MATCH

Well, Hello.

 

 

 

 

I'm Stephanie L. Ward.

At times, I can be silly and goofy, but I'm always attentive, gracious and fun-loving.

Translation: I'm from the 'nice house,' a Hufflepuff through and through.

Elevator Pitch:

LIBRARY JUMPERS+THE WOOD Trapped inside the world of paintings, Ros must escape with her family before a hag entombs her within a still life and consumes her soul.

MY STORY:

Title: VANISHING POINT
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Word Count:79,000

Sixteen-year-old art obsessed Ros Shifley thinks she might be hallucinating when she witnesses her beloved father yanked inside Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream. When police come knocking and asking questions about her missing art dealing father —the only family she ever had—her heart thrashes as if contorted into an abstract painting. In fear of being locked up, she stays silent, and the authorities send her to a godfather in France. Without even meeting him, she’s transported to an all-girls-school in Paris.

On a field trip to the Louvre, Ros seizes the opportunity to investigate unsettling shifts inside other paintings, determined to uncover a way to retrieve her father. When movement within the Mona Lisa catches her attention, she locks eyes with a mysterious person within the canvas. With alarms blaring, and security entering the room, the brush-stroked guy reaches for her hand, she takes a chance and is transported into the famous masterpiece. With Leo as her guide, Ros must navigate through a maze of art to save her dad. She remains one step behind her assumed adversary—an evil hag—lurking within the labyrinth. The search becomes deadly when Ros faces manipulated, painted people out for vengeance, tampered entry points, and Leo’s shady acts of loyalty at the hag’s hand.

Unless Ros can eliminate the elusive hag before she ensnares her within a painting and steals her soul, she’ll become art herself, entombed like her dad in a nightmarish still life, forever.

Aesthetic: 

 

Birth of the story:

I became obsessed with art when the teen-aged students played an art bingo game. The rules were simple: guess the artist, the style, or the name of the piece to score points. With the school year two-thirds over, these kids should have known the masterpieces but didn't. I scratched my head and puzzled over it some more. Somehow, they had to envision art as cool. Then it hit me--teens jumping through masterpiece art. And the new story concept covered another wall in my living room. Hee, hee. Here's an artist's interpretation of my story. Can you name the style, artist, or masterpieces showcased in this drawing? (Hint: There are 6 masterpieces represented). If you can't now, by the time you get through my story, you will.

Art by: Trenton Long
To see more of his artwork, go to:
https://instagram.com/longtrenton/

Other reasons to pick me as a mentee besides being a Hufflepuff: 

I'm a hard worker, I'm moldable, and I believe in my story. I'm willing to make changes no matter how big of a task--a whole new direction, check. Remove/add characters, check. Create new motives, check. Strip/bolster a characters identity, check. Whatever it takes to make my story the best it can be I'm ready to sprout new limbs and get to work.

Reasons I desire mentorship:

I'm seeking to level-up. Mentors are further along this journey than I, and I'm ready to go from paint the fence and wax on wax off to the fundamentals of why I've been doing them. To be trained further in the art of story would mold me into the black belt writer I desire to become.
      

ABOUT ME

My Childhood:

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. There I created stories by playing Barbies with my best friend.

But then... BOYS entered my life.

In my teen years I wrote poetry about, you guessed it, boys. The writing sucked but I didn't admit it. Humph, I was a poet. Shh...Don't tell my teen self differently. 

Adulthood:

I married at twenty and soon after that the rugrats came. Those years were more frightening for me than them, trust me. I had a poop-painting toddler, an abstract bang-cutting kid, and an angry, fainting redhead. There came a time when my husband took a new job. Our young family packed up,left family and friends in California, and moved to Florida. Once the rugrats had grown a bit I headed off to teach K-8th graders. They put a smile on my face, even when they made up silly lies to get out of work. Those kids brought dump trucks full of creativity to their projects and fueled my own, putting it into hyper-drive. Every day they challenged me to give them the best of myself, the way my own children have always inspired and challenged me. The passion to write came flooding back.

My Writing:

I took down the wall decorations, taped poster boards from floor to ceiling, picked up a sharpie, and scribbled all my ideas on them. Days later, I stepped back--I had a story, at least a ten by twelve foot collage of one. It gave me instant goosebumps. That moment, defined me. I found my thing, my passion! My hubby took one look at our new decor and agreed.


 
 
I wrote my first manuscript by hand. Once complete, it took me FOREVER to type it up, and an ETERNITY to edit it. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating but it did take a while. I now have six manuscripts in my carpet bag and will magically pull them out for any mentor who'd like to read them--twice as fast for agents wanting to represent me.

My Favorite Things (besides books):

•     See's candy
•     Sunrises
•     Walks with friends
•     Helping others
•     Christmas & Weddings

My Favorite Books:

•     Harry Potter
•     Good Omens
•     Red Queen
•     The Lunar Chronicles Series
•     Les Miserables
•     Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
•     Howl's Moving Castle
•     Alice in Wonderland 
•     and many, many more

My Favorite Movies & TV Shows:

•     The Greatest Showman
•     Guardians of the Galaxy
•     Jumamji
•     Beauty and the Beast (Disney's live action 2017)
•     Princess Bride
•     Somewhere in Time
•     Harry Potter (series)
•     Nanny McFhee
•     Hook
•     The Goonies
•     Pirates of the Caribbean (series)
•     Indiana Jones (series)
•     Slipper and the Rose
•     Johnny Lingo
•     Doctor Who
•     Sherlock (BBC)
•     Studio C
•     Food/Travel/Nature documentaries
•     and many more...

Thank you  to Alexa Donne for putting together Author Mentor Match and for working tirelessly to benefit mentees, hopefuls, and beyond. Thank you mentors for showing interest in all the potential mentees by reading our blog posts and making time in your busy lives to work with a few of us. Thank you R3 mentees for helping over seventy of us get our first page and query shiny. Thank you #AMMFamily for giving us new friends.

                                                  Hugs to all!

Twitter Handle: @StephaineWard