April Henry, Bestselling Young Adult Author, Speaking at CCPL

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Program Type:

Author Visit, Speaker
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Program Description

Event Details

Campbell County Public Library is pleased to welcome April Henry, New York Times Bestselling Young Adult Author to Campbell County September 31-October 4. Henry will visit junior high students throughout Campbell County and present What Doesn’t Kill You: A Writer's (Sometimes Crazy) Commitment to Getting it Right at a public event at CCPL on Wednesday, October 2 at 7pm. She is the author of 26 mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults and host a book signing following her presentation. A number of her books, including her latest release, Stay Dead, will be available for purchase at the event.

April grew up poor in a small Oregon town. At the time, Medford, Oregon had about 16,000 residents and the economy was based on timber and pears. While her family didn't have much money, thanks to the local library, they were rich in books.

According to her parents, April started to read at the age of three. She still remembers her mom teaching her with alphabet flash cards. White with a picture of an object on one side and a letter on the other, those cards glowed with magic. Her mom was a florist and her dad was a TV broadcaster.


When she was 12, she sent Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a short story about a frog named Herman who loved peanut butter. The day he received it, Dahl had lunch with the editor of Puffin Post, an international children's magazine, and read her the story. The editor contacted April and asked to publish it. 

But as she got older, even though she read all the time, she didn't even dream of being a writer. It would have been like thinking she could fly by flapping her arms really, really hard. She put away her dreams, got a business degree from Oregon State University, and graduated into a terrible job market.  

Eventually, she got a job in hospital admitting with lots of down time and started thinking maybe she could try to write a book about the life and death that surrounded her every day. She was finally pushed into trying to do something about it when she read a really bad book. She could, she figured, write a book that was at least better than that book. 

Meanwhile, She kept working full time.  She worked as a writer for a number of health care organizations: the American Heart Association, HealthLink, and Kaiser Permanente. (The reality is that a writer who is just starting out will need another job.) That first book she wrote attracted no interest from agents. Her second book got her an agent (and they’re still together many years and many books later) and nice rejection letters from editors. Her third book didn't even get nice rejection letters from editors. Her fourth book, 
Circles of Confusion, sold in three days. It was like an eight-year overnight success.

She’s written 26+ mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults. Face of Betrayal, the first in the Triple Threat Club series, co-written with Lis Wiehl, was on the New York Times bestseller list for four weeks. It was followed by Hand of FateHeart of Ice and Eyes of Justice. They had a second series that begins with A Matter of Trust

For many years, she worked full time while writing a book a year and being a mom. Her life was a blur. At the beginning of 2008, she was lucky enough to be able to quit her day job. 

Her first young adult novel, 
Shock Point was an ALA Quick Pick, a Top 10 Books for Teens nominee, a New York Library's Books for the Teen Age book, named to the Texas Tayshas list, and a finalist for Philadelphia's Young Readers Choice Award. It was followed by more teen thrillers, including Torched and Girl, Stolen. In addition to being optioned for film, Girl, Stolen was an ALA Quick Pick, an ALA Best Books for Young Adults, a Barnes and Noble Top Teen Pick, and a winner or finalist for many state awards. It was even named one of the best books in Ireland in 2012. Its sequel, Count All Her BonesThe Night She Disappeared came out in 2012. It was a selection of the Junior Library Guild, a Top 10 Quick Pick, an International Reading Association Young Adults Choice, and optioned for film. The Girl Who Was Supposed to Diewas a YALSA Quick Pick, a  YALSA Teens Top 10 Finalist, an Oregon Spirit Honor Award winner, named to the Texas Tasha's list, on the International Reading Association's Young Adult Choice's list, and named to many state lists.  The cover was even named one of the creepiest covers of all time by the UK magazine The Short List. The Point Last Seen series, which was inspired by the real-life Multnomah County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue team, and includes The Body in the Woods and Blood Will Tell, were chosen by the Junior Library Guild and named to several state lists. The Girl I Used to Be got a starred review from VOYA and was named to the Texas Lone Star list. It was also a finalist for the prestigious Edgar Award and won the Anthony Award. It was followed by a thriller with a paranormal Twist - The Lonely Dead - and a thriller inspired by terrorist attacks in Kenya and Paris - Run, Hide, Fight Back. The real-life Eagle Creek fire inspired Playing with Fire, and a lot of what she knows about writing went into Eyes of the Forest. 

Her books have been short-listed for the Edgar Award, Agatha Award, the Anthony Award (winning once), and the Oregon Book Award (winning once), and chosen twice for Booksense by the independent booksellers of America. They have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, German, Polish, French, Russian, Farsi, and Turkish.

She does a lot of research to get the details right in her novels. She knows how to get out of duct tape, zip ties, rope, and handcuffs. She knows how a blind character could use their cane to disarm a guy holding a gun. She knows how to run in handcuffs, how to open a door with a credit card, how to pick locks, how to craft a disguise, how to get a stranger to give her a ride or let her borrow their cell phone, how to make fake IDs, how to steal a car, how to shoot a handgun and machine gun, how to photograph a crime scene, how to choke someone, how to search a building, and how to fight back if attacked in her car.

She is married and lives in Portland, Oregon. She has one daughter. In her free time, she loves Brazilian jiujitsu (She’s a blue belt), running, cooking, and of course, reading!

Bio credit: https://www.aprilhenry.com/bio.html

Check out April's books from your library: https://tinyurl.com/CCPLSHenry

This visit is coordinated by CCPL, in partnership with Campbell County School District, and thanks to a Campbell County Community Public Recreation District grant.