Exit Stage Right Blog Tour: Author Interview + Giveaway

 

Welcome to the Blog Tour & Giveaway for the Exit Stage Right by Jennifer Wilcock, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!

Title: Exit Stage Right
Author: Jennifer Wilcock
Publisher: Word Alive Press
Genre: Young Adult
Release Date: November 30, 2019

She wants to dance, and she’s willing to sacrifice everything, everyone, to get it. 

Coco Bradley is a talented ballet dancer, and when an opportunity arises for her to audition for the prestigious Spencer School of the Performing Arts, she’s not about to let anyone stop her— including her parents, her friends, and any of the prima donnas of the art school. A pastor’s kid, Coco has grown up serving God and people, but gaining entry to Spencer means leaving behind all the expectations that come with growing up in the pastorate, as well as the dead-end town of Wyattsville. 

Coco lives by the creed “Ballet First,” but she’s about to find out in a painful way that there’s more to life than dancing.

Opportunities, fame, and love all come calling as Coco chases her dream. But in going after what she wants, will she lose the things that matter most?

PURCHASE LINKS*: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | BookDepository | Christianbook

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Jennifer Willcock grew up telling herself stories in the middle of the night to keep away the monsters that lurked in the dark. Once she realized there weren’t any real monsters, she kept telling stories. A voracious reader, Jennifer reads many different genres, but she never outgrew young adult fiction. A degree in English Literature enabled her to keep her love affair with reading and writing alive. A blogger, speaker, and writer, she belongs to the MOPS Network of Speakers and the Word Guild of Canada. 

Jennifer studied ballet through the Royal Academy of Dance during her teen years and into adulthood. She has taught in private and community settings and choreographed productions for her church over the years. In 2017, Jennifer decided she was brave enough to try and write fiction and joined NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. She “won” it, writing 50,000 words in thirty days. The result is Exit Stage Right, a dream she thought was impossible to achieve. In 2019, the novel made the shortlist of the Word Alive Press fiction writing contest.

Besides being a mom to two sons, she is married to Mark, a pastor. She works part-time in the local library, where she’s inspired every day to write a book that will one day be on the shelves. The family’s pet dwarf rabbit, Whiskers, is her muse as he sits at her feet while she writes. She’d love for you to connect with her online.

CONNECT WITH JENNIFER: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

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Hi Jennifer! Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions and giving my readers the chance to get to know you and your book-Exit Stage Right- a little bit better. I always like to begin these interviews the same way with something fun… tell us 5 random facts about yourself that we WON’T find in your bio! 

1.    I’m a fraternal twin. My twin sister is the complete opposite of me in interests, and temperament.  I’ve always said that if we were one person we’d be perfect.2.    I will always choose chips over chocolate. My favourite flavor is Dill Pickle.3.    I would rather clean my house than play a board game. Even as a kid, I didn’t like to play card or board games.4.    I am a curler. I started to play in high school and have played off and on ever since, although it’s been a few years now. I usually skip – the one who holds the broom and calls the shots.5.    I have to have complete silence when I write. I cannot play music or have background noise. Music distracts me – I’ll start choreographing dancing in my head or dream up stories to match the music. If I want to do get anything done, I have to shut myself away in my sound proof office.

Let’s talk writing! You started making up stories as a kid, but did you always know that this was what you wanted to do for a living? When and how did that realization come about?

Yes I always wanted to write stories. Books fascinated me and I wanted to do what those writers were doing- creating stories. I loved Anne of Green Gables and Little Women and identified with both Anne and Jo as writers and independent spirits.

Exit Stage Right is your second book, but first work of fiction published. How has the experience been different between the two? 

My non-fiction book was based on my experience as a pastor’s wife and the struggles I had with that role, so it was a very personal writing experience. I also did a lot of in-depth research for that book because I used biblical examples of women from the bible.

Writing fiction was more fun because creating characters and worlds is very satisfying. They do what I want them to do which makes the control freak in me very happy. I was also writing about a topic I love – ballet, and in a genre I enjoy.

Can you tell us a little bit about Exit Stage Right? What do you hope readers will take away from this book?

Exit Stage Right is a loose retelling of the parable of the Prodigal set in the world of competitive dance. Coco Bradley is a talented dancer who dreams of making it big and she’s willing to give up everything and everyone to make it happen. What she doesn’t realize is how high the cost will be.

I hope readers will finish the book entertained, but also knowing that it’s never too late to go back to our first love, God. There is hope for all of us, always. I like to learn when I read so I hope readers take away a greater understanding of the world of ballet.

In addition to writing, you also love to dance and practiced ballet in your teens into adulthood. Clearly this is a topic that you are very familiar with… are there any of your personal experiences that made it into this book? 

That’s a great question. Obviously the studio work was very close to what I did in my ballet classes. I wanted the reader to get a feel for what it was like to go into a dance class.

I was always very competitive and so Coco’s drive and competitiveness mirror my own.

I started dancing at the age of 12 which is late, and I’ve included that in the book too in a minor character. A bit of a cameo of myself I guess you could say.

So there is some true-to-life experiences in the book but the great thing about fiction writing is you can include experiences you only dreamed about as a kid. I would have given anything to attend a performing arts school like Spencer but we didn’t have anything like that where I grew up, but that didn’t stop me from including that experience in the book. I guess you could say I lived a little vicariously through writing what I thought the experience would be like.

I have found that writers are so often some of the best readers too. If we were to take a look at your TBR, what might we find there?

I love reading and have an extensive TBR list. A few of the books you’d find there are

Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Echos Among Stones by Jamie Jo Wright

Heart of a Royal by Hannah Currie

Unashamed by Christine Caine

By Your Side by Kasie West

Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions. Before we go, can you give us an idea on what we can look forward to next? Any projects you are currently working on that you can share?

I have a couple of projects on the go. I wrote a twisted fairy tale a year ago – I wanted to try something new and I’ve done a lot of research on wolves.

I also just finished the first draft of the story of one of the characters from Exit Stage Right, which I’m pretty excited about. I’m researching hockey for that one.

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(1) winner will receive a copy of Exit Stage Right and a $25 Amazon gift card!

Be sure to check out each stop on the tour for more chances to win. Full tour schedule linked below. Giveaway will begin at midnight January 16, 2020 and last through 11:59 PM EST on January 23, 2020. US/CAN only. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize.

Giveaway is subject to the policies found here.

ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE

 

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