Saundra Mitchell
Saundra Mitchell is the author of SHADOWED SUMMER, THE VESPERTINE, THE SPRINGSWEET, THE ELEMENTALS and MISTWALKER. In non-fiction, she’s the author of the THEY DID WHAT!? series for middle grade readers. She’s also the editor of the YA anthology DEFY THE DARK. IN 2018, HarlequinTEEN will publish her next anthology, ALL OUT.
Writing as Jessa Holbrook, she published her first romantic contemporary YA with Razorbill, WHILE YOU’RE AWAY. In summer 2014, she debuted WILD, her first YA novel writing as Alex Mallory.
SHADOWED SUMMER was the 2010 winner of The Society of Midland Authors Book Award for Children’s Fiction and a 2010 Edgar® Award Nominee. It was chosen as a Junior Library Guild selection and an ALAN Pick in 2009.
Her short story “Ready to Wear” was nominated for a 2007 Pushcart Prize after appearing in Vestal Review Issue 27. Her short fiction and non-fiction has appeared in anthologies including A TYRANNY OF PETTICOATS, FORETOLD, GRIM, TRUTH & DARE and DEAR BULLY.
For twenty years, she was the head screenwriter and an executive producer with Dreaming Tree Films on their various teen filmmaking programs, including the largest teen filmmaking program in the United States, Fresh Films. They produced more than four hundred films from her screenplays, and she earned Academy Award eligibility ten times during her tenure.
In other arenas, Ms. Mitchell was interviewed by the New York Times and the BBC for her part in exposing the Kaycee Nicole hoax, and she’s been tapped by morning radio shows all over the United States as a guest expert on Urban Legends & Folklore.
In her free time, she enjoys fandom, studying history, papermaking, and spending time with her wife and her daughters.
“Was it enough to wear the night with me just once? I am unsatisfied.”
“No.First tell me that you love me, as you've no one else.”
“You're the only fire that consumes me." And my wonderful monster smiled at that. Smiled at me.”
“You haunt me. You alone. You're my fire. I'm your air." Nathaniel to Amelia”
“For two so gifted as we, how utterly useless we were.”
“Because when I can believe in a villain, I can fear them. My pulse races, I worry about the heroes, I read through my fingers, and flinch when disaster strikes. I exhale my relief when all is well, and I really feel it when they fall in love. No matter how fantastic the world, how unique the magic that's written into it- I have to believe in the characters before I can believe in their gifts.”
“Could you have possibly put more water between us?”
“The stars could have burned out around us, the moon could have fallen from the sky, and I wouldn't have known it. Not when he leaned indecently close and pressed his cheek against mine to murmur, "Tell me a secret."I wanted him to tell me how he stopped time like that. How he read my mind. I wanted to admit I wondered if thoughts of me troubled him when he lay awake at night. But I could make none of that come to my lips....Instead... I whispered back, "I've seen the future."He didn't laugh. He didn't mock, not like he had done at Privalovna's performance. In the middle of our waltz, he stopped, nose to nose with me. He uncovered me with a look that somehow bared him, too.And his question told me everything - that he stopped time because he needed me, that he read my mind because we were one. That I troubled his nights, indeed, because what he asked revealed it all."Am I with you there?”
“Do forgive me.... I've no reputation of my own, and I forget they matter.”
“Laughter rose from the clatter of china and silver, and I felt so very close to Zora's circle but not quite in it. It wasn't Zora's fault, because she addressed me often and encouraged her cousins to speak to me - once or twice with kicks beneath the table.But she couldn't know that the light on her circle paled to the light in mine. Even though I looked at the cousins, admiring their smiles and pretty laughter, I found myself drawn back to Nathaniel Witherspoon. And each time I caught him looking at me. At my mouth.”
“The warmth of his mouth bloomed across my hand, and his nails skimmed across the inside of my wrist. Such great sensation from so little a touch....”
“...I tasted - perhaps for the first time - the true sweetness of possibility.”