latest news

Welcome to the website of writer Jeff Gottesfeld, which is consistently under construction!

Latest news: It's the autumn of 2012, and it has been a year of progress on many fronts. Also a little time stop and smell the flowers..

The clickage continues.

After a year that saw two books I wrote pub within a few weeks of each other during the summer -- SuperFan!, from Grosset & Dunlap (licensed by the WWE), and Amen, L.A. -- 2012 brought more. The only thing is, I wrote them under pseudonym, and the pseudonym is not something you would expect from me. No, no, it's not the name of the author of 50 SHADES.... If you're interested, email me, and I'll fill you in. I will say that the young adult audience those books are for are an underserved group of readers who deserve great stories as much as anyone else. Give them great books? They'll be readers for life.

Coming in January 2013 under my own name?  The first book in a new series for Saddleback, called Robinson's Hood.  About an inner-city kid named Robinson "Robin" Paige who just can't take the crime, the drugs, the shakedowns, and the gangbangers anymore...and decides to fight back. Following Robinson's Hood are Robinson's Hood #2: The Bank of Badness, and Robinson's Hood #3: Chopped.  Both boys and girls should eat this series up.
 
Also terribly exciting is that my friend and colleague Elizabeth Wong and I have finshed the stage adaptation of Randa Abdel-Fattah's remakable 2007 novel, Does My Head Look Big in This?  Thank you to Dramatic Publishing Company, Randa, and her agent Sheila Drummond for making this happen.

In other news, I've learned to hate Facebook humblebragging. If I ever do it? Pie me.

Best kids' book read in the last few months? THE TOOTHPASTE MILLIONAIRE by Jean Merrill. She died very recently at the age of 89. May she write heavenly books forever.

And here's the best piece of writing advice I've heard in the last five years. Before sitting down to write a sentence, spend fifteen minutes reading something in a genre that's far afield from whatever you're writing. It's like brushing your writing teeth.

One more thing. Go to the "Brad Paisley and Me" page for something cool.