Interview with Author, Joana James

Joana James is a young author that I've recently met through the Facebook group Grace and Faith Author Connection. You can find their blog HERE! It's a wonderful group that brings together authors and bloggers who support, encourage, and promote one another. Joana is fairly new to the group, and I'm delighted to welcome her to Faith-Driven Fiction today!

Her new Young Adult novel is available at Amazon for only $3.99.


Marji - Where did your desire to write stem from?

Joana - For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to write. I wrote many stories as a teenager and always dreamed about becoming a published author. When I finally got the opportunity, I grabbed it with both hands.

Marji - Indie publishing offers that open door! So what is your ultimate goal?

Joana - I would love to see my books in the hands of as many people as possible, simply because they have messages for everyone. Of course, I dream of becoming a bestselling author but my number one goal is to touch somebody’s life.

Marji - How does Nightmare at Emerald High satisfy that goal?

Joana - Nightmare at Emerald high is a story of a young boy who’s facing rejection and struggling to find success in a cruel world. He’s the voice of many teenagers. Malcolm was fooled by a bogus scholarship opportunity, and many of our youngsters face the similar situations. I hope to encourage parents to pay more attention to what their children are involved in and to teach teens to be careful of the opportunities offered to them.

Marji - Sounds frighteningly true-to-life. What inspired this particular story?

Joana - I live in a society that is riddled with secret societies and organisations and several rumours fly about the place concerning their activities. I used this atmosphere to create a book that warns teens about the dangers of things done in the dark.

Marji - What actors might play your main characters if they made a movie of this?

Joana - I’m not much of a movie buff, so I can hardly rattle off any names of notable actors, but I do know that I’d like Malcolm to be played by someone who really understands what it is to be bullied, picked on and considered a geek. So I daresay that I’d like my main character to be a real life teen and not necessarily an actor who has found fame.

Marji - What's a lasting line from your novel - like the "Frankly, dear ..." or "You had me at hello."

Joana - “Not everything you see can be trusted.”

Marji - That seems to go well with the theme of the book! How does writing fit into your regular day-in-the-life?

Joana - I’m a morning person so; I wake up at about 4:00am and head straight for the laptop. Most times, the story would have been stewing in my head for practically the whole night preventing me from sleeping. I’m a binge writer, so I spend a few hours going hard at it in the morning before I head off to my day job.

Marji - Oh I'm so jealous! I wish I was a morning person, but I'm just not! Thanks so much for joining us today!

Joana Melisia James is a young Christian author from the island of Saint Lucia in the Caribeean. Always been a book worm she developed a great passion for the written word.

With a love of reading a good story as much as telling them, in July 2011, she decided to stop procrastinating and get her work published. As most Indie authors know, it is difficult to get a foot in the door of the publishing world. Without fame, she found it hard to get anyone to take her seriously, so she decided to publish independently.