01 Dec Joy Preble, LOST AND FOUND HANUKKAH and a special GIVEAWAY!

I am so excited to welcome my friend, Joy Preble, to the blog today. I first knew Joy as a prolilfic YA writer, then I got to really know her when she was working at my local indie, Brazos Bookstore. As someone who writes YA, organized events at a bookstore, and also writes picture books, Joy is someone who can do it all!

EL: Welcome, Joy! Will you tell us a bit about yourself before we talk about LOST AND FOUND HANUKKAH?

JP: I grew up in Chicago—a true city girl— and graduated from Northwestern University before moving to Houston with my husband and starting a family. I have taught high school English and Creative Writing, as well as serving for three years as the Director of Education for a local synagogue.  I’ve also worked as the Children’s Programming Director at Brazos Bookstore, and these days, I tutor writing at Lone Star Community College. As for my writing career, I began with writing seven young adult novels, including the bestselling Dreaming Anastasia trilogy and a stand-alone novel titled Finding Paris. However, during the pandemic, and also influenced by the birth of my two very delightful grandchildren, I shifted to writing picture books with happy endings! My first picture book, Happy Passover, Edie Rose! arrived this past January from Kar Ben/Lerner, followed by my newest book, Lost and Found Hanukkah, which arrived from Chronicle Books in September, and which the Association of Jewish Libraries recently named as one of their Ten Best Jewish Fall Holiday books for 2025.

EL: So the birth of your delightful grandchildren made you think about writing picture books. What else can you tell us about your shift from YA to PB?

JP: As I mentioned briefly in my bio, during the pandemic, I decided to shift gears from Young Adult, a space I had loved and in which I’d found success, but which for a variety of reasons, no longer felt like a place where the stories I wanted to write had the best fit. When I began writing YA, I was in the middle of a long career teaching high school English. Stories with teenage protagonists came easily to me because I was spending hours and hours with them. The media I consumed then also starred teenage characters, and shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer not only taught me how to write but also inspired me to tell stories that combined paranormal and romance and girls who discovered they were kick butt heroes. In quick succession from 2009 – 2016, I published seven YA novels with a variety of wonderful publishers. I built a career and a fan base and was fortunate to be able to travel all over the country for events and promotions, and in the process find my place and my people in the kidlit world. It was an exhilarating time. I left public school teaching and wrote full time as well doing some freelance creative writing teaching and editing. But near the end of this period, things changed. I found myself needing a change from working at home, and was incredibly fortunate to be hired as the Children’s Buyer and Director of Children’s Programming at Houston’s Brazos Bookstore. During those seven years, I developed a passion for picture books, and when we were all engulfed in the pandemic, I found myself wanting to try something new, especially something where I could write truly happy endings!  I also very much wanted to try writing stories with Jewish content and characters, something I’d attempted with YA books, none of which had ever quite found the right editor and publishing house. I also was now a grandma of two adorable grandchildren, and I realized that slowly, my story ideas were aiming more at the world of the littles. From all of that came two books, which sold at very different times, but in the way of the publishing world, but came out this year: Happy Passover Edie Rose, which arrived this past January, and my newest, Lost and Found Hanukkah, which just came out from Chronicle Books in September!  Truly I couldn’t be happier!

EL: First of all, I want to say how happy I am that you were the Director of Children’s Programs at Brazos! I remember how you helped me through both my Pandemic release with a launch on Zoom and my in-person launch. You were wonderful! Back to YOUR picture book! How did you get your idea for Lost and Found Hanukkah?

I actually started writing Lost and Found Hanukkah with an idea I had brainstormed with my daughter-in-law—about a young dragon who hadn’t gotten her fire yet and couldn’t light the Hanukkah candles. Cute, right? But I quickly realized it wasn’t the book I wanted to write and pivoted to an idea about a boy who was trying to find a menorah that was just right for him. Swiftly, that turned into him having lost his menorah when his family moved, and eventually the book developed from there.It was my first picture book, and I knew the boy’s name would be Nate. I liked the sound of that firm one syllable for him. But then I put the project aside for a bit because my job as Children’s Programming Director at the bookstore was getting hectic, with tons of great upcoming events and school visits, and my granddaughter had just been born. Not long after that, my cousin and his husband welcomed a baby boy into the world, and eventually when I got back to writing the Hanukkah book, I found myself thinking about how it would be wonderful to have a Hanukkah picture book about a child and his two dads so my own extended family, who like me, celebrate all the Jewish holidays with great joy, could see themselves (or at least a fictional version) on the page. And so my character Nate, who’d been waiting for his story, now had a Daddy and an Abba (which is simply the Hebrew word for dad). I finished the story, revised it for my agent a million times (as always happens), then she sold, and the brilliant Lisa Anchin was added to do the illustrations, and eventually, on 9/23/25, Lost and Found Hanukkah arrived!! May it live long and prosper.

EL: I second that thought. May it live long and prosper! I love these pictures from your launch. Do you have a writing routine?

JP: Honestly, it depends on what I’m writing and what else is going on in my life (which this past year has included many things out of my control). But in general, I try to write at least a little each day. If I have a book under contract, then I will set a firmer routine and word count because the manuscript or revision has a deadline. But if I’m working on new projects that aren’t yet attached to anyone but me, I just try to keep the story flowing. When I get to the point where it’s in my head all the time, I know I’m in a good place to get it done. Even when I’m at my tutoring job at the college, I keep a few pages of my current project in a folder and hand write notes or pages if I don’t have a student to work with. Writing in the morning, early, also works for me, as does writing at least a little bit right before bed.

EL: Do you have any words of advice for aspiring kidlit writers?

My biggest piece of advice is simply WRITE!  Don’t just think about writing or talk about writing. Sit down and put words on paper. Even if your life is hectic—and whose isn’t these days?—you need to find the time. When I was writing my first novel, DREAMING ANASTASIA, I was a full-time high school English teacher with a class load of about 170 students. My son was in high school, and my husband traveled a lot for his job. So pretty much everything in our lives was on my plate. But I had this story to write, so each afternoon when the final bell rang, I stayed in my classroom and wrote for 15 – 20 minutes, the only free time I had. On the weekends, I tried to write more. And guess what? Slowly, I wrote an entire novel, ultimately willing to get less sleep and write more pages late into the night. I still stand by that basic advice. Everyone has fifteen minutes! Beyond that, a few tips:

1. Read widely, especially in your chosen genre but also outside it. Not every reader is a writer. But all good writers are readers.
2. Pick a favorite book in your chosen genre and deconstruct it. Study how the author constructs their story.
3. Treat writing as a business and learn not only your craft but also how the business works. What do agents do? How do editors acquire manuscripts? What is selling in kidlit these days? What is the process of traditional publication? Of self-publication?
4. Finally FIND YOUR PEOPLE! Conferences, critique groups, retreats, like-minded friends. They are crucial for this journey! Your existing friends and family will always be proud of you, but your writer friends know the journey and the business, and they will be much more likely to tell you when a piece of writing is working, and when it is not. Writing is such a solitary activity. You need your people. Trust me on this.

EL:  What’s coming next for you?

JP: Right now, I’ve got a couple picture books on sub with editors and a few more stories that I’m slowly working into shape. It is also safe to say that many of my future projects will have Jewish content and characters.  Whatever happens in the future, I definitely have more stories to tell.

EL: Thank you so much, Joy! You are truly an inspiration, and it’s been wonderful learning more about you.

To learn even more about Joy, please check out her website at  https://joypreble.com/

Book Available from your favorite bookstore or Amazon.

Here’s a link to Brazos Bookstore: https://brazosbookstore.com/book/9781797216096

And now here’s what you’ve been waiting for!

Joy is happy to give away a signed copy of Lost and Found Hanukkah AND a signed copy of Happy Passover Edie Rose!  To get in the running, please comment on this post and let me know if you’re a subscriber or if you have shared this post to get an extra chance to win.

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On a personal note, I’m currently scheduling school author visits for the rest of the 2025-2026 school year as well as the 2026-2027 school year. I’d love to visit YOU or a school near you! Please check out  https://EllenLeventhal.com.   

Here’s a review! 

Ellen Leventhal is an amazing presenter who tailors her presentations to meet the needs of all students and age levels.  I am amazed at how she can talk about her love of writing, how to become a writer, encouraging students to do what they love and how we can all be kind into a 45 minute presentation. A school visit from Ellen Leventhal is a treat for everyone!  Suzanne Ritchey:  Carroll T Welch Elementary School Clint, TX

Until next time,

Ellen