Sex in Teen Lit Month II - Jenn Bennett: Open for Discussion

Today, I have great guest post from YA author of Night Owls, Jenn Bennett on a conversation had between her characters, Jack and Bex.

Open for Discussion

My YA debut, Night Owls, (aka The Anatomical Shape of a Heart in the U.S.), is a book about two very different teen artists who are having trouble communicating. My hero, Jack, is an anonymous graffiti artist spray-painting enormous gold words across San Francisco—BELONG, FLY, BLOOM. But he can’t seem to get the attention of the girl he likes until does something that causes the police to show up at her doorstep.

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A Novel Cover Up: Paul Coomey on the Proof Covers for Night Owls by Jenn Bennett

A Novel Cover Up is a semi-regular feature that looks at how covers are made. Here is the second of my Night Owls A Novel Cover Up double-whammy! Thanks to Simon & Schuster Children's Books, we're fortunate enough to have a guest post* from Designer Paul Coomey about how he designed the cover for the ten different proofs of Night Owls by Jenn Bennett. Other than the first photo, all images in this post are copyrighted to Simon & Schuster Children's Books and used with permission. They can be clicked to be enlarged.

I knew we had something special as soon as I started reading Jenn Bennett’s artsy, cool, YA novel, Night Owls. It follows the story of Jack and Beatrix who meet on the Owl – San Francisco’s night bus. Both protagonists are artists, though wildly different ones: Bex is fascinated by anatomy and wants to be a medical illustrator, while Jack is a street artist, spray-painting giant gold words across the city’s landmarks. When they meet, their worlds explode in the best possible way – and although they’re on a journey that neither of them is supposed to be, they might just end up exactly where they need to go.

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A Novel Cover Up: Leo Nickolls on Night Owls by Jenn Bennett

A Novel Cover Up is a semi-regular feature that looks at how covers are designed. Today I have a double-whammy for you. I have two A Novel Cover Up posts on Night Owls by Jenn Bennett; one for the final cover, and later today, one for the proof cover!

I have been fortunate enough to interview Graphic Designer Leo Nickolls about how he designed the cover for Night Owls. All images in this post are copyrighted to Leo Nickolls and used with permission. They can be clicked to be enlarged.

Can you tell us about the cover for Night Owls? What do you hope it tells readers about the story?

Well, it's a cover for a book about a girl called Bex who meets a boy called Jack on the San Francisco night bus – the owl. A can of gold spray paint in his bag tells her he is the mysterious graffiti artist who has been creating gold words in distinctive spots around the city. That’s a very abbreviated version of the story, but hopefully it explains the cover! The cover (again, hopefully) sets the scene for this story, so its gold graffiti above a san francisco map at night time!

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Review: Night Owls by Jenn Bennett (#Ad)

Night Owls by Jenn Bennett

I received this eProof for free from Simon & Schuster Children's Books via NetGalley for the purpose of providing an honest review.

Feeling alive is always worth the risk.

Meeting Jack on the Owl—San Francisco's night bus—turns Beatrix's world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive...and possibly one of San Francisco's most notorious graffiti artists.

But Jack is hiding a piece of himself. On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is. From Goodreads.

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