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Jude Atwood grew up on a farm in small-town Illinois. After graduating from Bradley University and Chapman University, he became a community college professor in Orange County, California, where it hasn't snowed in over seventy years. Along with his boyfriend, he takes care of a dog named Kokoro and has occasional adventures. His writing has appeared in Literally Stories and Unfortunately, Literary Magazine. judeatwood.tv
Devotees of supernatural stories reeling from the end of Stranger Things reel no longer! Atwood delivers a twisting, turning tale of Midwestern macabre equal parts spine-tingling and laughter-inducing. Teens fighting the doldrums of what can often feel like a charmless world will particularly identify with curious and resilient heroine Clara Hutchins and the town of Biskopskulla that disguises the extraordinary beneath a thin veil of quaint normalcy. Every town is a permeable mirror, a portal of Past and Present, Good and Evil, and Atwood makes Biskopskulla spring to life with the unexpected menace of Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes but with a quirkiness and a beating heart all the author's own. --J.R. Potter, author of THOMAS CREEPER & THE GLOOMSBURY SECRET When books are really good we feel like they are speaking directly to us. The ingenious premise behind Jude Atwood's sharp debut MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES is to cast this sensation as an actual spell for young Clara. Her ordinariest of ordinary lives takes a twist toward the darkly fantastic as a newly-discovered book communicates truths about Clara's present it couldn't possibly know and launches her into a harrowing adventure she can't possibly hope to survive. At a time where we all worry our kids might get lost in their phones, WITCHES poses that they might, instead, get lost in their tomes, and aside from the impending cataclysmic doom they might find within, I can't think of a better fate for young readers like Clara, or yours. --Steven T. Seagle, co-creator of BEN 10, BIG HERO 6, CAMP MIDNIGHT When thirteen-year-old Clara moves with her mother into an old house in a small town, she soon discovers she is descended from a famous local witch, killed a hundred years ago. Soon she is joined by two new friends on a quest to save their town from an imminent supernatural disaster. Wonderfully plotted with head-spinning twists and turns, I was racing toward the end of this impossible to put down adventure. By turns funny and smart and scary, this book is guaranteed to thrill and enthrall. --John Calvin Hughes, author of THE LOST GOSPEL OF DARNELL RABREN
