I kill people, but only on paper.
April Henry, Writer
  • Home
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  • Bio
    • Why I write scary things
    • Roald Dahl Made Me a Writer
    • Fun Facts about April
    • 10 Reasons I Love Martial Arts
    • Learning to Fight Back
    • Dear Teen Me
    • My Parents >
      • My Dad, Hank Henry >
        • Witnessing Nat King Cole's Greatest Hit
      • My Mom, Nora Henry >
        • My Mom and the Round Rock
    • My great-grandfather, the killer
  • Books
    • For Teens (and Adults) >
      • Run, Hide, Fight Back
      • Count All Her Bones
      • The Girl I Used to Be
      • Blood Will Tell (2nd in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Body in the Woods (1st in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die
      • The Night She Disappeared
      • Girl, Stolen
      • Torched
      • Shock Point
    • For Adults (and Teens) >
      • Lethal Beauty (3rd in the Mia Quinn series)
      • A Deadly Business (2nd in the Mia Quinn mystery series)
      • Matter of Trust (1st in Mia Quinn series)
      • Face of Betrayal (1st in the Triple Threat series)
      • Hand of Fate (2nd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Heart of Ice (3rd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Eyes of Justice (4th in the Triple Threat series)
      • Learning to Fly
      • Circles of Confusion (1st in Claire Montrose series)
      • Square in the Face (2nd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Heart-Shaped Box (3rd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Buried Diamonds (4th in the Claire Montrose series)
    • Foreign Covers
  • FAQ
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • About My School Visits
    • A Sneak Peek at a School Visit
    • Ready, Get Set, Go - Plan a Visit!
    • Download School Visit Checklist
  • Fun
    • Does Your Character Need a Job?
    • Girl, Stolen Alternative Covers
    • I Get Letters
    • Purchase the Claire Montrose Series
    • Blob on the Side of the Filing Cabinet
    • Books I Like
    • JB's Cinnamon Rolls
    • Vanity Plates
    • Diary of My First Book Tour (From 2000)
    • 1999 Interview with James Lee Burke
    • 1997 Interview with Carol Shields
    • Oregon, the Writer's Toronto
    • Stealing From Myself to Create A Character
    • Panties in a Twist
    • Heteronyms
  • Write
    • Tips for writers
    • Write what you know?
    • What if you get stuck?
    • More tips about writing
    • How to start a new book
  • Blog
"Henry has become a leading light in YA mystery." - Booklist
"April Henry’s crime dramas are consistently smart and satisfying.” - Kirkus
"A must-have for YA mystery-thriller collections." - School Library Journal

I kill people, but only on paper

Welcome to my little corner of the Internet. I'm a New York Times bestselling author who loves kung fu, Brazilian jujitsu, and all things salty. 

I love to do school visits

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School visits are a great way to get students interested in reading and writing.

 I love to visit schools and share with students the joys of reading, writing, and research. I also talk about the vital importance of tenacity. 

To learn more, check out my school visit page, including how to qualify for discounts. I still have a few open times in May 2018. 

And the good folks at my publisher have put together a teacher's guide for my books (which can be used with Common Core state standards). You can get it here. 
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School visits in St. Charles, Missouri and Missouri Association of School Librarians conference 

School visits in New Hampshire

4th strip in BJJ! 

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You have no idea how PROUD I am of this fourth stripe in Brazilian jiujitsu. It literally takes me more time to get a stripe than it does to write a book. It is so much work, especially since my partners are usually 20-40 years younger than me. And most of them are guys, which often means they weigh more and always means they have more muscles. 

I have never been a natural athlete. PE was the only reason I didn't graduate with a 4.0 in high school. (Just say the words "round robin tennis" or "creative movement" to make me start feeling sick.) But a kickboxing class I took years ago led to kajukenbo. And kanjukenbo led to kung fu, which lead to BJJ (which is like wrestling, plus joint locks and chokes).  
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BJJ is the funnest, hardest thing I do.

Battle of the Books in Helena, Alabama and School visits in Le Mars, Iowa 

School visits in Long Island and Houston

School visits in Missouri City, Texas

School visits in Garden City, Kansas 

This was a whirlwind trip to Garden City, Kansas, my first trip ever to the state. After my schools visits, the librarian took me to the town's museum. The exhibits were an eclectic mix that included a crime room (the events described in In Cold Blood took place nearby) and a giant hairball recovered from a cow. But what was really amazing was that the librarian bought a book for every single student. I've done many school visits and never had that happen before.

School visits in Katy, Texas

School visits in Beaverton, Oregon

Ride Along with Portland Police 

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For a new book I'm researching, I spent seven hours with a cop working in downtown Portland and the Pearl District.  

Things I learned on my ride along:
  • - It’s not unusual to get dispatched to three suicide calls in a single day. 
  • - There are a lot of drug addicts. We saw so many people passed out or so high that they couldn’t even respond to a question.  One couple was pawing thorough the grass in Tom McCall park, either looking for drugs they had dropped or just looking for something that existed only in their imagination.
  • - Hipster or Addict? If you can’t tell if guys with a bushy beard and layers of antique-looking clothing is a hipster or addict, look at the shoes.  Hipsters have nice-looking, well-maintained shoes.  
  • - Most addicts are pretty open about using. It’s either heroin or meth, and lately, it might be both.  
  • - Heroin dealers often keep their product store in tied off balloons in a Big Gulp cup.  If they see a cop, they’ll start chugging, swallowing all the balloons.  
  • - A rumor has it that car air fresheners confuse drug sniffing dogs, so a beat-up car with an air freshener gets a second look and its plates run.
  • - A lot of a cop’s job is social work.  
  • - You can’t let down your guard. If you pull over to fill out a form online, people will come up to your car. Not all of them with good intent. 
  • It’s a hard job physically. You sit most of the time. We got some sandwiches for lunch, but ended up going out on calls for another 90 minutes. Then when we sat for lunch, we only got about 15 minutes before we got called out again.  
  • - It’s a hard job mentally.  Most of the people we dealt with were off - on drugs, mentally ill, or showing signs of dementia. Twice we dealt with people who were passed out and appeared to be dead. The person I rode with used to take different routes home to avoid passing by locations where a person died. Now there are no new routes left to take.  

Knife-Fighting class (AKA the things I do for research!)

School visits in Arkansas

School Visits in Oklahoma

Want a personalized, signed book?

Want a signed, personalized copy of one of my books?  Contact my neighborhood book store, Annie Bloom's Books at 503-246-0053, and tell them what you want - signature only or a personalized greeting to a particular person.  They will contact me and I will come in to sign them.  

School visits in Deer Park, Texas

Best NOte Ever from a Middle School Teacher

Just wanted to let you know for a 3rd year in a row you are making my life easy – and creating a bunch of new readers.  I am still lucky enough to teach an advanced reading class along with my Intensive class and across the board your books are the motivators.  Here is one of the book projects done by one of my 7th graders!  I can’t keep enough copies of your books on my shelf.  ​
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The Girl I Used to Be receives more honors

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The Girl I Used to Be has been named:
  • Winner of the Anthony Award (named after the founder of the Mystery Writers of America)
  • To the ILA (International Literacy Association's) Choice List
  • Edgar Award finalist
  • Iowa Teen Award finalist
  • Missouri Truman Award finalist
  • Nebraska Golden Sower Award finalist 
  • South Dakota Teen Choice finalist
  • The Texas Lone Star reading list
  • The Banks Street Best Books list
  • Winner, Oregon Spirit Book Award
  • One of the best books of 2016 by Multnomah County Library

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Fan art

    I'd love to hear from you
    [or just email:  april (at) Aprilhenry (DOT) com . I answer every single email, so if you don't hear back try again - and make sure your email address is correct. If you use your school address, make Sure your school accepts e-mails from outside the school.  I have had several wonderful emails which I tried to reply to, only the email address was wrong or the email bounced back. Don't disappoint both of us. Oh, and teachers, do me a favor - don't assign a whole class to write to me, unless it's as a group writing one letter.] 

    Note that if you email me, I will add you to my newsletter mailing list. 
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Events and school visits

My life as a mystery writer

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