About
Annie Wood is an Israeli-American, Hollywood native, and a lifelong actress and writer. The web series she created, wrote and stars in, Karma’s a Bitch, was Best of the Web on Virgin America (anniewood.com/Karma)
Wood was part of the NBC DIVERSITY SHOWCASE with her comedic scene, That’s How They Get You. She’s written 100s of scenes for actors that have been used by Emmy Award-winning TV director, Mary Lou Belli in her UCLA course and casting director, Jeremey Gordon in workshops all around town.
As an author, she has three books out: Dandy Day, Just a Theory: a quantum love adventure and her first YA novel, Just a Girl in the Whirl (Speaking Volumes Publishing)
Annie’s also an Internationally exhibited mixed-media artist (artistanniewood.com), a produced playwright, and was the third female solo dating game show host in the history of television with the nationally syndicated show, BZZZ! that she also co-produced. (Which just re-ran in 2020 on BUZZRTV!)
Annie writes and creates art daily.
If you believe there’s more to learn (spoiler alert: there is!)
please visit: anniewood.com
Writing: medium.com/@anniewoodinhollywood
Twitter: @anniewood
Instagram: @anniewoodworld
She also runs the Twitter account for the Women of the Writers Guild West Follow us here —> @WoWGAW
She is part of the Middle Eastern Committee at WGA
and a Dramatist Guild Member and Authors Guild Member
Featured Work
Just a Girl in the Whirl
Review/Synopsis
Must Read!
A beautifully crafted coming-of-age story that captures the challenges of adolescence amidst the responsibilities of surrogate parenthood.
When everything seems to be falling apart, holding it together is one of the hardest things to do. Lauren Brighton is counting down the days until her eighteenth birthday. For the last two years, she has been thrust into the role of primary caregiver to her two younger sisters and her mother after the sudden departure of her father. Addressing everyone else’s needs before her own, the real Lauren is relegated to dreams and middle-of-the-night writing sessions in the privacy of her bathtub. When her father makes an unexpected return into their lives, Lauren’s carefully kept façade begins to unravel, and she must reestablish her precarious balance in order to keep herself afloat.
This beautifully crafted story incorporates a variety of different storytelling methods, each of which adds an important dimension to the book. Lauren is a passionate writer, often frantically jotting poems composed in her dreams into her treasured notebook. These poems sometimes resemble those by E.E. Cummings, and other times are in more of a free-verse style, capturing the turbulent emotions Lauren feels throughout the story. Anger, frustration, fear, and uncertainty all stay carefully hidden behind Lauren’s emotional walls, only released when she allows them to appear on paper.
Lauren’s mind is the narrator of this story, often making funny and poignant remarks only she and the reader can experience. Her sisters Matty and Sara add more humor to the narrative with their blunt comments that older children might think twice before uttering. Navigating the uncertainties of adolescence is hard enough without having to serve as the parental figure to three other people, but Lauren does so with grace. Her development throughout the story is in direct juxtaposition to her sister Matty, and the two together form a satisfying connection that transcends sisterhood.
The incorporation of mental illness, addiction, and a transgendered character add dimension to this coming-of-age story without being overwhelming. This is a heartwarming and compassionate tale about a teenager who has set aside her entire life to preserve her dysfunctional family. It is a glorious and memorable novel for young adults who are looking for the permission to live their own lives on their own terms.
REVIEWED BY
Mary Lanni
April 26, 2021
