Interview with Heather Beck (and Giveaway!)

I'm pleased to welcome Heather Beck to the blog today for an interview!

First, a bit about the author:

Heather Beck is a Canadian author and screenwriter who began writing professionally at the age of sixteen. Her first book was published when she was only nineteen years old. Since then she has written several well-reviewed books.

Heather recently received an Honors Bachelor of Arts from university where she specialized in English and studied an array of disciplines. Currently, she is working on two young adult novels and has six anthologies slated for publication. As a screenwriter, Heather has multiple television shows and movies in development. Her short films include Young Eyes, The Rarity and Too Sensible For Love.

Besides writing, Heather's greatest passion is the outdoors. She is an award-winning fisherwoman and a regular hiker. Her hobbies include swimming, playing badminton and volunteering with non-profit organizations.

And now for the questions...

Many of your books center around the paranormal. What is it about this genre that inspires you as a writer?

My fascination with paranormal tales began in childhood from a cause unknown even to myself. It’s just a genre I’ve always been drawn to because it explores new worlds bound only by the limits of one’s imagination. As someone with a lot of imagination, writing these stories is a true joy as well as a great outlet for my creativity. I write books with slightly darker tones because I love a good scary story. I’m not into violence or gore, though, so my work is more about suspense, creepy characters and fantastical mythology. I could discuss how these fictional monsters are a representation of our fears externalized so we can defeat them, but in the end it’s simply the most fun genre to write.

You've written both YA/YA-friendly and adult books. How challenging is it for you to move between writing YA and writing adult fiction? Do you have a preference?

I don’t find the transition hard at all. Basically, I treat both audiences the same. The only difference with my adult books is that the characters are slightly older and they usually have a full-time job. I even use the same genres and themes. If I had to choose which audience I prefer writing for, I’d actually pick middle graders. I’ve had the most success writing for that age group, and I even hear from adult readers who enjoy these books! Also, I feel like I can use more fantastical characters, plots and settings in middle grade literature. There’s a higher level of tolerance for imagination, whereas a more mature audience may just view such material as unrealistic.

Are there any common themes that you think extend across several of your YA novels?

Forbidden or very complicated love is a theme readers will often find in my young adult books. I definitely believe in true love, so my romances are high-stake and intense. These relationships face many obstacles, but the couple can overcome almost anything because of their deep love, connection, and need for each other. Emancipation, both physical and emotional, is another theme that runs throughout many of my works. It’s about reaching for one’s dreams and transcending the mundane to find a beautiful life; basically, it’s about living life to the fullest. Additionally, an aspect that remains consistent throughout my young adult books is core character traits. My main characters, and often the secondary characters, too, are multi-faceted, realistic, unique, and flawed. A lot of my stories were written because of a particular character, and therefore their development is a top priority for me.

You're Canadian (yay!). Is there another Canadian YA author you can recommend for my readers?

This sounds absolutely awful, but I haven’t really had a chance to read recreationally for a very long time. As a fan of the Pretty Little Liars television show, I just had to read Ali’s Pretty Little Lies, and that was the first book I’ve read for enjoyment in over ten years! This isn’t by choice, but rather due to my work commitments. I have projects lined up for the next five years, and I am working insanely hard to get everything finished.
 
If one of your novels could be adapted (by someone else!) into film, which book would you pick, and who would you choose to adapt it?

I think my book series, The Horror Diaries, would make an excellent television show. I don’t have a favourite screenwriter, so I’d be happy working with almost any experienced teleplay writer. My only requirements are that the writer respects the plots and characters I’ve created. They must also keep the show aimed towards a middle grade audience. Since I want to maintain the essence of The Horror Diaries, the small screen adaptation must still be fun, creepy, suspenseful and, above all else, imaginative.

Thanks very much for these thoughtful responses to my questions, Heather! You can find out more about Heather and her work at her website and by watching her writer's reel.

Heather has generously offered up a giveaway! One winner will receive PDF copies of the following 3 YA novels:

-Vocations (http://www.amazon.com/Vocations-ebook/dp/B00A6UN68W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1356895652&sr=8-2&keywords=heather+beck+vocations)
-The Hammock (http://www.amazon.com/The-Hammock/dp/B003R0LO9G/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1282433089&sr=1-4)
-Verisimilitude (http://www.amazon.com/Verisimilitude/dp/B003OQUQK6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1282433656&sr=1-6).

The rules:

 - Entrants must be 13 years or older
 - One entry per person
 - Winner will be selected randomly
 - Giveaway ends March 18 at 11:59 PM EST

To be entered in the giveaway, please leave a comment with your e-mail address!

 

Psychtember Interview with Jackie Morse Kessler

I'm pleased to have Jackie Morse Kessler on the blog for a Psychtember interview! Jackie is the author of the Riders of the Apocalypse series, which includes Hunger, Rage, and Loss as well as the upcoming Breath.

First, a bit about Jackie and the latest in the series, Loss:

"Jackie Morse Kessler grew up in Brooklyn, NY, with a cranky cat and overflowing shelves filled with dolls and books. Now she’s in Upstate NY with another cranky cat, a loving husband, two sons, and overflowing shelves filled with dragons and books (except when her sons steal her dragons). She has a bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature, and yet she’s never read any Jane Austen (with or without zombies). She also has a master’s degree in media ecology. (The living study of technology and culture. Which is cool, but she still can’t figure out how to use Tweetdeck.)  Jackie spends a lot of time writing, reading, and getting distracted by bright and shiny new ideas. (She just came up with a new idea right now.) She has a weakness for chocolate and a tendency to let her cat take over her office chair." (from her website)

"Fifteen-year-old Billy Ballard is the kid that everyone picks on, from the school bullies to the teachers. But things change drastically when Death tells Billy he must stand in as Pestilence, the White Rider of the Apocalypse. Now armed with a Bow that allows him to strike with disease from a distance, Billy lashes out at his tormentors...and accidentally causes an outbreak of meningitis. Horrified by his actions, Billy begs Death to take back the Bow. For that to happen, says Death, Billy must track down the real White Rider—who is lost in his memories.

In his search, Billy travels through White Rider’s life: from ancient Phrygia, where the man called King Mita agrees to wear the White Rider’s Crown, to Sherwood Forest, where Pestilence figures out how to cheat Death; from the docks of Alexandria, where cartons of infested grain are being packed onto a ship that will carry the plague, to the Children’s Crusade in France—all the way to what may be the end of the world. When Billy finally finds the White Rider, the teen convinces the man to return to the real world.

But now the insane White Rider plans to unleash something awful on humanity—something that could make the Black Death look like a summer cold. Billy has a choice: he can live his life and pretend he doesn’t know what’s coming, or he can challenge the White Rider for his Crown. Does one bullied teenager have the strength to stand his ground—and the courage to save the world?" (from Goodreads)

And now for the questions...

1.) The protagonists in both Rage and Loss deal with bullying. In what ways would you say Missy's and Billy's experiences are similar, and in what ways do they differ? How did this affect how you approached writing scenes involving the bullying they face?

JK: Both Billy and Missy are victims of horrible bullying. Billy is physically assaulted, again and again, in big ways and in small ways, by people he fears and by people he loves. Missy and Billy are both verbally assaulted and called terrible names, in public in front of their peers. Missy's humiliation is large scale and goes viral; Billy's is more localized and, at times, private. But even though there are differences in how they are bullied, they both suffer greatly.

While I approached LOSS as a story about a very bullied boy -- physically, verbally, emotionally -- I didn't see RAGE as a book about a very bullied girl, even though she is. She copes with her bulling, and all the pressure she's under, by cutting herself; Billy doesn't know how to cope with his bullying. She has reached her breaking point (which is why Death offers her a job); Billy hasn't yet.

In terms of the writing, the bullying in RAGE came across in an organic way - Missy walking in the hallways at school and insulted; Missy at the party; Missy interacting with her soccer teammates; Missy back in school after the party and dealing with more insults and direct attacks, to say nothing of the cyberbullying. With LOSS, the initial scene was planned -- the book begins with Billy getting the snot pounded out of him, again. And from there, events unfold as we see his home life and his terror of going to school, and what happens in school at the gym and in the classroom and in the cafeteria. The bullying is more at the forefront in LOSS because that's everything to Billy; Missy doesn't see herself as bullied -- it's just how things are. It's a very bleak outlook.

2.) It's pointed out a couple times in Loss that sometimes asking a teacher for help with bullying doesn't do any good. What advice can you give to a teen getting bullied who suspects telling their teacher won't improve the situation?

JK: Keep talking - if not to that teacher, to someone else. Your guidance councilor. Your parents. Other teachers. Your friends. Talk. You matter, and your words deserve to be heard. If you still can't find someone willing to listen, call a crisis group or help group like To Write Love On Her Arms, which can help put you in touch with people who can help.

3.) The concept of memory is threaded throughout Loss, and is especially relevant to the characters of Billy's grandfather and King Mita. If King Mita and Billy's grandfather could switch lives for a day, what do you think each of them would learn?

JK: I can't answer that. Billy's grandfather is suffering from Alzheimer's and Mita by the time Billy meets him is insane. If they were both in their right minds, they would see and identify with how much each man loves his family. But neither of them is fully capable of doing that when LOSS takes place.

4.) In Rage, Missy does not have a strong support system at home. How important a buffer do you feel support from family and friends is in preventing emotional distress from developing into something clinical? Do you think if Missy's home situation had been more positive, this might have affected whether or not she began cutting?

JK: It's crucial that people have a support system -- friends, or family, or teachers, or others. We all need someone to talk to. The act of talking can be its own sort of balm. I can't speak to whether a support system would prevent distress from developing into something clinical, but I know from personal experience that Interaction -- knowing that we're being heard and not dismissed -- can help us heal. It's certainly helped me. (I'm a former bulimic and I also used to be on antidepressants.)

5.) Which of your YA books has challenged you the most as a writer?

JK: They each got harder and harder to write. In many ways, HUNGER was the easiest because it had been brewing for 10 years before I wrote it, and I had personal experience with an eating disorder. I think that BREATH (which comes out in April 2013) was the most challenging to write, not only because of the subject matter (writing about depression and suicidal thinking when you're feeling horribly melancholy and possibly depressed is **not** fun) but because of the structure of the book.

6.) Death is one of the most interesting characters in this series, and undoubtedly many readers' favourite  (he's my favourite, anyway!). Can you give us a teaser from the final book, Breath, in which Death finally gets to be the center of attention?

JK: Thanks - he's my favorite too. :) For BREATH, well, how's this? "In the fourth and final volume of the Riders of Apocalypse series, high school senior Xander Atwood has a secret. Death, the Pale Rider, has lost his way. What happens when the two meet will change the fate of the world."

And here's the full back cover copy:

Contrary to popular belief, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse aren't just harbingers of doom -- they actually keep life in balance. But what happens when their leader and creator, Death, becomes suicidal? Before the first living thing drew its first gasping breath, he was there. He has watched humanity for millennia. And he has finally decided that humanity is not worth the price he has paid time and again. When Death himself gives up on life, a teenager named Xander Atwood is the world's only hope. But Xander bears a secret, one that may bring about the end of everything. This heart-pounding final installment of the Riders of the Apocalypse series looks at the value of life, the strength of love, and how a small voice can change everything . . . forever.

Thanks very much, Jackie, for stopping by and answering all my questions!

Psychtember Interview with R.J. Anderson!

I'm happy to welcome R.J. Anderson to the blog for a Psychtember interview! Rebecca is the author of several YA novels, including Ultraviolet and the upcoming companion novel, Quicksilver, due out in spring 2013 (from Carolrhoda Lab).

First, a bit about Rebecca and Ultraviolet:

"R.J. Anderson (known to her friends as Rebecca) was born in Uganda, raised in Ontario, went to school in New Jersey, and has spent much of her life dreaming of other worlds entirely.

As a child she immersed herself in fairy tales, mythology, and the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and E. Nesbit; later she found inspiration in books by Ursula LeGuin, Patricia A. McKillip and Robin McKinley, and learned to take as much pleasure from their language as the stories they told.

Now married and a mother of three, Rebecca reads to her sons the classic works of fantasy and science fiction that enlivened her own childhood, and tries to bring a similar excitement and timeless wonder to the novels she writes for children and teens. She currently lives in the beautiful theatre town of Stratford, Ontario." (from her website)

"Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.

This is not her story.

Unless you count the part where I killed her.

Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most perfect and popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison’s condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can’t explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori—the next she disintegrated. Into nothing. But that’s impossible. Right?" (from Goodreads)

And now for the questions...

1.) a) Frequently in YA we see a character displaying symptoms of a mental disorder, but the story doesn't actually show us the treatment of it. Why do you think that is?

Sometimes YA novels include mental illness as part of a character's background or present struggles, but the main plot of the story isn't about MI so we don't get a lot of details about the disorder or how it's being treated. I don't think there's anything wrong with that per se, because I think it's possible to respectfully acknowledge the existence of mental illness and the challenge it can present without going into a lot of details.

But if the main plot is about the character dealing with a mental illness, either their own or someone else's, I think treatment ought to come into it eventually. Maybe some authors don't want to tackle the treatment angle because it demands too much research, or maybe they're afraid it would bog down the story and bore the reader. I don't know. But I feel that if you're going to write about MI at all, you need to be prepared to do a lot of research; and I think anything can be written in an interesting way if the author cares enough to do it.

b) A significant part of your book takes place at a psychiatric facility. In what ways do you hope Ultraviolet addresses this gap in the literature?

Part of what made me want to write about life as an inpatient at a psychiatric hospital was my frustration with the stereotypical, sensationalized and downright misleading portrayals of MI I'd seen elsewhere, TV and movies especially. On one hand I saw portrayals of people with mental illness as loveable eccentrics or unorthodox saints, and on the other hand they were portrayed like wild animals or dangerous criminals, and there wasn't a lot in between. Similarly, psychiatric hospitals in these stories tended to be either sunny halls of hope and healing, or dismal prisons full of people in straitjackets locked up in isolation. I wanted Alison's experiences of psychiatric care, and her interactions with her fellow patients, to be more nuanced. Within any health care system there are all sorts of different personalities and approaches to the giving and receiving of treatment, and sometimes the combination of caregiver and patient is a positive and healing one and sometimes it's disappointing or painful, but it's not that easy to sort everybody into heroes and villains. With Ultraviolet, I've tried to reflect that.

2.) For authors attempting for the first time to write a character dealing with mental health issues, what are some "must-haves" for their writing and what pitfalls would you recommend they avoid?

I'd say the first thing to do, if you don't have firsthand knowledge or experience of dealing with mental illness, is to throw out all your preconceptions about what mental illness is like and how it is treated today. Read memoirs by people with MI and by their family members, look up blogs written by nurses and aides and psychiatrists, watch educational videos about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and depression. Try to build up a detailed picture from all angles, instead of relying on just one source or point of view -- which is where I think a lot of stories about mental illness go wrong.

3.) How would you suggest a teen reader gets the most out of a book focusing on psychological issues? For example, are there any strategies a reader might use to detect when an author is portraying a mental disorder or treatment clumsily or inaccurately?

I don't think there's any way to know that unless you have firsthand experience with mental illness or have been doing your own research into the subject, because as I mentioned before the portrayals in TV and movies are so misleading. Because of that influence, I think it's easy for a lot of readers not to notice when an author does a poor job of portraying mental illness, because the mistakes and wrong assumptions the author's making are probably similar to their own.

The best an author can do, I think, is try to be responsible, respectful, and thorough about their research in all areas, even those that don't involve mental illness. Because if the reader finds that they are reliable in one aspect of the story that they do know about, they're more likely to trust the author to be reliable in other areas as well. But if the author botches up other facts, it's hard for the reader to trust them after that. And rightly so, because that's often a warning sign that the author hasn't really done their research.

4.) There's a paranormal element to Ultraviolet. How challenging was it to blend this with the fact-based psychological aspects of the book? Were you concerned about tackling two genres in this way?

Fantasy and Science Fiction are my first love, and my original concept for this story was very strongly rooted in the SF element. I was actually more worried about pulling off the contemporary aspect than anything else, because it was less familiar territory. And I always knew that there were going to be some readers who didn't want to come all the way on Alison's particular journey -- in fact I worried at first that no editor would buy it simply because of that cross-genre aspect. But at the same time, I knew I couldn't tell this particular story any other way. If I took out the paranormal and science fiction elements, I'd have to write a totally different plot, or else turn it into a "But she was really crazy all the time!" story or a "Then she woke up and it was all a dream!" story, and neither of those options were interesting to me. So I was very relieved and grateful to find two editors -- Andrew Karre at Carolrhoda Lab US and Sarah Lilly at Orchard Books UK -- who loved the manuscript and got what I was trying to do.

My editors also did me a great favour by encouraging me to drop more hints about the SF aspect of the story earlier in the book, so that when the twist came at least some readers would feel that it made sense. I wanted Ultraviolet to be a book that would reward re-reading -- where people could go back and say "Aha, I see what you did there!" even if they hadn't caught it the first time around. So even in the early sections of the book there are plenty of SF in-jokes and allusions from Star Trek and Star Wars, The X-Files and Doctor Who, Blade Runner and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- plus blatant references to SF classics like War of the Worlds and The Day The Earth Stood Still. I don't know if any of my readers picked up on all of those little easter eggs, but I had a lot of fun putting them in.

5.) Stigmatization is still a big part of mental illness in North American culture. What tips would you give for incorporating stigma into a story to realistically reflect our society, without coming across as demeaning to individuals with the mental illness?

It's a difficult issue, because no matter how you handle it there's so much potential for offence. Some readers are going to be upset if an otherwise likeable character behaves badly, or says something insensitive or ignorant. They may even mistake that character's point of view for the author's, unless that character gets an immediate smackdown that makes plain the author doesn't endorse such behaviour. But real life doesn't work that way -- people say insensitive things without getting called out or punished all the time -- and if the author tries to fix everything their characters do wrong, you end up with a preachy, unrealistic story.

I think the best way to handle it is not to eliminate or ignore the insensitivity, or have some Voice of Authority step in to immediately correct the misbehaviour, but to realistically portray how that kind of stigma affects the people who are subjected to it. To put the reader into that person's position, even if only for a moment, and make them understand how inaccurate and unjust the stigma really is.

6.) If you could ensure that readers take away one fact or message about mental health/psychology from Ultraviolet, what would it be and why?

I think it would be the same lesson that Alison gradually learns over the course of the story -- that people with mental illness are struggling and suffering in some very obvious ways, but that doesn't mean they're some strange alien race, or otherwise essentially different from the rest of us. We're all human beings with our own hurts and fears and temptations to overcome, and we need to be compassionate to one another, because none of us can make it alone.

7.) Can you recommend some other YA books dealing with synaesthesia (or one of the other psychological issues involved in Ultraviolet)?

I didn't discover this book until well after I'd started writing mine, but Wendy Mass's A Mango-Shaped Space is a contemporary novel about a girl with synesthesia, and also deals with issues of grief and depression. It's beautifully written and I'd recommend it to anyone who's interested in learning more.

Thanks very much, Rebecca, for these thoughtful responses to my questions!

Readers, I'm curious — have you read many YA novels that highlighted the treatment of a mental illness, not just its symptoms/diagnosis? What have been your impressions of the portrayals of psychiatric facilities in YA?

Psychtember Interview with Adele Griffin

I'm happy to welcome Adele Griffin, author of numerous YA novels including Tighter, The Julian Game, Picture the Dead, and the upcoming All You Never Wanted, back to the blog! (Adele also participated last year in Psychtember, with a character interview of Isa from Tighter.)

First, a bit about Adele and All You Never Wanted:

"Adele Griffin, a two-time National Book Award finalist (Where I Want to Be and Sons of Liberty), is the acclaimed author of Tighter, The Julian Game, Picture the Dead, the Vampire Island series, and many other books for young readers. Adele lives with her husband and young daughter in Brooklyn, New York." (from book)

"With my eyes closed and Alex's core friends all around me, it was like I'd become my big sister, or something just as good. And so who cared if they were calling it Alex's party? One thing I knew: it would be remembered as mine.

Alex has it all—brains, beauty, popularity, and a dangerously hot boyfriend. Her little sister Thea wants it all, and she's stepped up her game to get it. Even if it means spinning the truth to win the attention she deserves. Even if it means uncovering a shocking secret her older sister never wanted to share. Even if it means crying wolf.

Told in the alternating voices of Alex and Thea, Adele Griffin's mesmerizing new novel is the story of a sibling rivalry on speed." (from Goodreads)

And now for the questions...

1.) Many of your YA books deal with some psychologically twisted stuff. What draws you to write these kinds of complex, flawed characters who are often in need of professional help? What would you say the appeal of these kinds of stories is for the reader?

I don't know why I go dark but it always feels right! I think it's because I myself always felt like a peripheral person-- if not exactly a disturbed one. My father was in the military, and I grew up being called "new girl" -- an uncomfortable and yet familiar role.

2.) Alex's perspective is written in 3rd-person and Thea's in 1st-person. How challenging was it as a writer to switch not only from one girl's voice to another, but from one POV style to another? Are there any writing tips you can give for making these kinds of transitions work?

Oh so happy you asked that question! I made that choice to underline who these girls are. Thea is truly manipulative, and I wanted her cozy 1st person to draw in the reader because 1st is more intimate-- but ultimately then you are trapped in her skewed reality-- and her total insistence on it. Whereas Alex is holding us at arm's length in 3rd person, while her narrative is an unwinding, and a painful raw reveal of who she really is.

3.) Alex and Thea are sisters, but they really couldn't be more different in personality. If you could give Alex one personality trait of Thea's, and Thea one of Alex's, to help balance out both girls, which attributes would you trade?

I'd give Alex a dose of Thea's self-esteem, and I'd make Thea a bit less tone-deaf, so that she could share Alex's ease in social situations.

4.) Envy is one of the prominent themes throughout All You Never Wanted. Who is one YA author you envy and/or one YA book you wish you'd written?

I have real envy of HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff. and I have some Patrice Kindl envy because I love her variety of concepts.

5.) If you were suddenly thrust into the lap of luxury, would you react more like Alex does, or more like Thea? Why?

My guess would be I'd have an Alex reaction only in that she is a bit of a control freak-- though I wouldn't make my rules so spartan or self-destructive. I did relate to Alex-- I think it would be awful suddenly to live a life where nothing is special, or a treat, or has to be earned.

6.) Alex is the more obvious candidate of the sisters for therapy, but I rather suspect Thea could also use a good dose. Who do you think would respond better to treatment (either in the form of psychotherapy or medication)? Or is either of them a "lost cause"?

When Thea needs it most, she lacks conscience, which always signals a little bit of "lost cause." But in most of the book, she's floundering, and her story in many ways is about how she is surrounded by resources-- by caring people who unfortunately are not caring about her. She's kind of like that adage: "water water all around and not a drop to drink."

7.) Xander's character works very well as a foil for Joshua. What's one thing you feel Xander can offer Alex that Joshua can't?

Ah, Xander! This is the first male character I ever wrote who I got a crush on myself. What I like best about Xander is that this guy has no secret agenda. He's fallen for Alex, boom, the end. While Joshua is just trouble eight different ways.

8.) Books can change a fair bit from first draft to final copy. Did All You Never Wanted undergo any major changes (scenes, characters, etc.)?

Yes, big time. Early drafts had a lot less Alex-Xander, and then I realized that part of her reconnection had to be about physical delight, about not punishing her body but rewarding it. So pages got sexier. And Thea was more flat-out awful. I had some great reads on the book, and the big note from my peers was to give Thea more vulnerability and history-- moments for the reader to empathize with her.

9.) All You Never Wanted works as a title for this book on several levels. Was this the working title from the start, or did you have to go through an arduous brainstorming process before you came up with the perfect choice?

It was called WOLF when it came it. I was thinking of "the wolf at the door" and "the girl who cried wolf" but it got nixed-- everyone said YA readers would be hoping for a werewolf. I love this title, it's very on-point.

10.) Imagine Thea from All You Never Wanted, Raye from The Julian Game, and Jamie from Tighter somehow all end up at the Figure Eight lunch table. What happens?

That's the scariest lunch table ever. I think Thea the bully would enlist Raye the hench-woman to gang up on Jamie the victim-- and from there all hell breaks loose.

Thanks so much, Adele, for giving us some more insight into the writing process and characters of All You Never Wanted!

Psychtember Interview with Jennifer Brown (and Giveaway!)

Jennifer Brown, author of Hate List, Bitter End, and Perfect Escape, is dropping by the blog today with an interview for Psychtember! I reviewed Bitter End for Psychtember last year and Perfect Escape this time around.

Here's a little more info about Jennifer and her most recent YA novel Perfect Escape:

"I've pretty much always been a dreamer, lining up my dolls and stuffed animals on the stairs and "teaching" them things. I had imaginary friends (which was good because we moved pretty often and I pretty regularly found myself with few real ones) and would hold "conversations" with them. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was telling them stories, and it was my favorite pastime.

I never wanted to be a writer (I was going to be a teacher), even though I was always writing. My first story was a short story, written in 4th grade. It was two pages long, hand-written, and my characters had names like Donna Schlieigermeigssterkks. I showed it to my grandma, who loved it so much she called my aunt on the phone and read it to her. Even though Grandma was cracking up while reading it, I was hooked by the celebrity of it all. Since then, I've always written, even when I thought nobody would ever read any of it.

Writing didn't turn into a dream until about 10 years ago when my husband, Scott assured me people wouldn't laugh at me. Turns out, he was wrong. People laugh at my writing all the time. It's just... well... I'm a humor-writer... laughing is what I want them to do. It also turns out he was right. Sometimes I can write serious stuff, too." (from her website)

"Kendra has always felt overshadowed by her older brother, Grayson, whose OCD forces him to live a life of carefully coordinated routines. The only way Kendra can stand out next to Grayson is to be perfect, and she has perfection down to an art -- until a cheating scandal threatens her flawless reputation.

Behind the wheel of her car, with Grayson asleep beside her, Kendra decides to drive away from it all -- with enough distance, maybe she'll be able to figure everything out. But eventually, Kendra must stop running and come to terms with herself, her brother, and her past.

With undeniable grace and humor, acclaimed author Jennifer Brown explores OCD, the pressure for perfection, and the emotional highs and lows of a complex sibling relationship." (from Goodreads)

Now for the questions...

1.) Perfect Escape, Bitter End, and Hate List are all contemporary YA books tackling issues related to mental health and psychology. What motivates you to write stories involving these kinds of emotionally hard-hitting topics? Do you think you'll continue to write in this vein, or do you ever see yourself switching gears entirely to another style or genre?

The things I write about are things that real teens are encountering every day. I think it's important to talk about tough issues and how we can overcome them. Knowledge truly is power, and the first step to making change, and I like writing books that can help get a discussion going. Also, my wish is that my books, tough as the subjects are, will provide some hope to young adults who are experiencing the things my characters are going through.

I do think I'll continue to write these kinds of stories, always, but I love to try out new things. New styles, new genres, new audiences all interest me, so I definitely hope to write some stories in different genres as well.

2.) You clearly do your research when it comes to the psychology of your characters' behaviour. Do you find it a challenge to balance communicating facts/knowledge about a disorder or issue with making your characters and their interactions believable? If so, how do you approach this hurdle?

I actually think really understanding a social issue or the psychology of my characters helps me make them more believable. In general, what works for me best is understanding everything I can about what makes my characters tick. When I have troubles, it's because I don't know them well enough. The hurdle can sometimes be making sure the story isn't too "textbook." What is most dramatic isn't always what's most realistic. It's a fine line to walk.

3.) The term "OCD" appears a lot these days in pop culture and the media, but it's not always used correctly, resulting in misinformation about the disorder in the general public. If you could ensure that readers remembered one fact about OCD from Perfect Escape, what would it be?

I think a lot of people confuse perfectionism with OCD. You hear people say, "I've got a touch of OCD" when they really mean that they're perfectionistic about something -- they like their things kept just-so, or their house super clean, or they don't like to touch door handles of public restrooms and so forth. But OCD can be a debilitating anxiety disorder that can really interrupt someone's life. Some people who have OCD are, in many ways, held hostage by it. They might spend hours each day washing their hands or brushing their teeth, they might not be able to leave their houses or will spend so long with their rituals before leaving their houses that they're chronically late and will lose jobs and relationships or so forth.

I also think it's really important to remember that a person who suffers from a mental illness is not only that mental illness. It can be so easy to get frustrated or frightened or just want to condemn a person for their struggles, but as Grayson showed in Perfect Escape, there are lots of complexities and emotions that come with mental illness, not the least of which is the desire to be out from under it.

Also, it's important to me that people understand what it's like growing up alongside someone with mental illness. Sometimes it can be easy to ignore the "well child," in favor of the one who needs more attention. Like Kendra, sometimes siblings of someone who struggles just want to be heard, be validated.

4.) It's unusual these days to see a YA novel without a central romance, but in Perfect Escape the focus is on the brother-sister relationship of Kendra and Grayson. Were you concerned that this might negatively affect the appeal of the book to teens? What qualities would you say Kendra's and Grayson's relationship embodies that would not be present in a romance?

Really, none of my novels have much of a romantic element. You get to see glimpses here and there of Nick's and Valerie's relationship before the shooting in Hate List, and you get to see the buildup of Alex's and Cole's relationship in Bitter End, but neither of those novels really have any sort of central romance to them.

Honestly, I'm not even thinking "romantic relationship" when I sit down to write a novel. There are many relationships outside of romantic ones that are interesting and important to teens. I get a lot of reader comments about the relationship between Valerie and her younger brother, Frankie, in Hate List, so I know that teens do care about sibling relationships. I know that romantic relationships are important to teens, but so are best friend relationships, parent relationships, extended family relationships, work relationships, and sibling relationships, so I wasn't worried about teens being able to relate.

I think one thing that Kendra's and Grayson's relationship embodies that romances might not is ease. They're both comfortable just being themselves and saying what they're thinking, and not worrying about "looking good" to one another. This lends itself well to humorous moments as well as touching moments, and I think it helps us to see all the nuances of the characters a little better, because nobody is putting up any sort of front.

5.) If you could match up two characters from any of your three published YA novels — either romantically or just as friends — who would you pair, and why?

I would try to match up Grayson with the Alex, Zach, Bethany friend trio in Bitter End. I think they would accept him for who he is, and I think he could use a few more friends.

6.) You've got two more YA books coming out in the next couple years: Thousand Words, about a teen girl caught in a "sexting" scandal, and Torn Away, about grief in the aftermath of a tornado. Can you give us a few hints about what to expect from either of these?

These are two very different novels. In Thousand Words, you can expect to see what happens when a bad breakup turns into a worst nightmare. It's a worst-case-scenario of what could happen when a naked photo goes viral and gets labeled "child porn." In Torn Away, my main character, Jersey, loses everything in a tornado, and spends the summer being shuttled around to various family members. It's a story about family, and love, and acceptance.

Thanks so much, Jennifer, for these thoughtful replies to my questions!

Jennifer has kindly offered up *signed* copies of both Bitter End and Perfect Escape for giveaway.

So, here's how this is going to work:

- There will be TWO winners. Each winner will receive one copy of Bitter End and one of Perfect Escape.

The rules:

- Entrants must be 13 years or older.

- Open to US only

- One entry per person

- Following and tweeting are not necessary but always appreciated!

- Ends Oct 10, at 11:59 pm EST.

- Winners will be selected randomly and contacted by e-mail

To enter, please fill out THIS FORM. Comments are wonderful but do not count as entries.

Interview with Sarah Beth Durst

That's right, it's time for a brief break from Psychtember posts! I'm pleased to have Sarah Beth Durst on the blog for an interview about her recently released YA fantasy, Vessel.

First, a bit about Sarah and her novel:

"Sarah Beth Durst is the author of young adult novels Vessel, Drink, Slay, Love, Enchanted Ivy, and Ice from Simon & Schuster, as well as middle grade novels Into the Wild and Out of the Wild from Penguin Young Readers. She has twice been a finalist for SFWA's Andre Norton Award, for both Ice and Into the Wild.

Sarah lives in Stony Brook, New York, with her husband, her two children, and her ill-mannered cat. She also has a miniature pet griffin named Alfred. Okay, okay, that’s not quite true. His name is really Montgomery." (from her website)

"In a desert world of sandstorms and sand-wolves, a teen girl must defy the gods to save her tribe in this mystical, atmospheric tale from the author of Drink, Slay, Love. Liyana has trained her entire life to be the vessel of a goddess. The goddess will inhabit Liyana’s body and use magic to bring rain to the desert. But Liyana’s goddess never comes. Abandoned by her angry tribe, Liyana expects to die in the desert. Until a boy walks out of the dust in search of her.

     Korbyn is a god inside his vessel, and a trickster god at that. He tells Liyana that five other gods are missing, and they set off across the desert in search of the other vessels. For the desert tribes cannot survive without the magic of their gods. But the journey is dangerous, even with a god’s help. And not everyone is willing to believe the trickster god’s tale.

     The closer she grows to Korbyn, the less Liyana wants to disappear to make way for her goddess. But she has no choice: She must die for her tribe to live. Unless a trickster god can help her to trick fate—or a human girl can muster some magic of her own." (from Goodreads)

And now for the questions...

1.) You're an extremely versatile writer, with your previous books running the gamut from fairy tale retellings (Ice) to humorous vampire stories (Drink, Slay, Love). This latest of yours takes on gods and goddesses. How easy do you find it to transition from one genre or sub-genre to another? What strategies do you use to get yourself in the right mindset for the world or characters you're writing at the time?

So long as I'm writing fantasy, I'm happy.  Really, I think the adage "write what you know" should be "write what you love."  The transition doesn't feel like a transition when you're writing what you love.

That said, on a practical level, I often reread what I've written to get into the rhythm of a particular novel, and sometimes I listen to relevant music.  For example, for DRINK, SLAY, LOVE, I had a playlist of vampiric music (like "Paint It Black," "Blood Roses," and "Bela Lugosi's Dead"), and for VESSEL, I'd listen to a lot of instrumental or atmospheric music with drums and flutes.

2.) Worldbuilding can be such a critical aspect of fantasy novels. What three pieces of advice would you give to aspiring writers hoping to improve their worldbuilding abilities?

1. Research -- The more fantastic the world, the more it helps if you nail the real-world aspects.  Reality will ground your fantasy and give readers a path to follow into your imagination.

2. Choose your details -- To create that path, you need to carefully choose details that bring your world to life.

3. Immerse yourself in it -- I think books are magic.  They cast spells that transport people into other worlds.  I think the best way to cast a spell on readers is to cast it on yourself first.  Fall in love with your world.

3.) Vessel appears to have some root in non-European cultures. How large a role in the writing process did researching and incorporating cultural elements play? Was it challenging to balance the factual side of things with writing your own story?

I researched the lives and cultures of people who live in the Gobi, the Sahara, and several other deserts around the world.  I then meshed them together and injected magic.  I am fascinated by the intersection of reality and fantasy.  I think many, many stories can be born in that intersection.

4.) Usually a writer has one element — dialogue, description, action scenes, humour, etc. — that he/she struggles with. What would you say is your "Achilles' heel" of writing, and how have you worked to overcome it?

My Achilles' heel is the middle of the first draft -- the point where the novel is the farthest it will ever be from the shining version in your head.  I love revising, when the story really comes to life.

5.) I see that you've got a book coming out in 2013 called Sweet Nothings, involving a paranormal witness protection program and a serial killer. (Wow!) Can you give us a few hints about what to expect?

SWEET NOTHINGS is about teen in the paranormal witness protection program, who, haunted by dreams of carnival tents and tarot cards, must remember her past and why she has strange abilities before a magic-wielding serial killer hunts her down.

The first line is: "Your name is Eve.  Remember that."

Thanks so much for interviewing me!

And thank you, Sarah, for giving us some insight into Vessel and your writing process!

Guest Interview with Jeannine Garsee

Page from One Book At A Time is one of the book bloggers participating in Psychtember, and she's here today to interview Jeannine Garsee about her book The Unquiet!


My name is Page and I blog at One Book At A Time.  I've been blogging about books for over 3 years which is so hard to believe.  I have a bachelor's degree in Psychology with an emphasis in Chemical Addictions.  But, I've always been fascinated with bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive, and many other disorders on Axis II of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

"Sixteen-year-old Rinn Jacobs has secrets: One, she’s bipolar. Two, she killed her grandmother.

After a suicide attempt, and now her parents' separation, Rinn and her mom move from California to the rural Ohio town where her mother grew up. Back on her medications and hoping to stay well, Rinn settles into her new home, undaunted by the fact that the previous owner hanged herself in Rinn's bedroom. At school, her classmates believe the school pool is haunted by Annaliese, a girl who drowned there. But when a reckless séance goes awry, and terrible things start happening to her new friends—yet not to her—Rinn is determined to find out why she can’t be "touched" by Annaliese...or if Annaliese even exists.

With the help of Nate Brenner, the hunky “farmer boy” she’s rapidly falling for, Rinn devises a dangerous plan to uncover the truth. Soon reality and fantasy meld into one, till Rinn finds it nearly impossible to tell the difference. When a malevolent force threatens the lives of everyone she cares about--not to mention her own--she can't help wondering: who should she really be afraid of?

Annaliese? Or herself?" (from Goodreads)

1. In your latest release The Unquiet, the main character Rinn suffers from bipolar.  How did you go about writing her psychological condition?  Does any of it comes from personal experience (ie someone you know, etc)?

Because I work as a psychiatric nurse, I care for patients with bipolar disorder on a daily basis, so the majority of my ideas came from this. I did have to do some additional research because my patients are adults, and I wasn't sure if symptoms and treatment would be the same for adolescents. Though I am not bipolar myself, I have had issues with depression in the past, so I do have an understandings of the "ups" and "downs" (on a much less severe basis, of course).

2. Rinn battles with knowing the difference between delusions and reality in the end of the story.  Was it hard to factor in a paranormal element as well as the psychological?

It was actually harder to figure in the psychological aspect. I knew, while I was writing the story, exactly how I wanted Annaliese to affect Rinn and the others. Adding the psychological element proved to be the greater challenge because Rinn needed to be in control (albeit tenuously) --meaning I couldn't let her go completely "off the deep end" -- in order for the ending to play out as it did.

3.  Your two previous books hint that they might have psychological elements as well.  Can you tell us a little bit more about them?  Or is it better left to the reader?

My first novel, BEFORE, AFTER, AND SOMEBODY IN BETWEEN, deals a lot with alcoholism and co-dependency, and the effects of an addicted parent on a child. One of the main themes is "choice"--you may not "choose" to have a parent who is an addict, and you certainly have no choice as to how you are treated by them, but the way you react to your situation is indeed a "choice." This is something that my main character, Martha, has to learn in order to either improve her life, or possibly follow her mother's path to self-destruction.

In SAY THE WORD, Shawna's psychological issues stem from being abandoned by her mother, and the fact that her father is a controlling, verbally abusive jerk. She, too, has to make some hard decisions--some that that will affect her future, but, more importantly, decisions that will affect the lives of the people she loves.

4.  Do you think it's harder to write a character with a psychological disorder (especially accurately)?

Yes. It's difficult because you need to know where to draw the line. I don't want anyone to imagine I am "sensationalizing" mental illness. What I really wanted to do was to stress, again, the important of "choice", i.e. whether or not someone with bipolar disorder chooses to stay on their medications. I wanted Rinn to have a significant mental illness, but I could not make her as ill as the patients I see on a daily basis. These are patients who often never lead normal lives, never hold down jobs, spend the majority of time in hospitals, group homes, nursing homes, etc., and often lose any family support they might have had. I didn't want to see any of this in Rinn's future. I wanted her to be someone with the ability to recognize her illness and not be consumed by it.

5.  I thought you did an excellent job of portraying the high and lows of bipolar disorder in The Unquiet.  I could see similarities between what I have studied and also a friend I knew.  Was any of this mimicked after actual events?

Much of Rinn's behavior was modeled on the bipolar patients I've met: the sexual acting out, which is very common when someone is in a manic phase (especially the scene where she comes on to Nate, which shows a type of behavior she otherwise wouldn't have dreamed of exhibiting). The scene where she tells the police her father owns the stables and that he will sue the police department--very typical of what is known as "grandiose delusions" (Manic adults will often claim to own corporations, to belong to the FBI or CIA, or insist they are millionaires or superstars). The insomnia, the fleeting hallucinations, the paranoia (her fear of food poisoning, or that others at the Homecoming dance are talking negatively about her) are all things I've witnessed firsthand at my job with bipolar patients, even when some of them are taking their medications.

6. I'm a huge paranormal fan and a huge psych fan!  Where did you get the idea to combine the two?

I actually started THE UNQUIET back in 2005, several years before I became a psych nurse. It was to be written for adults, and strictly a paranormal. After publishing my first two YA novels, I decided to turn this one into a YA as well. New at my job, I was fascinated by  patients who insisted they could see and talk to "ghosts" and "spirits"--and yet these hallucinations disappeared once they were stabilized on medications. Though I know it's not true, I couldn't help wondering at times--what if it's true? What if they are speaking to spirits, and the medications block the connection?  Thus, the idea was born--and Rinn came to life.

"Jeannine Garsee has been telling stories since before she could write. "I was addicted to the Sunday funnies," she says, "and my dad worked in a book-binding factory. He'd bring home a slew of paper every week, and I'd draw scenes on every page. Later, when I learned to write, I'd add the captions--and then the captions just grew longer and longer till I didn't have any room left for the pictures." Jeannine, known as "Jen" to her friends, works as a psych nurse in a busy inner-city hospital. Born and raised in Ohio, she lives with her family in a southwest suburb of Cleveland." (from her website)

Thanks very much to both Page and Jeannine for this Psychtember interview!

Psychtember Interview with Janet Ruth Young

I'm pleased to welcome Janet Ruth Young, author of The Opposite of Music, Things I Shouldn't Think (previously titled The Babysitter Murders) and the upcoming My Beautiful Failure, back to the blog for another Psychtember interview! (Janet also participated last year in Psychtember, and you can find that interview here.)

First, a bit about Janet and My Beautiful Failure:

"Janet Ruth Young, who lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, graduated from Salem State College and from the creative writing program at Boston University. She was a co-editor of the literary magazine stet and a founder of Writers' Circle, the writing workshop at the Cambridge Women's Center. Having left her job as a textbook editor to pursue a career as a novelist, Janet has published three novels with Atheneum Books for Young Readers, a division of Simon & Schuster.

The Opposite of Music  (2007), about a teen boy who attempts to save his father from a life-threatening depression, won the PEN New England Discovery Award and was a Book Sense Pick, a Borders Original Voices selection, and an American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults nominee. 

The Babysitter Murders  (2011), about a babysitter who has thoughts of harming the child she cares for, was nominated for a CYBIL and received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. A paperback edition with a new author's note will be released in the fall of 2012.

Janet's much-anticipated third novel, My Beautiful Failure, tells the story of a teenage boy who volunteers at a suicide hotline and falls in love with a troubled caller. Failure will be available in stores on November 13, 2012." (from her website)

"A haunting account of a teen boy who volunteers at a suicide hotline and falls for a troubled caller. Billy is a sophomore in high school, and twice a week, he volunteers at Listeners, a suicide hotline.

     Jenney is an “incoming,” a caller, a girl on the brink.

     As her life spirals out of control, Jenney’s calls become more desperate, more frequent. Billy, struggling with the deteriorating relationship with his depressed father, is the only one who understands. Through her pain, he sees hope. Through her tears, he feels her heart. And through her despair, he finds love. But is that enough?

     Acclaimed author Janet Ruth Young has written a stunning and powerful story with no easy answers; it is about pain and heartbreak, reality and illusion, and finding redemption and the strength to forgive in the darkest of times." (from Goodreads)

And now for the questions...

1.) The relationship that develops between Billy, a volunteer for the Listeners suicide hotline, and Jenney, a caller, is an unusual one, since they communicate only over the phone. In what ways (either positive or negative) do you think their friendship is markedly different from one developed in person? In terms of the effect on both individuals' mental and emotional health, what would you say are some of the benefits of having this limited contact and knowledge of another person, and what are some of the drawbacks?

A Listeners relationship is not a friendship.  It differs in that one person is in it to help and the other is in it to be helped. There is no mutuality.  Although the Listeners aren't trained psychotherapists, their interactions with callers are similar to the clinical relationship a therapist has with a client.  For therapy to work it must have clear boundaries. A therapist should not spend the hour interrupting the client and talking about himself and his own problems. A client should never know as much about the therapist as the therapist knows about her.

Although Billy understands depression and mood disorders from having helped his father through an illness, he isn't clear enough on the difference between a friendship and a clinical/therapeutic relationship to be able to maintain the right boundaries at Listeners.  Without really knowing it, he is looking for a friend, and maybe a romance.  Underneath his motivations of wanting to help other people, he's seeking a cure for his own isolation and discouragement. But the phone calls from Jenney really need to focus on Jenney, not Billy. If the calls were devoted entirely to her needs, the Listeners formula might be successful and this story would not become complicated. (For more about not meeting in person, see question 5.)
 
2.) Your book effectively demonstrates why the rules at suicide hotlines are so important, but also why someone might want to risk breaching them. As a writer, how challenging was it for you to keep Billy a sympathetic character, while still having him make some controversial choices?

I think readers will applaud Billy's desire to do something ambitious and to be of use in the world; they'll probably cheer him on as he joins Listeners. Then I'm hoping they'll cringe as they see him start to bend the rules. My editors at Atheneum helped me to see that readers would empathize more with Billy's missteps if they saw what he had been through with his dad's illness. Accordingly, I added flashbacks to the lowest days of Bill Senior's depression to show that Billy is in the midst of recovering from his own trauma. Most of all, despite the inauspicious circumstances, Billy is a boy in love. For the first time in his life, a smart, accomplished, and funny girl thinks he's wonderful. Sometimes Billy walks out of the Listeners office floating six inches off the ground.  Those parts were fun to write.

3.) Your previous novel Things I Shouldn't Think (originally titled The Babysitter Murders) had a female teen protagonist, whereas My Beautiful Failure has a male teen narrating. How did you find the writing of these perspectives differed? Was one more difficult than the other?

A third book should be in that mix.  My first published novel was The Opposite of Music, which is the story of Bill Senior's depression, told from Billy's point of view, partly in diary entries. So I had already written in his voice before attempting My Beautiful Failure. Although reviews of Opposite were mostly favorable, some critics said Billy didn't sound enough like a teenage boy. I can accept that. In my revisions I kept trying to make him sound younger, less female, and less literary (in other words, less like me), and when I look back at Opposite, I still see a few spots that I should have changed---for instance, by making a sentence shorter or using a simpler metaphor. Having had that preparation, I think I nailed the voice better this time around.

Things I Shouldn't Think is written in third-person omniscient, mostly from the point of view of Dani Solomon, who thinks she may be a potential child murderer, but also from the perspective of a teen boy named Malcolm who is suspicious of Dani and begins stalking her. I deliberately chose a flat, clinical style for that book, to capture the sense that someone is following Dani and that she is constantly being scrutinized---with great curiosity but without insight.  As a result of that choice, some readers decided that I just can't write very well, which I think is funny. Those people will be surprised when they read My Beautiful Failure. Billy's voice has music and poetry in it.

4.) One of the characters in My Beautiful Failure shows signs of bipolar disorder, but is never officially diagnosed with it. Why did you choose to make this ambiguous? What are your thoughts on the gray area between flamboyant creativity and potential mental illness?

Billy continues to be very concerned about Bill Senior, who may not be depressed anymore but now decides he's going to paint forty paintings in forty days and put on an art show. Although Bill Senior is under a doctor's care, and I want readers to know that taking antidepressants can lead to hypomania, I wanted to keep readers on the fence about whether the art show is a good or a bad idea.  All of us come to a point in our lives at which we realize that we haven't fulfilled our potential and we need to step on the gas. Bill Senior does this with his art show and Billy does it with Listeners.  Can a person go too far with this? Yes.  But we all have to do it.  Even if we know on some level that the world doesn't need another novel, cookbook, painting, screenplay, or blues song.  I think all art can be viewed as unnecessary and crazy in the context of the utilitarian world we live in. Yet I have a lot of Bill Senior in me. I didn't publish my first novel until I was 49. Now I'm publishing three books in five years. Does that make me crazy?

5.) One of the conclusions I took from My Beautiful Failure is that we can never really fully understand what someone else is thinking/feeling/experiencing — and especially not when our only contact with them is over the phone. What ramifications do you think this has for the strictly online nature of many friendships (e.g. through Twitter, Facebook, etc.) these days?

That is certainly a valid conclusion, but not one of the main points I'm trying to make.  Yes, we have to be wary of making assumptions about others and of investing too much in people we hardly know. And people who don't meet in person forego some cues such as facial expression and gesture. But I wouldn't want Failure to be a cautionary tale about meeting on the phone, on Twitter, or by any other medium.  Remember that a hundred years ago, lots of people got to know one another by writing letters, and many of them became lifelong friends or married one another.  I don't see electronic written media as being much different from letter writing.  And people who meet, for instance, in a discussion group about a favorite band already have an affinity going for them that might indicate true compatibility.  Another example: You, Danya, seem to understand what I'm saying in my books.  Because my books represent a true and profound part of me, perhaps you know me better than does a cousin whom I've known all my life but who has never read my work.

I'd love to hear what readers think of the Billy/Jenney relationship.  I, for one, believe there was something real there.  And it was extremely important to me that the "something" develop without regard to appearance.  At a time when the world of information keeps beautiful couples such as Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in the center of our field of vision (and my own Things I Shouldn't Think features a beautiful couple, Dani Solomon and Gordon Abt), I wanted affection and regard to spring between two people who've never seen one another.  A true meeting of the minds.  That's what Billy's parents had when they met at Bill Senior's graduate-school art show, and that's what Billy wants and deserves for himself.

Thank you very much for the interview.

And thank you, Janet, for these thoughtful replies to my questions! 
  

"New Adult" Niche: Interview with Jessica Park (and E-book Giveaway!)

I'm happy to welcome Jessica Park, author of the New Adult novel Flat-Out Love, to the blog today for an interview! You can read my review of Flat-Out Love here.


First, a bit about the book and the author:

"Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it.

When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side ... and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.

And there's that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That's because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tender and silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie's suddenly lonesome soul.

To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that ... well ... doesn't quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer." (from Goodreads)

"Jessica Park is the author of the young adult novels FLAT-OUT LOVE and RELATIVELY FAMOUS; five Gourmet Girl mysteries (written as Jessica Conant-Park); and the e-shorts FACEBOOKING RICK SPRINGFIELD and WHAT THE KID SAYS (Parts 1 & 2). Jessica grew up in the Boston area and attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. After spending four years in the frigid north, including suffering through one memorable Halloween blizzard, Jessica hightailed it back to the east coast. She now lives in (relatively balmy) New Hampshire with her husband, son, bananas dog named Fritzy, and two selfish cats. When not writing, Jessica indulges her healthy addictions to Facebook, Rick Springfield, and super-sweet coffee beverages." (from the author's website)

 And now for the questions...

1.) Unlike most books about someone's first year in college, Flat-Out Love doesn't involve dormitory or apartment life, but rather a homestay–style situation. What inspired you to go this less traditional route for Julie's college experience? How much do you think living arrangements affect a student's time in college?

Getting Julie into the Watkins household was integral to the story. She just had to become enmeshed enough in their lives to be able to see and feel what no one else could. Plus, I love that it gave her “real” time with Matt… Had they met outside of this situation, odd are that neither of them would have really been themselves around the other. Living together the way they did allowed so many walls to come down.

Living off-campus vs. living at the dorms has got to be a different experience in so many ways. You may still be in a parent’s house and therefore still under some degree of house rules… College is a pretty fun time to make your own rules! If you’re in an apartment off-campus, I think it’s a great opportunity to develop strong independence and responsibility while being able to escape some of the chaos of dormitory life. Dorms give you instant access to a social life, but it can be draining and hard to find anything resembling private time.

College is housing is always going to be a mixed bag, with good and bad aspects of all options. I can, however, guarantee you that you will eat some incredibly disgusting things for four years. True story: I used to microwave white rice with peas, ranch dressing, and curry powder from the salad bar at my college’s cafeteria. And I thought it was spectacular compared to what was offered to me at the potato bar. 

2.) The focus of Flat-Out Love isn't the classes Julie attends, but the time she spends with the Watkins family. Why did you choose to make this the central storyline? Which "New Adult" themes do you think this plot highlights?

Yes, her attending classes is the backdrop to the larger story. I wanted to do a strong romance but have that tied into other complicating issues with this damaged family. The complexities of the family’s history help to make the connections between the characters all the more powerful.

Making Julie eighteen and having left home for the first time was important in terms of how she would respond to the other characters. She’s an adult… sort of. But she’s also still a kid. She’s flawed and finding herself the way that most of us are at that age.

I don’t believe in “rules” for New Adult books… I ignored all of those when writing Flat-Out Love. :) But it covers romance, pain, angst, hurt, loss, hope. I think it’s got a good degree of guts, too, which is part of what readers have really responded to: this is not a light, superficial book, although there are some readers who have seen it that way. On the surface, one could boil it down to a superficial level, but it’s really a layered book. What you see is not what you get.

3.) What's been the most common reaction when you tell people you've written a "New Adult" novel? Have you ever had to defend your choice of publishing in this category?

Readers are thrilled to pieces to see so many New Adult books. There has been a ridiculously large gap in this market for reasons that I’ll never understand. It’s why no big publisher wanted Flat-Out Love; they said that a story about a college freshman would never sell. That thinking is incomprehensible to me and readers have shown that they can’t get enough of stories about characters in their late teens and twenties. Indie authors are proving those rejections by publishers wrong over and over, and finally we are starting to see pubs snag up some of these stories.

4.) You originally self-published Flat-Out Love. What were some of the obstacles you bumped into along the way, and how did you deal with them? 

I’m not sure that I encountered obstacles so much as I encountered exhausting work. I had no built-in audience so I was really marketing my book all on my own. It was not easy, but bloggers and readers were extremely generous in taking a chance on Flat-Out Love. Dealing with formatting, covers, and editing are also piles of work--and not always entirely successful--but I also liked being in control of those.

Trying to go to any of the major book conferences, like Romantic Times or BEA would be really challenging on my own, not to mention expensive. Now that Amazon Children’s Publishing is taking over, they’ll be able to send me to all the fun conferences that I’ve been dying to go to. 

5.) If you could pick one memory from your "New Adult" days to relive, which would it be and why?

Can I pick all of college? No? Well, I’m going to cheat a little bit and say that some of my favorite memories are grounded in the friendships that I made in college. I’m still incredibly close to my friend, Alexa, who I met during the first few days of freshman orientation. Friendships that you make in New Adult years can be unbelievably powerful and long lasting.

If you want one specific memory, I could tell you about a 2 a.m. trek across campus in sub-degree Minnesota temperatures that ended with… Well, no, never mind. Probably not an appropriate story.

Thanks so much for these thoughtful answers to my questions, Jessica!

Now for the giveaway... Jessica has generously offered up Smashwords coupon codes for Flat-Out Love! 

The rules:

- There will be 3 winners, who will each receive a coupon code for the Flat-Out Love e-book
- Entrants must be 16 years or older.
- Open internationally 
- One entry per person. But anyone who's officially signed up for my New Adult reading challenge gets an extra entry! (You must have already filled in this form, prior to the posting of this giveaway, in order to qualify. Please mention that you're a participant in your comment and leave the e-mail address you signed up with.)
- Following and tweeting are not necessary but always appreciated!
- Ends August 25, at 11:59 pm EST.
- Winners will be selected randomly.

To enter, please leave a comment with your e-mail address.