Posts for category ‘author interviews’

Lisa Yee was one of the first and nicest people I met when I started connecting with other writers for kids and young adults back in the day. She is smart and funny, sure, but more importantly we have almost the exact same taste in movies and she’s seen everything. Oh yeah, she’s also the author of six (six!) books for young readers. We recently had a chat about her newest, Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally).

SZ: So I hear you have a new book out. Tell me a little bit about it.

LY: BOBBY VS. GIRLS (ACCIDENTALLY) chronicles the life of Bobby Ellis-Chan, a non-athletic fourth grader and a son of an ex-NFL player turned stay-at-home dad. Bobby’s best friend is Holly, but they can’t let anyone know they’re friends or else they’ll be teased since it’s practically illegal for boys and girls to be friends. After many misunderstandings, Bobby finds himself in the middle of a war between boys and girls.

SZ: Sounds great. As a long-time friend to boys, I’m excited to read it. Funny…I was flipping through my latest Horn Book and saw the review and couldn’t help but notice…gosh, this is kind of awkward…the mean girl in the book. Her name.

LY: Oh yeah. Her name. It’s um . . . Jillian Zarr.

(For the record, I looked nothing like that as a kid. I wouldn't be caught dead in a dress!)

SZ: I just wonder, you know, why you’d choose such a name for, like, a villain.

LY: Well, you know how with some people, you always say their first and last name? I wanted Bobby to have an enemy who’s name was like that. I’ve always thought that Jillian was a great name, but then I needed a last name for her. I had either just been emailing a friend of mine, who’s name happened to be, um, Sara Zarr, or maybe I was reading her blog. So I put Zarr as a placeholder last name . . . Jillian Zarr. But as I wrote, I fell in love with the name and it stuck. Now, I think it’s important to note that I did ask you if I could use your name beforehand. And I think your response was something like, “as long as she’s not a total dork,” or something along those lines.

SZ: If you say so. When you were Bobby and Jillian’s age, did you intermingle with boys or were you strictly No Boys Allowed?

LY: Hmmm . . . now that i think about it, I don’t think my friends and I co-mingled with boys. Although my best friend today is a guy. What about you?

SZ: Oh, I co-mingled all right. I’ve always run with the boys—I practically was a boy. My older sister once called me the “little brother [she] always wanted.” It wasn’t really until adulthood I started making close women friends. Do does this Jillian Zarr person become repentant and fantastic by the end of the story? Or would that be giving something away?

LY: Now that I think about it, in high school I was one of the guys. As for the evil Jillian Zarr . . . she is not redeemed by the end of the book. BOBBY VS. GIRLS (ACCIDENTALLY) is the first of a series, so I need to keep Jillian Zarr around and angry. Thanks so much for letting me borrow your last name. You, Sara Zarr, are a good sport!!!

SZ: I really am. You’re naming a mean girl after me, and I’m naming a doctor after you in my next book. Take that!

Lisa’s web site

Lisa’s blog where you can follow the adventures of Peepy and all his celebrity friends!

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Long ago and far away, I met E. Lockhart the way a lot of us authors meet: online. I immediately developed a girl crush on her, because she’s super smart, cool, funny, and nice. Then, I started reading her books and became a fan of her writing, not just her personality.

The first time I met her in person, at NCTE 2006 (in the Gaylord Opryland biodome as you may recall), it went sort of like this: I stalked her, located her, threw myself at her (hiI’mSaraZarrfromtheemaillistit’ssogreattomeetyoucanIgetapicture?) and immediately handed someone a camera to snap our photo. And, she had just had one of those late flight situations that forced her to change in a restroom to get ready for her signing. But does she look even remotely cranky or put-upon?

(Thought bubble over me: How can I get my bangs to grow out as gracefully as E.’s? Speaking of hair, fun fact: I once expressed my obsession with the idea of shaving my head, just to see what it’s like. E. said I should do it, that every woman should at least once, and sent me a picture of her more or less bald. Though I was thoroughly convinced it worked for her, I still have my doubts when it comes to me.)

Up until a couple of weeks ago, my favorite E. Lockhart book was Dramarama. I love that book! Theater camp! Best friendships put to the test! And, of course, jazz hands. Then, I finally finally finally read National Book Award finalist and Printz honor book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and, well, as you may already know, it is a great book, full of important ideas while also endlessly entertaining, and my new favorite of E.’s oeuvre thus far. (“E’s Oeuvre” sounds a little bit like a late-night cable movie on the naughty channel…)

Even though E. is busy writing more books and going on tour, she graciously agreed to answer some questions for the blog:

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E.’s latest!

Like a lot of food-lovers, I harbor many kitchen fantasies about fresh-baked bread. Fresh bread is pretty much the ultimate definition of home and hearth, and the person who bakes her own bread is also the person whose house is the go-to place for neighborhood kids, who makes the stranger feel welcome, who has exactly the right advice for every friend with a problem, who has long glossy hair she usually wears in a bun, who composts, hangs laundry to dry in the sun, and never has a cranky day.  

Or maybe she just has a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Zoë Francois and Jeff Hertzberg. I acquired this book after a taste of the bread from their master recipe at my friend Ann Dee’s house about a month ago, and since then have baked six tasty loaves my very own self. It really is an amazingly fast and easy technique, and now I want to evangelize to everyone I know who cooks.  

While reading the acknowledgments for the book I discovered that Jeff and Zoë and I are all represented by the same literary agency, so of course I immediately exploited the connection to get them over here for a Q&A as part of my Shop Local Holiday Gift-Guying Guide. It makes a terrific gift for the cooks in your life, and you may as well get a copy for yourself while you’re at it. The basic ingredients for homemade bread are so cheap, this really pays for itself after the first four-loaf batch of dough. If you don’t see it on the shelf at your local indie store, ask! They can order it for you and have it in quickly. 

And now, let’s hear what the authors have to say… 

SZ: Congratulations on the success of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I’ve bought a lot of bread books in my time, and this is the first one that actually delivers on its promise of do-ability! What do you think it is about the prospect of bread making that strikes fear in the hearts of the average home cook? Read more »

I met Donna Freitas about a year ago at Kindling Words, when we struck up a conversation in the lobby of the inn and discovered connections crackling all over the place. She told me about her work as an assistant professor of religion as well as an author of nonfiction and fiction, and I got all excited and told her about my interest in the many and exciting ways arts and faith can intersect, on the page and off of it.

(Here we are in all our morning glory. Breakfast at KW is meant to be enjoyed in bedhead and cozy clothes.)

Donna’s debut YA novel, The Possibilities of Sainthood, was released this summer from FSG to wide critical acclaim—four starred reviews and an abundance of buzz. It is an infectiously joyful book about an Italian American Catholic fifteen-year-old who is obsessed with saints and kissing. I am delighted to have her here to talk about her wonderful book, religion in YA, and the Pope.

SZ: The Possibilities of Sainthood is your first foray into fiction, and I have to say, you make it look easy. Was it? (Tell me it wasn’t!) I guess this is a “process” question: what was yours, and what did you discover were some of the main differences between writing nonfiction and fiction?

DF: You are so nice to think I make writing look easy (and you, Sara, should talk!). The Possibilities of Sainthood went through many, serious revisions before it came to be the story within that lovely packaging FSG came up with (I adore the cover!). I actually rewrote the entire last third of the book during the editing process.

But that first draft! O, that I could always experience writing as I did that first draft. It was writing at its most joyous (I know I sound cheesy, but I’m being honest…). Once I had my protagonist’s name, Antonia Lucia Labella, and her two “wants�—sainthood and a first kiss—I was off and running and I couldn’t get the story out fast enough. What compelled me to write the first draft so quickly was Antonia’s voice, which was loud and clear in my head. It was so much fun. (The irony of the fact that, when I write fiction, “I hear voices� as I like to put it, is not lost on me, given that I am a professor of religion who often teaches the famous women mystics who heard voices of a different sort back in the medieval day…but I digress). Anyway, then came the revisions….the long, grueling revisions. Lucky for me I had a wonderful editor to hold my hand through this process, Frances Foster, who was truly encouraging whenever I got insecure about whether the novel should ever get published. It’s nice to have someone with that kind of faith in you!

As for the fiction v. nonfiction issue: I would say that writing fiction in general is a lot more fun because you get to make stuff up! I love making stuff up. I could make up stuff all day and sometimes I do. In my nonfiction, on the other hand, I have to do endless endnote work which requires endless research which requires endless fact-checking, etc. I do love both genres, though, and when I am deeply invested in a nonfiction project like I was with my last book, Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America’s College Campuses (April 2008, Oxford University Press), the grueling part of writing nonfiction is easier to confront when you care so much about the material and whether it might have a real impact on people once it comes out.

So with nonfiction, the blood, sweat, and tears are there the whole way through, and with fiction, they tend to show up during revisions.

SZ: Unless I am really confused when it comes to what I know about Catholicism (very possible), the popes in your book are fictional. I can think of some reasons that was a good idea, but I’d like to hear yours. And then that leads me to wondering if all the saints featured in the book are real (I recognized some, like our lusty friend Augustine!) or if you made any of them up?

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In a rare MySpace success story, Tara Altebrando and I found each other on that notorious social networking site back 2006, when I won a copy of her first YA novel, The Pursuit of Happiness, which I truly loved. We discovered we were born within 24 hours of each other, and soon began an email correspondence that quickly became part of near-daily life. She was a total lifeline to me during that first Summer of Santa Fe, and also helped me survive the last draft of Sweethearts. Now, her second YA, What Happens Here, is freshly released and I’m so proud that I got to read it last year and blurb it. Packaged in a neat little paperback from MTV Books, it looks like something you can grab and breeze through during your summer travels. That is partly true. What is also true is that Tara is an exceptional writer who tackles the Big Ideas of life and what it is to be human. Tara and I sat down at our computers at opposite sides of the country last week to IM about her new book, her glamorous life, and recurring themes.

SZ:… We were born like one day apart. Do you have any opinions about the astrology stuff – do you read your horoscope, do you notice patterns in your Libra behavior, etc?

TMA: I used to read my horoscope daily, back when I was on AOL and it was pretty much handed to you when you signed on…”You’ve got horoscope!”…and I had my chart done once. But my interest in it all has faded over the years. Still, several of my closest friends in the world are Librans. I’m a typical Libran in many ways. I avoid conflict at all costs. Can see all sides of every issue so am often wishy washy on my views about things.

SZ:  What is [your husband] Nick’s sign? Let me guess – Aries, Libra, or Sag?

TMA:I actually don’t know Nick’s sign. So that goes to show you! I used to have this HUGE book that told you about your birthday week versus every other birthday week and I’d obsess over every detail regarding every guy I dated. Nick must be a Scorpio? July 29th? No, wait, August 29th!

SZ: Oh jeez. You don’t know your own husband’s birthday?!

TMA: I have a weird mental block about it. Drives him nuts. But it is most definitely August.

SZ: If you say so.

TMA: Should I check his MySpace page?

SZ: Ha! Okay, let’s jump into the book. I’ve always enjoyed mysteries and am really impressed with the way you handle the mystery in your book, even though the book itself couldn’t simply be called A Mystery. When this story came to you, did you always know it would have a mystery? And did that scare you at all?

TMA: I actually didn’t know it was going to be a mystery. And, in fact, when Nick read a first draft, he was like “uh, but you never solved the mystery.” HUGE problem, of course. I was very focused Read more »