Teacher/artist Renée Watson makes her YA debut with This Side of Home, a novel about African-American teenage sisters navigating friendships, relationships, school politics and future plans. The sisters' identities are intertwined with issues of class, race and gender, allowing Watson to explore all of these issues through their eyes.

BookPage spoke with Watson about her new book, the growing pains of gentrification and school reform, and "dealing with reality—sorting through the good and bad—trying to make sense of it all."

Your previous work includes children’s poetry (A Place Where Hurricanes Happen), a picture book (Harlem’s Little Blackbird), a middle grade novel (What Momma Left Me) and articles for educators about multiculturalism and arts education. What inspired you to branch out into YA fiction?
I’ve worked in middle and high schools for several years. The pains and joys of adolescents are moments I witness on a daily basis, so I think their stories are always with me as I write. The lives of my high school students are interesting—they are always changing. Their conflicts are more dramatic, and there’s just so much to sort through. All of this makes for good plots and complex characters so going with YA for this story made the most sense.

But besides those more practical reasons, my motivation to write young adult novels comes from a desire to get teenagers talking. I hope my books are a catalyst for youth and adults to have conversations with one another, for teachers to have a starting point to discuss difficult topics with students. Though my writing is fiction, it is definitely not for escaping reality. It is all about dealing with reality—sorting through the good and bad—trying to make sense of it all.

Maya and Nikki live in a Portland neighborhood where gentrification is rapidly changing the downtown landscape. They plan to attend a historically black women’s college, a decision that their community activist parents support. How similar are the twins’ circumstances to those of your own teenage years?
I see both Maya and Nikki in myself. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and like Maya, I was on student council and very involved in my high school. I also had dreams of going to college (in New York) and wanted so badly to make my mother and community proud. Unlike Maya, I wasn’t totally against the changes that came to Portland. I am a lot like Nikki in that way.

I started noticing changes in my neighborhood—the same neighborhood in the book—my junior year in high school. For me, the change was not that rapid. It took about 20 years to see the fullness of gentrification in North East Portland. Gentrification was not a word I knew at 15, but I knew the feeling of not belonging. There was something about the changes that made it seem like they weren’t for the people who already lived there but for the people who were coming. Yet, even with that feeling, I still wanted to go out and enjoy these new places. So for me, I have both of their perspectives—I want the change, appreciate it even, but I don’t appreciate the push out that often comes with it.

Maya wants to pursue a career in journalism, in part because she’s “always liked asking questions, finding deeper reasons and meanings for things.” Why did you choose this particular career interest for your main character?
It seemed like a natural desire for Maya to have. At first, I thought she was a lover of music and that maybe she should pursue a music career, but the more I wrote her character, I realized that what she’s passionate about is history and connecting history to the present. She is full of questions and wonder. Journalism seemed like a good fit.

Richmond High, where Maya and Nikki are seniors, has a new principal this year. His intentions to promote academic success are good, but he’s out of touch with many of the real needs and concerns of the student body. School reform agendas similar to Principal Green’s are in the news a lot these days. What do you think are some of the pluses and minuses that school reform might offer a community like Richmond?
What I love about Principal Green is that he wants the students to be accountable to each other, he promotes unity, and is pushing students to excel outside of the stereotypes they are often rewarded for exceling in. My frustration with him is that he lacks a sincere appreciation and understanding of the community he is working in. He comes in with a savior mentality and imposes his ideas on the student body without ever asking a parent, teacher or student, “What’s working? What’s not? How can we work together?” To me, the most effective school reform agendas include input from the actual people of the community and takes into account their particular needs and traditions. Once the principal understands the community then s/he is ready to think about how different theories and educational practices might work in this particular setting. The action always has to match and be designed for a specific community. Generally programs without those considerations just won't work. 

As student council president, Maya takes a stand against replacing her school’s traditional Black History Month celebration with a diversity assembly intended to be “for everyone, not just the black students.” Why was it important for Maya’s character—or for you as an author creating her voice—for her to advocate for this point of view?
I think one of Principal Green’s mistakes is believing that black history is only relevant to African-American students. By changing the assembly, he once again makes a decision without fully understanding the importance of the tradition and not just that, but the necessity for all students—from all backgrounds—to learn about black history, which is an integral part of American history and therefore relevant for all students.

I know students like Maya who advocate for themselves and at a young age consider themselves activists. I wanted to have a main character be passionate about something other than some of the cliché things some adults think all teenagers care about. It was important for me to have Maya stand up for something she believed in—even if it didn’t get the results she wanted.

OK, this is a minor detail, especially in view of the serious issues raised in your book, but I was thrilled to find that Maya’s student council board includes not only the standard offices of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer, but also the position of Historian. What does a student council historian do?
The historian is responsible for recording the events of the school year, to put on record—through photos and writings—the important things that happened so that future classes can look back and see what was going on at the school in any given year.

Can we expect a follow-up novel chronicling Maya’s next steps? Or are you working on other projects that BookPage readers might find interesting?
Right now, I’m busy traveling for the book tour. Instead of a writing project, I’m telling stories through photography. I’ll be capturing different cities and the places I call home and sharing them on Instagram. I’d love for BookPage readers to join in. All they have to do is take a photo of a place that makes their home special and post it using #ThisSideOfHome. My Instagram handle is @harlemportland, and I’d love to connect with readers and learn about the places they love.

Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun dazzled us with elegantly crafted prose and flawless narrative structure as it switched between the perspectives of twins Noah and Jude. Its captivating balance of heartbreak and hope garnered it the highest honor in YA fiction, the 2015 Printz Award.

What was the first thing that went through your head when you found out you had won the Printz?
I think it was something like: HOLYHELLOHMYGODNOWAYIWONTHEPRINTZHOLYHELLOHMYGODNOWAY et cetera for about a week now and counting!

Who was the one person you couldn’t wait to tell about the award?
This is a very hard question because I instantly and passionately wanted to tell everybody on the Earth! Barring that, Mom was the one and she was indeed the first person I told.

“I love that ‘everything’ aspect of writing about/for teenagers, all the terrible and amazing firsts all happening at once.”

Do you have a favorite past Printz winner?
So many! But I’m head over heels for A Step from Heaven by An Na, How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff and Looking for Alaska by John Green. Also, I must admit I haven’t read all the titles. I’ve been told on penalty of death I have to read Jellicoe Road and Going Bovine. Both are in the stack on my bed table awaiting me.

What’s the best part of writing books for a younger audience?
I love being inside the minds/hearts of my teen narrators, love the urgency of the teen experience, that period of time when everything is so new, so dramatic, so emotional, so confusing, so funny, so raw, so honest, so everything. I love that “everything” aspect of writing about/for teenagers, all the terrible and amazing firsts all happening at once. It’s a headlong ride, and I feel really lucky to get to do it. Teens are such smart passionate readers—it’s such a joy to hear from them.

What kind of reaction have you gotten from your readers about this book?
The letters so far for Sun have been bursting with emotion and enthusiasm, and from all ages/sexes, lots of teens who are thinking about coming out or struggling with their sexuality who really relate to Noah, other teens going through tough family times and relate to Jude, others who are falling in love, and many who just respond to the kind of over-the-top passionate natures of the twins, their mistakes and triumphs, and their artistic relationship with the world. What’s been amazing is some teen readers who are artists have been sending me incredible artwork they’ve done based on the book or its characters.

Have you read or listened to past Printz acceptance speeches? Are you excited (or worried!) about your own speech?
I’m completely and utterly terrified! But I gave myself a week to be in denial, to not think about it, and then I’ll face the music. I believe I’ve heard bits and pieces of Libba Bray’s and John Green’s speeches: brilliant bits and pieces! But, of course, mixed in with the terror is a lot of excitement. The whole thing is such a thrill, a once in a lifetime thrill. I’m so glad you can’t unwin the Printz! That this will always have happened!

What’s next for you?
I’m writing another YA novel called The Fall Boys & Dizzy in Paradise about two brothers and a sister living in a hot, dusty Northern California vineyard town called Paradise. Their father mysteriously disappeared 16 years earlier, and the story begins when this strange, enigmatic girl shows up and sends all their lives into tumult. It’s kind of a relay race of a love(s) story, with some serious violin playing, food making, grape crushing, break ins and outs, dreams shattered and pieced back together, time lost, love lost and found, and a band called “Hell Hyena and the Furniture.” I’m really excited about it!

Author photo by Sonya Sones.

David Arnold makes his YA debut with Mosquitoland, the tale of a teen runaway on a 947-mile journey to find her mother. It all begins on a Greyhound bus, but dangers big and small make Mim’s journey treacherous and transformative. “I am Mary Iris Malone,” our heroine says, “and I am not okay.” Through letters to a character named Isabel, as well as through clever, authentic narration, she reveals the confusion, pain and heartwrenching vulnerabilities that spurred this epic journey.

What inspired you to write this book?
If I had to point to one single inspiration, it would be the moment my wife and I found out we were going to have a baby. Until that point, I’d been working on a few other manuscripts, but there was no sense of urgency behind them, and the work suffered for it. Once I learned I would be a father, I threw caution to the wind and decided to tackle this idea I’d had that didn’t feel particularly safe, and that turned out to be Mosquitoland. But that’s the thing about writing: I think sometimes we have to be confronted with one fear in order to face another.

How did you tap into this impeccably teenage voice?
Voice is a funny thing. In writing, people constantly talk about “finding your voice,” but what they don’t tell you is that you have to find it over and over and over again. I’m not sure how to answer this question except to say that for me, writing often feels a lot more like acting. I try to get in my character’s head, and once I do, it’s more about letting them tell their own story.

How did your musical background and growing up in the South influence this book?
I did spend quite a few years of my childhood in Jackson, Mississippi, but we also lived in northern Ohio and central Kentucky and Nashville, and I also lived in England for a bit when I was in high school. So I’m not sure growing up in the South had any great influence on the book, but certainly moving around a lot did. In its infancy, Mosquitoland was going to be a story about a new kid at school. It was something I was quite familiar with and wanted to explore. But once I realized the key was back in Ohio, I knew I had to get Mim on the road. Even so, I tried to keep this sort of “new kid” mentality throughout the book.

Mosquitoland offers plenty of funny moments, but it addresses some really dark themes, including coping with mental illness. What was the hardest part of this book to write?
Mim can be quite a frustrating character. Certainly, she’s incredibly flawed and makes all manner of questionable decisions throughout the book. At times, this was very difficult. I’d find myself trying to write the things she should do, rather than the things she would do. As a writer—especially one whose primary focus is authentic, character-driven storytelling—I had to fight this urge, be true to who my character was. Because you cannot apply an adult’s wisdom to a teen’s decision and expect it to be believable. I had to let Mim be Mim. And that was no easy task. (Especially for a father!)

What do you think it is about the road-trip narrative that appeals so well to teen readers?
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, stepping out your front door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” Tolkien got it. Because WHO doesn’t want to be Frodo in this scenario? We imagine Bilbo saying these words to us, speaking of mountains and elves and dragons and man: Is it time to go yet? I won’t speak for other readers, but I think part of why I’m so drawn to a journey story is because it’s an outward display of every character’s inward struggle: How do I get from here to there? You could set an entire book in one room, and that question still holds true.

If you could sit next to anyone (real or fictional) for a 1,000-mile bus ride, who would you choose?
I’m going to cheat and give you three: Elliott Smith, Aaron Sorkin and Samwise Gamgee.

What’s one thing that you, as an adult, wish you could tell Mim?
It’s going to be okay.

What has been your favorite part about publishing your first book?
The community. I’ve made some of my very best friends through this process—the writing and the publishing. I couldn’t be more grateful for my book people.

What are you working on next?
I have a few things going on, but the main project is another standalone YA novel, tentatively set for release in late 2016.

Andrew Smith almost gave up writing for teens in 2011, when an article in The Wall Street Journal blasted his work as being too dark for teen readers. But fans of his previous novels (including the 2015 Printz Honor-winning Grasshopper Jungle)—and those who pick up his latest offering, The Alex Crow—will be glad that he stuck to his craft.

And “craft” is the right word here, because all of Smith’s books, especially the four intersecting narratives of The Alex Crow, grow out of a unique and detailed writing process. “I write differently from anyone else I know,” Smith tells BookPage from his home in Washington, D.C. “I don’t outline. I wanted to start in all of these different places that seemingly were absolutely disjointed and impossible to connect, and have them all come together into a really small point at the end. It’s kind of like solving a puzzle, kind of working my way out of a maze.”

“To lump all 14-year-old boys into this narrowly defined expectation of what they’re capable of doing and what they’re capable of expressing, feeling and thinking about, is exactly the problem.”

Speaking of mazes, The Alex Crow opens with a violent scene in which teenager Ariel survives a terrorist attack in an unspecified war zone. Ariel’s narrative then breaks into two pieces—one in the present as he and his adoptive brother Max laugh their way through a technology-detox summer camp for boys, and one in the recent past, describing how Ariel came to be adopted by Max’s family. Both narratives are interrupted by two additional tales: An increasingly insane trucker makes what may be the world’s strangest road trip, and a stranded 19th-century sailor records some startling discoveries in his journals. These four threads gradually knot their way into one larger story in a strange way that only Smith could weave.

Scenes in The Alex Crow are a mix of profound, grotesque, violent and hilarious, with some moments following directly on the heels of another. “That’s kind of how I see the world,” Smith says. “One minute you can be completely horrified by something that’s taking place in front of you, and then within a few moments or so you’re laughing at something that’s just absolutely absurd.”

The multidimensional plot may be the most notable aspect of The Alex Crow, but arguably the most interesting elements are its characters, especially 14-year-old Ariel. Smith aims to write characters that stand out as individuals rather than relying on archetypical characters and cookie-cutter expectations of adolescence. “To lump all 14-year-old boys into this narrowly defined expectation of what they’re capable of doing and what they’re capable of expressing, feeling and thinking about, is exactly the problem.”

With characters that are so intensely relatable, a further issue bubbles to the surface: Smith has been called sexist or worse for articulating the thoughts of a 14-year-old boy. But as Smith points out, no one would accuse Thomas Harris, author of The Silence of the Lambs, of being a cannibal.

“The emotional distance that readers feel when they’re reading young adult [literature] is so, so narrow compared to the emotional distance that readers feel when they’re reading what would be called ‘adult literary fiction,’ ” Smith explains. “They sometimes kind of blur the line between the author and the characters in the story. . . . But a young adult author is very often targeted or accredited with the actions and the attitudes of what are, generally speaking, pretty immature and impulsive characters.”

For all these characters’ flaws, they’ll resonate with boy readers, but will The Alex Crow appeal to girls? “I’m definitely very strongly outspoken against the idea of genderizing books,” Smith says. “I don’t believe there are such things as ‘girl’ books and ‘boy’ books.” Teenage girls are just as mystified by teenage boys as boys are by girls, so reading Smith’s books—even as an adult—gives female readers a glance into the minds of these foreign-seeming creatures.

Smith’s books have been described as boundary-pushing, and his thoughts on this label extend to YA lit in general. YA, says Smith, isn’t limited to 12- to 18-year-old readers. Instead, “it’s a genre that deals with essential adolescent experiences, which I think is the most significant period in a human being’s life.”

For this reason, adult readers can appreciate YA on a different level. “When we get beyond that period in our lives, and we can distance ourselves emotionally from the immediacy of the turmoil of adolescence, the ability to go back and read something that examines those sorts of pressures and issues and problems . . . helps to clarify that experience.”

Smith goes on, “We’re definitely seeing a big change in young adult. . . . I think that publishers are more eager to take risks and to break away from the rut [that] YA has been in the last 20 years. And so we’re seeing a lot of delightful new offerings that break the mold, getting out of the constraints of what has been a preconceived, very formulaic category of fiction.”

In the end, Smith’s writing goals are as simple as they are profound. “I just try to put as much honesty as I can, and entertainment, on the pages, and by doing that maybe give somebody a glimpse into some perspective that they hadn’t been that accustomed to seeing.”

Jill Ratzan teaches research rudiments in central New Jersey. She learned most of what she knows about YA lit from her terrific grad students.

This article was originally published in the March 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

This is the heartbreaking tale of clever, college-bound Naila, whose conservative immigrant parents forbid her to date boys. When Naila falls in love with Saif, her parents respond by whisking the family to Pakistan. But what starts as a family vacation appears to have secret motives: Naila’s parents plan to force her to marry a man of their choosing.

Saeed was raised in a traditional Pakistani-American family and took a “leap of faith” when she married a man chosen by her parents. While Saeed’s semiarranged marriage is a happy one, Written in the Stars exposes the dark realities of forced marriages, when young women are pressured or coerced into unions they would never have chosen for themselves. As eye-opening as it is touching, Written in the Stars is a story readers won’t soon forget.

BookPage contacted Saeed to talk about the story behind Written in the Stars and, perhaps most importantly, to check in on We Need Diverse Books.

We’re closing in on the one-year anniversary of We Need Diverse Books. Where do you think we are now? What have we done right or wrong, and what’s the next step?
It’s hard to believe it is almost a year since We Need Diverse Books made its way into the world! No longer just a hashtag, we are now an organization with many exciting initiatives launching this year, including our first ever Walter Dean Myers Award and Grants for diverse authors and works. I believe the success of WNDB is due to how important diversity in literature is to so many people and as one of its founding members I am grateful that this conversation is ongoing and leading to what I hope will be tangible change. While the statistics are still dire for diverse representation, I am optimistic about where we are now, and there are things that give me hope. For example, I was heartened to see how many diverse books were recognized at the ALA Youth Media Awards earlier this year.

Diversity is being talked about in all realms of the art and entertainment world, from Marvel comics to television shows and the book publishing industry. This is very promising, but the work has just begun. Our next steps as an organization are to continue our initiatives and to keep on working towards making a better and more diverse literary world.

What inspired you to write this book?
While Written in the Stars is a work of fiction, the inspiration stemmed from the experiences of some people I knew growing up as a child who went through the unfortunate reality of being pressured into marriages they didn’t want. Those stories have stayed with me throughout my life, and knowing how important this topic was because of my personal connection with it inspired me to keep on writing even when it was emotionally difficult.

What do you wish more people understood about arranged marriages?
I’ve found that people often lump forced marriages and arranged marriages together when they are actually two separate entities. In an arranged marriage, while parents are involved in the marriage of the groom and bride, there is always choice. Forced marriages, on the other hand, have no consent and are therefore completely unacceptable. I hope through reading Written in the Stars people can see that there is a difference between the two practices.

“As a Muslim and a Pakistani American, it was a balancing act for me to not only differentiate faith from culture, but to also be sure I highlighted an issue in Pakistan without vilifying the entire culture.”

Naila finds comfort and strength in her culture (one of my favorite moments from the book is when she is in Pakistan and hears the call to prayer, and she suddenly feels a sense of home), but it’s that same culture that pressures her. How do you, as a Muslim woman, manage that balance?
There is a big distinction between Naila’s Pakistani culture and her Muslim faith. I appreciate you pointing out Naila found comfort in the prayer call, because while her culture is certainly complicit in what happens to her, her religion is not. Forced marriages are not legitimate marriages in Islam. As a Muslim and Pakistani American woman it was important for me to highlight the problem of forced marriages while being clear it is a cultural issue, not religiously motivated. The truth is forced marriages aren’t a cultural practice limited to Pakistan; the issue spans the globe and happens among people who practice other religions as well.

As a Muslim and a Pakistani American, it was a balancing act for me to not only differentiate faith from culture, but to also be sure I highlighted an issue in Pakistan without vilifying the entire culture. All cultures have problematic aspects within them that need addressing, but this does not eliminate the goodness, beauty, and warmth that is also present within them. I hope I achieved the balance of calling out an abominable practice without reducing the entire culture to one negative aspect.

What has been your favorite part about publishing your first book?
My favorite part of publishing my debut is the journey along the way. It is completely new and unchartered territory for me and there is no one set roadmap because the journey is unique to each author. It’s been incredible to learn as I go!

What other books would you recommend for readers interested in Muslim, Pakistani-American or Middle Eastern stories?
There are quite a few I would recommend! For starters I suggest the anthology Love Insh’Allah: Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women with collected essays from Muslim women in the United States and their journey towards finding love. (My own story of how I met my husband is also in it.) I would also recommend Painted Hands by Jennifer Zobair, which highlights modern Muslim-American women working and balancing identity and family.

What’s next for you?
With my book just out I’m busy with getting ready to do events and travel a bit, and I am also eager to dive into new projects that I’m working on. They are all in various stages of creation, but I’m very excited. Stay tuned!

A Court of Thorns and Roses introduces readers to a world filled with fae bearing the weight of a terrible curse. When 19-year-old human huntress Feyre accidentally kills a faerie, she’s whisked away by a dangerous creature to live forever in the faerie lands. But this creature reveals himself to be a powerful, beautiful High Lord named Tamlin, and while he and Feyre fall into an intense romance, it’s clear he’s keeping secrets from her.

This book started out as a fairy-tale retelling over several myths, including “Beauty and the Beast,” “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” and “Tam Lin,” and it still bears strains of all those fairy tales. What was your process for mix and matching these different classic fairy tales?
Honestly, I read as many versions of those tales as I could before starting, but they were all such favorites from growing up (“East of the Sun, West of the Moon” might be my all-time favorite fairytale) that I already had them internalized by the time I began drafting A Court of Thorns and Roses.

In some ways, “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” had a greater impact on the book than “Beauty and the Beast” (which is in the same folktale family)—the overall structure of Feyre and Tamlin’s story, the shift from pure love story to Supreme Badass Action, the presence of a dark, wicked queen, all shaped and guided the creation of this book. I definitely drew more heavily from the evil faerie queen and her relationship to the hero in Tam Lin for Amarantha’s inspiration, though both EotSWotM and “Tam Lin” feature women coveting/cursing men—and then going head-to-head with the heroine.

In all three fairytales, actually, the element of female strength was what initially drew me to them, and helped me shape ACOTAR. These are all heroines who persevere, who are empowered in their desires and wants, and who are willing to face countless dangers to save the ones they love.

There are countless faerie mythologies out there. Where do your faeries fit in?
My faeries kind of come from everywhere. I drew from traditional Irish/English/Scottish mythology, but I also borrowed creatures and ideas from other cultures—the naga, for instance, were inspired by Hindu mythology. I didn’t want to be confined to one mythology when I created the world of A Court of Thorns and Roses, so it became a blend of creatures that interest and frighten me. Which has really given me the freedom to do whatever I want with Prythian and its inhabitants.

There’s a lot more mature content in A Court of Thorns and Roses than in the Throne of Glass series, making it appropriate for a slightly older teen audience. Are you intentionally writing older, to stay with your huge fan base? If so, do you think you’ll move into adult fantasy at any point?
To be honest, when I write my books, I don’t often think about where they’ll wind up on a shelf. I just write the story as it unfolds, write the characters as they speak to me and see what the finished product looks like when I’m done. I knew from the start that the world of ACOTAR would be a darker, more sensual one—so the mature content just sort of happened as a result. So, no, I didn’t intentionally write older to stick with my audience—I just wrote the story in my heart, which happened to be a bit more sexy than the TOG books. I think it’ll probably be that way with any other book or series I write: I’ll leave where it gets shelved in a store or library to my publisher. 🙂

You’ve said in previous interviews that you grew up with fantasies like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, stories that put heavy emphasis on the world-building aspect of fantasy writing. What are your favorite and least favorite elements of world-building?
Least favorite parts? Keeping track of everything and making sure everything makes sense and is consistent. If my characters are eating a certain kind of fruit, I need to account for how that fruit got onto their table, especially if it’s out of season. Sometimes that stuff makes it onto the page, sometimes it’s just information that I need to know. But the consistency of world-building is always intense.

Favorite part? Getting to do whatever I want (within reason—see the above answer). I love sitting down at my computer and discovering new places within the worlds of ACOTAR and TOG—places that I didn’t know existed until that moment, when they suddenly have been there all along, and they fit in perfectly and add extra depth to the characters and world. I’m a big believer in world-building and character-building going hand-in-hand (we’re all products of our world/culture/upbringing), so I often discover a lot about both while drafting. It’s awesome when it all clicks.

Speaking of that mature content, what do you think are the sexiest scenes to write?
Oh, God. Such a hard question. (…*awkwardly winks*) I think the sexiest scenes are the ones where the emotional and physical arcs between the characters perfectly tie together. So, for me, it’s often that Big First Kiss scene. Feyre and Tamlin’s first kiss still makes me cry whenever I read it, perhaps because it’s as much about their physical relationship as it is about Feyre’s own emotional healing and growth.

If you had one night with any of the A Court of Thorns and Roses characters, who would you choose, and what would do with him/her?
Um. Rhysand. Definitely. And as for what I’d do with him . . .  I’m a married woman. But . . . you know. It’s Rhysand. So . . . *smiles innocently*

What’s one bad habit you have no intention of breaking?
I watch an ungodly amount of TV and will never apologize for it. (I feel like I should list “Netflix” as my religion.)

True love—fact or fiction?
Fact. Though I do think that love takes work—and requires trust most of all. But I also believe that there are all kinds of true love. The love between friends can be as strong and life-changing as romantic love. My relationship with my best friend (aka YA author Susan Dennard) is as important to me as my relationship with my husband—and has impacted me as greatly, too.

Margo Rabb’s new YA novel, Kissing in America, follows two teens as they travel from New York City to Los Angeles to compete in a game show . . . and catch the boyfriend who got away. Along the way, they visit friends and relatives whose sometimes quirky, sometimes funny and sometimes challenging situations force them to rethink their own views on everything from friendship to family to future plans. BookPage talked to Rabb about romance novel euphemisms, handwritten letters and putting an end to genre shaming.

Eva and Annie’s cross-country bus trip forms the heart of Kissing in America. Have you ever taken a long bus trip?
I’ve taken lots of long bus trips and cross-country road trips, and they all inspired this book. As a teenager, I had summer jobs in Maine and the Adirondacks, which meant many long Greyhound bus rides, often by myself. On one of these trips I sat next to a man who’d been paroled from prison recently, and who proceeded to slowly eat his own hair. (I couldn’t resist putting that in the book.) I also love riding in the front seat of a bus, with its view out the giant windows—I always think it’s such a lovely view. Riding a bus doesn’t have the best reputation, but I loved it when I was a teen. It was a lot of fun to capture those memories in this book.

"I find it interesting that the literary establishment has embraced genres such as mystery and thrillers, yet romance novels are still often looked down upon or not taken seriously."

Eva loves the escapism and fantasy of romance novels. The imaginary narratives that she creates about herself and Will, based on her favorite books, are full of hilariously overwrought language (“‘I want to reach the zenith with you,’ he said as he enfolded her in his manly arms”). Do you like to read romances? What was it like writing in the voice of an over-the-top romance novelist for these passages?
Writing those romance novel excerpts was one of my favorite parts of writing this book. I have an entire file of romance euphemisms including “saucy orbs,” “meat injection” and, my personal favorite, “honeypot.” Unfortunately, they didn’t all make it into the book. Although Kissing in America isn’t a romance novel, I love reading them, including everything from genre romances (especially the cowboy ones) to classic novels with romantic plots, like Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, which I reread every year. The best romances, whether classic or genre, explore and capture the excitement and meaning of falling in love. I find it interesting that the literary establishment has embraced genres such as mystery and thrillers, yet romance novels are still often looked down upon or not taken seriously.

Will occasionally texts Eva but mostly eschews technology in favor of written letters. What do you think are the pluses and minuses of paper versus electronic communication? Does anyone in your life regularly send you written letters—or do you send them to anyone?
I think I was born in the wrong century because I’ve always preferred paper to technology, and I don’t even have an eReader. I’ve kept a handwritten diary since I was 9, and I still write in it almost every day—I have over a hundred of them now—and I also wrote the first draft of Kissing in America by hand in little notebooks. When I first met my husband, I asked him to send me handwritten letters when we were apart. I also just received a handwritten letter from a reader of Kissing in America, and reading the letter made me cry. It’s so much more intimate and personal than a text or email ever could be.

In 2008, you wrote in the New York Times about your struggle to accept that your first novel, Cures for Heartbreak, had been acquired by Random House as a young adult book. Have your thoughts on YA literature, and yourself as a YA writer, evolved since then? If so, how?
It wasn’t a struggle to accept that Cures for Heartbreak was YA; it was just a surprise, since my agent had considered it to be an adult book and had submitted it that way. I’ve always loved YA novels, from Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume, which I reread every couple years, to In Summer Light by Zibby Oneal, which was published in the 1980s and is one of my all-time favorite books, to contemporary YA authors such as Judy Blundell and Jandy Nelson. The world of YA has grown even more in recent years, with so many incredible, amazing books being published. But there is still, in some quarters, a derogatory attitude toward YA. In that 2008 essay, I wrote about how a literary acquaintance told me it was “such a shame” that my book would be YA. I still have many literary acquaintances who look down upon it, as do many critics, such as Ruth Graham, who wrote a Slate essay last year called “Against YA.” It seems that no matter what, some people love to shame other genres and other people’s reading habits—a phenomenon which I had fun portraying in Kissing in America, when Eva’s mother and aunt shame her for reading romances. In an ideal world, this shaming would stop. All books—romance, mystery, YA, literary, picture books, poetry—deserve equal respect.

Grief and the process of grieving is a motif that runs throughout Kissing in America, as well as Cures for Heartbreak and several of your New York Times essays. What do you see as the benefits of including these difficult emotions in YA fiction?
Writing about grief is very much based on my own experience—my mom died very suddenly when I was in my teens, and my father died suddenly when I was in my 20s—those losses have shaped me and changed the way I view the world. I love to write about grief because it’s not something that most people are comfortable talking about; even now, decades after I lost my parents, it makes many people uneasy when it comes up in conversation. Yet grief is an essential and inevitable part of life, and of love, and so writing about it is enormously satisfying for me. I love trying to articulate all the complexities and nuances of it and bringing that out into the open. It’s also great to hear back from readers who share their own experiences of grief with me—it makes all the hard work of writing feel worth it.

I loved the imaginary line of sympathy cards that Eva envisions (“Sorry to hear he died. Now you’re going to feel miserable forever, pretty much”). Do you ever wish that cards like these actually existed?
Yes! I need to start a dark and truthful greeting card company—that’s what we can call it: Dark and Truthful—Cards Without a Sugar Coating.

On a happier note, can you tell us a little more about the system of ordering chili in Cincinnati?
Skyline Chili! I loved it on my first trip to Ohio. You can order a three-way (spaghetti with chili and shredded cheddar cheese), a four-way (with onions or beans) or a five-way (onions and beans). When in Ohio, you must try it.

Eva’s grandparents were Eastern-European Jews, and Annie’s family is Korean American. Members of both families have a variety of perspectives on their ethnic and religious backgrounds. Why did you choose these particular minority identities for your characters?
My best friend since I was 13 is Korean, and Annie is very loosely based on her, as well as on another close friend of mine. Eva’s family’s history is based partly on my own relatives—we’re Jewish, and my mother was born in Germany and actually had a swastika on her passport. She and her parents escaped in 1939 on one of the very last boats to be allowed into America, but many of our relatives were killed in the Holocaust. I have almost no relatives on that side of the family now.

"One reason why I think that adults relate to novels about teenagers is that we never stop coming of age."

While Eva’s physical and emotional journey is the main focus of your story, many of the adult characters, especially Eva’s mother and her aunt Janet, are also navigating new paths in the face of past losses. Why was it important to you to include adult characters who also don’t quite have their lives figured out?
One reason why I think that adults relate to novels about teenagers is that we never stop coming of age. Life is always changing so much, and even adults are constantly trying to adapt to the events of our lives and to figure out how to cope. I loved writing about Eva’s mom and her aunt Janet because not only does Eva’s mom grieve Eva’s father, but she also has to cope with being a single mother. Aunt Janet longs for love, and her grief manifests itself as fear and suspicion. I don’t know any adults that really have their lives figured out—I think they only pretend to.

What’s next on your project list?
I’m at work on a new novel and a book of essays, both of which I’m writing by hand in notebooks. And I’m looking forward to going to Ohio on book tour and eating lots of chili on spaghetti.

Rachel Caine is the bestselling author of more than 45 novels, including the popular Morganville Vampires series, so it comes as no surprise that her new YA novel, Ink and Bone, is a thrilling fantasy about the incredible power of books. It’s set in a world where the Great Library of Alexandria never burned, but instead became a governing body over all knowledge. Personal ownership of books is forbidden in this magical world, but young Jess Brightwell has been brought up in the family business of distributing black market books.

What inspired you to write Ink and Bone, with its strong focus on themes of the control of knowledge and censorship?
It was an interesting journey! I started this story many times over the past 10 years, and just couldn’t find the “hook” to make it interesting and different until I realized it really was, at the core, about libraries, about the Internet and paper books, about content and who owns it. Of course, those are huge subjects for a YA novel, and I wanted to do them in an entertaining and suspenseful way . . . and in my research, I realized that the Great Library of Alexandria had been built from some humble (and not altogether legal) beginnings. The idea of collected libraries that allowed the general public to enter them wasn’t always either a common or accepted thing, and in building on that, I discovered how to tell the story and the world in which that Great Library never disappeared.

What do you believe is the greatest power of books? Do you think their role has changed—or will change—as our society evolves with the Internet, allowing greater dissemination of knowledge?
The fascinating thing about books is that we forget the controversy of books. The scandal when the printing press was first used for something other than reprinting of sacred or scientific materials. The uproar over the advent of “novels” (which literally meant “new fiction”) instead of instructive stories with moral messages. Books have always fascinated and tempted, and from time to time (particularly in the 1850s through the early 1900s) they were also seen as just as destructive to “good work habits” as drinking or drugs. Libraries, after all, were compared to “gin shops and brothels” in the mid-1800s, because they were seen as making novels readily available to the public, which allowed them to neglect their duties, isolated them and “eroded their morals.” (Sound familiar? It should! We have the same kind of moral panics periodically about whatever is new and popular . . .  like the latest popular video game.)

The Internet presents an interesting challenge. It does disseminate information . . . and misinformation. There’s no curation and no validation, and in that sense the Internet is more about data than knowledge—since knowledge has some kind of intellectual rigor behind it. It also presents the question of who owns information. It’s a huge issue, and one we’ll be wrestling with for generations to come. If information should be free, what does that look like from an economic and creative standpoint? It’s all very interesting, and a bit frightening.

What do you find so fascinating about the Library of Alexandria, rather than creating a brand-new library (or other controlling organization) for this world?
It has a mythical significance to modern readers. I’ve seen t-shirts that say, “They got the books in Alexandria, they’re not getting mine!”—it’s the reader equivalent of “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hand.” Western readers have collectively chosen that particular library as a symbol of lost knowledge, even though there are many other libraries as great (or possibly even greater) that were lost before it, and after.

So the resonance of that institution was something that I felt could really give the book energy and grounding.

What do you love most about worldbuilding? What are the greatest challenges?
Creating the alternate paths are a lot of fun; you start to consider which events would happen, which wouldn’t, which discoveries would have been made or even suppressed, and which political events would or wouldn’t happen. You can spend a huge amount of time creating an incredibly detailed world, if you’re so minded; I try to do as much as I can but I limit the amount of time I spend on it, because first and foremost, I want to tell a good story. So the story has to remain paramount.

The challenges really are more about how much of the worldbuilding can you include without bogging down the story, or making it confusing. It takes a lot of work to get that balance even close to correct.

What’s one “banned” book you think everyone should read?
I remember the one that really changed my life was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. It’s banned on some lists, not on others, but it broke my world open in a way that nothing had before.

Honestly, I look at banned lists as “must read” lists! A book wouldn’t be on the list if there wasn’t something in it intense and powerful enough to incite controversy . . . and as readers, we shouldn’t only stay in our comfort zone. That’s not where personal growth happens, or where we learn more about the world and ourselves.

Did you have a favorite library when you were a teen?
My favorite library was the little Bookmobile that visited our neighborhood way outside of El Paso when I was a teen. It was stocked with maybe 500 books, and I’ll bet I read at least two-thirds of them, if not more; just the fact that it arrived every week and I could check out a new stack was amazing. My school library was also where I found a lot of joy, especially in the “Boys” section. That was where they put all the cool adventure books.

What can readers expect next?
Book 2 of the Great Library will launch Jess on a new battle against the higher-ups within the Library, and plunge him and his friends into even more peril. More battles, more suspense and, most of all, more about the Obscurists and the Iron Tower, which we’ll see from within as well as without. You’ll also see a deepening of the bonds between Jess, his friends and their mentors. It’ll be a tense, dangerous journey full of adventure, feelings and—always—books.

Thanks so much for letting me visit and talk books!

Small notebooks, black covers, Strathmore brand: For years, Jack Gantos wrote in journals with “no lines, so you could draw and write.” As he explains in a call from his Boston home, “When you finished one, you had a book. You could put a rubber band around it and put it on a shelf.”

But the author’s path to the writing life wasn’t quite as linear as a row of black journals on a bookshelf, as fans of his New York Times best-selling YA memoir, Hole in My Life, know. In it, he describes his decision, at age 20, to earn cash for college by helping to smuggle a ton of hashish (via yacht) to New York City, and the year of prison time that followed.

Everything certainly turned out well: Gantos has written some 50 books, including picture books (Rotten Ralph series), fiction for young readers (Joey Pigza series), and YA and adult novels. He’s a Newbery Medalist and Scott O’Dell Award winner, as well as a National Book Award nominee.

But it’s easy to wonder about what came before, to ponder how the whip-smart, self-aware, charming author could also be the guy who thought sailing a drug-laden yacht was a good idea. Of course, that’s occurred to Gantos, and to the myriad children he’s encountered on his frequent school visits. 

So he wrote The Trouble in Me, his new autobiographical novel for young readers—wherein, with help from those journals, he harks back to the events that forged the 14-year-old kid who became that 20-year-old guy, and explains what was on his adolescent mind and in his unsettled heart. 

“A lot of middle-school kids read Hole in My Life but usually miss the deeper points, a lot of the interiors,” Gantos says. “They get the ‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!’ part, but don’t slow down enough to see themselves in the emotional mirror of the book, and I thought, this other story will slow them down.”

In the fictionalized memoir, Gantos’ family’s frequent moves are beginning to wear on him; nearly every year he’s the new kid, always striving to adjust and fit in. Add some unhealthy family dynamics that can’t be tempered even by reading his beloved books (“my imaginative world wilted away as the printed words bruised and darkened like fruit rotting on a vine”), and young Gantos is fairly miserable fairly often. 

It’s not surprising, then, that the Pagoda family next door captures his interest. They’re tactless and brash, especially 17-year-old Gary, newly out of juvenile detention. His swaggering confidence and disregard for social norms proves irresistible: “All of that longing to be like him set something inside of me on fire and I had a feeling that there was no putting me out,” Gantos writes.

After all, the author says, “Kids need lots of attention, and if they don’t get attention at home, they will surely accept bad attention elsewhere.” 

He goes on, “When I think of middle school and me at that age, I think that’s exactly where I switched gears and decided to become somebody else. . . . I was a ticking time bomb.” 

That’s an apt description, not least because it’s amazing that Gantos escaped grievous injury during this time period—think explosives, fire, theft, dangerous physical feats and way too much time spent in the company of Gary, the budding (or perhaps fully bloomed) sociopath. 

It’s quite an experience to read the book with the knowledge that this melancholy, danger-seeking 14-year-old survived and grew up to become an accomplished professor and acclaimed author—a powerful reminder that we’re not necessarily who we appear to be, and that our future isn’t determined by our past.

That’s been true of Gantos’ writing career, too. After he wrote Hole in My Life, he recalls, “There came a time when I thought, oh my god, I really like children’s books. Will people accept this? . . . This is really a good story, so I’m either gonna be really honest about who I am and my entire life, or I’m gonna go ahead and burn down my children’s book career. Quite frankly, it went in the opposite direction . . . and it reaffirms for me, as a writer, [that] I’m in the right field and now I can write everything. I’ve got plenty of room.”

Luckily for his fans, he’ll always have room for school visits, which he views as integral to his life as an author. “One of the great dividends of writing books for young readers is you get to go into schools and work with the kids, and you feel like a good human being when you do that,” Gantos says. “No matter how exhausting it can be, you know in your heart you’re walking out of a school and there’s at least one kid who went, that just rocked my world!”

The Trouble in Me will rock readers’ worlds, for sure. It is, to use a hoary phrase, the kind of book that stays with you long after you’ve turned the final page, thanks to Gantos’ gift for storytelling—and the reader’s hope that he’ll write more memoirs, fictionalized or otherwise.

“I’m not quite certain how people are going to look at this book,” Gantos says. “I hope people read it, read it sensibly, and I hope that kind of kid, that kind of guy, will get this book. I think this book will have a big blossoming inside the reader, which is where I love books to roam.”
 

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.