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YA NonfictionYATrue Crime

Dashka Slater

Interview by Jon Little

A true-crime, legal thriller. A stirring treatise on diversity, gender, race, crime and justice. In The 57 Bus, award-winning journalist and author Dashka Slater offers a window into America in all its tangled complexity. The author talks about nonfiction aimed at teen readers, the power of restorative justice, the importance of community and more.

The 57 Bus started out as an article for the New York Times Magazine. How and why did you decide to target teen readers with this book-length project?
The whole time I was working on the Times Magazine article, I was also fantasizing about writing the story in a different way, for a different audience. It seemed clear to me that teenagers would find the characters compelling and I wanted them to have a chance to grapple with the complex issues the story raises: issues about either/or narratives, about race, gender, class, justice and forgiveness. At the same time, I wasn’t sure if YA nonfiction of this type was even a thing. As it turned out, my editor at FSG, Joy Peskin, read my piece and immediately contacted my agent to see if I would be interested in writing it as a book for teens. It felt like kismet.

Superficially, The 57 Bus is about two people in Oakland and the bus ride that leaves one severely burned and the other facing criminal charges. But it is so much more expansive than that. You bring multiple, overlapping communities into the story. Was this emphasis on community and interconnection a response to the facts of Sasha and Richard’s stories, or was this a larger worldview you brought to the work?
A little of both. I’ve always been interested in communities of all kinds—from renaissance fair jousters to cryptography hackers to small towns afflicted by toxic spills. I’m the daughter of a sociologist (Philip Slater, author of The Pursuit of Loneliness) and a psychologist (playwright Dori Appel). I was raised to understand that people don’t exist in a vacuum: We are all part of a family, a community, a society and an environment that shapes who we are and how we see the world. Given that understanding, it felt clear to me that Sasha and Richard’s stories couldn’t be told without some context for the worlds in which they lived.

When people discuss social justice today, intersectionality is a big buzz word. What do you think your book has to say about intersectionality? What can it add to these discussions?
The two protagonists in the book have very different experiences with race, gender and class. I hope that readers will think about the ways in which these experiences and identities overlap and inform one another, as well as the ways in which they differ. But to be honest, I wish there was more intersectionality in the book. A book that is about rejecting binaries would have benefited from the voice of an LGBTQIA+ person of color, for example. But the person in this narrative who could have spoken to that experience elected not to, for reasons of their own.

Though it raises many important questions, The 57 Bus offers no easy answers. The closest we get to an answer is restorative justice, posed as an alternative to the black and white, crime and punishment mentality that has too often marred our social justice system. For those who aren’t familiar with restorative justice, can you talk a bit about it and explain how you first became interested in the idea?
Restorative justice focuses on healing rather than punishing. In Oakland, it’s used both in public schools, as a way of reducing suspensions, and in some criminal cases, to allow juveniles who complete the process to avoid criminal prosecution. For restorative justice to work, both the offender and the victim have to be willing to participate. The details of the process vary depending on the circumstance, but generally, the offender hears from the victim about the impacts of their crime and agrees to take measurable steps to repair the harm they’ve caused and rejoin the community with a clean slate.

I became interested in restorative justice after hearing about it from local advocates. It seemed to me that it offered a pragmatic path to reducing crime and its impacts—by focusing on fixing what’s been damaged and preventing something similar from happening again. Incarcerating people is extremely expensive, and as a criminal justice reporter I know that it does a terrible job of preventing crime: 77 percent of people released from state prisons are arrested again within five years. Initial studies indicate that restorative justice significantly reduces recidivism for juvenile offenders and yields higher satisfaction and fewer trauma symptoms for victims. So while restorative justice didn’t end up being used in Richard and Sasha’s case, I did want to show what it looked like. To me, it’s a compelling example of what can happen when you step away from either/or narratives and look for solutions that make things better for everyone.

Your book was so compelling, I found myself pulling back, reminding myself, this is not just entertainment, this is a true story, these are real people’s lives. As an author, how do you negotiate that line between honoring someone’s story and presenting it in a way that will be entertaining enough to keep readers engaged?
My goal wasn’t to be entertaining as much as involving—for readers to feel connected to the two protagonists’ stories, to walk in their shoes and to care what happened to them. My hope is that if you care about Richard, maybe you’ll also care about the 54,000 kids who are held in U.S. correctional facilities on any given day. And if you care about Sasha, maybe you’ll also care about the other 150,000 American kids who identify as a gender different from the one assigned at birth.

Beyond the protagonists, who are both captivating, there are so many intriguing people in The 57 Bus. Was there anyone in particular you wish you could have devoted more time to?
Kaprice Wilson certainly merits her own book—her life and her stories are fascinating. And I would have loved to spend more time with Dan Gale, the hero who puts out the fire. I was intrigued by how much he felt his own story was changed by that moment of heroism.

What are you working on next?
I’m not very good at sticking to one genre, so at the moment I’m trying to finish a middle grade fantasy novel and a collection of short stories for adults, as well as continuing to work as a magazine journalist covering issues related to criminal justice, poverty, education and the environment. Plus a few picture books.

Can you suggest some further reading for teens who want to learn more about issues of race and social justice or restorative justice?We are experiencing a flowering of wonderful and illuminating novels about race and justice—Ibi Zoboi’s American Street, Nic Stone’s Dear Martin and Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down, to name just three. But I also want to mention a few nonfiction titles. Juveniles In Justice and the follow-up, Girls In Justice, by photographer Richard Ross, document the daily experiences of kids in the juvenile system using photographs and interviews. Racial Profiling: Everyday Inequality by Alison Marie Behnke offers clear, evidence-based explanations of flashpoint topics like inequality, Islamaphobia and incarceration. Queer, There, and Everywhere tells the stories of 23 notable LGBTQ+ folks throughout history, giving readers a sense of the breadth of gender expression over time. And while not written expressly for teens, The Little Book of Restorative Justice by Howard Zehr is a good introduction to the topic of restorative justice. Finally, this is a beautiful article about the Restorative Justice process that appeared in the New York Times Magazine.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The 57 Bus.

A true-crime, legal thriller. A stirring treatise on diversity, gender, race, crime and justice. In The 57 Bus, award-winning journalist and author Dashka Slater offers a window into America in all its tangled complexity. The author talks about nonfiction aimed at teen readers, the power of restorative justice, the importance of community and more.

Science Fiction & FantasyYA FictionYAFantasy

Holly Black

Interview by Justin Barisich

Holly Black has played in the world of faeries for as long as she can remember. When she was a child, her mother would enchant her with ghost stories, convince her that their house was haunted and even set up scavenger hunts for her to find little indications of faeries around their neighborhood.

“I grew up with a great deal of belief in the supernatural,” Black says during a call to her home in western Massachusetts, where it’s a damp, misty day. “It seemed very possible that the faerie world was always just around the corner. And when you really believe, it seems a lot scarier.”

Black went on to read, fall in love with and draw inspiration from the original folklore and art of faeries—which are far darker than most people realize. Faeries are “often seen as kind of Tinker Bell-y in that pastel, friendly way,” Black says. “But the original folklore is pretty brutal.” Some faeries might “steal people, trick people, lead them astray, off cliffs and into the water where creatures will eat you.” These are the kinds of darker faerie characters that Black explores in many of her bestselling faerie novels, and more deeply than ever in The Cruel Prince, the first book in her new Folk of the Air trilogy.

As The Cruel Prince opens, human twin sisters Jude and Taryn get their first introduction to the creatures of Faerie by way of Madoc, their mother’s first husband and the bloodthirsty grand general of the High Court’s armies. Though he knocks on their door and slaughters their mother and father right in front of them, he is not without honor. He not only takes back his biological, half-faerie daughter, Vivian, who’d been “stolen” from him, but he also agrees to adopt her half-sisters—Jude and Taryn—and return with them to Faerie and raise them as his own.

Ten years pass as Jude and Taryn grow up in Faerie, learning the inner workings of this strange land while being treated like members of the court. The downside to this, however, is that they must attend classes with Prince Carden, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. But the faerie king will soon abdicate the throne and pass down his crown to one of his many children. This transition of power could unravel the entire, delicate fabric of Faerie—to the advantage of those ready to pounce on any sign of weakness.

Jude and Taryn are determined to carve out a place for themselves. But as Jude digs deeper into Faerie’s dark corners—all the while spying and learning of long-running political intrigues, power games and rivalries—the faeries she meets along the way only further demonstrate how cruel this place can be. As Jude transforms into someone who’s more than just a simple pawn, readers see the intimate duality of her struggle for place and power.

“It seemed very possible that the faerie world was always just around the corner. And when you really believe, it seems a lot scarier.”

Fans of Black’s faerie realm will recognize this tale as new territory: “Most [faerie] stories are set in our [human] world and are about a kid from Faerie who was switched,” Black explains, but The Cruel Prince “isn’t about just one person stumbling into a faerie situation and maybe learning their own magic.” Set almost entirely in Faerie, with human characters who were raised there and therefore know all the rules, this story reveals greater depth and detail of Faerie than ever before. Black’s characters are no longer playing the game without knowing the consequences, and to her, “that idea of having to rely on your wits and on cleverness, when everybody else has magic, is really interesting.”

Black unfolds this sweeping, twisting narrative with the fine-tuned understanding of someone who’s spent nearly her whole life poking around the depths of Faerie. It’s just what fans expect from the beloved author, whose various faerie books have sold over 2.5 million copies. To date, she has published more than 30 novels, and her Spiderwick Chronicles, co-crafted with Tony DiTerlizzi, were made into a feature film. But for all her critical acclaim and reader appreciation, it was her 2014 Newbery Honor for Doll Bones that engendered the greatest transformation in how she viewed herself as a writer.

“I grew up seeing those stickers on books and knowing those were ‘the good books,’ ” Black says. “When you’re a person who writes fantasy, you’re usually thought of in a different way—as a genre writer—and genre writers are often seen as not serious. So it really was a big shift in my view of my own writing to think that it could be seen as a serious work, as something that was objectively good.”

To put it mildly, The Cruel Prince is definitely good. The singular reading experience continues in the upcoming second book in the planned trilogy, which finds Black’s characters in a much larger political arena within Faerie. As Black gleefully explains, we’ll get to watch with bated breath as her cast of human and faerie characters learns “how everyone wants power for their own reasons—and how much harder it is to keep that power than it is to get it.”

 

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Author photo by Sharona Jacobs

Holly Black has played in the world of faeries for as long as she can remember. When she was a child, her mother would enchant her with ghost stories, convince her that their house was haunted and even set up scavenger hunts for her to find little indications of faeries around their neighborhood.

YA FictionYAGraphic Novels & Comics

Vesper Stamper

Interview by Jill Ratzan

In Vesper Stamper’s moving graphic novel What the Night Sings, teenage musician Gerta must rebuild her life after her family, her identity and her expectations for the future have been destroyed in the Holocaust. We spoke to Stamper about the power of music, helping teens grapple with history, Judaism and more.

Most books about the Holocaust focus on victims’ experiences just before or during their time in death camps. What the Night Sings concentrates instead on the aftermath: displaced-persons camps, the survivors’ uncertain future and their attempts at healing. Why did you choose this particular focus?
My work has always centered on how people, especially children, thrive after trauma. The immediate issues surrounding the liberation of [Holocaust] survivors are fascinating and inspiring to me—especially the will and courage to live fully. Right after I began this project, the shootings at Charlie Hebdo and the Hypercacher kosher supermarket happened in Paris, and it became clear that anti-Semitism was not just historical, but a present and growing global reality. It was important to me to show that tyranny never ultimately succeeds in its objectives.

What inspired you to illustrate such a visceral story, and why did you choose to work in sepia tones?
I’m an illustrator first, so I think in pictures. That’s how I approach writing, too. There are some concepts that work better in pictures than in words. I try not to mirror the text verbatim but to reinterpret for the viewer to see from a different angle. For example, in the illustration of Gerta lying under the roots of a tree, I wanted to convey an inner state of being that had to be felt rather than described. It’s important to try to feel another’s humanity in your own body, I think, even if it hurts, but then to release it back into the art so it doesn’t stay there. I tried to have the illustrations act as a point of reflection or personal placement for the reader. The sepia tones enabled me to communicate using the mood and familiarity of archival historical material while using metaphor as an alternative.

Gerta’s music forms an enormous part of her identity and even saves her life in Auschwitz. Do you play an instrument? What role has music played in your life?
Yes, music has always been a huge part of my life. I come from a family of musicians and have been a performing and recording singer-songwriter since I was 15. My husband and I toured as Ben + Vesper, an indie-rock outfit, until a few years ago, when I had a car accident that altered my relationship to music. I’ve been slowly trying to regain my ability to play guitar over the last five years. The injury to my arm made me feel the loss of music very keenly, and Gerta’s character enabled me to wrestle with that. I’m still trying to figure out my relationship to my music, but I’m happy that the story’s not over. I do absolutely believe that music can save lives.

What has your own experience with Judaism been like, and how did it inform this novel?
I was raised in a Reform home in New York. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a positive experience. However, I absorbed so much more of the Jewish ethos than I thought I had. That began to come through in my teen years when I had a spiritual awakening. The embrace of wrestling and questioning was very formative. My family life was tough, but I cannot imagine it any other way for the person it made me. I’m grateful to be re-engaging with my Jewish upbringing in very healing ways thanks to some special friends, especially in orthodox circles. To be sure, writing this book helped me work out some of the painful questions of my past. The question of what it means to be Jewish is one being asked of a lot of us, and the answer is certainly not monolithic.

Most of What the Night Sings is stunningly realistic, but Gerta’s occasional visions of butterflies—especially at critical junctures—have the flavor of magical realism. Can you tell us a little more about what these butterflies represent?
A lot of my thought process in life happens in mystical tones. It’s funny; on one hand, I am a hyper-realist with a high premium on logical reasoning, but there’s an equally strong side to me that lives in constant engagement with metaphysical reality. I see meaning in everything, so I don’t mind mixing magical realism with history, because it’s real people who live history, and real people are metaphysical beings. The butterfly image came to me when a friend, also a singer, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She was in real danger of losing her voice from the surgery and thankfully did not. The thyroid gland is shaped like a butterfly and is right near the source of the voice. When Gerta showed herself to be a singer, the butterfly kept making its appearance as a symbol of both her singing voice and her unfolding self-understanding.

Roza’s mother once told her, “some things you do out of skill; some out of excitement. But some you do out of brokenness.” The numerous quick marriages might be an example of this; playing music or praying might be others. Do you think these actions help your characters become more whole?
There are people who can learn from watching others make mistakes, some who have to make the same mistake ten times before they choose a different approach, and some who never learn. We’re all on a journey, seeking wholeness or balance. Some find it, some don’t. But we’re all looking for it. For some survivors, the spontaneous marriages worked out beautifully; for some, not so much. There was such a collective will to defy Hitler and defeat his plans, that many pushed through to look for wholeness in the formation of their new families. I mean, think about that—you lose everyone, but something in you risks doing it again—not because of any promised result, but because of the human need to love and be loved. There’s no guarantee that it will work; none of us are given that. The same goes for pursuing music. Nothing says you’ll “make it.” But the hunger for more of music’s nourishment keeps the player moving forward. There are a ton of technically skilled musicians out there, but you dread listening to them because there’s no heart. You’ll always choose a musician with heart over one with stiff chops.

Prayer is an interesting example. Many people think of prayer as a quid pro quo—“I pray, God checks my request off the list, therefore God is good or real.” But prayer has no guarantees, either. Like marriage or music, prayer is about the relationship, not about the result.

What do you hope your teen readers take away from this story?
I believe so strongly in this generation of teenagers as very clear thinkers. A lot of them are shaking off convenient labels in favor of thinking for themselves. Of course, the book might bring up larger external or historical questions—the nature of global anti-Semitism, totalitarianism, personal freedom, freedom of speech—but I really hope that readers connect deeply to the characters. I hope they see Gerta and Lev as peers, and as examples of two approaches to the question: Who, not just what, am I? This is a lifelong question that you don’t figure out by the time you’re 21—or 81. And I hope readers will connect to how much a person’s character really matters, above all other considerations, when choosing their circle of friends and partners.

What’s next for you?
I’m working on a new illustrated novel, also historical fiction, centered on the Great Plague in medieval England. It’s exciting but incredibly challenging!

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of What the Night Sings.

Author photograph by Katrina Sorrentino.

In Vesper Stamper’s moving graphic novel What the Night Sings, teenage musician Gerta must rebuild her life after her family, her identity and her expectations for the future have been destroyed in the Holocaust. We spoke to Stamper about the power of music, helping teens grapple with history, Judaism and more.

YA FictionYAHorrorHistorical Fiction

Justina Ireland

Interview by Justin Barisich

For Justina Ireland, the dark history of the American Civil War and the fantastical concept of zombies aren’t nearly as far apart as most people think.

“My brain works in concentric circles, and I always think of zombies as leading to upheaval and change, as signaling the end of an era and the beginning of a new one,” Ireland says. “And the Civil War did the same thing historically—derailed everything. The only difference is that you’re defending yourself from your neighbor rather than a ravaging horde.”

Ireland is speaking from her home in York, Pennsylvania, about an hour from both Gettysburg and the city of Baltimore, where her third novel, an artful blend of alternate history and horror titled Dread Nation, takes place. The Battle of Gettysburg, which resulted in the largest number of casualties in the entire Civil War, “seemed like the perfect terrible moment for things to get even worse,” says Ireland. “War is horrible enough because you’ve just lost someone, but there’s a whole new level of trauma when your dead friend is trying to eat your face.”

When Dread Nation opens, we meet the smart, fiery, impulsive Jane McKeene, who’s been training for years at Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls. Jane was born the same week that the zombies—known as “shamblers”—first rose from their graves. Since Jane is biracial, she was sent to combat school as required by the Native and Negro Reeducation Act—in order to “groom the savage” out of her. Though she’s one of the top students, Jane isn’t content to become a bodyguard for the daughter of a rich, white family.

When Jane and her rival—the demure, rational, beautiful Katherine—are invited to the mayor’s house as a reward for their lifesaving zombie-combat heroics, they soon discover that the zombies aren’t the only evils they’ll have to face down, nor are they the most sinister.

“A good zombie story is never really about the zombies,” Ireland says, and while dealing with various hindrances, her characters develop a “consciousness of knowing that they live in a country that doesn’t necessarily value them the same way it values other people.” Throughout Dread Nation, the author incisively and repeatedly broaches racism, classism, sexism and religion as tools for social control, as well as the politicization of zombies and the use of pseudoscience to try to justify it all. “I’ve always found it interesting how people can do both good work and terrible work with the same passages of the Bible. And these are still things we do today—we still use religion and science to push our own prejudices and beliefs, to wield ideologies that promote our own personal agendas.”

Therein lies the power of a well-written zombie story: It can provide an opportunity for society to talk about how our truest selves come out during difficult situations. “I think that’s something a lot of zombie literature gets wrong,” Ireland says. “When things get bad, we all of a sudden expect people to change drastically from the people who they were. But if they are inherently selfish and already doing what they can to survive for themselves, then they’re only going to cling more tightly to the old ways of life, rather than letting them go and adopting new ones.”

Consider the civil rights movement, post-Civil War Reconstruction or any opportunity for people to make a big change. “[People] want to protect the things they like, who they are and their identity,” Ireland says. “And I don’t think that’s ever changed throughout history. They opted for the small changes because they were more comfortable as a society.”

“There’s a whole new level of trauma when your dead friend is trying to eat your face.”

For many of these same reasons, Ireland found the world of Dread Nation to be a difficult one to explore. “Time travel’s not fun for people of color,” she says. “It’s like asking, ‘What terrible era can I go live in?’ But real people survived it, and that merits depicting.”

Before she’d even begun writing Dread Nation, Ireland’s desire to communicate these suppressed stories was confirmed in the most authentic and motivating way possible. During a visit to a predominantly black school, Ireland brought copies of her two previous books, Vengeance Bound, which features a white main character on the cover, and Promise of Shadows. A student noticed that Ireland’s book jackets did not feature a person of color and raised her hand to say, “No disrespect, miss, but why’d you write a white girl? I can’t find books with people like me in them.”

Ireland was mortified. “I had to go back and do some self-examination,” she says. “I want to be able to go to a school and proudly hold up a black girl on the cover and say, ‘I wrote this book. I hope you like it because I wrote it for you.’ And every time I sit down at the computer to write, I can hear that little girl’s voice.”

With Dread Nation, Ireland wanted to write the best book she could. She was also thinking of the kind of readers she wanted to invite into her world (which she plans to revisit in a follow-up novel). “I just wanted this book to land in the hands of people who need to see themselves reflected. I wanted to find something that resonates with people and makes them sit up and take notice of a world they hadn’t paid attention to before—and that it leaves them feeling refreshed and alive.”

 

This article was originally published in the April 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Author photo by Eric Ireland.

For Justina Ireland, the dark history of the American Civil War and the fantastical concept of zombies aren’t nearly as far apart as most people think.

YA FictionYA

Jay Coles

Interview by Alice Cary

Headlines about the shooting deaths of unarmed civilians at the hands of police are seemingly never-ending, and Jay Coles is engaging with this subject matter in his powerful, necessary and hype-worthy YA debut, Tyler Johnson Was Here. We asked Coles a few questions about his personal experiences with police brutality, connecting with his teen readers, his specially curated playlist and more.

Does it feel a bit unreal to have your first book published at such a young age? How did you find out about the great news, and how did you celebrate?
Yes! I’m incredibly lucky and incredibly humbled that I got my book (and name) out there at such a young age, which isn’t the norm in publishing. But when I signed with my agent, which was a huge deal for me in itself, I was certain people/publishers wouldn’t want my work. I code-switched in the text and it didn’t seem like those were stories publishers were asking for. Also, the subject matter of my manuscript felt very risky, even after The Hate U Give sold. But in just a short period of being on submission, my agent Lauren Abramo sold my book to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. She called me up one morning as I was getting ready to head out to teach a seventh grade English class and broke the news. As soon as I hung up the phone, I cheered with my roommate and then cried a little before going to teach. When I got home, however, I ate an entire box of Oatmeal Creme Pies.

You’ve said Tyler Johnson Was Here was inspired by events from your own life and the Black Lives Matter movement. Can you elaborate a bit?
Yes, it’s always a pretty vulnerable thing, honestly, and I always forget about this aspect because of the trauma and grief. My cousin lost his life to police violence when I was really young, maybe 8 or 9. At the time, I had no idea what “police brutality” meant, yet there was still so much anger and pain experienced by me and my family. When I was in high school, I remember seeing a lot of innocent black and brown boys and girls lose their lives to police violence on the news and social media. It felt like this tunnel of darkness that I couldn’t escape. It kept following me. I knew I had to do something to fight against that darkness, and it was to raise my voice, to speak up, to let out all the anger and frustration I had been bottling up over the years. So, I started writing Tyler Johnson Was Here.

You based your book on a poem you wrote for a high school creative writing class. What was the assignment, and how did it evolve into this novel in its final form? Does your teacher know about Tyler Johnson Was Here?
It wasn’t technically a poem first. Initially, the idea was a letter to my dad, then became a poem, but then it became a short story, and then lastly, it became a book. We had a simple assignment to write a poem about whatever we wanted. At the time, I had found a bunch of letters that I wrote to my dad. One of the letters was about my cousin and the pain I had been holding on to and then seeing/hearing about so many black people dying to police violence. (This letter also appears in the book). I took pieces of the letter, turned it into a poem, and then later a short story just for fun. Then, it became a book after encouragement from others. And no, this particular teacher who assigned me to write the poem has no idea I’m even published haha. However . . . Hey, Mr. Chad Andrews, if you’re out there and reading this: thank you. Look at how far I’ve come because of your encouragement!

How do you make a novel feel both memorable and authentic to young adult readers? Have your ideas about how to achieve these things changed as you’ve gone from being a reader to an author?
The first thing you need to know to be a successful author is know your audience. That can be cliche, but I mean that. You have to know them through and through. For instance, I write for teens. Because I was very recently a “teen,” it was easy for me to nail down the teen voice. For other authors, research through talking with teens to nail down their voice is essential. Also, it’s great knowing popular words, phrases, music, subject matter, etc. This is basic, but trust me, it makes all the difference for helping stories be relatable and not [become] dated so quickly. I don’t think a lot of YA authors I read growing up understood the importance of this.

Music is such a big part of your life, and you’re also a composer and conductor. How do you balance all of your creative interests?
It’s mostly simple. The blessing of doing music and writing full time is that I have total control over my own hours. I’m able to work on whatever I need to get done in a particular day with the help of my very detailed composer/author calendar. Some days, I compose music and work on my next book. Other times, I just do one of them. Days when I have an author event or a conducting gig, I make time at night to write. Like over time. Such fun!

You create playlists for your books as you write. How does this music fuel your writing? How does music shape the lives of both you and your characters?
Music is so, so important to my life and therefore bleeds over into my books. When I have an idea for a book, I create a playlist of songs that relate to the themes or subject matter of the book to help fuel my writing. The songs end up becoming very important to certain scenes and may even show up in the text. I like to think that music is a way into someone’s life. You can learn a lot from the music people listen to and love. Same thing with my characters.

Care to share your Tyler Johnson Was Here playlist?
1. “Feel” by Kendrick Lamar
2. “Hip Hop Ride” by Da Youngstas
3. “Until the End of Time” by Tupac
4. “Hail Mary” by Tupac
5. “Change” by J. Cole
6. “Power Struggle” by J. Cole
7. “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys
8. “He Is the Same” by Jon Bellion
9. “All We Got” by Chance The Rapper
10. “Martyrs” by Mick Jenkins
11. “Can You Hold Me” by NF
12. “Mine” by Beyoncé
13. “Hypnotize” by Notorious B.I.G
14. “Guts Over Fear” by Eminem and Sia

Marvin Johnson tells his principal, Mr. Dodson, that the TV show ‘A Different World’  “shows blackness in a way not many other shows do. It taught me that I could be successful, even when people think otherwise.” What other TV shows, movies and books do you love for this reason?
Shows: “The Fresh Prince,” “Black-ish,” “Grown-ish,” “Everybody Hates Chris”
Movies: Black Panther
Books: Tiny Pretty Things, Piecing Me Together, The Hate U Give, Dear Martin

Do you have plans for your next book yet?
I do. It has sold. I think that’s all I can say about it right now. I guess also this fact: I’m obsessed with it. More details soon!

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Tyler Johnson Was Here.

Photo credit Victoria Ruth Photography

Headlines about the shooting deaths of unarmed civilians at the hands of police are seemingly never-ending, and Jay Coles is engaging with this subject matter in his powerful, necessary and hype-worthy YA debut, Tyler Johnson Was Here. We asked Coles a few questions about his personal experiences with police brutality, connecting with his teen readers, his specially curated playlist and more.

Science Fiction & FantasyYA FictionYAScience Fiction

David Arnold

Interview by Hilli Levin

David Arnold is one of my favorite authors to run into at a Nashville literary event. Although he left Tennessee for the bluer grasses of his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, he’s still a regular face around town, and he’s often the most genuinely excited author in the room.

On the day of our chat, which is sadly via phone instead of at one of our favorite local record stores like I’d hoped, we’re exactly one month away from the publication of his third novel, The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik. When I ask how he’s feeling, I’m pretty surprised by his answer: “You know what’s funny about that?” he says. “I’m less excited and nervous with each book, and I’d say that’s a good thing. You have to move on. I feel very strongly that whenever someone asks what’s your favorite thing that you’ve written, it’s always the newest thing. I feel very strongly that Noah is my strongest novel. Noah is my most personal book in a lot of ways. I have never written an autobiographical character, and I don’t really plan to, but Noah would be the closest thing to that I’ll ever write.”

You might be a big fan of Mosquitoland or Kids of Appetite, but Arnold’s latest, with its sci-fi-tinged explorations of time and reality, is easily his most ambitious to date.

Sixteen-year-old Noah Oakman seems to be living a pretty typical suburban life, even if it feels like his trajectory is a bit out of his hands. He’s a star swimmer being courted by college scouts (although he’s faking a back injury while he dreams of a life outside athletics), his parents are almost annoyingly in love, his doting sister idolizes him, and he’s so set on living a life of predictability that he has a self-imposed wardrobe—jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with David Bowie’s face.

Noah’s starting to feel like he’s outgrowing aspects of his life, so he retreats into the things that bring him comfort: “Gilmore Girls” and YouTube rabbit holes. The only person who can pull Noah out of his reverie is his half-Puerto Rican gay best friend, Alan (whom Arnold admits is lovingly modeled after his own best friend, fellow author Adam Silvera). When Alan and his twin sister, Val, convince Noah to let loose at a high school party one night, Noah has a few too many drinks and lets a mysterious man hypnotize him. When Noah wakes the next morning, he finds himself with more pressing issues than his first hangover. Key details of his life have changed, and everything he’s accepted as fact and reality is turned upside down.

“In 2010, my wife and I went on a cruise, and there was a hypnotist on the ship. When you’re on a cruise, you just go with it,” Arnold says with a laugh. “I remember him asking for volunteers, and thinking, what if someone went under and when they came out, everyone in their life was completely different?”

The seed may have been hypnosis, but Noah’s story began taking shape when Arnold and his wife moved from Nashville to Lexington. “We lived with my parents while we were looking for a house, so I literally wrote a chunk of this book where I did my homework in high school,” Arnold says. “So of course I’m going to write a story about a kid who looked like me when I was that age. Of course I’m going to write a . . . book about change when that’s the predominant thing going on in my life at the moment.”

“In high school, I remember feeling like I was changing and no one else was.”

Much like Noah, Arnold struggled with some existential angst during his teen years, although he had to figure it out without the added wrinkle of hypnosis and altered reality.

“When I was a senior in high school, I remember feeling like I was changing and no one else was,” Arnold says. “The great secret is that everyone felt that way. That’s sort of what this book is about: a kid who feels like he’s changing, but no one else is, and no one else could possibly understand what he’s going through. Over the course of this one night, everything gets flipped. It’s almost a mirror image: Everyone in his life has an actual, physical change, and he’s the only one who hasn’t.”

Although The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik is propelled by a surrealist mystery that asks heady questions about how each of us experiences our own reality, Arnold keeps it all grounded by reminding readers that Noah’s most pressing struggle is simply growing up.

“I did feel very strongly that I wanted to write a character whose struggles were completely internal. When the book opens, [Noah’s] feeling this low-frequency dread, and you’re kind of like, why though?” Arnold says.

With whip-smart dialogue, fun pop-culture asides, endlessly endearing and fully realized characters and a hypnotic mystery, it’s no surprise that Paramount has already secured the film rights for The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik. This fan, for one, would love Arnold to write the screenplay.

“I would not be opposed to taking a crack at writing it . . . but if I had my preference, I would rather someone who knows what they’re doing do it,” Arnold says with a laugh. “Becky Albertalli [author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda] is my critique partner, and I’ve been able to see what she’s gone through. If it’s in the ballpark of Love, Simon, I’ll be thrilled.”

 

This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

David Arnold is one of my favorite authors to run into at a Nashville literary event. Although he left Tennessee for the bluer grasses of his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, he’s still a regular face around town, and he’s often the most genuinely excited author in the room.

YA FictionYA

Anat Deracine

Interview by Jon Little

Part romance, part thriller, and wholly intriguing, Anat Deracine’s Driving by Starlight is an engaging chronicle of a razor-sharp witted girl coming of age in Saudi Arabia. With a knack for the small, telling details, Deracine reveals the contours of daily life in Saudi Arabia—and the mind-boggling, complex web of culture, religion, gender and class that undergird it.

You dedicate Driving by Starlight to “all the girls of Riyadh,” but I understand that many books are still banned in Saudi Arabia. Do you think Driving by Starlight will ever be read in Riyadh?
Banning books only increases their readership. When I was living in Saudi Arabia, I smuggled in books and magazines without their covers, wrapped in dirty laundry and buried at the bottom of the suitcase. My friends did, too. I believe that water will find a way, and that people who love this story will find a way to share it. I hope, especially as the government finally lifts the ban on women driving this June, more people will read Driving by Starlight and feel less alone.

Like your protagonist Leena, you were raised in Saudi Arabia and then moved away. How much of Leena’s story is inspired by events from your own life?
While some of the characters in Driving by Starlight are inspired by my own friends and acquaintances, Leena’s story is very different from mine. I wish I’d had her foresight and her courage when I was her age. But the story is definitely inspired by people and events in my life. That scene where Daria kicks a dent in a metal desk out of frustration? That was me. The scene at Al-Kharj where the girls dressed up underneath their abayas? That was us. Also, that prank with the food coloring and the Vaseline? Sorry to say that was real.

Do you still visit Saudi Arabia, and if so, what is the experience of returning home like? Would you ever move back?
At the moment, I’m not allowed back. While Saudi Arabia is planning to open up some tourist visas eventually, I am pretty sure those will not be available to women traveling alone. Still, I don’t think I’d ever go back. I’ve grown used to my freedom now and wouldn’t be able to fit in anymore. Whenever I miss the desert, I travel as close as I can. I went to Jordan recently and it was incredible. Something about being at the mercy of that landscape always leaves me both humbled and energized.

Did you choose to publish Driving by Starlight under an alias because of the political situation in Saudi Arabia, or is there some other reason for, or significance behind, your pen name?
Deracine in the French means "uprooted." I chose to write under a pen name for a variety of reasons, the political situation in Saudi Arabia among them. Activists get arrested and charged as traitors. There were other considerations as well, like uniqueness and findability. (My real name is both common and frequently misspelled.) I consider myself a citizen of the world, having lived for years in many countries. At this time in history, when there is so much hyper-focus on identity as being defined by national boundaries, it was important to me to take on an identity that was more global. To be uprooted from one’s native homeland or society can also be a blessing. To be deracine can also mean to be free of the expectations rooted in a single culture.

We hear much about fundamentalist religion in Saudi Arabia, but your protagonist shows us an alternative approach. Did you feel it was important to expose Western readers to different branches of Islam?
Honestly, that didn’t occur to me! I wrote about people I’ve known, the beliefs they had, the struggles they went through in reconciling what they were told to believe with what their hearts and minds told them to be true. I’ve studied religion and philosophy pretty deeply, so I know that even in the smallest of sects there is often a division of belief. What’s happened in Saudi Arabia is that the conservative religious imams have substituted unity of practice instead, as if everyone appearing to believe the same thing is what matters. But conformity is not the same thing as community.

For readers who know little about Saudi Arabia, Driving by Starlight is sure to be truly revelatory. Is there one thing about Saudi Arabia, or Saudi Arabian people, that you hope readers take away from your book?
It’s very easy to turn anger and pain into a weapon against others, instead of using those emotions as a catalyst for structural change. It’s also easy to consider this a gender war, men against women, when in fact women can perpetuate some of the problems because they’re afraid of change, while many men find themselves frustrated by the same laws and cultural norms that oppress women. In some ways, the current conversations in Western feminism are leaving these people behind, because people from the Middle East can be ostracized for not being progressive enough. In Driving by Starlight, I wanted to make sure people saw the full picture in all its complexity, saw these people and the hard choices they make more clearly. In your review of Driving by Starlight, you mentioned that alongside the desperation there was hope and joy. If nothing else, I hope people remember that.

Leena is such an engaging character, is there a sequel in the works, or are you turning to a new project?
Both? My writing process usually involves more than one project at a time. I would love to write a sequel. I have so many questions, and early readers have reached out to me with their own. Will Mishail really be content in her secondary role? Will Leena come to love Faraz, or will she be destroyed by jealousy watching him go to Qaraouine? Will Sofia finally become a writer? What happens to Leena’s mother? So I guess the answer is, insh’allah?

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Driving by Starlight. 

Part romance, part thriller, and wholly intriguing, Anat Deracine’s Driving by Starlight is an engaging chronicle of a razor-sharp witted girl coming of age in Saudi Arabia. With a knack for the small, telling details, Deracine reveals the contours of daily life in Saudi Arabia—and the mind-bogglingly complex web of culture, religion, gender and class that undergird it.

YA FictionYAHorror

R.L. Stine

Interview by Linda M. Castellitto

Millions of readers delight in R.L. Stine’s delightfully sinister, subversive world, whether they’re teens experiencing his spooky stories for the first time, millennials for whom his books figure prominently in their misty memories of 1990s childhoods or anyone who’s checked out his hilariously weird Twitter feed.

Sure, he’s the acclaimed author of more than 350 books—including the uber-popular Goosebumps series—that feature kids and teens in all kinds of spooky situations. But he’s also a grandfather who started writing picture books (two so far, with Marc Brown, the creator of Arthur) in hopes of making a literary connection with his grandson.

There’s still hope that Dylan, who’s only 4, will read Stine’s books one day, but there’s perhaps not so much hope for Matt, Dylan’s father and Stine’s 30-something son, who has never read a single one of his father’s novels.

“He bragged about it in the New York Times . . . even though he was the right age for Goosebumps and everything,” Stine says during a call to his Manhattan home. “That’s how you get Dad! He knew it would make me crazy.”

Stine doesn’t dwell on it, probably because he got the last laugh: “I wrote a Fear Street book about him called Goodnight Kiss [1992]. It’s a vampire novel, and the main character is based on him. . . . In the very last paragraph, he gets bitten on the neck!”

“I think horror’s funny. It’s part of the appeal for me.”

On the flip side, Stine’s wife, Jane, has read every word of every book, thanks to her role as his editor and life partner since 1969. Obviously, the two have a good thing going: Stine published his first teen horror novel, Blind Date, in 1986 and now has over 350 million books in print worldwide that are beloved by readers of all ages. His new book, the highly anticipated Return to Fear Street: You May Now Kill the Bride, kicks off the revival of his Fear Street series, which has lain dormant for 20 years.

For those new to the Fear Street series, here’s a quick rundown: The books are set in the fictional town of Shadyside, and the teens who live there encounter all sorts of paranormal, murderous and generally terrifying goings-on. Fear Street is named after the Fear family, who have experienced years of strange and spine-chilling misery.

The deliciously creepy You May Now Kill the Bride is centered on two Fear family weddings, one in 1923 and one in the present day. In both eras, there are two sisters: One is a happy soon-to-be wife, while the other hides her interest in the dark arts. Mystery, betrayal and twisty family ties combine in a suspenseful tale that explores whether a family’s gruesome past is destined to poison their present.

Stine says You May Now Kill the Bride “may be the best book I’ve written in a long time. For one thing, it’s two time periods, and it all ties beautifully together. At first it’s confusing—you can’t really figure it out. I like this one.”

And with a title that so blatantly subverts the classic wedding-vow line, readers know You May Now Kill the Bride will be as funny as it is thrilling. Devoted Stine readers won’t be surprised that this horror-humor combo is central to his writing. In fact, Stine wrote humor books for kids and created teen humor magazine Bananas in the 1970s and ’80s, before creating Fear Street.

“I think horror’s funny,” Stine says. “It’s part of the appeal for me.” The author clearly delights in eliciting opposing emotions: “You know when you sneak up on someone and say ‘Boo!’—first, they jump, then they’re scared, and then they laugh. Horror and humor are so close together.”

Stine has clearly had a prolific and varied writing career outside of Fear Street. He says that his prolific output is all about planning ahead, rather than waiting for inspiration to strike.

“When I start to write a book, I know everything that’s going to happen. I do all the thinking in the outline, all the twists and all chapter endings,” he says. “For me, it just makes the writing so much easier.

“The writers who go into a school, do an assembly and say to write from the heart, write your passion, write what you know . . . the kids who listen to them will never write a word,” he says. “I’ve written 350 books, and not one has come from my heart, not a single one. It’s true! They’re all written to entertain people, for people to enjoy and have fun. But you don’t have to write from the heart.”

That sort of pragmatism and drive may come easier to some than others, he concedes, although he’s been this way for as long as he can remember. “[Writing] is the only thing I’m good at . . . and it’s the only thing I wanted to do from when I was 9 years old.”

Telling stories may have been Stine’s destiny, but ironically, the Goosebumps series—with more than 60 titles, plus multiple spin-off series and a TV show—was never part of his plan. “I have terrible instincts!” he says. “My wife and her business partner at Parachute Press said no one’s ever done a scary series for 7- to 12-year-olds, and we should try it. I said no way. I didn’t want to mess up Fear Street. Can you imagine? They kept after me, so I said alright, if I can think of a good name for the series, we can try two or three. Here it is, 25 years later!”

In addition to writing hundreds of scary tales, Stine’s been taking his brand of delightfully sinister entertainment on the road for years, speaking to school groups and fans of all ages.

“I’m so lucky I can go out and talk to people,” he says, adding, “In Green Bay, Wisconsin, we had 1,800 kids come, fourth- and fifth-graders. They filled the auditorium, three balconies, all kids. I got them all screaming at once. It was a great, great sound. The teachers hated it! It was really fun.”

 

This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Author photo by Dan Nelken.

Millions of readers delight in R.L. Stine’s delightfully sinister, subversive world, whether they’re teens experiencing his spooky stories for the first time, millennials for whom his books figure prominently in their misty memories of 1990s childhoods or anyone who’s checked out his hilariously weird Twitter feed.

YA FictionYA

Kate Alice Marshall

Interview by Norah Piehl

Kate Alice Marshall’s young adult debut, I Am Still Alive, is a searing story of survival and self-reliance. When 16-year-old Jess Cooper discovers that her father has been murdered in the cabin they share in a remote area of Canada, a nail-biting and tense story unfolds as Jess fights to survive the elements and get some vengeance. 

You describe the area around Jess’ dad’s cabin so vividly—is it based on a place you’ve actually visited?
The lake and the woods are a composite of a lot of places. Some I’ve visited, hiking and camping, but most were drawn from memoirs, travel narratives and a handful of documentaries. The exact geography and layout of the lake and the woods are completely invented, but the sights and sounds and feel of the place were all drawn from real-world sources.

Jess keeps herself alive, in part thanks to using the pages of a really terrible thriller novel to start her fires. As a reader and writer, was it hard to think about burning a book, even to survive?
Not at all, actually! A book is an object; a book is not the story within it. Context and culture imbue the object with meaning and value, but it isn’t sacred in itself (or we wouldn’t pulp vast numbers of returned books every day). Book burnings are horrific in large part not because of the destruction of the physical object (though in cases where there are not other copies in existence, that’s a great loss in itself) but because of the destruction, real or symbolic, of what they represent—ways of thinking, types of people, ways of life. Jess’ act in burning the book is the opposite of that. She’s preserving something of value, at the expense of one copy out of tens of thousands of a paperback. She hasn’t destroyed the story, or anything it represents; she’s destroyed paper and ink, and saved everything that she is and that she represents.

But I do think she should write the author a nice thank-you for his help.

Jess confronts so many challenges—from natural elements to hostile humans—and she’s also wrestling with the terrible feeling that even if she does survive, she has no family left to return to. When developing her character, how did you balance out that hopeless feeling with the will to survive?
The core of Jess’ character always boiled down to one fundamental truth: She is worthy of survival, in and of herself. Her reason to survive isn’t that someone is waiting for her, or that she has something to go back to. It’s that she has value. She is worth fighting for, even when everything has been taken from her. She is enough. That gave her a streak of ferocity and determination that meant that even when things are at their worst, even when she falls into despair, she’ll pick herself back up again and keep fighting.

Jess’ story is made even more challenging due to her physical disability. Why did you choose to introduce this element into the story?
Jess’ injuries and disability were part of the story from the very early stages. Before I started writing, I decided that Jess would have injuries lingering from the accident that killed her mother, leaving her with both physical and emotional wounds. From there, it was a matter of following through on the consequences of her disability in every aspect of the story—her relationship with her father, her approach to survival, her limitations and her strengths.

Let’s say you were dropped into Jess’ story with the same supplies she’s got in hand—how long do you think you would survive in her shoes?
Not long, I think. I don’t have quite the grit that Jess does, and she has some advantages I lack—at least a little bit of experience with a bow, for instance, and her father as tour guide at least for a few days. I’d certainly have better odds after writing this book than before, though!

There are so many great survival stories that will appeal to teen readers—and now, thanks to you, there’s another one! What other wilderness or survival novels have you enjoyed reading and would recommend to young readers?
Most of my old favorites are for younger audiences. I read Hatchet (and its sequels) and My Side of the Mountain over and over as a kid, which is why I’ve always wanted to write a survival story of my own. The Martian isn’t YA, and Mars is a little different than Canada, but it definitely provides that same thrill of watching someone problem-solve their way to survival in a deadly environment. And I’m really looking forward to reading Notes from My Captivity by Kathy Parks.

Jess’ mantra becomes “Smart, Not Strong.” How would you say that motto has played out in your own life or experiences?
Jess’ mantra is really about recognizing your strengths and your limitations. I can’t say I’ve ever particularly been in a situation where my physical strength (or lack of it) was important to the outcome, but I’ve worked hard in my life to know myself. That means recognizing what I’m good at, as well as where my failings lie, and using my strengths to get around my weaknesses.

What are you working on next?
I’m always working on a lot of things all at once. In addition to my game writing, I have two YA novels in the works—a mystery/thriller and one that’s very dark and spooky. I just wrote a middle grade novel on a bit of a lark that I’m hoping to polish into shape soon, and I have a fantasy novella coming out in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. So I’m keeping busy!

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of I Am Still Alive.

Kate Alice Marshall’s young adult debut, I Am Still Alive, is a searing story of survival and self-reliance. When 16-year-old Jess Cooper discovers that her father has been murdered in the cabin they share in a remote area of Canada, a nail-biting and tense story unfolds as Jess fights to survive the elements and get some vengeance.

YA FictionYAHistorical Fiction

Virginia Boecker

Interview by Hilli Levin

A beach vacation is supposed to be a relaxing, work-free endeavor, but for author Virginia Boecker, it was the source of inspiration for her newest young adult novel, An Assassin’s Guide to Love and Treason.

Boecker’s previous novels, The Witch Hunter and The King Slayer, are paranormal fantasies that draw inspiration from historical English witch trials. This time around, it all started with her rather unusual choice in beach reads: “I was reading The Watchers [by Stephen Alford]. It’s about Francis Walsingham, who was the secretary of state to Elizabeth I, and he’s considered the founder of modern spycraft,” Boecker excitedly tells me during our phone call. For the history junkie with a deep love for England’s grandiose and tumultuous political landscape, this history was pure gold, and she was quickly caught up in “the coding of all the letters, the spy networks [Walsingham] used, the people he would recruit to be in these networks . . . writers like Anthony Munday and Christopher Marlowe that he trained in cryptography.”

Then it clicked, and her novel started to take form. “I was sitting on the beach, book in one hand, notebook in the other hand with a highlighter and pen, writing down all these notes. There are spies, there’s theater, there’s Marlowe . . . all this religious conflict, Queen Elizabeth—and I love all these things, so I’m thinking, how can I mash all these things together and turn them into a story that’s my own?”

Boecker successfully does just that in her thrilling story An Assassin’s Guide to Love and Treason, which follows two London teenagers during the fall and winter of 1601, when Queen Elizabeth’s vicious struggle to maintain Protestant control over Britain—and to keep her Catholic enemies in France and Spain at bay—was at its peak.

“That period of time is so crazy,” Boecker says. “All these things happen, and it almost reads like a real-life ‘Game of Thrones.’ You don’t really need ‘Game of Thrones,’ you could just go back in your actual history books and these crazy, crazy things happened. I think that’s what draws me to historical fiction.”

Toby is a cunning orphan who harbors a dream of becoming a famous playwright like the late Marlowe, his former mentor and the object of his unrequited love. Instead, he’s now Queen Elizabeth’s most trusted spy. He’s adept at seamlessly blending in with rough crowds and taking on identities to sniff out traitors and send them to the Tower of London. His heart isn’t really in his job as an agent of the Crown, but he soon intercepts a coded message that outlines a Catholic-led plot to unseat the queen. He is subsequently tasked with luring the conspirators out of the shadows.

His inventive solution is to set a trap: He will collaborate with the one and only William Shakespeare on a lightly treasonous play—to be privately performed for the queen, naturally—and wait for an actor with alternative motives to show up. Cue Lady Katherine, a secret Catholic from Cornwall who wants to get serious revenge on the queen—even though the mission would be suicide. Freshly orphaned herself, she’s been on the run, posing as a stable boy named Kit, and when her co-conspirators hear rumors of a play centered on the religious Twelfth Night feast, she knows she must secure a role to sink her dagger into the queen.

“I needed the right Shakespeare play, and I knew that I wanted a cross-dressing play. He’s written a number of those—The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It [and] Twelfth Night are probably the best known. Those three in particular are the plays where a girl dressed as a boy is central to the complication and the resolution of the plot. I was also looking for something that had Catholic undertones. . . . There’s this whole idea that Shakespeare was a secret Catholic. Twelfth Night has those Catholic undertones, so that sealed it for me, and of course, you have Viola in disguise as a boy for her protection, the [same] way Katherine ends up. That just worked for me.”

Kit wows Toby and Shakespeare with a polished audition—one that’s a little too good for a self-proclaimed poor stable boy. Thus, Toby gains another actor and suspect, but the more he tails the hard-to-read, whip-smart, hilarious and alluring Kit, the more things get complicated for the closeted bisexual teen. And of course, the more time Kit spends around the sharp, blue-eyed Toby, the more her plans to keep her head down and her true identity a secret go by the wayside. And the closer the pair becomes, the more Kit’s resolve begins to waver.

“Katherine is this character who is bent on revenge. She wants to avenge her father’s death, which she believes is the fault of the queen. It’s the thing that brings her to London, it’s the thing that puts her in disguise, trains her to kill [and] gets her on stage before the queen to do it,” Boecker says. “But . . . you can’t get revenge on someone for doing to them the same thing they did to you. There’s that saying: ‘Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.’ That’s a really powerful message.”

Readers will be eager for Katherine and Toby to admit their true identities—but can they also admit their true feelings for one another before the play’s opening night, and before the trap closes?

As Boecker’s writing process for Assassin’s Guide started on a beach in Mexico, it only seems fitting that’s she’s aiming to end it there as well. “You know, I think I’m going to Cabo with some girlfriends. That’s my pub day celebration!”

 

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

A beach vacation is supposed to be a relaxing, work-free endeavor, but for author Virginia Boecker, it was the source of inspiration for her newest young adult novel, An Assassin’s Guide to Love and Treason.

YA FictionYA

Karen M. McManus

Interview by Justin Barisich

Until recently, Karen M. McManus was essentially working two full-time jobs—as a marketing professional and a writer—and all the while, raising her young son after her husband’s passing. “I was just really burnt out and sleeping for about five hours a night, so something had to give,” McManus says in a call from her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Fortunately, her first book, One of Us Is Lying, became a New York Times bestseller. “It just felt like the time was right to go ahead and take that leap to writing full time,” McManus says. “It’s a big move, but so far, it’s working out.”

But the success of her first book distinctly altered McManus’ writing process for her new standalone novel, Two Can Keep a Secret. She was still working full time and writing, but now she also had a chorus of outsider voices—her editor, agent and readers—all echoing in her head with each new page she composed. “I had to learn how to shut all that out and just get back to the story that I wanted to tell,” she says. 

With Two Can Keep a Secret, McManus has created a layered, twisty tale that enraptures the reader from the very beginning with a big mystery: What’s happening to the girls of Echo Ridge?

Though Echo Ridge may seem like an idyllic place to call home, Ellery and her twin brother, Ezra, see it differently. After their mother is forced into court-mandated rehab, Ellery and Ezra are shipped off across the country to live with their grandmother in the tiny town where, 17 years ago, their aunt went missing, and five years ago, the homecoming queen was killed.

“Thrillers give teens a safe space to experience and process the world that we’re living in right now, which is full of conflict and fear,” McManus says. “But life is all about balance, right?”

“I’m fascinated by places that look perfect on the surface but have this darkness underneath, and about the ripple effect that darkness can cause,” McManus says. So she conjured up a very quaint New England town with a creepy, Halloween-
themed amusement park that was once the setting of an actual murder—and yet the townsfolk still treat it like a charming tourist attraction. The twins eventually discover the secrets that everyone is trying to keep and the bodies they want to stay buried.

Prior to leaning fully into her new life as a novelist, McManus had planned on pursuing a career in journalism. She graduated with a master’s degree from Northeastern University’s prestigious journalism program before realizing, “I wasn’t really interested in writing news stories, but it did start percolating in my brain that what I really wanted to be doing was making up stories.”

But a lesson learned is never lost. “My journalism background has been very helpful in constructing mysteries in general because it taught me to look for the holes in the story,” McManus says. “That is so important when you’re trying to write this airtight plot that makes sense at the end.” She has become very good at spotting the plot holes in her own works—even writing and then shelving two previous “practice novels.”

The first practice novel was what she lovingly calls a “terrible dystopian knockoff” inspired by Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series, which reignited in her the desire to write again after her husband’s death. And though she did notice an improvement in her narrative-crafting skills with her second practice novel, both had fundamental plot problems that McManus claims could not be fixed. She has, however, been able to return to her earlier books to mine them for characters. “There are all these little parts of life that you pluck from yourself and weave into each of your characters,” McManus says, “and they ultimately become their own people. But they have those little sparks of their creator inside.”

With those first two practice novels under her belt, McManus’ first published novel, One of Us Is Lying, is technically her third book. “I’m really happy it wasn’t my first idea,” she admits humbly, “because I don’t think I had the skills when I first started taking writing seriously to write a complicated plot like that.”

The wait was worth it, as E! Network has since picked up the rights to One of Us Is Lying for a TV series, and book two in the series is slated for release next year.

And while McManus’ stories certainly do fall in the darker side of the YA thriller category, they are mixed with lighter elements, humor, and strong relationships and friendships.

“Thrillers give teens a safe space to experience and process the world that we’re living in right now, which is full of conflict and fear,” McManus says. “But life is all about balance, right? So I like to try to weave through my narrative the message that even though it’s sort of inevitable to grapple with pain and loss, there’s also room for growth, hope and optimism.”

Therein lies McManus’ goal as a creator of stories for teen readers, to share this truth: “The unthinkable can happen to anybody, but it doesn’t have to be insurmountable.” 

McManus believes writing has helped restore balance in her life and has reminded her that “your story’s not over, there’s more to tell here.” And if she can help lead readers back to their own sense of balance, then she believes that every word—practice or otherwise—was well worth it.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Author photo by Kaitlyn Litchfield Photography.

Though Echo Ridge may seem like an idyllic place to call home, Ellery and her twin brother, Ezra, see it differently. After their mother is forced into court-mandated rehab, Ellery and Ezra are shipped off across the country to live with their grandmother in the tiny town where, 17 years ago, their aunt went missing, and five years ago, the homecoming queen was killed.

YA NonfictionYA

Laurie Halse Anderson

Interview by Hilli Levin

Award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson talks about the difficult and healing process of writing her new memoir, SHOUT, her hope for the future of YA literature, her advice for today’s teens and more.

How did you decide to write this memoir in verse? Did it allow you more freedom to explore certain memories or emotions than prose?
I conceived SHOUT on a trip to New York City in late 2017. The #MeToo movement (started by Tarana Burke in 2006) was gaining visibility and generating both support and push-back. The criticism of the survivors coming forward infuriated me. Lines of poetry boiled up from somewhere very deep inside and I scribbled them down. That was when I knew that a) I had to write this book and b) I wanted it to be in verse.

Writing in verse allows for a more visceral experience, which made it the perfect form for my raw and intense subject matter.

How did you decompress and practice self-care while writing this memoir, which delves into some very difficult subjects?
I took a lot of very long walks, usually listening to an audiobook. (Being able to borrow audiobooks from my library with the Libby app has changed my life!) I also gave myself permission to grieve. Writing SHOUT brought up old pain, but it also gave me perspective on why I made some bad choices when I was a kid. Reexamining those years left me awash in gratitude for all the people who tried to love me when I was so broken.

Was there any part of this writing process that surprised you?
The poem “calving iceberg” gutted me. It tells of moving into my university dorm room after living at home and attending community college. Writing it dredged up oceans of painful feelings—I never moved home after this move, and we all knew that was the plan—of loss and sadness. I had packed those feeling away so securely that unleashing them came as a shock.

The other unexpected thing was that writing this book has allowed me to enjoy the music of my teens and 20’s. I’ve always been able to listen to a song or two (hello, Fleetwood Mac and Boston), but listening to entire albums or playlists were uncomfortable. Now I understand why; too much of the music carried unresolved sorrow. Working on SHOUT helped transmute the sorrow into compassion and gave me back lots of great music.

What advice do you have for young adults who might be struggling right now with the current social and political climate?
Thank you for caring! Your commitment to each other and to a healthier culture, with equal justice, opportunities and respect for all gives me life. Revolutions are always bloody and usually led by the young, but you have the most at stake. Stay true to your cause, build your communities of kindred spirits, and take care of each other, please. Together, we will make the world better for everyone.

You’ve made a name for yourself by challenging the kinds of stories that we open up for young adults. What are your thoughts on the genre today, which is now one of the biggest segments of publishing?
It’s fabulous to see more writers of color and LGBTQIA writers being published, though we have far to go in the publishing industry in terms of representation. The boundary between YA and adult literature has become porous, which benefits all readers. I believe YA thrives because it examines the critical development point where so many of us stumble: adolescence. Once you can make peace with the events of your teens, you usually become a happier person. I suspect YA lit will be a dominant segment of publishing for quite a while.

Your debut novel, Speak, just had its 20th anniversary. Do you think we're finally at a cultural tipping point in terms of how we talk about sexual assault and consent?
We’re at the tipping point in terms of beginning to have these conversations. Beginning. I’m still hearing from high school teachers who want to teach Speak, but have to deal with parents who refuse to let their kids read a book about sexual violence. I talk to female survivors of rape who—when they disclosed their assault to family and friends—were greeted with “What were you wearing?” and “Did you lead him on?”

But we have start somewhere, right? I’m grateful for the progress we’ve made and am impatient for much, much more.

What are some of your other favorite memoirs that young adult readers would enjoy?
There are so many great ones!

Parkland Speaks: Survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Share Their Stories, Sarah Lerner, ed.

Spinning by Tillie Walden

The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam by G. Willow Wilson

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen by Jazz Jennings

Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White by Lila Quintero Weaver

Educated by Tara Westover

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

Sex Object: A Memoir by Jessica Valenti

Hey Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt With Family Addiction by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir by Nikki Grimes (coming 10/8/19)

What project are you working on next?
I’ve just finished up a graphic novel about Wonder Woman for DC Comics that will be published in 2020. I’m juggling a couple of secret projects right now, but I can’t talk about them until they’re further developed. Stay tuned!

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of SHOUT.

Author photo by Randy Fontanilla.

Award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson talks about the difficult and healing process of writing her new memoir, SHOUT, her hope for the future of YA literature, her advice for today’s teens and more.

YA FictionYAHistorical Fiction

Julie Berry

Interview by Hilli Levin

Julie Berry explores passion and destruction in her latest historical YA novel, Lovely War. 

I love a World War II novel, but it’s so refreshing to see a World War I story. And for American readers, this is far off our radars. What made you choose this time period?
My grandmothers were teenage girls during WWI, so they would have been contemporaries of Hazel and the main characters in the story. I found myself thinking, now why did WWI start again? And it’s murkier, it’s more confusing. We talked about it last in high school history, and we haven’t talked about it since. I’m really drawn to stories that are less known and moments in history that we might overlook.

How did you decide to weave in the mythology and have Greek gods narrate?
I kept wrestling with the questions of a vantage point. How can you write about something as enormous as this war and encapsulate something of its enormity while still having an intimate relationship with one or two or three mere mortals?

When you focus in on one girl, you gain intimacy into her heart and mind, but you forfeit anything she can’t see or experience. I just really wrestled with who was in a position to show how big this war actually was. I knew I wanted to tell a love story and a war story. And I thought, what if there was a way for love and war personified to tell this story? I realized, we already have love and war personified . . . and they’re lovers! My feeling is there is no Hazel or James without Aphrodite and Ares. We can’t know them unless we see them through those divine eyes—there’s no other way. My belief is that they are absolutely the creations of their divine creators. This wasn’t a stunt, so to speak. I couldn’t find Hazel until Aphrodite revealed her to me.

I’m sure that changed the whole game!
It was a hard book to write. I was determined that I wasn’t going to create events that didn’t really happen in the war. So to construct a story and attach it to real historical events wasn’t simple, but I absolutely felt that these gods carried it in their capable hands. They were in control, and that sounds hokey, but it’s kind of true! [Laughs]

Your novels often explore how violence can upend communities and young lives in particular. With this book, did you find any fresh angles that you hadn’t previously explored?
It’s funny you say that. Why do I keep writing stories where war and conflict keep happening? I’ve never lived in a war—I’m not sure why I keep going there! Maybe it’s partly because I grew up hearing about my mom’s and dad’s experiences living through the wars. I think that there is something about a war that strips away everything you thought you knew about who you were and what was important. There’s this dramatic recalibration of priorities, both for the individual and for a community and society. I guess artistically that moment of truth really interests me, where the complacencies of life are no longer possible.

The romance in Lovely War feels so universal—everyone remembers their first love. That’s a powerful topic to write about.
From your lips to god’s ears—any god! [Laughs] I wanted to write a young adult novel, but the war aged everyone who was involved in it. I just found that no matter how old you were, when your life was touched by this war, you grew up overnight. So I wondered about how that would translate into a YA novel—this sort of sobering, aging aspect of the hardships and the horrors of the war. And ultimately, I just had to say, well, it is what it is. A lot of teens have to grow up overnight.

This book is so powerful. I’m curious what you hope readers will take away from it.
My hope is that I can offer characters and a story so compelling that readers will really open their hearts to them and feel those experiences in a new way. I think if we can see ourselves in the past and realize that, just like us, our forebears were doing the best they could with a really hard time, it creates a kind of empathy and a kind of healing.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a review of Lovely War.

Julie Berry explores passion and destruction in her latest historical YA novel, Lovely War. 

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