Author Interview: Lyn Miller-Lachmann

by Cordelia Jensen

Hi, Lyn! So happy to have you here with us today. I just LOVED reading your new book, Rogue. I could not put it down. Before we get started, here is a quick plot synopsis:

Kiara has a difficult time making -- and keeping -- friends. She has Asperger's syndrome, so relating to other people doesn't come naturally. Most of the time, she relies on Mr. Internet -- her go-to when the world doesn't make sense, which is often -- and her imagination, where she daydreams that she's Rogue, one of the mutant superheroes of the X-Men. In the comics, Rogue hurts anyone she touches, but eventually learns to control her special power. Kiara hasn't discovered her own special power yet, but when Chad moves in across the street, she hopes that, for once, she'll be able to make friendship stick. She's even willing to keep Chad's horrible secret, if that's what it takes. But being a true friend is complicated, and it might be just the thing that leads her to her special power.

Kiara is such a memorable, likeable and empathetic character even though she makes plenty of mistakes during the course of the book. Did her character come to you before the plot?

Kiara’s character came to me long before the plot did. Of all the characters I’ve ever written, she is by far the most autobiographical, but until I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, now considered a high-functioning form of autism, I avoided writing characters of this kind. I didn’t want to remember the difficulties I experienced when I was younger, and to a great extent I had internalized the hostility and rejection I experienced from my peers. My diagnosis answered a lot of questions I’d had about why I never seemed to fit in and why I regularly became the target of bullies. After I got over the concern that someone like me, who had trouble understanding social situations and nonverbal cues, had no business writing fiction, I decided that I had to tell my side of the story.

Once I chose to write from the perspective of a young teenager on the autism spectrum who is trying to figure out the world and to find her place within it, I took incidents that happened to me at that age and turned them into a story. Rogue begins with such an incident. In seventh grade, I decided that if I wanted to be popular, I should sit at the table where the popular girls sat—that was all I needed to do. But the moment I set my tray down, one of the popular girls pushed my tray to the floor. Unlike Kiara, I didn’t then smash the tray into the girl’s face; I just stood in the middle of the cafeteria and cried while everyone else laughed at me. Kiara’s action was a kind of wish fulfillment for me, but the consequence is that she gets suspended from school for the rest of the year and is thus further isolated from her peers and farther away from her goal of having a friend.

The other major plot element that is based on my experience is Kiara’s initial naïve participation in, and ultimately her silence with respect to, Chad’s family business. When I first got my driver’s license, I unwittingly became a go-between between some popular kids at my school and a local drug dealer. I thought the popular kids had finally accepted me and I would be part of their crowd, but to my dismay found out they were only using me. I stopped driving them around, and they stopped being nice to me, but I still didn’t tell anyone about the drugs. I didn’t want to be a snitch and risk getting beaten up or worse. And my moral choice—do I do things that I know are wrong just so I can have friends?—became Kiara’s moral choice in the novel.

Kiara loves to research using Mr. Internet. How much research did you have to do for the book? For example, did you know anything about BMX biking or the X-Men before you started writing?

I knew about the X-Men, which came into being in the 1960s. I identified with them as mutants who didn’t fit into society but nonetheless had special powers that could save society. I was particularly interested in Professor Charles Xavier—Professor X—who uses a wheelchair and who is able to contribute with his mind, his leadership ability, and his dedication to the young misunderstood mutants (of whom I believed I was one). In the early days, there were few female X-Men, and I couldn’t really relate to them, so I moved on to other obsessions. I did know about the new characters that had been added to the X-Men, including Rogue, so when I started writing the novel, I turned to the Internet to learn more about this character who couldn’t touch or be touched, and about her close but often rocky relationship with Gambit, who comes from the same region that she does.

My inspiration to include BMX biking came from having watched a DVD, Wipeout, which I received as a review copy from the National Film Board of Canada several years ago. It’s a documentary about teens who film spectacular ski, bike, and skateboard wipeouts and the injuries that often result. While I used the Internet to research the stunts—I didn’t watch any wipeout videos because I didn’t want to encourage those young people to risk their lives for two and a half minutes of fame—I mainly based my knowledge of the culture presented in the Canadian documentary and on information from various seventh grade students over the years who built bike jumps and skateboard ramps and performed stunts. The suburb where I used to live also had a mountain bike trail that I rode regularly, and the trail surrounded some BMX jumps. Occasionally I’d see kids there and talk to them.

Without giving the ending away, did you know the book would end this way from the beginning or is that something you figured out later after drafting other endings?

I had a general idea of how the book would end—at least for Kiara—but the actual ending underwent numerous changes, mostly in the process of revision for my editor at Penguin, Nancy Paulsen. When she asked me to revise my original YA manuscript for an older middle grade readership, I had to simplify the ending and remove a plot thread that I liked but that may well have gone over the heads of middle grade readers.

Was the book always written in first person? Did you play around with third?

In the past, I have switched one novel from first person to third (my adult novel, Dirt Cheap) and another from third person to alternating point of view first person (my YA novel, Gringolandia). This time, however, I knew right away I wanted to tell the story in first person. The voice is very close to my own voice as a person on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, and I wanted the voice to be as honest and unfiltered as possible.

Chad has a huge role in the book. Did you do any free writing to get to know his character better? You did a remarkable job of making him empathetic even though he can, at times, be so mean to Kiara.

I didn’t do any free writing for Chad, though about ten years ago I wrote a short story from the point of view of Antonio, the mountain bike-riding friend of Kiara’s older brother who becomes her protector. Chad is based in part on a neighbor boy I sometimes hung out with, and sometimes fought with, when I was around Kiara’s age, and in part on a boy I tutored in an after-school program, whose younger brother was a friend of my son’s. Both of those boys were widely seen as “bad” boys, but I saw things that were good in both of them.

Can you tell us a little about your current writing projects?

I wrote most of Rogue in my first year as a MFA student in the Writing for Children & Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and in my second year I wrote about two-thirds of a YA novel for older readers, titled ANTS GO MARCHING, which became my creative thesis. ANTS GO MARCHING is about an academically gifted boy who is the only person from his hardscrabble mobile home park in the elite accelerated honors program at his suburban school. When a trio of well-to-do bullies attacks him following a verbal provocation, he sustains a severe concussion that leads to him flunking out of the program. The novel portrays his struggle to find a new place for himself, and to avoid the one he seems fated to occupy because of the circumstances of his birth. It’s a big book, one that my agent calls “brilliant but so dark.” Still, I think we need to face the darkness if we’re serious about ending it and bringing hope to young people in difficult situations.

I finished the manuscript of ANTS GO MARCHING when I was in Portugal last fall. After a false start with a middle grade manuscript that suffered from a passive protagonist, I’m now writing another middle grade novel inspired by two remarkable young people I met in Lisbon and a 65-year-old grandfather who was arrested for throwing rocks at police during an anti-austerity demonstration. I started the project, titled KRILL, as a short story for my Portuguese class this past semester, but my professor strongly suggested I continue writing it in English. I’ve sent a photo the first page of the story, along with her corrections, to give you an idea why.

And now for our "3 for 3" book questions:

1. What were your 3 favorite books from childhood/teen years?

Charlotte’s Web, by E. B White

The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton

The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier

2. What are 3 books you've read recently that surprised you?

The Stamp Collector, by Jennifer Lanthier

The Vine Basket, by Josanne La Valley

Each Kindness, by Jacqueline Woodson

All of these surprised me because they’re books for younger readers (younger than YA) that don’t have happy endings.

3. What are 3 books that influence/d your writing?

A Step from Heaven, by An Na

Scars, by Cheryl Rainfield

Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork

These were the three novels that inspired me to reexamine the struggles I had growing up and to create my own novel from them.

Thank you so much for sharing your process with us. And for writing such a brave and honest book.

Lyn Miller-Lachmann is the former editor-in-chief of MultiCultural Review and the author of the young adult novel Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/ Northwestern University Press, 2009), a 2010 ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an Américas Award Honor Book. Her new novel, Rogue (Penguin /Nancy Paulsen Books, May 2013), a Junior Library Guild selection, portrays an eighth grader with undiagnosed Asperger’s syndrome and an X-Men obsession whose desire to befriend another outcast after being excluded from school leads her to some dangerous choices. For more information, visit Lyn’s website, www.lynmillerlachmann.com.

Thanks for reading!!! If you're local to the area, please let the bookstore know if you would like to place a special order for ROGUE. You can email orders to orders [at] bigbluemarblebooks [dot] com, call (215) 844-1870, or come see us in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia at 551 Carpenter Lane. 

Look for Jen's upcoming interview of Amy Ignatow, coming June 25th! 

Five Books Marta Can't Wait to Read Now That The Semester Is Over!

I'm the new Events Coordinator here at Big Blue Marble, but I'm also a graduate student, working on an MFA in Creative Writing. I just finished my first semester during which, along with writing my own fiction, I read a bunch of great literature .... that someone else assigned to me. Now that the semester is over and I have a tiny bit of free time, I can't wait to read these books ... just because they look great!

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman (Ballantine Books, $28.00)
I mostly read fiction, but I absolutely loved Goodman's previous book, The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showman, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth Century New York. Goodman has a remarkable and rare talent for both meticulous research -- as he told us when he read here recently, every single detail is true! -- and also fine, novelistic story-telling. Eighty Days promises to be a true story about a remarkable and daring young female journalist that reads like fiction. What could be bad? It's also getting fabulous reviews and is a New York Times National Best Seller.

Life After Life by Jill McCorkle (Algonquin Books, $24.95)
Not to be confused with the other Life After Life by Kate Atkins, which also looks terrific, this novel is the story of a group of residents, staff and neighbors of a retirement center whose relationships and lives "illuminate the possibilities of second chances, hope and rediscovering life right up to the very end" (from the flap copy). As a middle-aged woman launching into a new adventure as a fiction writer, I love stories like this!

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud (Knopf, $25.95)
This just came in and is on the Indie Bestsellers List. From the flap copy: "Told with urgency, intimacy and piercing emotion, this brilliant novel of passion and artistic fulfillment explores the intensity, thrill -- and the devastating cost -- of embracing an authentic life." OK, so maybe I would prefer to skip the "devastating cost," but the rest sounds right up my alley!

Benediction by Kent Haruf (Knopf, $25.95)
I've lived in Philadelphia for over twenty years, but I'm from a small Midwestern town, and I often write about small towns, people of faith, and the intimate lives of ordinary folks. This novel is set in the West, not the Midwest, but the rest of it rings familiar to me. I also loved Haruf's other novels, Plainsong and Eventide.

Are You my Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $15.95)
My wife Julie and I often joke that we've become such middle-aged moms that any minute now we're going to have our lesbian cards revoked! The fact that I have never once read anything by Alison Bechdel is just further evidence that the time is nigh. But our ten-year-old son Micah (yes, another staff child named Micah!) has lately introduced me to the wonders of graphic novels, and I figure this is a terrific place to start on my own grown-up journey into the genre.

Marta Rose, June 2013

Author Interview: Melanie Crowder

by Cordelia Jensen

Hi Melanie! We are honored to feature you here and to be a part of your blog tour. 

Hi Cordelia! Thanks for having me at the Big Blue Marble blog!

Can you tell us a little bit about your debut novel PARCHED?

Sure!

PARCHED is a middle grade novel about a boy (Musa), a girl (Sarel) and her dog (Nandi) struggling to survive in a dangerous and drought-scarred land.

PARCHED is told from 3 different points of view. For me, this worked very well as a way to create tension in your book.

Thank you!

As a reader, I so wanted these characters to tell their secrets to each other! Which characters voice came to you first? Which one was hardest to write? Easiest?

The first voice I heard was Sarel's, and hers was also the most difficult to write. She doesn’t say much; at the beginning of the story, she is crippled by grief and incapable of trusting anyone but Nandi. In my mind, Sarel’s story was wrought with tension, but I really struggled to bring her intense emotions to the page in a way that spoke to the reader while remaining true to the sparse quality of the prose.

Nandi’s world is immediate and stark; so her voice, naturally, is in present tense. I knew she was the only one wise enough and strong enough to describe the opening scene. Her chapters are sensory and visceral, and believe it or not, they were the easiest to write. Nothing but the absolute essentials could make it in.

I didn’t get to know Musa until several chapters into my first draft. I sensed that there was a boy, alone and hurt, waiting to be drawn into the story. But it took me awhile to discover who he was and how he had come to be in such a desperate place. Musa is so vulnerable, but he hasn’t quite lost that childlike openness and hope, so he provides the perfect counterpoint to Sarel’s stricken and shuttered state.

What is your writing process like? Do you write a whole draft and then revise or revise as you go? What about in the case of multiple narrators? Did you do a revision just for Sarel or Musa or Nandi or revise all at once?

Oh, I did so many different revisions in so many different ways! Yes, I did at least one revision where I focused exclusively on each character. But I did others to track emotions, or to trim the dialogue, I even did an entire revision to examine the passing of time as marked by changes in the weather, plant life, and the phases of the moon. Most often, however, I revised by adding exposition or emotion that the story needed, and then going over and over the passage to pare it down to the absolute essentials.

My writing process differs with different projects, but for PARCHED, I definitely revised as I went. So much of this story is about tone. The setting, the style of prose, the dialogue, the emotional accessibility—it all had to be sparse. It had to be, well, parched.

What kind of research did you do to create an authentic setting? Have you ever been to any place similar to the world of PARCHED?

I am flat-out amazed by how much research can go into a work of fiction. I spent hours upon hours combing through information on geology, flora and fauna, childhood trauma, etc. I have been to the desert, and I have lived through mild droughts, but I have never experienced anything like the setting of this story.

Can you tell us a little about your current projects?

After working for years on PARCHED, I needed time with a project that was more light-hearted. Right now I am working on another middle grade, a steampunky adventure. It is a terrific challenge and a lot of fun!

I know you are also an art teacher. Do your students influence you as you write? Do you think about them as your target audience as you write?

Without going into too much detail about my students’ private lives, let me just say that they absolutely inspire and influence me. I watch them experience hardships (things that would devastate most adults) with resilience and optimism and laughter. I don’t see them as my readers, but I use their strength as a model for my characters.

And now, for our regular "3 for 3" book questions:

1. What were your 3 favorite books from childhood/teen years? 

PB: THE STORY OF FERDINAND

MG: Can I say the entire RAMONA QUIMBY series?

YA: THE BLUE SWORD

2. What are 3 books that you've read recently that surprised you? 

HOLES by Louis Sacchar (great mix of commercial appeal & literary chops)

CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein (but not for the reasons you might be thinking)

TUESDAY by David Wiesner (Those frogs just make me laugh out loud!)

3. What are 3 books that influence/d your work? 

PICTURES OF HOLLIS WOODS by Patricia Reilly Giff

HOME OF THE BRAVE by Katherine Applegate

THE MAGICIAN’S ELEPHANT by Kate DiCamillo

Thanks so much for talking with us today, Melanie. And thanks for including us on your blog tour! We are so excited to be a part of promoting such a smart, lyrical book. 

Author of PARCHED (Harcourt Children's Books, 2013), Melanie Crowder holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Visit her online at melaniecrowder.net

Melanie's novel PARCHED comes out on June 4.  If you would like to order your copy of PARCHED, you can do so though us and receive a hand drawn bookplate by Melanie Crowder herself! Just for PARCHED, we are also offering shipment! So, you may order PARCHED from any location within the U.S.A. Just give us a call at (215) 844-1470 and we can do a credit card transaction over the phone. For locals, as always, you may call, email us at orders@bigbluemarble.com or stop by the store to place an order.  

On June 11th, come check out Cordelia's interview with Lyn Miller-Lachmann, author of Gringolandia and the newly released Rogue.

Janet's Five Picks That Speak to the Obsessive in All of Us

The Art of Clean Up, Life Made Neat and Tidy by Ursus Wehrli (New Chronicle Books, $14.95)
This new arrival begs to sit on the coffee table of anyone who folds their underwear, makes a list of their lists, or arranges their closet according to color, or not. Ranging from crowded beach scenes to a bowl of fruit salad, Ursus Wehrli rearranges each scene in the tidiest manner possible. A book well worth the humorous glimpse into our own eccentricities.

The Naked Roommate by Harlem Cohen (Sourcebooks, $14.99) and its companion:
The Naked Roommate: For Parents Only by Harlem Cohen (Sourcebooks, $14.99)
Syndicated advice columnist Harlem Cohen combines his personal brand of humor to offer very frank and useful advice to anyone entering college and to the parent of anyone entering college. And for the obsessive parent, helpful reminders are provided, such as: You are hovering too much if you call all of your son's or daughter's professors to let them know that your child has a cold and may not be attending their class that day.

Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss (Random House, $17.99)
"Today is your day, You're off to great places, You're off and away." The obsessive rhymer who has provided classics for generations wrote this wonderful send off book for anyone bound for a new adventure.

Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh (Bantam Books, $15.00)
For those obsessive thinkers who yearn for a pause this simply written book provides the steps to clear all the unnecessary clutter...breathe in...breathe out.

Janet Elfant, May 2013

Grace's Five Most Exciting Books-to-Be-Movies

Although film adaptations are almost never as wonderful as the books they are based on, it is still pretty exciting to head to the movies and see your favorite characters on screen. Some of these movies are almost in theaters, and others are still in development, but whichever you see I must advise you...read the book first!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (Starscape, $5.99)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner, $15.00)

The Giver by Lois Lowry (Laurel Leaf, $6.99)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (Square Fish, $6.99)

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $18.99)

Grace Gottschalk, May 2013

Marta's Five for the Fest! (Mt. Airy Kids' Literature Festival)

The Seventh Annual Mt. Airy Kids' Literary Festival will be held this year on May 17, 18, and 19th. Here are a few festival-related books you might run into at the bookstore while you are here!

for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange (Scribner, $12.00)
In honor of the Youth Poetry Slam (Friday, May 17, at 6:00), I've chosen this iconic work from 1974 which has been described as a "dramatic prose poem" and a "choreopoem." It has been performed all over the world, including on Broadway, and was made into a motion picture by Tyler Perry. Sapphire, author of Push, writes, "If there are shoulders modern African-American women's literature stands upon they belong to Ntozake Shange...." This is an oldie-but-goodie that no doubt continues to inspire spoken word poets old and young!

The Flame in the Mist by Kit Grindstaff (Delacorte Press, $16.99)
Kit Grindstaff will be reading from her new novel, a fantasy-adventure for fans of Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass, at 12:15 on Sunday, May 19. You can read a fantastic interview with Kit here on the Big Blue Marble Blog.

Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman (Alfred A. Knopf, $16.99)
Ame Dyckman will be reading from Boy + Bot, as well as giving us a special sneak peak into her forthcoming book, Tea Party Rules, on Saturday, May 18 at 2:00. Not only that, but there will be robot crafts and giveaways!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling (Scholastic, $10.99)
Maybe you're seven years old and you've only just started the Harry Potter series, maybe you're seventeen or forty-seven or seventy-seven years old and you've read them all so many times you've lost count .... and you're sooooo jealous of that seven-year-old who just got started! No matter what, if you love Harry Potter like Grace Gordon does, you don't want to miss her fun-filled workshop on Saturday, May 18, at 12:00. There will be Harry Potter themed snacks, wand making, and fun character games. Come in costume if you want!

Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles into Comics! by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost (First Second, $12.99)
I will be using this book in my Graphic Novel/Comic workshop on Saturday, May 18, at 3:00. It combines simple lessons in cartooning with a "rip-roaring story" about "an impatient knight, a cowardly horse, and a magical elf" who are "off to rescue a princess and slay a dragon ... and they're learning to make comics along the way!" I look forward to learning together on Saturday as we turn our own doodles into comics, or, for the more ambitious among us, start our very own graphic novels! This terrific how-to book comes with a companion activity book with lots of great ideas and room for your own comics.

Marta Rose, May 2013

Author Interview: Kit Grindstaff

by Jennifer Sheffield

Our second interview is a conversation with debut author Kit Grindstaff. She'll be reading here this coming Sunday, May 19, from her middle grade novel The Flame in the Mist, "a fantasy-adventure for fans of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass." Come join us at the seventh annual Mt. Airy Kids’ Literary Festival for Kit's lunchtime reading and book-themed refreshments!

Hi, Kit! Thank you for taking the time for this interview! It was very exciting reading your book, especially having read part of an earlier draft when you joined our writing group at the bookstore. I’m looking forward to your reading at the Kids' Literary Festival!

Thank you for the interview, Jen—and for inviting me to the store! I’m looking forward to reading at the “book lunch” too.

1) Some of your characters in the book are twins, or have family members who are. Do you have twins in your own family, or did this idea grow from someplace else?

I love that you asked this! Of all the blogger interviews I’ve done, nobody ever brought it up—strange, since as you know, it’s pretty pivotal.

As a kid, I was obsessed with the idea of twins, without knowing why. People often mistook my older brother and me for twins, which I thought was neat. I dreamed of having twin baby brothers, and later on fantasized about having twins of my own when I grew up and became a mum (which never happened) (the mum bit, anyway…). It wasn’t until I was older that I learned my mother had a twin who was stillborn. This left her an only child, and to this day she says the loss of that twin has affected her deeply all through her life. So I believe that in some way I picked up this fascination from her and from the untold story of loneliness that she lived with.

However, I didn’t consciously set out to make twinship a theme in the book. So its importance in the story is example to me of the wonderful way that the subconscious can work its magic into what one writes, as if such untold stories are demanding expression—in this case, my mum’s lost twin needing to be laid to rest in some way.

2) Please tell me about some rats you’ve known. How did you come to choose rats for Jemma’s companions? How do their personalities complement each other? Also, how did they get their names?

Ha ha! Well there was this guy….Oh, wait. Not that kind of rat. Actually, I never knew any furry rats. Guinea pigs, yes—Pikelet, Muffin and Flump—but I always feared rats. Living in London and New York, you see plenty of the brown sewer kind lurking in the garbage or scurrying across your path at night. Eek. And ew.

So I initially chose rats for Jemma because a) there’d be rats in a castle (so it made sense) and b) I thought the “ew” factor would be fun for kids. Little did I know how I’d fall in love with them. By the end of draft one, I swear, my lifelong fear of rats had vanished.

Originally their names were Scurry and Flurry, and they were the regular brown variety. Then, as their powers of telepathy evolved in the story and their role grew stronger, their names began to feel too cute and rhyme-y. So I changed them to Noodle and Pie. No idea why—the names just felt right, and chimed well together. It wasn’t until a very late draft that their fur turned golden. Which of course was perfect, going along with golden Light and the missing sunshine.

3) How does landscape affect your writing/writing process? Your bio says you “grew up in the rolling countryside of England, which is curiously similar to Anglavia.” Does the Mist have its origins there as well? Does it evoke a particular memory? And did any of the writing of this book take place in similar surroundings?

England can be very misty, for sure! And the memory of damp foggy winters certainly played into the Mist. But actually, classic Brit literature was a bigger influence. I read an abridged version of Great Expectations when I was 8, and Dickens’s description of the misty marshes where Pip first meets Magwitch wormed deep into me. In other books too, fog seems ever present. But thankfully it’s all logged in my memory, so I didn’t need to be immersed in it to write it!

4) Which characters’ voices were the most difficult to write? Which came the most smoothly? Do you have particular strategies to help you along with this?

I suppose one of the most challenging was Jemma’s herself, as she has no dialect, no particular idiosyncrasies. The others’ voices on the whole were very clear in my head—almost as if the characters were speaking, and I was merely transcribing.

In terms of dialect, though, Rue’s was challenging to get onto the page. When it came to copy editing all sorts of questions arose, for example about why I was substituting “yer” for “your” or “you’re” in some places and not others. I was embarrassed to realize how horribly inconsistent I’d been! For some reason, the logic of her speech was tricky, and it took me days to figure out how make it cohesive.

5) I saw this question in another interview with you, and I want to reiterate it here: What is some of the best writing advice you’ve received, and how has it helped you in your writing?

Hmm, I wonder if I’ll give the same answers now? First thing that comes to mind is love what you write, and write what you love. The road contains lots of pitfalls and frustrations, and without the passion to carry you through, it would be too tough. And besides, why expend time and energy on something you only feel half hearted, or even three quarter hearted, about?

For technical advice, a workshop I took with Donald Maass taught me three things in particular that really stick with me. First, every scene should count: every paragraph and sentence, even, needs to serve the story. Second, the main character should be changed, however slightly, at the end of each scene: what has she or he learned? What’s different now than it was before the scene took place? Third, Maass talked about microtension. As well as the big picture conflict, and/or internal conflict, there should be tension in every paragraph—some emotional significance that ramps up the stakes at every turn.

The idea of microtension was immensely helpful in revising action scenes. For example, in Jemma’s fight with the Aukron, originally it was only action. After Maass’s workshop, I added in two fleeting thoughts: Jemma’s defense of Noodle, and how his imminent death fires her up; and then her thinking of all the things she’ll never see or experience if she dies right now. Those two small things suddenly gave the scene much more consequence for her, and I think strengthened it a lot.

6) You also have a professional career in songwriting. What kinds of music have you recorded, and what other kinds of music do you enjoy? Do the songwriting and the prose writing ever overlap?

Generally, I’ve written pop songs. Pop with different flavors: pop rock, pop folk, pop jazz. Pop r’n’b, not so much. French café jazz—love!

To listen to, I’ve always loved classical music—Bach and Vivaldi are particular favorites for an optimistic hit first thing in the morning. Then there’s choral pieces (I once sang Handel’s Solomon in the university choir at Durham Catherdral in England—one of The Most Awesome Experiences ever!), Thomas Tallis, as well as chants, Tibetan bells, Christmas carols, Hindu chants, African choral. Some trance music, even. And Bhangra—a joyous way to get moving! The only genre I don’t love on the whole is rap—though there have been a few particular songs I’ve really liked.

As regards overlap, though both are “writing”, I don’t find there’s much connection between song writing and prose. The two are very different—3 minute story vs hundreds of pages of prose—and demand very different kinds of focus and creative process.

7) What can you tell us about your upcoming projects?

Well, one begins with the letter ‘s’ and ends with the letter ‘l’ with a ‘q’ in the middle…The first draft is nearing completion, though there’s a tonnnnn of layering in to do yet. Other than that, I have two pet projects on the back burner, one told from two points of view across several centuries, the other from three points of view in a more futuristic England. And I often dream of writing a picture book someday. I have an idea, but as yet have no clue how to frame it.

And now, for our regular "3 for 3" book questions:

3 favorite books from childhood/teen years:

From childhood: The Famous Five (a series…sorry, can’t choose just one! They’re all an archetypal British blur), and Friday’s Tunnel, by John Verney.

From teens: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. Getting into the classic and ghostly…Oh sorry, that’s 4. (I knew it was 4.)

3 books you've read recently that surprised you:

1. The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann. His prose style is delightful to me, the story both funny and tragic—and the fact that it was written by a 16/17 year old just adds to its “Whaaaa? Blown away!” factor.

2. Brianna on the Brink, by Nicole McInnes. I didn’t love the title, but Nicole and I both belong to The Lucky 13s, a group of authors who all have our books debuting this year, so I took the opportunity to read an ARC. The opening pages irritated me—Brianna’s voice was kind of glib—but the synopsis was intriguing enough me to read on, and I was so glad I did. Turned out I was missing the point of this glibness, which is part of Brianna’s defense system. A short book by most standards these days, but it packs an emotional punch. I really loved it.

3. The Fault in our Stars by John Green. I’d heard great things about it, and the book delivered. Only it was much better than I’d anticipated, and hit me way deeper.

3 books that influence/d your work:

1. The Golden Compass. I love Pullman’s world building, the steampunkish parallel Oxford he creates. I also love Lyra’s spunk. She definitely influenced my writing of Jemma.

2. Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt. Not that the story bears any resemblance to The Flame in the Mist, but the beauty of Babbitt’s prose, especially in the prologue, is amazing—something to aspire to.

3. Last but not least, I still feel Dickens breathing through Jemma’s Anglavia! And since I’m writing a sequel—oh, there. I just said it. The ‘s’-word :-)

Thanks so much, Kit!

You’re welcome, Jen!

Kit Grindstaff was born near London and grew up in the rolling countryside of England. After a brush with pop stardom (under her maiden name, Hain) she moved to New York and embarked on her career as a pop song writer. Kit now lives with her husband in the rolling countryside of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the SCBWI. The Flame in the Mist is her first novel. You can also find her at http://www.kitgrindstaff.com, http://www.facebook.com/kitgrindstaff and on Twitter: @kitgrindstaff.

On May 28th, come check out Cordelia's interview with Melanie Crowder, author of the debut middle grade novel Parched, as part of Melanie's upcoming blog tour!