Author Interview: Cordelia Jensen

by Jennifer Sheffield

Hi, Cordelia! Congratulations on the imminent release of Skyscraping! (Details below on the June 6 book launch party!) Here is my synopsis:

"Newborn stars / take millions of years to form ... / But the constellation of a family / can shift shape / in seconds." Mira starts her senior year on top of the world, ready for college, ready to preserve the glories of high school in perfectly laid out yearbook form. But then her world is rocked by family secrets, and, before she can overcome her rage and sense of betrayal, rocked again. And now she needs to pull herself back out of the chaos and get her world in order, while there is still time. Deeply powerful free verse novel about love and fear and family, and how to manage when the world turns upside down.

I know that Skyscraping began as a memoir. What prompted you to change it to fiction, and what was that process like? Did it change how you felt about the writing and about the story?

I changed it to fiction for the creative freedom that decision gave me. It allowed me to change characters and plotlines the way that made sense with the story, as opposed to having to be strictly true to life. It was also a healing process for me to change things—like my own father was too sick to attend my high school graduation but Mira’s dad sees her graduate. However, it was very hard, at times during the revision process, to not feel protective of the original story or characters. For example, my editor (rightly so) really pushed for Mira to act out more against her dad and be angrier with him. This was REALLY hard for me to do because I still miss him a lot and think of him mostly in a positive light now and I had a hard time dredging up the anger. I am glad I fictionalized it. I do feel like I could write a memoir version of the story someday, maybe in essay form or something, but it is relieving to work on my other projects (for now) that have less of a direct tie to my life.

Is it strange, in talking about your work now that it’s out there, to navigate the boundaries between Mira’s life and your own? I could see it being both powerful to talk about and overly personal at the same time.

It is strange! Thanks for asking. The strangest part is telling strangers (ha) about my own father’s death from AIDS. That is obviously not essential when I am blurbing the book, but I somehow think it is and end up telling people the memoir part of it all the time. Definitely overly personal; I’m pretty sure I’ve weirded some people out. :-) But generally I’m not shy about “getting deep quick” and have a hard time with a lot of superficial conversation, so maybe the weirding people out part is fine—it is pretty true to me.

I like a lot of the significant characters in the book and (well, mostly) the ways they treat each other. Are there characters you particularly identify with, aside from Mira herself? Were some characters harder to write than others?

Hmmm . . . well, there were some characters that were cut that were hard for me to cut. Mira used to have another friend named Shay, and Adam’s mom used to be a significant character in the book. So, those two were not hard for me to write but they were hard for me to lose. Cutting them, though, made Mira more alone in her story as well as streamlining some subplots. I think the Mom’s character was the hardest to write because I was most concerned with my own mother and what she would think of this character. So, again, more personal issues getting in the way.

There’s a playfulness to Chloe’s character (who is an amalgam of my best female friends growing up) that I identify with and I think in some ways I was more like a combination of Chloe and Mira because I was a lot more social than Mira is. I love April — and I really love my real sister Julia :-) — and I feel like her openness is more similar to myself today but not to who I was in high school. I feel most connected to April and the dad’s character, and their characters did not really change much from early drafts. I had fun writing Dylan who is really an amalgam of all my male friends in high school; it was fun to spend time with them again.

Last month, when you came to our YA book club discussion of Home of the Brave, I loved the insights you presented about the verse novel form. Was Skyscraping always written in verse, or did that evolve along with the shift in genre?

Thank you! I love talking about the elusive verse novel form! It was always in verse. It’s because the memoir emerged from poems I had written about my family over the span of around fifteen years. I also think verse novels are the perfect form for stories that tackle difficult subject matter: the form leaves the reader with some space to process what is happening and the form highlights the emotional arc of the character which, in trying life situations, is really what matters the most I think.

The way you play with space on the page is beautiful and powerful. I love the full moon page, and the word cascade of “Stranded”. What was it like working with words and space like this? How does it change your sense of story to work on the form at the same time?

I LOVE playing with white space in the verse novel form. Melanie Crowder just wrote a terrific blog post about this. It actually includes my own analysis of the white space in “Stranded.” I like how working with white space feels like making art. You go beyond the words and create the relationship the words have to space and use the space to actually be a part of your poem. It is like creating composition when you are painting. Maybe it is also how a sculptor feels as she carves. This is something you can’t do nearly as much when you are writing a novel. And I do miss it when I am writing regular prose.

What were the sources of your space and flight and time imagery? Did you, as Mira did with the yearbook, try out other images for framing the story before finding this one?

What a great question, Jen! I actually did take astronomy my senior year of high school from a really talented teacher named Mr. Thompson. He was one of those teachers that the whole school sort of worshipped. When I first started writing the fictionalized draft of the memoir (originally titled “Sundialing”) I wrote original versions of the poems “Where Windows Are Stars” and “Something Stellar” and it was through writing these poems that I figured out I could carry this celestial imagery through the book.

The emphasis on time came from yearbook itself. I was also the yearbook editor my senior year and I wrote some version of the poem “Capturing Time” and I started to think about how interesting it was that I sort of chose to spend so much time in high school doing yearbook (something so nostalgic oriented) while my father had this ticking time clock and so did my high school career. I sort of built the whole story on the idea that “everything was ending at once.”

But to answer your question, no, there was only ever that image system. Though I think as it became revised I extended it naturally to include any kind of sky image, not just space and time. I like how this image system also works with Mira’s existential crisis. I also took philosophy my senior year of high school from a very skilled teacher and loved thinking about Existentialism in particular. Not going to lie, though, I do own the book Astronomy for Dummies. Here’s a blog post where I talk about creating an image system in a verse novel.

What kinds of research did you need to do to build your story and the world in which it takes place? There are lots of details about Manhattan in the '90s and about the growing awareness of HIV that clearly read like the living of it, and then there are lots of facts about the disease and the stars. Were you going mainly on things you already knew and remembered?

It is definitely a combination of remembering things and Googling! I also watched movies that take place in NYC in the early-mid nineties…like Home Alone 2 and Green Card. :-) Google is amazing: I could Google the whole Phish show playlist from the New Year's show, I watched Tom Hanks’s best actor speech for Philadelphia, I looked at movie releases throughout the year. The most research I did, though, was astronomy related. I bought some books (see confession above) and spent a lot of time looking at astronomy term definitions. I listened to all my music from that time and made a playlist. I also kept extensive diaries in high school which I re-read and had my own senior year yearbook by my side throughout the process.

I also researched natural remedies and HIV/AIDS facts from that time. And how certain sicknesses worked. This was hard for me. Because I was a teen and not really sure what was going with my own father medically throughout the years he was sick (my father was HIV Positive in 1986 and really very sick from 1992-1994) I had to go back and try to figure out more about the medical part of it. And then alter it to match the book’s own timeframe. I also am very indebted to my friend Jenna Conley for taking time to fact check the medical part of the book.

Along with your writing and teaching, you’ve been running wonderful writing workshops for kids at the bookstore, and with your students you’ve created the Mt. Airy Musers literary journal. I love seeing how enthusiastic the kids are! Do you have other current or upcoming projects you’d like to tell us about?

Thank you! It is so fun to work on this journal with such enthusiastic young writers and artists. We have our second issue coming out at the end of May and hoping to do a third next fall. Other than MAM and teaching creative writing workshops for kids, I will be teaching a Writing for Children & Young Adults class at Bryn Mawr College for the second time next spring. In terms of writing, I have two other completed manuscripts that will hopefully sell sometime soon and I am working on another WIP. I’ll keep you posted!

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

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

Betsy & Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace; Just As Long As We’re Together by Judy Blume; The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

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

Denton Little’s Death Date by Lance Rubin, because it’s a real laugh out loud comedy despite harrowing circumstances; The Cost of All Things by Maggie Lehrman because I really enjoyed the magical realism in this book and just the premise itself was, for no better word, COOL; None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio because the main character is SO relatable while being an intersex character.

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

I would say e.e. cummings poetry had a profound effect on me when I was a teen, and I still think about the freedom he took with word play when I write; the first verse novels I read when I was writing my own helped me understand the form: Katherine Appelgate’s Home of the Brave was one of these as well as Kirsten Smith’s The Geography of Girlhood; I really am drawn to beautiful/sad stories like Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun or Karen Foxlee’s The Anatomy of Wings and I surround myself with the MOOD of these sort of books, carving a white space around me, as I write.

Thank you so much for joining us!

Thanks for having me, Jen. Such great questions!!!

Cordelia Jensen is a YA writer. She graduated in 2012 with a MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Cordelia graduated from Kenyon College where she majored in English, with a Concentration in Creative Writing. Cordelia was Poet Laureate of Perry County in 2006 & 2007. She has also had nonfiction work appear in Literary Mama. Cordelia has worked with young people for most of her career; with a Masters of Education in Counseling, she has worked as a counselor and teacher and spent ten summers as a camp counselor in Central PA. She teaches writing workshops for children at the Big Blue Marble and loves being surrounded by books and people who love stories and language. Cordelia lives in West Mt. Airy with her husband, Jon, and twin nine-year-olds, Tate and Lily.

Thanks for reading!!! If you're local to the area, please let the bookstore know if you would like to order a copy of Skyscraping. You can also come to Cordelia's Book Launch Party, Saturday, June 6, 7pm, offsite at local used bookstore Mt. Airy Read & Eat! If you can't make the party, you can email orders to orders [at] bigbluemarblebooks [dot] com, call (215) 844-1870, or come see us at 551 Carpenter Lane, in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Author Interview: Galen Longstreth

by Jennifer Sheffield

Hi, Galen! I’ve really been enjoying Yes, Let’s since we heard you read at the bookstore’s Kids’ Literary Festival in May. We took the book with us on a camping trip this summer, and it was a lot of fun to read and ponder, even inspiring a timed family photo in the woods!

I understand the story is based on a game you played growing up. What was the game like? How did you arrive at the idea to base a book on it?

At summer camp one summer I learned an improv game called Yes, Let’s. The version we played entailed a group of eight or ten campers. One would make a suggestion, something like, “Let’s run over to the creek!” And the whole group would respond, “Yes, let’s!” We always had to say yes, and we ran all over camp doing silly things. It was exciting and fun, and I loved the positive spirit of it. I still love saying, “Yes, let’s” when someone makes a suggestion for something to do.

Yes, Let’s is a wonderful exploration of hiking and nature. Did you do day trips like this a lot with your family? Do you do much hiking yourself these days?

My family did lots of hiking, camping, and day trips when I was growing up in Seattle. We spent a lot of time outdoors with our dog in the woods near our home or farther afield in the Cascade and Olympic Mountains. Now I’m a city girl and I love living without a car. The trade off is that I don’t get to the woods very often. My husband and I go on a backpacking trip every year. Our favorite so far on the east coast has been Bond Cliff in the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

What was the writing and publishing process like for you, as the writer of a picture book?

I wrote this book for fun while I was getting my MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. A person I knew in Portland, Oregon, who publishes comic books liked it and bought it. His company, Tugboat Press, published the book as a small, staple-bound paperback, and people liked it! Later I sold it to Tanglewood, and the hardcover edition was born. I’ve been very lucky to have had a great experience with my first book.

How much input did you have for the illustrations? Once the illustrator was assigned to the book, did you get to make requests/suggestions? If so, what kinds, and how did that process work?

Usually a writer doesn’t have any say about the illustrations, but Tugboat Press encouraged me to be involved with the illustrator for Yes, Let’s from the very beginning of the process. We auditioned different artists and chose Maris Wicks. I provided detailed illustration notes for her, and we talked about the number of characters, their personalities, and specific moments to include, like the dog shaking off after a swim and spraying the father. On top of all this, Maris added her own details to the pictures, and a lot of humor. I had ideas, but she’s the expert!

I love the distinct and well-illustrated personalities of the kids and parents. Are they at all like your own family? Is there someone who seems most like you?

In my family, there are three kids. My younger brother, my older sister, and me, right in the middle. I wanted the family in Yes, Let’s to have four kids so that every page would be bursting with energy – lots of activity, lots of personality. Also, my father grew up in a family with four children, and this always fascinated me when I was a child. What would that have been like? So it was fun to play with that in the book. The only explicit link between a character and someone in my family is the boy with the yoyo. On one of our family vacations my sister got a yoyo and did not stop playing with it for a solid week. She had that yoyo going in the hotel room, at the gas station, outside a restaurant waiting for a table – anywhere she could. It became one of our family stories and I love having been able to include it in Yes, Let’s.

Throughout the book, there are all sorts of little surprises -- details and connections from page to page, or on the inside covers. Micah (age 3) liked the morning and evening owl, and some of the other animals that repeat throughout the book; I also liked the lists and photos...and the various footwear issues. Were these surprises to you as well? Do you have any favorites?

Yes! Maris included so many wonderful surprises in the pictures. My favorite is the squirrel, which you have to watch carefully during the middle of the book.

Are there going to be more books that feature this family? Do you have current or upcoming projects you’d like to tell us about?

Maris and I would love to do another book together. We both have lots of projects going at once, though, so it hasn’t happened yet. I’m working on other picture books (including one biography), and a graphic novel about two best friends at summer camp.

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

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

When I was young and reading picture books, I loved Elizabeth by Liesel Moak Skorpen, Peabody by Rosemary Wells, and The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf.

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

The Loopy Coop Hens: Oh No! A Fox! by Janet Morgan Stoeke made me laugh out loud. Cynthia Kadohata’s newest novel, Half a World Away, struck me for its captivatingly destructive and dysfunctional main character. And I love the simplicity and beautiful illustrations of William Low’s new picture book Daytime Nighttime.

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

At the time I was writing Yes, Let’s, and ever since, I’ve paid a lot of attention to successful rhyming picture books. I am in awe of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr., and Roadwork by Sally Sutton. I also love Jamberry by Bruce Degen. These are all wonderful books to read aloud.

Thank you so much for joining us!

Thanks, Jen!

Galen Longstreth grew up on Mercer Island, Washington, where she spent a lot of time outdoors with her family and their dog, Sunday. One summer she learned a game called “Yes, Let’s,” which involved a lot of running and laughing. Galen has taught kindergarten, sold children’s books, and written book reviews. She now lives in Philadelphia and works at Children's Literacy Initiative. Yes, Let’s is her first book.

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

Author Interview: J.L. Powers

by Cordelia Jensen

Your newest book is a picture book, though you’ve written three young adult novels (one of which I'll ask about later in the interview). Can you tell us a bit about how the writing process felt different for Colors of the Wind?

You know, every book is different. I’ve never had a “same” experience with any of them. I never would have written The Confessional, my first YA novel, if I hadn’t taught at an all-boys Catholic high school. This Thing Called the Future required the time I spent earning two master’s degrees in African history and taking 3 years of Zulu language lessons. But writing an expansive, sprawling novel (if 60,000 words can be called expansive or sprawling) requires many more layers and levels and plot twists than a picture book of a less than a thousand words. For this picture book, I had to distill the story of a person’s life down to its essence. What really matters? What doesn’t? And how to say it in compelling words that are also partly lyrical, easily readable?

Because this is also non-fiction, instead of fiction, I had less leeway. I had to figure out how to characterize “George” while, at the same time, sticking to the facts.

Colors of the Wind is an amazing (and true!) story. Was Colors of the Wind your own idea or did you meet George Mendoza in another context, which led to the idea?

I used to write articles about and do interviews with artists along the U.S-Mexico border for Revista Tradicion, a New Mexico based publication. The editor asked me to write an article about George, a blind artist who, ironically, paints what he sees. I met George and was astonished. He’s blind and what that means for him is that objects are multiplied and reflected back, like a kaleidoscope; and also, he sees things that aren’t really there—eyes floating in the air, suns, etc. So he really does paint what he sees—and the end results are jaw-dropping stunning.

George asked me to consider doing a glossy art book with him. We spent considerable time together talking about his paintings and his life as a result. Over time, I realized that his story would make a great picture book. This was actually a long time ago. I think I wrote it first in 2004 or 2005, maybe? In any case, it was a long long time ago.

George is convinced I never told him that I was doing this, that one day I just sent him an email saying, “Here’s the picture book.” Whether that’s how it happened or not, thankfully, he loved the idea and here we are.

Did you help George choose which of his paintings to use in the book?

Our editor at Purple House Press, Jill, designed the book and chose the paintings, although she did ask for my input. George didn’t choose any of the paintings. Because he’s blind, he actually can’t see his own paintings unless he gets up really really close—and then he can only see part of the painting, not the whole—so he just sent Jill a lot of photos of his artwork and she selected the ones she felt would best work for each page. She did an amazing job. And as you’ll see, she included small pictures of paintings at the end that she loved but couldn’t include.

Are you a visual artist yourself?

I do like to take photographs and, through sheer luck and intuition—certainly not because of training, I’ve shot some interesting pictures over the years, usually of people rather than things or landscapes. I feel like my visual intelligence is very low. Maybe that’s why I’m so interested in what artists do.

This Thing Called the Future is a captivating book. I read it in about two days. One of the most interesting parts about it is Khosi’s struggle between traditional South African medicine and healing practices and Western medicine. I love how her strong belief in both worlds is present from the beginning of the book and come to shape the crux of the novel. How much did you know personally about this struggle in South African belief systems before writing the book?

I knew quite a bit, actually. I have two master’s degrees in African history and have spent a lot of time traveling throughout South Africa. I became really interested in healing and ideas about healing, as well as the problem of the HIV-AIDS epidemic, and I wanted to see how “traditional” medicine had absorbed the biomedical understanding of the disease and its treatment, as well as how ordinary Africans dealt with the clash between the two cultural systems and what kind of hybrid cultures are emerging as a result, all over the continent.

In South Africa, generally speaking, many people choose to visit traditional healers first before they’ll go to a medical doctor. This is partly cultural—because people feel more comfortable with their own culture’s healing traditions—but it’s also more convenient. There are approximately 300,000 traditional healers and only 42,000 doctors—in a country with 4.5 million people. For people living in rural areas, hospitals and clinics may be many hours away but the healer lives just down the street. So naturally, traditional healers are more convenient. Although there has historically been real enmity between medical doctors and traditional healers, many people on both sides have overcome that distrust in order to combat the AIDS epidemic—together. I find that a very interesting trend.

By the way, I think it’s important to note that cultural systems along with traditional medical systems are constantly changing so it’s a bit of a misnomer to use the word “traditional” for traditional healers—as though the things they do now are the same they’ve always done. By contrast, traditional healers are always changing their methods as they learn what works and what doesn’t. Nevertheless, “traditional” is the best word we’ve got so for the time being, it’s the one we use.

Has This Thing Called the Future reached a South African teen audience?

South African publishing and book distribution are really separate from the U.S.’s system so it’s not available cheaply and widely in South Africa though people can find it if they really look. In 2013, I took my family to South Africa and I was able to visit two schools and read from the book as well as talk about my life as a writer. One of those schools is an old, established elite all-girls school in Johannesburg—formerly an all-white school, but now integrated. The other was a “container” school in Cosmo City—classes were held in “containers,” those box-structures frequently lacking windows—where many of the students live in nearby squatter communities. I was received with real interest in both schools but I was struck that the girls in the poorer school were most interested in whether I am a poet, not so much the novelist, and some of the girls got up to recite their own poetry—to standing ovations. In fact, and I have to appreciate this, they got a better reception for their poetry than I did for my book or talk. Next time, I’ll come armed with poetry.

The language in the novel is often breathtaking, like “my emotions are a nest of troubled snakes, slithering and sliding around in my stomach.” As a reader, I felt completely present and taken into Khosi’s world even though in many ways it is vastly different from my own. In your image construction for this novel, did you try and use images you felt were specific to this world or ones any reader could relate to?

I definitely tried to use images that were specific to Khosi’s world. Snakes are really important in Zulu cosmology. A snake that appears before you might be an ancestor trying to get your attention, for example, so the imagery has a great deal of symbolic meaning as well as being an image people can pick up on. But of course, I also wanted my book to be completely accessible to American audiences, so a) I don’t explain the symbolic meaning in the text and b) I tried to choose ways to saying things that would be meaningful to Americans as well.

When you set about to write this book was the devastating impact of AIDS on African people always going to be a major part of the book? Was that what first inspired you to write it? Or did that part come from wanting to write about a girl like Khosi?

When I first went to South Africa in 2006, I was struck by the AIDS statistics, which are worse in KwaZulu-Natal (where Khosi lives) than anywhere else in the country. But I didn’t know I was going to write this book when I went there—I went as part of my graduate program in African History at Stanford University. I lived with a Zulu family and the two teen girls in that family inspired this story. Indeed, one of the girls was named Khosi Zulu, just like my character, and her personality provided me with the beginnings of my own character. I was very worried about those girls growing up in a place where older men see young girls as fair game, and where the majority of girls report their first sexual experiences as violent ones. The two teenagers in the family I lived with were such sweet, innocent girls—and I wasn’t sure if it was possible for them to retain that innocence for very much longer. So I wrote this story.

Can you tell us about any upcoming projects?

I’m working on a fantasy trilogy, co-authored with my brother Matt, also YA. It deals with death but it’s also very humorous.

Although it’s only in the thinking stage, I also plan to write (very soon) a sequel for This Thing Called the Future.

Anything else you would like us to know about these two books or your other books?

I try to write books that matter but are also entertaining. I hope people fall in love with the characters and also enjoy the story, but I also want my books to make people think and to question the status quo.

And now for our “3 for 3” book-related questions:

1.     What were 3 of your favorite books as a child/teen? I loved Anne of Green Gables and related books by L.M. Montgomery; the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder; and the Austin family series by Madeleine L’Engle, in particular A Ring of Endless Light.

2.     What are 3 books you’ve read recently that surprised you? I really enjoyed Jandy Nelson’s second young adult novel I’ll Give You the Sun, which just came out. The language in it really surprised me—extremely poetic, full of wonderful images. I also recently read Little Liberia by Jonny Steinberg. I’m a big fan of Steinberg’s books, but what really surprised me was that my 3½-year-old son wanted me to read that book to him. He was taken by these two stories of two Liberian men who found themselves battling each other in the United States. I also recently fell in love with a picture book, Morris Mickelthwaite and the Tangerine Dress—a beautiful picture book about a little boy who loves a tangerine dress because it reminds him of tigers, sunsets, and his mother’s hair, and how he overcomes the prejudice of the other children in his class in order to keep wearing the dress he loves.

3.     What are 3 books that influence(d) your writing? That’s a hard question to answer because, as a writer, every book I ever read influences my writing in some way. Sometimes I see how a really great book could have been better, or sometimes I’m just jealous of how brilliant a book is, or sometimes I’ll find something in particular (e.g., Jandy Nelson’s colorful writing) that a writer did exceptionally well that I want to mimic or adopt into my own writing.

But in terms of overarching influence, I think the Little House books, as well as Anne of Green Gables books, caused me to see setting as an organic part of a book’s whole. Setting influences plot and characters because setting is not just a physical place where a character happens to live. No, that same character couldn’t exist just anywhere. People are created by their settings, in part, and settings are bound up with culture, history, religion, politics—and all of these specifics have to be accounted for (however minutely) within a character’s growth and development as a person. A book set in Salt Lake City must, by default, be different than a book set in Los Angeles. People tend to understand this when a book’s setting is a foreign locale but not so much when it’s an American city, but it’s just as true for American cities as anywhere else. I get annoyed when I read books and the writer has presented us with a sterile, bland setting, as if it doesn’t matter. That writer has just not stopped to think about how important location is.

Another book that has greatly influenced me is Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood by Benjamin Alire Saenz. I feel like a one-woman-choir preaching about that book because I bring it up everywhere—it’s my favorite young adult novel. I love the setting, of course (the U.S.-Mexico border, where I grew up), but I also love the novel’s ultimate message: that being someone who “matters” has absolutely nothing to do with becoming wealthy, powerful, or beautiful or being noticed by the powerful, wealthy, and beautiful. This message is incredibly important for American teens to hear because they’re not hearing that very many places. One of the most common messages they DO hear is that if you lack wealth, beauty, and/or power, you are a nothing and a nobody and you don’t matter. It fills me with so much rage to realize how that message is proliferated and propagated in all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle ways in our society, and it’s a message that brings death. Sammy and Juliana is a powerful antidote.

Thanks so much for being with us!

J.L. Powers is the award-winning author of 3 books for young adults (The Confessional, This Thing Called the Future, and Amina) and editor of two collections of essays (Labor Pains and Birth Stories: Essays on Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Becoming a Parent and That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone). Colors of the Wind: the story of blind artist and champion runner George Mendoza is her first picture book. She teaches English at Skyline College in San Bruno, California. You can find her online at www.jlpowers.net, www.thepiratetree.com, or www.motherwritermentor.com.

If you're local to the area, please let the bookstore know if you would like to order Colors of the Wind or The Thing Called the Future. You can email orders to orders [at] bigbluemarblebooks [dot] com, call (215) 844-1870, or come see us at 551 Carpenter Lane, in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Author Interview: Rachel Wilson

by Cordelia Jensen

This month on our blog, Cordelia Jensen interviewed Rachel Wilson, author of Don’t Touch.

Here's a summary of Rachel's book:

Step on a crack, break your mother's back,
Touch another person's skin, and Dad's gone for good...

Caddie has a history of magical thinking—of playing games in her head to cope with her surroundings—but it's never been this bad before.

When her parents split up, Don't touch becomes Caddie's mantra. Maybe if she keeps from touching another person's skin, Dad will come home. She knows it doesn't make sense, but her games have never been logical. Soon, despite Alabama's humidity, she's covering every inch of her skin and wearing evening gloves to school.

And that's where things get tricky. Even though Caddie's the new girl, it's hard to pass off her compulsions as artistic quirks. Friends notice things. Her drama class is all about interacting with her scene partners, especially Peter, who's auditioning for the role of Hamlet. Caddie desperately wants to play Ophelia, but if she does, she'll have to touch Peter . . . and kiss him. Part of Caddie would love nothing more than to kiss Peter—but the other part isn't sure she's brave enough to let herself fall.

From rising star Rachel M. Wilson comes a powerful, moving debut novel of the friendship and love that are there for us, if only we'll let them in.

Hi Rachel! I really loved your book. So, first question, I know you are an actress. Have you ever been in a production of Hamlet? The story is so expertly woven into your novel; you must know the play inside and out. Did the idea of writing a girl playing Ophelia come to you first or did Caddie as a character?

Thank you, Cordelia! I haven’t! The only times I’ve gotten to perform Shakespeare were for classes. In college acting class, I played Helena from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (on a playground, which was super fun), Lady Anne in Richard III, and Macbeth—not the Lady, regular Macbeth. In high school, I almost got to play Juliet, but most of the actor guys played basketball, and we ended up doing a courtroom drama instead. Le sigh.

I have seen many stage and screen productions of Hamlet, including some inventive explorations of the play (like the Neo-Futurists’ Daredevils: Hamlet in which five guys explore masculinity and perform risky stunts while trying to perfect Hamlet), and I’ve studied it from a literary angle.

Caddie came way before Ophelia. In an early draft, she was actually a ballet dancer rather than an actress, and later on, she was performing in The Glass Menagerie. I changed things up because I wanted to use a play that I could pull text from without trouble. There’s a lot of water imagery and swimming pool scenes in Don’t Touch, so I’d been considering having Caddie play Ophelia when one of my writing advisors suggested it. I thought, this is some kind of kismet, and ran with it.

I was curious about Caddie’s relationship with her brother. Although he does not appear very often in the book, he is actually the person who helps her see her own irrational thinking. Did you do much free-writing on the relationship between these two? I almost felt like he could’ve had his own book, he felt so three-dimensional even though he has so few scenes.

That is lovely to hear. Thank you! The Jordan who appears in his first scene—his angry, acting-out self—showed up as is. I always saw him as someone Caddie would feel responsible to and be able to bounce ideas off of without fear of judgment, and I saw him as a foil to Caddie in that he’s acting out while she’s containing her feelings. Siblings are often in a unique position to give us feedback—they’re very close to us but not necessarily an authority or peer, and are pretty much contractually obligated to love us unconditionally. Or that’s what I tell my sister, anyway.

In revision with my editors, I brought out more of the positive relationship between Jordan and Caddie. In my mind, Jordan and Caddie were loving, but I didn’t show that much in early drafts. I’d cut an important scene between them for length that made its way back in—the one where they’re cooking together. I’m really glad my editors pushed me to soften Jordan’s edges and find the sibling love between the two.

Caddie’s gloves are a huge part of the story. Without giving too much away, did you always know you would use the gloves as a vehicle for Caddie’s OCD?

Not always, but very early. The novel used to open with a much younger Caddie on a road trip with her family, and the gloves were something she got away with wearing because she was a child. Later on, when I decided to cut those flashback scenes, I realized that it might be even more interesting for a teen to suddenly start wearing gloves. It’s more of a challenge for an older Caddie to explain.

Peter and Mandy both challenge and support Caddie and, really, see her through even as she pushes them away. Was it hard as an author to write a character who keeps pushing people away? Was it hard to prolong her suffering?

Well, I don’t know that it was hard. I can be pretty mean to my characters, and I think that came pretty naturally since that’s so true to my own experience with OCD as a kid. I had perceptive, involved parents and several close friends, and I still managed to hide what was going on with me for years. It is a frustrating part of Caddie’s character—frustrating to her and to her friends. The challenge was less about writing that aspect of Caddie and more about writing it without alienating and totally frustrating readers. I’ll leave it to individual readers to decide whether I’ve managed that. 

I haven’t read any other YA books on OCD; it seems like a really important topic to tackle in teen fiction. Have you read any other books that address this topic so directly?

Yes! Corey Ann Haydu’s OCD Love Story is wonderful and captures how odd and sometimes scary compulsions can be, and it spends time in group therapy sessions, which is really interesting. E. Lockhart’s Ruby Oliver series starting with The Boyfriend List doesn’t deal with OCD but has a great treatment of anxiety and panic attacks. Those are the ones I think of offhand, but I know there are some great ones I haven’t yet read.

What other projects are you working on currently?

About a month after Don’t Touch comes out, I’ll have an e-short story out with HarperTeen Impulse—“The Game of Boys and Monsters.” It’s a spooky, suspenseful story, and I’m working on a novel that’s spooky and suspenseful as well, but it’s still deep in the oven.

Is there anything else about the novel you would like us to know?

I guess I’d like people to know that while this book goes to some dark places, it does have humor. Life is funny, and humor breaks our guard down—it’s often the best entry point to difficult subjects.

And now for our “3 for 3” book-related questions:

1. What are three of your favorite books from childhood/teen years?

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg.

2. What are three books you’ve read recently that surprised you?

The Circle by Dave Eggers, Trent Reedy’s Divided We Fall, and Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

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

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Looking for Alaska by John Green, and All Rivers Flow to the Sea by Alison McGhee.

Rachel M. Wilson received her MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Don't Touch is her first novel. Originally from Alabama, she now writes, acts, and teaches in Chicago, Illinois.

You can find her at http://www.rachelmwilsonbooks.com

And more about the book here: 

http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062220936/dont-touch

If you're local to the area, please let the bookstore know if you would like to order Don't Touch. You can email orders to orders [at] bigbluemarblebooks [dot] com, call (215) 844-1870, or come see us at 551 Carpenter Lane, in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Young Writers Interview Author Lisa Graff

by Cordelia Jensen and Story Corners Writing Camp

During the last week of June, the bookstore hosted Story Corners Camp for Young Writers. Led by writer Cordelia Jensen, and intern Sarah Alden, the kids worked on creating Mt. Airy Musers, the new Kids Lit Journal for the neighborhood, worked on their own writing craft and had the chance to visit with two local authors. Lisa Graff, author of many books including Absolutely Almost and A Tangle of Knots, visited with us on Tuesday, June 24th. Lisa played a really fun game of Book Truth or Dare with the kids. And students also got to ask her questions, some of which are answered below. Here is our interview with the talented Lisa Graff: 

Q from Annie: How long does it take you to write a book?

It depends on the book. My longest book to write was Umbrella Summer, which took about three years. Absolutely Almost took the least amount of time of any book I’ve written so far—that one probably took about six months, from first draft to final revision. That’s very quick!

Q from Lucy: How many books have you written?

I’ve written seven middle-grade novels, and two young adult novels (I co-write my young-adult novels under the pen name Isla Neal. Those books are part of the Ever-Expanding Universe trilogy). In addition to that, I have another middle-grade novel, Lost in the Sun, coming out next year, as well as the last book in the trilogy of my YA series. I also have my very first picture book, It Is Not Time for Sleeping, coming out in 2016, and I’m working on new things all the time!

Q from Georgia: Why do you write kids’ books?

One of my favorite reasons to write children’s books is that children are really discerning about what they read. If they aren’t being forced to read a book for school, they’ll put it down as soon as it gets even the slightest bit boring. Adults don’t often do that. So I love that my books are held up to such a high standard—it keeps me on my toes as a writer.

Q from Sadie: How old were you when you started writing?

I started writing for fun when I was about eight years old. I didn’t really start writing seriously until I was twenty-one, when I moved to New York City to start graduate school for creative writing.

Q from Maggie: How do you pick the names for your characters?

Names come from all sorts of places. Sometimes I’ll name characters after someone I know, but usually the names are completely made up. I often get inspiration from baby name websites. I love trying to match names to characters—when I’ve found exactly the right name, the character’s personality seems to click perfectly into place.

Q from Mikaela: How much input do you get on your book covers?

Usually not much. For the most part, authors aren’t in charge of what goes on the covers of their books, which can seem unfair until you realize that the people at the publishing house who are in charge (designers, marketing teams) do that sort of thing for a living so they’re generally better at it than most authors would be.

Q from Julia: What’s the publishing process like?

It’s very complicated! But in a nutshell, if you are an author who has written a book, you first need to find an editor at a publishing house who wants to publish your book (often this step is accomplished with the help of an agent, but that’s a whole different story). After that, your editor will give you notes about big and small things you might change to make your story stronger. You may have to go through several rounds of this. Editing can take anywhere from a few months to over a year, depending on the book. When that stage is finished, the editor will do a line edit, which is a smaller edit, mostly looking at words you may have overused or that might be unclear. That can take anywhere from a few days to a month. Then the book goes to copyediting, where the magical person called the copyeditor checks all of your grammar and spelling and punctuation and checks for typos and continuity errors, and other things you and your editor may have missed in the billions of times you read the book (you’d be surprised what you can gloss over!). A book goes through several rounds of copyedits, although you the author may or may not see them all. Meanwhile, other people from the publishing house—designers, production people, publicists—get in on the action and start doing their various jobs, which include everything from making the book look pretty (both on the outside and the inside), and figuring out the logistics of turning an electronic document into a physical book (what sort of paper the book will be printed on, where it will be printed and how it will be shipped, etc.), to making sure booksellers have heard of the book before it comes out. It’s a lot of work! It typically takes a full year after a book has gone to copyediting for it to be officially published and available to the public.

Q from Liam: Why did you choose a character to have a peanut allergy in Double Dog Dare?

I have a brother with a peanut allergy, so it was something I knew a little bit about. Originally I just thought this would be an interesting character trait for Kansas’s little sister, but I later ended up turning it into a major plot point.

Q from Cordelia: The voice in Absolutely Almost is so strong; how did Albie first come to you? What did you know about him right away?

I’m not entirely sure where he came from—his was one of those voices that seemed to pop into my head from nowhere. He’s definitely not based on anyone in particular. Before I started writing, I really only knew that he wouldn’t be as smart as his peers, so his voice would sound very innocent at times, and that there would be several moments where the reader would understand a lot more than Albie did. It’s a challenge to write from the point of view of that sort of narrator, but it was a whole lot of fun too.

We had an awesome time with Lisa and thank her so much for visiting with us!

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

Author Interview: Jill Santopolo

by Cordelia Jensen

Hi Jill! Thanks for joining us on the Big Blue Marble Bookstore blog. We are also happy you will be participating in our Kids' Literary Festival as part of the Middle Grade roundtable event on Saturday, 5/17, at 3pm, at the store.

Here’s a bit about the Sparkle Spa series:

Making friends one sparkly nail at a time – a new series!

Sisters Aly and Brooke love spending time at their mom’s popular and successful nail salon—it’s their “home away from home.” At the end of another incredibly busy day, Mom complains she is completely overwhelmed at work, even more so by all the kids who come to have manis and pedis. 

That’s when the sisters have a brilliant idea: Why don’t they open up a mini nail salon just for kids within Mom’s store?

My favorite part of the series is how distinct Aly and Brooke are from each other but also how fiercely they’re both devoted to each other and the nail salon. Were Aly and Brooke’s characters clear in your head from the beginning or did they change at all? When you were a kid, were you more like one sister?

Aly and Brooke were both very much themselves from the start—I knew I wanted 
one sister who was super responsible and organized and practical and another who 
was extra creative and artistic and chaotic. But as the books progressed, I added 
to their characters, giving them favorite colors and likes and dislikes and physical 
attributes. I also, knew, though, that even though their personalities were pretty 
different, they would love each other—and the salon—fiercely, and that hasn’t 
changed at all. 

As a kid I was probably a little more like Aly. I was thoughtful and a pretty good 
rule-follower.

How much research did you do for this book? Did you come across new nail polishes you had never heard of before? Did you see any real dogs get their nails done?

The main research I did was attempting to polish my parents’ dog’s nails with 
special puppy nail polish. Sadie the dog was not too happy about it, and I ended up 
doing only two toenails before my sister convinced me to give up. 

The nail polish names in the book are all made up, but they’re based on the sort of 
polish names on the bottles in the nail salons near my apartment. I feel like new ones 
have arrived every time I stop by!

What was fun about writing these books? What was hard?

I had the most fun coming up with the nail polish names and the special manicures 
the girls do in the salon. And I think the hardest part was trying to get everything I 
wanted to write to fit into such a short book!

I like how the message in the series is that you can be a girl who is both “sparkly 
and strong.” As a mother of a sparkly and active sort of girl, I so appreciate this sentiment. I am assuming this was a very important piece for you to work into the story without wanting to seem heavy-handed?

Yes, it absolutely was. I feel like there’s a false dichotomy set up in society that 
says that either a girl can like princesses and sparkles (etc) or she can like sports 
and tree-climbing (etc). And part of why I wanted to write this book is to show that 
it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. I was a kid who climbed trees wearing 
sparkly party shoes and played soccer with ribbons in my hair. I want girls to know 
that they don’t have to choose—that they can embrace all sides of themselves.

Tell us a little about your other books and upcoming projects.

Well the next Sparkle Spa book is coming out in June. It’s called Makeover Magic 
and it’s about what happens when a new salon opens up across the street and Aly 
and Brooke have to fight to keep their customers for Auden Elementary’s Fall Ball. 
And then I’m also working on a series for teens called Follow Your Heart, in which 
each book has thirteen different endings to choose from and each reader can pick 
the one that’s right for her—or him. The first book, Summer Love, just came out 
a couple of weeks ago. And then there will be more Sparkle Spa and Follow Your 
Heart books to come in 2014 and 2015.

Is there anything else you would like us to know about the Sparkle Spa series or 
about you as an author?

I’m really happy to be coming to the Big Blue Marble Bookstore!

We are very excited to have you--here's a picture of my daughter Lily and her friends with one of the Rainbow Sparkle pedicures featured in the first book of the Sparkle Spa series:

And, lastly, our “3 for 3” book-related questions:

1. What were 3 of your favorite books when you were a child/teen? 
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson, Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, A Tree 
Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

2. What are 3 books you’ve read recently that surprised you? We Were Liars by 
E. Lockhart, I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson, Creativity Inc. by Ed 
Catmull 

3. What are 3 books that influence/d your writing? Kristy’s Big Idea by Ann M. 
Martin, Sunset Island by Cherie Bennett, Here’s To You Rachel Robinson by 
Judy Blume

Thanks! If you live in the Philly area come see Jill at the bookstore on Saturday, May 17th! She'll be part of a roundtable discussion with Shawn Stout, also interviewed here recently, and Kathleen Van Cleve, author of Drizzle.

Jill Santopolo is the author of the Sparkle Spa series, the Alec Flint mysteries and the Follow Your Heart books.  She's also an editor at Penguin Young Reader's Group and an MFA thesis advisor at The New School. You can visit her online at www.jillsantopolo.com or follow her on Twitter @JillSantopolo.

If you're local to the area, please let the bookstore know if you would like to order books from the Sparkle Spa, Follow Your Heart, or the Alex Flint series. You can email orders to orders [at] bigbluemarblebooks [dot] com, call (215) 844-1870, or come see us at 551 Carpenter Lane, in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Finally, join us in June for Cordelia's interview with Lisa Graff, author of many books including A Tangle of Knots and the new Absolutely Almost, both edited by the multi-talented Jill Santopolo! 

Author Interview: Skila Brown

by Cordelia Jensen

Today's interview is with Skila Brown, debut author. Her Middle Grade verse novel Caminar hit the shelves in March. It has received starred reviews from the Horn Book and School Library Journal. Here's a summary of the book:

Set in 1981 Guatemala, a lyrical debut novel tells the powerful tale of a boy who must decide what it means to be a man during a time of war.

Carlos knows that when the soldiers arrive with warnings about the Communist rebels, it is time to be a man and defend the village, keep everyone safe. But Mama tells him not yet—he’s still her quiet moonfaced boy. The soldiers laugh at the villagers, and before they move on, a neighbor is found dangling from a tree, a sign on his neck: Communist.

Mama tells Carlos to run and hide, then try to find her. . . . Numb and alone, he must join a band of guerillas as they trek to the top of the mountain where Carlos’s abuela lives. Will he be in time, and brave enough, to warn them about the soldiers? What will he do then? A novel in verse inspired by actual events during Guatemala’s civil war, Caminar is the moving story of a boy who loses nearly everything before discovering who he really is.

Thanks for joining us on the Big Blue Marble Bookstore blog, Skila! I just finished reading your beautiful book, Caminar. I had the privilege of reading an earlier version, which made the reading (and holding) of the final product that much more amazing. Your book has been receiving sensational reviews (no surprise), so, also, many congratulations on those.

Thank you for having me, Cordelia, and for those kind words. It’s an honor to be here!

What was your initial inspiration for this story? Tell us about how and where it began.

I’d spent ten years reading about the terrible violence in Guatemala, but I never had the intention of writing a story about it. I had several novels in draft form that I was writing, but nothing was really working. Shelley Tanaka, my writing mentor at the time, asked if there wasn’t something I cared more about. Wasn’t there some story I might have hidden away in my heart that I needed to put on the page instead? Turns out there was.

How did you make the decision for Carlos to be an only child? How did that seem integral to his journey?

I don’t remember ever considering a sibling for Carlos. In an earlier draft, he had a father who had been ‘disappeared’ by the Army, though I later whittled that away. I knew it was only Carlos and his mama in his family. I just had that feeling in my gut early on.

I really like the “animal spirit” theme in the book and how Carlos finds his own guide. It gives a sort of playful quality to the book which is, obviously, a serious book overall. Did you play around with a few animals before choosing one? Or was there always one?

It was always an owl. Long before I knew nahuales would make an appearance in the story, I had printed off a picture of an owl and taped it to my notebook. I thought of Carlos like the owl—always watching, perched in a tree, easy to pass over if you aren’t paying attention. It was only when he was literally in that tree and I knew he needed something to look at, something to focus on, that I realized it would be the owl.

Do you have an animal you feel spiritually connected to?

Jellyfish are my favorite animals on the planet. I could spend all day watching a jellyfish move through water. It’s mesmerizing and so calming.

My favorite part of your poetry style is the way you carve white space with your words. The shape of your poems so often reflect the imagery and/or content of the poem. Is this an energizing part of writing for you?

Yes! It’s so fun. I don’t think about shape when I’m drafting a poem; it’s only in revision that I start to play with space and stanza. And that’s always my favorite part.

What draws you to the verse novel form in general?

There’s no fluff in a verse novel. It’s potent, sparse language that cuts to the heart of the emotion without wasting words. I like that novels in verse are accessible to a wide range of readers. They can be a fast page-turner for the reluctant reader or a slow story to savor for someone else. They often leave things unsaid, making it digestible for a wide range of ages.

Anything else you would like us to know about this book?

I’ve had more than one person ask me if this story is really appropriate for a ten-year old child. The answer is a resounding yes. It’s about a tragedy, yes, but it’s also about growing up, facing fears, figuring out the right thing to do. The violence in the story happens off-screen and without graphic detail. I’d encourage teachers and parents to read this first, if they have doubts that a particular reader is ready for the story, but I think we need to give kids the credit they're due. They can handle more than we realize. And stories about survival can be a reassurance for a child reader.

Any other upcoming projects?

I have two books forthcoming with Candlewick—a second novel in verse out next year and a picture book collection of poetry about sharks out in 2016.

And now for our “3 for 3” book-related questions. What were 3 of your favorite books when you were a child/teen?

I was a huge fan of Shel Silverstein and read to my kids now from the dog-eared copy of A Light in the Attic that I had as a child. I read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret at least a dozen times as a kid. And I’m fairly certain I owned the entire Sweet Valley High collection. (I was Elizabeth – wishing I were Jessica.)

What are 3 books you have read recently that surprised you?

I am always surprised by books because I never read summaries or jacket flaps or even blurbs—I just open them up and dive right in, not knowing what to expect at all. Recently, I loved Amy Timberlake’s One Came Home. The tone of the story was such a surprise to me as it wasn’t what I expected from the cover. P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia surprised me because it’s so rare to find a sequel even better than its predecessor. Finally, I’ll have to go with Two Boys Kissing. Just when I think David Levithan can’t get any more brilliant, he goes and writes another piece of spectacular.

What are 3 books that influence/d your writing?

Only three?! That seems incredibly unfair. The first three that pop into my head are: George Ella Lyon’s Where I’m From, Katherine Applegate’s Home of the Brave, and Encounter by Jane Yolen (illustrated by David Shannon.)

 Thanks, Skila!

Skila Brown holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in Kentucky and Tennessee, lived for a bit in Guatemala, and now resides with her family in Indiana. Caminar is her first novel. You can find her at www.skilabrown.com

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

Next up on 5/13: Jill Santopolo, author of the new Sparkle Spa series.