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So many interviews, I can’t keep this list up to date. Google
my name or the book(s) you’re interested in to find the most recent
interviews. Others include:
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QUESTIONS FROM
READERS
Dude,
are you gay?
Some readers
phrase this question delicately: “I notice how you mention your partner and
stuff. Are you lesbian? It won’t affect anything. I’m just curious.” Yes, I am
gay and/or lesbian. (Does that make me twice as queer?) “When did I know?” you
ask. The moment I fell in love with a girl. I think I always knew; just never
acknowledged it. It’s been a journey. You know how arduous the journey is if
you’re going through your own coming out process. Today, I’m out and proud and
I still love that girl. (We’ve been together thirty + years. I wish I could say
we met in kindergarten J.)
When
are you going to write a sequel to Keeping
You a Secret, Luna, Define “Normal”…?
Rashelle wrote: “I love this book [Define “Normal”], it is so interesting,
even if there were 30 sequels which would take me about a couple of years to
read, I would eventually get them done even though I really do not like to
read.” Not to worry, Rashelle. No sequels are in the
works for any of my books. I’m not a huge fan of sequels. They rarely stack up
to the original, IMO. The magic of that first read is never quite recaptured in
the sequel/prequel/trilogy, and as a writer, I can never be sure what it was
about my book that captivated a reader in the first place. Was it the
characters? The story? Some small
detail that held personal significance? And I worry, if that element
isn’t present in the sequel, will the reader be disappointed? I never want to
disappoint readers. I’m flattered by the number of people who ask for sequels
to my books because I think it means the characters I created came to life for
them, and they care about what happens to these people after the end of the
story.
Readers, I’ll leave that to your imaginations. Wait for my next
book. I promise it’ll be exciting, surprising, original, gritty, and stylistically
familiar. There are so many incredible, wonderful, extraordinary books out
there to read, I hope your enthusiasm for my work will encourage you to search
out great books by other authors.
When
are your books going to be made into movies?
It’s not up to
me whether my books make it to the big screen. A producer has to option the
film rights through my literary agent, and then it takes gobs of money and
time. I’m not particularly eager for my books to become movies because
seriously, have you seen some of the movies that are produced from books? Ugh.
It scares me that my hard work might end up in someone’s garage sale as a “box
of b-rated Blue Rays for a buck.”
Where do you get your ideas for books?
I wish I had a
supplier. Some shady character I’d hook up with in the dead of night. Slick,
that’d be his name. Or Jimmy. His beady eyes would
dart around as he slipped an envelope out of his trenchcoat
and snuck it to me in exchange for… what? Not money. Ideas are a dime a dozen.
Where would I find time to work on a dozen ideas?
The mystery surrounding ideas is, I think, how they’re turned
into stories. Good question. The answer is, I have no
idea.
Ideas come from
everywhere. They come out of nowhere. They arrive — thud — in your brain. All
of a sudden you wonder why you’re obsessing about those smelly old sneakers you
wore to death when you were nine. How, despite your mother’s advice, you
insisted on wearing shoes without socks. You wore them until they were holey
and shredded and dirt-streaked and grass-stained and SMELLY. The reek of stinky
feet is one memorable odor.
You remember you’ve been wanting to
write a story about cheating. You know that cheating is a moral issue kids have
to deal with almost daily. Not only kids. Are there enough crooks in accounting
firms and on congressional committees? Geesh. Cheating
is an issue. Everybody cheats, don’t they? There’s a fine line between cheating
and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves. Isn’t there? I
mean, how often have we justified cheating by calling it “creative
interpretation of the rules?” Or the law.
Out of nowhere this kid appears in your head. Earl. He’s not a
cheater; he always plays by the rules. He’ll grow up to be the most honest CEO
this country’s ever seen. Earl’s a hero. His best friend, Damian, he’s another
story. Damian doesn’t have a problem with cheating. As long as it doesn’t hurt
anybody, why not play to your advantage? That’s Damian’s philosophy. There’s
this contest. Yeah, a stinky sneakers contest.
Would it be worth cheating in a contest if it cost you your best
friend? Or your self-respect?
The
genesis of a story about cheating and its consequences. My first
book, The Stinky Sneakers Contest,
derived from memories, moments, and disconnected thoughts. So many books do.
Ideas collide in my brain and characters appear. They shout, “Write about me!”
Luna. She showed up one night in a visitation. She said, “Write about me.”
Everyone seems to think you have to be a genius to come up with
the stories that make it into books. A genius would figure out that her feet
wouldn’t stink so bad if she wore socks. Your lives
are rich with story ideas. You have to be open to them, go with them, recognize
and acknowledge them when they appear. No one has a corner on imagination.
Ordinary lives yield extraordinary stories. Your life is worthy of being
recorded and shared. Live it. Remember it. Write it down. Develop the skills to
become a good storyteller. You may never get a book published, but amazing and
astounding discoveries about yourself and others are made when you write.
How
long have you been writing?
Since
September 30, 1989. Does that sound like a joke? I quit my job the day I decided to
be a writer. Yes, I was insane. I’d never written a word of anything in my
life. Even worse, as a child I was your classic reluctant reader. I hated
reading; it was boring and lame and meant for nerds like my brother. I didn’t
get turned onto reading until I was in junior high, and then only by accident.
I stumbled onto a book that opened my eyes, and my heart, to what reading could
be about: Self-affirmation, validation, adventures of the mind. Books were
thought-provoking, intellectually stimulating, emotionally wrenching,
laugh-out-loud funny, life changing, painful. (I love it when a book hurts.)
I’m not so crazy about how much life has to hurt, or how we deliberately hurt
each other. But that’s something to write about.
How
did you get started?
Maybe this question should be, Why did
I ever start? Didn’t I recognize I was (1) inherently unqualified to be a
writer, and (2) a hopeless case? Well, no. That’s why ignorance is bliss. Two
things propelled me toward writing: (1) the desire to never work again, and (2)
the voices in my head. One voice in particular – the voice of a 13-year-old
girl named Casey Shannon. I didn’t know anyone named Casey Shannon. But she was
talking to me, telling me about her life. Casey was having problems with her
best friend, Vickie Anselli. Who? And
this other girl, Skye Cunningham. Who were these people? Casey was
agonizing over her friends, her family, her sense of
who she was, and where she was headed in life. That last part I could relate
to. My head began to fill with Casey’s voice. I figured I had two choices: (1)
commit myself to a mental institution for some serious shock therapy, or (2)
figure out a way to help Casey, to free her, release her. Release me. Maybe if
I wrote it down…? Transferred the voices onto paper? Was that possible?
I searched around the house for writing paper and the only thing
I could find was a Big Chief tablet. It was yellowed and wilted, curling at the
ends. I scared up a crusty old Bic. Then I wrote down
what Casey was telling me. Day after day, she’d lay out her life. Geesh, this
girl was a blabber. I was writing, sure, but I wasn’t a writer. I had no
writing skills. I began my real journey to becoming a writer by reading. Over
the next several months, I checked out most of the young adult and children’s
collection at my local library. The periodicals, too.
I read as a writer, analyzing structure, language, style. I studied how authors
breathed life into their characters and stories, how plots were built, how
pacing and timing were incorporated, how the author’s voice spoke through their
characters, and how it connected the writer with the reader. I identified
authors whose writing I most admired, whose voices I loved, and read their
entire bodies of work. Barbara Park, Chris Crutcher,
Betsy Byars. Sarah Dessen,
M.E. Kerr, Richard Peck. Paul Zindel,
James Marshall, Harry Allard, Ellen Conford, Cynthia Rylant — too many great writers to name. I practiced
and practiced and wrote and wrote and cringed and winced and wondered why I
ever thought I could do this. I was horrible. What a hack.
After stumbling around on my own for a while, I discovered there
were books written by authors on how to write books — duh. Also
how to submit work for publication. Since I didn’t know what I was doing
or where this so-called writing would lead me, I wrote all kinds of things:
Casey’s story, yes, but also short stories, articles, essays, educational
activities, long novels, short novels, picture books, emergent readers. I
submitted all the stuff that didn’t make me gag, and after about six months my
work began to sell, first to children’s and YA magazines, then happily to
Little, Brown Books for Children.
Little, Brown never did publish Casey’s story. But Willowisp Press did. Casey became Kacie. Vickie stayed
Vickie, and Skye was trouble. Risky
Friends was released in 1993.
I still write on Big Chief paper. I go through about a hundred Bics a year. Every time I silence one voice in my head,
another screams out, “Write about me!”
What
is your favorite book that you wrote?
It’s not Risky Friends. I read that book now and
hurl. I wasn’t a very good writer yet. I always hesitate to answer this
question honestly because, well, the truth is by the time a book is published I
will have been working on it for up to five years. I will have read it at least
a hundred times, gone over every word, sentence, paragraph, and scene dozens
and dozens of times. I’ll have savaged and brutalized the manuscript for
character consistency, authenticity, story believability, truth. I will have
read it aloud for cadence and pacing, played the dialogue out in my mind over
and over, usually at three in the morning. Each and every page will have been
tweaked and honed and spit and polished. Spit again. Spit upon. The manuscript
will have undergone critique by my critique group, been revised, revamped, read
by my agent, my editor, yeahed
or nayed, FedExed or
e-mailed back and forth for months and months. Even up to the last proof, the
final galley, I’m substituting more current cultural references and fixing,
fixing, fixing. By the time a book is published, I’m so sick of it I just want
to bury it with military honors. Forget the honors. Pitch it in a sinkhole.
The book I’m most interested in is always the one I’m
writing at the moment. I’m so into that book, I never want it to end. For a
year I’m living and breathing those characters, that story. Of course, this is
the book I’m least willing to talk about. It’s too new, too private, too close
to me. Plus, it might suck.
Every book I
write has a personal connection. I’m a lesbian, living a love story (Keeping You a Secret); I’m a vegetarian
(Love Me, Love My Broccoli); I
competed in spelling bees as a kid (How
Do You Spell G-e-e-k?). I had guinea pigs for pets, and my sister was a
compulsive gambler (B.J.’s Billion-Dollar
Bet. Talk about unrelated events.). I was overweight at one time, and I’ve
always had strange and wonderful friends (The
Snob Squad). I’ve felt alone, alienated, judged, judgmental of others; I’ve
always harbored a secret desire to dye my hair pink (Define “Normal”). At the core of every story there is a part of me or
my life reflected. I’d like to believe that the passion and love I put into my
books is what will ultimately resonate with readers. I’d like to think, too,
that my work creates a deep, emotional bond between us.
Why
do you use bad words in your books? Why do you write about controversial
topics?
The first time
I got the question about language it threw me because I didn’t remember using
objectionable language. I’ve since come to realize that “objectionable” carries
a wide range of definitions. Bad words, hmm. Would those be crap and butt (in
the Snob Squad series)? Or bitch and slut (in Define
“Normal”)? The sh
word or the F word or the offending word of the day in my older YA books? I
don’t use these words myself (much). The people in my books do. They’re real to
me. They speak their minds, and I never censor them. I think it’s important if
you’re writing realistic fiction to be RE-AL-IS-TIC, to represent the society
we live in. I’m not the thought police. I’m the reason thought police exist. I
suppose if I lived in a monastery, my characters would speak more softly. Wait.
Would they speak at all? I don’t appreciate books that water down language, or
tiptoe around the truth, or refuse to speak to us at a human level. They bore
me. As authors we must be brave and bold and true. Incensed parents, stop
writing to me.
How much money do you make?
You can figure
it out. An author makes ten percent of the retail price on every book sold. So,
if one of my books sells for $16.00, I make ______ (fill in the blank). Correct, $1.60. My agent gets fifteen percent of that, which
is about a quarter. Take out taxes of say, another twenty, twenty-five percent
(I’m not even in the thirty percent bracket), and I get approximately a buck a
book. Math test: How many books would Julie have to sell to make enough money
to pay her share of the mortgage and heat and phone and Internet provider and
still have enough left over to eat?
People who
write for young readers do it out of love. Period.
We’re hungry a lot of the time.
How
long does it take to get a book published?
From the idea stage to the arrival of that first hardcover copy,
which my editor ties in a ribbon with a congratulatory note (because she’s as
glad to get it off her desk as I am), anywhere from two to five years. I
think my fastest book, Luna, took the
typical year to research and write, six months to anguish over and ditz around
with details, and another year to publish. Two and a half years. You get really
old, really fast in this business.
What advice would you give to aspiring
writers?
My advice to
young writers, to writers of all ages, is to dig deep within yourselves and
reveal your truths. Have the faith to believe that your voice speaks for many;
that what you say out loud, in writing, may resound in a silent, or silenced,
person’s heart. Write honestly and fearlessly, even when your words invite
censorship or controversy. Respect and honor your readers. Your advocates, too:
the librarians, teachers, publishing professionals, friends, family, and fellow
writers who have helped you to learn and grow and fly. Whatever you do, whether
you write or draw or sing or simply work hard at a job you love, make your life
count for something.
I FORGOT.
READ. Readreadreadreadread. If you want to be a writer, you have to read. You have to
love to read. You have to familiarize yourself with the genre of literature you
want to write. And READ.
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Peters
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