Author Corner

Jill Alexander

Music lifts me. Nothing inspires me and my work like a windows-down, tunes-up drive on a long stretch of highway – hair flying in the wind, sun beating down. So get in, buckle up, and let’s ride with my Hammer-down, Fifth-Gear Essentials.

“Holiday” by Madonna: Old school upbeat. Gets the party started every time. I saw Madonna in concert back in the day. And yes, I wore lace as outerwear and layered my crosses and pearls.

“Wide Open Spaces” by The Dixie Chicks: The best coming of age anthem EVER! Who doesn’t need room to make the big mistakes?

“Who Says You Can’t Go Home” by Bon Jovi: One of the great themes of Americana is that place defines us. Good and bad, home lingers deep down. I spent several drives with the boys from Jersey cranked while writing PARADISE.

“Wild-Eyed Southern Boys” by .38 Special: A little cra-zayzay throwback to some outlaw country and Southern rock. Makes me smile.

“Carry On” by Pat Green: I listen to this when I’m done (as in had-it-up-to-here done) because it’s less expensive than breaking crystal. For those times when you just want to get away, move on. This song gets a mention in PARADISE.

“Fine” by Mary J. Blige: Best self-confidence affirming line – “I got my vibe right and I ain’t gonna let you steal it.” I turn that waaaay up. Definitely on THE SWEETHEART OF PROSPER COUNTY’s playlist.

“Champion” by Darwin Hobbs: Even my wild side gets spiritual.

Jessica Brody

The Top 5 Misconceptions about Jessica Brody…Corrected:

Sadly, I am not related to Adam Brody…or Adrian Brody for that matter. (Trust me, I’ve looked into the situation.)
Despite the storyline of my debut young adult novel, The Karma Club, I’ve never sought revenge on an ex-boyfriend (Why? Who have you been talking to?)
Even though I live in Los Angeles and work as a writer, my life is far from glamorous (I own more pairs of sweat pants than a Juicy Couture Factory and yes, I’m wearing one of them right now.)
I have absolutely zero fashion sense (see misconception number 4) and my sister who is a professional wardrobe stylist has to “dress” all my characters before the books go to print.
I was not a big reader growing up. My mother used to devise complicated mind games to get me to pick up a book. (She probably should have just tried bribing me.)

Jessica Brody is the author of THE KARMA CLUB and the forthcoming, MY LIFE UNDECIDED (out June 2010). She currently lives in Los Angeles where she is working on her next novel. Visit her online at: www.JessicaBrody.com.

Harry Edge

1. Why do you write under a pseudonym?
I have a past life that I prefer to keep secret. You’d understand if I told you, but it’s never a good idea to share secrets with strangers. In other words, I’m taking the fifth amendment.

2. Who are your writing influences?
Lewis Carroll, John Le Carre, Ed McBain and Mark Twain. They all wrote under pseudonyms too. You should try making up your own. It’s fun.

3. Where did you get the idea for ‘Spray’?
I read a newspaper story about a city wide water pistol assassination game called ‘Street Wars’. I’ve always been fascinated by assassination games and love making up my own rules for games. Also, I’d just given up on the idea of writing a non-fiction book about water that a publisher friend asked me to do. I had all of this information and analysis in my head about water shortages and water wars but I couldn’t think of an original way to write the book. Then I read that newspaper article and thought ‘I know. A novel!’ A Eureka moment, except that, unlike Archimedes, I wasn’t getting into a bath when I had it.

4. Do you own a water pistol?
I have three Super Soakers and a little red water pistol that I got free with a copy of UK comic, ‘The Beano’. The latter features at an important point in ‘Spray’. Unfortunately, one of my nephews dropped it last year, so now the thing leaks. That means I can’t take it on an author tour with me and shoot my readers. Come to think of it, if I went on an author tour it would blow my pseudonym. People might realise that I’m really (deleted by publisher). Also, if I put a water pistol in my luggage it might get me into trouble at airport security. I think I’ll stick to playing with water pistols in my back garden at home.

5. Have you got any advice for young writers?
That’s a question I have to answer seriously. Read as much as you can, as widely as you can. Write regularly. Keeping a journal is good. Carrying a notebook is an excellent idea. But once you start writing stories (or poems, or screenplays) that you want to share, remember that most writing is rewriting. If you can’t be bothered to keep revising a draft until there isn’t a word that doesn’t do exactly what you want it to do, you’re unlikely to be a successful writer.

Lesley Hauge

When I started to write NOMANSLAND I wanted to write something that would convey some of the complexities of feminism to teenage girls living in the so-called “post-feminist” era. I wanted to subtly indicate how the repression of women is still very much embedded in our culture, right down to our own creation myths such as the Pandora myth and the Adam and Eve story, then rising up through the layers of history to surface in the form of modern-day consumer advertising, pornography and magazine spreads. The message always is this: that women and girls are primarily valuable because of their sexuality—other than that they are trouble. They deserve to be punished and need to be kept down. These messages have not gone away. Perhaps something worse has happened. The consumer juggernaut has co-opted the feminist idea of real empowerment, hard won by women everywhere, and peddles ‘girl power’ back to us via narcissistic, festishized caricatures of sexuality that sell sexiness as power, sexiness as the sole source of identity.

But NOMANSLAND is a novel, and a novel is not a jeremiad. I wanted to find a way to present these ideas so that readers could see them afresh. I wanted to tempt them into exploring or re-examining their own ideas. I decided to make an off-center world. I created a dystopian society of women alone, strong women who have had to start anew in a precarious, ruined world, trying to create something that was truly theirs—free of oppressive religious myths and free of the consumer myths of ‘sexiness’. But over time these noble ideas have soured into a warped, joyless dogma. It is a life that has lost any sense of celebration or individuality or aesthetic pleasure. In short, it has lost any sense of fun—or love. And, like the societies gone before, it too is failing. It has descended into hypocrisy, and that other form of repression: women repressing other women. When the teenage girls of this austere NOMANSLAND world find a hidden house filled with the fascinating baubles and images of our consumer era, what are they to think? They know that the society that made the objects has failed, leaving behind a ravaged world … and yet there’s all this gorgeous, shiny stuff! What does it signify? Why do they feel the urge to own it, pore over it, adorn themselves with it and ultimately the urge to compete with each other in a beauty contest?

My hope is that a reader might then also wonder: “If I could look back on my own society from this vantage point, what would I make of it? If I had never seen such things before, what on earth would I make of a pair of high-heeled shoes, or makeup, or a mirror? What is good about the world we have made? And what kinds of flaws might doom a society, including my own?”

Five questions: a Super Short Interview with Lish McBride

Lish McBride

1. So Lish, in your book, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, your main character, Sam, finds out he can raise the dead. A lot of people don’t even know what a necromancer is which begs the question, are you just trying to sound smart?
Yes, yes I am.

2. I’m glad we cleared that up. I hear that writers sometimes put pieces of themselves in their characters. How much of you is in Sam?
I’m not sure. He’s much nicer than I am. Also, I’m not a young man…yet. However, I think we both mean well, and he’s almost as awkward as I am. We’re both vegetarian, and I’m pretty sure I could raise the dead if I really put my mind to it. If you were to turn us into a Venn diagram, I think our overlapping bits would equal about fifteen percent. (Show your work.)

3. Tell us something else about yourself.
I hate the sound of people brushing their teeth.

4. If you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?
A carnivorous pony. And a taco.

5. You do realize that you’ve been interviewing yourself, which means you’ve been talking to yourself for a few minutes now. Does this worry you?
Absolutely. I’ve actually been looking up local psychiatrists while we’ve been talking. I’m nothing if not a multitasker.

Alyson Noël

The Q&A in which I live out my Vanity Fair fantasy and tackle 5 questions from the Proust Questionnaire under the guise of a “bio.”

1. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Soggy asparagus. It’s heartbreaking to look at and horrid to eat!

2. Your favorite occupation?
Daydreaming, which, by the way, is a perfectly valid and integral part of any author’s day. Just sayin’.

3. What is your favorite bird?
The hawk that patrols the canyon behind my house—he is the epitome of breath-stealing beauty in action.

4. What is your principle defect?
A propensity toward extreme giddiness that has been known to appear without notice.

5. What is your dream of happiness?
To live in a world of tolerance, love, compassion, abundance, and peace. A place where the sun always shines, birds always chirp, animals frolic, illness is eradicated, rainbows are plentiful, and the landscape is an exact replica of the Candyland game I played as a child.

Caragh M. O’Brien

Caragh M. O'Brien

When asked to write a bio, I feel like I’m impersonating someone important and probably dead. The truth is, I’m a lucky girl who grew up in a loving home, made it through school, married someone great and started my own family. All the stuff about nuns, sandbox spiders, Alateen, my dog dying, volleyball and squash, the bakery, capsizing on Lake Nipigon, physics, singing in Ferrara, childbirth, teaching, scuba diving, and my first kiss slides into the deep background when I sit on my couch, imagining. These days, I’m nudging the first inchoate ideas of Book 3 in the Birthmarked series, and just now I’m writing this bio. Poison ivy itches on my left arm, I’m wearing my dad’s soft blue sweater, it’s raining quietly outside my open window, and when I finish this, I’ll go eat some cereal.

Mary Pearson

Mary’s Top Ten Infrequently Asked Questions:

1. What was your most embarrassing moment as a teen?
I had a brand new bikini made out of terry cloth. I had just arrived at a pool with a bunch of friends and decided to dive in first. I dove right out of my bikini bottoms. Completely out. They were floating in the pool behind me! I never stopped to think that terry cloth would soak up the water as soon as I hit it. Needless to say, I never wore that suit again.

2. What’s your ringtone?
Classical Gas. I always want my phone to ring just so I can hear it.

3. Have you ever faked a bad connection to end a call?
Guilty as charged.

4. Have you ever stolen anything?
A book when I was four years old. I was so intently reading it, my parents didn’t realize I walked right out of the store with it. They took me back and paid for it.

5. Would you ever do Karaoke?
Only if I wanted to be very cruel.

6. What is the most unusual food you’ve ever eaten?
Cow intestines. I will try just about anything once, but I won’t be trying those again.

7. Do you have any irrational fears?
I tend to hold my breath when I cross bridges over water. This can be a problem when crossing long bridges.

8. Which super power would you want to have?
Flying without a doubt!

9. What’s the freakiest thing that’s ever happened to you?
I stayed at a 800 year old inn in Italy with my family and we were visited during the night by a ghost. The innkeepers called him The General.

10. What’s your worst habit?
Laughing at inopportune moments. The minute I know I shouldn’t laugh, it’s hard for me not to. My husband has already told me that I can’t come to his funeral.

Léna Roy

5 things you’d never know about me from my picture, and only one of them is false. Which one?

I went on a date with Jon Bon Jovi when I was a senior in high school.
I never was a cheerleader, but tried to be one on TV.
I lie around on my bed all day with my laptop and favorite assortment of chocolates.
I have a tattoo of a tiger on my back shoulder.
My five year old daughter has better fashion sense than me.

Did you guess which one is false? I WISH that I could lie on my bed all day and eat chocolates!

Mark Shulman

Mark Shulman has been a camp counselor, a radio announcer, a maitre d’ in a fancy restaurant, a New York City tour guide, and a creative advertising guy. He’s written many books about many things—sharks, storms, robots, palindromes, gorillas, dodo birds, Star Wars, Ben Franklin, how to hide stuff, how to voodoo your enemies, and how to make a video from start to finish. He’s written picture books for Oscar de la Hoya (the boxer) and Shamu (the whale). Mark is from Rochester and Buffalo, New York, but he has lived in New York City for so very long that he tawks like he’s from da Bronx. So do his kids. His wife Kara, a grade school reading specialist, has perfect diction.

Alexander Gordon Smith

How did you come to write this series, and what was the writing process like for you?

It was intense! The series originally came about because I wanted to write a horror book for teenagers, something really chilling and action-packed. In order to make the book as scary as possible I wanted to write about some of my own worst fears, and the idea of an underground prison full of monsters began to form. Being buried alive is a horrific thought, but being buried alive in a place where bloodthirsty beasts roam, and having literally no place to run, or no way to defend yourself, is so much worse. It gives me goosebumps now just thinking about it. If an author writes about something he or she finds terrifying, then it gives that book an edge—even if it leads to a few sleepless nights!

But writing Furnace became something more than this. Shortly after I had started planning the book, we had a tragedy in the family. Furnace Penitentiary ended up representing, even becoming, this dark period in my life, and I was Alex (we even had exactly the same name in the first draft). Our stories were totally different, of course, but we were in the same situation. I knew that if Alex couldn’t find a way out of Furnace, then I wouldn’t be able to move on from this part of my life. This really does give the book an edge, I think, because his panic and fear and hope really is my panic and fear and hope. I’m not going to tell you whether he makes it out or not, though! I finished the book in three weeks of intense, white-hot, non-stop writing, it really was an incredible experience!

Kristina Springer

As for me and my husband– we met around 12 years ago and it was very You’ve Got Mail, but this was all before the Match.com. I randomly sent him an IM and we started chatting. I was in college at the time, and up late talking to my best friend from home on; she kept slowing down with her writing because she was also IM-ing on the side with some guy! I had complained that she was ignoring me and she said “well you talk to someone too!” – she searched (there was some way to search in AOL back then) “Chicago male who likes poetry” (or something like that) and then gave me his handle. I IMed him and we started chatting. Then the next night and so on. When I went home one weekend we met and went to a coffee shop as a first date. I remember he ordered a triple shot of espresso and I thought to myself, whoa that’s hot (that’s how I got the idea that Jane in Espressologist would think Will was so hot ordering his triple shot espresso.). He’s perfect for me! All of our dates then and through now after being married ten years have started or ended in a coffee shop. We love our coffee drinks. And even when we got married and were on a carriage ride through the downtown area we pulled the carriage over at a Starbucks and got drinks. We’re silly like that.

Greg Taylor

Exclamation points. I know the rule. Don’t use too many of them. Thus, when a reader of Killer Pizza, my debut novel, suggested in a review on a teen website that someone should take away my (!) key, I was listening. At the time I was rewriting the KP sequel, Killer Pizza: The Slice, so I took an extra hard look to see if some of the pesky, offensive (!)’s could be eliminated. It was possible that I had been too much under the influence of my childhood literary heroes, the great Stan Lee, the prolific “Franklin W. Dixon”, when I wrote KP and its sequel. (Not to mention The Girl Who Became A Beatle, which is being published by Feiwel and Friends on Feb. 15)

My decision? Keep the exclamation points! I don’t deny my literary enthusiasm sometimes translates into an exclamation point or two (or three) as I work on my books. That said, I took special care while rewriting TGWBAB and KPs 1&2 to make sure I didn’t smooth out the exuberance that peppered my original drafts to the point where that initial enthusiasm gave way to a more measured approach. I’d rather err on the side of “uber- zestiness”.

The bottom line is I’m keeping my (!) key, thank you very much. As a precaution, I’m going to hide that wonderfully expressive 10/16th of an inch square key in a safe place between writing sessions. I wouldn’t want the EPP (c’mon, that’s an easy one) to sneak into my house and take it away some night when I’m sleeping. That would be very upsetting to me!!!

Did Greg Taylor use too many exclamation points on his website? Visit gregtaylorwriter.com to find out!

Heather Tomlinson

Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved fairy tales. Seven questions for Heather Tomlinson, author of Toads and Diamonds, Aurelie: A Faerie Tale, and The Swan Maiden.

1. We’re guessing you grew up in an enchanted cottage and had to follow a trail of bread crumbs through the forest when your woodcutter parents abandoned you?
The forest part is correct. My parents are teachers and we lived in rural New Hampshire, at the end of a dirt road. The woods around us always seemed magical to me. I spent a lot of time reading there in the summer and fall. Winter was too cold, and spring too mosquito-y.

2. And you knew that your destiny was to write fantasy novels?
I knew I liked to read fantasy novels. The writing part came later in life, after I’d worked a number of different jobs: waitressing, teaching, night operator for a telephone service… When a move to Los Angeles meant losing my job with a book distribution company, I took the opportunity to enroll in writing classes and start a novel.

3. Which practically wrote itself?
I wish! No, it took six years and completing three “practice” novels before The Swan Maiden caught an editor’s eye.

4. Did you face any dragons on the way to publication?
I think many of a writer’s “dragons” are internal: the fear that your book will suck, that no one will be interested in what you have to say, that you won’t figure out how to slog through the mushy mess in the middle of your first draft. Fortunately, the YA world is super-supportive. My critique group members are all writers on the same quest, and we’ve banded together for mutual support and encouragement.

5. What about a fairy godmother?
Actually, my publisher fields a whole team of them. My editor and her colleagues take an e-mailed computer file and turn it into a book! With that kind of magic, who needs glass slippers or pumpkin coaches?

6. So now you live in a castle with your minions?
In 2006, my husband and I sold the castle—er, house—and moved onto a 48-foot sailboat in Mexico. We sailed Adventure to southern California with our three cats. Two of which, it turns out, get seasick. That was a fun discovery. However, X, Y, and Z make excellent writer’s aids. It’s easy to keep working as long as you have a purring cat on your lap.

7. And you’re all living happily ever after?
That’s the plan! Writing and reading—I couldn’t ask for a better job.