Author Interview: Sara Zarr & Once Was Lost

It is my absolute pleasure to be hosting Sara Zarr today for a second interview at Shelf Elf, this time to chat about her latest YA novel, Once Was Lost. Welcome Sara!

If you had to sell Once Was Lost in a sentence, what would be your teaser?

Thank God I don’t have to sell books on one sentence, because I’m terrible at this, but:
When a local tragedy overlaps with a series of personal tragedies in the life of a pastor’s daughter, she begins to question everything she was once sure of.

I’d like to know more about the origin of the title, Once Was Lost. How did you come to choose this phrase from Amazing Grace for the title and in what ways do you think it resonates with the book as a whole?

There was actually quite a little scramble to get a title in time for the book to go in my publisher’s catalog. I think we had two or three days to settle on it. My working title had been Home Enough, from the line, “I’m home enough to know I’m lost,” from a Jars of Clay song. It didn’t really work as a title, ultimately. I put the word out to almost everyone I know to help me title this thing. I talked about heat, home, desert, resurrection, broken things, missing people, mystery, youth group, family. I mentioned that I’d thought maybe there could be a line from a hymn that would work. There were hours of brainstorming, and brainstorming always involves blurting out some good-but-wrong-for-this-book and also, shall we say, less than perfect ideas. Some of the more amusing (to me) rejected titles: The Good Samara, Home Is Where the Hurt Is, On the Blink, Story of Another Girl.

About 45 seconds before I had to call my editor to really settle on something, my friend and writer Tara Altebrando emailed me the title Once Was Lost and it just immediately felt right. I think it felt right because 1) it’s poetic without being overwrought, 2) it’s from a fairly recognizable Christian hymn, which worked at the level of the story being narrated by a girl steeped in church culture, and 3) so many people in the book are lost—not just Jody, the missing girl, but Sam, her father, her mother, and all of the people trying to make sense of tragedy. It also implies the second part of the line, “but now am found,” and suggests that there might be some hope.

Sam is caught in a real period of turmoil in this story, and I think that a lot of teens will connect to her sense of being lost. She says, “This is different than doubt. This is something I’ve never felt before, a total absence of whatever it is that’s made me who I am, on the inside, all my life.” Do you think that this kind of crisis tends to fundamentally change who you are, or just bring you closer to who you’ve always been, your true self?

I think it can go either way, and I think it can happen at a number of different points during a life. We’re always going through this process of shedding things and picking up other things, and always changing. At least, that’s kind of how I see life and our job in life. We’re not made of stone, we’re never “finished,” and there’s always something to work on. Young adult fiction is so often about firsts—this just happens to be about one person’s first dark night of the soul.

You describe yourself as someone with “sincere but conflicted” religious faith. I wonder how much you identify with Sam, her questioning and doubt? Also, if you could give advice on faith to Sam at any point in your novel, what do you think would be the most important thing you’d want to say to her?

I identify with Sam a lot. I’ve definitely gone through periods of hopelessness and anger, when I’ve felt like I was shouting into the void and getting only silence in return, or coming up against the same brick wall over and over and nothing would give. I’ve been through other times when my faith has felt very real to me, and I’m sure of everything and have these moments of clarity and peace that are unexplainable. If I could give advice to Sam I guess I would say to rest. Life is hard, and there are all these things we wrestle with, and sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and say it’s okay that I don’t know these things for sure and if it hurts to beat my head against the wall looking for answers, then maybe I could give it a rest for awhile. Maybe I can kind of figure out a way to peacefully coexist with my doubts.

Class of 2k9 Author Interview: Lauren Bjorkman

Lucky us! Class of 2k9er Lauren Bjorkman is hanging out at Shelf Elf today, celebrating her awesome debut, My Invented Life. Every minute of her book is a romp. Every minute of her book made me happy. Welcome Lauren!

If you had to sell My Invented Life to a potential teen reader in two sentences or less, what would you say?

Ack! I hate selling anything—trauma from trying to unload newspaper subscriptions in middle school. That said, here’s my attempt:

If you have a sister that drives you crazy, if you’ve ever dreamed of being on stage, if you enjoy cursing in Shakespearean, if you’ve ever kept a secret, read this book.

Tell us about your journey to publication and the moment you learned your book would become a book.

The first step was all about overcoming fear. What if I had nothing worthwhile to say? But after I finally dared to write and finish a novel, I was hooked. Still, it took a few years of tapping away on my computer, getting critique, and going to workshops to learn the craft. During that time, I submitted my first (yet unpublished) novel to editors.

Later, after writing a second novel, I moved onto querying agents. In the midst of preparing my submission, a happy event shortened the process. I took a novel writing course taught by an author and MFA instructor. He referred me to his agent based on the piece I brought to his workshop. And his agent wanted to represent me.

A few months later, Henry Holt offered on my book. I think I hyperventilated because the whole memory has a dream-like quality. After I hung up with my agent, I paced around my house, calling family and friends who’d supported me over the years (the ones who kept their questions as to why I kept writing after so many rejections themselves). Thankfully, we live in the era of cordless phones, or I would’ve tied myself up.

Best writing advice for aspiring authors: To thine ownself be true.
Best cure for writer’s block: Sit down and write anything, even if it’s tripe and entrails. Eventually something good will come out of you.
Best snack while writing: Things that go crunch—popcorn, nuts, tortilla chips, even carrots. And large doses of chocolate for when you’re feeling blue. I feel very sorry for writers who don’t like chocolate.

Tell us about your writing process. Do you outline? Are you a post-it person? Do you have any secret writing tricks that are “uniquely Lauren”?

Usually one idea keeps coming back to me—sort of like a haunting—and I go with it. After that, I begin to imagine my main character. I love to people watch, so the spark for my protagonist often starts with an incident I observe. In the case of Roz, the incident happened at a craft fair. A (very tall) young woman crossed the street to join a group. She danced, flung her arms around, talked animatedly, and then bounced away like an overgrown Labrador. After she left, some of her friends shook their heads and whispered, as if to say. “What was that?” Thus Roz—the one girl tornado—was born.

I’ve never successfully used an outline. This translates into beaucoup revising. Not that I haven’t tried outlining, but it sucks all the joy out of writing for me. As I get ideas for character and plot, I scribble them down on bits of paper I happen to have handy. Later, I transcribe my “notes” at the end of the manuscript. Recently, when I sent the second draft of my work-in-progress to my agent, I forgot to delete these notes. She wrote back, very puzzled about my “ending.” Oops.

Class of 2k9 Author Interview: Megan Crewe

I‘m very happy to be hosting fellow Torontonian Megan Crewe today for an interview. Megan is the author of the YA paranormal novel Give Up the Ghost (check out my review). She’s also a Class of 2k9 member. Weclome Megan!

What inspires you?

Um, everything? Honestly, inspiration can come from anything—a conversation I overhear on the bus, a book I’m reading or a movie I just saw, an article in a newspaper or online, something I see out the window. But I find I’m most inspired by other stories, in all their forms.

Tell us about the moment you learned Give Up the Ghost would be published.

It wasn’t really one single moment—even the moment we got the first offer was drawn out because an editor told my agent he was going to offer a couple weeks before the offer actually came. And even once you have an offer you can’t assume anything until it’s negotiated and official! But that time period was filled with a lot of celebrating and many excited conversations with my husband and family and close friends, and waiting eagerly to be able to share the news more widely.

What was the most challenging aspect of writing your first novel?

The most challenging part of writing Give Up the Ghost was the voice. It was the first novel I’d written in first person. I knew that telling it in Cass’s voice was the right thing to do, but it was difficult finding a balance between staying true to her personality and the way she perceived herself, and still revealing the vulnerabilities that made her sympathetic (even if she liked to pretend they didn’t exist).

Describe your writing process. Are you an outliner, or do you discover your characters and your story as you go?

I’m definitely an outliner. I never write a book without a scene-by-scene outline on index cards. It’s my way of “testing out” the book to make sure it’s ready to be written—because if I get stuck or bored just writing the outline, then the story idea’s not ready yet. But while I’m writing I’m still discovering all sorts of things about the characters and events that I didn’t think of while I was outlining, and I often make changes to the outline as I go to reflect important things I’ve figured out.

What books have you read that made you want to write for young people?

It wasn’t specific books I read so much as the experience of being a teenager. Books were so important to me at that age (not that they aren’t now, but the intensity isn’t quite the same), as a way to visit other worlds, to understand different perspectives, to consider new ideas, to figure out who I was. I love writing for readers who get so much out of books.

What is your favourite scene in Give Up the Ghost?

I can’t say too much about it because it’d be spoilery, but I’d have to say my favorite is the scene near the end when Cass finds Tim by the lake. It’s such an important moment for both of them.

Why do you think it’s so hard for Cass to “give up her ghosts”?

I think for Cass the ghosts (both literal and figurative) are her protection. As long as she believes her ghostly friends are all she needs, she doesn’t have to feel bad that her classmates shun her. As long as she focuses on what happened in the past, she doesn’t have to think about her problems in the present. The trouble is, of course, that she’s shutting herself off from a lot of good things, too.

Author Interview: Class of 2k9 Joy Preble

I’m pleased to welcome Class of 2k9 author Joy Preble to the blog for an interview today. Joy is on a whirlwind tour of the kidlitosphere, promoting her debut title, Dreaming Anastasia. Be sure to check out my review of her book, and comment on the review post for a chance to win a copy of Dreaming Anastasia. Welcome to Shelf Elf Joy!

If you had two sentences in which to sell Dreaming Anastasia to a teen reader, how would you describe your book?

Sixteen year old Anne bumps into handsome and mysterious Ethan and suddenly she’s got powers she doesn’t understand, a history altering mission she may not want, and a growing attraction to this blue-eyed stranger. Add in some determined bad guys, Baba Yaga the witch and Anastasia Romanov – not quite so dead, it seems – and much wackiness ensues.

Your novel is an amazingly complex story, with fairy tale/ fantasy/ historical/ contemporary elements all woven together. As I was reading, I wondered two things. First, how did you come up with such a creative, complicated genre-bending idea? Second what was your writing process? Did you do a lot of outlining to keep all the plot threads straight?

I really had to laugh at this question. Okay, I didn’t laugh. But the initial truth is that this is what comes of writing a debut novel. You don’t always know you’re doing something really spiffy like genre-bending. And then when you realize mid-way through that what you’ve done is attempt multiple genres with three alternating narrators in first person, you’re too far gone to go back! Even my agent at the time continued to re-define how she pitched the project. I think we were initially calling it urban fantasy until we decided that maybe it wasn’t really that, exactly. But it was definitely, in retrospect, kind of risky. Is this literary? Is it commercial? The good part was that I was such a novice that I didn’t know enough to be afraid! I just kept writing. The idea of Anne bumping into Ethan and getting super powers and being given the task of saving Anastasia came first. Which of course led to the alternate history aspects. The folkloric elements got woven in after that. Honestly, now I ask myself, what could I have been thinking? But that’s the beauty of the muse. Sometimes it just gives you a story and you have to brave enough to go for it. And yes, eventually, I did keep bullet point outlines and reams of notes, both handwritten and in the form of comments on Word documents. As you say, it was a lot to keep straight. I was also blessed with an amazing copy edit team at Sourcebooks who dug in fearlessly near the end to make sure that everything tracked. That part was also fun for me, because here is this group of people who’ve read your every word so obsessively that they can actually say, “You know, this contradicts something on page 15. You need to check it.”

What aspect of your novel are you most proud of?

That’s not a question anyone has asked me before, so thanks! I guess if I had to pick just one aspect, I’d say that I’m proud of creating more than one strong female character. I would say that’s a commonality in most of what I write – a consciousness that I want my female characters to meet the adversity of their situations with an inner-strength, even when they don’t know what the heck they’re doing. Anne may have no clue what to do with these powers she suddenly has, but she’s going to dig deep and try to figure it out. And I hope readers get that.

How much of a Russian history and culture buff were you prior to writing Dreaming Anastasia?

When I was about thirteen, I read Robert K. Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra, this great biography of the Romanovs and their assassination and the whole Rasputin thing. It was such a huge, tragic tale! My maternal grandmother was from Russia, so I suppose that factored into my interest as well. But once I’d dug into all that, I was hooked. In college, I read more actual Russian literature – Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekov. It was always so over the top dramatic. So much cold. So much suffering. So much vodka consumption! All those names and diminutives, like how Mikhail becomes Misha. I just ate it up. The fairy tale part came later, though, when I was writing Dreaming Anastasia. Collections of Russian fairy tales by Aleksandr Afanas’ev – it’s amazing stuff and very different from Grimm’s or Disney, obviously. Much less obviously moral. Much more eh, you didn’t expect that little sucker, did you?

Elephant-y books, a giveaway & an interview with Carol Buckley

Phew! Prepare yourself for one juicy, packed-full-of-treats post! Today I am happy to review two lovely non-fiction picture books from Tilbury House about the elephants at Tennessee’s amazing Elephant Sanctuary. These books are authored by Carol Buckley, one of the founders of the Sanctuary. As well, Carol has stopped by for an interview. Finally, Tilbury has kindly arranged for a few prizes in celebration of this blog tour: one is a copy of Just for Elephants signed by author and Sanctuary co-founder Carol Buckley, and the grand prize is a copy of Travels With Tarra, signed by Carol and featuring a scanned image of Tarra’s signature symbol – her footprint! Also, a package of Tilbury House Animal Books— The Goat Lady, Thanks to the Animals, and an advance copy of Bear-ly There will go to one lucky winner who leaves a comment on one or more of the respective tour posts (September 1-8, 2009). For all of these prizes, you just need to leave a comment on one of the posts in Carol’s blog tour. If you are on twitter, you can also win a copy of each of Carol’s books by tweeting before September 9th about the tour using the hashtag #trunktour. Winners will be contacted at the end of the blog tour after September 10th. (Note: open only to residents of Canada and the U.S.)

Let’s get on with the celebration!

Just for Elephants introduces readers to the Sanctuary and its philosophy by focusing on the story of how one of the resident elephants, Shirley, came to live there. Readers will steal a glimpse into everyday life for the elephants at the Sanctuary and through Shirley’s connection to the other elephants, begin to appreciate the complex and deep social relationships that elephants form. Travels with Tarra is the story of Carol Buckley’s amazing relationship with Tarra, the Asian elephant she has had for more than 25 years. It traces their early years performing together at circuses, theme parks and zoos, moving on to the years when Carol was establishing the Elephant Sanctuary. Both books are written in a simple and direct narrative style that will be accessible to younger readers, but with detail enough to engage older readers too, for both those who enjoy non-fiction and fictional texts. Some of the photography is fantastic, with pictures of the elephants hanging out, roaming and enjoying life and freedom on the land at the Sanctuary. A few of the photos in Just for Elephants were quite out-of-focus, which while this lent a certain “behind-the-scenes realism” to the text, I thought was a little distracting and surprising, given that I’m sure there were thousands of possible pictures to use. Travels with Tarra has some great shots of Tarra as a wee little elephant, sure to inspire more than a few “Aawww!”s.

As usual with Tilbury, teachers will find many good ideas for using these books in the classroom at Tilbury’s site. Also, while the Sanctuary is not open for visitors, they have established opportunities for teachers to schedule virtual tours via teleconference and there are excellent units for K-8 available for free downloading at the website.

Tilbury has come up with a lovely way to support the Elephant Sanctuary by planning a “Trunk Sale” running now through December 31st. For every 100 copies of the elephant books (Travels With Tarra and Just for Elephants) that are sold, Tilbury will sponsor a much-needed item from the Sanctuary’s wish list. These include 100lbs of peanut butter (a favorite treat), elephant-sized meals, and land to roam (to support the Sanctuary’s recent expansion). The books are available from indie stores across the country, online retailers, and direct from The Elephant Sanctuary, www.elephants.com.

Now for the interview. Welcome Carol!

I’m sure that in all of your years caring for and working with elephants, you’ve seem some pretty remarkable social interactions between elephants. Could you share the most memorable moment you’ve witnessed related to elephant interaction?

One of the most remarkable scenes I have witnessed occurred was shortly after Bunny arrived. Bunny had live 44 years alone in a small zoo. Her keepers were highly protective of her to the point of sheltering her from experiences that might have helped her to become a more confident individual, but they cared deeply for Bunny and felt they were doing the right thing by being over protective. When Bunny arrived at the Sanctuary she was insecure about the very ground she walked on. The surface was not level as she was used to and she had no experience with negotiating trails, climbing a gentle sloop or crossing a rocky creek. This evening Bunny was making her way back to the barn with a caregiver at her side gently coaxing her over this new and scary terrain. Bunny failed to recognize the land dropping slightly and tripped. She fell to her knees. She was visually shaken although she had not fallen down or injured herself, she was afraid. The caregiver tried to comfort Bunny and encourage her but she would not move. She was frozen in fear. At that point Barbara, another elephant, appeared in the distance, she was looking in Bunny’s direction. Bunny was not uttering an audible sound at least not audible to the human ear. But Barbara appeared to be responding to something as she came directly over to Bunny, gently laid her trunk on Bunny face and then just as silently as she arrived, Barbara turned to leave. Bunny rose from her knees and immediately followed Barbara without hesitation.

Author Interview: Marilyn Kaye

Marilyn Kaye, author of several popular series for teens, is here for an interview today. Her most recent series is Gifted. The first two titles, Out of Sight, Out of Mind and Better Late Than Never are out now, from Kingfisher. The third, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow is scheduled to be released in October. The Gifted books take place at Meadowbrook Middle School, which is a pretty typical place, with entirely ordinary kids. Nine of the Meadowbrook students are far from ordinary, however. They go to the Gifted class, which is unlike any gifted class you’ve ever seen. That’s because these kids aren’t your usual brainiacs. Each one of them possesses a remarkable “gift,” and in gifted class they learn how to understand and control their powers, powers like hearing dead people, turning invisible and seeing the future. In the first book, mean girl Amanda Beeson learns what it’s like to be supremely uncool when she wakes up trapped in the body of Tracey Devon, a total Meadowbrook nobody. This talent lands her in Gifted class where she discovers a lot more about her new ability and about the extraordinary kids she’s never even noticed before. It isn’t long before Amanda begins to recognize how her powers have changed her life forever. Out of Sight, Out of Mind was a lot of fun – for readers who enjoy books about kids with unusual talents, trying to cope in sticky situations. For all those times when you wondered what it might be like to have some sort of super power, these books might make you think again. There is a great website devoted to the series, with audio excerpts, character info and more. Here’s the book trailer:

Now let’s get on with the interview!

What’s your writing routine? Do you have any pre-writing rituals?
I try to write for at least 4 hours every day, but I don’t really have a routine – sometimes I write in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, and every now and then I’ll get a surge of inspiration and work in the evenings. And I don’t really have any rituals – I love to travel and I want to be able to write wherever I am, so I don’t want to develop too many habits.

When you’re working on a series, how much of the plotting have you planned from the beginning?
I always have a good sense of where the series is moving, and a general idea of what should be the outcome of each book, but as for the details, I tend to plot one book at a time.

Given how many books you’ve written, it doesn’t seem like you have this problem often, but what’s your cure for writer’s block?
I DO get writer’s block! Long walks help (I just let my mind go blank and frequently something pops in that makes me want to get back to work.)

I can imagine you had some fun choosing the gifts that the characters possess. How did you make those choices?
I wanted the kids to have gifts that evolved from their own individual needs/problems, so I concentrated on their personalities and situations first, and then tried to imagine a power that might emerge.

What gift would you want the most? What gift would you never want?
I used to think it would be fun to be able to disappear at will, although I’d probably be tempted to spy on people. I wouldn’t want to be able to read people’s minds – I’d be afraid of what I could learn.

Author/Illustrator Interview: Matt Phelan

I’m honored to have the amazingly talented Matt Phelan visiting Shelf Elf today for an interview about his upcoming graphic novel, The Storm in the Barn. His book is already snapping up many glowing reviews all around the kidlitosphere (right here, educating alice, Reading Rants, Welcome to my Tweendom) and I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if it’s on a fast train to Awardsville. This is a book to buy and linger over and read again and again. Welcome Matt!

How would you describe The Storm in the Barn to a potential reader?
The Storm in the Barn is a graphic novel set in the Dust Bowl about a boy who discovers a sinister figure hiding in the neighbor’s barn. It is part tall tale, part historical fiction, and part supernatural thriller.

What are you most proud of in this upcoming book?
The story was first and foremost in my mind. I wrote it first as a very detailed script, describing each individual panel. I started to worry about how it would look only after the story was set.

When you were working on this book, which came first, images or story?
Although I wrote the script before I began drawing, the initial inspiration for the book was visual. I was very influenced by the WPA photography of that time and it was those images of the Dust Bowl that started me thinking. Also, the villain of the story originated as an offhand doodle that I once made during a meeting at my old copywriting job.

In what ways do you think a typical urban kid in 2009 can relate to the experiences of Jack Clark, a kid growing up in the Dust Bowl?
I think Jack faces some universal challenges of being a kid: bullies, a feeling of uselessness, the desire to impress his father, the desire to save his family. I think most kids can relate to that feeling of being powerless yet wanting desperately to make things better.

The Wizard of Oz is an important element in The Storm in the Barn. Why did you choose to bring this text into your book? What did you hope it would add to the fabric of your story?
I wanted the book to be an American fairy tale and to incorporate elements of folklore and myth. The Jack Tales were the first stories I wanted to include, but since the story is set in Kansas, I naturally gravitated to the Oz books. They had been around for many years by the time this story takes place (1937) so I knew that these kids would be familiar with them (especially if you are a young girl in Kansas named Dorothy). Reading Ozma of Oz, I found some passages that I thought would work nicely as a sort of commentary on what was going on in my story. So I had Jack or Dorothy reading these passages out loud in two scenes.

Author Interview: Grace Lin

It is a thrill to host the amazing Grace Lin for an author interview today. Her beautiful new novel, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (to be released July 1st), is part fairy tale, part epic journey and is in my view, absolutely perfect. It’s the story of Minli, a young girl who leaves her family to travel to find the Old Man of the Moon, hoping he holds the secret to changing their fortune. Why don’t we start off with the book trailer:

Grace’s book is full of fables, adventure and magical creatures, not to mention stunning full-colour illustrations. Take a look at a few of them:

Hard to believe that the book is filled with illustrations as gorgeous as this. So let’s get to the interview! Welcome Grace!

One of the themes in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is the idea that while stories cost nothing, they have infinite value. Could you comment on this theme, and how it plays a role in your story?

In “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” the Old Man of the Moon talks about how everyone who meets are connected by a red thread. To me, those red threads, those connections are the stories we share. Stories as fascinating as a harrowing rescue or as inane as trying to find a parking spot—they are how we share our lives.

A while ago, when one of my friend’s grandfather passed away I remember him saying one of his biggest regrets was not asking more about his grandfather’s experiences. “Now, those stories are gone,” he said. And the poignancy of this statement, the realization that we encapsulate our life, share our memories and connect with stories is what makes them invaluable.

And this is, of course, one of the themes in the book. Ma (the mother) first disdains the stories that Ba (the father) tells, but as the story progresses it is the sharing of stories that help bring them together and makes her slowly reevaluate what she thought was valuable.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon shows readers that reaching a destination is not only about having an objective, it’s also about having faith along the way. How has the journey of writing your novel led you in unexpected directions? What surprising things happened to you along the way?

Well, writing “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” was particularly emotional to me. I wrote about half of the book before my late husband, who had been ill with cancer for many years, passed. I felt a deep regret that I was unable to finish it before he died and was unsure if I would continue. But my good friend, Janet Wong said to me, “No, it is better this way. If you had finished it before, you would’ve felt like everything had to stay exactly the same. Now, you can feel like you have the ability to change.” Which was completely true and a revelation to me, not only for my book, but for my life.

If you were given the chance to choose a creature to keep you company every day and convey wisdom, would you choose: a) a dragon, b) a goldfish, or c) a faithful water buffalo?

I think I would choose the goldfish– it is the most peaceful, and there is something rather poetic about a goldfish in a bowl. I always feel inspired by brilliant colored fish. The dragon is tempting, but I think would cause too much attention from the neighbors and feeding a water buffalo would be a headache in the city. Ha ha.

Class of 2k9 Interview: Fran Cannon Slayton

I’m happy to introduce Fran Cannon Slayton, author of When the Whistle Blows, and Class of 2k9 member. Her novel tells the story of Jimmy Cannon, a teenage boy growing up in Rowelsburg, West Virginia in the 1940s. His whole town depends on the railroad, and his dad is the foreman. Jimmy dreams of a life working on the railroad too, but times are changing, and things don’t turn out as he expects. Fran’s book has been getting lots of attention, and she’s here for an interview today. Read on to learn lots more about her wonderful book, what she finds inspiring, and some excellent writing advice too. Welcome Fran! Happy launch day!

Tell us more about how you blended fact, hints of family history and fiction in this book. What was this process like?

My father’s stories had been cooking inside me for a very long time – since my childhood. They were true stories, but because I had not been there – because I had not participated in them – I had to imagine them. The moment you begin imagining, fact starts merging with fiction and wonderful things can happen! Moreover, I had first hand knowledge of the town because of my many, many trips there over the course of my lifetime – so my imagining of the facts was relatively easy to ground in a concrete reality that I had actually experienced.

Many of the individual chapters are based on nuggets of actual fact – things that my dad had either experienced or had heard about when he was growing up. My job was not only to convey those stories in an engaging way, but also to create an overarching story that tied them all together. It was this overarching story that really gave me the opportunity to interweave things that hadn’t actually been a part of the real stories – things like The Society.

I think there’s a real romance about trains, and Jimmy obviously feels this too when he’s growing up. What do you think? What fascinates you about trains?

There is definitely a romance about trains! I trained up and back to BEA this year and felt it again. There is something about seeing the countryside or cityscape move by while dining on a real tablecloth with real cloth napkins that is a throwback to another era – when plastic and cell phones didn’t exist, when people took their time getting from one place to another.

I recently had the wonderful experience of getting to ride in the cab of a real working steam engine. Truly, the entire cab was a work of art. Wood ceilings; deep green and black paint; sturdy iron fixtures; a massive, glowing firebox. It was crafted – not assembled. And the fireman, brakeman and engineer were engaged in work that was as much art as it was knowledge and brawn. There were no computers to rely on to tell you what to do – you had to know. Your life depended on it.

Your novel really tempts the reader to imagine Jimmy in the future. Where did you see him going next?

If I ever meet you in person I’ll tell you my dad’s chosen path after the diesels came. But I’d like to leave it to the reader’s imagination as to what the fictional Jimmy decides to do.

What appealed to you about structuring the book the way you did, with every chapter taking place on All Hallows’ Eve over a period of 6 years?

As a child, my father told me many stories about his boyhood growing up in Rowlesburg, West Virginia in the 1940s. After I wrote the first chapter of When the Whistle Blows I happened to pick up Rita Dove’s Pulitzer Prize winning Thomas and Beulah, which is a group of poems loosely based on the lives of her grandparents. The poems each reflect individual stories, but the grouping of the poems together also create an overarching story that is greater than the sum of its parts.

After reading just a portion of Dove’s book something clicked inside me. I knew I wanted to do something similar using short stories instead of poems.

While my editor and I talked about the possibility of structuring When the Whistle Blows in a more “regular” format, with days following each other consecutively, I never felt that form was right for this story. Separating the stories by a year allowed me to show more convincingly events that take a long period of time to happen – time for a son to grow in understanding, for a father’s health to decline, for a town to die.

Class of 2k9 Interview: Ann Haywood Leal

It is my pleasure to welcome another amazing Class of 2k9 writer to Shelf Elf, Ann Haywood Leal. Ann’s book, Also Known as Harper is released today, and in celebration, her publisher has kindly offered 5 copies to give away to Shelf Elf readers. Yay Henry Holt! So… say something nice to Ann in a comment below, and I will draw 5 lucky winners. You will love this book. Read about how much I loved it here. Welcome to Shelf Elf Ann! Happy Release Day!

Tell us about the moment you learned Harper’s story would be published.

It was definitely surreal. My agent called me and said he’d had some interest, so he thought there might be an auction. I can remember going over the phone conversation in my head, thinking I must not have heard him right! When we got the formal offer from Henry Holt, I think I was actually shaking. Like with the phone conversation, I had to keep reading the e-mail over and over for it to register in my brain. I’d been waiting for this moment since I was about eleven, so I was ecstatic!

Where did this story come from?

For the past few years, I have volunteered at my local soup kitchen. When I agreed to volunteer, I had a completely different picture in my mind than what I actually saw when I got there. I thought I’d see grubby bum-in-the-alley type people. But what I saw were regular old men and women—and lots of families. It was before the economy took such a plunge, and a lot of these people had jobs and were hard workers, but were unable to make enough to make ends meet. The children I come across in my job as an elementary teacher have distinct advantages. But the kids who come into the soup kitchen are so grateful if you save them a special dessert. They are so humble. I guess you could say that Harper’s story came from the feeling I got from being around these children.

Describe your writing process. Are you an outliner, or do you discover your story and your characters as you are writing?

I’m not a big outliner, unless I’m revising—then I take a ton of notes in the margins of my manuscript, and all over my editorial letter. With the first draft I usually start with a character or an unusual setting. Once I have that, the story seems to materialize. When I was first starting to write Also Known as Harper, I was out for a run, and I passed a vacant lot. All that was left of the home was an old, crumbling swimming pool, partially filled with dirty rainwater. My family and I were driving by later that day, and I made my husband stop so I could take a picture of it. I was so intrigued by the look of it, all by itself in the vacant lot, and it ended up in the book.

Lots of people with full-time jobs fantasize about writing a book. You actually did it! How do you manage to balance teaching and writing?

I have written stories pretty much all my life. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a story brewing on paper or starting in my head. I think because of that, I’ve always made time to write. I take my journal and/or my laptop pretty much wherever I go. That way, if I end up with an unexpected chunk of time, I can write. I get up pretty early and I try to write for an hour or two before I go to school, then, again right after school. I’ve had to get creative at times. I’ve written on the floor in the hallway outside my daughter’s violin lesson, on an old wooden church pew while I was waiting for her religious education class, and in the car at the soccer field. The other day I was at the hardware store with my husband. We were waiting for some paint to be mixed and I sat down on a lawn furniture display chair and wrote!