I was writing a road trip scene today and felt like I needed a little music while I worked. But since I prefer to work in austere conditions with no distractions to the eyes or ears, I don’t even have a way to play music in my office other than my laptop. So I thought I’d check out Pandora.com, which my husband has been raving about since it debuted on the internet. Guess what? I have a new obsession! Pandora knows me better than I know myself! Pandora understands me at the core! Brace yourself for even more exclamation points!
For those of you who haven’t used Pandora, you type in a couple of your favorite random artists and it figures out what you like. How it works is all very mysterious to me, but damn if I didn’t type in Pink Floyd and Jeff Buckley and have Pandora tell me I’d like Ben Harper. I love Ben Harper! And I hadn’t yet said a word about it, Pandora just knew. Then I added Ray LaMontagne and Alison Krauss and Pandora told me I’d like Matt Costa. I’d never heard of him, but now he’s my new favorite!
This kind of unbridled joy at Pandora’s mind reading skills has been going on all day.
On/Off by Snow Patrol just came on! I’d written this song on my hand a few weeks ago, meaning to buy it, but never got around to it. Did Pandora see that? It’s crazy over here, my friends! Run on over to Pandora.com and feast your ears. She knows what you like!
Wait…are you kidding me? Now it’s Jason Mraz? Am I that transparent? Are my tastes that obvious? Or is Pandora just the mystifying oracle of music that I think it is?
At what point to you wonder if they’ve planted a chip in your head?
Please join me in welcoming Sara Zarr to Big A little a! Recently I reviewed Sara's new YA novel, Sweethearts, and loved it. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, put it on top of your TBR list. You won't be disappointed.
Because I've interviewed Sara twice before--once here and once at The Edge of the Forest (on occasion of her first novel, Story of a Girl, being shortlisted for the National Book Award), this interview concerns Sweethearts almost exclusively.
Kelly: Jennifer Harris was the exiled child in elementary school—the chubby grade-schooler some children shunned and others tormented. By high school she acquires a step father, a new svelte figure, and a crowd of friends at an entirely new school. What I really appreciated about Sweethearts was how you showed how difficult this transformation was for Jennifer (now Jenna) not in a physical sense, but emotionally. Jenna still struggles with her inner Jennifer. Her transformation was not an easy fix. Did you have a model when constructing Jenna's story? Or, an anti-model?
Sara: Years ago I worked part-time for a friend who had a flower shop in San Francisco. I remember one day we were chatting and I remarked on how good he was at what he did, and how much I loved his store, and he said that he still had this feeling that he was going to be arrested for impersonating a florist. I feel that way about my writing career sometimes---that this is all a fluke and someone is going to come along and say, "Ha ha, just fooling, this isn't for you, go back to wherever it is you came from." All this is just to say that I think it's a very human thing, that many of us---especially if we come from backgrounds that felt uncertain or unsafe---are suspicious of good circumstances or positive feelings or others' offerings of friendship or love. I didn't think consciously about that while I wrote, but in retrospect maybe it's so ingrained that I didn't have to. Real transformation is never easy.
Kelly: In addition to having a complex heroine,
Sweethearts features a complex set of friends.
Sure, Jenna's part of the cool crowd now, but your cool crowd is not homogeneous.
Even the self-centered boyfriend is basically a good kid who needs to grow up a little.
Were you consciously working against clichés when writing
Sweethearts?
Sara: For me the de-cliche-ification is usually something that happens in later drafts. Of course I try to avoid them in every draft, but they do tend to sneak in under the radar sometimes. I still wonder if I should have made Cameron's dad more complex and human, but I couldn't because the story is from Jenna's point of view and she only had that one experience with him so in the end he's the most completel villainous villain I've written.
Kelly: Speaking of working against clichés, can I just butt in here and mention that Alan is quite possibly the best stepfather character I've run across in any children's book.
He's wonderfully real and kind.
Sara: Oh, thank you. I wanted to write a great stepfather because I had one. Step-parents aren't traditionally the most beloved characters in teen fiction, but there are lots of them out there who have basically rescued the families they married into by providing love and support and stability...a real home. Second marriages can be very redeeming. Also, since Deanna's dad in Story of a Girl was so tough on her, and Cameron's dad in Sweethearts is an abuser, it was important to me to give props to the many good fathers and father figures in the world and not be "that writer who hates men." I love men! Yay, men!
Kelly: Sweethearts is the tale of Jenna and her reunion with the one child who was kind to her in elementary school—Cameron Quick.
When Jenna is nine, Cameron leaves without saying goodbye.
In fact, Jenna hears at school that Cameron died.
So, when Cameron shows up again when Jenna is in high school, her whole world turns upside down.
What inspired you to imagine this dramatic scenario?
Sara: I had a little sweetheart in grade school who moved away in third grade. I never forgot him or his name or what he looked like, or how it felt to know someone liked me. We got back in touch in adulthood and I started to wonder what it would have been like if we'd been reunited in high school when drama and hormones and angst ran high. The story unfolded from there (over the course of a lot of drafts!).
Kelly: Cameron Quick's home was and is not a happy one.
His father is abusive and, in fact, Cameron and Jenna share one encounter with Cameron's dad that stays with them forever.
This event is psychological abuse at its most horrifying.
But, while the event itself is terrible, ultimately Jenna and Cameron deal with the past and this event in healthy, mature ways.
Did you do a lot of research into psychological abuse when writing
Sweethearts?
Sara: Not really. I might have Googled a few things to make sure I wasn't portraying anything patently false, but honestly I think every child at some point or another has had an encounter with an adult that is traumatizing or at least frightening in some way. Even seeing your kindergarten teacher lose her temper can be truly frightening for a five-year-old! I just sort imagined that fear compounded day after day for Cameron, or in a single intense event for Jenna, and thought about the aftereffects. I had enough of those types experiences myself to know what it feels like, and how just a couple of those can put you on guard the rest of your life.
Kelly: Do you think Jenna will grow up to be an English teacher, as she tells Cameron she may when they discuss their futures?
Sara: Ha! Good question. I think that's the safe and predictable career choice she has mapped out for herself, but by the end of the book she is breaking away from safe and predictable and opening herself up a bit more. Maybe she'll take a little detour and try some other things before ending up in her classroom full of eager learners.
Kelly: Okay, Sara.
You've done it.
As you know,
I loved Story of a Girl. But, I have to say that I liked
Sweethearts even more.
It's a fantastic novel, populated by complex characters with complex decisions to make.
I'll admit it.
I'm impressed.
So, tell me: What do we have to look forward to next?
Sara: Thank you! Next up is another YA novel with Little, Brown. At this point, there's a pastor's daughter, a missing girl, and a small town. As for the rest of the details, I'm still in discovery.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
By
Sherman AlexieArt by Ellen Forney
I don’t read and review a lot of YA books. However, I try to read the National Book Award winners and other YA books that I see several people recommend. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian was well worth my holiday reading time.
It is a story of Arnold, a Spokane Indian teenager. He gets advice from one of his reservation school teachers that he should get off the reservation in order to have a life. So he does. He leaves his school on the rez and moves to a neighboring white school. His whole life changes. He isn’t accepted by the white students at the new school, and his old friends see him as a traitor.
Arnold’s thoughts, raw emotions, and deep honesty are revealed through this diary-of-sorts. I would highly recommend it to any teen, especially reluctant teen boy readers.
You can view Sherman Alexie’s National Book Award speech
here.
I'm typing this from the floor of the National Book Awards.
Here's a short web video about the first literary awards ceremony blogged by the LitBlog Army. More interviews to follow, plenty of interviews with writers--from Jim Shepard to Christopher Hitchens.
Tune in for the rest of the week for more exclusive footage.
Things will get wild and crazy next week.
First up, we will be covering the National Book Awards along with The Litblog Army: Ed Champion and Marydell and Sarah Weinman and Levi Asher. Armed with a videocamera, laptop, and a notebook, I'll bring back as much writing wisdom as I can clutch in my skinny arms.
The fiction nominees are pretty smart and adventurous this year: Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork, Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance, Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End, Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke, and Jim Shepard, Like You’d Understand, Anyway.
Then, I'll be appearing in a panel discussion at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center on Saturday November 17th. I'll discuss "Technology: The world of writing on blogs and for e-zines" along with some big-time writers: Michelle Kung from Huffington Post and Justin Fox from Time.
The whole thing will be moderated by Jeff Gordinier, one of my favorite magazine writers. Non-fiction writer Robert Boynton (one of my writing mentors), will be moderating a panel about magazine writing.
The program is trapped in frames at the writing center website, so I've included the whole program after the jump. Come on out and meet some other writers. Continue reading...
Fiction:
Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown)
Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Jim Shepard, Like You'd Understand, Anyway (Knopf)
Nonfiction:
Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I'm Dying (Knopf)
Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve/HBG USA)
Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (Hill and Wang/FSG)
Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison: A Biography (Knopf)
Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday)
Poetry:
Linda Gregerson, Magnetic North (Houghton Mifflin Company)
Robert Hass, Time and Materials (Ecco/HarperCollins)
David Kirby, The House on Boulevard St. (Louisiana State University Press)
Stanley Plumly, Old Heart (W.W. Norton)
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006 (Norton)
Young People's Literature:
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown)
Kathleen Duey, Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
M. Sindy Felin, Touching Snow (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic Press)
Sara Zarr, Story of a Girl (Little, Brown)F
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
I have only read one of these -- the reading list grows and grows!!
I've read everything except A Resurrection of Magic
I am excited to see Touching Snow make the list, thought it was a beautifully told story, and it deserves the nod and the exposure that comes with it.
But I think its going to come down to Sherman Alexie and Brain Selzinck novel.
OH, I hear you Laini. I hadn't even HEARD of 2 of these books!
Earthiegirl: Thanks for the rec on Touching Snow. I'd like to read it now. I think you're right about the 2 top contenders, but I think A Story of a Girl could give them a run for their money!
I'm really excited about these nominations. Did you read the author interviews at the NBA site?