DAY THREE
Medeia Sharif - Mustang Alice
Well, where do I begin? Without giving anything away, this was creepy, except you don’t know that until the end. I swear, it ran shivers up my spine from the surprise...well done you!
Thank you so much. I’m glad you enjoyed my story.
I read that you mainly write for middle grade and young adults. What genre do you prefer, and why for kids?
Although I’ve been writing more middle grade lately, my favorite thing to write is contemporary YA. There are so many topics, important issues, and deep emotions to explore with that genre. I’ve been writing edgier things, to the point that I get shaken while writing, and I even see this reflected in my reviews. I’m glad I’m able to make my readers feel something.
What is it about Alice that draws us in and has become such a tremendous influence in our culture?
She gets to live through (or should I say, “dream through) such an amazing, imaginative adventure. There’s never a dull moment in the story with each action scene and all those interesting characters. I read it numerous times and the most interesting time was in college for a lit class—the interpretations are fascinating.
Do your students know how talented you are? Do you share your work with them? I would assume as a teacher you would have an in when it comes to book fairs, has it given you a leg up in anyway professionally?
Most of them don’t know. My life is compartmentalized. I don’t discuss my writing at my day job and vice versa since I’m a private person and I don’t want one to interfere with the other in any sort of way. When I go to conferences and other places, people see me as an author first—even if they know I teach—so I don’t think of it as a leg up.
I really appreciate your participation in this event. Much luck and happiness in your continued success...Cheers!
Thank you for having me.
Laura Lascarso - White is a Human Construct
Okay, another one of you with the talent to send shivers down my spine. The creepiness just slithered around the entire story and held my complete attention. This could be a movie...clever, edgy, well written....Well done you!
Thank you! I really enjoyed writing it and settling into the twisted mindset of Lewis Carroll and his somewhat devious characters.
It appears you’ve been doing this writing thing well for a while now. Your debut novel won you an award, a Gold Medal I might add, for Counting Backwards, at the Florida Book Awards 2012 in YA literature. Congrats on that. So it seems this is what you were meant to do. Could you talk to us a bit more about your passion to write for young adults?
I am passionate about storytelling, in general, and the young adult audience, in particular. I believe this is an age where people are really searching for meaning in their lives and trying to figure out their place in the world. Whatever wisdom I’ve acquired at the ripe old age of 35 I’d like to share with the next generation. I aim to write stories that evoke strong emotions and raise questions about the world around us. And entertain, of course.
How excited were you to be a part of something like Alice? What does she mean to you?
I was super-excited. This is my first anthology and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the other authors and read their own interpretations of Alice. It’s amazing how 13 people can be given the same prompt and come up with 13 entirely unique and original stories.
As far as the character of Alice, she is somewhat of an enigma to me. In Carroll’s story she yearns for something different, fantastical, nonsensical and yet, when she finds it, she wishes to return to her ordinary life. Perhaps Wonderland is the journey and not the destination. That’s what I hoped to convey in White Is a Human Construct, that life is constructed of several journeys and the path you are currently on, doesn’t necessarily have to be the path you are on forever.
I see you have chickens, so do I. They’re like shoes to me...they’re all so pretty and unique and I fall in love with them and just keep buying more...we’re lousy with eggs over here, ha! So what do you do besides write good books and tend chickens?
I am a voracious reader of YA fiction and avid fan of film and television. My daughter and I are currently hooked on The 100 (the books by Morgan Cass and the TV series on the CW). We are racing each other to see who finishes the third book first.
For my paying job, I work in communications in the non-profit sector, which is also very satisfying. And with both my kids playing soccer, I decided to start playing again myself. Does that make me a soccer mom?
I’d like to say I’ve really enjoyed getting to know a bit of your work. Looking forward to more of the same, seriously, I think this is a genre you should stick with and write a novel around...I’ll be the first in line to own one!
Thank you again! I’m currently finishing up a dark romance, which will have some of the same themes as White Is a Human Construct. I’ll keep you posted.
DAY FOUR (again, I can't apologize enough for the weird formatting and text..no answers for you)
Christine Norris - The Watchmakers Ball
Okay, before I begin, what is a Pygmy Warrior? (this is in reference to her dedication)
Oh, um, well...that's a long story. And a private joke involving a NJSCBWI conference and a late night. If you have an image in your head, you're probably right. Let's just leave it at that.
Well, there you have that…so now that we’ve cleared that up, what a story! A steampunk, clever girl, futuristic thriller inside of a grandfather clock...well done. It’s in the vein of a Carriger character, which in my book is superb!
Is this the genre you typically write?
First -- thanks! I am always so flattered when compared to other writers I really admire, and I fell in love with Gail's books last fall. I also read a lot of Tiffany Trent and Kady Cross. As for genre, well it is and isn't what I 'usually' write. I have a book coming out May 21, called A Curse of Ash and Iron. It takes place in the same year, in Philadelphia, like this one. The Watchmaker's Ball sort of grew out of a tertiary character of that book. But CURSE is the first Steampunk book I ever wrote. My other books are more middle-grade, urban fantasy/mythology based. The LIBRARY OF ATHENA series make up most of my bibliography.
What are you goals as a young adult writer...where is your next story coming from?
To write books that first, I love, and that other people want to read! I don't follow trends ( I will never, EVER, write a vampire novel), I just happened to be writing Steampunk when it suddenly turned cool. LOL. My next story...well, since CURSE is a re-telling of Cinderella, I am sticking with the fairy tales for now. And I have to finish that last Library of Athena book. Working on both of those right now.
How has the original Alice influenced your world?
I love Alice. One year, my sisters and I (I guess I was about nine) went as Alice characters. No, I wasn't Alice. My younger sister had perfectly straight, blond hair. So she was Alice. My baby sister was the white rabbit and I was the Cheshire Cat. My friend up the street was the Queen of Hearts. Alice has always been part of my life, in little ways. The book I'm currently writing (no, not telling!), Alice keeps creeping in, in little ways, bits of dialogue and small things that are happening.
How excited were you to become one of the thirteen authors selected to be a part of this anthology?
SO EXCITED. I have written very little short fiction. I write LONG. But I decided to give this a try, figuring that if it didn't get in, I could re-use it as a side-along to CURSE. I kind of jumped up and down when I got the acceptance letter :). Only THIRTEEN stories were picked!
Now let’s talk about Fairies....how many do you know and have you written about them? (again, in reference to a comment she made about the fact that she believes in fairies)
I've met my fair share of fairies, of course. I can't be specific, they like to stay hidden, but suffice it to say, some of my best friends are fairies. Of course I've written about them, early on in my career. I may write about them again someday :)
Well Christine, I’ll be checking out your work to find another Steampunk based story...I really enjoyed the flavor of your work in this book and hope you have done, or are expecting to do, more!
Thank you for having me! I really enjoyed it.
David Turnbull - Alice, Last of the Beating Hearts
Okay, so now we’re going to take on dystopian slash steampunk slash machine future world sci-fi...hold on to your shoes everyone, this takes off. First of all your attention to detail is brilliant. You have telescopic eyes and robotic Hatters, where in the world did this modern approach come from?
I wouldn’t say I’m that technically minded so it’s all probably more science fantasy than science fiction. If I was asked to explain exactly how a robotic Hatter or a mechanical White Rabbit actually worked I be hard pushed to come up with the precise detail. Burt for me having a little bit of mystery around how the technology works adds to the wonder and that’s where the fantasy element comes from. Also my Alice is on a bit of a quest in the story so again it gave me the chance to weave in a traditional fantasy motif into the futuristic elements.
Again, this is a world that I would like to see more of, sci-fi with a bold empowered young girl as the protagonist....do you have other works in this genre?
I've written a few science fantasy stories with strong female characters. These include ‘The Eternal Quest of the Girl with the Corkscrew Hair’ in ‘Girl at the End of the World II’ (Fox Spirit), ‘The Sound Cyclones’ in Sensorama (Eibonvale Press) and ‘The Trail Behind Me Is A Winding Trail’ in the forthcoming Boo Books augmentation anthology ‘We Can Improve You.’ There also a stand alone young adult story set in a distant future, featuring a girl from a nomadic tribe and a mechanical hornet, available for download at Alfie Dog fiction http://alfiedog.com/fiction/stories/david-turnbull/the-lucky-ones-david-turnbull/
You have been featured in Salt Publishings Best British Fantasy 2014, for obvious reasons...what work actually got you there?
I was proud to have a story selected for the Best British Fantasy anthology. The story in question originally appeared ‘Astrologica’ (The AlchemyPress) which is an anthology based on star signs in the zodiac. My story ‘Aspect of Aries’ featured the downward descent of the main character in a dystopian society where everything is segregated according to which star sign you were born under. To me that kind of segregation has about as much logic as segregation or discrimination based on sex, gender or religion.
And how does Alice in Wonderland influence the life of a London boy? Were you taken with the original as a child, as most of us were?
I’m actually a Scottish boy by birth who moved to London later in life. I grew up in a area of Scotland with a strong literary tradition. The town I grew up in was once home to Sir Walter Scott, author of classics such as Ivanhoe and Red Gauntlet. The area was also home to Scott’s contemporary James Hogg who wrote the gothic The Private Memoirs and Confessions of A Justified Sinner. Robert Burn even wrote a ballad about the town I grew in. Alice in Wonderland and many of the other classics is kind of interwoven into my childhood along with lots of other weird British stuff like Monty Python and The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.
DAY FIVE
Jackie Horsfall - Rabbit Fever
I loved your story, there was vulnerability surrounding it that made it very endearing. I found myself rooting for the ending that came in a very clever way. You’re very good at what you do.
It’s obvious you had some knowledge about the plague...how deep do you go into research for a storyline? And how close to the facts do you stay...or do you take liberty to expand, or build off of, and use what you need?
To research the history behind “Rabbit Fever,” I limited myself to three authoritative online sources about the last plague era in England. I do this – limiting my research – to avoid spending days obsessively reading instead of writing! For all my historical pieces, I print out the research pages, then highlight facts, along with anything that strikes me as quirky. Example, when I read that powdered unicorn horn was considered a plague remedy, I knew right away it would play a major role – the smoking gun – in my story. Even in fiction, I avoid straying from the hard facts: dates, places, ruling families, religious beliefs, plague symptoms and treatment, disposal of the dead.
I understand you have a fairly extensive catalog of work, what is your favorite genre to write? To read?
As you can probably guess, I love reading historical fiction (and did even as a youngster), especially the works of Hilary Mantel, Geraldine Brooks, and Philippa Gregory, talented history authorities who also write entertaining fiction. I loved setting “Rabbit Fever” in 1665 London because it resonated on a personal note: my husband William is a descendant of William the Conqueror (William I of England). “Horsfall” is an Old English surname. But I’m also a fan of mythology, philosophy, and parapsychology. Alice’s journey through the rabbit hole has the typical traits of a Near-Death Experience: falling through a tunnel into a land of fantastical beings – some friendly, some dangerous – then returning to the world of the living with a message or benefit for humankind. Alice, of course, brings back the knowledge of plague transmission.
As for my own work, I write a mish-mash of humor (12 kids’ joke books), nonfiction (nature activity books), fiction (2 YA novels), magazine articles and online content. Greeting card verse too. I do it all. And it’s all FUN.
It says you have an original 1960 edition of Martin Gardner’s, The Annotated Alice....I, myself, have this book, mine isn’t quite as old as yours however, what does this mean to you? Why does Alice effect you so?
I’m fascinated by Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice because, although the Alice in Wonderland story is entertaining nonsense, it was written for British readers of another century. So today’s readers aren’t privy to the meanings of many of the puns and jokes meant for residents of Oxford or Alice Liddell’s family. Call me a history freak – I like knowing the stories behind the story.
C. Lee McKenzie - They Call Me Alice
This one took me a page or two. It’s written in a bit of broken English from the thoughts of a young Chinese Alice and for some reason it took me a moment to grasp where I was going. However, I was quickly pulled into little Alice’s world and within the roundedness of the storytelling, it became quite enchanting and particularly magical. And then you bring in an old tale of Houyi and his moon. How in the heck did a native California girl come up with this idea?
I’ve been in love with China as long as I can remember. When I was about six, a woman named Enid Mihilov took me under her worldly literary wing. She had a magnificent library with many books from China. I didn’t realize it at the time, but these books, which I was allowed to explore, were very old, one-of-a-kind, and in retrospect, must have been printed on handmade paper in a far-off century.
Enid, who probably was in in her sixties then, read them to me in Chinese while I looked at the pictures. Someday I’m going to write what I remember of our afternoons together in her library, reading Chinese stories and playing with her very large cradled globe, while she showed me where on this planet these stories had come from. I know it was this woman who set me on a lot of journeys—in books as well as on literal ones around the world. The myth of Houyi and the White Rabbit may well have been one she read to me.
Yanyu, Mia Lee, a very endearing character...so how did the ‘real’ Alice effect your real world?
Oh, I fell down that rabbit hole several times, but I never forgot the first time. From the day I met Alice, the world of “what ifs” opened to me. After Alice, there were no limits to the stories I could imagine or the stories I wanted to read. I think that’s why I love to read and write middle grade fantasy. So I guess you’d say Alice affected my real world by stirring my imagination and creating a desire to use it as much as my brain will allow.
You write a lot it says...what do you write and for whom?
As I said above, I write middle grade stories. My first one was Alligators Overhead. I hadn’t planned on writing a sequel until some fifth graders asked me to give them another Pete and Weasel adventure. Even then, it took me a while to do it. I’d never written a sequel, so that was the first hurdle—learn how. I managed to pull the second book together, and now The Great Time Lock Disaster is out.
I also write contemporary, realistic young adult: Sliding on the Edge (suicide and cutting), The Princess of Las Pulgas (financial loss and loss of a parent, recovery, cultural stereotypes), Double Negative (child neglect, illiteracy), and Sudden Secrets (family tragedy, bigotry).
I switch between these two age groups because I believe that helps me stay fresh. I don’t want to churn out books that are the same, so I work hard not to do that.
And I see that we are neighbors, with a lot of the same activities, gardening, yoga, writing...how does Santa Cruz influence your work?
Oh, yes. Santa Cruz a distinct way of life. I love it. When my grandmother was alive she had an apartment there, and I visited a lot. The Boardwalk; of course, the Big Dipper; the Wharf and the beach were big draws. When I was thirteen, won the biggest stuffed dog on the Boardwalk, playing Skee Ball. I’ve written a short story about my teen days in Santa Cruz and my brilliance at Skee Ball. I read it to bring back that summer. I wish I still had that stuffed dog.
Great website by the way...really clever, loved it. It says you love dragons, ever think about writing about them?
Here’s a secret. I have written a story about them. I’ve just never tried to publish it. It’s steeped in. . . guess what--Chinese mythology and astrology. I love the story. I’ve just never put it out for people to read. Maybe one day. Maybe when I'm sure it’s something I can share. I have a hunch it’s kind of rotten, and I don’t want to rile the dragons with a rotten story.
*I seriously doubt that's the case..maybe you should just pull it out again and give it another go round…you're a better writer now…either way, I think you're probably mistaken)
Much success in your work. If this is any indication of where your mind can take us, then we should be seeing you around for years to come...well done you!
That’s very kind of you. I hope that’s the case. I’ll write as long as I’m enjoying it, so that may be until I can’t hold a pen or a thought long enough. Thank you for the great questions. They jarred some old memories I’m rather fond of.
