TBS Questions Answered - Book Winners!

Thank you to all who entered Shelly's giveaway! The questions were great and I had a hard time narrowing it down to just five... hence the super long delay in posting the winners! :-) Without *further* ado, here are the 5 winning questions and answers!

1) Steph Su said... How did you react when you found out that your book was going to be published?! What did you do to celebrate?

Well, when I got THE CALL from my agent with the final accepted offer
news, it was about 5 days after receiving the first THE CALL that a
publisher was interested in making an offer. Because I was fortunate to have multiple offers on Twenty Boy Summer, the wait was even longer (*almost died!*) and the internal squealing was even louder (*OMG*)! I
was still working a corporate gig at the time, sitting in a cube farm with like 100 people around me, and I'd been sneaking in and out of the only private phone booth on the floor all day. When the final call came in that the deal was done, I had to keep my freaking out to a minimum in order to maintain my serious corporate, um, seriousness. But I did call my husband and whisper-squeal, and then after work went out for martinis with the girls, then met my husband for an indulgent dinner at our favorite Argentinian restaurant. Thankfully I write full
time now, so I don't have to hide in a phone booth a la Clark Kent whenever I feel like freaking out over something cool!

2) jessica.marie said...Did you go to college to be a writer (major in English)? Do you think it would be beneficial to do so, or major in another subject that you would be interested in writing about such as History?

I studied Communication in college, which has some writing components but not a creative writing focus. I don't think you need to major in English or a writing-related discipline to become a writer. I definitely recommend taking writing classes, joining a critique group, and reading tons of classic and current literature, but you can do all those things while majoring in astrophysics if you want to. And if there's something you might love writing about, like history or anthropology or earth science, then yes, you should definitely follow
that course of study. But only if you're really into the subject, because you're making a pretty big financial, emotional, and time commitment to study something for 2 to 4 years, so whatever it is, make sure you really want it! :-)

3) Jenna said... Have you ever re-read a book that you used to love, and find that you don't like it as much as you used to. If so, why do you think that happened? Is it because your taste in books changed?

I don't recall having the experience of re-reading a book and not liking it the next time around, but I did have the opposite experience, and your question prompted me to write about that. When I was in high school, reading the classics did not appeal to me. I just didn't get into books like To Kill a Mockingbird, A Separate Peace, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I guess I just couldn't connect with the characters at that time in my life, and I felt like something was wrong with me. I mean, how could I not like the classics when I loved
writing so much? But then I re-read them as I got older, and now, A Separate Peace and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are two of my favorite books. So I do think it can be fun and beneficial to re-read stories when we're at different points in our lives. Our experiences and feelings change as we grow and learn and meet new people, so it makes sense that the way we relate to and connect with stories and characters will change, too.

4) quelleheure4 said... From the reviews I've been reading, your debut YA novel is getting rave reviews so I'd like to know if you'll be continuing in this vein and writing more YA novels! If so, what's next? Can you give us a little hint?

Thank you! Yes, I plan to write YA novels for as long as people want to read them! :-) My next book is called FIXING DELILAH HANNAFORD.  It's about a teen uncovering and understanding three generations of family secrets as she helps her mother and aunt pack up their deceased mother's estate in Vermont.  Delilah comes out in Spring/Summer 2010.  There is an excerpt posted at Starry Night if you'd like to check it out.

5) Nora said...I absolutely love your post on high school memories, want to tell us more about that prom-ditching grateful dead experience?

That was probably one of the funnest nights of my life. :-) Everyone thought I'd regret ditching senior prom for the Dead show, but I thought Jerry Garcia was much better date than any of the prospects at school, and I wasn't disappointed. We didn't even get tickets -- we just wandered around outside the stadium, listening to the music, taking in the scene, hanging out with the peace-loving Deadheads. About halfway through the show, they opened the doors for all of the ticket-less to wander in, and seeing the Dead like that, just jamming
out on the stage during one of their infamous random riffs, was amazing. I was transfixed.

After the show, we wandered back to the side street where my friend's boyfriend had parked his car. We had about 15 minutes till curfew, but we lived close to the stadium so we weren't worried. Of course, when we got to the street and saw that it was completely empty, save for about 100 other slack-jawed people who'd assumed as we did that the cops weren't seriously going to tow *all* of those cars, even if we did park in a no parking zone, we grew concerned! You know what they say about assumptions. The car was at the impound lot! I mean, here I was, ditching prom night, and I still wasn't going to make my curfew!

We spent the next 3 hours collecting cans and bottles from the stadium lots in blankets and dumping them into my friend's mom's minivan. Thankfully she showed up with the grocery-getter to help us carry the bottles to the store. We counted them all out and got $120, of which $80 had to pay to get the car out of impound. By the time the ordeal was over, I was the walking dead, which seemed fitting. I got home at like 6 in the morning with dirty hair, hands that reeked of beer from all the bottles we collected, and a tie-died T-shirt featuring Bugs Bunny characters as pot-smoking Deadheads. Mom was not pleased, but hey. I'll show those pink-satin-wearing prom-goers!

I got grounded for being so late, and so misunderstood, but whenever I think back to that crazy psychedelic riff inside the stadium, I know that it was totally worth it. :-)

Thanks again for all the great questions, and to Shelly for hosting this fun contest!

Thank you, Sarah for agreeing to do this, and thank you to Little, Brown for offering the books for this giveaway.  Winners have been emailed and have 48 hours to get their information back to me.

I will be posting more contest winners this evening.