Interview with Lauren Baratz-Logsted!

Today we have the love Lauren Baratz-Logsted, author of books including The Education of Bet and Crazy Beautiful. You can find my review of The Education of Bet (which I adored) here.

You write books for kids, teens, and adults! Do you find it at all difficult to transition from one to another in your writing process?
No. In fact, I think it's what keeps me fresh. I'm an eclectic reader who enjoys reading books in many different genres and for all age groups, and I'm the same with my writing. By the end of this year I will have had 19 books published and I've sold a total of 23. If they were all in one genre or just for one age group, I'd probably be burnt out and done by now. As it is, I feel like I'm just getting started.

How much and what kind of research was required for The Education of Bet?
Less than you might think. I've always loved books set in Victorian England and I find it's a period that's very accessible to me when I'm writing. Since The Education of Bet is inspired in large part by a book I read when I was younger - Tom Brown's Schooldays, by Thomas Hughes - I re-read that before starting and then I was pretty much good to go.


Who would ideally play Bet and James in the movie version of The Education of Bet?
I'd cast Emma Watson who's done such a wonderful job as Hermione in the Harry Potter films as Bet. For James, I'd like someone who'd be new to audiences so I looked over at the New Faces Models & Actors website, coming up with this guy, Adam Barnes.

What is one book that you would recommend to young adult readers, and why?
Talk about a difficult question! Just one??? The temptation is to pick the one book that would provide the best life lesson, but of course there isn't such a book. So I think I'll simply say my favorite YA book that I read in 2009: Freeze Frame, by Heidi Ayarbe.

Your next book for teens, The Twin’s Daughter, is due out this month. (It looks fantastic, by the way!) What were your first thoughts upon seeing the incredibly gorgeous cover?
The interesting thing is that the cover you see now isn't the cover we started with. I liked the first cover very much - it had an old-fashioned look to it and a very dark feel - but the publisher decided liking wasn't enough. They wanted me to be in love with the cover and they wanted to be in love with it themselves. Between the first cover and the final they must have gone through over 20 versions before this one finally leaped out at us all. I think it's safe to say that now we are all in love.

And, for the record, how do you pronounce your last name? ;)
Lauren is exactly as it looks. Logsted is exactly as it looks too, even if people are always trying to insert an 'a' into it to make it Logstead. It's the Baratz part that people always stumble over. Just take the Barrett in Elizabeth Barrett Browning and make it sound plural, like Barretts, and you'll have it.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
<3 Cate

Interview with Thalia Chaltas!

I have the great (and exciting) pleasure of welcoming Thalia Chaltas, author of Because I Am Furniture, to Sparrow Review for my first-ever author interview! Ms. Chaltas currently living in California, where she continues writing other works no doubt as brilliant as Because I Am Furniture.

Your biography reads that you have had trained to become everything from a kinesthesiologist to a helicopter pilot. When did you discover that you wanted to be a writer, and how have your many experiences helped you during your writing process?
I always wrote poetry, and I always wanted to write a novel (adult), but I didn't necessarily want to be a writer, per se. I think I thought that having one book on the library shelf would be great, but not my profession! "Oh I'll just whip off one novel and then move on..." After college, I kept learning new skills and finding them to be not quite what I wanted to "do" in life, interesting to me, but not applicable to what I thought of as real life. And along the way, I kept writing... In 2000 I joined a writer's critique group specifically for writing for children (because I thought it sounded "fun"), and this built a foundation and accountability, and a professionality I had not thought of before. I have not stopped since!

I don't know that specific past experiences and interests have helped my writing process, but I understand now that my tendency to gather information by learning something or doing something new is very useful. It is a great benefit as a writer to have the willingness to jump through the wormhole when it opens - how can I show what a character feels when they are bounced out of a raft in the rapids, if I am not willing to jump into rapids myself? So my passion for trying new experiences is what helps my writing, not necessarily drawing on the experiences I've already had. Although, sometimes those work, too. :)

Where did you find your inspiration for Because I Am Furniture, especially in light of its darker subject matter?
Unfortunately, my own childhood. I did not intend to write the novel, but poems came out of me, and after a lot of work I connected them together and started making it fiction. Once it was fiction, I loved writing it! I did not write BECAUSE I AM FURNITURE to state my case or punish or feel better - I wrote it because it developed into a novel with a great story and an unusual format and I enjoyed it.


What is one book that you would recommend to young adult readers, and why?
I happen to love books that stretch boundaries for me. I read a ton of sci fi and fantasy as a teen (and still do). One of my personal favorites recently was THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner. The main character does not know who he is or where he is, and the reader has to learn it all one page at a time with him. Social aspects, communication difficulties, friendships, broken bonds, self doubt - it's all in there. Brilliant, edge-of-your-seat stuff.

I read that you collect children's books- which would you consider the highlight of your collection?
I have some first editions I try not to drool on, like THE WIZARD OF OZ by Frank Baum, but honestly, my very favorite is an unusual middle grade book, tattered and discarded by a library when I was young, called TAASH AND THE JESTERS, by Ellen McKenzie. I am fairly certain it is not in print and I have never found anyone else who has read it! Taash is a young boy who is getting restless and curious (and damn grumpy) about the outer world and takes off into it, and ends up in a separate world from his, with the unlikely protection of twin jesters who appear and disappear. Of course, Taash finds out he is not who he thought he is. And isn't that true for all of us?

Do you listen to music as you write, or do you prefer quiet?
I would love to listen to music! I would love to have a playlist on my website and say "I listened to this because it inspired such and such -" But honestly, although I am very musical myself, I tune out everything when I write. So I could put on the iPod or a cd but I would not hear any of it! Waste of electricity for me.

Are you in the process of writing any other novels, and are they also in poems? Have you dabbled in prose as well?
I am finishing a new novel in poems, and it is scheduled to come out in Summer 2011. Keep track of news on that on my website. I have always written poetry, but I have always written my stories in prose, until recently. I tend to think in small gatherings of words, as in poetry, so writing prose takes a bit longer for me. Poems just come out of me fastest, and I am very happy that there is a genre specifically for novels in verse. It suits me!

Thanks for having me aboard for the interview, Cate!

***
You're so welcome! It was such a pleasure. :)
If you would like to learn more about Ms. Chaltas, you can visit her website or blog. And if you're interested in purchasing her book (which you should be!), Because I Am Furniture, you can do so here and here.