I’ve been to two great writing events since the beginning of March. On March 2, Oblong Books hosted authors Lauren Oliver and Kate Ellison – the first Hudson Valley YA Society event of this year. And Saturday, March 10 was SCBWI’s First Pages event, with editors Molly O’Neill and Lynne Polvino and agent John Rudolph, who critiqued the first page manuscripts of all who attended.
So I’m writing about the Oblong event today, and I’ll try to post about the First Pages event as soon as I can after. I want to give each one its own post, because there’s a lot to say about each event!
I went to Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, NYwith Kimberly Sabatini – it’s been a few years since I’ve shopped there, but I’ve always thought that it’s a great independent bookstore. Kim introduced me to co-owner Suzanna Hermans, who organized the event along with Jennifer Laughran, a bookseller at Oblong as well as an agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency. They founded the Hudson Valley YA Society in 2010, and have hosted many notable authors of young adult books at the store.
There was a great turnout, with every seat in the event area filled with a mix of aspiring and published YA writers, and teen readers – all eager to meet Lauren Oliver and Kate Ellison, and hear them read from their books and discuss their writing careers.
Lauren began by talking about her start as a writer. She grew up in Westchester, New York, with a great love of reading – her parents are both literature professors, and her father is a true crime author. As a kid, she’d write sequels to the books she loved, like the Redwall series. She said that she was a “fan fiction” writer, before the concept really existed! And in middle school, she wrote little fanzines for her friends, as well as her own stories. She studied literature and philosophy at University of Chicago, but started writing seriously while pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at NYU. She said she wrote an 800-page literary novel during that time, “in which nothing happened!”
She was also working at Razorbill, the young adult imprint of Penguin Books, where she learned about YA writing and was inspired to start her first book for teens, Before I Fall.
It’s the story of Samantha, who gets the opportunity to re-live the last day of her life over and over again, in order to discover the mystery of her death, as well as the meaning of her life. It was published by HarperTeen in March 2010, and has become a best-seller that’s also received several awards.
Her second book was Delerium (published in January2011) – the first in a dystopian trilogy about a world where love is considered a disease, and everyone over the age of 18 is given a treatment to cure it. Lauren said that she was inspired by a quote she’d heard about writing, “All great books are written about love or death,” and wanted to write a book with love at its heart. Then she heard some media stories about the possibility of a bird flu epidemic (that didn’t happen) and likened the “symptoms” of love to a sickness. She was also interested in writing about a society with rigid rules imposed on its people. Delerium’s main character, Lena, is due to be cured when she meets a boy who changes her mind. Lauren read a compelling passage from the beginning of Pandemonium, the recently-published second book in the series. And the last in the trilogy, Requiem, is due to be published next March. Lauren said she had intended the book to be a tragedy, but she fell in love and got engaged while writing it and the story turned out differently. “Maybe some kind of joy seeped through my fingers,” she said.
HarperCollins also published Liesel and Po, Lauren’s book for middle-grade readers, last October – it’s about a girl who befriends a ghost, and Lauren said it means a lot to her. She said all of her books share a common theme – transformation.
Kate Ellison, the debut author of The Butterfly Clues (published in February by EdgmontUSA) had a creative childhood, too, in Baltimore. She said she would write to get her family’s attention, and also wrote her version of “fan fiction” – stories about the characters of Sweet Valley High! Both Lauren and Kate agreed that fan fiction,with established series and characters, can be away to learn how to write .
Kate got her degree in acting at DePaul University in Chicago, and is an accomplished artist as well as writer. She talked about the origin of The Butterfly Clues – she grew up with a cousin who had OCD and also had a tragic loss in her life. Kate said she didn’t understand about OCD until she read about the condition when she was older. It inspired the book’s character, Lo, who is a compulsive collector of strange and interesting objects. Lo’s obsession is a way of dealing with constantly having to move from place to place with her family, and is also a way of coping with the grief of her brother’s death. When she finds an antique butterfly necklace at a flea market and realizes that it belonged to a girl who was recently murdered, she becomes obsessed with trying to solve the murder mystery. Kate read a passage from the book, where Lo meets Flynt, an intriguing street artist.
Then, both authors answered questions from the audience, about reading, and the writing process. Both are avid readers – Lauren said she reads four books at any given point in time! Kate said she’s wary of reading in the genre that she writes in, so she doesn’t read a lot of YA titles. She’s been reading a lot of neuro-science books lately. Lauren agreed that reading dystopian teen books “can be paralyzing,” so she has only read the first Hunger Games book. She read Agatha Christie while working on the Delerium trilogy, and she also loves historical novels, like those of Philippa Gregory.
When asked to tell about when she first heard she’d be published, Lauren said she felt like it wasn’t really happening. One of the proudest moments of her life was when she called her father with the news – but he hung up on her twice; he thought he was hallucinating! Kate said she had a dog-walking job with a troublesome dog, on the day she got the call – “it was thrilling!”
They shared their writing habits – both tend to write in the morning. Lauren aims to write a certain amount of words every day – sometimes it takes a half-hour and sometimes it takes four hours, but “I just get it done.” She said she wrote Before I Fall on her Blackberry while commuting between two jobs. She must have coffee, but she can’t listen to music while writing – instead, she picks songs as a way to inform her characters. Kate likes to listen to instrumental music, and usually reads a few pages of something she loves for inspiration, before writing.
They both gave some helpful tips and advice about writing. Lauren believes that writer’s block is a myth. Writing every day is important – it doesn’t have to be good, but it cultivates discipline. She does worry between books that she’ll never write another. So she just writes “bad novels” in between! Kate said you need to take the pressure off yourself – just write anything down. She suggested taking walks, or traveling for inspiration – “even if it’s just to a crappy motel; you can write about that, too!” Both stressed the importance of doing what you love.
Lauren said that working in the publishing field did help her meet people – she pitched her first book to her agent at a cocktail party. But she said that querying is the best way to get an agent, and it’s important to work on the query letter until it’s perfect. She read a lot of queries at Penguin, and many were bad: “It’s Twilight meets Harry Potter”!
In addition to writing, Lauren co-owns Paper Lantern Lit – a literary development company that helps up-and-coming authors with editing and preparing their books for publication. She said that five Paper Lantern authors have books coming out this year. Kate is an author with Paper Lantern – Lauren helped her with The Butterfly Clues, and Kate’s agent is the same as Lauren’s.
The audience wanted to know about their future writing plans. Kate is working on another teen mystery, and she’s thinking of writing poetry or adding art to her writing, “to keep myself challenged.” And Lauren’s second middle-grade book, The Spindlers, is coming out this Fall, with Requiem to follow in 2013.
After, Lauren and Kate both graciously signed copies of their books. I bought every one of their books, and said I’d be glad to recommend them as possible titles for the teen book group that I moderate at the bookstore where I work. Kim got several books signed, too, and shared with them the good news of her upcoming debut, Touching the Surface, that’s being released on October 30. We were also lucky to get pictures with Lauren and Kate.
It was a fun and inspiring evening, and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to meet Lauren Oliver and Kate Ellison – their book readings and writing discussion will surely help to enrich my own writing. Thanks to Suzanna Hermans and Jennifer Laughran for hosting this event – I look forward to many others of the Hudson Valley YA Society!
I had a blast!!! Great write up!!!
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