 |
| From L to R: Leigh Bardugo, Me, Marie Rutkoski, Gennifer Albin and Caragh O'Brien |
I was chosen as the featured blogger for this stop on the Fierce Reads Tour at Off Square Books located in Oxford, MS on October 19th. I had the opportunity to sit down an chat with these ladies and let me just say, they are all so very nice and entertaining. You can feel the camaraderie, it was like sitting in with friends that had known one another forever. I hope that you get a sense of this in the interview.
 |
| Marie Rutkoski, Gennifer Albin, and Leigh Bardugo(far right) listen on as Caragh O' Brien tells us about her books. |
LLM: Why do you think the appeal for
dystopia is so strong right now?
Gennifer-Dystopia, I
think derived from current issues that concern us and they are the extreme
versions of those issues. She goes on
to say, she believes "most
teenagers feel like they live in a dystopia" because someone is always
dictating what they are allowed to do and they really have limited control over
their lives. She then states "doesn't
that feel dystopian?
Caragh: I think that is true for
teenagers throughout time, I don't know why especially now. I think that people
feel more afraid than they used about things that are outside of their control. She feels "the
economy has really shaken people" and fear of the environment...
On a real deep level people are
concerned about those issues and stories just give us a way to encounter some
of them in ways that are safe enough. The young adult dystopias tend to be more
hopeful. We read them because we want to see that there will be solutions. I think that's why they may be so
popular at the moment.
LLM: If you hadn't found publishers
for your work, do you feel you would've self-published like so many authors are
doing lately?
Gennifer: At the
time that I wrote it, I would've said, no. At this particular moment, I would
say, yes. I think there are benefits to having a traditional publisher; they do
a lot of things that I can't do or that would take up so much time. I have a
really good friend who I never anticipated self-publishing. He's wildly
successful at it right now and making a very good living. It's something a year
and half ago, I wouldn't even considered and now I kind of go, oh, this is
totally viable and kind of cool. Most of them actually work with editors; there
is this stench that people just throw whatever crap that's on the internet.
Caragh: No. She does mention that she saw
that there are a large number of self-published authors.
Leigh: I don't
honestly know because I knew nothing about the publishing industry when I was
looking into it. I didn't know that self-publishing was a thing. Only reason
that I know anything about is because now people ask about it at panels about
self-publishing. I will say that I suspect that if I had self- published,
I think what I probably would've done is written another book and tried. But had I self-published, I doubt
anybody would've bought my book in stores.*this is as close to what I think she
said*
Marie: I don't
think that I would have, I think because I would've felt discouraged. My
response has everything to do with the sort of person I am and nothing do to
with what self-publishing means now. It's just that I think that if I hadn't
found a publisher, I would have said 'Oh, well no one really wants to read
this' and then given up on it. I wish that wasn't the case but I know myself
well enough to say that's what I would've happened.
Leigh: I think I would've been in
the same boat; I just wouldn’t have had the confidence.
 |
| The opening act, a little "fierce" rocking |
LLM: Do you root for the villain or
the hero?
Leigh: I don't think there are villains and
heroes, generally. I think there are people that do really bad things. As a
writer, it gets really dangerous when you get too invested in one persons
goodness and another person’s badness... You know, I take that back. I really
do believe in heroes, I do. I believe in people doing good but I also believe
that people that do good are often not the people you expect. Sometimes they
have to work a little harder for it.
Caragh: I also
believe in villains.
Gennifer: I think the most compelling villains
have a reason for why they do what they do.
Marie ponders if the question should
be the antagonist vs. protagonist
Marie: Antagonists
are very fun to right.
Leigh: But the
question is who you root for...I liked Darth Vader but I didn't root for him.
Marie: I wouldn't
say I root for the antagonist but I do take some pleasure in writing the
antagonist.
LLM: How much of your time do you
spend on research?
Gennifer: I'm sure some people have
really well structured research. I tend to be like, oh!, I need to know what
that is, then I dig into and then I forget what is and have to go back to it
like two weeks later. I'm constantly researching.
Leigh: It’s so
fascinating because we have completely different writing processes and we are
figuring this out as we do these interviews. When I'm writing the first draft,
I put question marks in threes and I don't let myself stop to research or get
online. I go back and do those things and sometimes they're very heavy
structural things that may be a really big point. I take a specific amount of
time. When I was writing book one, I let myself have two months to do research
and that was it. I knew I would fall down the rabbit hole and never come out.
It's also a good excuse to not be writing.
She laughs and says, I couldn't
possibly go back to writing, I really have to research this old book of recipes
and I should make them. I should eat them.
I knew it would be too easy for me
to do that so, I tend to research in blocks. Of course, when I go into the
drafting process then I have to start looking up [information].
Caragh: I think I'm sort of a cross
in between. I had to do research to know what was happening. With the genetics
in the first book and finding the suppressor gene that was going to provide a
solution to a problem that I had in a book. So, I needed to do the research to do
it... If I'm stuck on something, I go do research and that helps with my ideas, then I can write more.
Marie: When I started writing, I felt like
I couldn't research because I was an academic and I did so much research for my
dissertation. I felt almost resentful at the idea doing research for a creative
project. That said I did draw on a lot of research that I had already done.
Definitely things I had encountered in the process of my own research and they
worked there way into my books. I'm becoming more and more of a researcher
with every novel that I write. I'm beginning to reject it less out of personal
issues and realize that this is an important part of me and my writing process.
For the book I'm working on now, I need to read Herodotus and I recently read
Euripides the Peloponnesian War. I'm doing more research than I used to, like
for the Shadow Society, I did very little research for that beyond asking
people how to do stuff. How do paint with oils? How do you fix a carburetor?
Caragh: But you already had in
groundwork for the Chicago Fire, you knew the things you wanted to undo and say
that they were myths.
Marie: Yeah.
 |
| Leigh Badugo conversing with a fan |
LLM:How much input do you have in the cover art process?
Gennifer:None
Someone says, We pray
Gennifer: I asked about the font and they gave me a different font.
Leigh: I don't know how much input I had. I know that I pushed very hard, my book is set in a fantasy inspired by Russia.So, I wanted it to be clear that there was a Russian influence. I wanted it to be like, 'it's different'. I pushed hard for that but they may have been planning to do that anyway,I don't know if that was me.At least, as a debut author, they were really good to me but it's really about what they want to do and you just keep your fingers crossed.
Caragh: I didn't have much input into the first cover but by the time they made the third cover... it gave me the idea of actually changing something in the book to match the cover. Which is different from how it usually works.
Marie: I had no say whatsoever in the Shadow Society yet and still I love the cover so much. The first cover, I wasn't crazy about but my publisher decided to do something totally new.
LLM:Favorite literary character?
EVER?
LLM:Yes
ALL: Laughs
Marie: Favorite like we want to be friends with this character or we want to marry them or best constructed...
LLM:How about marry, that sounds good?
ALL: laughing (I think they were plum tickled at this question, makes me wonder)
Marie: Sorry guys
ALL: Laughs
Leigh: I'll go with Lymond from the Lymond Chronicles
Gennifer: I'm glad you have an answer but I plead the 5th.
Caragh:I also have an answer but I'm going to keep it to myself.
Leigh's choice baffles Marie...she wonders does that character get better in the books, apparently he must not be a very good guy, maybe.
Leigh: I find him delightful.
Caragh: I find that this question really surprises me.
I think she found the idea of merging the real world with the fictional world strange.
Caragh: I'm married, I'm a married woman.
Leigh boisteriously says, "I'm a single lady, I can do whatever I want."
Gennifer: We're all married but Leigh, so we can't say anything.
Marie says she feels that her significant other might not care about her fictional crush.
Leigh:Well he shouldn't, what with him being fictional.
They all laugh, I think this might be my favorite question of the night.
 |
| Moving down the assembly line...getting books signed! |
