Sara Zarr, the author of Story of a Girl and Sweethearts and an amazingly cool person, generously agreed to be interviewed for the Book Slam blog. Thank you, Sara! Here's what she had to say:
QL: We love the chapter titles for your life on your website. If you were writing the chapters, which one would make you laugh out loud? Which would make you cry?
SZ: You know, I think they would all make me do both. Even when I’m retelling some of the most painful episodes from my life, I can find a humorous take on it. Most people I know who have successfully survived a childhood with an alcoholic parent or other rough times have done so because they’re able to look at the whole situation with some humor, and compassion for everyone involved.
QL: Do you have a (good, bad or ugly) library memory from your teen years?
SZ: I’ve always loved libraries! I could never really afford to buy books---maybe one or two a year---so libraries were my source for everything. When I was in high school a branch in my neighborhood was remodeled and had a special teen section with beanbag chairs and I just though that was the coolest thing ever.
QL: What kinds of books did you love most as a teen?
SZ: I loved Judy Blume. I loved Robert Cormier and M.E. Kerr. I was also really into the Madeleine L’Engle books about the Austin family and the O’Keefe family. So, basically I loved the kind of books that I try to write now, books in which the teen characters have complex lives and experiences and struggle with the fundamental stuff of what it is to be human.
QL: What songs (or bands) would be on the soundtrack of your high school life?
SZ: It was the eighties, and there was a huge range of popular music. You had classic rock bands and singer/songwriters of the seventies still putting out music, and then New Wave and punk, as well as soul and funk still going pretty strong. So, let’s see, Billy Joel and Elton John were on the radio all the time, and albums that got heavy rotation in my life: Def Leppard’s Pyromania, Tears for Fears Songs from the Big Chair, Alphaville’s Forever Young, Bryan Adams Reckless, and of course U2 The Joshua Tree.
QL: What’s your favorite tech gadget or web tool?
SZ: Wikipedia! It knows everything!
QL: What’s the best movie you’ve seen in 2008?
SZ: I think it came out in 2007, but I saw it in 2008: Lars and the Real Girl. It’s so beautiful, and so much about love…one character has a great speech in the middle about what the community has done for Lars and it’s the best picture of real, non-romantic love I’ve seen in a movie in a long time.
QL: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
SZ: It was a process. I always loved to write, but it wasn’t until I was about 25 that I knew I wanted to do it as a career.
QL: Is the life of a full-time writer what you expected?
SZ: No! I really romanticized it, the way a lot of people do. I pictured myself sipping coffee and typing away and never really struggling. It’s way harder than I thought it would be. Writing is still hard work. It never gets easier, and it can be lonely and frustrating, but the finished book is always worth it.
QL: What’s your advice to teens who want to be published writers?
SZ: I think it’s important to spend awhile – at least four or five years – just totally focusing on the writing and putting the whole publishing business out of your head. Finish a book, then work on making it good, then start educating yourself about the business. Studying creative writing in college is optional. I never did, and a lot of writers I know never did. I think it can help compress the learning process so that you learn more, faster, and you write more in a shorter amount of time, but don’t feel bad if college doesn’t happen for you or you end up studying something else. You can still write.
QL: Are you working on something now?
SZ: Yes, I’m working on my third book. And it’s killing me. (But I feel that way about every book!)
QL: Having your first novel be a National Book Award finalist is awesome! What did you do when you found out?
SZ: I walked around in a daze for a few days. Then I started shopping! There were all these events to go through and I needed clothes. That whole season – from the time the finalists were announced in October to around Christmas – was just surreal. And wonderful.
QL: Where did the idea for Deanna’s story come from?
SZ: Deanna showed up as a side character in another book I wrote that was about the character Lee. When I finished that, I thought Deanna was the most interesting thing in the book and wanted to write a story in her voice. So I just sat down and started writing and the story itself developed over a few drafts.
QL: The characters are all so complex; which was the hardest to get a feel for?
SZ: I was really lucky with that book because most of the characters felt fully formed when they walked into my imagination. I think Deanna’s mom evolved more over drafts---I wasn’t sure how Deanna’s relationship with Tommy got under her radar, but once I figured out that she was just so tired, I knew how to write her.
QL: It’s hard to know how to feel about Tommy, even after Deanna forgives him. How do you feel about him?
SZ: Oh, Tommy Tommy Tommy. I confess that I really like Tommy. I don’t think he’s a bad guy. He’s like a lot of guys I knew in high school who weren’t malicious or cruel or anything, just selfish, like a lot of us are at that age. He’s clueless about the path of destruction he’s leaving, and I think he’s truly shocked when Deanna confronts him about everything he did and the effect their relationship has had on her life. He’s not anyone I would want my daughter to date if I had a daughter, but…he’s human. Like we all are.
QL: What do you hope readers take away from Story of a Girl?
SZ: I hope the characters are real to them, and that they have a great reading experience, and if they’ve been through anything like Deanna has been (with a guy, or with friends, or with parents) that maybe they’ll see some hope in her story and have a little compassion for themselves.
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