Anyway, Erin Dionne (author of the upcoming MOXIE AND THE ART OF RULE-BREAKING) tagged me for The Next Big Thing, a blog tour that started in Australia and has been edging its way around the world one author at a time. I'm thrilled to take my turn answering questions about my new book. Read through to the end to find out where we go next!
What is the title of your next
book?
TEXTING THE UNDERWORLD comes out August 15 and I’m already bouncing
around like a ninny.
What it’s about: Perpetual scaredy-cat Conor O’Neill has the
fright of his life when a banshee named Ashling shows up in his bedroom. Like
all banshees, Ashling is a harbinger of death, and she’s sure someone in
Conor’s family is about to require her services. But she’s new at this banshee
business, and first she insists on going to middle school. Even as Conor
desperately tries to hide her identity from his classmates and teachers, he
realizes there’s no way to avoid paying a visit to the underworld if he wants
to keep his family safe.
Fortunately, he has a cell phone, and his computer-geek
friend, Javier, will be holding down the home front. Here’s my editor’s
favorite exchange between Javier and Conor:
“Got your cell?”
“Yeah . . . Don’t
see what good it’ll do me.”
“I’ll text you if
anything happens that you should know.”
“Text me? Javier,
we’ll be in the afterlife.”
“You never know.
Maybe they get a signal.”
Where did the idea come from
for the book?
 |
| Banshee illustration by Yvonne Gilbert, Abbey Lubbers, Banshees & Boggarts |
I was leafing through Abbey Lubbers, Banshees & Boggarts, an illustrated encyclopedia of folklore collected by the late Katharine Briggs. I came upon a full-page illustration of a banshee, and she wasn’t what I expected. (My banshee experience started and ended with "Darby O’Gill and the Little People," a Walt Disney film that scared the pants off me when I was a kid.) According to Briggs, banshees weren’t always evil old hags—sometimes they were the spirits of young girls who died too soon. Ashling the banshee popped into my head right then and there, and I had the plot mapped out in three hours.
What genre does your book fall under?
It’s middle-grade
fantasy. Depending on who you talk to, “middle grade” ranges from age eight to
age fourteen. You can decide for yourself whether banshees and a trip to the underworld constitute "fantasy."
What actors would you choose to
play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
CJ Adams (“The Odd
Life of Timothy Green”) would be a great Conor, and Elle Fanning would be good
as Ashling. (She’d have to dye her hair red.) The other major character is
Grump, Conor’s grandfather, a banshee expert who’s kind of a loveable
curmudgeon. Gotta be Clint Eastwood.
Who is publishing your book?
Dial Books for Young Readers, a Penguin imprint.
How long did it take you to
write the first draft of the manuscript?
Let’s see. I started it in the summer of 2010, and got going on it
seriously in the fall. I had a first draft to my editor in June 2011, and we
finished revisions a little less than a year later. There were a lot of empty months in there
while my editor was considering my various proposals and I was working on other
things.
Who or what inspired you to
write this book?
On the surface it was
just the idea of a young banshee. But also various family members and friends
had died over the previous decade, and I had some thoughts about death that
made this book even more interesting to me.
What else about the book might pique
the reader’s interest?
There’s a mysterious connection between Conor and Ashling that becomes
clear only when they finally visit the afterlife.
While she’s visiting Conor, Ashling’s chief source of information about
the world is an old Trivial Pursuit game.
It turns out the Underworld does get a cell phone signal. Also internet.
And now (*drum roll*), I hereby tag Lisa Gail Green, author of the upcoming THE BINDING STONE. Take it away, Lisa!
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