What was the timeline between inspiration and publication?
A long time…
The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had started as my thesis project at American University in 2001. I was finishing up a MFA in Film and Video, so the story was originally a screenplay called Moundville. It did pretty well in a couple of different contests, but everyone who read it had the same comment: “It’s a great story, but we can’t sell a screenplay that is a period piece and has kids as the leads.” After hearing this comment for the umpteenth time, I realized the story really was better suited to a novel. I love to read and my favorite genre is middle-grade and young adult fiction, so it seemed natural that was what I would write. As a children’s novel, the “negatives” of the story became strengths. You have to have kids as the main characters in a middle-grade novel – and a historical setting isn’t any more expensive to write than a present day story.
So I changed Moundville to a novel in 2004-05. I tried to get the book published in 2005 without success. My daughter, Charlotte, was born in early 2006. It was hard to find time to pursue writing with a tiny baby at home, but I did manage to join a local writing group.
At one point I mentioned to the group that I had written this book that was just sitting on my shelf at home. One person asked to read it, then another and another. To my surprise, everyone was really enthusiastic about the story – and they weren’t even related to me! So I started to think, maybe I should give finding an agent one more shot.
In the past I had always written very formal, very professional (okay – boring) cover letters, so this time I wrote a chattier letter that showed a lot more of my personality. And it worked. My agent, Kathy Green, signed me in April 2007, and one month later sold it to Stacey Barney at Putnam. We started edits on the book in October 2007, finishing them up in March 2008. The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had was released in January 2009.
So from start to finish, it took me about 8 years. Let’s hope my next book doesn’t take as long!!
How much research did you do for this book, and what was your most interesting discovery?
Actually, my grandfather did most of the research for this book – because he wrote down his memories of growing up in Moundville, Alabama. The whole book was “inspired by” his life. It’s not a true story, but many of the events in the book actually happened.
It’s funny, because I put off reading my grandfather’s memoirs for a long time. He died in the early 1990s and I never knew him very well. So when I read his memoirs for the first time I was surprised at how much contact he described between the black and white families in town. Certainly racism existed at the time (and it plays a major role in the book), but he also went fishing with the black barber’s son. That wasn’t what I expected nor was it the view I had of people living in the South.
The second thing that I found really interesting was how much freedom kids had in the early 1900s. When he was 12 years old, my grandfather would go off and play all day. He knew how to fish, hunt and drive a car. Today, we barely let kids play in their own front yard unattended. The freedom to do things and act on your own really appealed to me and I thought it was something that children today might find intriguing as well.
What sorts of books did you enjoy as a child? What are some of your favorite books today?
Books were really important to me as a child. I didn’t feel like I always fit in at school (okay, I was a big nerd) and I could always depend on books to make me feel better. Books were probably the most important to me from about 4th to 8th grade – maybe that’s why I like to write for that age range now.
Some of my favorite books as a child were: The Book of Three series by Lloyd Alexander, The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, and The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley.
I still love to read middle-grade and young adult fiction. Sabriel by Garth Nix, anything by Orson Scott Card, The Canning Season by Polly Horvath and His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman are some of my more recent favorites. But The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis was probably the greatest influence on this novel. I loved how that book mixed real history with family life.
You might notice something funny here – almost all of my favorite books are fantasy/sci-fi series. So how did I end up writing a historical fiction novel? I’m not really sure! Well, that’s not entirely true – I also liked the Anne of Green Gables series and the Little House on the Prairie books as a child. And I went through a phase in 9th grade where I loved long historical novels like Shogun by James Clavell.
But one of these days I’d love to write a fantasy or sci-fi series myself!
What is your favorite time of day to write?
My favorite time of day to write is in the morning – 9 am to 12 noon is perfect! That leaves the rest of the day for errands, emails, etc. I rarely write more than three hours a day – I can get a lot done in three hours and if I try to work longer than that, I’m not very productive.
But when do I actually write? Whenever I can steal a moment or two! I have a three year old daughter now and another baby due in March 2009, so now my favorite writing time is: nap time, Sesame Street time, when my daughter is at music class with my husband, when my mom and dad have time to baby-sit, preschool time…you get the idea.
The one time I don’t like to write is at night – I’m usually just too tired and I feel like I don’t have the concentration writing requires. I’ve found that being a mom means that sometimes I do have to write at night – especially if I have a deadline. So I’m trying to learn to like writing at night better.
What kinds of things do you enjoy when you are not writing?
Well, of course I love to read. I’m currently in a book club that reads adult books and while I enjoy talking to the other people in the group, I still like kids’ book better.
I also like to watch DVDs. I rarely watch TV anymore because I can’t stand the commercials and having to wait weeks between episodes is so annoying. But I love TV shows on DVD. My favorites are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and the new Battlestar Galactica. (Notice all the fantasy/sci-fi titles again?) I used to go to the movies a lot, but with a small child it’s hard to get out, so thank goodness for Netflix!
I love playing with my daughter, too – she’s at a co-op preschool so I spend some time volunteering there. My parents and my sister and her family live in the same town as I do – which is kind of unusual these days – so I spend a lot of time doing family stuff with them.
My husband and I also love to travel. I took a year off after high school and worked in Vienna, Austria, as an au pair. That was such a great decision! I enjoyed college so much more after having that little break – and I learned to speak fluent German too. In addition to traveling in Europe, I’ve been to all 50 states except North Dakota and Louisiana. Hope to add those states to my list soon!
Are you currently working on any new projects that you can tell us a bit about?
Sure. I enjoyed learning about and getting to know my own family better by writing The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had, so I decided my next book would be set in Little Rock, Arkansas, where my mom grew up. My mother, my daughter and I took a trip to Little Rock last December to look at her old house, the zoo, the pool she used to swim in, etc. I also interviewed a few people who grew up in Little Rock, including my aunt and uncle.
I think I’m going to set the book at the time of the Little Rock school integration, although it’s not going to be directly about that. I love boy/girl friendships in children’s books, so there’ll probably be one of those too. Of course all the racial tension at the time will also play into the book – but I was surprised to realize there were actually fewer opportunities for blacks and whites to meet and become friends in Little Rock in 1957 than there were in Moundville, Alabama, in 1917.
Then there’s always that fantasy/sci-fi novel – but that seems so difficult and scary. I think I’ve got a couple more historical novels in me first. But I’ll give it a shot one of these days!
“Dit and Emma are likable protagonists, and the growth of their friendship, along with Dit’s emerging moral conscience, make this a fine debut novel by an author to watch.” Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2008. Ages 9-12.
