Debut Author Interviews

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

• Paula Chase on...Influential Books
• Joni Sensel on...Influential Books
• Carrie Jones on...Influential Books
• Thatcher Heldring on...Influential Books
• Ruth McNally Barshaw on...Influential Books
• Melissa Marr on...Influential Books
• Kelly Bingham on...Influential Books
• Sarah Aronson on...Influential Books
• Marlane Kennedy on...Influential Books
• Greg R. Fishbone on...Influential Books
• A.C.E. Bauer on...Influential Books
• Sarah Beth Durst on...Influential Books
• Rose Kent on...Influential Books
• G. Neri on...Influential Books
• S.A. Harazin on...Influential Books
• Jeannine Garsee on...Influential Books
• Laura Bowers on...Influential Books

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and May The Circle Go Unbroken. Especially, Roll of Thunder. Taylor’s portrayal of a proud, hard working family in the ‘30’s really translated over the decades.

As a kid I had no real connection to the time period that Cassie (the MC) grew up in. Yet, Taylor’s description of Cassie’s life could have been any girl in any period.

Also, pretty much any (every) thing by Judy Blume. She has such a way of capturing the teen spirit and experience.

Her books made me think and kept me grounded in reality (i.e. bad things happen but you get over them).

Finally, Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High was my guilty pleasure. It was the teen soap opera that I couldn’t get enough of.

I’d say these three authors made up the foundation of my reading as a young reader.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and everything by Dr. Seuss.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

All of them.

Really. I think that every book I read affected me at least a little bit. Even if it was to just scream, “Do not have incest with your brother just because you’re locked in the attic! He’s your BROTHER! Ewww…” I think I avoided my brothers for weeks after that.

The books I remember the most are:

1. Wrinkle in Time… I had glasses. So did Meg. I was smart but not a super genius. Just like Meg. I felt kind of boring while everyone else seemed extraordinary. Just like Meg.

2. Illusions by Richard Bach. This seems so smarmy, I know, but this book made me believe in the potential of the individual.

3. Anne Sexton’s Mercy Street. It made me love poetry and made me start to write it. This is possibly a bad thing.

4. Funny books. I was just a little kid but I was soooo into Erma and all her housewife antics and then there was Douglas Adams, and then there was Dave Barry, and the Preppie Handbook and the Talk like a Valley Girl books. Anything that made me snort out my nose was a big deal for me.

5. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and The Hobbit. The creation of other worlds really sucked me in. I wanted to create other worlds. I wanted there to be other worlds. I still do.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

Growing up I read a bit of everything. Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, Encyclopedia Brown, The Great Brain, The Call of the Wild. I finished Gentle Ben more than once and read The Hobbit like they paint the Golden Gate Bridge. Later, in high school, I took my literary medicine in doses of Wharton, Steinbeck, and of course Salinger, who made us all feel we were the only non-phonies in the classroom. Movies had a big impact on me, too. They are stories, after all. The good ones anyway. Empire of the Sun. ET. Stand By Me. The Breakfast Club. Hoosiers, obviously. And on television, shows like Family Ties, The Wonder Years, and much more recently, the incomparable Freaks and Geeks. But the books that really influenced me as an author came to me as an adult. Louis Sachar is the master of being poignant without being sentimental. Rich Wallace is the greatest young-adult writer nobody has ever heard of. His sense of the male perspective has heat-seeking accuracy. His use of setting is not his own invention, but he does it at well as anyone. Gary Paulsen is not afraid to kill the moose, and I admire that too. There’s Twain as well, but, where to begin?

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

Ramona the Pest, Henry Huggins, Ellen Tebbits, Henry and Beezus, etc., anything by Beverly Cleary – I fell in love with her characters and their worlds. I could totally relate.

The Key To The Treasure by Peggy Parish – this story absolutely enthralled me.

The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop, illus. by Kurt Wiese—hilarious illustrations I adored.

I was a voracious reader.
In fourth grade my teacher read many classics aloud in class: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlotte’s Web, James and the Giant Peach, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Harriet the Spy, and others.
What a wonderful teacher she was. She opened my world.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

Oooh, I was just talking about this elsewhere with some urban fantasy authors! Here’s my list—

Childhood:
My grandmother had a shelf of books in “the spare room” at her house. One of these was a 1907 text Draper’s Self-Culture: Fairy Tales, Myths, and Legends. I read and re-read that until I could tell the stories in it. My other fav reads were presents—Andersen’s Fairy Tales (Grossett & Dunlap, 1974) and Aesop’s Fables. I’m still carrying these books with me as I move about the country. Around 12, I started to read Shakespeare, The Odyssey, a collection of English poetry (that I still have), and a bunch of other lit texts my uncle gave me. He’d bring me boxes of books twice a year (he taught college so they were extra “review copies” or books he picked up at used bookstores or read and didn’t want to keep).

Teen:
By 13-15, I read whatever I could get ahold of—myth, romance, fantasy, history, mystery. I, umm, read dictionaries and the phonebook when I ran out of books. Somewhere around 16/17, I discovered the Beat authors (I liked Keroauc & Ginsberg, not Burroughs), as well as Baudelaire, Rilke, Flaubert, Faulkner, Nietszche, & Plato.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

All books impacted me in some way. The act of reading was something that fed my soul, and I read quite a bit growing up. I loved the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and must have reread each one a hundred times. In short, I was always reading, and good or bad, I would lose myself in the story entirely. I think the fascination with the very concept of writing something down that could take people to another world and another time is something most writers have in common—it’s pretty rare to meet a writer that was not a reader at an early age.

This is not to say a person cannot start writing at any age, no matter what their background, of course. The world needs good stories, always.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

As a kid, I watched TV. I went to movies. I loved the theater. I was not a reader until I lived in England at age 16.

There I started reading Dickens, the Bronte sisters, and Thomas Hardy. I was attracted to the darker tones of their work. And the windy, dark climate around me fit my mood! When I came home, I continued to read: Catcher in the Rye, Lolita, and Anna Karenina were some of my favorites. I’ll admit, I loved Agatha Christie, too! I didn’t discover YA literature until I was an adult. I spend a lot of time catching up!!

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

When I was in second grade my teacher gave me a Nancy Drew book to read. Not exactly considered great literature in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly ignited a passion for reading. During those early years I devoured the whole Nancy Drew series and the Trixie Belden mysteries, too. Then I went through a long spell where I would only read books about horses. When I was junior high age, though, I absoultely fell in love with Katherine Paterson’s JACOB HAVE I LOVED and also Madeleine L’Engle’s A WRINKLE IN TIME. In high school Paul Zindle’s MY DARLING, MY HAMBURGER was a favorite. And, of course, as an adult I have discovered many great books: Louis Sacher’s HOLES, Kate DiCamillo’s BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE, Lowis Lowy’s THE GIVER, and Jerry Spinelli’s STARGIRL and MANIAC MAGEE.
All these books have helped shaped me as a writer, I believe.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

Too many.

Some that stick in my mind are the Wrinkle in Time books by Madeleine L’Engle for introducing one mind-blowing idea after another, the Hitchhiker books by Douglas Adams for keeping me in laughter for years, every Ellen Raskin book I could get my hands on, Isaac Asimov’s books about robots and Foundation, short story collections by Frederic Brown, and Piers Anthony’s Xanth books, which I read until I hit the 11th or 12th of them and had to stop for the sake of my sanity (possibly a book or two late).

There’s also a book series I won’t mention by name, which I read about six of in fourth grade before wondering…why? It was the first time I’d ever stopped in the middle of a book and thought, “I could do better than this!”

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

I read comic books—lots and lots and lots of them. All of my allowance went into them. I started with Gold Key comics, Casper, Wendy, Hot Stuff, Baby Huey, Richie Rich, Little Dot, and more. I moved to DC comics, Superman, Batman, Legion of Superheroes, Wonder Woman, etc., and even read Archie comics, although the hero comics were my favorite. By the time I was in my tweens, I read MAD Magazine, Spy vs. Spy compilations, and any other MAD-related thing I could find, though I never gave up comics.

When I was 7 or 8, my parents worried about my reading habits and started buying me Enyd Blyton books, The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, and many more. I did turn into a voracious reader of novels after that. But my first love was, and continues to be, comics—although they’re now called graphic novels, and I don’t spend all of my allowance on them anymore.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

I loved (and still love) books about smart girls who kick butt against all odds, books where something wonderful and fun and magical happens, books that make you daydream… I have the same favorites now as I did growing up: Tamora Pierce’s ALANNA books, Robin McKinley’s THE BLUE SWORD, Patricia Wrede’s THE ENCHANTED FOREST CHRONICLES, Diane Duane’s DEEP WIZARDRY… These books shaped how I see the world: full of wonder and magic and possibilities. And they inspired me to be a writer — they made me want to create that feeling of wonder and magic myself. After all, being a writer is the real-world equivalent of being a wizard.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

Seventy times seventy books impacted my early years, but don’t worry, I won’t list them all. I loved LITTLE WOMEN, I wanted to BE Jo, exude her passion and drama. And Nancy Drew was so cool and smart. Even ENCYLOPEDIA BROWN had his place — who didn’t want to figure out how he solved the case before reading the answer on the last page? And believe it or not, the dark nonfiction THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, documenting Nazi atrocities, found its way into my hands.

Like kids who read today, I was a sponge, soaking in so much of the written word. And it wasn’t just novels. I adored ARCHIE comic books. Veronica was tres chic. I read NEWSDAY newspaper every day because my father did. Cookbooks always caught my eye. Highbrow, lowbrow, middle of the road, there’s little that didn’t somehow find its way into my life.

Full disclosure here: There was something I never read. Washing directions on my new Sears stretch pants, and technical manuals for assembling stuff like the record player. I left that heavy reading to my parents.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

The books that affected me the most were books about epic journeys that tested loyalties and friendships. The Lord of the Rings. The Phantom Tollbooth. James and the Giant Peach. They took me to incredible places far away from my own reality. They were all coming of age stories in a way and with those characters, I grew up and became a man. Even though my own stories are vastly different than those, they do inform the writing. My stories are quests on a much smaller scale, but quests in real life are just as dangerous than those to be found in Middle Earth.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

In elementary school I read the encyclopedia mostly. I didn’t have easy access to childrens’ books. I did write many poems and stories. I also wrote stories as letters to my mother. Later on I read adult books. I discovered how wonderful childrens’ books are after I had kids and would read to them.

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

I first read “Harriet the Spy” by Louise Fitzhugh back in the seventh grade, followed by the sequel, “The Long Secret.” Harriet was a character unlike any other character I’d ever met; very mouthy, very realistic, and funny as hell. She made fun of everyone, including her parents—something that was practically unheard in children’s literature at the time. Nobody could understand why Harriet felt compelled to write down every excruciating detail of her life in her journal, any more that my own family and friends could understand how I could spend hours and hours writing stories about imaginary people. Harriet and I shared such a passion for the written word, I thought of her as close friend rather than as a character in a novel. I still love reading these books, and I’ve passed them along to my own kids, and other children in my family. Warts and all, Harriet ROCKS!

What books had an impact on you when you were growing up?

I loved to read as a child. My favorites were the Little House on the Prairie books, The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley, and any book that had a horse on the cover. In high school, I tore through each and every Sweet Valley High book and loved reading about the devious Jessica Wakefield.

But which book had the most impact on me? The Horsemasters, by Don Stanford. To a horse-crazy kid who dreamed of riding in the Olympics, this book was ideal!