Title: I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE
Author: Stephanie Kuehnert
Publisher: MTV Books
Trade Paperback: 352 pages
ISBN: 9 978-1416562696

1. First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch. What’s your book about?

I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE is a raw, edgy, emotional novel about growing up punk and living to tell.

Punk rock is in Emily Black’s blood. Her mother, Louisa, hit the road to follow the incendiary music scene when Emily was four months old and never came back. Now Emily’s all grown up with a punk band of her own, determined to find the tune that will bring her mother home. Because if Louisa really is following the music, shouldn’t it lead her right back to Emily?

2. Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.

Probably the agent part of the story is the most interesting and unusual part. I was getting my MFA at Columbia College Chicago and they have this annual literary fest called Story Week every spring. They invite authors, agents, editors, etc to do panels and readings and they have some of the folks meet with students. I’d met with a small press publisher and an author in the past and they’d given me great advice, so that was all I expected when agent Caren Johnson was given the first chapter of my novel. Nope, she met with me, took me to lunch, and said, “How soon can you finish? I want this.” I finished in six months, did a couple sets of revisions for her, and then she started shopping it.

The finding a publisher part was when I paid my dues. Caren shopped it for a year and it was rejected by every major adult house. We had one almost and waited for a month for it to go up the ladder only to get rejected, it was agony. Then Caren said, “Can I shop it as a YA?” Since I was about ready to give up on the book, I said, “Sure, if you’re willing to stick with it.” Caren probably had more determination than me at some points when it came to selling the damn thing.

The YA approach was the way to go. Instead of a call, I got an email. Caren sent me MTV Books’ offer and said simply, “What do you think? Call me?” I got the email while at work. I went into my co-worker’s office shaking and asked if I could use someone’s office (I have an extremely not private cube) because I thought my agent might have sold my book. I really wasn’t sure if this was the real deal or if it would have to go to other people for approval and then get shot down like the last time. I think I asked Caren if this was for real at least three times until she finally said, “Call your mom. You’re a published author.” So I called my mom, then I called my boyfriend and got voicemail, which he never checks, so I sent a text, then I called the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia (my MFA program where my closest friends still worked). I don’t think I got any work done for the rest of the afternoon.

3. Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now?

BALLADS OF SUBURBIA will be released by MTV Books in Summer 2009. It’s about a teenage girl who, after years of feeling like an outcast in her suburban town, finally finds her place among a group of punks, skaters, and other misfits who hang out at a local park, but as the teens try to cope with bad relationships and broken homes, life spirals out of control.

Right now I am toying with two different novel ideas that go back forth fighting for my attention. One is about a teenage boy trying to come to terms with his twin sister’s suicide. The other is about teenage anarchist runaway and her bartender mother.

4. What’s your writing process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?

My writing process is far from ideal ever since I finished grad school and got a full time job instead of two part-time jobs. In grad school, I was able to binge write, which is how I write best, sitting down and pounding it out for six to ten hours with breaks for food. I also bartended then, so I wrote in the morning which was my preference. With my 9 to 5, I’m forced to write at night. I come home, make dinner, watch the day’s episode of One Life to Live (don’t judge me, it’s my relaxation time, plus soap operas have taught me a bit about writing), then I write for about two hours. I try to get more done on weekends. Oh and I’m way more motivated when I have a deadline. I have to set deadlines for myself or I procrastinate like crazy.

5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at the The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.

I definitely fit that stereotype. My house is run by cats. I have three and I call them my sons. I got Sidney for my sixteenth birthday. Everyone wants a car when they turn 16, all I wanted was a cat. He’s a tuxedo cat who I named for Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. Then Lars is the baby. I got him from a shelter a year and a half ago. He’s gray and white and petite (the other two are big tomcats) and totally adorable. He’s named for Lars Frederiksen of Rancid (sense a pattern here?) because one of his gray splotches looks a little bit like a mohawk. Kaspar is my foster son. He’s my old roommate’s kitty. She moved to San Francisco a year ago into a much smaller place, so she felt it would be best if she just took one of her cats, Maukin, who all the other cats (even the baby!) beat up on. Plus Kaspar and Lars are joined at the hip, so it seemed cruel to separate them. Kaspar is gray (oddly it looks like if you mixed Kaspar and Sidney, you’d get Lars) and he’s a total alley cat who scours the sink drain for scraps. My boyfriend really wants another cat even though he’s allergic and has to take meds to deal with the cats as it is, but his dream cat is an all black cat named Danzig. It fits the theme, so someday….

Title: A Thousand Never Evers
Author: Shana Burg
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780385734707

1. First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch. What’s your book about? 

Thank you! A Thousand Never Evers tells the story of a twelve-year-old, African American girl named Addie Ann Pickett. She lives in small-town Mississippi in 1963. Up till now, Addie Ann has been busy teaching her cat new tricks and jumping double Dutch with her best friends. But after she attends a civil rights meeting with her family and the Klan threatens to attack her church, she’s thrust into a whole new world-the real world. The story follows Addie Ann as she awakens to the racism and violence around her and tries to make sense of the senseless. Ultimately, after a beloved family member becomes the scapegoat for a major crime in town, she must choose whether to be a bystander to events or someone prepared to take action, no matter what the consequence.

2. Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book. 

While I was teaching sixth grade in Massachusetts, I took my students to hear author David Almond. I left that talk completely inspired to write my own book for young readers. A year later, I had the first draft, as well as a small grant from a local education foundation to hire my former students to be my first editors. We met four times during the summer at a pizza place near the school and these soon-to-be seventh graders critiqued my work. Their advice was right on the money. As these kids moved through middle and high school, I revised and revised. And now that they’re well into college, A Thousand Never Evers is finally coming out! 

I did use an agent–the fabulous Andrea Cascardi from the Transatlantic Literary Agency. She used to be an editor herself, so she gave me critical suggestions and I revised some more. One day, five years after I started writing, I was visiting my sister in Kentucky when I got a call from Andrea telling me several editors were interested. I wish I could say I was calm, cool, and collected, but I wasn’t. I screamed! I shook! I ran all around my sister’s backyard like a maniac! My five-year-old niece Sarah snapped several potential author photos on her digital camera. In the end, I chose to work with Michelle Poploff, editor extraordinaire, at Delacorte Press. After that, the manuscript was in editing for two years, during which time I added a hundred new pages. 

3. Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now? 

Yes, I’m working on another middle grade novel. 

4. What’s your writing process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?

I write. Do laundry. Write. Bring the lunch I forgot to preschool. Write. Make dinner. Sometimes it’s frustrating to have real life get in the way of writing, and I yearn for long chunks of uninterrupted time. So about a month ago, I decided to go to a writing retreat in my own house. I told everyone I know not to call me because I wasn’t going to answer the phone for an entire week. My husband agreed to take over all the day-to-day chores. I started bright and early Monday morning. It was absolutely the best thing ever! I couldn’t believe how productive I was-until Tuesday, when my son got pink eye.

5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at the The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.

I had my perfect cat back in sixth grade. I loved her more than anything. We had a secret language. We told each other everything. (Okay, perhaps sixth grade is a little late for that type of thing, but that’s the way it was.) I was even planning to build her a glass version of the Guggenheim Museum with a spiral ramp. There were going to be glass cages with various animals all along the ramp, and at the very top was going to be a huge glass house for my cat with her name-Sunshine–in flashing neon lights above it. But Sunshine died before construction began. I immediately got another cat, but it was too soon after my loss, so I never bonded with the new cat. After that, I was off cats for a while. But now that a few decades have passed, I think I’m ready to love again. And I’m excited to report that your question has sparked discussion with my husband on the matter. We’ve even quibbled about where to put the imaginary litter box. I’ll keep you posted!

Title:  In the Dismal Swamp
Author:  Pat Balester
Publisher: Avalon
Hardcover: 265 pages
ISBN: 978-0803498990

First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch. What’s your book about?

In The Dismal Swamp is a mystery set in the Great Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Virginia . My hero, Greg Parnell, is a special agent with the US Fish & Wildlife Service whose job duties usually involve chasing down poachers. But when Greg finds the body of a missing woman in a canal on the refuge, he starts investigating it as a suspicious death. Although it appears to be a drowning, Greg finds evidence to suggest the woman might have been murdered. Because the death occurred on federal property, the FBI gets involved. Local authorities resist this intrusion by the ‘feds’, so Dan Brennan and Greg Parnell must tread carefully to avoid stepping on the toes of some powerful people who want to sweep the case under the rug for a variety of reasons, most of which involve money or power.

2. Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.

I actually lived just a few miles from the Dismal Swamp for many years, and spend a lot of time hiking and biking along its trails. Back before the Civil War, it was a haven for hundreds of runaway slaves. Plantation owners and bounty hunters wouldn’t enter it out of superstition and fear. There are a lot of rare species found in the swamp, both plant and animal. I just felt like it was the perfect setting for a story, and when I decided to write a mystery, I set it in the swamp. What other kind of novel would you set in a place called the Dismal Swamp ? It’s perfect!

When I began looking for a publisher, I didn’t have an agent, and wasn’t sure how to get one, so I targeted small publishers that accepted submissions directly from writers. Then I moved to Missouri from Virginia! 18 months after sending out the manuscript, I got a letter from Avalon Books on Christmas Eve 2006. The associate editor had been looking for me and had managed to track me down, and told me they wanted to buy my book. The letter asked me to contact them and I was so excited I called the company that same day. Naturally, being Christmas Eve, they were closed, so I had to wait a couple of days before I could speak with the editor to confirm that I wasn’t dreaming the whole thing up.

3. Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now?

I’m writing another mystery in the series featuring Greg Parnell and his reluctant sidekick, FBI agent Dan Brennan. This time, the action takes place on Assateague Island off the coast of Virginia , about 60 miles north of the Dismal Swamp . The island has a wildlife refuge with one of the only wild horse populations on the east coast. During the annual pony round-up and auction, Greg stumbles across another body on the Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge.

4. What’s your writing process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?

I usually write at night, between 7 PM and 11 PM. Sometimes I burn the midnight oil, particularly on weekends, when I can sleep in the next day. I sometimes write while taking the bus to work, and I may continue that method, since it gives me 45 minutes of time with no interruptions.

5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at the The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.

I used to own a cat, but after 17 years, she finally ran out of lives. She was white with blue eyes, and totally deaf, but she knew how to scream when she wanted attention. I don’t know if I’ll get another, because I have two dogs and I’m not sure if they would adopt a new animal in the house. But that may change. Cats have a well-deserved reputation for inspiring writers. And my first book was written while I sat on a chair I shared with the cat. She used to jump onto the desk and look out the window while I worked.

Title:  ALIVE AND WELL IN PRAGUE, NEW YORK
Author:  Daphne Grab
Publisher: HarperTeen
Hardcover: 256 pages
ISBN: 978-0061256707

1.  First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch. What’s your book about?

It’s about a girl whose dad has Parkinson’s Disease. The family has just moved from NYC to a small town in upstate New York, and Matisse is trying to come to terms with her dad’s illness at the same time that she’s adjusting to a whole new social scene. Boys and evil cheerleaders are involved.

2.  Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.

I got an MFA in creative writing for children at the New School. In our second year our teacher had us do a mock submission- we each sent five pages of our manuscripts along with a cover letter to her editor, the lovely Jill Santopolo of HarperCollins/Laura Geringer Books. Jill came in a few weeks later and told us what she thought of each of them. She said that she’d have asked to see my full manuscript had it been a true submission, so after I graduated I officially queried her and in the end she wanted the book. The day she called to tell me was beyond thrilling! I scrambled to find an agent and she finalized the deal.

3.  Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now?

I just finished revising a MG novel that my agent is going over (she’s an editing agent so we are rewriting together). When she green lights it, which I am hoping will be soon, we’ll be sending it out. I am also working on a new teen novel and hope to be done with that sometime this year.

4.  What’s your process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?

I have two delightful and energetic 3.5 year olds so they kind of dictate my writing schedule. I write in the mornings when they are in preschool and then again after I put them down for an afternoon nap. I write best in the morning but I’ll take writing time whenever I get it.

5.  There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.

This is the question that made me fall in love with your blog! Yes, I have two amazing cats, one of whom (Bongo) is in my lap as I type. He is always on or around my desk when I work and I feel that he is a muse, though he also many other wonderful things and he has a set of stunning white paws. I also have a black kitty named Lilypad- she is very fussy and likes things just so, and she is so fabulous that she always gets what she wants. To tell the truth I kind of worship my cats.

Thanks so much for having me on your blog!