Tag Archives: interviews

Stacey Jay is Awesome

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And she is releasing more zombies on the world! In her latest, My So-Called Death, is the story of freshman Karen Vera. One second, Karen’s  on top of the most fabulous cheer pyramid ever. The next, she’s lying on the pavement with seriously unflattering cranial damage. Freakishly alive without a pulse, Karen learns that she’s a genetically undead zombie. Suddenly, Karen’s non-life is an epic disaster. She’s forced to attend a boarding school for the “death-challenged,” her roommate is a hateful wannabe-Goth weirdo, and she’s chowing down on animal brains every day to prevent rot (um, ew?). Even worse, someone is attacking students and harvesting their brains for a forbidden dark ritual. And it might be the hottest guy at DEAD High, the one who makes Karen’s non-beating heart flutter! Armed with a perky smile and killer fashion sense, it’s up to Karen to track down the brain snatcher and save her fellow students from certain zombie death.

To get to know more about what inspires her and and her characters, I asked what her main character’s theme song would be. Here’s what Stacey had to say:

Karen Vera’s theme song would probably be something like “Because I’m Awesome” by the Dollyrots. Karen has a very high opinion of her talents and abilities, but is also able to poke fun at herself, which I think makes her a character who’s fun to laugh “at” and “with”.

You can get My So-Called Death from Amazon, your local indie book store (Stacey recommends Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi), or your library.

Admirations & Inspirations with Stacey Jay

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Stacey Jay is the author of last year’s zombie comedy You Are So Undead to Me. This year’s she’s back with two more zombie books starting off with Undead Much?, which came out in January. She’s here today to talk about an artist she admires.

There are so many artists I admire, but one I’d love to bring attention to is April McGuire. She designed the t-shirt for “Undead Much?”, which you can see here.

She’s an amazing young artist and I love her work.

I found April on deviant art, which is one of my preferred places to browse when I’m procrastinating. As exciting as museums and society-approved art can be, it’s just as exciting to see what’s going on underground, what up-and-coming artists are up to.

Want more zombies? Go to Stacey’s website! You can even submit your own zombie art.

Pick up Undead Much online, at an independent bookstore (Stacey recommends Square Books Jr. in Oxford Mississippi), or at your local public library.

Erin Dionne’s Admirations & Influences

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Once you’ve done a panel presentation with someone while wearing a tiara, well, let’s just say it’s a bonding experience. That’s Erin Dionne, Deva Fagan, and me at the Bar Harbor Book Festival last fall. Today I’m catching up with Erin, author of Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies and The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet. I asked her about some influences from the worlds of art and music.

First, here’s a little bit about Total Tragedy: Hamlet Kennedy just wants to be your average, happy, vanilla eighth grader. But with Shakespearean scholar parents who dress in Elizabethan regalia and generally go about in public as if it were the sixteenth century, that’s not terribly easy. It gets worse when they decide that Hamlet’s genius sevenyear- old sister will attend middle school with her– and even worse when the Shakespeare project is announced and her sister is named the new math tutor. By the time an in-class recitation reveals that our heroine is an extraordinary Shakespearean actress, Hamlet can no longer hide from the fact that she–like her family–is anything but average.

So, given that context, Erin, what’s Hamlet’s theme song?

I think “Stuck in the Middle With You”, a song from the 1972 band Stealers Wheel. It captures how Hamlet feels about being part of her family–trapped, but there’s no way she can get away from them.

Oh I love that song! Now I need to go listen to it.

Question two: Who/what is your favorite visual artist or favorite piece of art?

Whooo!! LOVE THIS QUESTION!!
I’m a big Salvador Dali fan. His Surrealist images just blow me away, especially “The Persistence of Memory”.

I love the mood that permeates his pieces, so much so that I used them in TOTAL TRAGEDY. The kids have an art project that revolves around Surrealist paintings, and I asked one of my students to come up with lesson plans for that same project!

Thank you, Erin!

Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet is available now, and you should pick it up from your local independent bookseller. Erin (and I!) recommends the Book Rack in Arlington, MA. You can also look for it in your local library. If they don’t have it, request it!

Admirations and Influences of Shani Petroff

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Two blog posts in one day after weeks of silence!

Sometimes I share some of my admirations and influences. Well, I thought it would be interesting and informative to ask some other writers about their admirations and influences from other fields of art. First up is Shani Petroff. Shani is the author of the Bedeviled series. The first book, Daddy’s Little Angel, came out in 2009. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Dress is out now, and a third book will be out later this year.

Here’s what Shani had to say about her influences:

What is your theme song or the theme song of your character?
For this book Angel definitely identifies with Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me. She’s totally in love with Cole. But because her devil powers seem to go off whenever she’s around him, she pushes him away, and he ends up with someone else—a mean, popular someone else.

Who/what is your favorite visual artist or favorite piece of art?
For this one, I’m going to give a shout out to the illustrator of my covers—J. David McKenney. He really captured what Angel looks like, and I have him to thank for her red hair! It was his idea—he felt it fit her—and I totally agree. So I decided to switch it in the book.

The Bedeviled books are available from Amazon, but I like to support indies. So I asked Shani to recommend one: “One of my favorite independent bookstores is The Alphabet Garden. It’s located in my hometown in Cheshire, CT. I love that there’s a bookstore devoted to children right where I grew up!”

Google Wave of the Future?

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I really, really wanted a Google wave invite. Then when I finally got one, I didn’t know what to do with it. Some of the folks at the school where I work and I are going to try to think of something. In the meantime, though, the awesome and talented Kurtis Scaletta used it to do a group interview of a bunch of authors (specifically, Josh Berk, Steve Brezenoff, Jon Skovron, Sarah MacLean, Saundra Mitchell, Deva Fagan, and Laurel Snyder). I think most of them were there in real time, but I came late. And Kurtis was very nice to not point out that I put my answers in all the wrong places and what not.

One question I couldn’t answer was what book made me want to become a writer. I loved the other author’s answers, and some of those definitely inspired me, too (esp. A Prayer for Owen Meaney). I can’t point to one book, though, that was like a switch of a light. It was more the cumulative effect of reading wonderful books, and going to those worlds, and living through the author’s worlds. I wanted to create world’s and people like that, too, first for myself, and eventually for other people.

But I’m curious, writers, is there a book or author that made you want to write?

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