Take 5: Kay Cassidy, author of The Cinderella Society
By Writer Unboxed | May 18, 2010 |
It’s been a little while since we’ve done a Take 5 interview, and we’re thrilled to be able to do one with guest contributor Kay Cassidy. Kay’s YA novel for teens, The Cinderella Society, released in April.
Kay is the founder of the national Great Scavenger Hunt ContestTM reading program for kids and teens and the host of the inspirational Living Your FiveTM web project. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, movies, music, and reading. Lots and lots of reading. She hopes her debut YA novel, THE CINDERELLA SOCIETY (April 2010 – Egmont), will help girls embrace their inner Cindy.
Also, do you like winning things? At the end of the interview, we’ll post information for a fun giveaway contest sponsored by Kay for WU readers! Enjoy this Take 5 mini ‘view with Kay Cassidy!
Q: What’s the premise of your debut novel?
The Cinderella Society is about an outsider who gets tapped to join a secret society of good populars dedicated to defeating the mean girls of the world. It’s about girl empowerment: getting comfortable in your own skin and being true to who you are. It also deals with the effects of girl bullies and what unconditional friendship really means. And, of course, there are cute guys and lots of kissing. Romance rocks. :-)
Q: What would you like people to know about the story itself?
That covers can be deceiving. :-) I’ve had so many people tell me that if someone hadn’t specifically recommended it to them, they probably wouldn’t have picked it up because the cover looks very chick lit. I’ve even had people tell me they thought it was about shopping! But this book is all about empowerment and what it means to finally decide who you’re going to be in this life, even if that choice means taking the easy road is no longer an option. That’s big stuff, for teens and adults alike.
Q: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?
Jess has to overcome a lot of years of being the new kid. She’s moved around for her dad’s job and every time she finally starts to fit in, it’s time to pull up roots again. So she’s developed a habit of trying to fit in rather than trying to be herself. And when she gets tapped to join this secret society that is so much bigger than she ever imagined—and they see things in her that she doesn’t even see in herself yet—it’s a pretty scary thing for her to say, “Yeah, okay. I’ll step up to the plate.”
Q: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?
I don’t know that this book posed any unusual challenges for me in itself. But the process of writing was very different for me because The Cinderella Society went through half a dozen incarnations before I finally realized the heart of the story is the Cindys vs. the Wickeds and the whole story took on a completely different meaning. That’s when I knew that I was writing something that mattered – the battle of good vs. evil, not in a paranormal way but in the way that happens every day in high schools around the world. Going against the odds to do the right thing when it is a thousand times easier to say nothing and be one of the crowd. I ditched everything I’d ever written on the book and started from scratch, writing to make it as big as I could dream it.
Q: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?
My favorite fan mails, hands down, are the ones from readers who say they’ve adopted some of the Cindy ideals in their own lives. The Cindy creed is Celebrate your strength – Embrace your future – Be extraordinary. To have a reader tell me they’re using The Rule of Fives (a Cindy method of keeping your perspective when things get crazy in life) or having a teacher tell me they overheard a girl at school telling another girl “No Wicked chatter” (Wicked chatter is negativity like gossiping, putting people or yourself down)… that is completely amazing and wonderful to me. It’s exactly why I wrote the book – to show there are options in the way we approach life on the brink of adulthood. It’s not all partying and fast living as TV would have you think. :-)
Exclusively for WU readers, Kay would like to give away this adorable glass slipper bookmark. Simply post one piece of advice you’d give to your high school self in our comments. We’ll hold a random drawing for the winner. Contest open only to residents of the U.S. and Canada. Deadline for commenting is Saturday, May 22. Good luck!
And thank you, Kay!
Writer Unboxed began as a collaboration between Kathleen Bolton and Therese Walsh in 2006. Since then, the site has grown to include ~50 regular contributors and a variety of guests on rotation throughout a given year.
In 2016, the Writer Unboxed team published a book with Writer’s Digest / Random House. AUTHOR IN PROGRESS: A No-Holds-Barred Guide to What It Really Takes to Get Published is a comprehensive guide focused on helping writers over/around/through hurdles faced at every stage of the novel-writing process. It’s received some ***** reviews; we hope you’ll check it out.
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Write on!
You are, in fact, pretty NOW, but you won’t figure it out for another ten years– and that’s OK.
.-= sac´s last blog ..Peach Cake Filling =-.
Mmm, I’d have to say, “Don’t let that beauty parlor put tons of makeup on you for your graduation ball!”
.-= Jewel/Pink Ink´s last blog ..My Salsa Days & 3-Book Giveaway =-.
Just be yourself. It’s too much work to pretend to be someone else, and you can’t control other people’s perceptions and *make* them like you anyway.
Ooh, I’m intrigued by the “Rule of Fives” reference. Hope we’ll learn more about that.
As for advice – although you probably shouldn’t enter me in the contest because if I won people might think we had it fixed – it would be this: find more occasions to laugh, especially at yourself.
.-= Jan O’Hara´s last blog ..Fledgling Boxcutter =-.
Yeah, I want to know more about the Rule of Fives too:)
Here’s my advice. It’s a little raw, and I wonder at the appropriateness of posting it here, but I wish someone had said it to teenage me…
DON’T date that guy who tells you that his last gf made him wait 3 months to go all the way, and that that is a looooooong time.
No matter how awesome he is.
He only wants one thing.
.-= Elan Cross´s last blog ..The Sugar is in the Details =-.
Love love LOVE the idea of Cindys vs. Wickeds, and what girls can learn from that. I agree the cover would give me a much more “sugary” impression of what the story is, but it sounds pretty deep (yet still fun).
.-= Kristan´s last blog ..Loosely connected =-.
Not to be so afraid of the girl bullies. They really are much weaker than you are emotionally.
Don’t spend all your time with that one guy. In the long run, your friends are much more important.
If he’s THAT special, he’ll understand, right?
Don’t call your boyfriend every 15 minutes just to see if he’s home. It’s pathetic and creepy.
That guy you like? Gay. And so is his brother. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but stop wasting your time.
Hi Kay! I just have to tell you that I love your premise and I’m thrilled to see such positive stuff in the YA market. The trend lately seems to be toward more and more dark, violent stories, and while there’s definitely room for that, it’s nice to see something more upbeat come along! I wish you all sorts of success! :-)
“It’s not the end of the world.” Because as a teenager I seemed to think EVERYTHING was the end of the world. And by mid-college the things that seemed GIGANTICALLY HUGE LIFE CONSUMING in high school were small problems. My life was never really as bad as I thought it was at the time.
cassilee85@hotmail.com
Contest is closed, thanks!