Posts by Kathleen Bolton

Former Washington DC journalist Sarah Pekkanen left the ratrace of covering the political beat and turned her skills to writing women’s fiction novels. Her debut book, THE OPPOSITE OF ME, garnered rave reviews and hit the bestseller lists.  Her followup novel, SKIPPING A BEAT, also recieved advanced praise and earned a coveted spot on Oprah’s O Magazine “Pick It Up Now” booklist, just in time for summer beach reading season.

In part one of our two-part interview with Sarah, she talks about transitioning from a high-powered career into motherhood and writing books full time. In part two, we pick her brains about her writing process and the market realities — and opportunities– for today’s writers. Her answers might surprise you.

Enjoy the second half of our interview with bestselling women’s fiction author Sarah Pekkanen.

Q: You play with narrative structure in SKIPPING A BEAT, delving into the characters’ backstory to inform the plot. Did you decide to tell the story in this way from the outset, or did you let the characters drive the plot and let it unfold organically?

 Sarah Pekkanen seems to have begun her career as a novelist under a charmed star.  Her debut novel THE OPPOSITE OF ME, recieved praise from heavy hitters such as Jennifer Weiner, and landed on many Must-Buy lists.  Sometimes it’s hard to live up to a big debut, but Pekkanen did so with her followup novel.  SKIPPING A BEAT garnered praise from mainstream tastemakers like People Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar hot list.  O, the Oprah Magazine, selected it a “Pick It Up Now” book for April. 

But Pekkanen’s successes are built on a solid foundation based on years in the publishing industry.  Her writing chops were honed as a journalist working for Gannett News Service/USA Today on beats covering Capitol Hill, and writing feature articles for the Baltimore Sun.

Somewhere in there she found the time to start a family.  Now Pekkanen juggles two active boys and a writing career on the ascent, all with a hefty dose of good humor and plenty of chocolate.

We’re so pleased to bring you part one of our two-part interview with women’s fiction author Sarah Pekkanen.

Q: Your novels are receiving praise and becoming bestsellers. Did you even envision this type of success when you decided to become a novelist?

SP: Wow, thank you so much! I think most of us authors dream big, yet we’re still astonished by and grateful for every small nugget of success – be it a kind review, a heartfelt letter from a reader, or a nice turnout at a booksigning. So much of this business hinges on good luck and good timing.

Q: You worked as a journalist inside the Beltline and covered politics for a variety of news organizations. Do you think that career helped prepare you for the publishing industry? In what ways?

SP: Most definitely. It helped on a variety of levels: First, I welcome constructive criticism; I love getting feedback from my editor, Greer Hendricks, on ways she thinks my books can be improved. I don’t take it personally when she recommends I cut scenes or tells me I’m using too many cliches. My journalism background also taught me to write quickly and consistently; writer’s block isn’t tolerated in newsrooms (I’m imagining the face of my tough old city editor if I told him my muse was taking the day off) . And I can write anywhere: in noisy rooms – a helpful skill since I have three young boys – in quiet coffeshops, even in a moving car. I’ve trained myself to be able to type on a laptop while my husband is at the wheel, steering us down the highway. Right now we’re on our way to an amusement park with our boys, and I’m typing this from the passenger’s seat of our minivan.

Last week, we introduced you to YA novelist Alyssa Sheinmel. Known for her authentic storytelling and gripping plots, Alyssa’s latest book, The Lucky Kind, is garnering terrific reviews.  I found myself savoring passages that on first glance were so simple yet when peeled back were incredibly deep.  It takes a special writer to step back and allow the weight of characters and unadorned prose carry the story. Alyssa is one of them, and she makes it look so easy (want to experience her skilled storytelling yourself? Read a sample of The Lucky Kind HERE).

In part two of our two-part interview, Alyssa talks a little bit about the YA market and why writers should focus on the books and less about the market.

Please enjoy our interview with Alyssa Sheinmel.

Do you feel that the market has changed since you started writing YA?

Wow, that’s a tough question!  I think the book market is a tricky one, because it has several sides.  There’s the business side, in which publishers and authors are trying to work within the trends and create good products that consumers will want to buy.  But there’s also the side on which books are considered art, and what makes good art isn’t necessarily affected by trends.  Although, come to think of it, maybe the best art starts the trends to begin with.  Could anyone have anticipated that a children’s book about a boy wizard would become something that adults scrambled to get their hands on, every bit as much as kids did?  And when that happened, it caused a shift in the market, and led to a new set of trends; not just for fantasy literature, but also for books that could cross-over from the children’s to the adult market.  The market keeps changing; but I think because of all that change, there’s always room for lots of different kinds of books – no one ever knows what the next trend will be. 

Personally, I try not to think about the market when I’m writing.  I give it a lot of thought for my day job, and it definitely can be hard to turn that part of my mind off.  But when I’m writing, I try to focus only on telling a story.  

The YA market seems to have exploded over the last few years, with many books crossing over to draw adult readers.  Why do you think that is?  Are YA writers taking risks that writers of adult genre fiction seem to avoid?

I think there are opportunities that are unique to the YA market, and I think that’s because, in some respects, it’s still relatively new. 

 Alyssa B. Sheinmel has quietly been building a reputation in the YA market for excellence.  She came on my radar when her debut novel, The Beautiful Between, garnered a slew of positive reviews and buzz.  The New York Post called it “Endearing, realistic and heart-wrenching. Sheinmel offers a thoughtful look at teens,” while Publisher’s Weekly said, “Sheinmel makes an impressive debut with an absorbing tale of unlikely friendship, loss, and family secrets…the intriguing and well-defined characterizations will keep readers riveted.”  My teen daughter loved the book, so I knew Sheinmel hit the sweet spot for her audience, which isn’t easy to do with today’s media-saturated teens.

So I was pleased to learn that Sheinmel’s sophomore effort, The Lucky Kind, continues her examination into the lives of teens with honest dialogue and motivations, and a plot that quietly unfolds yet snowballs to a riveting conclusion as we read how Nick Brandt, the kid who has it all, copes with his life unraveling.  Sheinmel avoids trendy language and pat resolutions to offer a story with characters who are complicated, and issues that are timeless.

Intrigued? Read the first chapter HERE.

Enjoy part one of our two part interveiw with rising YA star Alyssa B. Sheinmel.

Can you share with us your journey to publication? 

I always wanted to be a writer.  I have notebooks full of the stories that I wrote from the time I learned how to write in the first place.  When I graduated college, though, I needed a day job, of course, to pay the bills.  That job and the one that followed took up most of my time and energy, so it was a while – a few years – before I’d written something I thought was worthwhile, something I was ready to send to agents.  But I think that I needed that time to grow as a writer, and I also was lucky enough to find a day job that became a career I love, marketing children’s books at Random House. 

Since The Lucky Kind was my second novel, writing it felt different from writing my first novel; there was the safety of knowing that there were people on the other side of the story (my agent, my editor) whom I knew would read it.  But more than that, knowing that they would read it, I wanted to write something that they would be proud of me for having written.  I tend to write in fits and spurts, and I definitely had a lot of starts and stops with The Lucky Kind, which was also true with The Beautiful Between.  There were plenty of moments when I thought The Lucky Kind just wasn’t working (I even put it down to write something else when I was about halfway through the story).  But when I look back on it, I know that I loved writing this book.  

What was it about writing for teens that drew you?

I never intentionally chose to write for teens; I just wanted to tell the stories that I had to tell.

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I love WWII-era sagas, so when Therese suggested I interview Kristina McMorris, I jumped on it. McMorris’ debut novel LETTERS FROM HOME is set in 1944 in the Chicago homefront and follows the lives of three women as they negotiate love, loss, and the social changes happening for women during the war era.  Can you say literary catnip?  Of course you can.  I couldn’t put it down.

A former child television star and public relations professional, Kristina began LETTERS FROM HOME innocently enough when she stumbled across her grandparents’ war era correspondance while compiling a self-published cookbook of her grandmother’s wartime recipies.  The letters became the basis for her novel, LETTERS FROM HOME.   The book sold to Kensington, and is quickly garnering rave reviews and global rights sales based on its commercial appeal and potential.  The condensed book club rights have been sold to Reader’s Digest, and the film rights are represented by the prestigious Creative Artists Agency of Los Angeles.  Better still, a portion of sales proceeds will benefit United Through Reading®, a nonprofit organization that video records deployed U.S. military personnel reading bedtime stories for their children.

If you like sweeping sagas, heartbreak and history, all served with a healthy dollop of romance, this book will keep you up at nights, guaranteed.  The fact that this novel is her first is extremely impressive.

Please enjoy part one of our two part interview with Kristina McMorris.

Q.   You’ve been in the writing industry for a long time, as an entertainer and public relations professional.  Have you always had the itch to write fiction?  When did you decide to take the leap and write a novel? 

KM: Quite honestly, when I started writing LETTERS FROM HOME, I was barely a fiction reader let alone an aspiring author. Only after discovering a collection of love letters that my late grandfather sent to my grandmother during World War II did it occur to me to actually pen a novel. That’s when I learned the couple had gone on merely two dates before exchanging vows, as their relationship had developed almost entirely through letters. 

And I started wonder: How well can you really know someone through letters alone? What if those written messages weren’t entirely truthful? 

As a movie buff, I soon imagined a film set during WWII, about a GI falling in love with a girl through letters, unaware that the girl he’s writing to isn’t the one replying. For some crazy reason, crafting a book sounded a lot easier than creating a screenplay. Fortunately, by the time I realized what I had gotten myself into—and how little I knew about, well, anything in the literary realm—it was too late to turn back!