Please help me today in welcoming Leah Bobet, author of Above! Thanks so much for coming out to chat with us Leah :)
Author: Leah Bobet
Publisher: Levine Books
Release Date: April 1, 2012
Pages: 368
Buy Here: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Book Depository
Matthew has loved Ariel from the moment he found her in the tunnels, her bee’s wings falling away. They live in Safe, an underground refuge for those fleeing the city Above—like Whisper, who speaks to ghosts, and Jack Flash, who can shoot lightning from his fingers.
But one terrifying night, an old enemy invades Safe with an army of shadows, and only Matthew, Ariel, and a few friends escape Above. As Matthew unravels the mystery of Safe’s history and the shadows’ attack, he realizes he must find a way to remake his home—not just for himself, but for Ariel, who needs him more than ever before.
Kayla: What drew you to writing?
Leah: …I honestly couldn’t say. It’s that fundamental to my life: I don’t remember there being a beginning to me and writing, or anything like a deliberate choice to write, or try to publish what I wrote. I know it’s not the most helpful or satisfying answer, but it’s just what I do, and when I’m not doing it, I get a little cranky and weird.
Kayla: How have you enjoyed the process of getting published?
Leah: It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster! I kind of knew what to expect, in very general terms: Several members of my writers’ group and circle of friends have novels out, and I worked in a bookstore for four years, so you see a lot of information about the process and what it’s like – and I’m used to page proofs, copyedits, and the like from writing short fiction and having work in anthologies. Even with all that, it was still fascinating. And there is no feeling on earth like seeing the first copies of something you made, something you grew in the back of your head over years and years, bound and slipcovered and sitting on a bookshelf.
Kayla: What kind of books do you read the most of?
Leah: I read just about everything: fantasy, science fiction, horror, thrillers, crime procedurals, literary fiction, essays, biographies, history, young adult, old books, new books, graphic novels – everything. I used to read mostly fantasy and science fiction, on the adult side of things, but over the past four years or so it’s just whatever catches my interest. Probably because I’m the kind of reader who’s always looking for something new, something she hasn’t seen before, and so that means lots of genre-hopping, and never staying too long with the same kinds of books!
Kayla: Do you have any advice to aspring writers who want to become published?
Leah: The best writing advice I’ve heard lately – or possibly ever – came from alternate history author Charles Coleman Finlay: “Find your own way forward with joy and diligence.” This is kind of the perfect piece of writing advice, because it packs in so many things: one, that this is supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, or rewarding, or satisfying – even when it’s hard work – then, well. It’s important to not take writing so seriously that it becomes an awful chore, or a source of self-hatred, or anything negative.
The second thing in there is the diligence: that yes, you have to work hard. We all knew this, I think. But the third and most important thing is finding one’s own way forward. Just like every brain is different, every writer and every writing process is different. Learning to write isn’t a One Right Way kind of thing: there are tools you can use that other people have figured out, and they might help, but mostly it’s about trying things and seeing what works well for you specifically. Learning to write is a grand experiment: it’s exploration, and it’s to a certain degree self-discovery.
So my advice to aspiring writers would be to focus on that journey: Remember to keep it fun, remember to explore, and don’t get so focused on the idea of publishing or not publishing that what you’re doing here, now, today becomes a misery. I’ve seen too many people go down that road. It’s not worth it.
Kayla: What do you think of social networking in general?
Leah: Wow – broad question! :)
I feel like social networking, like a lot of things in life, is a tool: Whether it’s good or bad or fun or useful or indifferent or smelly depends entirely on how you use it, and who you surround yourself with when you’re there. I’m all over social media and have a lot of friends that I mostly keep in touch with on Facebook or Twitter, but I tend to be pretty private in some ways, so I just pick and choose what I talk about, and where. It’s mostly just about making choices that line up with what you want to do.
Kayla: How do you feel when you see a good review of Above?
Leah: If it’s all right, I’d honestly rather keep to myself if I’m reading the reviews, period. It’s unfortunately a bit of a lose-lose situation for an author (or at least I think so): if you say you’re reading the good reviews, people want to know what you think about the bad ones, and either way, I feel like reviews are a space for readers to talk about books freely, and in an honest way. They don’t need to be thinking like I’m reading over their shoulder, and because of that holding back, or not saying what they actually think because the author might be looking. Is that all right?
Kayla: Have your had some encounters with reader interaction?
Leah: I’ve had some tweets and e-mail from readers, which are generally really nice and awesome to see. :) I was always way too shy to write the authors of books I read, so it’s really fabulous to see when people, well, aren’t!
Kayla: Do you have a favorite debut novel from this year?
Leah: I haven’t by far read all the debut novels that have hit the shelves so far this year, but my favourite of what I’ve read, by far, is Gina Damico’s CROAK. It’s literally laugh-out-loud funny, and had characters who are flawed and real and very lovably human to match. It’s one of those books I’m busy passing around to all my friends, going look at this look at this!
Leah Bobet’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Rhysling Award. She received a 2008 emerging writers’ development grant from the Toronto Arts Council. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Find Leah Here:
Post a Comment