I never imagined that I would get a response from the author of the super famous Luxe novels Anna Godbersen. I figured she'd be too busy doing glamorous things people with huge followings do (
Ala Sohia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. click here and download some cool stickers!). But one day, not long after I sent my query via myspace, I got her response in my inbox. Amazed doesn't even cover it.
One of the many reasons I chose this series as my next contest was the sophistication she brought to the YA genre. In fact, you'd never know this was a young adult novel until someone told you so. These books are sharp and mean, they are lonely and afraid, they are bold and they are hopeful. In short, they are must reads. So please enter the contest by commenting on this post, and
please leave me some way of getting a hold of you, some of my readers will know that there are perks for participation, and these perks are secret but fabulous!
Contest ends August 31.
Rumors
by Anna Godbersen
False Friends
Scandalous RumorsManhattan 1899
Rumors continue to fly about the loss of New York's brightest star, Elizabeth Holland, with all eyes fixed on the dearly departed mischievous sister, Diana.
Penelope Hayes, Elizabeth's dearest friend in life, seems poised to pick up the pieces... the most dashing of which is Elizabeth's widowed fiance, Henry Schoonmaker.
As old friends become rivals, Manhattan's most dazzling socialites find their futures threatened by whispers from the past. It seems gossip is the new currency, and nothing is more precious than a secret.
The Luxe
Wealthy Socialites partying Until Dawn
Manhattan 1899.High society sisters Elizabeth and Diana Holland, have long rules Manhattan's social scene. Or so it once seemed. These pretty girls are about to discover that their status among the city's elite is far from secure. Suddenly everyone, from the not-to-be-crossed Penelope Hayes, to Manhattan's most delicious bachelor, Henry Schoonmaker- threatens to dethrone the Holland sisters.
In a world of luxury and deception, where appearances matter above all else and breaking one of society's rules can ruin a girl's reputation, the Holland sisters are on dangerous ground. Enter the world of Elizabeth and Diana Holland and their scandalous circle of friends.
About Anna:
1. “If you could choose one fictional character to bring into real life, who would you choose?”
Probably Mr. Darcy, and not just because he's good looking! He's tremendously challenging as a love interest and also just as an acquaintance, and that's the kind of person I like to be around.
2. “How did you survive being a teen?”
I thought about college all the time, and worked really hard to get myself there! I'm kidding, a little. I remember feeling a lot of awkwardness during those years, but also a lot of wonderful things. I had a few really tight friends-- and I'm lucky to still be quite close with those people-- and I wrote in my journal and drew pictures and thought about ways to make my life beautiful, even when sometimes it looked a little weird and yucky to me. And then when I got to college I found that a lot of the things I'd always hoped for myself started to come true.
3. “Have you ever written something that you feel uncomfortable writing, knowing that your family and friends will probably end up reading it?”
The books I've published aren't tremendously personal-- they're set over a hundred years ago, so no one would take it for thinly veiled autobiography--but any kind of writing really lays your assumptions about the world, your insecurities and desires, bare. And that can be very vulnerable-making. But at the same time, once you've turned anything into a written (or painted or photographed) product, it doesn't feel so personal anymore, and it's easier to look at with distance as something that just exists independently of you.
4. “What do you think are the biggest issues that teens need to be thinking about today? Do you think teens today are looking for quality in the books they read, or just to live vicariously through superficial characters?”
I think that one of the reasons people become great readers is that, at some point in their lives, they really want to live vicariously through fictional characters-- I think that's true for me, too. Any way you come to reading is fine by me, and I think that once you're there you can't help but be changed by the books you read into a more reflective, empathetic, clear-eyed person. A person who reads a lot, in my opinion, even if they go through phases of reading mostly light books for fun, will be more likely and ready to read serious and difficult books at some point, because they know how to be focused and absorbed. As for issues, I think that the environment is the most important one for teens to pay attention to-- they have another sixty or seventy years on this planet probably, and they can't count on the generation in power now to take care of it for them.
5. “How have the books you’ve read inspired the books you’ve written, if at all?”
I had to do a lot of research for The Luxe books, so reading Edith Wharton and Henry James, as well as histories of the gilded age gave me a lot of inspiration for my own writing. And I also read some really great historical novels that changed my mind about how a contemporary author can go about re-imagining the past, in particular E.L. Doctorow's RAGTIME and Steven Millhauser's MARTIN DRESSLER. But every novel I read shows me something new about story telling or description, and that's quite inspiring, too.
6. “What is the strangest thing you have ever gotten inspiration from?”
I don't have a great anecdote for this question, but I can tell you that inspiration comes from everywhere, at the weirdest times. It's a cliche that every writer must keep a journal by their bed, but it is absolutely true. I have huge Eureka! moments while falling asleep. But I've realized things while staring at the sky and watching the person in front of me pay their bus fare, so I suppose it pays off to get out of your head and observe whatever happens to be right in front of you now and again.
7. “Many writers say parting with a character is hard. Do you ever look back on a character and wish you had changed something about him or her?”
Absolutely. A good example in my own book is the character Lina, who readers seem to really despise. And that makes sense to me, because she does some pretty nasty things. But she's also a character I relate to-- in high school, I was the person who wanted my life to be rich and exciting but never knew quite how, and I did a lot of clumsy, awkward and (probably) mean things in my attempts to make it that way. So I wish I'd added more to her character so that readers could relate to that yearning, romantic part of her... and luckily, it's a series, so I get a couple more chances! But, you know, you can never make a picture with words that is as complete as the one in your mind, so I think that's a very difficult part of writing-- having to send out your creations knowing they are almost by definition incomplete.
8. “What is the one thing such as, sky diving or any other daring thing, that you would love to do but you are too afraid?”
This isn't the kind of thing that gets your heart-rate up, but since I'm such a homebody it feels daring to me: I'd love to be out traveling in the world for a bunch of months or a year, seeing things without any place to go home to and very minimal possessions. To me that sounds frightening and thrilling.
9. “What was the biggest obstacle you faced in becoming an author and how did you overcome it?”
Finding time and supporting myself while doing it. There are no guarantees of steady income with writing, and before I sold The Luxe series I was patching it together with three jobs and I was pretty tired all the time. But then I got lucky-- I managed to get a book deal with only a third of the novel written, so I was able to quit my jobs and really go for making The Luxe the best book possible. But listen up, would-be writers! It's never easy.10. “What do you do when you are faced with writer’s block? What helps you get over it?”I go to some of the books I really love, and I read passengers I've marked or just start from the beginning. I look closely at the way they put sentences together, and that reminds me that the world is full of stories and infinite ways to tell them. It makes me want to put sentences together too. Of course, sometimes that only happens after an hour or so of compulsively checking my email and reading celebrity gossip online, but hey, sometimes that's the way it goes.
Thanks Anna!
