| Interview with Kathe Koja |
First off, thanks so much for joining us for an up-close and personal interview for TeensReadToo.com!
My name is Jen, and I'll be your server toda...oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking
time out of your writing schedule--which I'm sure is busy!--and answering a few questions for your
readers and fans.
Thanks for asking me, Jen. I'm happy to do it!
Let's get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I've been writing stories since I was small, about four or five years old. Writing has always been a large
part -- a huge part -- of who I am.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
I've been a freelance writer for more than 20 years, and have published everything from essays to short
fiction to horror novels to books for young people. As I mentioned above, I started young, but never
really planned to do much with my work; it was mostly just writing for the trunk, as the saying goes.
(Nowadays I guess it would be the trunk folder!) What really gave me my start as a professional writer
was a scholarship to the Clarion Workshop (held for many years at Michigan State University, moving in
2007 to University of California San Diego). Not only did Clarion provide me with the opportunity to meet
writers whose work I'd read and admired, as well as peers from all over the US and Canada, it made ME
believe that I could be, yes, a "real" writer, get my stuff out there and get it published.
I started submitting my fiction to magazines, and from those magazine publications, I was contacted by an
agent, who sold my first novel in 1989. My first YA novel, STRAYDOG, was published in 2002. The latest,
GOING UNDER, came out in September 2006.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
GOING UNDER is the story of a sister and brother whose lives take two different paths, and whose trust
in one another is strained to the breaking point. The story asks, What do we owe the people we love?
And what do we owe ourselves, to BE ourselves?
If I could say only one thing to convince you to buy the book? I guess I would say that I wrote this book
precisely to speak to you, the reader. A novel is a kind of conversation, and a one-sided conversation is
unsatisfying and incomplete. So I need you to make GOING UNDER what it's meant to be.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
That's a very difficult question. Whatever engine it is that drives inspiration itself, that desire to tell a
story, to remake the world in words -- that's what moves and inspires me to write, every day.
Let's hear about your family, who I'm sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
My husband, Rick Lieder, is an artist and illustrator. Lately we've been fortunate enough to be able to
work together--Rick has done the covers for all my hardcover YA books. My son Aaron is a senior at the
College for Creative Studies in Detroit. And we share our home with three wonderful, fierce, adorable
companion cats (all shelter-rescued).
Now for some fun facts. What's your greatest comfort food?
Does coffee count as a food?
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Feed those cats, make that coffee, and check my email.
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what's the one thing that would
surprise me the most?
That one house could hold so many half-filled boxes.
Everyone asks the question about "if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?" so I want to know:
If you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
I would be black, my favorite color: the color of serenity, certainty, and poise.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
I love Lisa Simpson! and, in print, all of Lynda Barry's mad and marvelous girls. Which is most like me? --
hmm, I draw a blank. My family and friends could probably answer that one much more accurately. (I just
asked a friend, and she said "That chick from 'Ghost World'!")
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world ("Beam me up, Scotty!"), during any time in history,
where and when would it be--and why?
This question is too huge to answer -- every answer I come up with, I immediately think of ten more (and
five even better).
So what's your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you're writing?
I always listen to music when I write. Even years later, when I hear a certain song, I'll remember, vividly,
the book I was working on with that song as a soundtrack. And I love all kinds of music, from Bach to the
Pixies to Rufus Wainwright to TV on the Radio to Shostakovich to Scissor Sisters to Motown to you name
it. Shuffle!
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie
you saw at the theater?
My favorite TV show has got to be The Simpsons ( and I still mourn the network loss of Futurama, too -- I
just watched a DVD of some robot episodes). But I spend far more time online than I do watching
anything else.The last two movies I saw that I really loved were "Brokeback Mountain" and a Leonard
Cohen tribute film called "I'm Your Man." Have to say I choose DVDs over going to the movies, though I'll
be queuing up for "Volver" any day now.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Be completely who you are. We need you.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
My next book, KISSING THE BEE, will be out from Frances Foster/Farrar Straus & Giroux in fall 2007.
And the NEXT next book, still untitled, is a finished first draft at this writing.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
Thank you for inviting me. And please have a look at my website, kathekoja.com, to continue the
conversation.
My name is Jen, and I'll be your server toda...oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking
time out of your writing schedule--which I'm sure is busy!--and answering a few questions for your
readers and fans.
Thanks for asking me, Jen. I'm happy to do it!
Let's get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I've been writing stories since I was small, about four or five years old. Writing has always been a large
part -- a huge part -- of who I am.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
I've been a freelance writer for more than 20 years, and have published everything from essays to short
fiction to horror novels to books for young people. As I mentioned above, I started young, but never
really planned to do much with my work; it was mostly just writing for the trunk, as the saying goes.
(Nowadays I guess it would be the trunk folder!) What really gave me my start as a professional writer
was a scholarship to the Clarion Workshop (held for many years at Michigan State University, moving in
2007 to University of California San Diego). Not only did Clarion provide me with the opportunity to meet
writers whose work I'd read and admired, as well as peers from all over the US and Canada, it made ME
believe that I could be, yes, a "real" writer, get my stuff out there and get it published.
I started submitting my fiction to magazines, and from those magazine publications, I was contacted by an
agent, who sold my first novel in 1989. My first YA novel, STRAYDOG, was published in 2002. The latest,
GOING UNDER, came out in September 2006.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
GOING UNDER is the story of a sister and brother whose lives take two different paths, and whose trust
in one another is strained to the breaking point. The story asks, What do we owe the people we love?
And what do we owe ourselves, to BE ourselves?
If I could say only one thing to convince you to buy the book? I guess I would say that I wrote this book
precisely to speak to you, the reader. A novel is a kind of conversation, and a one-sided conversation is
unsatisfying and incomplete. So I need you to make GOING UNDER what it's meant to be.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
That's a very difficult question. Whatever engine it is that drives inspiration itself, that desire to tell a
story, to remake the world in words -- that's what moves and inspires me to write, every day.
Let's hear about your family, who I'm sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
My husband, Rick Lieder, is an artist and illustrator. Lately we've been fortunate enough to be able to
work together--Rick has done the covers for all my hardcover YA books. My son Aaron is a senior at the
College for Creative Studies in Detroit. And we share our home with three wonderful, fierce, adorable
companion cats (all shelter-rescued).
Now for some fun facts. What's your greatest comfort food?
Does coffee count as a food?
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Feed those cats, make that coffee, and check my email.
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what's the one thing that would
surprise me the most?
That one house could hold so many half-filled boxes.
Everyone asks the question about "if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?" so I want to know:
If you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
I would be black, my favorite color: the color of serenity, certainty, and poise.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
I love Lisa Simpson! and, in print, all of Lynda Barry's mad and marvelous girls. Which is most like me? --
hmm, I draw a blank. My family and friends could probably answer that one much more accurately. (I just
asked a friend, and she said "That chick from 'Ghost World'!")
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world ("Beam me up, Scotty!"), during any time in history,
where and when would it be--and why?
This question is too huge to answer -- every answer I come up with, I immediately think of ten more (and
five even better).
So what's your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you're writing?
I always listen to music when I write. Even years later, when I hear a certain song, I'll remember, vividly,
the book I was working on with that song as a soundtrack. And I love all kinds of music, from Bach to the
Pixies to Rufus Wainwright to TV on the Radio to Shostakovich to Scissor Sisters to Motown to you name
it. Shuffle!
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie
you saw at the theater?
My favorite TV show has got to be The Simpsons ( and I still mourn the network loss of Futurama, too -- I
just watched a DVD of some robot episodes). But I spend far more time online than I do watching
anything else.The last two movies I saw that I really loved were "Brokeback Mountain" and a Leonard
Cohen tribute film called "I'm Your Man." Have to say I choose DVDs over going to the movies, though I'll
be queuing up for "Volver" any day now.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Be completely who you are. We need you.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
My next book, KISSING THE BEE, will be out from Frances Foster/Farrar Straus & Giroux in fall 2007.
And the NEXT next book, still untitled, is a finished first draft at this writing.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
Thank you for inviting me. And please have a look at my website, kathekoja.com, to continue the
conversation.
