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.
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 always enjoyed writing stories, but it never occurred to me that I could do that for a living until I dated a girl in high school who said she wanted to be a writer. I thought that was pretty bold. We broke up, she went on to make a lot of money in business, and I became a struggling writer.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
If you look on the back of many books by new authors, it might say, “This is ______’s first novel.” For a long time, I thought that phrase meant they must have been a genius who could sit down, write a novel in a few months, and have it get published. And maybe that happens to a few lucky souls, but it’s certainly not my story, or the story of most writers I know. For instance, Lauren Myracle, a good friend of mine who’s published several bestsellers, once made me feel infinitely better (and also a little frightened) when she mentioned that she wrote seven novels before she wrote one good enough to be published. For me, the magic number was four bad novels before I figured out how to enact a vision in writing, and pace a novel, and hold a reader’s interest for over two hundred pages. The moral of this story is that writing takes a long time to develop, so don’t get frustrated if things don’t happen right away. It’s the ones who stick with it who succeed. And if it says on the back of a book “This is ______’s first novel,” it probably means that it’s his or her first “published” novel, after writing several lame ones.
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?
My latest release is The Traitor King. And if I can only tell you one thing about this book, it’s that it’s fun. But not fun in some shallow, mindless, annoying way. Fun in a spooky, mysterious, adventuresome way. When I wrote it, I was trying to capture that feeling I used to get on summer nights when I played hide and seek in the woods with my cousins, and the sun was setting, and the shadows stretched out, and strange things seemed possible. Honestly, I’ve read this book over a dozen times, and I still get a kick out of it.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
My family has been my greatest inspiration. They often tease me for telling stories, but I learned it from them. For instance, my grandfather used to do handstands on chairs at the back of the room during city council meetings, until one night the chair broke beneath him and he cracked his ribs. His wife, by the way, was the one standing at the front of the room, running the meeting, because she was mayor of the town. That’s pretty typical Mitchell behavior, so every time we get together, we come away with plenty of things to tell stories about.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
They’ve been very supportive. But I think having an author in the family makes them a little nervous too. Afterall, things people say and do (like handstands on chairs) sometimes end up in my books. The characters in my books are entirely different from the people I know in real life, yet just as a cook uses the ingredients in his pantry to create a dish, I toss together details from my life to create my characters.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
Comfort food? I don’t know. Food makes me nervous. I often sit and think about where the thing I’m eating came from and what its story is. Which, in a restaurant, can be a scary thing to do. So I try to buy local, humanely raised food as much as possible. That makes me more comfortable. And then there’s oranges. I think oranges everywhere are happy. So I love oranges in all their forms.
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Shower. I’m not awake at all until I’ve been doused by water. I’m a water person, and water revives me. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and do things I have no recollection of, because I’m not awake until that water hits me.
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise me the most?
Elvis. I keep him in my closet, feed him peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and give him a few magazines to read. He gets a big kick out of all the Elvis sightings, but he hasn’t left the house in years. Usually, for Halloween, he stands in our front entrance and hands out candy, only no one believes it’s him.
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 was hoping for the tree question. Of course, I’ve thought long and hard about that one because I’ve been asked it so many times before. But as far as colors go, I’d have to say blue. And not just any blue, but blue like the sky looks when you’re in the Pacific Ocean, six feet below the surface as a glassy wave rolls over your head. Call it azure, or mazarine --there are so many names for blue. I think dolphins must see that perfect shade of blue all the time, so they probably have the best name for it.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
I’d like to think I’m cool like Snake Eyes was on G.I. Joe, or a great leader like Optimus Prime on the Transformers, but the truth is I’m probably more like Bumblebee or Orko --you know, the clumsy side kick who always caused problems. I’m good at causing problems.
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?
I’d stay right here, because I don’t want to miss a minute of my daughter growing up. Also, I think big changes are coming. As a society, I believe we’re at a turning point where we either continue to live the way we are and face catastrophic consequences, or we make a leap in social consciousness and act to prevent problems such as global warming and nuclear disaster. Human beings are great at reacting, but the problems we face now, especially the environmental problems, demand a new way of thinking and acting, because if we wait to react, it will be too late. It’s the generations who are alive right now that will have a hand in shaping what could be one of the biggest changes in human history, and I want to be part of that.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while you’re writing?
I like new music. I often ask the college students that I teach what they’re listening to, so I can check it out. I like seeing the way music develops and changes. Some of my recent favorites are Death Cab for Cutie, The Mountain Goats, and Atmosphere, but if you give me a few weeks, it will be different. I enjoy the classics too, but I’m not into listening to oldies stations and hearing the same songs I used to listen to over and over again. My goal is to one day be able to swap music with my daughter and have her think I’m not a total dork.
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?
I don’t have cable because I can’t stand commercia
