| Interview with Kimberly Joy Peters |
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 came to the realization that I wanted to a writer very slowly. I always liked it when teachers let us write
stories at school, but didn’t realize I was especially good at it until my high school principal stopped me
in the hall one day to tell me that my English teacher had shared some of my writing with him, and he
thought I had a real gift (his own son later went on to write the bestseller The Wealthy Barber). Later, I
discovered that The Toronto Star, one of Canada’s larges newspapers, had a short story contest
every year, and as I would read the winners, I found myself thinking “I can do that,” and wanting to try.
I entered one story every year for seven year, and then in 2000 I placed in the top ten, out of 2500
entries. Seeing my story in print was thrilling and inspiring. Still, it wasn’t until a friend of mine, Kirsten
Koza, published a travel memoir that I realized real people can and do get published, and only then
did I decide to try finishing the novel I’d had in my head for a decade.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
See above! After I started to write Painting Caitlyn, researched publishers on the internet, and
discovered that most publishers required authors to have an agent – which seemed to me like I’d be
having to sell my story twice, once to the agent and then again to the publisher. Without an agent,
publishers wouldn’t look at an “unsolicited manuscript”, and most of them only wanted historical fiction.
I got discouraged. I quit writing somewhere around 30 pages. Then I heard about a “First Novel for
Young Adults” contest – I wrote frantically for about 2 months! I completed the novel, but I didn’t win. I
was disappointed, but having at least finished the book, I believed that I had something worth
pursuing. I researched publishers again, and found two that were accepting contemporary Young
Adult manuscripts. I spent one summer editing, revising, and perfecting it before dropping it in the
mail, and I heard back from Lobster Press just a few weeks later. Once the formal editing process
began, I discovered that what I thought I’d perfected still needed tweaks and adjustments. It was hard,
sometimes, to make the changes my editor suggested, because I’d worked so much in isolation up
until that point: but they wouldn’t have taken on the story if it hadn’t been solid to start with, and in the
end, I know it’s stronger because of my editor’s input.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release.
My current book, Painting Caitlyn, is a “coming of age” story told in the first-person. Caitlyn is about to
turn fifteen, and she’s feeling neglected at home as well as by her best friend, Ashley, when she
meets Tyler. He seems to be everything she could hope for in a boyfriend…but there’s a lot more to
him, and to their subsequent relationship, than even he could predict.
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?
Painting Caitlyn was intended it to be a good read, first and foremost: not preachy, not educational,
just entertaining.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
Some of the inspiration to write comes from the great Young Adult authors I read when I was in that
age group: Judy Blume, Lois Lowry, Lois Duncan and Zibby O’Neal.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
I’m married, to a guy I started going to school with in seventh grade, but didn’t notice “in that way” until
partway through university. Together, we have a cat and a dog. Sam (the cat) came to live with us last
year at the age of 16 when his family moved to New Zealand. Spencer (the dog) joined us in June. He’
s about a year and a half old, but we don’t know for sure. I found him through PetFinder.com, which is
an amazing website for matching people up with a homeless animals. My dad died when I was fifteen,
but I am still very close to my mom. I have one sister, who is just a year and a half older than me, and I
have three nephews and a niece, all between the ages of 9 and 11.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
Dark chocolate!
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Hit the snooze button several times
Let the dog out
Feed the cat
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would
surprise me the most?
I think I do okay with the public spaces, but there’s definitely some clutter in the closets and the
basement…and that might surprise you, depending on whether or not you believe that old bit about
“cluttered spaces meaning cluttered minds” (in which case, what does an empty space mean?).
You might also be surprised to find that I, the book chick, won an award for being the top girl in
Industrial Arts (Shop!) class in grade eight. It was a big school, with about 120 students in my grade,
so it was years before I realized that the boys’ award that year had gone to the guy who ended up
becoming my husband!
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 think I’m going to go with purple here. I am too complex to be a pure primary colour, and purple feels
right because it’s a mixture of warm and cool, encompassing fiery red, which I’d love to be, and blue,
which I sometimes am.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
Tigger, from Winnie the Pooh, is my favourite. I just love the way he approaches life with such joy and
fearlessness and enthusiasm (The wonderful thing about Tiggers/ is Tiggers are wonderful
things/Their tops are made out of rubber/their bottoms are made out of springs).
As for the cartoon character most like me, I think I’d have to go with Marlin, (Nemo’s father). Like him, I
tend to be instinctively cautious, but I have occasionally been known to amaze and astound myself by
taking calculated risks and trying new things.
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?
Selfishly, I’d like to go back to a time before 1985, when my dad was alive, because I have no “adult”
memories of him – I know him only through the memories I formed before I was fifteen, and through
what I’ve been told about him. I’d like to sit down with now and talk to him adult to adult.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you’re writing?
All-time favourites include Bon Jovi, John Cougar Mellencamp and Kenny Chesney, while some of my
current favourites include James Blunt and Nickleback. I do listen to music when I write, but then it has
to be wordless – something classical, or “easy listening” piano tunes
(check out www.davidjonesmusic.com!)
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 weekly “must watch” programs are Prison Break, House, and Lost. The last thing I saw at a theatre
was a collection of short films from the World Wide Short Film Festival.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Trust yourself: trust your abilities, trust your instincts, trust that there is greatness inside of you.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
My next project, tentatively titled Posing as Ashley, centres around the best friend of my last book’s
main character. Initially, I felt that Caitlyn had told her story, and I was reluctant to continue writing
about her, but then I asked myself what might be going on with some of the other characters I’d
created, and I discovered that Ashley had a lot of her own things to say! Lobster Press has scheduled
it for publication in Fall, 2008.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
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 came to the realization that I wanted to a writer very slowly. I always liked it when teachers let us write
stories at school, but didn’t realize I was especially good at it until my high school principal stopped me
in the hall one day to tell me that my English teacher had shared some of my writing with him, and he
thought I had a real gift (his own son later went on to write the bestseller The Wealthy Barber). Later, I
discovered that The Toronto Star, one of Canada’s larges newspapers, had a short story contest
every year, and as I would read the winners, I found myself thinking “I can do that,” and wanting to try.
I entered one story every year for seven year, and then in 2000 I placed in the top ten, out of 2500
entries. Seeing my story in print was thrilling and inspiring. Still, it wasn’t until a friend of mine, Kirsten
Koza, published a travel memoir that I realized real people can and do get published, and only then
did I decide to try finishing the novel I’d had in my head for a decade.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
See above! After I started to write Painting Caitlyn, researched publishers on the internet, and
discovered that most publishers required authors to have an agent – which seemed to me like I’d be
having to sell my story twice, once to the agent and then again to the publisher. Without an agent,
publishers wouldn’t look at an “unsolicited manuscript”, and most of them only wanted historical fiction.
I got discouraged. I quit writing somewhere around 30 pages. Then I heard about a “First Novel for
Young Adults” contest – I wrote frantically for about 2 months! I completed the novel, but I didn’t win. I
was disappointed, but having at least finished the book, I believed that I had something worth
pursuing. I researched publishers again, and found two that were accepting contemporary Young
Adult manuscripts. I spent one summer editing, revising, and perfecting it before dropping it in the
mail, and I heard back from Lobster Press just a few weeks later. Once the formal editing process
began, I discovered that what I thought I’d perfected still needed tweaks and adjustments. It was hard,
sometimes, to make the changes my editor suggested, because I’d worked so much in isolation up
until that point: but they wouldn’t have taken on the story if it hadn’t been solid to start with, and in the
end, I know it’s stronger because of my editor’s input.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release.
My current book, Painting Caitlyn, is a “coming of age” story told in the first-person. Caitlyn is about to
turn fifteen, and she’s feeling neglected at home as well as by her best friend, Ashley, when she
meets Tyler. He seems to be everything she could hope for in a boyfriend…but there’s a lot more to
him, and to their subsequent relationship, than even he could predict.
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?
Painting Caitlyn was intended it to be a good read, first and foremost: not preachy, not educational,
just entertaining.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
Some of the inspiration to write comes from the great Young Adult authors I read when I was in that
age group: Judy Blume, Lois Lowry, Lois Duncan and Zibby O’Neal.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
I’m married, to a guy I started going to school with in seventh grade, but didn’t notice “in that way” until
partway through university. Together, we have a cat and a dog. Sam (the cat) came to live with us last
year at the age of 16 when his family moved to New Zealand. Spencer (the dog) joined us in June. He’
s about a year and a half old, but we don’t know for sure. I found him through PetFinder.com, which is
an amazing website for matching people up with a homeless animals. My dad died when I was fifteen,
but I am still very close to my mom. I have one sister, who is just a year and a half older than me, and I
have three nephews and a niece, all between the ages of 9 and 11.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
Dark chocolate!
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Hit the snooze button several times
Let the dog out
Feed the cat
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would
surprise me the most?
I think I do okay with the public spaces, but there’s definitely some clutter in the closets and the
basement…and that might surprise you, depending on whether or not you believe that old bit about
“cluttered spaces meaning cluttered minds” (in which case, what does an empty space mean?).
You might also be surprised to find that I, the book chick, won an award for being the top girl in
Industrial Arts (Shop!) class in grade eight. It was a big school, with about 120 students in my grade,
so it was years before I realized that the boys’ award that year had gone to the guy who ended up
becoming my husband!
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 think I’m going to go with purple here. I am too complex to be a pure primary colour, and purple feels
right because it’s a mixture of warm and cool, encompassing fiery red, which I’d love to be, and blue,
which I sometimes am.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
Tigger, from Winnie the Pooh, is my favourite. I just love the way he approaches life with such joy and
fearlessness and enthusiasm (The wonderful thing about Tiggers/ is Tiggers are wonderful
things/Their tops are made out of rubber/their bottoms are made out of springs).
As for the cartoon character most like me, I think I’d have to go with Marlin, (Nemo’s father). Like him, I
tend to be instinctively cautious, but I have occasionally been known to amaze and astound myself by
taking calculated risks and trying new things.
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?
Selfishly, I’d like to go back to a time before 1985, when my dad was alive, because I have no “adult”
memories of him – I know him only through the memories I formed before I was fifteen, and through
what I’ve been told about him. I’d like to sit down with now and talk to him adult to adult.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you’re writing?
All-time favourites include Bon Jovi, John Cougar Mellencamp and Kenny Chesney, while some of my
current favourites include James Blunt and Nickleback. I do listen to music when I write, but then it has
to be wordless – something classical, or “easy listening” piano tunes
(check out www.davidjonesmusic.com!)
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 weekly “must watch” programs are Prison Break, House, and Lost. The last thing I saw at a theatre
was a collection of short films from the World Wide Short Film Festival.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Trust yourself: trust your abilities, trust your instincts, trust that there is greatness inside of you.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
My next project, tentatively titled Posing as Ashley, centres around the best friend of my last book’s
main character. Initially, I felt that Caitlyn had told her story, and I was reluctant to continue writing
about her, but then I asked myself what might be going on with some of the other characters I’d
created, and I discovered that Ashley had a lot of her own things to say! Lobster Press has scheduled
it for publication in Fall, 2008.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!