AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Amy Brecount White

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Amy Brecount White is the author of Forget-Her-Nots a magical realism YA novel to be released by Greenwillow/HarperCollins on 3/2/2010.    

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Delicious and magical, here is a debut novel about a new (and slightly misunderstood) girl at an exclusive boarding school. Laurel has always loved flowers, but when a class project calls for research into the Victorian language of flowers, she makes a potent discovery. Her affinity for blooming things is actually age-old magic, passed from one generation to the next-a bittersweet gift from her beloved mother, who’s recently died-and it gives Laurel the power to make people fall in and out of love. Laurel’s introduction to the secret society of flowerspeakers is rife with complications and mishaps-especially when her classmates convince her to use her magic at the prom. This evocative coming-of-age story lingers in the air much like the fragrant blooms that determine Laurel’s fate so mysteriously.

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THE MAGIC 8

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1.  Mindi Scott:  At age eight, what did you want to be when you grew up?  And at age eighteen?  And while you’re at it, what about at age twenty-eight?

Amy Brecount White:  At age 8, I’m pretty sure I wanted to be exactly like my wonderful teacher.

At age 18, I wanted to be a college English professor.  (Then I got tired of living in the library.)

At age 28, I wanted to be a writer.

2.  MS:  Which Breakfast-Club-style label would have best fit your teeanage self?

ABW:  The Total Nerd Who's Trying to Pretend She's Not.

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3. MS:  What are some of your superstitions and/or phobias?

ABW:  My major phobia is heights.  It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just that they make me feel like I want to jump.  Not a good thing.

4. MS:  Without giving away too much from your book, which character or scene are you the most pleased about having created, and why?

ABW:  I LOVE the prom scene, because it’s serious but funny and romantic, too.  And I wrote and rewrotes it like a gazillion times, so it better be good.

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5.  MS: Was there any certain music that inspired you while you were writing this book, or is there a song that could serve as your protagonist’s theme song?

ABW: I’m weird in that I write best in total silence.  Otherwise, it’s hard for me to hear the voices in my head. 

For Laurel, I like The Fray’s “Over My Head.”  It’s not a perfect fit, but it makes me think of how she feels at lots of points in the novel.

6. MS: What’s up next for you as a writer?

ABW:  I’m finishing up a second YA, but this one is realistic and has nothing to do with flowers.  I’d love to revisit the flowerspeaking world, but that’s still in the future.  Eight ball?

7. MS:  And now, the most important question of all:  Beatle or Elvis?  Please support your answer.  ;-)

ABW:  Beatles.  “Norwegian Wood.”  Bizarre but lovely.  I just adore that song and so many others.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNV2vaxOQ-Y

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8.  MS:  Okay, your turn.  Do you have a question you'd like me to ask my Magic 8 Ball on your behalf?  (I'm telling you, this things is scarily accurate!  Well, except for when it's lying.)

ABW:  What will my next work be about?  (Still working on this and taking suggestions!)

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MS:  I don't think that really answered your question!  But it would make a cool title maybe?  :-D  Thank you so much, Amy!

ABW:  Thank you so much, Mindi.  It's been fun.  :-)

To learn more about Amy and her debut novel, FORGET-HER-NOTS, visit http://www.amybrecountwhite.com/

Please 'splain?

Let's say there's a girl (G) who has a boyfriend (B).  And it is the belief of B's friends that certain intimate things go on between G and B.  And it's all kinds of shocking or hilarious or whatever because B has always been shy with girls and the last person anyone would have expected to be getting any of anything.  So then B breaks up with G and she is totally devastated.

What exactly would make B's friends decide that one of their new pastimes will be sexually harassing this girl?  To come up behind her while she's at her locker and dance-hump her (term courtesy of J.R. Angelella) and make sexual tongue motions in her direction when she might or might not be looking and laugh about it during and after?

Are they letting the world know that they think: "This girl is such a whore that this is all she exists for"?

Are they saying, "She is so ugly/crazy/otherwise unappealing that I would never want to tap that, so hey, aren't I being funny and ironic by doing this"?

Are they like, "I am so into her.  I hope she wants to give it up to me now that she's single.  This should be a really great way to get her attention"?

I'm asking these questions because, yes, something like this happened to me in high school.  But also -- mainly -- because something like this happened to my main character my current project.  To get these scenes right, I really NEED to understand the antagonists in these scenes, but I don't.  I never have.  And obviously, I'm a little too close to the subject matter to be objective.  (For the record, I always assumed their thought process was one of the first two options, but someone else suggested to me yesterday that it might be the third.  Which I find ludicrous, but what do I know?)

I actually considered writing to those real-life antagonists via FaceBook to see if I can get a response out of them.  Alas!  They don't have FB pages.  (Also, it's possible that I would have been too chicken to go through with it even if they had.)

Can anyone else shed some light for me?

 

Humilations Galore!

Jody Sparks has a fabulous blog which includes a feature called "Self-Deprecating Sunday."  There, she posts new pictures each week of herself and other YA writer volunteers (including Tenners Josh Berk and C.J. Omololu) as teens. 

So much awkwardness!  So much hilarity!

Today the featured author on Jody's blog is . . . me!  And let me tell you, I am looking fabulous at age 13 in my stretch jeans, braces and swoopy bangs.

What?  You don't believe me?  Click here to be directed to the tragic evidence! 

Dare I say it might be even less attractive than this:

(Yeah, 13 was NOT my year.  I got cuter when I was 14.)

You guys! I HAVE A WEBSITE!

As of this past Monday, there is exactly six months until FREEFALL comes out.  (Six months??!!!)
This seems like a good a time to officially announce my website:   mindiscott.com

The site was designed by the talented (and patient!) Vicki with Swank Web Style using photography from my January shoot with Brittney Bush Bollay.  I'm so very happy with how it turned out!

You can read lots of revealing stuff About Me.  I'm not quite finished putting in all the content; it's a work in progress for some of it.  I'm going to be adding more photos to the photo page and continually updating (and embarrassing myself with) the Read My Old Diaries page as well.  I'll also see if I can maybe add a FREEFALL excerpt in the coming months or some sort of FREEFALL FAQ on the books tab.  Yay!

But, yeah.  That's the stuff!  Please check it out and let me know what you think.  There is a link from the blog to the site and vice versa.  So that's fun!  If you ever get bored, you can just click back and forth and back and forth to see the two different headers.  Not that I've ever done anything like that . . .

The arrival of FREEFALL's Advance Reviewer's Copy.

I got a package yesterday.  It was a large, padded envelope that had been ripped open, stapled shut again, and labeled like so:

I'm sorry, too, The Postal Service. I'm sorry, too.

You see, said "damage" to my article resulted in me receiving the Simon & Schuster Fall catalog (yay!) and just one ARC in the envelope instead of the catalog with two ARCs that my editor sent me (boo!). 

I'm going to assume that since no one could have guessed the contents, they didn't intentionally mutilate the package in order to steal my ARC.  I'm also assuming that it fell out by accident and is somewhere within the belly of the USPS waiting to be returned to me.  I've been in contact with USPS and have filed a report.   So maybe, just maybe, it will turn up (all mangled) four weeks from now. 

Hey, it could happen, right?

The good news in all this is that even though I didn't get my two ARCs, I did get one.  And it is PRETTY FRICKEN COOL, I have to say.  The whole family here decided to give it some love and attention!

Here's the FREEFALL ARC and me, chilling in front of my house:

And here's Oz sniffing the ARC and Angelus hiding from it:

 

Niña is posing behind it and Neko is relaxing beside it:

 

And Dwayne. . .  Oh, hey!  What's that you're reading?  Anything good?