7 Questions For: Author Donna Gephart

Donna Gephart's new novel, How to Survive Middle School, garnered starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal. Click here to read my review. Her first book, As If Being 12 3/4 Isn't Bad Enough, My Mother Is Running for President! won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award. Donna has fun speaking at schools, book festivals and conferences.

Visit her at www.donnagephart.com.

And now Donna Gephart must face the 7 Questions:


Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

Let me cheat and tell you my top three favorite authors: Jerry Spinelli, Christopher Paul Curtis and Louis Sachar. Add to that list two more favorites I recently discovered: Gary D. Schmidt and Rodman Philbrick. And I love that Gary Paulsen is writing short, funny books for kids now. Hey, where are the women on this list?


Question Six: How much time do you spend each week writing? Reading?

It depends on what's happening in my life. If I'm on deadline and deep into a novel, I write up to 35 hours a week or more. If it's summer break and the kids are home, it could be as few as five hours, if I'm lucky. I average about 18 hours a week writing, but when I'm not writing I'm doing the real work -- thinking! So that when I'm at the keyboard, my fingers fly fast and furiously.

I'm not much of a TV watcher, so I read a lot. I complete about 60 books a year, give or take.


Question Five: What was the path that led you to publication?

The path that led me to publication was the public library. It was my lifeline as a child (and still is). And boredom. At ten, I was bored out of my skull and wrote a short story for want of anything else to do. My mom loved the story, and I decided right then I would become a writer. I figured it would be easy and make me famous. Half a dozen unpublished novels later, I realized it wasn't easy. When I was fortunate enough to sell my first novel, I learned it wouldn't make me famous either. But I still loved it. After enough rejections to wallpaper a small kingdom, Tina Wexler took me on as a client. So far, we've sold three novels to Random House . . . with many more to come, I hope.


Question Four: Do you believe writers are born, taught or both? Which was true for you?

I couldn't be anything but a writer. I know. I've tried. I've sold shoes, cleaned dorm rooms, worked at a bakery, as a secretary, waitress, etc. Something about being a lonely child, a book nerd and a good listener and talker makes this the perfect career for me. I believe writing is journey, and we learn things and become better over time, if we continue to have a passion for it, practice regularly and read voraciously. I've found that attending (and later running) critique groups to be enormously helpful in my growth as a writer/reviser. And attending (now speaking at) conferences always provides that needed shot of information and inspiration.


Question Three: What is your favorite thing about writing? What is your least favorite thing?

Even after twenty years, I still get excited to get up in the morning and work. I love being lost in the story world. But I get frustrated during non-writing periods. Sometimes, the mind needs to gather, not produce. And even though I know this, I sometimes get a bit neurotic about the process. Despite the inherent frustrations, challenges and rejections, there is nothing I'd rather wake up and do each day.


Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

Write.


Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

Stephen King. Period. He's a regular, smart, creative guy and he tells a darned good story.

www.donnagephart.com

Book of the Week: HOW TO SURVIVE MIDDLE SCHOOL by Donna Gephart

How to Survive Middle School by Donna Gephart is very enjoyable and very funny. But I should warn you, it’s also a little sad in places, so you’ll be alternately laughing and sniffling. That’s the best sort of story and you’re going to have a good time. Here’s the lowdown:

Eleven-year-old David Greenberg idolizes Jon Stewart (me too) and wants to host his own talk show when he grows up. In the meantime, he hosts his own YouTube show from his bedroom. Each week he gives the very funny acne forecast, which is just a close-up of his sister Lindsay. He also gives his top six and a half lists, which allow all sorts of comedy moments for Gephart. Oh, and there are lots of clips of David’s hamster, Hammy. More on him in a moment.

Alas, when we meet David, it is the summer before he starts middle school. I didn't care for middle school myself and David has my sympathies. His crazy, chain-smoking cousin Jack warns David that he needs to work out. Middle school is a whole new world of pain and David has to be ready. And worst of all, he has to stay away from bathrooms as on his birthday, the eighth graders will gang up on David and give him a swirly. Here is David’s very funny reaction to the news:

I can’t have my head flushed. I may never recover from the psychological trauma. What if some weird bacteria from the water travels up my nose and infects my brain and I die a slow, horrible death?

During the summer, David’s best friend Elliott insists on spending all of their time at the mall searching for some girl he likes. Therefore, David doesn't have time to make videos and this escalates into an argument that escalates into a full fight between them the first day of school. Police officers bust up the fight and for me this moment was evocative of prison movies. And this is appropriate. I often thought of middle school as a prison, and as in prison, it is important to pick a fight your first day lest you lose respect of your fellow cell—er, classmates.

Meanwhile, David makes a new friend in Sophie, a girl he maybe likes as more than a friend. Could it be she likes him back? Sophie really digs David’s YouTube videos and she sends them around and the next thing you know a video he made of his hamster Hammy goes viral and David becomes internet famous. The video might even be shown on The Daily Show. The song Hammy dances to is MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This, which Gephart refers to as “old.” That really bummed me out. When I was David’s age, I owned Hammer pants.

All of this is the ‘A’ story and it works perfectly. When I was a kid (apparently a long, long time ago) I did our school’s video announcements and I filmed my own television shows. We didn’t have YouTube. Back then, if you wanted to share a video, you had to load your film canisters on the back of a brontosaurus and ride it to your friend’s house on the other side of Pangaea. This got a little easier once we invented the wheel:) All this to say that I identified completely with David. I got his struggle to survive middle school and to deal with suddenly becoming locally famous due to a love of video.

But that’s the ‘A’ story. This is book is really about its ‘B’ story, which Gephart reveals rather brilliantly by dropping the following hints for the first thirty pages:

That’s why my best friend, Elliott Berger, is coming over to watch the Daily Show episodes I’ve recorded. Mom and I used to watch them together. She always said the host, Jon Stewart, stood up for the little guy, which is funny, because Jon Stewart is a little guy—five feet seven inches.

I imagine my picture on the cover of Entertainment Weekly… someday. If Mom ever saw me on a magazine cover in a store, she’d probably borrow a stranger’s cell phone right then and there and call me, screaming with excitement.

…because my mom plays the tuba. Played the tuba. Now her tuba sits in our living room, even though nobody’s touched it for two years.

I wish I could e-mail Mom and tell her about this new one. But I can’t. And even if I could, she wouldn’t be able to watch it anyway. I’m sure she’ll catch up to the twenty-first century. Someday.

And at last, Gephart stops hinting and tells us what's up:

I wonder why Mom had to move to a farm in Maine to “find herself.” Couldn’t she have found herself right here in Bensalem with us, instead of running off with the Farmer? His real name’s Marcus, and he’s too cheap to have a computer or a phone or even electricity in their house. Mom would have to go into town to call us, which she never does.


Lindsay says Mom’s not finding herself; she says Mom’s just selfish and has some sort of disorder.

I agree with Lindsay. I think David’s mom sucks and I hope she gets diarrhea from eating all her stupid organic beats (she grows them with Marcus). But love her or hate her, David’s mom isn’t really the issue, although her absence is a big part of what this book is really about. I’m not going to tell you how her story intersects with the book’s main plot because that would be a big fat spoiler, but just trust that it does and when it does, you might just cry a little. Ninjas don’t cry, but you might, Esteemed Reader. So be warned.

Gephart adds in very short flashbacks along the way to explain the actions of David’s mother, and the flashbacks do make her more empathetic. Even so, I personally can understand someone abandoning a marriage that isn’t working, but I can’t wrap my head fully around a parent leaving their children. And it doesn’t really matter. I suspect some will like David’s mother more than I do, but the real story is David and his reaction to his mother’s actions. And I liked David quite a bit. 

There’s a lot of other wonderful stuff in this book just waiting to surprise the lucky reader and I won’t give all the secrets away in an online review. But this book has everything. It’s very funny and emotionally involving and I highly recommend it. I want to close by sharing some of Gephart’s prose with you and then we have a video trailer featuring a singing hamster to enjoy.

But first, here is a scene between David and his new friend Sophie whom he likes quite a lot. For me, this scene captures a lot of what it’s like to be a boy noticing and caring about girls for the first time, and it’s very funny:

“Your family’s quiet when they eat,” Sophie says as we stand by the door, waiting for her mom to arrive.

“I can’t tell her the truth—that remembering Mom has a way of doing that to us. It’s been two years now, and sometimes I wonder if it’ll ever get easier.
“Yeah.” I shrug. “They’re kind of weird about that.” Shut up, David. “Afraid of choking or something.” Really, shut up! “I choked on a nickel when I was little.” Oh my gosh! Shut up!
“Really?”
“Yeah, I saved it in a jar in my closet.”
“Oh.”
“It’s sort of green now.” Please strike me dead. SHUT UP!

Here's a great description that made me laugh:

Her skin is so tanned and wrinkled that her face looks like the hindquarters of an elephant. “Welcome to math class,” the woman says in a raspy voice. She sounds like she spent her life working at the Smokin’ and Chokin Cigarette Factory. “I’m your teacher, Ms. Lovely.”

And finally, as promised a singing hamster:




STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.  

7 Questions For: Literary Agent Tina Wexler

We've had a wonderful week of celebrating Kurtis Scaletta and his new book Mamba Point. Today, we have the extreme good fortune to be joined by his agent, Mrs. Tina Wexler of International Creative Management. Thanks so much to Mrs. Wexler for taking time out of her busy schedual.

Tina Wexler is an agent at ICM, representing writers in both the children’s and adult marketplace. Prior to joining ICM, she was with the Ellen Levine Literary Agency/Trident Media and the Karpfinger Agency. She is from southern Maine, holds an MFA in poetry, and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband.

What She's Looking For:

Fiction genres of interest: Children's, middle grade, young adult.

Non-fiction genres of interest: Select children's, religion; lifestyle, multi-cultural, memoirs, travel, art, current affairs, women's issues, pop culture, narrative, film and entertainment, cultural/social issues, humor, journalism, juvenile.

Some of Mrs. Wexler's clients include: Jonathan Bernstein, Lesley Dahl, Sara Lewis Holmes, Jeannine Garsee, Donna Gephart, James Kennedy, Ruthie Knapp, Timothy Mason, Joel Naftali, Peter Nelson, Sanjay Patel, Mara Purnhagen, Susan Runholt, Kurtis Scaletta, Angie Smibert, Laurel Snyder, Anne Ursu

As always, I do my agent research at Casey McCormick's blog, Literary Rambles. 

And now Tina Wexler faces the 7 Questions:

Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

Crud. I’m somehow failing this interview when that shouldn’t even be possible. The truth is, I don’t really have three favorite books. It’s not that I don’t fall in love with books—I fall in love all the time. It’s just that the books I’m most excited about these days tend to be the last books I’ve read. (From my July 4th vacation: BAD APPLE by Laura Ruby; HATE THAT CAT by Sharon Creech; and HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER by Sloane Crosley.) I can say that when I was a kid, I loved pretty much everything written by Blume, Paterson, Voigt, and Konigsburg, but since I’m rarely a re-reader, I haven’t dipped into those childhood favorites since, well, childhood. 

How about we go with WHO PUT THAT HAIR IN MY TOOTHBRUSH, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and A WRINKLE IN TIME, if only because they are the first three titles that popped into my mind when I read the question, and I’m assuming you mean within MG/YA. (I promise not to be so difficult in all my other answers…maybe.)

Question Six: What are your top three favorite movies and television shows?

Of all time? Back to the Future; Heathers; Anne of Green Gables (I know, I know. I don’t even mention the books above and here I’m listing the movies. I’m a traitor to the cause.) TV: Family Ties (clearly, I’ve always had a thing for Michael J. Fox); The Simpsons (still); Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Question Five: What are the qualities of your ideal client?

Creative, hard-working, kind, funny

Question Four: What sort of project(s) would you most like to receive a query for?

Within middle grade and YA, anything that’ll make me laugh, cry or get angry. More specifically, I’d love to see more magical realism and contemporary sci-fi, gothic romance and “puzzle-solving” mysteries.

Question Three: What is your favorite thing about being an agent? What is your least favorite thing?

Aside from helping my clients realize their dreams of being published? There’s nothing like seeing a book come together piece by piece and then holding a finished copy for the first time. My least favorite thing is delivering bad news that can’t be viewed as a blessing in disguise. Some bad news is just bad news, and that’s the worst.

Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

Get out of your head and out of the house. GO! DO! And then read read read and write write write. Get your characters out of the house. Make them GO. Make them DO.

Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. I’ve got questions.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to ask Mrs. Wexler a question on Casey's blog, so I feel it's fair to include it here as a bonus (I hope Casey doesn't mind): Were Peter Nelson and Rohitash Rao of HERBERT’S WORMHOLE an established team of writer/illustrator when you agreed to represent them? If so, did this make the submission process more difficult? Would you consider an established team of writer/illustrator for future clients?

Yes, Peter and Ro were an established team right from the start, but that didn’t complicate the submission process. I’m certainly open to considering established writer/illustrator teams.

For the full text of that inteview, click here.

 icmtalent.com