http://www.courtneysheinmel.com/
When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?
I don’t have a memory of not wanting to be a writer – but I was fourteen years old when I fully realized it was something I could do as a career. The writer Anna Quindlen came to speak at my high school. She had just found out, days before, that she had won the Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column. She spoke about her career as a writer, and how she connected with her readers. I was officially hooked.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
I took as many writing classes as I could in college, and then – unsure of whether I could really finish a whole book let alone support myself as I writer – I went to law school. But in the back of my head, I always knew what I wanted to do. I wrote my first full manuscript when I was twenty-seven years old. At that time, on weekdays, I was working as a litigation associate. But on weekends, I was working on my book. When it was finished, I called a law school professor of mine, who was also a novelist. He gave me an incredible gift – the name of his agent. I ended up signing with someone else in the same agency, and the book was sold to Simon & Schuster a month after that.
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 So-Called Family is my debut novel and it comes out October 21, 2008. It follows thirteen-year-old Leah Isabel Hoffman-Ross, who has a donor instead of a father. Leah just moved to a new town, and she’s trying to fit in with her new friends. But she’s also grappling with having a family that is not like everyone else’s, and she defies her mother and stepfather by going in search of her donor-siblings.
If I could tell readers one thing to convince them to buy it . . . I think, despite the specific circumstances of Leah’s family, the story is really universal and easy to relate to. I mean, everyone has something that makes them feel different; and everyone clashes with their parents at some point when they’re thirteen.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
I can’t pin it down. I think it’s . . . everything. Just being aware, and questioning things around me. Luckily, I live in New York City, and there’s a lot around me all at once. The city itself is a great inspiration. In fact, there is some element of New York in everything I’ve written so far. My So-Called Family is set in Riverdale, New York, and Leah and her friends visit Manhattan. My second book, Positively, is set in a made-up town in Connecticut, but I managed to work a New York chapter into it as well.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
My parents are beyond thrilled! I live about ten blocks away from my mother in New York City, and sometimes I’ll meet someone in the neighborhood who already knows about my book, because my mother tells everyone about it. My father lives in California, and I think he’s doing his share of marketing as well. I also have a younger sister, and a wonderful extended family, who I call my “faux” family – my mother’s boyfriend, a.k.a. Faux Pa, and his children and grandchildren.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
Macaroni and cheese.
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
The one thing I do without fail is turn on The Today Show. The next steps vary after that.
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 live in a tiny New York City apartment – no attic or basement, and limited closet space. For a long time I saved my bat mitzvah dress – just for sentimental reasons, but then I needed the room, so it was let go. My friends would be surprised to see the weights in my hall closet. I don’t really like working out, but I dust them off every so often.
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?
Right now it would be blue, because I love the color sky blue – it seems full of possibility. Also, I have a lot of blue in my apartment, so it feels like home.
Who is your favorite cartoon character?
It’s always been Donald Duck.
Which cartoon character is most like you?
When I was little, I used to sing the Teeny Little Super Guy theme song to myself (from Sesame Street, back in the 1980’s), because I was the smallest kid in the class and it made me feel better. My best friend Arielle says she thinks I’m more like Mighty Mouse, because I’m small and I like cheese.
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 may be kind of silly, but I’d love to go back in time to when I was young and my family lived in California – maybe when I was six and my sister was three, so that would be around 1983-84. I’m so curious about how I really was. Also my parents divorced when I was nine and we moved to New York; it’s been over twenty years since I was in my childhood home. I think I remember it vividly, but it would be interesting to see just how accurate my memory is.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while you’re writing?
I have such limited taste in music, but I’m very loyal to the artists I listen to – the top three are Carly Simon, Sheryl Crow, and Madonna, and generally one of them is playing in the background while I’m writing. Sometimes I mix it up and let Bon Jovi or Sarah McLachlan into the rotation.
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 record a bunch of shows on my DVR, but some favorites are: ER, Brothers & Sisters, 30 Rock, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, All My Children (maybe I shouldn’t admit to that last one). I’m also a huge fan of The Today Show. I can watch The Princess Bride, Soapdish, Terms of Endearment, and Home for the Holidays again and again, and never get bored. Sometimes my sister and I just speak to each other in quotes from those movies. The last movie I saw was Mamma Mia! – I LOVE Meryl Streep, and I thought it was fabulous.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
I guess my one piece of advice to teens – whether they read or not – is that popularity doesn’t matter once you get out of high school; and in fact it matters less in high school than it did in middle school. I spent a lot of time when I was younger worrying what people thought of me, worrying whether I was popular enough. I still worry about what people think of me – but the popularity part doesn’t matter at all anymore. My friends and I are popular with each other. Just make friends you like, and be loyal to each other. The rest will fall into place.
Oh, and one other piece of advice – read. Read a lot! Read whatever you find interesting, and read the things your parents recommend. It will teach you about them, and about all kinds of people in all kinds of situations. It will make you interesting and empathetic. And, most of all, it will help you understand yourselves. (At least that’s what it did for me.)
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
My next book, Positively, comes out on September 8, 2009.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at http://www.teensreadtoo.com/!
0 comments:
Post a Comment