Interview with Beckie Weinheimer

www.beckieweinheimer.org

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 was a late bloomer. I took a creative writing class my junior year of high school not because I wanted to become a writer, but because I heard the teacher was "cool." I have always been and still am bad at grammar, spelling, and punctuation, so I never got A's on my essays. But when I started to write in free verse, I started getting A's and my teacher even wrote on one poem, A+ submit to magazine! That was the day I decided maybe I wanted to become a writer!

Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?

It was a long road. I took some creative writing classes in college and even sold a short story to a magazine for 200 dollars, way back in 1981. I was very proud. But I got married, had a baby and she had all sorts of special needs so I put writing and reading aside for many years. When she died at age 12 a friend suggested I write a story about her, and since I had never written a picture book and we lived near UCLA I took a class called Writing For Children. I learned my little story was not a picture book but a middle grade novel I didn't know how to write a novel, and after this class we moved to VA with my husband's job. I wanted to learn how to write a novel so I found a distance program Writing for Children and Young Adults, and MFA program at Vermont College and I enrolled, learned how to write novels, wrote Converting Kate as my creative thesis, found an agent, a publisher, and sold my book.

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?

I have one published novel right now, and two in the works, but not sold, so I'll tell you one thing about Converting Kate. Hmmm. I'm bad at giving one thing answers….okay I'm going to cheat and give you what my editor Catherine Frank wrote from the front inside cover…Kate "discovers there's a big difference between religion and faith--and that the two don't always go hand in hand."

What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?

So many things have helped inspire me, but I would have to say that going to Vermont College has helped me the most because it gave me the confidence that I could write. Tied with that would have to be my husband and daughters who have supported me and believed in my dream of becoming a published author.

Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!

I have been married to my husband for 28 years. We've had good times and bad, but we've moved through most of them to this place where we have a lot of trust, love and a very safe place. My husband is my first critic. He reads everything I write a ton of times. He got up at 5 a.m. every morning while I was writing Converting Kate so he could edit my pages before he went to work. I adore him. We love to watch indie movies, take cooking classes, shop in green markets, and travel together listening to books on audible.

My eldest daughter died when she was twelve. She was the love of all of our lives. She taught us that some people just come into this world wired differently, but at the heart they still want what we all want, love, kindness and to explore this world.

My second daughter is 26 and has a master's degree in Women's Studies and Public Policy and works for a AAUW a wonderful non-profit organization that supports women in education. She volunteers with abused women and has a street harassment website. She's always out changing the world. She's also a runner and just won a race a few weeks ago.

My youngest daughter, the baby, is now 22 and works as a Journalist in NYC and she gets to interview really cool people like Dr. Ruth the Sex Therapist. She is a tennis girl and watching her play tennis in a really close match is one of the most thrilling experiences of my life. She rescued two Yorkshire Terriers and I have seen them go from timid scared, shaking little balls of fur, to two happy, barking, scampering dogs. It has been a joy to see what a miracle love and attention and consistency can do for a little soul.

She and her older sister are my most brutal critics, but are also very proud of me when I do succeed.

I have a pseudo-son in law. He and my daughter, his partner, have agreed they will not get married until gay marriage is legal all across America. They have been together six years, and he can talk like Moss on I T Crowd and can dress and talk exactly like Napoleon Dynamite, plus he's brilliant at computers and iphones and everything electronic.

Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?

popcorn

What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?

Go to the bathroom
Get tea
Go write

If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise me the most?

Hmmm. That's hard. That I am a semi clothes-aholic?

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?

Yellow--because I need the sun. I wear yellow when I am feeling punk, and it cheers me up. I always wanted to live in a yellow house and when I did I never grew tired of looking at it. It is also the name of my next novel. Yellow.

Who is your favorite cartoon character?

True Confession I don't like cartoons, but I always did like Archie comics, does that count?

Which cartoon character is most like you?

I hope none!

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?

It would totally be Great Britain, and I think during the Victorian Era, because I am working on a novel set in that time and place, so I am really haunted by that period. But this is hard, because I would be like Doc Brown in BACK TO THE FUTURE and go to many places and see many things.

So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while you’re writing?

I'm bad at music. I don't keep up at all. I love movies so much and if I find a movie soundtrack I like I use it to listen to like white noise while I'm writing. When I wrote Converting Kate I listened to the soundtrack from CIDER HOUSE RULES.

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?

We don't have cable, so I learn about television shows from my family and friends. I own copies of THE GLIMORE GIRLS, FELICITY, SEINFIELD and my favorites from netflix are, THE IT CROWD, THIRTY ROCK, ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL, FROST, MORSE, FOYEL'S WAR.

Movies I watch over and over again, are I guess my favorite movies. DEAD POET SOCIETY, DANCING WITH WOLVES, YOU'VE GOT MAIL, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, FINDING NEVERLAND, CIDER HOUSE RULES, OCTOBER SKY and on and on….

I go to the independent theatre three blocks from where I live in NYC every weekend, so I've seen so many movies, but my most favorite of late was SUNSHINE CLEANING. Wonderful!

You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?

Get in touch with your own heart, your own mind, your own gut. Don't ever live your life, not even one day or one hour to please someone else. It will always, always back fire. Do what you want and trust that you are a good person and that want you want to do will be good in the end.

One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?

Ha!
YELLOW the first novel I wrote, and am still working on over and over.

What Annie Told her Granny I have a time travel manuscript where a 14 year old girl named Annie travels back in time to 1850 Wales and find her great, great, great grandfather, who is about her age. It involves pirates, mean parents, run away horses and a few other adventures. Inspired by my own great, great, great grandfather who was listed as a bastard child in the baptismal records I found in a tiny church in Penally, Wales.

Annie and the Pakistani A sequel to the book idea above that is set in West Virginia and also has time travel aspects, while Annie is attending Shepherd's College in one of my favorite little towns in the world, Shepherdstown, WV.. Only Annie can see the small cabin in the woods where her great, great grandmother, a full blooded Cherokee lives as an old woman after having been a slave and mothering several children with her slave owner. Inspired by my own slave-Cherokee great, great grandmother.

Bow Your Head and Say Yes This is a story about a mother of 11 children, who gets up one day, gets her children off to work, and her husband off to school and then disappears. Lots of twists, turns, mystery and drama!

I have several more in my head, but these three have actually been started, and are well on their way to being real books!

Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!