Interview with Lauren Strasnick

www.laurenstrasnick.com

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 had my haiku moment in 4th grade. By 5th, I'd started a story about a performing arts sleepaway camp. Ballet, boys, a lake -- riveting fiction! Too intense to complete. In high school I wrote an awful little play about vampire love. It got produced. A VHS copy of the performance still exists somewhere out there. If you or someone you know owns a copy -- please burn it.

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

I wrote one other novel before completing Nothing Like You. It was my MFA thesis project, and I spent the year following graduation sending that book out to agents. After a ton of rejection (some upbeat and encouraging, but still), I set that book aside and started Nothing Like You. I had a draft in six weeks, spent three months revising, then started the querying process all over again. This time things went quick. After about a month I signed with Michelle Andelman, then of ABLA, and together we started the revision process. Two months of rewrites, and she was subbing the book. Two weeks after that, it sold to Anica Rissi at Simon Pulse.

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?

Nothing Like You is, at its core, a book about grief, love & friendship. Who doesn't love all those things?! Okay, grief, not so much, but love & friendship?? Also featured: sandy Malibu beaches! Sea anemone! Potato tacos! And a ton of really good classic rock.

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

Great fiction, movies and music. Some episodic TV. Terrific friends & family. People i've loved and loathed.

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

I have an outstanding dad and brother. Some very supportive aunts and fake aunts and cousins. I have extraordinary friends.

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

Pickled vegetables, cabbage in any form (boiled, raw, fermented), burritos, apples w/ peanut butter, olives, cooked greens, chocolate w/ rock salt, spaghetti squash casserole, tuna on stoned wheat crackers, & that carrot-ginger dressing they put on salads at Japanese restaurants (okay, I've just reread this list and I've made myself sound crazy).

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

Brush teeth, feed kitty (who bites my ankles EVERY SINGLE MORNING while waiting for me to put out his food), check email.

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

My Gunne Sax dress collection? I went through a prairie-revival phase. I may still be going through it, I'm not sure.

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?

Orange. Orange is Autumn and 70s cinema.

Which cartoon character is most like you?

A friend says I remind her of SpongeBob SquarePants. Because, she says, I'm "blindly optimistic." Perhaps. I also tend toward catastrophic thinking. Interesting combo!

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?

East coast, rural, early 1900s. I did a lot of parading around in petticoats as a kid, reading books about my town at the turn of the century.

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

I love everything. Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Martha & Rufus Wainwright, Leonard Cohen, The Beatles, Queen, Ben Folds, Ben Kweller, Fiona Apple, Al Green, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks (& Fleetwood Mac), Rickie Lee Jones, Simon & Garfunkel, old Aerosmith, The Zombies! The initial spark of inspiration for Nothing Like You came from a Billy Joel song called Vienna. Sadly, I can't listen to music while I write. Before I write, sure. Or after.

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?

Oh yes. Some TV favorites: Twin Peaks, Skins, Battlestar Galactica, My So-Called Life, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, Lost, Mad Men. Movies: Heathers, Clue, Me Without You, Kicking and Screaming, Before Sunset, St. Elmo's Fire, Sixteen Candles, The Royal Tenenbaums, Annie Hall. Last movie I saw in theaters? (500) Days of Summer.

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

Sounds so cheesy but this little nugget of wisdom (from my mother) has gotten me far: be true to yourself.

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

Right now I'm working on a second book. A project I lovingly call "Creepy Twin Book."

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

Oh, thank YOU!