Melissa Kantor, author of Maybe One Day, talks about writing about leukemia, friendship, and mortality. Also enter for a chance to win a signed copy of Maybe One Day.
Tell us about your journey to becoming a writer.
Like many writers, I was always writing. As a kid I wrote stories for school and for fun. Once I was in college, I became interested in non-fiction, and I stopped writing fiction for a while, but in my twenties, a friend who was an editor urged me to think about writing a YA novel. I put her off for a long time, but I finally put pen to paper. I realize in retrospect how lucky I was — a friend at a major publishing house nags you to write a book. You write it, she edits it, buys it and asks for two more! But at the time, I didn’t appreciate what an amazing thing had happened to me.
Maybe One Day is a story about friendship and how it survives during a really difficult situation. Where did the concept for this book come from?
My friendships have always been very important to me. Now that I’m an adult with so many obligations — children, a husband, a writing career, a job — and I have less time than ever to see friends, I realize how much I need and love them. For many years — for decades really — I thought that what mattered was what was happening to me. You know, the classes I was taking, the boys I liked, the jobs I was applying for. Now I can see that a lot of that stuff fades away (do I even remember the name of the family I spent that summer babysitting for?). What remains (if you’re lucky) is the people you shared those experiences with. I guess in short, what I feel now is that what matters isn’t what you were talking about, it’s who you were talking about it with.
Why did you choose to write from Zoe’s POV rather than Olivia’s?
It’s funny, a lot of critics have generously praised my choice to write about an illness from the perspective of a witness rather than the sick person. But to me, this didn’t feel like a choice at all. I wasn’t exactly writing about my father’s struggle with leukemia, but that was certainly what sparked the book. So I knew I was going to write it from the point of view of a bystander rather than the patient.
Both families are very present in the book. Why did you include them when so many YA books don’t?
Teenagers may resent, fight with and be frustrated by their families, but most of the teens I know are deeply involved with their families (I certainly was). One of the most complicated things about being a teen is that you feel very capable and competent and in charge — and then you don’t. I remember being so over my mom and then suddenly needing her desperately. Illness only intensifies these already intense relationships.
Why do you feel you had to tell this story?
I was curious about a teenager confronting mortality. When I was younger, my mother worked on the pediatric oncology ward of a hospital. I used to hear about her patients, and one of them was a teenage girl who had leukemia. I was younger than she was, and I so wanted to be a teenage girl. The idea that a teenager could be sick, could be threatened with death, was impossible to me. Teenagers were immortal! I also wanted to write about friendship. My best friend was so important when I was a teenager. I can’t imagine what I would have done if she had gotten sick.
What was your favorite chapter/scene to write and why?
There’s a scene in which Olivia and Zoe are sitting in Olivia’s hospital bed, and they’re talking about what happens after you die. That scene was with me from the beginning. It changed in many ways over the course of the writing, but it was a beacon — I knew exactly where I wanted it to be, and I knew exactly how I wanted it to end. Writing to it got me through some really tough moments, and actually sitting down to write it felt like a reward.
Tell us 5 random facts about yourself.
1. I didn’t learn how to make a grilled cheese sandwich until I was in my forties.
2. I’m a Capricorn.
3. When I was younger I lied all the time, but now I almost always tell the truth (even when it would be easier to lie).
4. My favorite quote is from a Bob Dylan song: “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”
5. I’m superstitious; if I spill some salt on the table, I always throw some over my left shoulder.
What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author?
The very first review I got was from Kirkus, and they basically said, this clichéd piece of trash is an abomination. Kind of tough to take when you’re a new author. Not that it wouldn’t sting now, but at the time I had absolutely nothing to fall back on. Today I at least know that you get good reviews and bad reviews and you shouldn’t take either too seriously.
What has been the best compliment?
I love it when people say I made them laugh out loud.
Do you have things you need in order to write (i.e. coffee, cupcakes, music)?
I just need a computer and a chair. I’m lucky because I’m able to tune out just about anything and focus. The only thing that distracts me is if I’m working in a café or restaurant and two people sitting near me are having an interesting conversation. That can suck me in. Oh, and I can handle background music (like if I’m writing in public), but I can’t write to a soundtrack on my headphones.
Where’s your favorite place to write?
I have a café near my house where I used to write a lot. It was kind of a place where everybody knew my name, and they had delicious scones. I loved it there. Now I tend to write in my office, which is also fun but which can be lonely if nobody else is around.
What character do you relate most to?
I think Zoe is probably the character I’ve written who’s the most like me. I really enjoyed writing her. She’s snarky and a little darker than my other characters. But what’s funny is that the one thing almost all the reviewers have agreed on (and here, I mean people who hate the book and people who love it) is that Zoe is hard to like. I fear there’s a lesson in that somewhere.
What is easier to write: The first line or the last line?
The first line never stays the first line. In every book I’ve ever written, the second chapter has become the first chapter. So the first line gets written really easily, but then it gets cut (or at least moved). The last line almost always gets tweaked but stays essentially the same. I guess by the time I’m writing the last line, I finally know what I want to say.
What one YA novel do you wish you had when you were a teen?
Dana Reinhardt’s How to Build a House. It’s a quiet, beautiful book about a confusing family situation and about what it means to like someone more than he likes you (or differently than he likes you) and about finding true love and friendship. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
What are you working on now?
I just, just, just finished Better Than Perfect, which is a book about a girl who’s been…well, perfect her whole life. Then her family falls apart and she finds herself asking if being perfect is all it’s cracked up to be. I’m really excited about it, and now I’m taking a tiny I’ve-just-finished-a-book break.
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