This week we will be having an author spotlight on some of today’s best young adult authors. Today’s spotlight is on Wendy Mass, author of the Birthday series.
Along with the author spotlight, we will be giving away some great prizes like signed books from each author. Today’s prize is a signed copy of Finally by Wendy Mass. Check back daily for the new spotlight as well as the new prizes!
What is your most recent work and why were you inspired to write it?
Thirteen Gifts is basically about a girl who gets expelled from school for trying to steal her middle school principal’s goat and winds up having to go to this little town of Willow Falls. She has 13 chances to redeem herself before her 13th birthday. This is the third in the Birthday series and all the characters weave around each other in all the books. I love writing about birthdays because when you are growing up each birthday takes on a huge importance in your life and you’re so different at each birthday that you’re kind of exploring the changes that happened in the previous year and looking forward to the next year.
What was easier to write the first line or the last line? And if you can quote it!
First lines and last lines are usually pretty easy for me. They are easier than all the stuff in the middle. I spend a lot of time working on the first line and I can’t write the book until that is nailed down. For this book the first line was, “Like all big problems mine started with a goat.” I had that for like 10 years and never knew what I was going to do with it. Finally I decided this is how I am going to start my book and I remember my editor saying are you sure you want to do that? And I did. I had the line about the goat before I knew she would be stealing a goat.
What is one YA book that is out now that you wish was out when you were a teen?
I wonder if the teens today read Flowers in the Attic, which was our sixth grade book. I wonder what teens today would think of that? I guess more than one specific book it would be a genre. Dystopian would have been amazing and it is not something that I could write. I think that would have been fun to have to give yourself a different imaginary world than the ones we were presented with.
Links for Wendy:
Twitter
Website