Jus Accardo is the author of the Denazen series and The Darker Agency series. She spent her childhood reading and learning to cook. Determined to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps as a chef, she applied and was accepted to the Culinary Institute of America. At the last minute, she realized her path lay with fiction, not food, and passed on the spot to pursue writing.

Tell us 5 random facts about yourself?

I’m a serious World of Warcraft junkie.

I think llamas are awesome.

I’m horrifically shy in person.

I’ve broken eight of my ten fingers (both middle fingers remain unbroken. Hmm…).

I was eighteen when I met my husband, and the moment we were introduced, I knew he was the one for me. I can’t tell you how, or exactly why, but I just knew.

Tell us about your journey to becoming a writer.

I’d always wanted to be either a writer or a chef, like my grandfather. For awhile, it looked like food won out. Steadier paycheck. More predictable, yadda, yadda. I was weeks away from starting at the Culinary Institute of America when I changed my mind and decided to go with fiction over food.

About a year or so after that, I participated in a writer’s boot camp at Savvy Authors. Kind of like a write a book in 30 days kind of thing. I was on submission with something else I wrote—an adult urban fantasy—getting zero response, so I went in a different direction. YA. I wrote and edited Touch in less than three weeks. Ended up with an agent within two months. It sold to Entangled Publishing almost eight months to the day that I’d finished it. I was very lucky. I happened to hit the right people at the right time.

In the Denazen Series, what was your favorite chapter/scene to write and why?

I have so many favorites… But if I have to pick an all time fave, it’s that first kiss scene in Touch. The reactions—both Dez and Kale’s—were so much fun to write. They’re alone in a room, waiting to speak to someone, and Dez kisses Kale on the cheek. His reaction is priceless, and Dez tells him that’s only one type of kiss. There are other kinds, as well. Of course, Kale wants to know what the others are like—so he asks Dez to show him.

It’s such a sweet scene, while at the same time, so intimate for both of them. You have Kale who knows so little about the world, and has had such limited experiences. His human contact until that point has been nonexistent, and now he’s not only touched another living person, but kissed them. It’s pretty safe to say his mind is blown. And then Dez, who has kissed a lot of guys, has this uncharacteristic reaction. She’s struck by the purity of his response, and the innocence of the whole thing. It really affects her in a way she never expected.

Honestly, any of those emotion-heavy scenes are my favorites. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good fight scene, and you’ll never see me passing up a chance to toss in some humor, but the emotions behind the character relationships…that’s what really gets me.

The Denazen Series focuses on Dez, a girl who is not quite what she seems. How did you come up with the idea for this story? Why do you feel you had to tell this story especially from Dez’s point of view?

I wish I could say I had some epic moment, but really, I was sitting on line waiting for coffee at Dunkin Donuts, and I just got this picture in my head of a girl running bare foot through the woods. All I knew at that moment was that someone was chasing her, and everything beneath her feet shriveled and turned to dust, as did the low hanging branches and trees she touched. She literally runs into a boy her own age, fishing at the edge of a stream, and… That was it. That’s how it all started. Kind of anticlimactic, right?

But I couldn’t get the scene out of my head, so the next day I decided to start writing and see what happened. The story started out being told from Kale’s point of view. He was Marshal’s son, and Dez was the Denazen Resident. It was obvious though, about three chapters in, that Dez was the stronger voice in my head. That’s why the books are told mainly through her eyes. This was Dez’s journey right from the start even if I didn’t realize it. Kale’s life was horrible, but Dez has a ton of complicated baggage as well. It was baggage she just wouldn’t let me ignore.

Kale is a very distinct character that is kind of experiencing the outside world for the first time. How did come up with his voice which is so distinctly different from the others?

It was so much fun, and really, much easier than you’d think. Put yourself in a normal situation. Any situation. Let’s say you’re on a train, sitting next to a woman with bright pink hair. Now take the view of someone new to the world. A child, for example. There’s no filter there. No restraint. That’s Kale’s point of view. In some ways, when he first steps into the outside world, he’s seeing it through a child’s eyes. It’s that pure, untainted view of the world. He’s not hindered by society’s standards. He doesn’t understand boundaries and taboos. He just is who he is. He says what he thinks. It was unbelievably refreshing to write.

Your secondary characters are just as interesting as your main characters. How did Alex, Ginger, and Brandt come to life?

I try to make them real. They have flaws and quirks. Sometimes I’ll sit for hours and write out a character’s back story—secondary or not—just because I love knowing their history: where they’re coming from and what their views are. I have about twelve pages on Alex alone. His childhood and internal thoughts. Family and non Six friends. At some point, I’d love to post a little known facts about some of the Denazen characters. I think people would be surprised. Did you know Ginger was married once? Or that Brandt used to have dreams as a child that he was someone else?

I seriously have way too much fun with it all ;)

What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?

I think the answer to this one is actually kind of like a two sides to the same coin thing. In short, it’s Dez. The toughest criticisms I find are about the way she acts and some of the choices she makes. It’s been called stupid and unrealistic.

Now on the other side of that, some of the best compliments I’ve received were because of the choices and stupid mistakes Dez made. Honestly? These give me the warm fuzzies because they get it. Dez is seventeen. She’s not a genius. She’s not an adult. She’s still trying to find her way in the world. She’s going to make stupid choices. She’s going to allow her actions be fueled by emotion and not reason and logic.

When I was seventeen, I made tons of stupid choices. I didn’t think everything through. My parents might argue that I never thought anything through. I think the criticisms about Dez being an example of an unrealistic teen are so hard for me because I did some of the things people insist teens never do. I smoked. I drank. I snuck out of the house and ignored the rules. Those are the reasons I wrote her the way I did. Because to me, she’s real. She’s made real mistakes and has real flaws. Let’s be honest now, when you were seventeen, didn’t you?

Where’s your favorite place to write?

Touch was written at my dining room table, but now I have an office, and I can’t imagine writing anyplace else.

What character do you relate most to?

I think I can relate to parts of all of them. I’m sort of socially awkward like Kale (though I know what a kiss is ;) ). I’m sarcastic like Dez, and like Alex, have some control freak tendencies. I’m not a man-monger like Ginger, but I do take care of my own—even when my good intentions don’t always turn out for the best.

What is easier to write: The first line or the last line?

First line. For me, it’s always the first line.

What one YA novel do you wish you had when you were a teen?

Any! Don’t get me wrong, I grew up reading S.E Hinton and loved it, but I always have been, and always will be, a sucker for anything paranormal. There wasn’t really anything like that when I was younger. I read a lot of John Saul and Stephan King, but books like Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamers series, or Jeri Smith-Ready’s Shade series? I wish those had been around when I was younger!

Do you have things you need in order to write ie. coffee, cupcakes, music?

There’s a never ending stream of coffee when I work. Music too. Other than that, I need my dogs! There’s something so relaxing about the subtle sound of doggie snores just beneath the music.

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m working on Denazen number four, which is awesome. I love spending time in Dez and Kale’s world. From there, it will be the second book in the Darker Agency series.