Show Daily: Interview with Carolyn Mackler
A Valentine for Booksellers
by Kate Pavao -- Publishers Weekly, 6/10/2004
Carolyn Mackler's latest novel, Vegan Virgin Valentine
(Candlewick, Aug.),
grew out of a short story she wrote for Girls’ Life magazine. “The
editor had said to me, ‘We need something for February, so maybe you can do a
Valentine’s Day kind of thing,’ ” Mackler recalls. Not wanting to write a
traditional girl-meets-boy kind of story, Mackler started envisioning a
character whose last name was Valentine—and who hates it since she’s not exactly
a heartbreaker. And thus, cynical Mara Valentine came to be.
In the
novel, Mara still loathes her last name, but Mackler has made substantial
changes. Now Mara is an overachiever whose highly structured life is upset when
V, her wild niece (born to a much older sister and only a year behind Mara in
school), comes to live with her family. “I want [readers] to feel like they
don’t have to just adhere to one strict, rigid notion of how life can be,”
Mackler says.
This is Mackler’s third novel for young adults, and
readers paying close attention will find passing references to Virginia Shreves,
the protagonist of her last novel, The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round
Things (Candlewick, 2003), as well as Virginia’s family. Former characters
have made cameos in her other work, and Mackler says doing so is not only a
treat for fans, but for her as well. “All of these characters are so alive to me
all the time,” she says. “They circle around in my head, and it’s hard to close
the door on them.”
Mackler attended last year’s BEA in Los Angeles, where
she signed The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things and also spoke
on a panel about promoting teen books through author Web sites. She has a
personal reason for feeling excited about this year’s show: her best friend from
high school lives in Chicago. “I’m going to tack on a few days and spend some
time with her,” Mackler says. “We were completely symbiotic for about 10 years.
We knew each other’s locker combinations and we’d take trips with each other’s
families, and the second we got home from the trip, we’d call each other.” And
of course, Mackler says, she’s looking forward to trying real Chicago deep-dish
pizza.
After BEA, she’s planning to go “underground” for July and August
to work on a new young adult novel for Candlewick, probably doing some of the
writing from her family’s house in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Though she’s
already writing it, Mackler says she doesn’t like to reveal the details of her
work until she’s sure of its shape, saying, “I like to keep it open to change my
mind until it’s exactly the book that I want it to be.” Mackler will be signing
copies of Vegan Virgin Valentine today from 2–3 p.m. in booth
255 and from 4–5 p.m. at table 4.
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