Debut Author Interviews

Karen Day is the author of Tall Tales (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House, Spring 2007)

• Karen Day on...Why Kids?
• Karen Day on...Character and Self
• Karen Day on...Self-Help Books
• Karen Day on...First Novels

Why write for children and teens?

I have to break this question into two answers. First, why do I write? For me, every since I was young, writing was the best way I knew to calm and make sense of the chaos and anxiety and questions I felt inside. Often I couldn’t explain myself. But when I wrote something, whether in a journal or short story or later in a book, I felt some peace and sense and order. I write for kids because I still feel that I’m a kid myself. A 12-year-old on the verge of discovering my place in the world. A 16-year-old trying to make sense of badly behaving adults. An 18-year-old trying to hang on to my sense of self.

Is your main character like yourself?

When I first started writing fiction years and years ago, I went out of my way to write characters who weren’t like me. They were more like who I WANTED to be. Then I tried writing a book where the character was completely me. Now I think I’ve reached a middle ground. All of my characters have a little bit of me in them. That’s why I know them so well. Take Meg’s dad in TALL TALES. He’s a miserable alcoholic, far from what my dad was like. Or me. For years I couldn’t get his character right because I was so focused on his disease. But then I started thinking about other aspects of his personality. Why is he so miserable? Why is he so mean to his son, Teddy? Then I realized that he hates the things he sees in Teddy because they remind him (unconsciously) of himself. I can certainly identify with that feeling. And suddenly, I knew Dad in a way I hadn’t before.

What are some of your current favorite writing or author-help books?

The best thing I ever did for my writing was to read everything I could. I went back to school, got an MA in English literature, and finished course work and exams for a PhD. One of my teachers was this crusty old guy named Dr. Bruner. He was tall and hulking with thick black framed glasses and a deep voice and he terrified me and everyone else. He taught romantic poetry. Our class met once a week, for four hours, and many days we’d spend the entire time going over one poem. He taught me that every word in a poem has to mean something — and often it has multiple meanings. He also taught me this phrase — thematic penetration. Meaning that the theme or the themes in a text should penetrate everything you write — from conversations to descriptions. I try to never forget those two things when I write. I know I should read some self-help books — everything helps! But I find myself drawn back to poetry from time to time, just to remind myself.

Was this the first full-length novel you wrote, or rather the first that you sold?

I wrote my first novel when I was 16-years-old. It’s a 200-page book about a 16-year-old girl whose mother has just died. Her father becomes a raging alcoholic. It took me about a year to write and then rewrite. I was a sophomore in high school and I almost flunked biology that year (so much of my time was spent writing, in my room, on a manual typewriter). I sent query letters off to a couple of publishers in New York, and one asked to see it. I can’t remember the name of the house. I sent the book off and three months later it came back with a nice rejection letter. Today that novel sits in the bottom drawer of my desk. Where it will stay. It’s way too melodramatic! But I think about it a lot when I look at the different themes that run through my later work. They are the same now as they were when I was 16!