Debut Author Interviews

Sundee T. Frazier is the author of Brendan Buckley’s Universe & Everything In It (Delacorte/Random House, Fall 2007)

• Sundee T. Frazier on...Completion
• Sundee T. Frazier on...Ideas
• Sundee T. Frazier on...Celebrations
• Sundee T. Frazier on...Ideal Reader
• Sundee T. Frazier on...Character and Self

How did you know you were “done” with your book and ready to submit it?

After three years of writing scenes (that will never appear in this book — maybe others!), changing my main character’s gender (Brenda to Brendan) and the point of view (third to first), writing up very rough plot outlines (multiple times), and plenty of input from my writing group and a writing mentor, I felt I had done all I could do. I sent it to an agent and she accepted and sold it, but then the editor had still more significant changes for me (create a new character, cut another, add a hobby for my main character that required more research …).

Figuring out this aspect of our writing is partly intuitive (and I think writers in generally are pretty intuitive people), but I’ve learned that I’m way more impatient and undisciplined than intuitive when it comes to knowing whether my manuscript is done! To me, writing is a solitary act accomplished with the help of many others. We need others to see the hard truth (“this isn’t done”) and not just what we want to see.

Where did you get the idea for your book?

BRENDAN BUCKLEY’S UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING IN IT is a result of my pondering the question: “What if my white grandparents had never accepted my black father, and by extension, me?”

How did you celebrate your book sale?

I was visiting in-laws in the boonies of Southern Indiana (we’re talking no cell phone reception and more deer stands than houses — don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful country … just a bit remote). So, after getting off the land line with my agent, my husband and I drove 20 miles to the closest small town and hit the Dairy Queen for a Blizzard. That was just fine with me — I’ll take ice cream over a margarita any day!

If you had an ideal reader, who would that be and why?

A child who has lost a grandparent or who has family members at odds with one another … Biracial kids (who need to see reflections of themselves and their families in the stories they read) and “monoracial” kids (who can benefit from reading about interracial families) … Any child who is curious, scientific-minded or interested in the martial arts. Anyone who’s ever struggled to understand something they don’t. (Should I have just said “Everyone!”?)

Ultimately, any reader will be “ideal” to me, but hopefully this gives adults looking for the right book for a child an idea of who might enjoy my book the most.

Is your main character like yourself?

Brendan Buckley and I share one main characteristic: We’re both question-askers. My husband has dubbed me “CG,” which stands for a certain mischievous monkey whose curiosity gets him into lots of scrapes. But Brendan is much braver than I, in that he not only asks questions, he takes serious action to find the answers, even though it requires confronting hard truths and getting into a little hot water. I can’t say I’m that bold, but perhaps that’s why I wrote a character who is. Through my characters, I can be who I’m not in real life.

One other similarity — I wanted to be a geologist when I was in 6th grade. I was destined, however, to be a writer. My theory: Writers are insatiably inquisitive people who don’t want to be tied down to any one area of expertise. All of our stories are just reasons to do more research in some area we’re curious about!