Interview With YA Author A.S. King

I'm so excited about this! :D (Especially since I've read her book and met her several times. She's awesome!) Please welcome A.S. King, author of Reality Boy (as well as several other novels, one of them a Printz Honor book)! You can find Amy at her blog, "Here's Me Using the Word Blog In a Sentence."

 

1. What inspired you to write Reality Boy?

So many things, but I will limit myself to three main ideas that sparked the book, in order. 1. If one in three or four teenagers are dealing with trauma or abuse in real life, then does this same statistic carry over into our television shows--more specifically, reality TV shows where children are not trained actors, but participants due to their parents' decisions? And if we are entertained by children who are dealing with trauma, what does it say about us? 2. Why do we ignore and blow off the emotions of teenagers? Especially anger or sadness? 3. When people watch reality TV, are they aware that it is not real? And on a wider level, what can we believe anymore on TV?

2. What are your top three favorite novels?

This is a cruel question! But I will say Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (or all Kurt Vonnegut for that matter), Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

3. What is your favorite thing about writing?

I love everything about the actual writing. I write by the seat of my pants, so every day is exciting. Okay, sometimes in the middle of a novel it isn't so exciting, but most of the time, it's just so much fun writing a book. Even the revision is fun. Sometimes revision is the most fun because that's where certain themes really polish up and become solid parts of a book (like the ants in Everybody Sees the Ants.)

4. What is the hardest thing you've had to do in your writing?

I think the hardest thing I had to do was getting here. It took me 15 years to get published. By that time I'd written 8 novels. It was frustrating and soul-sucking sometimes. In my actual writing, I guess one of the hardest things I've done is rewrite the last third of Ask the Passengers twice.

5. What is the best piece of advice you could give to teen writers who want to get published?

Being a writer means you write as much as you can. It also means you read as much as you can. Avoid making any professional decisions out of desperation. It's hard to get into the business, but your real business as a writer is to write the best books you can, so what really matters is that you are always writing and reading. When you move into the business side of it, remember: If you're not getting rejected, then you're not working.

Buy Reality Boy on Amazon.
Buy Reality Boy on IndieBound.

Edit: Amy will be answering questions and comments! Leave one below, if you wish!