Author Interviews

Author Spotlight: Amalie Jahn + a GIVEAWAY

By on September 19, 2024   /   Author Interviews  

In today’s Author Spotlight, Jo Hackl chats with USA Bestselling author Amalie Jahn about her new middle-grade novel, Team Canteen (Pixel+Ink).  Amalie is the recipient of the Literary Classics Seal of Approval and the Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal for her debut YA novel, THE CLAY LION. Her first YA contemporary, THE NEXT TO LAST MISTAKE, won the prestigious IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award in 2020. She is a contributing blogger with the Huffington Post and Southern Writers Magazine. A TED speaker, human rights advocate, and active promoter of kindness, she lives with her husband, two children, and three extremely overfed cats.

Plus, there’s a chance to win a finished/signed copy of Team Canteen if you enter the giveaway. Scroll down for details. 

All about the book!

On the final night of summer camp, Tasha, Raelynn, Claire, and Billie get busted stuffing themselves with ice cream in the mess hall’s walk-in freezer. But when they slip away without being punished, they’re convinced the pink feather boa Billie put on to stay warm is magic.

Back at home, each member of Team Canteen tests the boa’s powers as they face their own challenges. When her little cousin moves in with her destructive dog, Tasha struggles to find her place inside her adoptive family. Claire’s scared the kids at school will find out how hard life’s gotten since her dad lost his job. Raelynn longs to be someone other than her sister’s twin. And with a hockey-obsessed family charting his every move, Billie’s worried he’ll never be able to share his dream of becoming a figure skater.

It’s going to be a rocky road from the start of the school year back to Camp Happy Hollow. Will the boa continue to protect Team Canteen, or will their friendship end up being the most magical find of all?

Amalie, many thanks for answering my questions.

Jo: Team Canteen combines the best parts of The Baby-Sitters Club and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, turns them upside-down, and modernizes them for today’s kids. Why did you think the market needed a new series like Team Canteen?

Amalie: A lot of recent middle grade series are big stakes books. The Last Kids on Earth series is about zombies and the end of the world. All the kids in The Forgotten Five series have supernatural powers. All of Rick Riordan’s books are full of life and death situations. But I don’t write big stakes. I write small stakes. Quiet stakes. And I think sometimes small stakes are enough. Making it through middle school is tough. There are a lot of obstacles. Parents who don’t understand. Classmates who bully. Siblings who tease. Hormones. The struggle to fit in. And these problems are valid and worthy of discussion. Kids need to see real problems tackled on the page.

 

Jo:. Team Canteen is told in alternating chapters from four different perspectives. How did you handle the logistics of writing from so many different points of view?

Amalie: It was tough, honestly! At first, I started writing sequentially. A Tasha chapter, followed by a Billie chapter, followed by a Claire chapter, and so on. I felt like I needed to draft chronologically to keep the pacing and plotlines consistent. What I found pretty quickly, however, was that it was nearly impossible to get any traction with regard to each character’s voice jumping from head to head in that way. At about ten thousand words in, I decided to draft each character’s story independently from start to finish and not worry too much about how they would ultimately intersect with one another. Once each character arc was complete, I was able to go back through and layer in places where their stories connected. The text chains between them really helped with that.

 

Jo: You’ve spent the last ten years writing for young adults. What was different about writing for a younger audience?

Amalie: One of the most obvious differences I encountered between YA and MG was point of view. Although I’d written all of my young adult titles in first person, the majority of middle grade books I encountered were written in third. It didn’t take long to realize the difference in POV could be mostly attributed to voice. In addition to voice, it became apparent that YA and MG characters were compelled by different motivations. For example, the majority of my young adult characters’ choices were influenced by their desire to find their place in the world, but most of the MG characters from my research were more concerned with fitting in with immediate friends and family.

 

Jo: At the beginning of the book, Tasha finds a feather boa that the kids are convinced is magic because it keeps them from getting in trouble. What is the point of this unique talisman?

Amalie: Honestly, the boa was initially a plot device. A way to connect the four stories and drive the narrative forward with regard to keeping the kids involved in each other’s lives over the course of the school year. Ultimately, however, it became something far more. A confidence booster for the kids to help them face tough decisions and difficult situations. Sort of like Dumbo the Elephant and his magic feather. He could always fly without the feather, but having it gave him the confidence to do what he was always capable of on his own. And in the case of Team Canteen, their friendship was the real magic.

  

Jo: To which of your four main characters do you relate the most?

Amalie: It’s hard to say which one I relate to the most because there’s a bit of me inside all of them. Like Billie, I understand the pressure of living inside a family with rigid expectations for success. I see myself in Tasha and how jarring it can be when your sense of self is completely shaken. I identify with Claire and the reality of her family’s difficult financial situation. And I empathize with Raelynn and the stress of trying to fit into a world that doesn’t quite understand you. But mostly, I remember deeply what it was to live on the periphery. To be on the outside looking in, hoping to find a way to become cool and popular overnight. That feeling of otherness is what I relate most to, and I think—I hope—lots of readers will too.

 

Jo: Can you tell us a bit more about your motivation to write Team Canteen? 

Amalie: For the past several months, I’ve been working on not one, not two, but three adult manuscripts. And I have to be honest when I say that writing for adults isn’t tugging at me quite the way writing for young people does. There’s something special about knowing that the children reading my words may see themselves (or others) in the pages and take something meaningful with them long after the final chapter is done. The Team Canteen kids are a tribute to the kid I was and the kids I knew. Their friendships and their stories speak to the type of friendship I think every child longs for, and I count myself grateful to have had strong childhood relationships that endure to this day. We might not have always been the smartest or the richest or the funniest or the coolest, but we met each other where we were and that was enough.

 

No MUF interview is complete without a lightning round, so.. . 

Favorite cities (besides the one in which you live):  Barcelona and Venice

Favorite musical group or artist:  I’m a huge 90s alternative girl. The Cure. Tori Amos. The Dave Matthews Band. 

Would you rather be able to speak every language in the world or talk to animals?  

Oh I’m definitely talking to animals. 

Favorite ice cream flavor? Mint Chocolate Chip

Do you prefer mountains or beaches or somewhere in between?  I’ve been a beach girl my whole life but my family recently got a little fixer upper on the top of a mountain, and it’s become my peaceful happy place. 

Favorite childhood TV show?  The Muppet Show

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?  First drafts don’t need to be perfect, they just need to be written. 

Jo: Thanks for chatting with us Amalie!

And now. . . .

For a chance to win a signed copy of Team Canteen, comment on the blog—and, if you’re on Twitter/X, on the Mixed-Up Files  Twitter/X account, for an extra chance to win!  (Giveaway ends September 26, 2024 MIDNIGHT EST.) U.S. only, please. Book will be mailed after publication.

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Westfallen: Interview with authors Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares

By on September 18, 2024   /   Articles, Author Interviews  

When you see the name Ann Brashares, you probably think of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. I sure do. So when I saw the premise of siblings Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares’s new book, I was intrigued. Here’s the description that got me hooked:

Westfallen is an action-packed middle grade alternate history thriller that asks what it would be like to wake up in present-day America if Germany had won World War II.

It sounds amazing, right? I had the pleasure of reading it (just released September 17!) and interviewing both Ben Brashares and Ann Brashares.

About the Book

Hi Ann and Ben! I’m so excited to “meet” you both!  This was a great read because it combined historical fiction with contemporary fiction. It also had many humorous elements that will really appeal to reluctant readers. Before we begin, here’s the full description of Westfallen.

Henry, Frances, and Lukas are neighbors, and they used to be best friends. But in middle school, things can change fast—Frances has become an emo art-girl, Lukas has gone full sports bro, and Henry has gone sort of nowhere. But when a dead gerbil brings them together again, the three ex-friends make an impossible discovery: a radio buried in Henry’s backyard that allows them to talk to another group of kids in the same town…on the same street…in the same backyard…seventy-nine years in the past.

The kids in 1944 want to know all about the future: are there jetpacks? Laser guns? Teleportation? Most of all, they want to know about the outcome of the war their dads and brothers are fighting in. Henry and his friends are cautious—they’ve all seen movies about what happens when you disrupt the fabric of time—but figure there’s no harm in telling them a little bit, just enough so they can stop worrying so much. And, at first, everything seems fine. Nothing’s changed—well, nothing so big they can’t contain it, anyway.

Until Henry, Frances, and Lukas wake up on May 6, 2024, to an America ruled by Nazis. They changed history. And now it’s up to them to change it back.

 

As I was reading Westfallen, my daughter noticed that it says Book 1 on the spine. Is this going to be a trilogy or a series? Care to share more on this?

Yes, this is a trilogy. We are currently finishing up our first draft of Book 2. If all goes as planned, Book 2 will be out around this time next year, and Book 3 about a year after that.

About the Authors

So the obvious question for those of us with siblings . . .How did you write this together? Please walk us through how this worked.

Ben Brashares

BB: We settled fairly early on the idea of using two different points of view. It just seemed to make sense in terms of utilizing our two different writing styles and dividing up the work. As far as the sibling thing goes, I think it kept us going at times. We’d disagree about things, as all partners do, but it couldn’t ever really rise above a certain level because we’re kinda stuck with each other. I suppose for that reason we’re always putting our siblingness first (shame I’m not a girl, I could’ve used “sisterhood” there). But, yeah, we probably fall into some classic ‘birth order’ dynamics at times –Ann is seven years older and has a strong maternal sense. I’m a classic youngest in a lot of ways –lack discipline, always try to go for the joke, fold easily, etc.

The process itself is pretty straight-forward. We write a detailed outline together and then set mini-deadlines for our scenes or chapters and send to each other to read and offer notes. Ann tends to have a lot more notes on my stuff.

 

What character do you each feel you share personality traits with?

Ann Brashares

BB: I’m a solid mix of all three of the modern day kids. I’d say I have Frances’s peanut gallery irreverence, Henry’s anxiety/sensitivity, and Lukas’s jock/bro thing (used to anyway).

AB: Alice is kind of my antithesis, and I love writing her for that reason. She’s bold and impulsive, happy to cheat and lie as needed. I’m probably more like Lawrence, cautious and cerebral.

 

What is something from your childhood that you snuck into the book?

We recycled some names.  We grew up (mostly) on Primrose Street in Chevy Chase, MD. That’s the street where Alice and Henry live. We had a lot of dead gerbils/hamsters/guinea pigs growing up.

 

Are there any Easter Eggs or nods to other books or movies in Westfallen? (I sensed maybe something related Back to the Future??)

BB: There are a lot of pop cultural references. One of the things we really loved about the series concept was that the kids in Westfallen could use their knowledge of their (our) timeline as sort of a super power.  Westfallen folks never got Star Wars or Justin Beiber or any of that, so our kids try to use their inside knowledge to gain an advantage where they can. Mission Impossible plays a role in Book 1. Back to the Future is one my favorite movies of all time, but I think we steered clear of that reference. Maybe too ‘on the nose’. Book 2 has a LOT of this stuff. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off makes a strong showing. We should probably try to be a bit more current in our references.

 

What books and movies have influenced each of your writing?

BB: I grew up on TV and movies much more than books, I’m a little sad to say. Ann was much more of a reader (nerd) than I was. I was a classic 80’s kid. I loved Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark (my favorite), Michael Jackson, Prince, Atari, He-Man, Three’s Company. TV was terrible back then but movies were generally better. It was until I got out of college that I started really reading. Too late to call anything super influential.

AB: I love classic stories, like The Princess Bride and It’s a Wonderful Life, the kind that are uplifting to the point of corny.

 

Best sibling story you two have together.

Oh man. That’s tough. How about top five. . . Our brother, Justin (four years older than me, three younger than Ann), had a pair of real police handcuffs (who knows how he got them). One slow summer afternoon when I was about four, he decided to put them on my ankles. After he cinched them real tight, he made a grand display of pretending to swallow the key by throwing it up in the air and catching it in his mouth. I think he saw it in a cartoon or something. Unfortunately, the key went right down his throat. He was as surprised as anyone. Ann walked in soon after and saw my feet turning blue and got very worried. Justin, I remember, was more worried about the key in his stomach. Anyway, Ann threw me on her shoulder and ran me a long block and a half to a neighbor’s house, where a construction crew sawed the handcuffs off in time to save my feet. As a nice capper to the story, Justin called me into the bathroom a few days later and showed me the key.

 

Research/Writing

Who came up with the original idea for Westfallen and how did it come about?

BB: We had been each throwing out ideas for several months. Just about all them involved some type of time travel element and some type of friendship dynamic. But that’s sort of boring so I’ll just go ahead and take credit for the radio. And I’ll cede the WWII stuff to Ann.

 

Not sure if you’re willing to share, but did one of you write Henry’s point of view and the other write Alice’s? Care to reveal more on that?

BB: Yes, I wrote Henry and Ann wrote Alice. But we were both pretty involved in working out who the characters were when we started. Ann helped more with Henry than I helped with Alice. Because she’s my big sister and that’s what big sister’s do. And when those big sisters have already written a #1 best-selling franchise and spent nine years editing YA/MG before that, you let the big sister do basically whatever she wants to your character.

AB: I’m coming off as a bossy know-it-all here, but I guess I deserve it. I am awed by Ben’s humor, his imagination and intuition, and mostly try to help make it make sense. When it comes to six characters in two different time periods punching holes through time, that’s not easy.

 

I have also attempted a time travel book and know how hard it can be. What snags did you hit when trying to make this work?

So many snags. So many mind-melting headaches. Because we really tried hard to do it right! It was very important to us to avoid moments where a reader would go, “waaaait a minute, if they. . .how are they. . . ?” But the butterfly effect is notoriously tricky to work with. You just have to make your rules and stick by them. We hope we succeeded in doing that.

 

For Teachers

Are you doing school visits related to this book?

We’ll be doing a book tour just after the book launches on September 17th. We’ll be visiting middle schools in Richmond, DC, Chicago, Austin, Houston, and maybe one or two others.

 

How can we learn more about you?

If you’d like to learn way more about me and my wife and kids and pets than you’d ever want to know, you can visit www.thesahdlife.com. It’s a blog I wrote for a few years just after becoming a dad. It’s a (hopefully) humorous look at my life as a stay-at-home dad to three kids. Other than that, I’m hoping to do a little better with my social media presence when we get a breather after Book 2.

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Author Spotlight: Ciera Burch

By on September 16, 2024   /   Author Interviews  

Today, we’re thrilled to welcome author Ciera Burch back for her second visit to the Mixed-Up Files! Her sophomore MG novel, Camp Twisted Pine, a paranormal fantasy that mixes thrills, chills, and local legend, is out tomorrow, September 17, from Margaret K. McElderry Books.

Melissa: Hi, Ciera! Welcome back to the Mixed-Up Files. It’s great to have you here again!

Ciera: Great to be back. Thanks so much for having me!

Melissa: The last time we chatted, your MG debut, Finch House, was about to be released. Now you have a second MG, Camp Twisted Pine, launching tomorrow. How have you prepared for the big day? Was the experience similar to—or vastly different from—your debut launch?

Ciera: Ha, yes, time really flies! It’s honestly been so much different this time around. With Finch House, I had a launch event at Politics and Prose {in Washington, D.C.} and so many friends and family members came out, with my friends even coming a few days before and staying over, making a whole event of the weekend up until launch day. This time, I’m doing pretty normal things like going to the dentist and grocery shopping. I’m very glad to have had both experiences, but as an anxious introvert, I’m loving a much more relaxed launch.

Camp Twisted Pine: A Summary

Melissa: Let’s turn our attention to Camp Twisted Pine. Can you give Mixed-Up Files readers your best elevator pitch?

Ciera: Of course! Camp Twisted Pine is about Naomi, a girl who loves nature in theory but isn’t super into experiencing it firsthand, who’s being sent, along with her younger twin brothers, to summer camp in the Pine Barrens, in New Jersey, for the first time as her parents deal with their impending divorce. While she’s there, she realizes that campers have been going missing and that it might be up to her to figure out what’s wrong and to help save them…especially when one of her brothers and her cabinmate (and crush), Jackie, go missing.

Melissa: As you’d mentioned, the novel takes place at a sleepaway camp in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. What made you choose this particular location? Does the area have a special significance for you?

Ciera: I’m from New Jersey, so Jersey has always had a special place in my heart. But the Pine Barrens especially do for being the site of my first and only taste of sleepaway camp, thanks to a field trip I went on in the sixth grade. It’s also a massive swath of protected land in New Jersey that’s super important to the ecosystem and landscape of our state, and I feel like it doesn’t get enough love, especially since it’s said to be home to a mysterious creature…

Back to Nature

Melissa: Along these lines, Camp Twisted Pine has been described as an “eco-fable,” with kudzu that comes alive and other nature-based anomalies. Can you speak more to this?

Ciera: I can! I think we all know at least a bit about climate change and its effects on the world, but we don’t often—myself included—think about other potential threats to nature, of which intrusive plants, like kudzu, are one. Nature provides us with so much and it’s so easy to overlook or not recognize changes in it, but even things that are natural themselves can cause harm to our favorite spaces if we’re not vigilant. There are different native plant species in all regions and to help protect them, we should all strive to learn more about the plants that inhabit the places we call home!

Melissa: As you mentioned, Naomi, the eleven-year-old protagonist of the novel, loves to study nature but isn’t wild about the great outdoors. Is this a trait you share with her?

Ciera: I think it can be! And absolutely was when I was younger. As someone who hates the heat and isn’t a fan of bugs or being itchy, nature and I never seemed to click, especially when my main experience of it, growing up in the suburbs, was going to parks or beaches. But as I got older and traveled more, and moved to D.C, which has a wonderful amount of green space and proximity to even more, I’ve discovered that I do really enjoy nature—the songs of birds and the babbling of creeks, and just the soft rustle of leaves on trees. It’s a nice refresh from the bustle of just living.

I still can’t say I’m a big bug fan, though. I’m a nature girl in the colder months much more than I am in the warmer ones.

Melissa: As a follow-up, Naomi is a logical person who appreciates things that are “real and true and provable.” How does she reconcile this when faced with the possibility of a child-stealing cryptid—aka the Jersey Devil—at camp?

Ciera: Oh, she has a tough time! Stories and facts are in two very different folders in her mind, so the idea that a chimera-like creature can move from the “story” folder to the “fact” folder is a little bit mind bending. It definitely makes her reevaluate her definitions of “real” and whether or not things that are real need proof, or at least tangible proof.

You Gotta Have Friends

Melissa: Friendship is an overarching theme in Camp Twisted Pine. By opening herself up to new friends—including Jackie, who wears a hearing aid and teaches Naomi ASL—Naomi learns more about herself and about her core beliefs. What else were you trying to say about friendship?

Ciera: It can be so hard to make friends, as kids and as adults, and I think it’s especially true when you’re so often in your head like Naomi is. It’s hard to put yourself out there and be vulnerable with people, but being vulnerable, at least a little bit, is a part of human connection, and opening yourself up to others can lead to some really fantastic relationships and experiences.

I also wanted to touch on the fact that people are different. Some people are braver or rasher than others, and some are quieter or take time to think things through. But our differences, while important, aren’t the whole of who we or other people are and shouldn’t be an immutable barrier to friendship or connection.

Melissa: Like your debut novel, Camp Twisted Pine includes spooky, supernatural elements. What draws you to this genre?

Ciera: I just love all things spooky, the things we imagine exist in the dark the second we turn the lights out! And I love thinking about how rich and complex and vast our world is, and the idea that there can be other creatures and worlds just as vast and complex hidden within ours, or in its very seams. There’s so much possibility and excitement in the unknown to me—in the supernatural.

A’ Camping We Will Go!

Melissa: And now for the question on everyone’s mind: Did you attend sleepaway camp as a child? If so, what was your biggest takeaway from the experience? Also, what were your favorite activities? Your least favorite?

Ciera: Yes, and no! As I’d mentioned, the trip I went on in the sixth grade to the Pine Barrens—funnily called Mount Misery—was a week long and we did sleep in cabins and do traditional camp-like things, but it was also still part of school. I did beg my mom (a lot!) to go to an actual sleepaway camp for the summer, especially because I was obsessed with Percy Jackson and Camp Half Blood, but she always refused.

My biggest takeaway from my sixth grade trip, however, was just being in the middle of so much nature. There were no cars around and I could see so many more stars and hear small animals skittering about it. It was a little scary, I’ll admit, but I also felt really, really human for, I think, the first time. Part of the earth and the universe, you know?

I really loved the bonfires and the stories about the Jersey Devil we told while eating s’mores, and taking pictures of everyone and everything, but my least favorite had to be the night hike, because it was long and exhausting and also pretty dark.

Up Next…

Melissa: What are you working on now, Ciera? 

Ciera: I’m currently working on another middle grade! It’s about 13-year-old Olivia who realizes, after her brother comes out and her friends begin to gush about their recent crushes almost constantly, that she doesn’t feel quite the same way as most other people and starts to turn quite literally invisible when no one will listen to her.

Melissa: Before I let you go, I want to circle back to something you’d mentioned in your previous interview: your love of ice cream! Is mint chocolate chip still your favorite or have you added another flavor to the roster?

Ciera: I’ve definitely added another flavor recently and it’s Strawberry Cheesecake!

Lightning Round!

Melissa: Finally, no Mixed-Up Files interview is complete without a lightning round, so…

Preferred writing snack? (besides ice cream) Seaweed!

Favorite camp prank? Turning out the lights on someone in the bathroom!

Best way to roast a marshmallow: Char it to a crisp or brown it slightly? Almost burnt, but not quite! Just brown enough!

Cryptids: Real or imaginary? Definitely real!

Superpower? Teleportation!

Favorite place on earth? My mom’s backyard! She lives right next to the woods and a river and deer hang out all the time.

If you were stranded on a desert island with only three things, what would they be? Notebook and pencils (totally counting them as one); a flare gun; a big, light blanket

Melissa: Thank you for chatting with us, Ciera. It a pleasure, and I’m sure MUF readers will agree!

Ciera: Thanks so much for having me again! Happy reading!

About Ciera Burch

Ciera Burch is a lifelong writer and ice cream aficionado. She has a BA from American University and an MFA from Emerson College. Her fiction has appeared in The American Literary Magazine, Underground, Five Points, Stork, and Blackbird. Her work was also chosen as the 2019 One City One Story read for the Boston Book Festival. While she is originally from New Jersey, she currently resides in Washington, DC, with her stuffed animals, plants, and far too many books. Learn more about Ciera on her website and follow her on Instagram.

Melissa Roske is a writer of middle-grade fiction. Before spending her days with imaginary people, she interviewed real ones as a journalist in Europe. In London she landed a job as an advice columnist for Just Seventeen magazine. Upon returning to her native New York, Melissa contributed to several books and magazines, selected jokes for Reader’s Digest (just the funny ones), and received certification as a life coach from NYU. In addition to her debut novel Kat Greene Comes Clean (Charlesbridge), Melissa’s short story “Grandma Merle’s Last Wish” appears in the Jewish middle-grade anthology, Coming of Age: 13 B’Nai Mitzvah Stories (Albert Whitman). Learn more about Melissa on her Website and follow her on  Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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