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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