Queen of Secrets by Jenny Meyerhoff

QUEEN OF SECRETS

by Jenny Meyerhoff

Young Adult
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
www.JennyMeyerhoff.com


5 Signed Copies will be given away on Friday, July 23, 2010!




About the Book:

This year, Essie Green’s life is going to be different. She’s made the cheerleading squad and caught the eye of the captain of the football team. However, she didn't expect her estranged cousin to join the football team. Micah is instantly branded a freak for praying during games, and Essie doesn’t want anything to do with him. As the football team’s teasing of Micah shifts into hazing, Essie is forced to make a choice between the boy she might love and the cousin she barely knows.





Read our Exclusive Interview with the Author!

1) When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer? Have you had other jobs along the way?

I knew I wanted to be a writer in sixth grade. One day I came to school and my teacher told the class that she wanted us to make our room look nice for parent’s night, so each person would have to write a poem. After it was written we had to bring it to her for her approval, then we’d be allowed to illustrate it and post it on the wall. I got right to work and wrote my poem in record time. When I showed it to her she asked me (not very nicely) if an adult had helped me write it. Huh? I thought. I’ve obviously been sitting at my desk the entire morning. How could I have had help? Instead of being insulted though, I took it as a compliment. (Still do.) That day I went home and asked my mom to get me a notebook. I pretty much wrote poetry non-stop for the next six years. (Yes. I was that girl.)

Even though I wrote a lot, it took a while to build up the courage to submit things for publication. I even stopped writing fiction for a while when I didn’t get into the advanced fiction writing workshop in college on the first try. Now I know when I get a rejection I keep working and make the piece better! But back then, I took it as a sign that I shouldn’t be writing fiction at all. I spent the next decade teaching and doing freelance jobs for magazines and newspaper, mostly on parenting and education related-topics. See, I thought I wanted to write about teens. Then one day something clicked in me and I realized, no, I wanted to write for them.

2) Considering a book from the first word you write to the moment you see it on a bookstore shelf, what’s your favorite part of the process? What’s your least favorite?

For me, there are a lot of fun parts! I love, love, love the rush of getting a new idea, when characters and plot details and setting and back-story all fill your brain and you can feel what the book will be like in it’s ideal form. I hate the feeling I get further along into the process when I haven’t quite gotten the book to feel like that ideal book in my mind, and I’m not sure that I will ever be able to.

I love the feeling after revisions, after line editing, after copy editing after first pass pages and second pass pages when I think, “I did it. I actually wrote a book and you know what? I kind of like it. I think it turned out okay.” I hate the feeling I get when I get the ARC and start to worry, “What if there is some big major glaring error that no one noticed?” To this day, I have not read either of my finished books. I’m certain there would be things I’d want to change, and I don’t want to know what they are.

Last, I love hearing from readers who connected with my book. Who tell me that my book really meant something to them. That’s got to be, far and away, the best part of all.

3) When you start a new book, do you like to outline the entire story or fly by the seat of your pants? What about your characters? Do you figure them out entirely before you start writing or do they reveal themselves to you along the way?

I outline a little. I definitely try to think about where I want to be at the end before I begin. For example, if I want a character to reveal a big secret at the end of the book, then I know at the beginning I have to show her decision to keep the secret in the first place. But even though I do make myself a mini-outline, I’m not married to it. It usually changes as I write.

I also try to figure out characters a bit before I start (or maybe while I’m working on the beginning.) But for me, the process of getting to know my characters takes a long time. I’m still learning new things about them in very late drafts, things like personality quirks and back-story details. The big thing I like to know at the beginning is much broader: what is the essence of their personality? For Essie, in QUEEN OF SECRETS, it was that she was stuck in the place where on the one hand she wanted to grow up and start making her own decision; on the other hand she expected others to take care of her and handle things for her when they got hard.

4) What scene or bit of dialogue in the book are you most proud of and why?

I really loved writing all the scenes about the developing relationship between Essie and Austin. There is no better feeling than falling in love, the nerves, the excitement, the delicious shiver you get whenever you see the other person. I really hope I captured that well enough for readers and they get to feel like they are experiencing it with Essie. As I writer I definitely got to feel those feelings all over again. (And I learned that I love to write kissing scenes!)

5) QUEEN OF SECRETS is a great title! Who came up with it? Was it the original title or did it change along the way?

Thank you. My husband came up with it and it was one of many, many titles the book had along the way. When I was writing the early drafts the working title was The Book of Essie because the book is a loose retelling of the biblical story The Book of Esther. I was never really thrilled with that title though, so when it went out on submission I changed it to Girl in Waiting. It sold, but one of the first things my editor said to me was, “Are you open to changing the title?” I was. As my mother-in-law put it, Girl in Waiting made it sound like a historical novel about a pregnant teenager (definitely not what my book was about.) My mother-in-law then suggested I try to use the word secret in the title, since it fit with my book and is such a strong word. Eventually I came up with The Impossible Secrets of Essie Green. I kind of liked it, but the marketing department thought that sounded like a book for younger kids, and they were right. It was back to the drawing board again. But then one day my husband sent me an email with this title, and I knew QUEEN OF SECRETS was right!

About the Author:

Jenny Meyerhoff loosely based this novel on The Book of Esther. The author of Third Grade Baby, she lives in Riverwoods, Illinois. Visit the author's website at: www.JennyMeyerhoff.com.

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