Julie Kraut is the author of two YA books, including the recent attention-grabber Slept Away along with Hot Mess: Summer in the City. Here's her answering a few questions with stuff you may, or may not, know about her.

Let’s start with the basics. Tell us something about your latest book, Slept Away.

Well, the quicky pitch is that it’s about a New York city it-girl who spends an unexpected summer at a very rustic sleepaway camp. Slept Away is perfect for anyone who’s ever been to sleepaway camp or somebody who’s felt just a little uncomfortable in a new situation or folks who just love them some fun and funny summer reading.

For the official description, click here.

A giant chicken just took over the city. What would Laney Parker (the main character of Slept Away) do?

Update her Facebook status to “Who ordered the giant, angry chicken? WTF?” and then run for cover.

How did you come up with the plot? Was it inspired by your own experiences in summer camp?

Because I still want a spot at the Thanksgiving dinner table, I won’t go into too much detail about this, but during a recent trip home, I found myself yelling down the stairs, “I swear I’m like the only person in this family who wears pants on a regular basis.” And then I thought to myself, “What a ridiculous thing to say. I want the main character in my next book to say that.” And that really was the little kernel of the idea that started the book. I outlined my ideas for Laney and her mother and not-at-all-step-father and made sure that the two adults never wore pants.

After I laid out this little trifecta of pantsless family dysfunction, it felt like the perfect set up for sending Laney to camp. After ten years (no wait, more—ah, when did I get this old?) of reminiscing on my summers at camp, I really wanted to write about the experience. While Slept Away isn’t the love letter to sleep away camp I’d write if I were telling my own story, it still allowed me to put a lot of my ideas and memories about camp on paper.

Tell us something about yourself. Anything from your favourite colour to the wackiest quirks works.

My favourite color is purple and that’s the first time I’ve ever spelled favorite with a “u.”

What's the weirdest thing you've ever done?

Oh man. This is a toughie. I don’t even know. Here are three weird things that came to mind.


I just mixed hummus with cottage cheese for lunch as an experiment. (It tastes way better than it looks.)
Once I did the robot in front of reality television cameras. Thankfully, the footage never made it to air.
When I was little, I used to take pickles and hide them around my house for my parents to find when they got really stinky.

Did you ever think authors could be this cool? Julie Kraut sure can be! Any more questions? Shout out in the comment box!

Labels: Julie Kraut, Slept Away, Tête-à-Tête