You might say that posting two interviews back to back is absurd.
I beg to differ.
The world is too full of YA awesome, so not my fault. Now, speaking of awesome, today I have the author of If I Stay, Gayle Forman, in my hot seat. Excited? You should be! Read on to delve into her world.

Let’s start with the basics. Tell us something about your book, If I Stay.

Although, I think, everyone already knows about it.
If I Stay is a novel about a 17-year-old cello player named Mia who, at the beginning of the novel, thinks the biggest choice facing her, is whether to pursue her prodigious musical talent and move to New York City, even if this means leaving her cool, loving family and her devoted boyfriend, Adam, behind. The book opens on a snow day. School is canceled. The family goes for a drive. All at once, Mia's life is irrevocably changed and suddenly all of her choices are gone, except for one, the only one that matters.

How did you come up with the plot?

It just sort of unfolded. When I sat down to write it, I wasn't sure what I was doing, where I was going, whether I was actually writing a novel. The book was an answer to a question that had haunted me for some time—what would you do if something catastrophic had happened to your family and you yourself were left hanging by a thread and were aware of what had happened and could choose to stay or go. So I just started writing and wrote this happy breakfast scene, and then this grueling accident scene. Then I needed a break from the intensity, so I wrote a flashback and after that I kind of realized I had my structure. I knew I wanted the book to take place in 24 hours and I knew that the basic premise would be Mia's dilemma, her having to choose. The rest of it just developed around that.



What’re your favourite book/s?

That's an impossible question because I have so many. But I just finished reading Charlotte's Web to my older daughter for the hundredth time and was struck again what a beautiful book it was. It is very embarrassing, however, to cry in front of a five-year-old.

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

When people meet me, they tend to say things about how I must burn easily in the sun, being a redhead. I have long, curly, auburn hair and freckly skin. I look like a natural redhead. I have the personality—I think—of a readhead. But I'm a total fake. I have been dying my hair red since I was 13 years old. The red looks more real on me than my true color (light brown that used to be flecked with blonde and is now flecked with gray). I think that it's a genetic mistake that I'm not really red, one that I have to correct every four to six weeks.

What would your autobiography be titled if you wrote one?

Weird Girl

What do you do when you’re not writing? As in, hobbies?

Those are two different answers. I have two young daughters so when I'm not working, I'm catering to their needs, as a maid, a short-order cook, a driver. But I wouldn't say those are my hobbies. My hobbies are traveling, reading, cooking, going to the movies.


Any plans for an upcoming work? Tell us about it, pretty please?

I have a draft of my upcoming novel. I'll be returning to it for polishing in the next couple of weeks and turning it in to my editor at the end of the year, at which point I will tell everyone all about it. But until then, it's a secret. Sorry.

Rapid Fire round! Which fictional character do you find yourself most similar to?

My fictional characters? I'm probably a mix of Kim and Willow from If I Stay, with a bit of Brit from Sisters in Sanity mixed in.


If you were Mia, would you decide to stay...or leave?

If what happened to Mia happened to me now, I'd leave because if my family—my husband and kids—had gone, I would not want to wake up without them. Because they are my future. It's a little different with Mia, though, because her future is still wide open. That's what makes her decision less cut and dry. I don't know what I'd do if I were Mia and when I was writing the book, I didn't know what her decision would be until I was about halfway through.

Weirdest thing you've ever done?

Drop everything for a year and travel around the world. I also took three years off before high school to travel. I don't think these things are particularly weird but other people tend to find them peculiar.

You’re locked in an elevator. Who would you want in there with you to keep you company and why?

A fireman who could get me out of the elevator. I'm a wee bit claustrophobic so I don't think I'd be very good company in a stalled elevator. Not with Obama. Not with Bono. Not with Hillary. Not even with Nelson Mandela.

Okay, so our heroine Mia just got asked out by none other thaaaaan...*drumrolls*...Harry Potter! Her reaction?

"I'm flattered but I'm already very much in a relationship."

If you could, which YA author would you like to collaborate with for a joint project?

I don't know that I'd want to collaborate on fiction; writing novels seems like such a singular activity to me and I like the collaboration with my editor. That said, I'd like to have a slumber party with Rebecca Stead and Sarah Dessen because I've never met them but I admire them both a lot and them seem like incredibly nice, salt-of-the-earth people.

Three words to describe yourself and three words to describe your book.

Me: Curious. Empathetic. Bossy. Book: Surprising. Emotional. Affirming.

Thank you so much for being with us today. I loved her answers--so much depth and tells the reader so much about herself. Any more questions for her? Comment away!

Labels: Gayle Forman, If I Stay, Tête-à-Tête