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The Truth Against The World - An Interview With Author Sarah Stevenson
AmeriCymru spoke to author Sarah Stevenson about her latest book The Truth Against The World
"Sarah Jamila Stevenson is a writer, artist, graphic designer, introvert, closet geek, enthusiastic eater, struggling blogger, lapsed piano player, household-chore-ignorer and occasional world traveler. Her previous lives include spelling bee nerd, suburban Southern California teenager, Berkeley art student, underappreciated temp, and humor columnist for a video game website.
Throughout said lives, she has acquired numerous skills of questionable usefulness, like intaglio printmaking and Welsh language. She lives in Northern California with her husband, who is also an artist, and two cats with astounding sleep-inducing powers." Read more here...
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Sarah : Diolch, Ceri, for this opportunity to talk about my writing work! The Truth Against the World is described on the book cover as "a transatlantic paranormal mystery that spans generations"—but I personally like to describe it as a ghostly mystery about a family secret. Two teenagers—Wyn (Olwen), a girl in San Francisco, and Gareth, a boy in London—are unexpectedly brought together online and find out they share a strange connection. Was their meeting a coincidence, ghostly intervention, or something more? Both of them have Welsh heritage, and soon, they begin to trace the mystery together, all the way back to a tiny Welsh village and the secrets it has held close for decades.
I hope that''s enough to whet readers'' appetites without giving too much away…
AmeriCymru: What is your connection with Wales?
Sarah: I have to admit first off that I have no idea whether I have Welsh heritage or not! It was something my grandmother always used to say, but we have no idea if it was accurate, and no real way to prove it. We only know for sure that there''s English, Irish, and French Canadian on that side. Having her say it at all, though, did plant a seed in my mind. I suppose I''ve been interested in Welsh language and culture since my first visit to Wales, at age 4! We took a family vacation to the UK and I remember being quite impressed with the castles in Wales, and the green countryside. I returned with my mother when I was 13, and that''s when I first remember encountering the Welsh language and being captivated by it. In college I had the opportunity to take a couple of Welsh language classes, and since then I''ve kept it up on my own, using online resources, and by attending the Cymdeithas Madog Welsh course as often as I can. Because of that, I now have various friends and other connections in Wales, and feel even more strongly attached than ever. (Now I just have to find time and money to visit again…my last trip was in 2000, for the Cymdeithas Madog Cwrs Cymraeg in Carmarthen.)
AmeriCymru: What influenced your decision to write for children/young adults?
Sarah: To be honest, I hadn''t originally thought about writing for young readers when I first began to pursue a career in writing. Actually, my original career plan was to be an illustrator, and I studied art in college as an undergraduate and even did a year of graduate work in printmaking. After being out of school and working for a couple of years, I was doing some freelance writing of humor articles as part of my job at an internet company, IGN.com, and realized how much I''d always enjoyed writing. However, this was the first time I''d ever thought of it as more than just a hobby.
I took an online fiction writing workshop in about 2001 and that was actually when I first began Olwen''s story. At that point, the characters were adults and it was not a YA novel at all. But I only got about 40 pages in before getting stuck. Shortly after that, though, I decided to return to school for creative writing, and during my MFA program at Mills College in Oakland, I took a couple of courses in writing for young adults and realized not only that Olwen''s story would be a perfect young adult novel, but also that I really had a connection with writing for that age group. I did so much reading when I was a teenager—it was the last time I had really read voraciously and indiscriminately. At the same time, I know how difficult it can be to keep teens reading. I relished (and still do!) the idea of being able to convert and keep lifelong readers. On top of that, I feel like YA novels are all about growth and change and coming of age, and I find that an intriguing underlying theme to explore, regardless of genre.
AmeriCymru: Your book "The Latte Rebellion'' won an IPPY Award for Children''s Multicultural Fiction in 2012. Care to tell us more?
Sarah: Here''s a brief tale of drastic contrasts for you! Although The Truth Against the World was my first finished book, The Latte Rebellion was my first PUBLISHED book. Truth, I labored over for years, first as my MFA thesis (at that point entitled The Other Olwen) and then afterward as I repeatedly rewrote it and tried to get it published. The origin story for Latte couldn''t be more different—I started it during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2007, and finished the first draft less than 6 months later.
I suppose Latte just came "pouring" out of me partly because of the autobiographical inspiration for it, and partly because it was just a very fun story to write—it''s about students of mixed race/mixed ethnicity who decide to form a club for other students like them and sell t-shirts as a money-making scheme, but of course the scheme careens hilariously out of control. As someone of mixed heritage myself (my father was born in India), it''s not hard to notice that there aren''t many books written about characters dealing with the unique set of issues that come up when you have a family that''s blended in that way, bringing together races and/or cultures. I wanted to write something that incorporated characters of mixed ethnicity, because that''s what I grew up with, but I also wanted to write a story that was entertaining and funny and not "issue-based." The Latte Rebellion is what came out.
AmeriCymru: You also write short stories. Where can our readers go to find them online?
Sarah: I don''t have too many short stories available online at the moment—in fact, this question prompted me to check my own website and I found that most of the links to my online work are no longer active! Surprise. However, I will take that as tacit permission to post some PDFs of those published stories very soon on my website, at www.SarahJamilaStevenson.com
AmeriCymru: What are you reading at the moment? Any recommendations?
Sarah: At the moment, I''m reading a non-fiction book entitled Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England by Emily Cockayne. I highly recommend it! It''s a fascinating look at what life was like in English cities in the 1600s and 1700s, based on firsthand writings from the time period. I also recently finished reading the third book in a trilogy by a YA writer friend, Robin LaFevers. The book is Mortal Heart, Book 3 in the His Fair Assassin trilogy, a story of magic, mythology, and political intrigue set in Brittany and France in the Middle Ages. All three books are fantastic, with wonderfully dangerous female heroines.
AmeriCymru: Other interests/hobbies besides writing?
Sarah: Lately I seem to find my free time for other interests dwindling more and more, but of course, when I can, I try to continue pursuing my visual art (drawing, painting, printmaking, bookmaking). I also enjoy cooking (and eating!), traveling, watching BBC shows (just finished Call the Midwife, and I love Doctor Who), listening to music and occasionally playing it (piano, and I''m learning ukulele), and on occasion I have been known to participate in role-playing games.
AmeriCymru: What are you working on at the moment?
Sarah: I''m trying to rewrite a draft of a new book which is part of a two-book set tentatively titled Fuel to the Fire. I like to call it post-post-apocalyptic. (Essentially, it''s a fantasy without any actual magic in it!) Book 1 is called Tinder. It''s set in an imaginary world that relies on water and steam rather than combustion, a few centuries after worldwide disaster has changed the face of the earth. In the stately canal city of Breakwater, a young noblewoman named Chiara is faced with having to undergo an arranged marriage, when all she wants to do with her life is work with technology as an engineer. Meanwhile, a young man, Aden, lives in the poor part of town, scrabbling to pull down enough money from his work as an apothecary''s apprentice so he can pay his dead father''s debts. An irresistible offer of work from a slightly shady individual ends up drawing Aden into a world of thugs, rebels, and guerrillas eager to bring down the noble status quo—and then a shocking, tragic accident brings him and Chiara together. Whether they can stop what they''ve inadvertently helped set into motion is the premise of Book 2.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Sarah: Thank you so much for reading this! For more of my thoughts on books and writing, here are a few more places to find me online:
Blog posts: http://sarahjamilastevenson.com/blog.html
Twitter: @aquafortis
