What's Fresh with Amanda Ashby's Fairy Bad Day

It’s going to be a fairy bad day...

First, my rightful designation of dragon slayer is STOLEN right out from under me by Curtis Green. Sure, he’s really cute, but that doesn’t give him an excuse.

On top of that, I am assigned to slay fairies. I know what you’re thinking—how hard could it be, right? Wrong! These menacing beasts with their tiny hipster clothes and mocking sarcasm love taunting me. And they won’t STOP!

But the thing that tops my list of stuff to ruin my day? That would be the GIANT KILLER FAIRY that I have to hunt down and slay because I am the only one who can see it. There is someone who can help me. Unfortunately…it’s Curtis.

Hi Amanda, so great to have you with us again! Please tell us about your latest novel Fairy Bad Day and what we can expect from your characters.

Fairy Bad Day is published by Puffin/Speak and is out NOW (hahahaha—I love saying that!). It’s a pretty light-hearted book about a girl who longs to be follow in her mom’s footsteps and become a dragon slayer, but instead she get stuck with fairies. Not exactly the stuff that high destiny is made of!! Emma is a pretty stubborn, determined character though in my mind I can see why she acts like she does. It also has some troublesome urban fairies, some Skittles and some big swords!

Sounds great! So Amanda, how many drafts did you have to write for this book? Any horrific scenes that were cut from the original that you want to share?

Amanda: There were so many rewrites of this book that I’ve actually lost count. I did a load for myself then about two for my agent and then about three for my editor and while the basic premise stayed the same, there were a lot of changes. In fact by the end of it I was starting to feel more like a patchwork quilt maker than a writer. There were no horrific scenes that I lost but I did have to cut a lot of my wildly hilarious one-liners (I’m assuming it was because my editor didn’t think that they were quite as wildly hilarious as I did). Oh, and I’ve actually remembered that I did have to cut the love interest between two of my secondary characters Loni and Tyler, which was a bit sad (fortunately, they still hook up in my head so shhhhh, don’t tell my editor!!!!!!)

LOL! If you weren't an author- what job would you choose?

Amanda: I work part time as a teen librarian and I LOVE it because I basically get to talk to people all day about YA books and while I mainly encourage teens I’ve got more and more older customers who I’ve lured over with The Hunger Games and once I’ve hooked them they don’t tend to leave!!!!

Amanda, what other good books have you read lately?

Amanda: I’ve always got loads of books on the go but probably my favorite read of 2011 would have to be Eon by Alison Goodman. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get to this book, but I’m so happy that I finally picked it up. It’s an epic story about a girl disguised as a boy so that she can be a dragon warrior and it’s got a lot of Chinese and Japanese inspired mythology in it. Plus, the heroine totally kicks ass!!!!!

Thank you again for sharing, Amanda, best of luck with your writing! Do you have another project in the works?

Amanda: I’ve just done revisions on book one of my new mid-grade series called, SOPHIE’S MIXED-UP MAGIC. It’s about a girl who gets turned into a djinn the day before she starts sixth grade. The first book should be out next summer and it looks like book two and three will follow quite quickly.

Amanda Ashby was born in Australia, and has spent the last fifteen years dividing her time between England and New Zealand before finally deciding that to move home. When she's not moving country, she likes to write books (okay, she also likes to eat chocolate, watch television and sit around doing not much, but let's just keep that amongst ourselves, shall we?)
She has a degree in English and Journalism from the University of Queensland and is married with two children. As well as writing, she works part-time at the children/teen desk of her local library, which basically means that someone pays her to talk about books. Her debut book, You Had Me at Halo was nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice award, and her first young adult book Zombie Queen of Newbury High was listed by the New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age 2010. Visit her website, www.amandaashby.com.