Next Up, in the Hot Seat...

Continuing our series of turning the tables and interviewing our readers, we are pleased to introduce this week’s volunteer, HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, Jodi Gleason!

Let's open with a picture of Jodi, on the right, with one of her favorite authors, whose identity will be revealed later...

Tina: Hi, Jodi...or Mrs. Gleason, as I’m sure your students call you. Could you please tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be a high school teacher?

Jodi: I have been married for 16 years and I have a 14 year old son. I went back to school when my son was in 2nd grade so I have only been teaching for 3 years. I taught 8th grade for the last two years and recently moved up to teaching Freshmen and Sophomores. I became a teacher because I wanted to impact students they way that my teachers had done for me. Growing up in Frankfort, Indiana, I had some of the best teachers ever and I wanted to be just like them. Mrs. Pletch, my senior English teacher, is the reason I teach high school. She made literature come alive and become personal to all of us.

Tina: I’m sure your students appreciate you as much as you did Mrs. Pletch! Now...do you ever look back on your own teen years and think if you knew then what you know now and what would that thing be?

Jodi: The one thing that I wish I knew back then was that I am okay just as I am. I wrestled with my weight and by my senior year, I was a borderline anorexic. I hardly ate anything during the day and I lost a lot of weight but I still thought I looked fat. As I have grown, I have grown to like myself no matter what size I am but it has taken me 35 years to get to this point.

Tina: Ditto, here, about wishing I’d appreciated myself as I was! Moving on, can you tell us a few books that you see teens reading for fun?

Jodi: For fun, I see teens reading the Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight series, Story of A Girl by Sara Zarr, my middle school boys loved Diary of A Wimpy Kid, Sarah Dessen and Laurie Halse Anderson are always popular choices, and Gossip Girls.

Tina: Great books! Based on your current experiences in school, how are some ways that teen authors are getting it right?

Jodi: Teen authors, in my personal opinion, are rocking compared to when I was young. They are writing about issues the kids face. I think of the subjects that my students have encountered and I can usually think of a book for them to read. Teen authors are also creating great series for teens to read like Twilight. I personally love the books as an adult and many of the teachers that I work with also enjoy the books. I also think teen authors are approachable to the teens and that helps. I see a lot of readers post on the author's websites about how this or that book helped them and the authors usually reply. I think that is awesome.

Tina: Yes, I think the Internet has made it so much easier for authors to communicate with their readers, and (with thanks to special people like you), help us to make it real. Now, last question...you’re about to take off on a 14 hour international flight. Sure, they'll be movies and meals, but plenty of time to read, too. You can bring one book--either one you've already read, have been wanting to read, or one that's in the works. What's it going to be and why?

Jodi: I am a book junkie and the thought of just taking one book is so hard. Laurie Halse Anderson has a new one coming out next year and I would like to read it but I would also like to read the sequel to Jennifer Weiner's Good in Bed for myself since not all of the reading I do is for work. It would be between those two and I can't pick, so I would probably take them both.

Tina: Okay, I’ll be nice and change the question so you can bring two. =) And now, for those of us who did not immediate recognize the author in the picture above, will you please reveal her identity!

Jodi: It’s Laurie Halse Anderson.

Tina: She's a favorite of mine, too.

Jodi: Thanks for letting me participate and thanks for the blog because I use it to select books for my classroom.

Tina: Thank you! (And did you hear that, Kelly? Teachers like Jodi are using our blog to select books for their classrooms. Pressure! LOL.)

A Realistic Story of a Girl

I made a trip to Borders a couple of weeks ago with the intent of picking up Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr. (Read the YA Fresh interview with Sara here.) Unfortunately, they were sold out. I finally got the last copy at my local B. Dalton.

I just love the title and the cover. You have the feeling by looking at it that this story is going to be about a teen girl you could probably relate to. After reading it, my thoughts weren't wrong.

As a kid we experience all these new emotions, and we don't always make the right choices. Just like Deanna Lambert has been living with the past mistake and rumor mill of being caught (by her father) in the backseat with an older boy.

Sara takes the reader into the realistic life of the Lamberts--a father shadowed by disappointment in his children's actions and even his own struggles with his job. A mother who is the only optimistic one in the family, a brother who has become a father too soon, and how they all deal with life's detours.

In the midst of the family's ups and downs, Deanna is trying to find where she belongs, even with her closests friends, and to come to terms with the long ago past night. Story of a Girl is real, touching, and totally relatable to teens and adults. I'm looking forward to more from Sara Zarr!

What's Fresh with Sara Zarr's Story of a Girl

In the three years since her father caught her in the back seat of a car with an older boy, sixteen-year-old Deanna’s life at home and school has been a nightmare, but while dreaming of escaping with her brother and his family, she discovers the power of forgiveness.

Hello Sara, thanks so much for taking the time to chat. Could you please tell us a little about your writing background and how you made your first sale?

Sara: I've been writing my whole life, but never got past the first few pages of a story until about ten years ago when I decided to sit down and write a whole novel. I'd never had any formal schooling in creative writing, so it was a sort of "learn by doing" process. Of course, I love books and reading so I had at least a clue as to how a book should read! I finished that novel, got an agent, wrote another novel which I hid in a drawer, wrote another novel, lost my agent, then wrote what would become STORY OF A GIRL. I got a new agent, and we made the sale to Little, Brown in May 2005. And STORY OF A GIRL is just coming out now! I thought the day would never come, honestly.

The process of writing and finding an agent all happened pretty much through persistence, trial and error, and more persistence. I didn't have an "in" or get any referral that paid off...just cold queries and lots and lots of patience!

Readers and writers often like to get a behind the scenes peek of an author's writing routine. It would be great if you could please share your typical writing day schedule.

Sara: I wish I had a typical schedule. I've been writing full-time for almost a year now, and I'm still figuring out what works. "Writing full-time" doesn't mean I write 40 hours a week, it just means I don't have another means of income at the moment. My ideal day looks like this: get up and have my shower, breakfast, coffee and e-mail done all by 9:30 or so. Write from 10 until lunch. After lunch, hopefully have another hour or so of productivity on the work in progress. After that, my mental capacities are quickly diminishing, so I take care of random items of business stuff with my agent or publicist, post to my blog, backup my work, and call it a day.

Please tell us about STORY OF A GIRL and what we can expect from your characters.

Sara: STORY OF A GIRL is my debut novel. It's a young adult title from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and it's available now in some places (January 10 everywhere else). The story finds sixteen-year-old Deanna Lambert at the start of the summer before her junior year, but it's not a summer kind of story with sun and adventure and romance. It's more like a summer nightmare as she's stuck in foggy Pacifica, working at a strip mall and forced to deal with someone and something from her past she'd rather forget. It's about family and friendship and forgiveness.

Sounds wonderful, Sara. What's up next? Do you have another project in the works? If so, please tell us about it.

Sara: I'm working on a second book for Little, Brown, tentatively titled SWEETHEARTS. It's about childhood sweethearts who are reunited in high school. Drama ensues. It should be out mid-2008.

Thanks again for sharing with us, Sara. I wish you the best with your debut! Would you like to close with a writing tip?

Sara: Start with concrete details. Make sure the reader knows where your characters are in the time/space continuum, for example. Disembodied voices on an empty stage are great for experimental theater. Not so much for novels.

Sara Zarr is from San Francisco, but now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Find out more and read her blog at www.sarazarr.com.